If you have a blog, website, newsletter, or if you write for some other publication, you can get a free review copy of my new book Personal Development for Smart People — before the book hits the shelves on October 15th. This is a print version of the book (not an e-book), shipped to you for free.

What’s the catch? The catch is that you have to meet some very basic criteria to qualify, and you agree to write a review of the book in your publication sometime during the month of October.

I announced this in my newsletter less than 24 hours ago, and about 90 bloggers have requested copies so far, with audiences ranging from a few hundred readers to more than a million. I expect this number will grow to hundreds of bloggers within the next few days.

I proposed this idea with Hay House (the book’s publisher) first, and they’re willing to send out hundreds of review copies to bloggers who get enough web traffic to justify the expense. Consequently, Hay House can’t send freebies to everyone who requests one, but they’ve agreed to send copies to the people I qualify first.

How to Qualify for a Free Book

Here are the criteria to qualify for a free review copy of my book:

1. You have a website, blog, newsletter, or access to some other publication where you can post your own review of the book.
2. Your publication has a non-embarrassing level of traffic or readership. I.e. if you post a book review, it will be seen by a reasonable number of people (at least 100 or so), and you have some way of demonstrating this. For example, your website has an Alexa.com ranking of 1,000,000 or better, your blog posts show active visitor commenting, your content comes up in Google searches, your website has been online for at least a few months, you write for a magazine found on newsstands, or something along those lines. Since it costs Hay House money to mail out each review copy, I just need some way of verifying that your publication is more than a ghost town.
3. You agree to write and post an original review of the book on or around October 15th (i.e. sometime in October 2008) where your readers will see it. For publications with long lead times, a later publication date is okay.
4. If it’s posted online or in some other electronic medium, your review links to the book’s sales page at Amazon.com. Feel free to use your own Amazon affiliate links if you’d like.
5. Optional: You don’t have to do this last step, but I’d appreciate it if you would also post a review of the book at Amazon.com. All I ask is that you share your thoughts honestly. I will never ask anyone to post phony five-star reviews to help inflate the book’s rating (which is unfortunately an all-too-common practice I’ve seen other authors use, where the first 10-20 reviews are from friends of the author). Once you read the book, you’ll understand why I’ll never use such tactics, regardless of how effective they may be at boosting sales.

How to Get a Link From StevePavlina.com

As an extra incentive, if you post a review of the book sometime in October and then email me a link to your review once it’s online, I’ll add a link to your review from my website. StevePavlina.com gets more than 2 million visitors per month, so you’ll gain a free link from a high-traffic website in exchange for writing the review. Most likely that link will be online indefinitely.

In order for me to link to your review, I need to see at least enough substance in your review that makes it clear you actually read the book. I won’t link to reviews that merely rehash the book’s back cover. However, you don’t have to write an exceedingly gushing or glowing review. You don’t even have to recommend the book to your visitors. Just share your honest thoughts about it in a way that provides some extra value to your visitors and mine. Fair enough?

Why Am I Doing This?

Obviously the idea here is to help create more buzz for the book in the blogosphere, which in turn should help generate more sales. But making more money isn’t my main motivation for doing this. If I just wanted to make more money, I’d have self-published this as an e-book or produced a home study course for a higher price point, and it would already be selling here today. It’s likely I’d make a lot more money from self-publishing than I would by working with a publisher, especially considering that my net income per sale would be around 10x higher if I self-published.

The reason I went with a mainstream publisher is that my primary motivation is to see that the ideas in this book spread to as many people as possible. Call me an idealist, but I think this is a book that will help shift a lot of people’s mindsets for the better. So I think it makes sense to offer free copies to those people who can turn around and share the book’s ideas with many others.

By working with a mainstream publisher, I also ensure that the book will be available in bookstores around the world and translated into multiple languages. There will be versions available for Amazon’s Kindle device and Sony’s ebook reader as well. That’s a lot more than I can do on my own if I self-published, even if I gave the book away for free.

Don’t tell Hay House I said this, but I honestly don’t care if this book earns me a dime. Ok… well maybe I care, but that isn’t my main concern here. My ultimate goal is to change the way people think about personal growth. I’d like to see us abandon the fragmented, fast-and-easy drivel sold by slick marketers, so we can collectively embrace a more practical and holistic process of growth and change that’s aligned with the principles of truth, love, and power.

All Publication Topics and Languages Welcome

Since Personal Development for Smart People is a book about universal principles of growth and change, the ideas in the book can be applied to absolutely any field, so it doesn’t matter if your website’s topic seems totally unrelated to personal growth, self-help, or psychology. Personally I’d love to see people exploring how the book’s ideas can be applied to other fields like game development, fashion, art, music, science, and so on.

Non-English publications are fine too. Hay House is an international publisher, so Personal Development for Smart People will be available worldwide in multiple languages. At this time I don’t know what the non-English release schedule will look like. But if you want to write a review in Russian, Chinese, or any other language, go for it.

How to Request a Review Copy

If you believe you meet the criteria above and would like to request a free review copy of the book, please send me the following info via my contact form: (1) your name, (2) the URL of your website or blog, (3) an estimate of your website’s monthly visitors, (4) any evidence that I can use to verify that your site is more than a ghost town, and (5) your mailing address to receive the review copy.

Review copies will be mailed in September. This offer expires on September 30th, 2008.

Since it’s likely that I’ll be flooded with review copy requests this weekend, please give me up to a week to acknowledge your request.

Interview Requests

If you have a blog, website, podcast, radio show, or other publication and would like to arrange an interview with me related to the launch of Personal Development for Smart People, please let me know as soon as possible. Presently my lead time for interviews is about 2-3 weeks.

Before I announced my book, I would usually receive a few interview requests per month. Now I’m averaging 5-6 requests per week, and this doesn’t include what Hay House’s own PR team will soon generate. So I have to be a lot more selective that I used to be. However, if I must decline your request, I can at least provide you with a standard text interview that you can republish if you’d like (it includes questions and answers); it just won’t be exclusive.

What to Expect

In order to make sure we’re on the same page, if you’re concerned that I’ll be shamelessly promoting this book in the weeks ahead, you’re absolutely right! Given how much effort I put into writing it, I’m certainly not going to wimp out when it comes to telling the world about it. So you can expect more PR-related announcements like this one, especially around October 15th when the book launches. It’s easy enough for people to disregard any announcements and updates that don’t interest them, so if this bothers you for some reason, you should probably get away from the computer and go outside more often.

I also have dozens of ideas for new articles, so rest assured there will be plenty of fresh content appearing here as well. It’s not every day I have a book coming out.

Pre-order Steve's NEW book Personal Development for Smart People with a discount at Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com (shipping Oct 15, 2008)

© 2008 by Steve Pavlina.

On Sunday, October 5th, I’ll be speaking in Tampa, Florida at Hay House’s I Can Do It! conference. This will be the same presentation I did in June at their Las Vegas conference, with improvements based on audience feedback.

ICDI is a very popular self-help conference with thousands of attendees. I’ve been attending ICDI Vegas since 2004, and it’s been an amazing experience every time.

