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Twelve
The Predator and the Prey
âSelf-defeat in any endeavor doesnât mean that victory doesnât exist. It simply means that you approached it incorrectly.â
--- Jim Britt
Maybe you have dreams and goals, but somehow things are simply not moving in the direction you had planned. Or worse, maybe youâve stopped believing that the life youâve always wanted is even attainable.
Let me ask you, do you see similarities between you and your parents? The reality is that DNA passes down through generationsâyou, your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. You could actually track it right back to when your ancestors lived in a cave. And in order to survive, prehistoric man needed to be able to see an event and interpret it as danger or safe immediately! They had two dominant thoughts, âKill something to eatâ and âkeep from being killed and eaten.â And to some degree, we still have this mechanism of recognition in place today. We just donât view it the same way.
Something happens, and your brain instinctively stretches and searches all through your past networks, or dendritesâwhich are the memory channels woven throughout your DNAâlooking to match some sort of pattern so you can make an instant decision. Is this safe or is it dangerous? The meaning you give something is based upon a constant comparison of your past experiences and DNA programming projected into the future with the anticipation or possibility of it happening again. Something happens and you immediately tell yourself a story about what it means. Remember, itâs a made-up story in your mind. Itâs not real⌠yet.
So when you step into the future, you donât really step into an empty future, but rather into a future that is filled with interpretations about what happened in the past, and what could happen in the future if you proceed.
For example, a salesperson prepares her presentation. She is excited for that important appointment to make a sale, but instead of a sale, she gets a very rude âno.â Now, at the next presentation, she wonât step into a blank future, but rather, sheâll step into a negative past experience. Put enough of these ânoâsâ together and now the salesperson does everything in her power to avoid prospecting, so she doesnât have to experience another âno.â Again, the rejection had no meaning until she gave it one. She got a ânoâ and made it mean something about her, when in reality it wasnât about her at all.
Imagine three circles. A circle on the left. In that circle something happens to youâbroken marriage, lose money in a business venture, etc. You decide what goes in there. Now thereâs the circle on the right. This is where you gave what happened to you meaning. Examples: bad experience with last business. Business didnât work last time and may not work now. Marriage ended in divorce. I donât want that again. Yo...
