The Beast Within

Halloween is the time for scary things to find their way to us. When you open the door to hand out candy, no one really dresses up as the beast we’ll talk about today. Nevertheless, it’s one that’s found year-round.

Anger is sometimes called “the beast within.” I’ve had to deal with being angry at many people in my lifetime. That gave me plenty of practice trying to manage and overcome it.

Before my time in prison, I was angry at the people who testified against me. How could they do this to me? As my emotions boiled up, I found myself wanting them to suffer, and it was a hard thought to get out of my head. I wanted them to suffer the way I was suffering. It was only fair.

A long time passed before I realized that I was only hurting myself. They weren’t sitting around thinking about me. They were out there in the free world having a blast. They couldn’t have cared less about what I was going through… I tried telling myself.

The Revelation

During my time in lockup, I came across an eye-opening book. It said whenever you get that kind of anger towards somebody, as soon as it comes into your mind, picture that person as a balloon. I had to read that passage a second and third time.

Picture them as a balloon, like their head’s a balloon tied to a string you’re holding. And as long as you’re holding on to that balloon, you’re pissed, you’re angry, your blood pressure is up, and your body is producing tons of damaging cortisol. It’s screwing up your mindset. It has you distracted from what’s really important. As soon as you start feeling that, let it go and visualize. Visualize that balloon fading away out of sight.

As crazy as it sounded, I thought I’d give it a try. Why not? I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

So I’d picture specific people I hadn’t really forgiven yet for some wrong I thought they’d done to me. And as soon as I started thinking about them, I’d see them as the balloon, and I’d let it go. At first, I’d pretend I was shooting this balloon to make it pop, but eventually I got over myself and tried the exercise like the author intended. I’d watch the balloon fade off into the distance, and something about that began to sit right with me.

It reminded me of James Allen’s principle that dispersion is weakness, concentration is power.

The Time Element

When he said concentration IS power, he wasn’t talking about concentrating on the past. He’s talking about concentration today. There are three dimensions of time. There’s the past, the present, and the future. And you can only have your mind in one of those three places at a time.

You can’t think about the past, the future, and the present at the same time. So a lot of people, especially bitter people, spend most of their time in the past thinking about their resentments, the anger, the ex-business partner, the ex-wife, the parents, any person they think is to blame for their failures.

Then you’ve got kind of neurotic people who are constantly worried about the future, fretting over events that will never happen, but they’re always worried anyway. And then you have the successful people in life. The winners will look at the past briefly and will learn from it. They will look at the future briefly to plan for it. But 95% of their time is spent in this present moment. And it’s a very, very healthy thing to do. Give this exercise a go.

“Try It with the Blaster Shield Down”

Pick up a pen or a cup or anything on your desk, any item really.

For about 10 seconds, I want you to have absolute silence. During those 10 seconds, I want you to look at that object in your hand, and I want you to describe it to yourself. Describe every detail: the color, the texture, the temperature, the text, everything. For 10 seconds, I want you to concentrate, remembering that concentration is power.

Dispersion is weakness, which is having your mind all over the place. Concentration is focus. I want you to concentrate and focus on that pen for 10 seconds and quietly, in your mind, describe every element of it to yourself. Ready? Go.

Now during those 10 seconds, was your awareness in the past, present, or future? It was focused on the moment, right? That’s part of what it means to live in the present moment, and that’s the habit we must develop.

Minute Maid

There are entire generations familiar with orange juice “from concentrate.” It was originally developed as a way to send US troops Vitamin C for nutrition. The process was invented by the Florida Department of Citrus and involved removing 90% of the water from fresh orange juice. What was left over was a thick liquid that was much easier to ship and lasted for about a year if frozen. (A very short time later, developments included dehydrating juice into a powder for an even longer shelf life.)

Anytime during the year, you would take the concentrate out of the freezer and just add water back to it. Time Magazine said, “…amid the frozen foods boom, frozen orange juice was a true ‘Cinderella’ product.” If you’ve ever tasted the concentrate itself (or the powdered form), it truly packs a punch of orange flavor if you can handle it.

But there’s the possibility of watering it down too much, making it lose its orange juice flavor. That’s dispersion or spreading something too thin. Dispersion is weakness. It’s spreading our attention amongst too many things instead of being concentrated on one thing in this one moment.

In my training, I teach a lot of lessons I’ve learned in my decades in this business, and one is about focusing on the moment. How do you stay focused on your daily goals the way you were focused on that pen for 10 seconds? Imagine if you had that level of focus on your business every single day. No distractions, just that kind of tunnel vision that allows concentrated, duplicatable success.