Week 1 - Session 1
Listen to 1 hr Introduction mp3
Results: Fell asleep after the first 15 minutes. This guy is way too calm. Woke up at the exact point where he started the guided meditation. Phew! Really enjoyed the meditation and found my mind wandering a lot. It was good to have the breathing as something to focus on to bring me back to the meditation. Found myself so relaxed that just about every muscle in my body ached. Especially my forearms. After reviewing the session, it made me realize how distracted I really get. I spend so much time doing a million different things that I lose sense of being in the present. All in all, a good intro.

As part of my journey to ‘Reprogram The Mind For Success‘ I will be joining a group of like minded friends in a 6 week Introductory course on Mindfulness Meditation. The aim of the whole exercise is to clear the ‘Noise’ from inside my mind and hopefully learn some new techniques about how to maintain a sense of  inner calm.

I guess I should start by explaining what I understand Mindfulness Meditation to be. I see it as one of the many different forms of meditation and one that focusses on being aware of the present moment. In its Buddhist context, mindfulness meditation has three purposes: knowing the mind; training the mind; and freeing the mind. The first stage is about ‘The Noise’. Knowing what it is that makes your mind so busy all the time. This is the clutter that keeps us getting distracted from the task at hand. Once we understand what we are looking for, it is easier to clear it out. The next step is ‘Training The Mind”. This is where I will literally train my mind to operate in a way that benefits me the most. Just like anything else in life, in order to improve, I need to step out of my comfort zone and put in the extra effort.

So I invite you to join me on this little journey of self discovery. I will be meditating a minimum of 3 times per week for atleast 20 minutes per session and I will share the experience with you. I will talk about how it felt, was it relaxing, what was I distracted by, and whether I found it difficult. Hopefully, by the end of the 6 weeks, we will see some sort of progression.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

Reprogramming The Mind For Success

Do you remember that you have a choice as to how you look at your subconscious?
Those that are happy, healthy, successful, fulfilled and balanced in life have that as their
self-image. Those that are unhappy, broke, unfulfilled and live unbalanced lives have this
as their self-image. Your self-image - the picture of you in your mind - is being
created from day one. It is important for you to recognize how you see yourself
within, which means being very honest with yourself! And to take this to another level, think about how it could affect your children. What is their self image and what are their beliefs? It’s important to get this right from an early stage to give them the best opportunity in life.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

So lets look at an example and see how it all works.
Think of a fear that you may have. Lets say it’s ‘Investing in the stockmarket’. Perhaps you gained this fear from a bad experience in the past because you lost some money. Perhaps it’s simply your Self Image that you are not an investor. Either way, you have instilled a belief in your subconscious mind that produces a chemical reaction and produces that fear every time you think about ‘investing in the stock market’.

A series of events occurs.
First, your psycho cybernetic mechanism recognizes that you have created a thought process that is in direct conflict with your beliefs. In other words, you have briefly imagined yourself investing in the stockmarket. Your PCM sees this as a diversion from your usual course and sends a message to your Amygdala. In turn, it releases chemicals into your body, creating feelings of fear, doubt and anxiety.

However, lets say you meet someone who has done quite well from the stockmarket and says that he will help you, but first of all you need to come up with £20,000.

Straight away your first thoughts are going to be of what it would feel like to lose that £20k. Fear and anxiety take over and you hear yourself making excuses as to why you can’t come up with the money. It’s fight or flight and your survival instinct has naturally pulled you away from the situation to protect you and return you to your comfort zone.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

The Psycho-Cybernetic Mechanism (PCM) is our brain’s version of a thermostat. Just like the one found in an airconditioning system, it’s role is to measure the deviation from setpoint and produce an output that will return the temperature back to it’s original settting. Our brain’s PCM is very similar, but it’s not only associated with temperature. It is more concerned with our Comfort Zone and when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable situation, it will trigger a series of events to naturally bring us back to our happy medium. This function actually plays a very important role in our survival. To do this, the PCM employs the role of the Amygdala.

The Amygdala is an almond shaped set of nuclei in the brain. It is most commonly associated with emotions such as fear, anxiety, doubt and depression. This Amygdala is actually the circuit that is triggered by the PCM when it senses you are out of your comfort zone. It releases the chemicals that cause you to feel doubt, fear and anxiety.

Stay tune for part 2 and we’ll find out what this all means.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

Inside our brain stem is a mass known as The Reticular Formation. It is the connection point for the millions of different neural pathways between the various parts of our brain and the rest of our body. This whole system was named ‘The Reticular Activation System (RAS)’ by physiologist H. W. Magoun, who discovered that by stimulating it, he could wake someone from their sleep. Every second, 10-11million bits of information pass through this system and it’s the role of the Reticular Formation to process everything. However, because our conscious mind cannot cope with this much information, it acts as a ‘Filter’, according to our beliefs, habits and self image. Therefore out of all the information the we receive every day, the only parts that will actually make it to our brain is the information that lines up with what we believe. This is why two people can attend the same event yet have completely different memories of the experience.

But the point is this: You have complete control over the way you think!

If you believe that making money is hard; if you believe becoming slim is hard; if you believe finding the right partner is hard; if you believe investing is hard; guess what, it’s going to be hard!
Your neural pathways are only doing their job. They are taking the emotional attachment,  linking it to the action and joining them together. ‘Loose weight’-‘This is hard’ or ‘Start Investing’ – Too hard’. The more you say it, think it, feel it and apply emotions to it, the stronger the neural pathways between these two associations become. Your RAS then picks this up and finds it a priority to use in the filtering process. All of a  sudden you have talked yourself into a bad habit that will be difficult to break. Your brain has an emotional hook associated with what you want to achieve and you will never be able to do it.
Of course, the next question we must ask is, ‘What happens when we contest a belief, raise our own self-image or try and break a habit? Why is that so hard to do?’

