Authority Empire Magazine Issue #3 - Ken Christian

BREAK THROUGH YOUR ACHIEVEMENT BARRIERS

TO FINALLY HAVE IT ALL

SMUGGLING DONKEYSAND ITS EFFECT ON YOUR SELF-CONSISTENCY

COMMON

MYTHSOF SUCCESS

A U T H O R I T Y

7

SELF-CONSISTENCY: YOUR FRIEND, YOUR ENEMY

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In 1945, Prescott Lecky developed a theory that is very, very powerful in its implications, and it’s never been refuted.

It’s called the self-consistency theory. His theory asserts that once people form a concept of who they are, they will fight to keep that self-consistency alive.

So, I write about self-consistency as your enemy and your friend. If you’re keeping the positive aspects of your self-concept alive, great! If you’re keeping the negative self-concepts alive, it can be damaging.

Lecky’s research showed that people would fight off positive changes in order

to stay the same because it’s familiar; they think “I know who I am, and it’s important to me.” That is a significant quality to note; everything you know is based on who you are, the person you are, so it can be scary to change if it feels like you’re jeopardizing your familiarity with yourself. And so people, according to Prescott Lecky, would resist changes that are positive if the changes imply that I’m not the same person I used to be.

This is something you need to know. Imagine that a part of you that you feel you know so well is actually, literally, fighting change because it wants to maintain what you know about you.

There are ways to get around it, but it’s important for you to know that self-consistency is extremely powerful, and you actually come up against it when you want to make transformational changes.

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BY DR. KEN CHRISTIAN

SELF-CONSISTENCY:YOUR FRIEND, YOUR ENEMY

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7 COMMON MYTHS OF SUCCESS

One of the biggest common myths about success is that it’s a matter of luck. Life has good luck and

bad luck that happens along the way. Don’t get stuck in the idea that success is a matter of luck, because what happens when you think things are due to chance is you withdraw effort. There’s so much research about people quitting when they think their results are due to luck. The reality is that when you withdraw effort or you don’t keep going at something, that your success is held back. Persistence depends on you knowing, deciding, and staying with the idea that it’s your efforts that count.

MYTH #2, success is due to connections, it’s who you know

not what you know. This concept is a lot of nonsense. It doesn’t hurt to get to know people, in fact it helps, but it’s not only a matter of who you know. What you know is incredibly important. What if you meet the people you think you should know and they think “hey, they don’t know anything.” You’ve got to know something. You’ve got to know your craft. Dump the myth about connections. Get all the connections that you can get but it’s not a matter of connections, it’s a matter of you having competency. You’ve got to have competency.

MYTH #3, if you become successful you lose all your friends. Come on. If you have friends who turn against you because you are a success, you’ve got to scratch your head hard and ask yourself, were these really my friends? Your true friends are going to love you and they’re going to celebrate your success, they’re not going to abandon you. Now if you come off like you’re some kind of prima donna, you’re going to lose friends. That’s new friends and old friends. People are going to tolerate you because they get money from you or they get something from you, but they won’t truly be your friend. You need friends. Treasure

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you’re just not going to make it. This is bogus. Again, I hate to tell you this, but it’s actually a place to hang out and avoid taking the risk of really moving forward.

MYTH #6, to be a success you have to be a money hungry, backstabbing, scurrilous, nasty villain. You have to be after people and you have to be driven and you have to be hard and you have to be greedy. There may be people like that, but in a way, that level is almost like something in a movie. It’s a Grade B movie too. Don’t go for that kind of stuff. Don’t tell yourself that kind of stuff. There is no reason that you can’t be the most warm, deep, devoted person in the world to all the things that matter to you and still be a success. It is not an either or. Do not hide behind some sanctimonious idea that I would be a success except I don’t want to be one of those driven hard guys. You do not have to be that kind of person.

MYTH #7, success is more trouble than it’s worth, that if you are successful you’ll be confronted with too many problems and challenges. You may be thinking “I already have problems now, I don’t want more.” Sure, success may bring new challenges, but they are more interesting problems. In fact, any pursuit that takes you farther always involves trading out problems that were crummy and boring and devastating and useless for much more interesting problems that involve fantastic ideas that you need to develop. Yes, now you run into a problem, that there’s always something to overcome; but how groovy to be overcoming problems when you are excited about the outcome. Solving problems is one of the most interesting things you can do in life.

So ask yourself this, “what are the myths that I keep in place that block my progress and keep me from actually taking the risk of stepping out and going for something closer to my ideal life, to my dream, or the legacy I want to leave behind?”

your friends; hang on to your friends. But you have no reason to lose them because you are successful. That’s just really an excuse that expresses your hesitancy about taking the risks involved with being a success.

MYTH # 4, success is due to some special gift. People who become a success are gifted in some unique way that sets them apart, like they have the success gene. There isn’t a success gene. Some people are more devoted to following through on their ideas and persisting and staying with them. Persistency and consistency are the things that get you towards your goals.

MYTH #5, success requires you growing up in a particular kind of family; a family that has a history of success, because otherwise how would you know what success is and how would you seek it? Perhaps you feel as if you’re bereft of having had the kind of nurturing parents and people who were connected to the country club and this and that, and so

THERE IS

NO REASON THAT YOU CAN’T BE THE MOST WARM,

DEEP, DEVOTED PERSON IN THE

WORLD



SMUGGLING DONKEYS

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You’ve been wanting to know about smuggling donkeys for a long time, but you didn’t know it. I’m going to tell you

everything you need to know about smuggling donkeys and its effect on your self-consistency.

There’s a Middle Eastern story from the Sufi origin that I’m going to share with you that will help you make positive and lasting changes. There was a man named Nasrudin who crossed the border of Afghanistan every day for 30 years with all these donkeys. Every donkey was loaded with packs and every single day, since they were sure he was smuggling something, the border guards forced him to unload the donkeys and take everything out. They searched all the packs looking for the contraband and for 30 years they found nothing. But at the end of 30 years, Nasrudin announced that he was retiring and that he would no longer be crossing the border with the donkeys. And they said to him, Nasrudin, we know you’ve been smuggling something. I mean,

we’re sure of it. You’ve come every day for 30 years. Come on, level with us. We won’t arrest you now that you’re retiring. What were you smuggling? Nasrudin says, “donkeys.”

HOW DOES THAT APPLY TO YOU? It’s how you’re going to fool the self-consistency police, the border guards inside you. Do something that has a little distraction element. I’m really telling you this story to strengthen the idea that you can get around self-consistency by doing something that looks completely different than what you’ve made it look like to the self-consistency police inside you. By going in a new kind of seemingly innocent direction, rather than going against a habit and resisting it, you can find a way to do new things that go unnoticed because they’re hidden they’re so obvious. We stop looking. We don’t even pay attention to the most obvious things about our behavior, about our choices, about how we limit ourselves over and over again continually. And the way around that self-consistency lid we keep on ourselves is to do what I said. In some way, do something that disguises a new direction.

I wanted to share this story because it’s one of my favorite Middle Eastern Sufi stories and Nasrudin is such an interesting character in that literature. He’s always doing something that’s remarkably simple that gets around some problem or error. Either way, you learn by Nasrudin’s stories. I hope you learned something from this one.

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THE WAY AROUND THAT SELF-CONSISTENCY LID WE KEEP ON

OURSELVES IS TO DO SOMETHING THAT DISGUISES A NEW DIRECTION

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HOW TO DISRUPT

LIMITING PATTERNS

I want to give you an example of disrupting patterns because this is such a powerful concept

for you to grasp. If you can upset the standard signals that you’ve been receiving, from your environment, your life, and the way you’ve structured your life, you will go a long way toward giving yourself a major boost in achieving more and creating more success in your life.

I asked two clients that I worked with what would be a disruptive shift that would change what’s going on for them, and what they did was ingenious and remarkably creative.

They were a couple and ran a business together. They would leave their house early, stay eight, nine, ten hours working and by the time they got home they would both be exhausted.

Their problem was that they loved literature. They loved music. They loved art. They each had a private library of their own where they could be by themselves and study, listen to music, and look at art books. But they never did any of it because they came home from work so exhausted.

What they decided to do was ingenious. They got up at three o’clock in the morning and went to bed at seven o’clock. They shifted their life around so that they had four hours in the morning that were theirs for any kind of activity they wanted to do that would take them into that lush cultural terrain that they wanted to occupy. And the intelligence of it was that when they got to work, they weren’t exhausted. They were uplifted and energized because they’d spent four hours with what they loved and had been starving themselves from having. Then, when they went to work, they’d work hard and go home exhausted, which was what they were already doing anyway. The cycle would then repeat, they would go to bed at seven o’clock and wake up at three o’clock in the morning to dive into their interests.

This was amazing creativity, and it came from them deeply asking “what could I do with my schedule to disrupt the patterns we’re in? What could we do together?” It’s one of the most remarkable things that I ever had any clients do. I help clients look for that disruptive shift. When I listen to what they say, I can hear one word and I can run with it and help them find certain places to go.

