Only 5 % or less of the mind should be classified as the ‘conscious story’ – controlled by self – regulatory, willful acts – while an astonishing 95% is nonconscious, automatic, instinctive. Residing in your subconscious is most of the hidden matter that influences our stories – all the instinctual urges coded in genes (governing…

The evolution of the human species has, despite frequent missteps, moved progressively towards greater self awareness. The more self aware we are , the greater our capacity for conscious, deliberate storytelling, for creating new stories – the better able we are to change directions, to adapt, to survive and thrive. While consciousness may represent a…

Let’s get back to the iceberg, the deepest part. Stored here is all the nonconscious material that clearly affects our beliefs, our attitudes, our view of the world, our story. Stored here are subconscious forces (wants, needs) that may be in direct conflict with conscious aspirations, intentions, values. Stored here are our most frightening and…

Unfortunately, though, when a conflict exists between our conscious and subconscious worlds, the advantage clearly goes to the subconscious, precisely because the influencing factor is beyond our conscious knowledge of its being there. We often have no clue that there’s distortion going on. However when current dysfunctional stories can be linked to past dysfunctional stories…

Next Step: Write your New Story, making sure that it fulfills the criteria for good storytelling. Crafting a new story is liberating. Also challenging, scary, and painful. It should be painful. After all, it will be more clear eyed than your Old Story was in defining what you really want from life; it hacks away…

If all you had to give was your total energy, you could accomplish historic things. What gets you to focus with the highest level of commitment, of reverence for the moment? Is there something or someone in your life so sacred that nothing and no one – not ringing phones, not errands, not games in…

It is about passion. Every year I see entrepreneurs buy into this story – that it is about passion, not time – in the hope that it will increase performance, productivity and happiness. Here is the dirty secret, though: The difference in depth between full engagement and multi- tasking is not incremental. It is binary….

How do you live happily ever after? I identify the three things I want to get finished that day – never more than three. At the end of my day I use my 10 – 6 – 1 scale to rate myself.   Now I am giving myself 10’s all the time. I found that…

Without proper exercise, nutrition and rest, the body slowly begins to break. You are operating at a perpetual deficit. You are always exhausted. You are seriously disengaged. Your body is now in survival mode. Your stories change. To rationalize how and why this happened requires that, at some fork in the road, smart people must…

Now that you are familiar with the major concepts from our What is your Story? program – how our stories are our destinies; how everything we do, with or without our conscious knowledge, helps to shape our stories; how stories either take us where we want to go or they don’t; and the three fundamental…

“Love, Simon” is a mainstream-styled teenage rom-com that uses every cliche in the book. There’s the nerdy Vice Principal, the bacchanalian high school party, supportive yet somewhat clueless parents, witty voiceover from the protagonist, public declarations of love in front of the whole school, all held together by a stream of catchy pop tunes. But “Love,…

The opening scenes of “L.A. Confidential” are devoted to establishing the three central characters, all cops. We may be excused for expecting that they will be antagonists; indeed, they think so themselves. But the film has other plans, and much of its fascination comes from the way it puts the three cops on the same…

When Peter Bogdanovich needed a movie to play as the final feature in the doomed small-town theater in “The Last Picture Show,” he chose Howard Hawks’ “Red River” (1948). He selected the scene where John Wayne tells Montgomery Clift, “Take ’em to Missouri, Matt!” And then there is Hawks’ famous montage of weathered cowboy faces in closeup and exaltation, as…