Reinventing Yourself

How to become the person you’ve always wanted to be.

by Steve Chandler

 

ISBN: 978-1-63265-090-0

First published 1997

234 pages

Cover design Howard Grossman

5/5 Stars

An incredibly motivating book.

Spirit. Spirit guides this book. It turns difficult situations into a game. It sees fun and life everywhere. It takes the distressed and downhearted and fills them with an exuberance and enthusiasm that is infectious and literally changes live.

The ability to see past ourselves, and our current situation, the ability to ‘climb the ladder of selves’, and the ability to fulfill our human potential is what Steve is trying to lead us to.

Below is a selection of great quotations to illustrate his points:

Don’t become like the singer in Ol’ Man River “tired of livin’ and scared of dyin'”.

Pg 28. “When You start relaxing the grip you have on your permanent identity and see that you can be anyone, who you want to be will become a more important person than who you “are”.

Buckminster Fuller said, “I seem to be a verb! ”

Personality is just a history of habits

William Butler Yeats said that, “happiness is growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

Preoccupation is the enemy of all achievement Page 46

Thomas Jefferson said. “the more you do, the more you can do”.

Colin Wilson created the theory of the ladder of selves.

DH Lawrence said “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself”.

Andre Gide observed that sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Great salespeople don’t see themselves as “takers” they “give” for a living.

Inspiration is the strongest teaching tool ever used.

When we say we  “forgive” someone, we are still implying that we are morally superior to them – that they have done is wrong and we will condescend to forgive them for it. By doing that, we still get to be victims.

The French have a saying: “He who is absent is always wrong”.

Problems become “projects”. Jobs become “professions”. Managers become “leaders”.

There is one word that does more damage and creates more victims than any other word “should” and you “should” never use it . For example, the victim is unintentionally taking a tranquilizer by using “I should”, the owner however is taking a breath of fresh oxygen by using “I want to”.

Procrastination is only a temporary pattern of behavior it is not part of anyone’s personality. Personality it is an option.

Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer once observed, “success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success”.

Page 148: “There is no swamped if you say there is. If you were to die from this condition you are calling swamped they would not find it in you. Focused is the opposite of swamped”.

An owner knows that he can only do one thing at a time, and in order to do that thing quickly and expertly, he must not be preoccupied. He must not be trying to do 1 million things at once and not doing anything well.

Page 154: “Don’t be afraid to lose face and fail at something. Don’t reject the idea of coming across as a human being. Jump in. Play. Fall down. Get up. Play harder. Come home with a dirty face and sweat on your neck. Take a bath. And sleep”.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make me feel inferior, without my permission”.

Page 165: You can use variations of the thoughts, “I use life”, and, “life is pure opportunity”. The original meaning of the word ‘spirit’ is ‘breath’.

Page 169: As a child, you knew in your soul that you didn’t know how to be yourself. You are connected to your spirit, and you knew that happiness came from taking effective action upon the universe. That was your fun.

Weariness comes from quitting. Page 171

Rather than asking yourself what you feel like doing, ask yourself: What needs to be done?  Happiness comes to those who are busy doing.

Page 174 The more you try to build up your ego the harder it is to listen to others. Humility is power. Anyone can reinvent themselves on the spot.

Page 199

“How do I motivate myself to run in the morning?”
“By running in the morning.”
“But I don’t feel like running.”
“That’s because you’re not running yet. If you are running, pretty soon you would feel like running.”

Page 200. You reinvent yourself by doing things that you wouldn’t do, and in so doing you realize there is no fixed and permanent you at all!

Remember, the ownership position is: if there is no solution, there is no problem. If there is no solution, what we’re dealing with is a fact of life that we haven’t yet accepted.