The Summit will be featuring over 50 respected women leaders such as Marianne Williamson, Christine Northrup, Jehmu Greene, Deva Premal, Joan Borysenko and Marci Shimoff.

The Summit runs from May 1st to May 8th. Each day will include networking opportunities to advance your inner and outer work. You can participate live on as few or as many calls as you like, and interact with both the leaders and other participants. Or, if you can’t make the live calls, you can just listen to recordings later at your convenience.

With our world facing numerous crises, humanity needs to find a pathway to creating a new society, one based on principles of love, cooperation, and peace. Women are at the core of the shift that is required. How can we inspire each other to make an even bigger impact and to live our most radiant lives? Our answer is to put as many as women as possible into deep relationship with other inspiring women across the globe – all for FREE.

They’re launching the Inspiring Women Summit on the ancient day of Beltane – a day dedicated to the fertility of the earth and honoring of the Great Mother.¬† It’s an ancient day celebrating feminine power. Today, though, we are each called to not just honor a Goddess outside of ourselves but to actually BE the change.

As each of us liberates more of our gifts, we can more powerfully help our society rebalance itself, and create right relationship with our earth and with each other. It is now time for feminine values, wisdom, and virtues to take a fully equal role in creating a world that works for all. Our goal is to empower each of us to take a stand for what WE are co-creating.

Our featured leaders in this Summit are all doing work that inspires, heals, or addresses women. They are delighted to have them share their incredibly inspiring stories and teachings with you in deep, interactive dialogues that address the following areas:

• Leadership
• Empowerment
• Spirituality
• Sensuality
• Power
• Healthy Pleasure
• Collaboration
• Relationships
• Our Voice
• Serving the World
• Vision & Values
• Media & the Arts
• Fulfillment
• Awakening
• Entrepreneurship
• Manifestation

Please share this invitation with friends and allies. While the event is geared towards women, men may participate as well. Hope to share with you at the ‘Summit’ to get inspired and share your own inspirations!

Sign Up here: The Inspiring Women Summit

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

NLP has also become popular as a way to optimize your personal performance. Many self help guru’s and personal life coaches incorporate elements of NLP into their systems. It can be used to make you more aggressive in business and more confident in your personal life. If you have a life-long hang-up, or some mental scar from a past experience, NLP has many tools that can help you overcome those kinds of challenges.

The History
Richard Bandler and John Grinder founded NLP in the early 70’s. Bandler was studying psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He became intrigued when he noticed certain language patterns used by the famed psychotherapist Fritz Perls in some of his therapy sessions. He took this information to Grinder, who was a well-known linguist and professor at the University. Grinder was impressed, and the two embarked on long, detailed study of all the various types of psychotherapy.

Most methods of therapy are very hit-and-miss in terms of effectiveness. A person may be cured of a problem, but it can take years before something finally clicks. Bandler and Grinder planned to examine each method, and find out what aspects were helping people. They wanted to trim away the fat, and get to the core of what makes the brain tick, so that they could make modifications. The end product needed to be totally practical, with a focus on fixing people’s problems as quickly as possible.

As a result of their studies, in 1975, the two published The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy. More volumes followed which gradually fleshed out the NLP system, and codified the techniques.

What makes NLP so popular?
Most traditional therapy methods can take months or even years before the patient starts seeing any major benefit. The most amazing thing about NLP is how fast it can help people. The speed with which NLP works can be truly shocking, or even unbelievable. Patients can overcome barriers that have been holding them back for their entire lives with one short session. These quick fixes aren’t necessarily permanent, and reinforcement is usually required, but surprisingly fast results are often possible with NLP.

Another great thing about NLP is that an individual can learn it, and then apply the techniques alone without the aid of a therapist. One of the core ideas behind NLP is the concept of self empowerment. You are given the tools to fix your own mind, and you don’t need anyone else to keep it running smoothly. Many conventional therapists have no interest in NLP, because they would prefer to have patients returning to their offices for years at a time. A cured patient doesn’t pay fees anymore.

How does it work, and what does it to do?
At the core of NLP is the belief that people have inner programming that dictates their actions. Understanding how your brain is motivated allows you to make adjustments. In order to make those changes, you also have to know how the brain stores and reads information. Knowing all these things, gives you “levers” that you can pull to modify your behavior.

