Invisible Path

The renowned anthropologist Ruth Fulton Benedict once famously observed that, "From the moment of his birth, the customs into which (an individual) is born shape his experiences and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture."
Dr. Benedict wrote those words back in 1931. She was actually observing a universal fact of life that has been true for every man or woman from every era in the history of humanity. It's a fact we've touched on before. But I want to explore it at greater length today because it is so absolutely critical to your success.
It goes without saying that first and foremost, Insight of the Day is about freedom - freedom from the constraints that keep you from calling forth and realizing your full potential, and freedom to all of the good and beneficial things you want in life.

Yet you cannot be free unless and until you know exactly what it is that governs, shapes and directs the apparatus that controls your behavior and the results that behavior gets you. That apparatus being, of course, your mind...and more specifically, your paradigms.

Now, paradigms are a favorite topic of mine, because everything I teach and everything I do is based on the premise that, as the great Napoleon Hill so simply and profoundly put it, "thoughts are things." Your thoughts create your life. And paradigms are the very foundation on which thoughts are created. Paradigms are your mindsets. Your ideas, the little habits that your brain has developed over the years. The "operating system" on which your mental processes run.

Effectively, your paradigms create the prism through which you view and make sense of the world around you. Information is presented to your mind in one way or another. Your mind runs through all of the things it already knows about that piece of information and figures out where it fits in with the bigger picture. Then your mind makes a determination: the information in question is good or bad, friendly or unfriendly, desirable or undesirable, possible or not possible - all based on your existing paradigms.

Like most other concepts, paradigms in and of themselves are neutral. If your paradigms are positive, you will make sound judgments, have a happy, growth-oriented life, good, strong relationships, a healthy self-concept, and the ability to adapt successfully to changes, upsets, and unforeseen events.

On the other hand, negative, stilted, limiting paradigms keep people stuck in the old ways of thinking and doing that ultimately get them nowhere. Negative paradigms keep a person as imprisoned as surely as do a cell and set of iron bars. Maybe even more so, since it imprisons them in the place where all true freedom resides: the mind.

It follows, then, that if you want to create change in your life - if you want to start getting new and different results - then you've got to change your paradigms.




Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster