The future of your identity

Even after completing this exercise, you'll want to continue to refine your identity, expand it, or create better rules for it. We live in a dynamic world where our identities must continually expand in order to enjoy a greater quality of life. You need to become aware of things that may influence your identity, notice whether they are empowering or disempowering you, and take control of the whole process. Otherwise you become a prisoner of your own past. I'm curious: Are you now the same person you were when you picked up this book?

I am continually redefining myself, and people often wonder at my level of confidence in pursuing new ventures. I'm often asked, " How have you accomplished so much in your life? " I think that a big part of it is that I look at things in a different way than most: while most people have to establish competence before they feel confident, I decide to feel confident, and that provides the sense of certainty to persist until I am competent. That's why my identity is not limited by my past references.

If you were to ask me who I am today (and I might decide to change tomorrow!), I would say that I am a creator of possibility, an instigator of joy, a catalyst for growth, a builder of people, and a producer of passion. I am not a motivator, a preacher, or a guru. I am one of the nation's experts in the psychology of change. I am a coach, an entrepreneur, a husband, a father, a lover, a friend, an entertainer, a television personality, a nationally best-selling author, one of the most impactful speakers in the nation, a black belt, a jet helicopter pilot, an international businessman, a health expert, an advocate for the homeless, a philanthropist, a teacher, a person who makes a difference, a force for good, a healer, a challenger... and a fun, outrageous, and humble kind o' guy!

I identity with the highest elements of my self, and I view those facets of me that are not yet perfect as an opportunity for growth rather than as character flaws. You and I need to expand our view of who we are. We need to make certain that the labels we put upon ourselves are not limits but enhancements, that we add to all that's already good within us—for whatever you and I begin to identify with, we will become. This is the power of belief.

" If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

THOMAS A. EDISON

Because of my commitment to constantly expand my capacity to appreciate all aspects of life, I'm always pursuing unique references. Years ago, I decided to visit the Bellevue morgue[198], and I experienced a major life transformation. I went there because my friend. Dr. Fred Covan, who is Chief Psychologist of Bellevue Hospital in New York, convinced me that in order to understand life you've got to understand death. Becky and I arrived at his office with a great deal of apprehension. Fred sat us down and cautioned us not to say a word during the experience. " Just let it happen, " he said. " Notice what feelings come up, and then we'll talk about it later."

Not knowing what to expect, we nervously followed the doctor as he descended the stairs. He led us to the section for unclaimed bodies, where most of the remains were from the indigent[199] street population. As he pulled out the first metal drawer and unzipped the body bag, I felt a shudder[200] ripple[201] through my body. Here was this " person" there with me, yet I was instantly struck by the feeling of emptiness. Becky was shaken when she thought she saw the body move. Fred later pointed out that Becky's experience was common, that we all have a difficult time dealing with bodies that don't move, that are devoid of the pulse of life.

As he opened each successive drawer, the emotion hit me again and again: there's no one here. The body is here, but there is no person. Moments after death, these people weighed the same amount as they did when they were alive, but whatever they were—the essence of who they truly were—was no longer there. We are not our bodies. When we pass on, there's no question that what's missing is the intangible, weightless identity, that essence of life some call spirit. I believe that it's equally important for us to remember that while we're alive, we're not our bodies.

Neither are we our past, nor our behaviors in the moment. This experience gave me an incredible sense of gratitude for the blessed gift of life. Suddenly I looked at people who had major physical challenges and thought, " Boy, do they look healthy." There's nothing like a little contrast to remind us of how fortunate we all are! Recently, my feelings were put into words when I had the opportunity to visit with author Wayne Dyer. He said something that day that typifies my feelings. He told me, " We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

Our identity is the cornerstone of that experience. I believe that our true identity is something that's indefinable and greater than anything that's describable. We are soul; we are spirit. Remembering who we really are puts everything into perspective, doesn't it? Once we act with the knowledge that we're spiritual beings, we won't get caught up in all the little games that separate us from one another. We'll know with deep conviction that we are truly connected with all of creation.

" Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth; Each of us here as divinely[202] as any is here."

WALT WHITMAN

The next time you catch yourself saying, " I could never do that, " or " That's just not me, " take a moment to consider the impact of what you're saying. Have you limited your concept of self? If so, take advantage of every opportunity to expand your identity. Get yourself to do those things you don't think you can do, and use your new actions as a reference that gives you a sense of certainty that you're more than you thought.

Begin to ask yourself, " What more can I be? What more will I be? Who am I becoming now? " Think about your values and dream list, and commit to yourself that, regardless of the environment, " I will consistently act as a person who is already achieving these goals. I will breathe this way. I will move this way. I will respond to people this way. I will treat people with the kind of dignity, respect, compassion, and love that this person would." If we decide to think, feel, and act as the kind of person we want to be, we will become that person. We won't just be behaving " like" that person; we will be that person.

You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become?

Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully. As we now leave our study of the Master System, just remember this: you don't have to make all of the changes we've talked about here in order to transform the quality of your life. If you change any one of the five areas of the system, your whole life will change. A change in your habitual questions alone will change your focus and change your life. Making shifts in your values hierarchies will immediately change the direction of your life. Cultivating powerful, resourceful states in your physiology will change the way you think and the way you feel. This alone could change your identity. So could changing some of your global beliefs.Pursuing additional references will provide the raw materials for assembling a new experience of who you are. And certainly, deciding to expand your identity could transform virtually everything. I know that you'll want to return to these pages again and again throughout your life as you begin to reinvent yourself and define who you truly want to be now versus who you've been in the past. Be playful!

Have fun! Discover the adventure that comes with an ever-expanding sense that who you are is something more each and every day that you're alive.

Now let's have some fun by beginning a seven-day challenge where each day I'll give you a brief exercise to use what you've been learning and give you an opportunity to start reaping the rewards of some of the strategies and tools to which you've been exposed. Let's begin with...

PART THREE

THE SEVEN DAYS TO SHAPE YOUR LIFE

EMOTIONAL DESTINY: THE ONLY TRUE SUCCESS - DAY ONE

Your Outcome: Take control of your consistent emotions and begin to consciously and deliberately[203] reshape your daily experience of life.

There is no true success without emotional success, yet, of the more than 3, 000 emotions that we have words to describe, the average person experiences only about a dozen different ones in the course of an average week. We must remember that this does not reflect our emotional capacity, but rather the limitations of our present patterns of focus and physiology.

Throughout this book, we've continually studied the mastery of emotion, and you've developed a broad spectrum of tools to powerfully and rapidly change any emotion you desire. You now realize that changing how you feel is the motivation behind virtually all of your behaviors. Thus, it's time that you develop a proactive plan for dealing with the negative emotional patterns that you habitually experience. It's equally important to give yourself the gift of expanding the amount and quality of time that you spend in positive emotional states. The arsenal of skills you have for changing your emotional states includes:

· physiology

· focus

· questions

· submodalities

· Transformational Vocabulary

· metaphors

· Neuro-Associative Conditioning

· beliefs

· compelling future

· values

· rules

· references

· identity

The purpose of today's exercise is simply to make you aware of your present emotional patterns and get you to utilize as many of the above-listed skills as necessary to guarantee that you shape your own emotional destiny daily.

" Seeing is believing, but feeling's the truth."

THOMAS FULLER, M.D.

Today's Assignment:

1. Write down all the emotions that you experience in an average week.

2. List the events or situations you use to trigger these emotions.

3. Come up with an antidote for each negative emotion, and employ one of the appropriate tools for responding to the Action Signal. Do you need to change the words you use to describe this experience? Do you need to change what you believe about this emotional state? Do you need to ask yourself a new question? Be sure to consistently focus on solutions instead of problems.

Commit throughout this day to replacing the old, limiting emotion with a new, empowering emotion, and condition this new pattern until it's consistent. With our emotions well in hand, we'll begin tomorrow to master our...

PHYSICAL DESTINY: PRISON OF PAIN OR PALACE OF PLEASURE DAY TWO

Your Outcome: Just as you've learned to condition your nervous system to produce the behaviors that will give you the results you want, the physical destiny you experience depends on how you condition your metabolism and muscles to produce the levels of energy and fitness you desire.