There are several basic principles on which the techniques of NLP are based. Below I will outline some of these ideas and provide an overview so that you can see how the system works.

Emotions and behaviors: They aren’t just window dressing.
In most cases, people demonstrate behaviors, and experience emotions for a reason. When something bad happens, you get angry or sad. When your life is unfulfilled, or you haven’t been successful, you get depressed. Emotions are the minds way of telling us how to react to the things that happen in our lives.

Positive emotions reinforce behaviors that get good results, while negative emotions are warnings that something is wrong. Chronic emotional problems develop when people are unable to react properly to their emotional cues. In simple metaphorical terms, they’re like a lion with a thorn in its paw, unable, or unwilling to remove it.

The Pleasure Principle
One of the primary reasons people react incorrectly to their emotional cues is because of the way we’re motivated. People move towards pleasure, and away from pain, but short term effects are always considered more important than long term effects. For example: We all know that physical exercise will make us stronger in the long term, but we have trouble motivating ourselves because of the short term pain it can cause. Another example would be eating candy: We know that it makes us fat and unhealthy in the long term, but we keep doing it because the short term pleasure is too tempting.

One of the ideas behind NLP is to teach people how take control of this natural mechanism, using pleasure and pain as motivators in whatever way we choose. You will learn how to train your brain to focus more on long term results, both good and bad, so that you can make better decisions in life.

Working With Beliefs
In the NLP sense of the word, a “belief” is a rule that we use to govern our behavior. These rules develop over time from experiences in life. Usually these are very logical, but sometimes something will happen and we’ll develop an illogical or wrongheaded belief. For example, a person with a certain kind of mindset may ask someone out on a date, and get painfully rejected. This single rejection may cause them to believe that asking someone out will always result in pain and loss of confidence. They become paralyzed by fear, and they don’t ask anyone out ever again.

Beliefs form because of strong emotions, and those can sometimes defy logic. In the example above, the pain of rejection was so strong that it created a permanent imprint on the person’s brain. Every time he or she starts to ask someone out, that fear will spring up and the person will be unable to overcome it.

Learning to change your beliefs can help you remove barriers that are holding back good behaviors, and create barriers against negative behaviors. It’s one of the most important parts of NLP.

The Imagination is the Gateway to the Mind
We experience the world through our five senses, and based on those experiences we program ourselves to behave in certain ways. Fortunately, people are equipped with a way to experience things without actually having them happen in real life. Many NLP techniques are based on visualization.

A person will be asked to imagine a past event, or some hypothetical situation, and then coaxed into experiencing a certain emotion at the same time. The NLP therapist will use very descriptive language, and call on the patients memory to make the experience as vivid as possible. These techniques are used repeatedly, so that the patient associates a different set of feelings with a particular event. Once the basic principles are understood, this kind of therapy can also be done solo.

Over time, NLP visualization therapy will cause you to have different reactions when you encounter situations in life. You’ll get results from the first session, and they’ll get stronger with each repetition. You’re basically running through practice sessions for experiences in life, and teaching your brain the right way to deal with things.

Body + Mind
The body and the mind are inextricably connected. Emotions have physical feelings, and postures associated with them. When you feel confident, you walk a certain way, and you talk with a particular rhythm. When you feel nervous or afraid, your physical actions become timid and measured. NLP teaches that these things can also work in reverse. For example, studies have proven that if a person smiles long enough, they start to feel happy. You’ll also find that if you start moving like a confident person, you’ll actually start to feel more confident.

These reactions can also be engineered from scratch. A patient may be asked to feel a certain emotion (usually through a visualization exercise) and perform a small physical action at the same time. This is done repeatedly so that it becomes second nature. Eventually you have a physical trigger that can cause you to experience a certain emotional state. There are many techniques for creating these kinds of triggers, and they’re a big part of NLP.

How Do I Get Started?
NLP is a complex subject. It’s certainly much more complex than the scope of this article, but there are numerous sources out there where you can find lots of information about specific techniques.

There are many certified NLP therapists, and you are encouraged to study NLP on your own. Once you have access to the levers that control your thinking, you’ll find that changing your life is easier than you ever dreamed. Removing the impediments that hold us back can be an incredibly empowering experience, and it’s so easy, there’s no reason not to do it.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

At a quantum level there’s actually no difference. Our inner lives and outer worlds are one and the same.

As we undertake the seemingly arduous task of transforming ourselves, the illusion that our inner and outer lives are separate and irreconcilable can be dispiriting. When we focus on one area – be it the outer or the inner – we may feel the other becomes intractable and unyielding, resisting our efforts every step of the way.

We meditate. We pray. We fill our heads with positive images and sayings. We think we’re seeing things more clearly, we think our attitudes are shifting. But the people in our lives treat us as they always have and we find ourselves reacting in our old familiar, self-defeating ways. The illusion of change is shattered.

Attempting to change at a behavioral level can be even more frustrating because we are confronted with the incredulity not only of those around us but our inner selves. We find it difficult or impossible to keep smiling and sitting up straight and speaking in superlatives when our actions aren’t supported by belief from within or without.

But if you are open to the idea that outer life is but a reflection of inner reality – that all is One – you can make your illusions of the “outer” and “inner” worlds work in harmony.

It may be useful to think of those worlds as having common ground in your Persona.

The Concept of The Persona
Many of our behaviors can be seen as elements of this archetype. The Persona is the version of ourselves we present to the outside world.

Though we have certain personal characteristics that remain more or less constant through our lifetimes, we are always making adjustments to the Persona. We make them as our situations and environments change, the people in our lives change and our perceptions of ourselves change.

Some of these adjustments take place at a conscious level. We reach a certain age and decide to stop dressing the way we did when we were younger. We go on a diet or dye our hair. We get a tattoo or have one removed. We toss out our glasses and opt for laser surgery or contacts.

Other elements of the Persona develop without conscious deliberation: the way we walk, the inflection of our voices, the nervous tics or defeated postures others notice but we don’t see. Even our conscious choices about clothes, hairstyles, aftershaves or perfumes are based to some degree on preferences we don’t consciously choose. The Persona archetype is stitched together by the other archetypes, including the Shadow – where unconscious impulses, suppressed fears, dark desires and untapped creativity influence us in ways beyond our ken.

If you seek to transform yourself, you needn’t wait for inner changes to work their way outward or vice versa. Moving your attention inside, out, and back again – using the Persona as both a portal and a proving ground – is an excellent way to keep the momentum of change going and “keep it real.”

The Reality Check
The problem with focusing all your attention inward is that it isolates you. The world still turns while you mitigate your negative self-talk by mumbling meditative mantras.

You can balance this by mapping out external changes that mirror the changes you seek to effect within. Ideally it will be a change others won’t be able to help but notice and respond to positively. But even if they don’t, the external change should be something you are aware of every day, something that will both reinforce and symbolize your inner work.

Change Is In The Air
A good start might be a new scent. Splurge on a cologne or perfume you’ve never worn before. Switch to a different soap or shampoo. Buy a “new-car-smell” deodorizer for your car. Change the air in your office or home with something surprising and different.

Though not often discussed in connection with the Persona, the scents we choose – or don’t choose – for our bodies and environments send an indelible message to those around us. Our sense of smell is the most powerful and evocative of our senses. Put conscious, focused thought into your aroma. Shop around and find scented products that call to mind of the positive changes you seek within yourself.

As your inner work waxes and wanes in effectiveness, breathe in these new scents to keep your belief in what you’re doing alive.

Change Is In The World
Add to this change gradually, over time, with a new item of clothing here, a change in hairstyle there. Space out these tweaks and adjustments to your Persona, letting them work on you and the people around you gradually, over time. When the newness of one external change wears off, add another to it.

Be conscious of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways these changes affect how others respond and relate to you. People are often doubtful of others’ ability to change; this is a projection of their own fears about becoming stuck and stagnant in life. But when these same people sense that real transformation is taking place in another person, they are drawn to it.

As people relate to you differently, your perceptions of and feelings about them will no doubt begin to expand. Nurture this expansion, moving your attention freely from transformation without to transformation within.

Conclusion
Transformation is always possible. Taking an holistic approach to life changes, using the Persona as a medium, keeps the reality of transformation at the forefront of consciousness.

Using the Persona as a bridge between your outer and inner worlds can help you see their interconnectedness and bring about a powerful change in your overall awareness.

The separation between yourself and the Universe around you is merely an illusion. Use your Persona to put this concept to the test and discover its truth.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

The Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy Conference will be joining the Science and Nonduality Conference and will be offering CEUs. Over the course of 5 days there will be 13 Pre-Conference Workshops, 20 Plenary Speakers, Poster Sessions and over 40 concurrent sessions including presentations by many recognized experts.

In addition to formal presentations the conference will feature a nonduality-themed film series, art installations, a section to experience nondual reality through meditation, art, dance, hypnosis, and music, and various social events.

Two days of workshops will precede the conference, including presentations by Peter Russell, Amit Goswami, Fred Alan Wolf, Daniel Pinchbeck, Stuart Hameroff, Henry Stapp, Bernard Baars, Stephen Wolinsky and others.

Nonduality comes from the Sanskrit word advaita, the understanding that a single reality underlies everything in the universe. Long believed by Eastern philosophers to be pure consciousness, underlying reality is also a primary goal of Western quantum physicists, cosmologists, philosophers and neuroscientists seeking to unravel the mystery of the conscious mind. Such a synthesis could have profound implications for understanding reality and existence.

Dualisms shape our worldview. They include Mind/Matter, Self/Other, Perception/Reality, Quantum/Classical, Wave/Particle, Spiritual/Material, Beginning/End, Male/Female, Living/Dead and Good/Evil. Wisdom gained through meditation, yoga and mystical experiences suggest these dichotomies are illusory.

Eastern mystics know a single underlying reality called advaita, Brahman, the Tao, or Nirvana, from which all existence arises through consciousness. Nonduality is the philosophical and spiritual understanding that dualisms obscure a deeper reality of non-separation and fundamental oneness.

On the other hand, science depends on empirical data leading to reductionism, materialism and apparent dichotomies. But discoveries in quantum physics, brain sciences, consciousness studies, biology, cosmology, psychology and other fields have revealed nonduality in science as well, suggesting mysticism and science share a common ground.

Applying nondual perspectives in science, and scientific perspectives in Eastern spiritual approaches are the twin goals of the first public conference on Science and Nonduality to be held in San Rafael

Topics include the quantum basis for reality, Buddhism, the neurological correlates of consciousness and healing, and whether the absolute nondual state only exists prior to the emergence of consciousness or the I – (the conscious self).

In addition to formal presentations the conference will feature a nonduality-themed film series, art installations, a section to experience nondual reality through meditation, art, dance, hypnosis, and music, and various social events.

University of Arizona professor Stuart Hameroff says:  Connections between consciousness and reality have taken center stage due to similarities between Eastern spiritual practice and counter-intuitive scientific discoveries that challenge everyday views of the world. This conference will explore these connections.

The event is organized by Neti Neti Media in association with the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, the Institute of Noetic Science (IONS), the Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy Conference, and the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology (ITP). It will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Marin Convention Center, San Rafael, California Thursday October 22 through Sunday October 25, 2009. Pre-conference workshops will be held on October 21-22.

Personal note: A great place to meet me in person. I will attend several pre-conferences and workshops as well as the weekend conference.

Program Details:
The official website www.scienceandnonduality.com contains information and program details.  Attendees may register online. Early bird discount rates are available.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

Of course this type of childhood fear is a little silly – skilled humans internalize large amounts of data – but I was on to something. Once we reach a certain level of expertise at a given discipline and our knowledge is expansive, the critical issue becomes: how is all this stuff navigated and put to use? I believe the answers to this question are the gateway to the most esoteric levels of elite performance.

Thinking back on the chapter Making Smaller Circles, it’s apparent that I was focusing on the subtle, introspective cultivation of external skills. Now let’s turn further inward, and explore what states of heightened perception can be cultivated with proper training. When I broke my hand in that Super-­Heavyweight Finals match, time slowed down in my mind – or my perception became so sharpened, so focused on the essential, that I processed necessary information much more quickly than usual. I ­didn’t feel like I was racing, however. Internally, the experience was profoundly calm with a razor’s edge – the epitome of what I think quality presence should be all about.

Once my hand healed and the Nationals were over, the question on my mind was: how can I make time slow down without breaking a limb? Everyone has heard stories of women lifting cars off their children or of time seeming to slow down during a car accident or a fall down the stairs. Clearly, there is a survival mechanism that allows human beings to channel their physical and mental capacities to an astonishing degree of intensity in life-­or-­death moments. But can we do this at will?

