Page 127 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

Arthur Conan Doyle never go out of favor, and rightly so. Holmes’s methods are

brain-builders brought to life.”

When people think of personal transformation, they don’t normally think
they can strengthen their own intelligence. IQ is something our cultural attitudes
have always said we’re born with and stuck with. But Vos Savant, whose IQ was
measured at 230 (the average adult IQ is 100), believes strongly that the brain
can be built as surely and as quickly as the muscles of the body.

So the next time you feel like curling up with a good mystery, don’t feel
guilty or nonproductive. It might be the most productive thing you’ve done all
day.

90. Think your way up

In some of my seminars I like to draw a picture of a ladder on the board and
call it “the ladder of selves.” On the very bottom I write “The Physical,” in the
middle I put “The Emotional,” and at the top I place “The Mind.” We can move

up or down this ladder by the sheer force of will, although most people don’t
know they have that option.

By traveling up the ladder, past the physical, through the emotional, and into
your mind, you have the opportunity to be creative and thoughtful. You can see
possibilities. Many of us, however, never get past the emotional section of the
ladder. When we’re stuck there, we begin thinking with our feelings instead of
thinking with our minds. If you hurt my feelings, and I’m angry and resentful, I
might give you a long and eloquent speech about what’s wrong with you and
how you operate. But, because I’m thinking with my feelings instead of my
mind, I’m destroying something with my speech instead of creating an
understanding. People do this without knowing it. They let their emotions speak
for them, instead of their thoughts. So what you hear is fear, anger, sadness, or

other emotions put to words, but never creating anything.

If you can picture this ladder inside of you, and start to notice that you are
letting your feelings do your thinking and speaking, you can move up. You can
get creative and really think and then speak. As Emmet Fox says, “Love is
always creative and fear is always destructive.”

Go ahead and feel your feelings. But when it’s time to talk, let your mind
into the conversation. Your mind is what motivates you to your highest