What do you want.

Ask yourself what you truly want in life. Do you want a loving marriage, the respect of your children? Do you want plenty of money, fast cars, a thriving business, a house on the hill? Do you want to travel the world, visit exotic ports of call, see historical landmarks firsthand? Do you want to be idolized by millions as a rock musician or as a celebrity with your star on Hollywood Boulevard? Do you want to leave your mark for posterity as the inventor of a time travel machine? Do you want to work with Mother Teresa to save the world, or take a proactive role in making a measurable impact environmentally?

Whatever you desire or crave, perhaps you should ask yourself, " Why do I want these things? " Don't you want fine cars, for example, because you really desire the feelings of accomplishment and prestige you think they would bring? Why do you want a great family life? Is it because you think it will give you feelings of love, intimacy, connection, or warmth? Do you want to save the world because of the feelings of contribution and making a difference you believe this will give you? In short, then, isn't it true that what you really want is simply to change the way you fed? What it all comes down to is the fact that you want these things or results because you see them as a means to achieving certain feelings, emotions, or states that you desire.

When somebody kisses you, what makes you feel good in that moment? Is it wet tissue touching wet tissue that really triggers the feeling? Of course not! If that's true, kissing your dog would turn you on! All of our emotions are nothing but a flurry of biochemical storms in our brains—and we can spark them at any moment. But first we must learn how to take control of them consciously instead of living in reaction. Most of our emotional responses are learned responses to the environment. We've deliberately modeled some of them, and stumbled across others.

Simply being aware of these factors is the foundation for understanding the power of state. Without a doubt, everything you and I do, we do to avoid pain or gain pleasure, but we can instantly change what we believe will lead to pain or pleasure by redirecting our focus and changing our mental-emotional-physiological states. As I said in Chapter 3 of Unlimited Power:

A state can be defined as the sum of millions of neurological processes happening within us—the sum total of our experience at any moment in time. Most of our states happen without any conscious direction on our pan. We see something, and we respond to it by going into a state. It may be a resourceful and useful state, or an unresourceful and limiting state, but there's not much that most of us do to control it.

Have you ever found yourself unable to remember a friend's name? Or how to spell a " difficult" word like... " house"? How come you weren't able to do this? You certainly knew the answer. Is it because you're stupid? No, it's because you were in a stupid state! The difference between acting badly or brilliantly is not based on your ability, but on the state of your mind and/or body in any given moment. You can be gifted with the courage and determination of Marva Collins, the grace and flair of Fred Astaire, the strength and endurance of Nolan Ryan, the compassion and intellect of Albert Einstein—but if you continually submerge yourself in negative states, you'll never fulfill that promise of

excellence.

However, if you know the secret of accessing your most resourceful states, you can literally work wonders. The state that you're in at any given moment determines your perceptions of reality and thus your decisions and behavior. In other words, your behavior is not the result of your ability, but of the state that you're in at this moment. To change your ability, change your state. To open up the multitude of resources that lie within you, put yourself in a state of resourcefulness and active expectancy—and watch miracles happen!

So how can we change our own emotional states? Think of your states as operating a lot like a TV set. In order to have " bright, vivid color with incredible sound, " you need to plug in and turn on. Turning on your physiology is like giving the set the electricity it needs to operate. If you don't have the juice, you'll have no picture, no sound, just a blank screen. Similarly, if you don't turn on by using your entire body, in other words, your physiology, you may indeed find yourself unable to spell " house." Have you ever woken up and stumbled around, not able to think clearly or function until you moved around enough to get your blood flowing?

Once the " static" has cleared, you're turned on, and the ideas begin to flow. If you're in the wrong state, you're not going to get any reception, even if you've got the right ideas. Of course, once you're plugged in, you've got to be tuned to the right channel to get what you really want. Mentally, you've got to focus on what empowers you. Whatever you focus on—whatever you tune in to—you will feel more intensely. So if you don't like what you're doing, maybe it's time to change the channel.

There are unlimited sensations, unlimited ways of looking at virtually anything in life. All of the sensations that you want are available all of the time, and all you've got to do is to tune in to the right channel. There are two primary ways, then, to change your emotional state: by changing the way you use your physical body, or by changing your focus.