His goal was to break a world record. For eleven straight days, he had been running twenty-one hours a day and sleeping a mere three hours a night. The mental challenge was as great as the physical challenge: he had to travel from the everyday world he'd lived in his entire life into one where his primary objective was the next step. He devoted years of training not only to his body, but also to his mind. His objective? To demonstrate the unlimited physical potential that lies locked within us all. By breaking the previous record and running over 1, 000 miles in eleven days and nineteen hours, at an average of eighty-four miles per day, Stu Mittleman demonstrated that by understanding how to condition both the mind and body, one can produce results far beyond anything society would consider possible. He has proven by his example that the human capacity is incredible, and that we can adapt to anything if we make the right demands upon ourselves incrementally. The purpose of this chapter is to share with you the fundamental secrets that empowered Stu Mittleman to train himself to accomplish this unparalleled task.

For years I have pursued those I've considered to be masters in their areas of expertise, and physical fitness and health have been a major focus in my life for over a decade. When I first began my research in this area, I became confused by the maelstrom of conflicting viewpoints expressed by experts all supposedly equally qualified. For negotiating my way through the maze of opinions, my number-one criterion was results.

Those who consistently produced quality results were the ones I emulated and learned from. Just as I had a hard time giving credence[204] to a doctor who was counseling patients about health but who himself was forty pounds overweight, so, too, did I question the validity of so-called fitness experts who appeared emaciated[205] and had a host of injuries and low energy levels.

When I first heard about Stu Mittleman and his accomplishments, I became fascinated, particularly when I heard further that all those who had witnessed his amazing feat said he looked better at the end of his 1, 000-mile run than he did when he left the starting line! He experienced no injuries—not even a blister! What gave him the incredible capacity to stretch his body to its limits and still maximize his potential without injuring it?

Certainly, Stu was well-prepared for his run. He has master's degrees in sports psychology, sociology, and social psychology, and is working toward a doctorate in exercise physiology at Columbia University. But the knowledge that proved most invaluable to him was the distinction that health and fitness are not the same. This is a distinction that Jim Fixx, the famous running-book author, did not have. He was clearly fit, but also unhealthy.

The failure of most individuals to grasp the difference between fitness and health is what causes them to experience the frustration of working out religiously and still having the same five to ten pounds stubbornly clinging[206] to their midsection. Talk about learned helpless-ness! Worse than that is the plight[207] of those who make exercise the centerpiece of their lives and believe that their actions are making them healthier, yet each and every day they are pushing themselves one step further toward fatigue, disease, and emotional upheaval[208].

What exactly do I mean by the difference between health and fitness? Fitness is " the physical ability to perform athletic activity." Health, however, is denned as " the state where all the systems of the body—nervous, muscular, skeletal, circulatory, digestive[209], lymphatic, hormonal, etc.—are working in an optimal way...." Most people think that fitness implies health, but the truth is that they don't necessarily go hand in hand. It's ideal to have both health and fitness, but by putting health first, you will always enjoy tremendous benefits in your life. If you achieve fitness at the expense of health, you may not live long enough to enjoy your spectacular physique.

The optimum balance of health and fitness is achieved by training your metabolism[210]. Just as we train our minds, and just as we train our muscles, Stu and one of his trainers, Dr. Philip Maffetone, have proven that we can in fact train our metabolism. Stu's results definitely bear this out: while he was on his 1, 000-mile run, he certainly should have " hit the wall." Yet he never experienced this in spite of running eighty-four miles a day. Understanding the simple yet profound distinctions that Stu used can change not only how you look, but also your level of energy, the quality of your life, and ultimately the physical destiny you set in motion.

The biggest difference between health and fitness comes down to understanding the distinction between aerobic and anaerobic exercise, between endurance and power. Aerobic means, literally, " with oxygen, " and refers to moderate exercise sustained over a period of time. Your aerobic system is your system for endurance, and encompasses the heart, lungs, blood vessels, and aerobic muscles. If you activate your aerobic system with proper diet and exercise, you bum/at as your primary fuel.