It’s my thrill to be with people who are so intelligent and successful, but just need to have somebody help them slow down, stop, and take a look. It was brilliant. It was amazing. I’m giving it to you because you might want to do something like this with your schedule. Doing things with your schedule really shifts things, and it doesn’t have to be as drastic.

Think about it. It’s powerful to disrupt the old signals from your life and move and know you’re moving in a new direction.


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M What’s a question that someone should ask themselves before working with you?

K “Am I truly serious about making the move this time and making it for good? Am I really past putting a toe in the water of change?”

M What do your clients walk away with after they come to you for help? Explain your process and how it changes them.

K It starts with that first interview where I help them think about a drastic shift they’re going to do and I help them set a much higher level for what they’ve been aspiring to do. A lot of things shift if you make the right shift in one crucial area. That’s what I look for in people and that’s what I bring out, that shift that’s going to make all the other shifts happen automatically.

MATTHEW So, Ken, who are you?

DR. KEN My name is Ken Christian and I’ve been a psychologist for the last 20 years. I focus on working with people who have a lot of potential and somehow get caught on the mind traps that hold them back. I specialize in high achievers that have somehow gotten off track and help them reach their maximum potential.

M Where did you start and what client got you to start thinking about the new chapter in what you do now?

K Actually I think it started when I was at school, and at about 6th grade I started noticing that we were repeating things. We weren’t learning things that were new and it was going really slow, when I loved going fast. It wasn’t necessarily a client that sparked my shift from child underachievement, it was my book. After I finished my book, it was so popular it was translated into five languages and became a runaway bestseller in China. When I saw that need among adults, that’s when I shifted my radar.

interview

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GET TO

KNOWd r . K e n

c h r i s t i a n

BREAKTHROUGH Y O U R

ACHIEVEMENT BARRIERS TO

FINALLY HAVE IT ALL


For over 20 years, Ken W. Christian, Ph.D. has worked as a performance psychologist and expert on helping people remove subtle

barriers to success. Dr. Christian helps talented and independent professionals stop underachievement and start enjoying life and their careers again. Based out of Sacramento, California, Dr. Christian founded the original Maximum Potential Project in 1990, through which he has helped professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and students and their families achieve their true potential. His book, Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement¸ has been translated into five languages and become an international bestseller. Packed with powerful information, it encourages readers to reach beyond self-imposed limits to make the most of their talents and opportunities.

If you have talent or a mission that you haven’t taken to the max, you’ve got too much going for you to continue to underachieve. His program is not a quick fix. It is a permanent shift to a new level of mastery.

I mean wow, I’ve got more than a year’s worth of video recorded right now, today. And you are brilliant and give just enough directives. I will let people know that you offer a package of services that if they sign on, they are going to have an experience that’s unbelievable. They’re going to know what it’s like to achieve. I was able to get over a year’s worth of material with this kind of quality. I mean, I’m excited that a book is going to come out of this. I’m excited that I’m going to be featured in a magazine with you. I want people to know that this is a great resource.

I was impressed by the peripheral knowledge I had about you. The package you were offering was not going to be a low-end investment, but it was like I was going to leapfrog a year ahead at a minimum. I knew we would get a lot accomplished in one day, but it was also a level of quality that I could not duplicate with my resources. I would have to hunt down people and gear that I don’t have time to hunt down.

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You can choose to record your message with whomever you want. I’m not here to compete with

anyone. I’m not here to prove anyone wrong. Everyone delivers their own unique thing. But I can assure you that with me I won’t let your essence, your authenticity and your passion be drifted away because those are the things that get real leads that change lives forever.

I use to be one of those people who studied film, won an Emmy award and I went into video to make a life, to make a lifestyle and to feed my family. I’ve made a lot of videos, I know what it feels like to be in front of the camera, to be vulnerable and have that feeling of uncertainty, not knowing if you are going to succeed or not.

I can promise you that your essence, the purity of your message, the purity of the message of your company, of the product you want to deliver and your call to action will be done in such a way that there is no possible way

that you will not be able to create results because your marketing and your media will become your life message. That even though you want to go on vacation for three years, your videos and your message will be working for you. When you work with me, I’m going to make sure that in front of the camera you are you, you are authentic, you are powerful and your mission is delivered in a way that you will transform lives and you will get the leads that will transform themselves.

I am Matthew Peters, we are Authority Marketing Films. I can’t wait to change your life and the lives of many with your message.

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Authority Empire Magazine Issue #3 - Ken Christian

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