Well, the first deadline for getting in to the workshop is now past. It’s no longer possible to buy a book and get in for free, although those who have already purchased books can still register. So far, I’ve received registrations from the owners of books numbered 7, 23, 27, 40, 45, 56, 67, and 69. I’m kind of assuming that the persons who recently purchased books 66, 68, and 70 are also planning to attend, but I haven’t received their faxes yet. Even if you haven’t received your book yet, please just go ahead and send in the fax anyway, don’t worry about the serial number, but please do fill in the part about what are the most pressing concerns you’d like me to cover during the call.
The second deadline is now less than 24 hours away. Once I’ve reserved the phone lines for the conference, it will cost you $299 to get in. So please don’t delay any further. When I reserve the lines, everyone who’s signed up at that point will receive an invitation email with the phone number, PIN code, and time information. A day or two later, I’ll be sending out PDF’s of the workshop agenda and handouts.
In the meantime, there are a couple of things I’d like for participants to prepare for ahead of time. The technique I’ll be teaching for banishing unwanted feelings is easiest to initially practice and test using a food dislike. For example, if the sight of cooked beets makes you wrinkle your face in disgust, then that’s a terrific way for you to verify whether you’ve done the technique correctly. I suggest that you have some of the offending food on hand at the time of the workshop. Being able to “zap” your dislike of the food will not only provide a powerful demonstration of the technique’s effectiveness, but it will also be a way for you to get immediate feedback whether you’re “doing it right”. And the food will make it easy to provoke the feeling, too.
Of course, we won’t stop with food dislikes. The next thing that I’d like you to prepare is a list of the top three “feelings in a situation” that you can’t control and would like to get rid of. For example, if there’s a person who really gets on your nerves or does things just to annoy or guilt-trip you, and you’d like to be able to just tune that out. Or maybe you are frustrated at yourself for never following through on your goals. Or perhaps you panic at the thought of talking to the opposite sex.
For purposes of practice during the workshop, it’s going to be best if you pick something that just thinking about it produces a strong feeling, since we’re not going to be able to get the person who gets on your nerves (or whom you’re attracted to, or whatever) to come to the workshop and produce the feeling. But, we do need something for you to practice on.
You won’t need to share any of this information with me or the group, by the way. All I will be asking anybody on the call is about what physical feelings you have, such as whether you feel the feeling in your chest, your throat, your gut, arms, do your hands clench, etc. It isn’t even necessary that you give your feelings a name. You just have to be able to get yourself feeling that way when it’s time to do the work on them.
By the way, I’m actually going to go a little bit beyond the topic of banishing unwanted feelings, into the subject of acceptance, especially self-acceptance. Accepting things as they are – including how you are – is a critical quality-of-life issue. I didn’t even realize how critical an issue it was until I did my own despair-ectomy.
But when we have strong, automatic feelings that we can’t get rid of, we get stuck in resistance and denial. Fighting your feelings keeps you focused on the things that you don’t want, instead of the things you do. But when you can let go of the feelings and accept things as they are, then you can actually move on with your life.
So, you won’t just be learning about getting rid of the feelings that block you from living your dreams. You’ll also be learning how to accept yourself, and even like yourself. Not because you’re perfect, but because you’re imperfect.
But I’m probably giving a bit too much away! And not a lot of this will make much sense to you until you experience it, anyway, although I’ve been writing rather a lot about it in the last month.
So, I’ll go ahread and sign off for now. I’m really looking forward to the workshop, and to speaking with all of you.
In your previous post you wrote that peole might not be willing to participate in the conference because it’s for free. I don’t think it is correct and I don’t think charging for it will bring more people, unless it is something spectacular (although it might work better if you pay because you value things more if you pay money).
There are many reasons why people might not take this chance: the time might not be right for them, they don’t have a fax (I don’t have one), they don’t believe in the success of your technique. How’s your technique different from the other ones out there, especially Emotional Freedom Therapy, Sedona or NLP?
“””I don’t think charging for it will bring more people,”””
That’s a symptom of AFC thinking, which luckily I am getting past. You should do the same. 🙂
(For the record, registrations tripled after I announced the new price, and two of the registrants explicitly mentioned the deadline for free registration as the key factor motivating their immediate action.)
“””unless it is something spectacular”””
This is also AFC thinking. I’m not a PUA and don’t aspire to be one, but in the last year I’ve learned how to leave a lot of this sort of thinking behind, as it keeps people from making money as well as from making, um, acquaintances. 🙂
“””How’s your technique different from the other ones out there, especially Emotional Freedom Therapy, Sedona or NLP?”””
Why does that matter? Actually, it doesn’t matter at all, you only think it does because of the same AFC belief. You think that people judge things based on merits and logic and the substance of a thing in itself, when in actuality they judge based on appearance and emotion and relevance to their personal goals.
I’m not saying these things to be argumentative; I’m trying to challenge your thinking. You are aspiring to change, and I admire that. Especially because your blog shows that you are willing to push your comfort zone in order to get there. So, I’m giving you a little extra push here, because you’ve so far shown a good track record of actually taking my free advice, and doing well with it. 🙂
So understand this: when you realize that meeting someone’s needs isn’t about *you*, but about *them*, then you will no longer be an AFC, because you’ll understand what your actual personal value and worth is — and paradoxically, you will no longer care about meeting the needs of everyone, allowing you to be far more selective. But as long as you think that *you* have to be something special and spectacular in order to be of value to someone else, you are missing the point entirely.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is AFC thinking?
Your response got me laughing and become pissed off at the same time, good work.
AFC – Average Frustrated Chump, it’s a term from the internet dating community.
I guess I secretly want your technique to be perfect… which is impossible. As always I understand what you are saying on a logical level, but understanding doesn’t change thinking. I need to experience it, until then I will know what to look for.
“””I guess I secretly want your technique to be perfect… which is impossible.”””
And also irrelevant. 🙂 *Technique* isn’t the heart of the matter, *doing* is.
“””As always I understand what you are saying on a logical level, but understanding doesn’t change thinking. I need to experience it,”””
Which is what workshops are for. The fastest way to absorb a belief is to spend time in the presence of someone who has the belief, and trying to keep up with them! That’s why people spend so much money to attend workshops to not be AFC’s.
You, on the other hand, have been assuming that it’s because of knowledge that will be taught or techniques that will be displayed, and think that because you can read the ideas and techniques on the internet that you don’t need to spend the time or money to learn from someone who’s actually doing what you want to be able to do.
“””Excuse my ignorance, but what is AFC thinking?”””
In this context, I’m talking about thinking that people decide (or should decide) the worth of a thing based on its intrinsic value, rather than its value relative to their goals.
In a dating situation, this thinking leads to the “nice guys finish last” phenomenon, because a guy assumes that because he’s “nice”, he should be judged on this intrinsic or inner value, instead of using the superficial, emotional, and relative measures that govern all human motivation.
In situations of commerce, this thinking leads to the “this product will sell itself” phenomenon, because the producer doesn’t understand marketing or sales, and doesn’t want to “cheapen” themselves or offend others by “stooping” to “sales tactics”. This is something I’ve been working hard to overcome myself this year.
The thing is, truly customer-focused marketing must describe benefits to the customer, not features of the product. And to evoke action, it must provide emotions as well as facts, and reasons for acting immediately. The exact same principles also apply to dating, which is what I was pointing out to Migel by referencing a term (AFC) I knew he was familiar with.