On the other hand, anaerobic means, literally, " without oxygen, " and refers to exercises that produce short bursts of power. Anaerobic exercise bums glycogen as its primary fuel, while causing the body to store fat. Genetics plays a part in your body's ability to bum fat and, in fact, some people are born with a highly aerobic system already in place.

These are the people we envy who seemingly can eat anything and not gain an ounce. Most types of exercise can be either aerobic or anaerobic. The level of intensity determines whether you are using your aerobic or anaerobic system. Walking, jogging, running, biking, swimming, dancing, etc., can provide either benefit. Lower heart rates make these activities aerobic, and higher heart rates make them anaerobic.... Usually, tennis, racquetball, basketball, and similar sports are anaerobic.

Most Americans today have a lifestyle that causes them to live in a constantly anaerobic state, inundated[211] with stress and demands, compounding it with the way they choose to exercise. As a result, they train their metabolism to continuously be anaerobic, i.e., bum glycogen as a primary source of energy. When levels of glycogen become excessively low, the anaerobically trained metabolism turns to blood sugar as its secondary source of fuel. This immediately disrupts your level of health and vitality.

As your anaerobic demands rob your body of blood sugar you could be using for other tasks, you immediately begin to feel the negative effects. Since your nervous system demands the use of two-thirds of your blood sugar, the deficit created by anaerobic exercise can cause neuromuscular problems like headaches or disorientation. Here is a list of some telltale symptoms directly related to excessive anaerobic training of your metabolism: fatigue, recurrent exercise injuries, low blood sugar patterns, depression and anxiety, fat metabolism problems, premenstrual syndrome, or circulation problems and stiff joints.

We live in a society that is anaerobic-excessive and aerobic-deficient, and it's negatively impacting the quality of health across the nation. In modem, industrialized society, people become less physically active. Only a few decades ago, most people accomplished their daily chores in a physical way. Today, though, we have designed active demands for our bodies to replace the inactivity that our day-to-day life no longer creates. This forced activity we call exercise. Unfortunately, many people with positive intentions, including skilled athletes, are becoming less healthy with exercise. Out of our drive to produce the greatest results in the shortest period of time, most of us create an improper balance between health and fitness, and suffer the consequences.

The solution, however, is simple. Stu Mittleman's secret is that he understands that health and fitness must go together. According to Dr. Maffetone, this is accomplished by understanding that all exercise programs require that you begin by building an aerobic base—a period of time during which your entire exercise program is exclusively based upon aerobic activity without any anaerobic exercise at all. This base period may last from a minimum of two to a maximum of about eight months, during which your aerobic system is developed and maximized. This base period is then followed by anaerobic workouts of one, two, or sometimes three per week. Properly developing your aerobic system will not only make you a better athlete, [but] it will also bum off the extra fat from your hips, improve your immune system, give you more energy, and keep you relatively injury-free. In other words, it's a way to build your total health and fitness through both the proper conditioning of your metabolism for aerobic and, when appropriate, anaerobic training

By creating an aerobic base, you'll also create a tremendous amount of energy and endurance. Remember, by expanding your aerobic capacity, you're expanding your body's ability to deliver oxygen (the source of energy and health) to every organ and system of the body. The problem is that most people try to push themselves beyond their ideal heart rates, and they spend all their time exercising in an anaerobic state. If you have not yet built an aerobic base, then all of your anaerobic exercise is at the expense of endurance. Many people, out of their desire to " whip" themselves into a state of fitness, try to exercise at their maximum heart rates. Traditionally, the formula for maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. For a thirty-year-old, this would mean aiming for a heart rate of 190. Surely exercising at this intensity for long periods of time is one of the most destructive things you can do to your body: it may make you " fit, " but it will do so at the cost of your health.

By the way, guess who was guilty of this for several years. I pushed myself to " achieve" maximum heart rate: I would jump onto my Stair-Master and crank it up to the highest level, and go for twenty minutes.

Or, after not having run in several weeks, I would go out and run five miles with absolutely no warm-up. I wouldn't be able to walk for several days afterward, but I believed that through this " no-pain, no-gain" discipline I was making myself more healthy! All I was doing was establishing a love-hate relationship with exercise. My mixed associations of pain and pleasure made me put it off as long as my conscience would allow, then try to make up for lost time in just one session.

