The Law of Success

Want TRUE success?

Yogananda tells us that we must start by connecting with the divine within.

The great 20th century Unity minister Eric Butterworth says the EXACT same thing.

Here’s how he puts it in Spiritual Economics: “The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.”

Walter Russell echoes this wisdom in The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe where he tells us: “Early in life I found that to achieve greatness one had to go only one inch beyond mediocrity, but that one inch is so hard to go that only those who become aware of God in them can make the grade, for no one can achieve that one inch alone.”

Modern philosopher Tom Morris wrote a book on what he calls True Success. Here’s how he puts it: “As reported by Plato in his famous Apology, Socrates was convinced that most of us approach life backwards. We give the most attention to the least important things and the least attention to the most important things. It was his firm belief that ‘wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth and all other public and private blessings for men.’ It was the state of our souls that was most important to Socrates. The inner life of each person. Greatness of spirit. Wisdom. Inner excellence. When we give precedence to the inner, both inner and outer fall into place. When we follow the opposite course, nothing will give us what we truly need. Only emptiness will result.”

The ultimate game the wisest among us play? Connecting to and expressing the best version of ourselves. Living with a “good soul.” How? As always, by putting our virtues in action, of course.

Get THAT right and, all the truly wise and great teachers tell us, the rest will follow.

That was written in 1944. It’s based on Yogananda’s take on ancient Indian wisdom on the negative effects of fear. It is remarkably prescient of what modern science has to say.

Kelly McGonigal wrote a book called The Upside of Stress in 2015. It’s based on the modern science that shows, basically, THE SAME thing.

In short, if we allow fear to dominate our consciousness, we have what scientists call a “threat response.” Living in that state creates a toxic stew of biochemistry in our minds and bodies that, basically, does what Yogananda says it will do. If, on the other hand, we learn to discipline our minds to see that SAME stressor for what it is—a challenge to rise up and give our best—then we will have a VERY different internal response.

Kelly tells us:“Like a fight-or-flight response, a challenge response gives you energy and helps you perform under pressure. Your heart rate still rises, your adrenaline spikes, your muscles and brain get more fuel, and the feel-good chemicals surge. But it differs from a fight-or-flight response in a few important ways: You feel focused but not fearful. You also release a different ratio of stress hormones, including higher levels of DHEA, which helps you recover and learn from stress. This raises the growth index of your stress response, the beneficial ratio of stress hormones that can determine, in part, whether a stressful experience is strengthening or harmful.”

And... Here’s the kicker. To make the shift from the threat response to the challenge response, all we have to do is change our mindset—we need to believe we have what it takes to rise up and meet the challenge.

As Kelly tells us: “If you believe that the demands of the situation exceed your resources, you will have a threat response. But if you believe you have the resources to succeed, you will have a challenge response.”

Wisdom from another great Indian sage, Eknath Easwaran, is helpful here. In The Conquest of Mind, he tells us: “As my grandmother used to tell me, ‘The Lord will never put on your shoulders even one pound more than you can bear. But, ‘she would always add, ‘you will never have to carry one pound less, either.’ Otherwise we would not grow.”

Wisdom from another modern scientist is ALSO helpful here. Wondering HOW to alchemize our threat response to a challenge response right in the moment we need to make the shift? Well, let’s go to Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn for her take on the subject. Blackburn wrote The Telomere Effect.

She tells us: “Feeling threatened is not the only way to respond to stress. It’s also possible to feel a sense of challenge. People with a challenge response may feel anxious and nervous during a lab stressor test, but they also feel excited and energized. They have a ‘bring it on!’ mentality. ...

Athletes who have a challenge response win more often, and a study of Olympic athletes has shown that these highly successful folks have a history of seeing their life problems as challenges to be surmounted. The challenge response creates the psychological and physiological conditions for you to engage fully, perform at your best, and win. The threat response is characterized by withdrawal and defeat, as you slump in your seat or freeze, your body preparing for wounding and shame as you anticipate a bad outcome. A predominant habitual threat response can, over time, work itself into your cells and grind down your telomeres. A predominant challenge response, though, may help shield your telomeres from some of the worst effects of chronic stress.”

In short, the next time you feel stress, smile. Flip the switch. Connect with your inner daimon. Know your infinite potential exists *just* on the other side of your comfort zone. Then say, “BRING IT ON!” as you step forward and give us all you’ve got.

There’s so much I love about that passage.

First, I love the fact that one of the very first yogis to come from India to the US in the early 20th century—one of THE most respected spiritual leaders of his era who trained Gandhi in his Kriya Yoga technique—uses the metaphor of a couple of people fighting to make his point.

As I’ve said many times, the Bhagavad Gita, the spiritual Bible of India, is set on a metaphorical BATTLEFIELD. The hero of the story (Arjuna) is a warrior. He is reluctant to enter a battle. He is mentored by his God (Krishna) to DO HIS DUTY as a WARRIOR and FIGHT—protecting the world from viciousness.

Of course, the ultimate war is WITHIN each of us.

And... If we have *any* real shot at truly changing the world and winning all those *external* real and metaphorical wars out there, WE MUST WIN THAT WAR WITHIN!!!

We must be like the fighter who doesn’t give up. We must give our own bad habits ONE MORE PUNCH. Learning each time we fall short of our high standards as we build the strength we need to do what we’re here to do in service to something bigger than ourselves.

As I typed that out, I thought of some of my favorite wisdom from my all-time favorite business book, Jim Collins’ Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. He says the same thing.

Here’s how he puts it: “Most of us get decked somewhere along the way in life, slammed to the ground, the world looking down on us. And when—not if, when—that happens, we have a choice. Do we get back up? And when it happens again, do we get back up again? And again, and again, and again, and again? When I’m being clobbered by events, pounded by setbacks, or just flat-out exhausted from dealing with my own mistakes, I think of Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill, and Tommy Caldwell. Not persisting in a grim manner, full of endless suffering, but joyfully and gratefully persisting, fueled by passionately pursuing purposeful work. Life is way too long to give up early and way too short to be derailed from what we’re passionate about and made to do.”

You fail lately? Perfect. Me, too.

I remind you: THAT’S PART OF THE HEROIC PROCESS.

As Phil Stutz tells me nearly every time we chat: We will NEVER (!) be exonerated from pain, uncertainty and hard work. Our story that we shouldn’t be experiencing whatever challenges we’re experiencing is, arguably, THE greatest obstacle to our success and eudaimonic joy.

The questions when we fail are simple: What did you learn? What mistake do you need to QUIT making? How can you use that data to get stronger?

As Yogananda says: “Diagnose your failures and sort out your good and bad tendencies. Analyze what you are, what you wish to become, and what shortcomings are impeding you. Decide the nature of your true task—your mission in life. Endeavor to make yourself what you should be and want to be.”

You may be bruised but keep your head up. Give us all you’ve got. TODAY.

P.S. Want a Heroic Buddhist take on the subject? Check out our Notes on The Undefeated Mind.

Again, there’s a LOT to discuss in that little passage.

First, habits. Yogananda pre-echoes what we now know about the science of habit creation as well. As we discuss in our Heroic Basic Training and Mastery Series, it’s all about using our willpower wisely to install habits that run on autopilot via algorithms.

One of the keys to DELETING a bad habit? As James Clear (Atomic Habits) and BJ Fogg(Tiny Habits) and all other great teachers on the subject tell us: You need to REMOVE THE PROMPT. No prompt/trigger/cue, no behavior. Period.

Struggling with alcohol? Perfect. Remove all of it from your house and quit going to bars and hanging out with people who do. Struggling with staring at your phone when you’re with your loved ones? Perfect. Put it out of sight and out of touch.

In short: Make the trigger INVISIBLE.

Second, we ALL (!) ALWAYS (!) have “two forces warring against each other within us.” That force telling us the good and noble things to do? That’s our daimon. That force telling us to do the vicious things we *know* we shouldn’t do? That’s our demon—which, recall, etymologically is simply the diminutive of daimon.

Which one are YOU listening to?

The ultimate game is simple, my beloved Hero. Pay attention to your inner soul.

Go from -1 to +1 all day every day.

Let’s close the gap between who we’re *capable* of being and who we’re *actually* being as we move from Theory to Practice to Mastery TOGETHER Today.

Those are the final words of this little book. We end where we began. The ultimate law of success? Each of us has been given unique gifts and responsibilities. We must sit in silence and connect to a deeper intelligence and then DO WHAT WE ARE HERE TO DO.

In The Great Work of Your Life, Stephen Copeshares parallel wisdom from the Gita on the importance of answering our unique sacred callings.

He tells us “At the end of life, most of us will find that we have felt most filled up by the challenges and successful struggles for mastery, creativity, and full expression of our dharma in the world. Fulfillment happens not in *retreat* from the world, but in *advance*—and profound engagement.”

All of THAT brings us back to Michael Singer. I recently memorized this quote and now I know who inspired him so he could inspire us...

“My formula for success was very simple—do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it was given to you by the universe itself, because it was.”

Here’s to plugging in to something bigger than ourselves as we activate our Soul Force and give our families, communities and world all we’ve got!