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

So what is the subconcious and what do we mean by association? Lets look at it like this. Our mind is made up of millions and millions of highways called Neural Pathways. These neural pathways join parts of the brain that associate certain memories to stimulus to form a picture or idea. Basically, we use our senses to pick up and read an event. This information is then sent to the brain to be processed and reaches our subconcious via these neural paths. We then respond in a certain way and it is mapped and recorded, should the occurrence ever happen again. Can you see where we are heading with this…

Over time, the more you act, think, and speak in a certain way, the more you strengthen the very neural pathways that fire this behaviour, to the point where you can do it unconsciously. This is the same as forming a habit. Habits are automatic behaviours that occur due to very strong neural pathways.
Every second of our existence, our subconscious processes, facilitates and creates between 10 billion-400 billion actions (neural transmissions). It also controls between 96-98% of our perception and behaviour. What was once thought a waste of space (i.e. the myth that we only use a small amount of our brain) is in fact our control center and is the most important part of us.

However, the thing about the subconscious mind is that it cannot tell the difference between what is true and what is not. It simply does what it is told.  This is where your conscious comes in to play.
Put simply:

Your conscious mind has a job. Its job is to tell the subconscious mind what to do. The role of your subconscious mind is to do what it is instructed. This could be from either conscious thought or external influences.

However, there is a very important point to be aware of and it’s this….

The subconcious mind CANNOT destinguish between right and wrong or good and bad. For example, if you keep saying to yourself, ‘I’m not going to smoke while I’m at work‘, then all the subconscious mind hears is ‘ smoke while at work’. Your body will then automatically retreat to it’s comfort zone and make it harder for you to quit smoking at work.

Once you recognize this pertinent point you can actually start to use it to your advantage. We will talk about this some more later, but for now, just listen to the way that you talk to yourself in your mind. These simple conversations can have a dramatic effect on the results that you are achieving.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

Have you ever been on a diet, lost a bit of weight and then ended up back where you started? Have you been trading the stockmarket, started off with say £10,000, got up to £50,000, then ended up back at £10,000 if not less. Have you been trying to get out of debt, or change your lifestyle and find yourself, continually getting the same result. No matter what you do, you end up doing the same thing over and over. Well, here’s the reason why. It is all to with your self image. How you perceive yourself, will create the actions you believe and therefore produce the associated results. If you keep saying to yourself, ‘I’ll never be able to ……’ and try to protect yourself by not really trying, then chances are you will never end up more than what you are today. Successful people like athletes use this technique all the time. Visualize what you want and that you all ready have it.

This all comes down to our self image and the functions of our subconscious. As part of our subconscious, there are four systems in our brain that determine who we are. They are:
1. Associations and Neural Pathways
2. The Reticular Formation
3. The Psycho-Cybernetic Mechanism
4. The Amygdala

We will discuss each of these soon, but first lets have a look at the decision making process. Every person has a self image embedded in their sub-conscious. This self image is what we call our ‘Comfort Zone’. As we receive information via our 5 senses, we tend to accept what is in line with our self image and disregard that which is not. Every now and then, we are forced to input information that is out of our comfort zone and this invokes feelings like fear and anxiety. Our natural response of Fight or Flight, is generally to retreat to the safety of our comfort zone and self image. Protection at all costs. So now that we understand the process, think back to the change in lifestyle you’ve been looking for, but can’t seem to find. Ring any bells? It’s all to do with our Self Image and Comfort Zone.

Yours Sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey

The Wealth Academy

Hi Everyone,
I just thought I would share a story with you of something incredible that happened to me today.
I went up to London today on the train to talk with some people about a new contract in Libya (as you do). Anyway, I was literally told about this job less than a week ago and it has been on my mind all week. So, I don the suit and head into London and on the train coming home, a bloke sits next to me and starts reading a book on Archeology. He then pulls out an old map of North Africa, which I duly look at and I think ha thats funny, imagine if he had a map on Libya, wouldn’t that be a coincidence. Then low and behold, he pulls out a map of Libya. I couldn’t believe it! Unfortunately, I had to get off the train straight away so I didn’t get to talk to him, but I had to wonder if this was something that I had manifested. What are the chance’s of that ever happening again? I wonder what else is possible when we actually start looking.
Take care,
Stuart.
As I walk through the valley of the blind, I saw a glimpse of the one eyed King.Haha!

What would you do if you won half a million dollars in the lotto?
10 years ago Dean Whittinghams parent’s won nearly $500,000 in the lotto. It was one of the most exciting days of their lives, but little did they know, about the journey they were about to embark on. That was enough money to see them right for the next 10 years, but instead, they were dead broke and in more debt than when they started, within a very short 4 year period. Imagine going from winning  $500,000 to living in government housing. This whole ordeal split them apart and it took a very long 6 years for them to find the courage to reunite. You can imagine the comments that were flying around. ‘How  could you waste away half a million dollars, and get into so much debt?’ and ‘If I had won that money, there’s no way I would have lost it all.’ Being an outsider, yet very attached to the situation, Dean was forced to ask the question of how this could happen to his parents. This was the start of an incredible journey into the theory of thought and how our self image directly affects the results that we achieve.  Clearly, Dean’s parents saw themselves as an ‘average income type family’ and their resulting actions led them straight back to the same situation that they started in. It’s amazing to think that 90% of lotto winners end up worse off than when they started and this is usually done within the first 5 years.
Dean Whittingham set out on an psychological adventure to find out why.

Stay tuned and we will look at why this statement about lotto winners is true.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ginbey