Since then I've learned that when you begin to work out at a pace which immediately throws your body into anaerobic capacity, a very dangerous thing can occur. In order to supply the immediate demand for blood that anaerobic exercise requires for the muscles that need it most, your body shunts blood from critical organs like your liver and kidneys[212]. As a result, these organs lose a large amount of oxygen, which significantly impairs their vitality and health. Continually doing this results in their weakness, damage, or destruction.

The key is to train your metabolism to consistently operate in aerobic fashion. Your body won't bum fat unless you specifically train it to do so. Thus, if you want to lose that persistent layer of fat around your midsection, you must train your body to bum fat, not sugar. Remember that both Stu's and Phil's criterion for aerobic function is the burning of fat. One of the biggest benefits of aerobic exercise is that it prevents the clogging of arteries that leads to heart disease, the top cause of death in the United States (responsible for killing one out oft every two people).

Some individuals, in their zeal to eliminate all fat from their diet, actually induce their body to enter an " emergency" mode in which it begins to store fat even more efficiently. They compound the mistakes

by starving themselves, and when they inevitably return to old eating patterns, even more fat is stored from the same amount of food they had been eating before the diet—and they gain back more weight than they lost! This is why our culture is so obsessed with losing " those last ten pounds."

When people tell me they want to lose ten pounds, I ask them, " Ten pounds of what? " Most often they're exercising in a way that causes them to lose water or muscle, not fat. You can weigh the same amount today as you weighed ten years ago but be much less healthy because your muscle has been replaced with fat. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you weigh the same as you did ten years ago and your body is made up of even more fat, you're in deep trouble!

While it's true we want to limit our fat intake so it's not excessive (20 percent to 30 percent of your caloric intake), nothing can compare with aerobic exercise for training your metabolism to bum fat. There is no one " right" percentage of fat intake for all individuals; it depends on how you metabolize the fat you do ingest. Wouldn't you love to have the same capacity that you envy in others who seem to be blessed with metabolisms that bum fat? You can! It's all a matter of conditioning.

So how do you train your metabolism to bum fat so that you have the energy, endurance, and vitality to put into practice everything you've learned in this book and live life to the fullest? I have some good news and some bad news. First the good news: you can accomplish this through some simple steps each day. Now the bad news: you won't be able to use the traditional American method of filling the bathtub, pulling the plug, and fighting the current! Neither will driving a golf cart from hole to hole do the trick. These are not forms of aerobic exercise. Throwing your pendulum to the other extreme won't work, either. Wind sprints are an anaerobic exercise. They create an immediate oxygen deficit in the cells and begin to cause you to train your metabolism to bum glycogen and/or blood sugar; thus, the fat continues to be stored.

Probably the most important element to one's health is oxygen. Every day, we breathe approximately 2, 500 gallons of air in order to supply our tissues with oxygen. Without it, cells become weakened and die. There are about 75 trillion cells in your body, and they provide you with adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the basic energy for everything that your body does, whether it's breathing, dreaming, eating, or exercising. In order to survive, cells must have oxygen in order to bum glucose and create ATP for continued growth.

The point is that you don't want to deplete oxygen during exercise. If you want to know whether you've moved beyond aerobic into anaerobic, here's a simple test: when you're exercising, can you talk (aerobic)? Or are you too winded (anaerobic)? Your breathing should be steady and audible, but not labored. What does it feel like when you're working out? If you're exercising aerobically, it should be pleasurable though tiring. If you're exercising anaerobically, you definitely feel pushed. On a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being minimum exertion and 10 being the most intense, what's your score? If you've exceeded 7, then you've gone beyond aerobic into anaerobic; ideally, you'll evaluate yourself between 6 and 7. Tapping your aerobic capacity requires a very specific form of training. First, it's advisable to wear a heart-rate monitor. Then warm up gradually to reach your optimum aerobic training zone. (See box below.)