When I started thinking about how I could consistently make my perception of time be different from my opponents’, I realized that I had to delve into the operating mechanism of intuition. I suspect we have all had the experience of being stumped by something, eventually moving on to something else, and then suddenly knowing the answer to the initial problem. Most of us have also had the experience of meeting someone and having a powerfully good or bad feeling about them, without knowing why. I have found that, even if a few times it has taken years to pan out, these guiding instincts have been on the money.

Along the same lines, in my chess days, nearly all of my revelatory moments emerged from the unconscious. My numbers to leave numbers approach to chess study was my way of having a working relationship with the unconscious parts of my mind. I would take in vast amounts of technical information that my brain somehow put together into bursts of insight that felt more like music or wind than mathematical combinations. Increasingly, I had the sense that the key to these leaps was interconnectedness—some part of my being was harmonizing all my relevant knowledge, making it gel into one potent eruption, and suddenly the enigmatic was crystal-­clear. But what was really happening?

The question of intuition is hotly debated among psychologists, philosophers, and artists, and it has been a source of much research and thought in my life. My grandmother, Stella Waitzkin, a boldly creative Abstract Expressionist painter and sculptor, used to tell me that intuition was the hand of God. Artists often refer to intuition as a muse. In the introduction, I mentioned that one philosophy professor of mine at Columbia University told me, rather proudly, that the very notion of intuition is incoherent – it ­doesn’t exist.

In my opinion, intuition is our most valuable compass in this world. It is the bridge between the unconscious and the conscious mind, and it is hugely important to keep in touch with what makes it tick. If we get so caught up in narcissistic academic literalism that we dismiss intuition as nonexistent because we ­don’t fully understand it, or if we blithely consider the unconscious to be a piece of machinery that operates mystically in a realm that we have no connection to, then we lose the rich opportunity to have open communication with the wellspring of our creativity.

For much of this book I have described my vision of the road to mastery – you start with the fundamentals, get a solid foundation fueled by understanding the principles of your discipline, then you expand and refine your repertoire, guided by your individual predispositions, while keeping in touch, however abstractly, with what you feel to be the essential core of the art. What results is a network of deeply internalized, interconnected knowledge that expands from a central, personal locus point. The question of intuition relates to how that network is navigated and used as fuel for creative insight. Let’s begin the plunge into this issue with chess serving as a metaphor for all disciplines.

The clearest way to approach this discussion is with the imagery of chunking and carved neural pathways. Chunking relates to the mind’s ability to assimilate large amounts of information into a cluster that is bound together by certain patterns or principles particular to a given discipline. The initial studies on this topic were, conveniently, performed on chess players who were considered to be the clearest example of sophisticated unconscious pattern integration.

The Dutch psychologist Adriaan de Groot (1965) and years later the team of William Simon and Herbert Chase (1973) put chess players of varying skill levels in front of chess positions and then asked them to re-­create those positions on an adjacent empty board. The psychologists taped and studied the eye patterns and timing of the players while they performed the tasks.

The relevant conclusions were that stronger players had better memories when the positions were taken out of the games of other strong players, because they re-­created the positions by taking parts of the board (say five or six pieces) and chunking (merging) them in the mind by their interrelationships. The stronger the player, the more sophisticated was his or her ability to quickly discover connecting logical patterns between the pieces (attack, defense, tension, pawn chains, etc.) and thus they had better chess memories.

On the other hand, when presented with random chess positions, with no logical cohesiveness, the memories of the players seemed to level off. In some cases the weaker players performed more effectively, because they were accustomed to random situations while the stronger players were a bit lost without “logic to the position.” So, in a nutshell, chunking relates to the mind’s ability to take lots of information, find a harmonizing/logically consistent strain, and put it together into one mental file that can be accessed as if it were a single piece of information.
By “carved neural pathways” I am referring to the process of creating chunks and the navigation system between chunks.

I am not making a literal physical description, so much as illustrating the way the brain operates. Let’s say that I spend fifteen years studying chess. During these thousands of hours, my mind is effectively cutting paths through the dense jungle of chess. The jungle analogy is a good one. Imagine how time-­consuming it would be to use a machete to cut your way through thick foliage. A few miles could take days. Once the path is cleared, however, you could move quickly through the clearing. If you were to make a road and ride a bike or other vehicle, the transportation would get faster still.

From THE ART OF LEARNING by Josh Waitzkin.  Copyright © 2007 by [as it appears in Licensee’s edition]. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, an Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., NY.