The 7 Keys to Genuine Growth

My 90-minute presentation will be on Sunday, October 5th from 11:00am to 12:30pm and is titled Personal Development for Smart People: The 7 Keys to Genuine Growth. Click the link for details on the presentation.

Erin and I will be attending the whole conference, so please do say hi if you see us there. Erin’s twin sister will be there as well — her first time at ICDI.

If you want to get a detailed insider’s perspective on the conference, feel free to read the reviews of ICDI Las Vegas 2008, ICDI 2007, and ICDI 2006.

Books Available

Even though Personal Development for Smart People won’t be officially released until October 15th, I’m told that the book will be available for sale at the Tampa conference (Oct 3-5).

After my workshop I’ll be doing a book signing — my first ever.

I’ll also hang out after the session to answer any questions people have and just to say hi.

Hay House Radio Show Taping

I’ll be participating in another Hay House Radio show with author Eldon Taylor during the Tampa conference. This show taping will be on Saturday, October 4th, 2:30 - 3:30pm. There will be seating available if you want to watch us live.

Erin’s Readings

Erin will be offering a limited number of in-person readings during the conference in our hotel room, so if you’re interested in booking a reading with her in Tampa, please contact her first, so she can work out the best appointment time for you. All bookings will be done on a first-come, first-served basis.

How This Came to Be

If you’re curious to know, here’s the story of how I ended up speaking at this conference. In 2006 a producer from Hay House Radio stumbled upon my review of the 2006 ICDI conference. From there she started reading some of my other online articles and liked what she saw. We had a friendly email exchange about it. Eventually this led to a meeting with Reid Tracy (President of Hay House) at ICDI Las Vegas in 2007. That meeting led to a book deal, and the book deal ultimately led to my speaking at ICDI as a new Hay House author.

So all of this basically happened as a result of blogging. I never had to get a literary agent or submit proposals to lots of publishers. I never had a manuscript or book proposal get rejected. Disgusting, isn’t it?

Apparently one way to secure a book deal with a major publisher is to write and give away about 20 books worth of free content first — in order to polish your ideas, hone your craft, build a platform, and prove that you can deliver value that helps people. That may sound like too much effort… unless of course you genuinely love what you do and would do it for free anyway.

Hope to see you at ICDI Tampa.

Pre-order Steve's NEW book Personal Development for Smart People with a discount at Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com (shipping Oct 15, 2008)

© 2008 by Steve Pavlina.

If you haven’t concluded by now that I’m totally nuts, this post should push you over the edge.

Several people have asked if I’m still able to connect with my recently departed friend Ron who died in a car accident on August 14th. The answer is yes. He’s been hanging around often. The connection is so strong that I don’t have to meditate or anything. I just think of him and can instantly converse with him. I’ve never experienced such a strong connection before.

I’ve also been in contact with two other friends who’ve been sensing Ron’s presence around them. I’m not going to share their stories publicly, so I’ll just say that this whole thing has been rather fascinating.

While I’ve often connected with non-physical entities over the past several years (I was deep into it in 2002 and 2003), this is the first time I’ve had such a strong connection with someone I already knew as a human being, let alone someone I can trust and who has a communication style I’m already familiar with. That’s a rare opportunity, so I wanted to use it to learn more about the other side. Ron was a very logical, left-brained guy, so I figured if anyone could tell me what was going on over there and try some interesting experiments, he’d be the one to do it.

In his living life, I’d have never pegged Ron as the type of guy who’d be able to communicate so clearly and crisply from the other side. After all he was a Republican… hehehe. He was a very generous, giving guy, so maybe his giving nature somehow bestowed him more power on the other side. His energy comes through very strong and upbeat now, so he’s well past the initial shock of being dead.

Blackjack revisited

Due to what was basically an “accident,” I did a re-test of the blackjack experience with Ron last Thursday morning. Same casino as before. If you can’t handle weird, don’t read this.

As I wrote in a previous article, in our first field test, we won $580 in 90 minutes. All of that money was donated to the Ralph C. Smedley Memorial Fund to help support Toastmasters International, a non-profit organization.

On Thursday morning I was driving to the gym as usual, but I got distracted and made a wrong turn by mistake. There’s a lot of road construction near our house right now (building a new freeway overpass), so I have to take a detour for certain trips (like picking up the kids from summer school) but not for others (like going to the gym). I went the detour route by mistake, which was okay because it still sent me in the general direction of the gym, but it also meant I’d be driving right past the casino.

While driving I began to notice how sore I was feeling. I’m sore because I changed up my exercise routine recently. So I decided it would be better to take a walk and allow a little more recovery time instead of doing another gym workout. The casino is an okay place to walk indoors– even early in the morning it’s pretty hot outside in Vegas — so I parked and went inside. This early in the morning (just after dawn), the place is pretty much deserted.

As soon as I walk in the door of the billion-dollar structure, Ron shows up and suggests we try the blackjack thing again. I didn’t really want to play, so I just put him off with a noncommittal maybe. I said I wanted to walk a bit first, and then after that we’ll see.

I walked about two minutes, and Ron comes back again and insists, “Let’s play now. There’s a good table available.” My curiosity gets the better of me, so I acquiesce and head towards the tables.

I notice two blackjack tables open. There are lots of tables but most are closed this early in the day. The first table is under a cloud of smoke from the smokers that are playing, so I cash in for $200 at the second table and push out my $10 bet.

The table is only half full, and I sense that the energy of the other players seems a bit down. A little chit chat reveals they’ve been losing.

Then one of the other players lights up a cigarette. Since I normally avoid playing with smokers, I’m about to get up and leave, but Ron insists, “Stay put.” Ron was a non-smoker too by the way. Fortunately the smoke drifts away in the opposite direction and doesn’t bother me.

My fate is no different than the other players. The hands I’m dealt are total garbage… virtually nothing but 13s, 14s, 15s, and 16s. I bust most of them, and even when I don’t bust, the dealer is hitting 20s and 21s.

After losing 5 hands in a row, I’m about to give it up and leave, but Ron keeps repeating, “Don’t worry.” He says it will turn around. Then he adds half-jokingly, “Well, maybe not this shoe!”

My $200 dwindles to $80 within the first 15 minutes at the table.

I notice that every time I started to worry that things are going downhill, Ron pops in and says, “Don’t worry.” I felt he was hinting that my own energy was making it harder for him to help… that my attachment was practically generating a field of bad luck. I worked on raising my energy and becoming more detached. That wasn’t too difficult because at this level of betting, the money doesn’t mean anything to me, but I still prefer winning to losing. I began to feel better about losing, but the cards were still bad.

We finally reach the end of the shoe, so it’s time for a shuffle. The girl next to me cuts the deck. She gets dealt an instant blackjack while I get a 20 and win too. Then I get a blackjack on the following hand and win again. After that my hands are coming up all roses, and I’m scoring some nice splits and double downs. I start to win for a while, clawing my way back to the $200 I started with.

Now this is where it gets weird.