Your warm-up will accomplish at least two things: 1) You will be gradually mobilizing the fatty acids stored throughout your body to your bloodstream so that you can use your fat instead of your vital blood sugar. This is critical. If you don't warm up, you may exercise aerobically, i.e., with oxygen in the cells, but not burn the fat. During warm-up, you should count your heart rate at 50 percent of the maximum using the standard method of calculation (see footnote for the heart rate box). 2)

You will prevent cramping[213]. This warm-up period should take about fifteen minutes. This allows your body to gradually distribute blood to those areas that need it rather than immediately diverting it from vital organs—a critical distinction to make sure that your workouts build health and fitness without injuring your system. Second, exercise within your aerobic training zone for at least twenty minutes, ideally working up to thirty to forty-five minutes.

The best way to find your optimal training heart rate is to apply the following formula:

COMPUTING YOUR IDEAL HEART RATE

180 - your age = your ideal heart rate (the rate at which you can exercise aerobically before going anaerobic).

If you are recovering from a major illness or are on medication, subtract an additional 10 points. If you have not exercised before, or have an injury or are gearing down in your training, or if you often get colds or flu or have allergies, subtract 5 points.

If you have been exercising for up to two years without any real problems, and have not had colds or flu more than once or twice per year, keep your score the same.

If you have been exercising for more than two years without any problems, while making progress in competition without injury, add 5 points.

Before beginning any program of physical exercise, consult your physician.

Third, take twelve to fifteen minutes to cool down appropriately by walking or some other form of mild movement. In this way you prevent your blood from pooling in your working muscles. If you abruptly stop movement after exercise, there is no way for the blood to be returned for cleansing, reoxygenation and redistribution. It will stay in the muscle, engorging it, and increasing toxicity in the

bloodstream. People are often reluctant[214] to commit to a workout because they link too much pain to it, either physical pain or the pain of not having enough time. But if you just give it a try, you'll make two pleasant discoveries:

1) You'll love working out this way because it produces pleasure and no pain.

2) You’ll experience a level of physical vitality you've never felt before.

If you're concerned about the amount of time it takes, think of ways in which you can maximize your time. For instance, while you're warming up you can listen to tapes, read, watch the news, do your Morning or Evening Power Questions, read your values and rules hierarchy, and make other productive uses of your time. When I asked Stu Mittleman what he recommends as a workout schedule, he suggested starting out with at least three sessions a week, with fifteen minutes of warm-up, twenty minutes at your aerobic training zone, and fifteen minutes of cool-down. Then graduate to longer sessions as you see fit.

Am I suggesting to you that aerobic training is the only type of exercise worth doing? Of course not. Having health and fitness is the goal; we want to enhance performance as well as endurance. (Just re-

member that any time you work out at an anaerobic pace, you do so at the expense of your endurance.) So as you begin to develop your aerobic capacity, once you reach a plateau (somewhere in your second to fourth month of exercise), you can build power by adding anaerobic exercise to your regimen, such as by East repetitions with weights. This differs from person to person, and the best test is to just listen to your body. If you're running on the beach, and suddenly feel like sprinting, do it! Develop body wisdom; learn to notice your body's ability to handle more challenging physical tasks.

In fact, Stu assures us that we can maintain and improve endurance into our golden years. We do not have to be frail[215] in our old age! Chronology is not so much the arbiter of our health as is our commitment to a health-enhancing lifestyle. Even though some people are born with a predisposition to bum fat, or are blessed with a gift of speed or power, anyone can achieve endurance and vitality by consciously deciding to condition their body's chemistry.

" We are not limited by our old age; we are liberated by it."

STU MITTLEMAN

The most exciting news of all is that, like all patterns that give us pleasure, exercise can become a positive addiction. As much as you may currently avoid exercise, you will probably be more powerfully drawn to it once you discover how pleasurable it is to work out properly. Research has shown that if you exercise consistently for over a twelve-month period of time, you will form this positive addiction for a lifetime. Even if you get off track for a period of time, you'll always return to a consistent exercise regimen throughout your life. Your body will be driven to the pleasure of health, to the natural high of maximizing your physical potential. Why is this? You will have trained your nervous system by conditioning your metabolism to thrive on this experience. We all deserve the physical vitality that can transform the quality of our lives. Your physical destiny is intimately related to your mental, emotional, financial, and relationship destinies. In fact, it will determine whether you have a destiny at all!