I’m sitting at the table with a plastic water bottle that I was going to take to the gym. At some point I realize that the water bottle is labeled with the name of the mortuary where I attended Ron’s service — that’s where I happened to pick up this bottle a few days earlier. I start becoming very self-conscious. I really don’t want to get into a conversation about why I have a mortuary-branded water bottle in a casino. I surreptitiously slide the bottle off the table and into my pocket. (I’m wearing athletic shorts with deep pockets.)

At this point everything seems to stagnate. Now I’m just trading hands. Every time I start to pull ahead a little, I lose a double down or split and drop below $200 again. I’m mostly bobbling around between $170 and $230… getting nowhere.

Then Ron says to me, “Put the water bottle back on the table. It makes it easier for me to see.”

Huh? What kind of insanity is that?

But I give him the benefit of the doubt and return the bottle to the table. I figure that since everything is energy, maybe he has some kind of energetic connection to the bottle because it was pretty much bathed in his energy at the memorial service where I got it.

And wouldn’t you know it? As soon as I return the bottle to the table, I start winning again — fast. The other players at the table all start winning too because the dealer is busting most of her hands. I can feel the energy of the whole table rising.

The woman next to me is landing so many splits, double downs, and blackjacks that she turns $100 into $500+. We both ham it up and start high-fiving each other with every big win. She starts calling the cards that come up with amazing accuracy. It was pretty insane. I probably could have kept going, but I needed to get home, so I cashed out at the end of the shoe with $415, for a net win of $215. I only played about 40 minutes total.

That brings the total win to $795 from about 130 minutes of play with Ron’s assistance.

As I returned to my car, Ron expressed how much he enjoyed this. He acted as if I’d done him some kind of favor, like I was pitching balls to him for batting practice.

Feeling drained

By the end of last week, I began feeling really strange. Physically I felt okay, but I felt like I lost all interest in life. I became totally lazy and unmotivated. I could barely motivate myself to eat — everything seemed way too effortful. I just wanted to sit on the couch and read. That was about all I did on Saturday.

I thought maybe I needed some extra rest, so I tried to take a nap. I lay down for an hour but couldn’t sleep at all. I wasn’t sleepy. I felt like I’d lost all interest in life. I can’t say I felt depressed. I just felt totally empty.

Partly I wanted to go out on Saturday night, figuring that being around other people would help restore my energy and enthusiasm. But I let those plans slide. I thought, “Eh… why bother?” I was totally apathetic. The only thing I felt like doing was absolutely nothing.

Erin noticed that something seemed off with me, so we sat down and talked about it. She suggested that maybe Ron was feeding off my energy to stay grounded to the physical plane. Eventually it drained me dry. That made sense to me because I felt like my spirit had been sucked dry, even though my body felt okay.

I realized this draining didn’t happen suddenly. It came on gradually ever since I started connecting with Ron after he died. As the week progressed, I began feeling more and more disconnected and apathetic about my life.

We did some energy work to help me disconnect from Ron and to encourage him to find another energy source. The details would be too much to insert into this article, but perhaps Erin or I can explore that at another time.

I gradually started feeling better within 24 hours, but I also lost the ability to connect with Ron as clearly as I could before. He seemed more distant, and the messages were coming through very fuzzy. I couldn’t lock in on his signal. It got harder to tell if I was getting a real communication from him or if I was stuck in my imagination or just picking up background interference. Before this energy work, he was always coming through strong and clear. If the signal strength was a 10 before, now it was down to about a 4.

Yet another blackjack trial

Last night I decided to pop down to the Strip to give the blackjack test another run. I brought the mortuary water bottle with me just in case it helped. My connection with Ron wasn’t feeling that strong, but I asked if he wanted to have another go at gaming together, and it seemed like he said okay. However, I wasn’t feeling it the same way I was before. I couldn’t hear him as well, and I was getting fuzzy and conflicting messages running through my mind. There was a lot of interference. I played blackjack at the Sahara and lost $135 in 20 minutes. I was able to remain upbeat and detached, but I could feel the connection just wasn’t there like it was before.

While walking down the Strip afterwards, I pondered that maybe Ron needed to connect with my energy to make this work. So I took a risk and told him that he could feed off my energy just for tonight in order to make his work, but after that we’d have to disconnect and let me recharge. I can’t say this was a wise idea, but I was too curious not to try it.

At that point he actually started coming through more clearly, but the signal still seemed weaker than before. It was maybe a 6 on a 1-10 scale. But at least I was feeling better about life and my motivation and enthusiasm had returned.

I popped into the Riviera, found a good blackjack table, and started playing. Ron complained that the continuous automatic shuffling machines were harder for him to work with. He said it was easier for him if the dealer hand-shuffled the decks. He said he would still try, but he couldn’t guarantee anything. I played 20 minutes and won $50. Better… but still down $85 for the night.

My final stop was Treasure Island. More automatic shuffling machines. The conditions were nice though — a friendly dealer and happy-go-lucky 20-something players who were in town for a conference. I coached them on how to play their hands while they downed as many free drinks as they could manage. They still made numerous errors and didn’t win, but at least I helped them make their money last longer, and we all had a little too much fun high-fiving on the big wins. My best hand was when I split 8s four times and won the quad bet when the dealer busted. I played for an hour and 40 minutes and won $125.

I always find it fascinating that people who are new to blackjack almost always play too conservatively. They give an edge to the house largely because they fail to take advantage of all the opportunities for doubling down and splitting. They feel good about winning a single bet, not realizing they could have won double, triple, or more if they played more aggressively. I previously wrote about this in the article Life Lessons from Blackjack. It’s such a great metaphor for how people live their lives. People cling to their small gains, not realizing the bigger opportunities they missed because they settled for less than they could have gotten. When the odds are 60% that you’ll win the hand, you want to push more chips out when you can. Missing such opportunities should be seen as a loss, not a lesser win.

My evening trial ended with a small net win of $40, bringing our total winning streak to $835. I thanked Ron for his help and disconnected from his energy. I didn’t feel energetically drained, but I was tired from being up later than usual. Even after midnight it was still hot outside as I walked back to my car.

Today I feel really good and super happy. My energy and enthusiasm are back up again. I’m going to have to be careful when doing so much connecting with the other side though. I was lucky that Erin was able to help me diagnose this problem.

No card counting

There’s one important fact I forgot to mention earlier. In all of these blackjack experiments with Ron, I was NOT counting cards, even though I know how. I was varying my bets a little, but those variations had nothing to do with the count because I wasn’t tracking the count. I played every hand according to the same basic strategy you’ll find in any off-the-shelf blackjack book.

Why didn’t I count cards? The honest answer is that it wasn’t worth the effort for the low limits I was betting and the very low frequency with which I play. I used to do a lot of card counting when I was in my early 20s, but I didn’t want to make a career out of blackjack. If I play today, it’s more for socialization and fun than because I’m trying to win money. I’d rather relax and chat openly with the dealer and the other players instead of doing mental gymnastics in my head. Card counting can be very mentally draining. After a few hours of it, my brain is mush.

So skill-wise I wasn’t bringing any special edge with me. The edge should have belonged to the house. But that didn’t seem to bother Ron.

Is this spiritually legal?

These experiences were rather surprising to me. First, I don’t know why the heck Ron seems to like blackjack, since I don’t recall him ever expressing interest in casino gambling. I asked him about that last week (while we were still strongly connected), and he basically said he’s trying to practice affecting the physical universe from the other side. Fair enough. I can imagine that if I were a spirit trying to influence the physical world, I might also start with games of chance, since it allows for a lot of repetitive practice, and the outcome is measurable. You can also publicly affect reality without overriding anyone’s free will, since skeptics still retain the freedom to dismiss such events as luck or chance; they can also assume you’re lying if they weren’t an eye witness.

As it turns out, maintaining consistency with the skeptics’ version of reality is pretty important. According to Ron, it is NOT spiritually permitted to override a skeptic’s freedom to choose their beliefs; in practice this means that skeptics always have to have an out. Either they can’t be there to see what would shock them, or they have to be able to dismiss such reports as false, exaggerated, pure luck, etc. A skeptic cannot be shown proof of what they doubt.

During our first blackjack test, Ron and I were playing for charity, but for these last two trials, it was understood that I was just playing for myself. Partly I wanted to know if this would still work if I was playing for individual gain. I was very curious about that. The limits I was betting weren’t going to make a serious dent in my finances or the casinos’, but still — if Ron is doing something from the other side to help me win, doesn’t that break some kind of spiritual rule?

So I asked him, “Ron, shouldn’t this be spiritually illegal or something? Doesn’t it violate some kind of ethereal law to do this sort of thing? Playing for charity is one thing, but should you really be helping me win extra cash for myself? Is this going to come back to bite us later?”

His answer actually made me laugh. He said, “Don’t worry. I can see that you have karma points to spare.” Then he showed me what looked like an energy meter that revealed a full positive karma supply. He suggested that I’d earned a lot of positive karma because of the work I’ve done with my blog. He seemed to be half-joking as he said this, as if he found my original question amusing.

To my recollection that was the first time he communicated visually with me since he crossed over. Apparently he’s gaining new skills.

In some follow-up exchange (also last week while we had a strong connection going), Ron shared the opinion that what we did was mostly okay because my intention was to help him and to satisfy my curiosity, not because I really wanted/needed the money. Ron suggested that if my intention had been the latter, this wouldn’t have worked… or if we found a way to make it work, it would have incurred some kind of karmic debt for both of us. Hmmm…

As I looked back, I realized he was right about my intentions. I really wasn’t focused on winning money. Even when I was losing, I was more concerned that Ron might be failing in his efforts. Ron implied that my lack of attachment to the money was very important.

Imagine if you ran a similar test by playing one-penny blackjack, limiting your buy-in to 20 cents total. Hopefully this amount of money won’t make or break you, so you can detach from worrying about the financial impact and just play for fun and curiosity. That’s how I felt about the amount I was risking. Win or lose, it’s not going to impact me either way.

Ron’s answer makes sense to me. If we could all get rich by enlisting non-physical entities to help us win at gambling, there wouldn’t be any gambling because the casinos would go broke. It seems like that would also defeat the purpose of living in a reality where money is used as a medium of exchange. So however this works from a spiritual perspective, it has to be consistent with what we’re already experiencing. Even so, it sounds like those rules have some flexibility, although there may be unforeseen negative consequences to pushing the boundaries. It felt okay to do this as a short-run experiment, but it wouldn’t feel right to me to do this with a long-term profit motivation.

The role of polarity

I asked Ron what role polarity plays in this (still last week while we were strongly connected). He said that since we’re both on the same side intention-wise, we can work together on cross-bridging experiments like we just did, but it’s still not easy because we now exist primarily in different frequency ranges, so we must both stretch in order to communicate. This can drain us both if we don’t disconnect and recharge now and then.

Ron said that he doesn’t really know what the darkworker side can do because he hasn’t looked into it. He did tell me, however, that he can’t do anything that would interfere with human free will, mainly because the nature of reality prevents it. He was able to connect with me because I invited him to and because I’m already open to such experiences. If I didn’t believe we could connect, he wouldn’t have been able to come through at all because that would have violated my freedom to choose my beliefs. We talked extensively about free will, so I may have to write a follow-up article on that topic. It’s quite fascinating.

Please take note that I’m just sharing my experiences as they come. I’m not trying to convince you of anything here. You’ll surely filter my reports through your own belief lenses, and that’s fine. I totally understand if these kinds of stories are too much for some people to handle. I’d never have believed this myself 20 years ago, so if you don’t believe me or if you think I’m making this up, I can’t fault you for that. I respect your ability to choose your beliefs, regardless of how that impacts our ongoing relationship.

Please also be aware that I’m committed to sharing my growth experiences as they occur, so if you ask me to stop writing on such topics simply because these ideas conflict with your current understanding of reality, I have to decline because otherwise I’d be holding back way too much. As I see it, if you and I agree on absolutely everything, we can’t help each other grow. It’s only by exploring our differences that we can learn from each other.

Pre-order Steve's NEW book Personal Development for Smart People with a discount at Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com (shipping Oct 15, 2008)

© 2008 by Steve Pavlina.

After I was arrested for grand theft in my late teens, I was stuck sitting in the county jail for a few days. My cellmate was another teenager who was there for possession of marijuana. We were both rather depressed, scared, and uncertain about what fate would befall us. Jail can be a gloomy place at times. Nobody wants to be there. It’s hard to think about anything but the huge mistake that landed you there.

At some point on the second or third day, a guard came by to deliver us a change of clothes. We had to wear those orange pajama-type outfits, not our own street clothes. If I recall correctly, first we had to strip totally naked and hand in our old clothes. Then we received the new ones. They’re pretty strict about such things.

As my cellmate and I opened our fresh bundles of clothes and began getting dressed, he started laughing uproariously. I turned toward him to see what could possibly be so funny. He shot me a huge grin and held up one of the clean socks he was given. The sock was only about an inch long. It wasn’t a shrunken sock — it was just the first inch of a regular sock, only enough to cover the toes. This may be one of those “you had to be there moments,” but we looked at each other and busted up laughing. What was he supposed to do with a one-inch sock?

Even though being in jail can be a depressing experience, that small bit of silliness raised our energy tremendously. For at least the next hour, it helped us feel more lighthearted and not take the situation so seriously. Being in jail only enhanced the laughter because we had more tension to release.

This happened more than 17 years ago, and I still chuckle about it from time to time.

Where’s the sock?

Sometimes when I’m hit by a number of setbacks in a row, I get knocked down to a lower energy level. For me the most common negative states are frustration and overwhelm.

When I notice I’m getting sucked down, I’ll sometimes ask myself, “Where’s the sock?”

I remind myself that if I can find a way to laugh in jail, then surely I can feel at least that good about anything that might happen outside of jail. It’s just a matter of shifting my perspective.

Finding the sock may mean looking for the humor or irony in a bad situation. Other times it means noticing the silver lining behind the clouds.

Behind every sorrow is a deeper joy. Behind every setback is a greater opportunity. Behind every death is a reawakening to new life.

As I noted in my last post, seven days ago a good friend of mine passed away. Do I feel depressed about that? No, actually I feel happier than I did a week ago — not because I wanted him dead! — but because his passing gave me (and many others) more clarity about what’s most important.

In the past I’ve experienced blows that have made me question my current path and switch directions, sometimes abruptly. In this particular case, I didn’t feel any pressure to switch paths, but I do feel a deeper sense of commitment to the path I’m already on.

Lighten up

A problem many of us have is that we take life too seriously and become overly attached to the trappings of the physical universal. Then when those comforts are threatened — which is inevitable because everything physical is impermanent — we go all kittywompus and have a difficult time handling it.

To lighten up means to release your paranoid death-grip on your physical world trappings, such as your possessions, your relationships, your social status, and your income. All of that is temporary. It cannot possibly endure.

If you can accept — really and truly accept — that every component of your physical life is temporary and will eventually end, you can still enjoy your physical experiences without suffering so much when you lose them.

The less attached you are to your physical life, the more you’ll enjoy it.

If you get a chance, go outside and pick up a rock. Hold it in your hand. Realize that this is a unique and temporary experience. Here in the physical universe, you can pick up and hold rocks. You can feel their weight, texture, and hardness. This might seem like a very mundane experience at first, but realize that you won’t always be able to do this. Your ability to interact with the physical universe is temporary, and it will soon end. Against the backdrop of eternity, your time here is actually quite brief. Enjoy it while it lasts.

What a terrible waste it is to find yourself here in the physical universe — for such a short while — and not enjoy yourself.

If you aren’t enjoying your life, then let go of the parts you don’t enjoy. Simply put those pieces down. Go find other pieces you actually enjoy.

Find the sock

If you feel that your life is akin to a jail cell and it seems overwhelming to change so many things you feel are wrong, then start by looking for the sock. Where’s the humor in your situation? If this was someone else’s story that you were watching unfold, what would you find amusing about it? At the very least, find a way to laugh at how at just how pathetic your life is. Be like George Costanza.

Some of the recurring sock patterns I’ve seen are:

1. Continuing to show up each day to a job you don’t even like. How pathetic is that? You volunteer to go sit in jail each day? Why? Because the pay is good? Because you like hanging out with prisoners? Because you look good in orange? How can you not laugh about this? If a friend said to you, “I just accepted a dare to go spend 90 days in jail; if I can do it, the guy who dared me says he’ll pay me a nice wad of cash,” would you not find that at least a little bit amusing… perhaps even crazy? Maybe you’ve been hanging out with the inmates so much you’re beginning to think like them.
2. Wanting to get back together with an ex-partner who dumped you. You want to get back together with someone who doesn’t even want you? Talk about needy and clingy…. Why not just bribe the other person to get back with you? If you can’t laugh at yourself for doing this, you must really be asleep. The only thing worse is wanting to get back with an ex-partner that you originally dumped.
3. Eating like crap and then complaining about how you look and/or feel. That’s like putting sugar in your car’s gas tank and then complaining that it has a hard time starting. Damned car! What’s wrong with this thing? You should be laughing with every bite.
4. Putting your bills first. All your creditors are satisfied while you’re stressed and unhappy. Brilliant achievement! Have you had your bill collectors over for dinner to tell them you love them so much that you’ve made pleasing them your top priority? Do you want a Scooby Snack for that? Maybe if you put happiness a bit higher on the scoreboard, you’d find it easier to create enough value that you never have to worry about your bills.
5. Doing the same thing every day and expecting dramatic change. Quite the optimist, aren’t you? You must be the one who gave my cellmate that one-inch sock. While we appreciated the laugh, you might want to note that a one-inch sock doesn’t quite serve the same function as a whole sock.

When you start laughing at the absolute ridiculousness of your life’s worst problems, this will raise your energy level for a while. You’ll actually feel lighter. This is a great time to make a few positive changes, even if they’re just little ones at first. Remember that the worse your situation is, the more it will help you to find the sock because you’ll have more tension to release.

It’s very hard to change while you’re holding lots of tension and stress inside. Look for the sock in order to break the tension, if only for a little while, and remind yourself what freedom feels like. Then imagine what your life could be like if freedom became your default state instead of a temporary interruption to a dreary existence.

You may not control all the circumstances of your life, but you can at least control your focus. You can choose to find the sock. And that’s really all the power you need to get moving toward greater freedom. Just keep looking for the sock.

Pre-order Steve's NEW book Personal Development for Smart People with a discount at Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com (shipping Oct 15, 2008)

© 2008 by Steve Pavlina.

On Thursday a good friend and fellow Toastmaster named Ron Lewison was in a serious car accident. He was rushed to the hospital, but his injuries were too severe, including a broken pelvis and a punctured lung. Shortly after his family arrived, he passed away. He was 69 years old and is survived by his wife of 47 years and his children and grandchildren.

On Sunday Erin and I attended Ron’s memorial service followed by a reception attended by his family, friends, and many other Las Vegas Toastmasters. I probably knew about half the people there.

Since Ron had such a deep and lasting impact on me, much more than he probably realized, I wanted to share some of what I learned from him, partly as a way of expressing my gratitude for the man that he was, and partly because I think it may inspire you to rethink a few things about your own life.

Mentor, coach, and friend

Ron was an incredible mentor and coach to many people. He was a DTM in Toastmasters International (the highest rank one can achieve) and was Toastmasters’ District 33 Mentor of the Year. He has attended and judged more speech contests than anyone I know. Just last weekend he shared his advice at a free workshop to help local speakers improve their performance in speech contests. Because he was so generous in giving of himself, he touched a lot of people’s lives, including mine.

I first met Ron in October 2004, just a few weeks after I started blogging. Ron came up to me after my first Division-level humorous speech contest (where I finished in 2nd place) and told me that he thought I showed great potential as a speaker and that I should consider joining an advanced Toastmasters club, a club that would challenge me more than my current club. I’d only been in Toastmasters for 4 months at that point, so I didn’t feel ready to join an advanced club.

I didn’t even meet all the prerequisites to join the club he recommended — I had to complete 10 Toastmasters speeches first, and I was only up to 6 so far. But Ron was pretty convincing, so I took his advice and attended a few meetings as a guest. I admit it was a bit intimidating at first because the other speakers were so much better than me — so smooth and flowing even when speaking off the cuff. I clearly remember what Ron said to me though: “It’s always good to join groups where you just barely qualify for membership. You’ll improve a lot faster that way because the other people will help lift you up to a new level.”

I realized he was right, so I joined that club as soon as I was qualified to do so, which happened in April 2005. What an amazing journey that has been! I learned much more from this advanced club than I would have learned if I stuck with the easier, safer path. I’m still a member of that club today, which has since become one of the most successful clubs in Vegas with about 35 members. In fact, Erin is being inducted as our newest member tonight.

In March 2005 I actually wrote a blog entry mentioning Ron’s advice. At the time I used to tease him that because of that blog post, I ranked #1 on his name on Google, so according to Google, I owned him. He seemed to find that amusing.

Having worked many years as a stock analyst on Wall Street, Ron was a great strategic thinker. He was able to look at a speech and make many suggestions for improvement, even though he wasn’t a top contest competitor himself. I can’t even count all the people who owe him a debt of gratitude for his help over the years.

In 2005, about a year after we first met, Ron and I and some local friends attended a seminar on the Vegas Strip. Erin was out of town with the kids (and our only car), so Ron offered to give me a ride. When I got in the car, he said he wanted to pick my brain about blogging, which was a nice exchange because I wanted to pick his brain about speaking and speech contests. There was a lot of traffic that day, so we were a little late arriving, but I didn’t mind because he was such a great person to talk to. He was immensely curious and was always thinking about how certain things could be improved — especially people.

Ron was always reading books, listening to CDs, and watching DVDs about communication and presentation skills. Whenever I went to a local speaking or presentation skills workshop, he was there. But instead of applying what he learned for his own use, Ron quickly turned around and passed on the best ideas he encountered to help coach others to improve. He had a great memory and often shared ideas and anecdotes from the vast amounts of information he absorbed. Most of the information products I have on speaking and communication skills were originally recommended by Ron. A glance at my bookshelf triggers memories of many conversations with him.

Ron encouraged me to continue competing in speech contests, saying that it was the fastest way to improve, equivalent to years of regular Toastmasters’ club attendance. Since then I’ve competed in three different contest seasons and learned a great deal from them. Following his advice required more courage, but it was a lot more effective. He helped me shave years off my learning curve. Ron did this for a lot of people.

There are many people who will help coach you up to their level, but what was so special about Ron is that he coached people beyond his level. How many of us can say that we’d willingly coach someone to surpass us? It was noted at yesterday’s service that Ron was a rare man with “the biggest intellect paired with the smallest ego.” I completely agree.

Ron was very encouraging of others, but he truthfully told people what they needed to hear. He didn’t let you squeak by when it was obvious you were performing below your potential. At the same time, he knew when it was best to be gentle with new speakers.

I think Ron approached coaching and mentoring with the mindset of an investor. Just as he once analyzed companies on Wall Street, he learned to recognize mediocre speakers who could eventually become great speakers if he invested some of his time and energy to help them. Ron was good at recognizing speakers who had heart (something he really couldn’t teach), and then he helped teach them the head-oriented stuff they needed to succeed. I imagine it’s a similar skill to recognizing a startup company with lots of raw passion and talent, a company that could do really well with the right mentoring and management.

As Ron witnessed my unfolding success as a blogger, he developed an interest in blogging as well. He attended my local blogging workshops and asked me a lot of follow-up questions. I think he was attracted to the idea of sharing his strategic business knowledge with more people. It took him a while, but he finally got his WordPress blog online at RonLewison.com and posted some of his articles shortly before he died. He had some trouble with the fonts because he pasted his articles from MS-Word — a common issue for new bloggers — but at least he got it up and running.

I’m not sure if Ron fully realized what a tremendous positive rippling effect he had on others. He was a very mental/analytical guy to be sure, but his actions affected people a lot more deeply than that. When Ron offered detailed advice and coaching, he came at it from the analysis side, probably because that was his background. However, I know that the people he coached, myself included, actually perceived Ron’s help as if he was saying, “I believe in you.” I have no doubt that he really cared about people.

Connecting after death

Now if you happen to maintain a belief system in which you’ve concluded that communication with the other side is impossible, you may want to skip this next section. On the other hand, if you’re of a more open-minded nature, I hope you’ll keep reading. I won’t be offended if you choose to skip it though since I know that death can be a sensitive subject for many people.

Partly because of my sensitivity to such things as well as the path Erin and I have shared for many years, after I learned of Ron’s death, I wondered if I would sense his presence or be able to connect with him in some way. Well, that happened in a most powerful way. I wasn’t too surprised that it happened since I always felt good about Ron while he was alive. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

On Friday (the day after Ron died), I took a 20-minute nap. I usually don’t take daytime naps, but I was out late meeting with someone the previous night, so I started getting drowsy and decided to take a short nap to refresh myself.

During this nap I had a vivid dream (I still dream even during short naps ever since my polyphasic sleep experimentation), and suddenly in the middle of the dream, Ron appeared to me. I wasn’t lucid at the time, so I didn’t know I was dreaming. In the dream I ran up to him, gave him a big hug, and exclaimed, “Ron! What are you doing here? I thought you were dead! What happened?”

Ron, however, just stood there and didn’t say a word. He didn’t even reciprocate the hug, which made me feel a bit stupid for initiating it. At that point I started becoming lucid and realized I was actually dreaming. I understood this wasn’t Ron in physical form, but it definitely felt like his energy. However, I still couldn’t get him to say anything. He didn’t even make eye contact with me. He just stared straight ahead looking stunned.

I woke up from the dream shortly thereafter, feeling very emotional about the experience. I told Erin what happened, and she encouraged me to see if I could tune back in and receive a message from him. I agreed it was worth a try, but I wanted to stay conscious, so instead of going back to sleep, I attempted to reconnect via meditation. I should mention that while Erin also knew Ron, she didn’t know him nearly as well as I did, partly because I was in a Toastmasters club and a National Speakers Association chapter with Ron, but Erin wasn’t.

As I began to meditate, I still felt a strong connection to Ron’s energy, and I could clearly see him in my mind’s eye, but he was just standing there and not saying a word. Nor did he seem to be attempting any sort of symbolic communication. I figured that since he’d just crossed over, maybe I was simply unable to get a clear enough connection. I spent the next 10 minutes attempting to go into a deeper state of meditation, but there seemed to be no improvement. If he had a message for me, I couldn’t tell what it was because nothing aside from his image was coming through.

I didn’t want to give up though. I thought that maybe Ron wasn’t here to give me a message at all. Maybe he wanted something else. Instead of trying to pull down a message from him, I decided just to try reading his energy instead. I picked up very clearly that he was shocked. I thought maybe he was too stunned to communicate with me, so instead of waiting for him to say something, I just starting talking to him. I wondered if maybe he didn’t know he was actually dead, so I figured that was a good place to start. I confirmed for him what had happened and that he had just crossed over. Based on my limited knowledge of what people experience when they cross over, I gave him some advice. I sent him lots of love energy to try to help raise his vibration. While many entities on the other side have a higher vibration than human beings (such as spirit guides and angels) and have to lower their vibration to communicate with us, I could see that Ron was having the opposite problem. Somehow there was a perfect irony in me coaching him for a change.

This energy work helped. I could see that he was rising up from total shock to the point where he was finally able to start processing what had happened. A few minutes later I was able to communicate with him perfectly. For me this came through clairaudiently, so I was actually hearing his voice in my mind. In fact, it was an unusually clear connection. I was surprised at just how perfectly the voice matched his physical voice. It felt like he was right there in the room with me.

We talked for a good 20 minutes, and basically what he told me was this:

He said he had absolutely “no idea” this was coming. Those were his exact words — “no idea” — which he repeated over and over. He was very sad about that. He said he thought he had a lot more time. This whole thing came as a tremendous shock to him, not because he was alive on the other side, but because his human life had ended so abruptly and unexpectedly. All the goals and plans he had in the works were instantly discontinued by his passing, and I got the sense he felt he’d left a lot undone. I could see that it was very hard for him to accept his death and that he was absolutely stunned by it. There were a lot of things in his physical life he really liked, and it was very hard for him to accept that they were gone.

I felt very compassionately towards him, so I did my best to comfort and console him. He communicated that he should have accomplished more as an individual, that he should have been more aggressive about getting things done. You see, Ron was the kind of person who would often talk to me (and others I presume) about his long-term goals and plans, such as getting his own blog off the ground. However, when it came to taking action, he seemed to have a hard time working on his own goals because he poured so much time into helping others achieve their goals. I know this is what his heart led him to do, but I think he had a hard time getting his head around it.

I reminded Ron of all the good he did and all the people he helped. I tried to help him see that in the long run, individual accomplishment doesn’t mean much, especially once we cross over, and that his best accomplishment here was all the positive ripples he created. I encouraged him to give himself credit for all the people he coached, mentored, and inspired. I think this helped to shift his mindset a little, but I could see it was going to take him a while to process all of this. Dying isn’t something that happens to us every day.

I thanked Ron for all the encouragement he gave me over the years. I ran through a few memories with him, showing him some of the good times we shared. I could tell this helped to raise his energy, not to a super-high level but at least beyond the level of shock and disbelief and on the way towards acceptance.

I told him I was surprised and honored that of all the people he could visit, he chose to come see me. I always felt a fatherly connection to him, but I wasn’t sure if he felt the same. I thought he’d be spending this time around his family. His answer was that he connected with me mainly because he could. Maybe I had the right antennae for receiving him because I’ve practiced developing my skills in this area for many years. He indicated that my (100% raw foods) diet made it easier for him to connect with me. This didn’t surprise me because I’ve felt a significant boost in my psychic/intuitive abilities after dropping all cooked foods from my diet. I think another reason is that I intended to connect with him and believed that I could — that tends to work as sort of a beacon. After we learned of his death, Erin also put out the intent for Ron to come to us if he needed help. It still surprised me that he showed up only a day after he died though. I was thinking it would take at least a few weeks before he was ready for that.

The sense of connection with him was so strong I felt like I could have talked to him for hours — if I could have maintained the right state that long. But once I saw that his energy had risen to a reasonable level, I told him he should take some time to process what had happened to him. I didn’t want to overload him. I also suggested that he should attend his funeral because I thought he’d really enjoy it. I knew the place would be filled with others who loved him. That certainly turned out to be true. There was more humor than sorrow as people shared their happy memories of Ron. I cracked up when a friend compared Ron to Yoda… such an apt analogy.

Two days later, I learned that at least two other friends felt they had visitations from Ron. They processed their experiences differently than I did, but I found it fascinating to learn that Ron was already getting around. Perhaps his Toastmasters skills proved helpful to him over there. After all, working on your human communication skills shares a lot of overlap with learning how to share your energy openly and authentically. I also think Ron felt that Toastmasters was an extension of his family, so he already had a very strong connection to members of this group.

I’ve connected with Ron several more times since his passing. He seems to be hanging around a lot, and I continue to help him adapt to life on the other side, giving him suggestions for things to try over there. With each passing day, I can see that he’s doing better and better. He’s learning to accept his death, and I sense that he’s already looking into mentoring and coaching people from the other side. I know he’ll be a real asset over there. I told him that if he needed any help that he could always come to me, and I’d do what I can. I also invited him to keep mentoring me on my own path as a speaker. I told him he should feel free to decline, but he seemed to really like that idea. Even though he never got the opportunity to get going as a blogger, I think he likes having indirect access to a bigger audience than he was ever likely to build for his own blog. Ron was the kind of man who celebrated the successes of those he coached as if they were his own personal victories.

The past few days have been a pretty emotional time for me, but I don’t feel my relationship with Ron has ended. It’s only been transformed. I keep thinking about the ideas I wrote about in The Joy of Sadness — how sadness and joy are really two sides of the same whole. While I’ve cried a lot during the past few days, it’s been coming from a place of deep gratitude, joy, and a sense of the beautiful perfection of life. I feel very much in a place of love, not a place of loss. I know that Ron’s energy will always be a part of me. Yoda has simply merged back into the force.

Paying it forward

Since he was such a treasure-trove of advice, I learned many lessons from Ron over the years. Perhaps one of the best lessons came from observing what he did. Ron used his knowledge and experience to help other people grow. The new ideas he absorbed were constantly flowing back out again through his continuous sharing.

When I first joined Toastmasters in 2004, I was looking to improve my speaking skills. I knew I eventually wanted to get into pro speaking. From Ron’s example I learned the importance of contributing to others, not just soaking up info for my own use. Even when he wasn’t personally presenting a workshop or training program, he was encouraging other people to do so, and he was actively promoting them too.

In the following years, I delivered a free Toastmasters workshop to help local speakers learn about blogging. I also did two similar workshops for the National Speakers Association, including an all-day workshop on the Vegas Strip. In May of this year, I presented another free Toastmasters workshop on creating compelling content. Creating and presenting these workshops required many hours of extra work. These experiences helped me step into the place of being able to give from my heart without needing anything in return.

A mutual friend told me that Ron’s family would be accepting donations for the Ralph C. Smedley Memorial Fund, to be given in Ron’s name. Ralph Smedley was the founder of Toastmasters. Erin and I agreed it would be nice to make a donation to this fund on Ron’s behalf.

On Saturday evening I was feeling very ungrounded, partly because I was spending so much time in a higher than usual state of being, so I thought it would be wise to go out and do something to ground me back on the side of the physical world. I hadn’t played poker in months, so I thought that would be fun to do, not so much for the game but just to go out and be around people who were at a more “normal” energy level. Erin was happy to spend a quiet evening alone, but she suggested that I donate any winnings to the memorial fund. I thought that was a good idea. I’m a decent player and usually win, but at the low limits I play, I could expect to return with maybe $50 on average.

I popped over to the Red Rock Casino, which is only a few minutes from my house. I’ve never played poker there before, but I didn’t feel like making the 20-minute drive to the Strip, so I figured I’d check it out. On Saturday nights the city’s poker tables can be pretty crowded though, especially during the summer, so I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get a seat. Upon arriving at the poker room, it was packed full, and based on the length of the waiting list, I estimated it could take as much two hours to get a seat. Oh well. I didn’t want to wait that long.

I figured I might as well stretch my legs, so I walked around for a while. The Red Rock is considered by many to be the best local’s casino in town. In addition to the hotel and casino, it has a huge movie theater complex, a conference center, a bowling alley, a spa, a food court, a night club, and lots of restaurants. Portions of the recent movie 21 were filmed there. As I walked around, I sensed Ron’s presence again. I was surprised that he’d come to me in a casino of all places. He didn’t seem to have any message for me. He was just letting me know that he was around.

An idea struck me, so I asked him if he wanted to have a little fun. I never knew Ron to take any interest in casino gambling — I know a few locals who work in the casinos but none who like to gamble — but I figured that due to his Wall Street background, he might be up for something interesting. I told him that poker was out, so I asked him if he was up for some blackjack. He agreed. I told him we’d be playing for a donation to Toastmasters. If I lost the money, we’d still donate maybe $100 (almost two years of annual dues), but if we won more than $100, we’d donate all the winnings. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to influence anything from the other side, especially since he was a newbie there, but I told him I’d appreciate any help he could provide. Otherwise I could certainly handle myself well enough. I learned to beat blackjack when I was 21, and the skill is so burned into my neurons that I can go a year or more without playing a single hand and still automatically know what to do in every situation without having to think. The play is totally subconscious, much like driving a car or riding a bike.

I picked out a good $10 table, opting to vary my bets from $10 to $50, and bought $200 in chips. If I doubled my money, that would be a really good win. At these limits nobody at the casino is going to care whether I win or lose. On a Saturday night, a $10 table is typically the lowest you’ll find. I can afford to play higher limits, but that doesn’t interest me. For me this was just a game, not a career.

I played for an hour and left the table with $505 in chips, a win of $305. I thought that would be a nice donation. I walked around a bit to stretch my legs. Then I asked Ron if he wanted to keep playing or if we should quit. He said we should go one more round. He seemed like he was actually enjoying this experiment. I picked out another $10 table and sat down. At first I wasn’t getting anywhere, but then when I had my $50 bet out there, I split a pair of sixes and won both hands for a gain of $100. The next hand I got an 11, doubled down, and won another $100. And the hand after that I got a blackjack for a $75 win. After that I got a 20 and pushed. That’s when I heard the signal from Ron, “Time to go.” I left with $780 in chips for a net win of $580 (that’s net of both sessions). For only 90 minutes of play at fairly low limits, this kind of win is just amazing, especially at full tables (which means fewer hands per hour). I probably played about 50 hands total. That means we averaged more than $10 per hand, but my average bet per hand was probably $20-25. That’s a pretty serious win rate.

I could sense Ron’s presence the whole time I played. I don’t know if he was actually able to do anything from his end, but I definitely got far more than my fair share of splits, double downs, and blackjacks. The other players, the dealers, and the pit boss couldn’t help but notice how quickly the chips were flowing to me. Believe me — this win wasn’t due to skill. On average I’d be lucky to win an extra $20 under these conditions, since the edge on blackjack (assuming you really know how to play) is very slight, especially when playing in a multi-deck game. Doubling my money would have been outstanding.

When I got home, I told Erin what happened, and she was amazed. You see, the last time we invited a “spirit” to play with us for a certain cause, we won $445 in 45 minutes, which totally stunned us then. To have it happen again makes it harder to dismiss as a fluke.

Given the rarity of a win like this, I have to credit it to Ron. I don’t know what he did, but it worked. There’s such a sweet perfection in the notion that he could still be contributing to Toastmasters from the other side. Since I felt the $580 was his contribution, I bumped our donation to $1000 to include something from me and Erin as well. Although we already pay dues, conference registration fees, and various other sums to support Toastmasters International, I like that we can give back a little extra to support such a wonderful organization.

Initially I hesitated to share this part of the story, partly because it’s so strange and partly because I don’t want to deal with the headache of people misinterpreting my motivation for sharing it. But ultimately I figured it was best to share this part of the story for three reasons: (1) It’s the truth; (2) I know from experience that when I share a story I’m hesitant to post publicly, it’s going to resonate with someone out there in ways I can’t predict, often in very synchronistic ways; and (3) I’m sure the skeptics could use the exercise.

Seize the day

Now the point isn’t to pray to your ancestors to help you win the lottery. The point is to live — REALLY LIVE — while you’re here.

What will the people attending your memorial service say about you? How will you be remembered?

Hold your own memorial service at the end of each day. Did you live this day to the fullest? Did you give your very best? Did you express the real you? Did you make the effort to connect with people? Did you seize this day, or did you let it slip through your fingers?

Are you playing it safe just to survive, or are you stretching to give your very best? In the end, do you really think anyone will care whether or not you paid your bills on time?

Life is way too short to waste your precious time doing work you don’t love, enduring relationships you merely tolerate, and settling for limiting thoughts that hold you back. If you decide to waste this day, that’s the same as deciding to waste your life because your life is happening right now.

The mindset that says it’s okay to lose today is the mindset of death. If you’re squandering this day — and I mean today — then you’re already dead. You just haven’t accepted it yet. The rest of your days will be spent the same way. You’re reading this article in the Grim Reaper’s waiting room, waiting for your name to be called.

Too often we treat survival as our first priority, and only after we secure that can we move onto something more interesting than survival, like discovering a life purpose. But you aren’t here to survive. Do you realize you’re not going to survive? You’re going to die. Your physical life here is temporary. If you set survival as your goal, you lose automatically. Everyone who tries to survive fails. That’s how the game is set up. It’s supposed to happen that way.

Even a monkey gets more enjoyment out of life than a human being who works just to pay the bills. Monkeys find it silly to center their lives around paying their bills. They find it much more interesting to hang out with other monkeys — even if it means being homeless.

Would you say that your computer’s primary purpose is to survive? Or is it to provide you with information and entertainment and to empower you? You know your computer is eventually going to die (yes, even your precious Mac), so enjoy it while you can.

Are you enjoying your life while you can?

If you need a little hint to help you find your life purpose, it has to do with going out and connecting with people. If you’re trying to work on your purpose while spending most of your days isolated and alone, you’re missing the point. Go outside! Sure, it’s scary. But do it anyway. If the monkeys can manage it, why not you. Surely you’re smarter and more capable than a monkey.

It’s sad that we often fail to give ourselves permission to just dive headfirst into what we love doing. Realize you don’t need anyone’s permission to do what you love — or to connect with people that attract you. If some people object, let them object; then go do it anyway. The monkeys will welcome you as their new friend.

You know you’ll be happier outside the cage. The cage may be safe and cozy, but it’s no substitute for the freedom of the jungle.

Don’t wait to pursue your dreams. Life is far too precious for that.

Your life is today, not tomorrow or yesterday. Regardless of what happened in the past or what you think might happen in the future, today you have the freedom to make a conscious choice. Will it be the same choice you’ve always made, or will it be something different? Will that choice come from your heart?

Ron Lewison took the time to reach out and connect with people while he was here. He touched a lot of lives in a positive way. He may not have had the opportunity to complete all the projects he wanted to, but he gave more than his fair share. And because of that, I think he’ll find peace on the other side, and perhaps even more opportunities to coach and mentor people. Moreover, he gave the gift of many positive memories to those who knew him, a gift that continues to endure.

Ron, your presence will be missed in the physical world, but I think you’ll make quite a splash in the spiritual world. On the physical side, I may have to say goodbye, but on the spiritual side, I can say welcome home.

You are loved.

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Note: I mentioned in the previous article that I would post a how-to article on raising your financial vibration next. Rest assured that article is still pending. As Ron recently discovered, sometimes life messes with your schedule.

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