For more information please visit the authors website at: joshwaitzkin.com

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

There was no room for personal initiative, little recognition for effort, their income was fixed and advancement came only when a superior retired or died.

In desperation, the governors decided to seek Fabian’s advice. They considered him very wise and he seemed to know how to solve money matters. He listened to them explain all their problems, and finally he answered, “Many people cannot solve their own problems – they need someone to do it for them. Surely you agree that most people have the right to be happy and to be provided with the essentials of life. One of our great sayings is “all men are equal” – is it not?”

Well, the only way to balance things up is to take the excess wealth from the rich and give it to the poor. Introduce a system of taxation. The more a man has, the more he must pay. Collect taxes from each person according to his ability, and give to each according to his need. Schools and hospitals should be free for those who cannot afford them …”

He gave them a long talk on high sounding ideals and finished up with, “Oh, by the way, don’t forget you owe me money. You’ve been borrowing now for quite some time. The least I can do to help, is for you to just pay me the interest. We’ll leave the capital debt owing, just pay me the interest.”

They went away, and without giving Fabian’s philosophies any real thought, they introduced the graduated income tax – the more you earn, the higher your tax rate. No one liked this, but they either paid the taxes or went to jail.

Merchants were forced once again to raise their prices. Wage earners demanded higher wages forcing many employers out of business, or to replace men with machinery. This caused additional unemployment and forced the Government to introduce further welfare and handout schemes.

Tariffs and other protection devices were introduced to keep some industries going just to provide employment. A few people wondered if the purpose of the production was to produce goods or merely to provide employment.

As things got worse, they tried wage control, price control, and all sorts of controls. The Government tried to get more money through sales tax, payroll tax and all sorts of taxes. Someone noted that from the wheat farmer right through to the housewife, there were over 50 taxes on a loaf of bread.

“Experts” arose and some were elected to Government, but after each yearly meeting they came back with almost nothing achieved, except for the news that taxes were to be “restructured”, but overall the total tax always increased.

Fabian began to demand his interest payments, and a larger and larger portion of the tax money was being needed to pay him.

Then came party politics – the people started arguing about which group of Governors could best solve the problems. They argued about personalities, idealism, party labels, everything except the real problem. The councils were getting into trouble.

In one town the interest on the debt exceeded the amount of rates which were collected in a year. Throughout the land the unpaid interest kept increasing – interest was charged on unpaid interest.

Gradually much of the real wealth of the country came to be owned or controlled by Fabian and his friends and with it came greater control over people. However, the control was not yet complete. They knew that the situation would not be secure until every person was controlled.

Most people opposing the systems could be silenced by financial pressure, or suffer public ridicule. To do this Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them. Many of these people had a sincere desire to improve the world, but they never realized how they were being used. Their solutions always dealt with the effects of the problem, never the cause.

There were several different newspapers – one for the right wing, one for the left wing, one for the workers, one for the bosses, and so on. It didn’t matter much which one you believed in, so long as you didn’t think about the real problem.

Fabian’s plan was almost at its completion – the whole country was in debt to him. Through education and the media, he had control of people’s minds. They were able to think and believe only what he wanted them to.

After a man has far more money than he can possibly spend for pleasure, what is left to excite him? For those with a ruling class mentality, the answer is power – raw power over other human beings. The idealists were used in the media and in Government, but the real controllers that Fabian sought were those of the ruling class mentality.

Most of the goldsmiths had become this way. They knew the feeling of great wealth, but it no longer satisfied them. They needed challenge and excitement, and power over the masses was the ultimate game.

They believed they were superior to all others. “It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don’t know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organized. To rule is our birthright.”

Throughout the land Fabian and his friends owned many lending offices.

True, they were privately and separately owned. In theory they were in competition with each other, but in reality they were working very closely together. After persuading some of the Governors, they set up an institution which they called the Money Reserve Center. They didn’t even use their own money to do this – they created credit against part of the money out of the people’s deposits.

This Institution gave the outward appearance of regulating the money supply and being a Government operation, but strangely enough, no Governor or public servant was ever allowed to be on the Board of Directors.

The Government no longer borrowed directly from Fabian, but began to use a system of I.O.U.’s to the Money Reserve Center. The security offered was the estimated revenue from next year’s taxes. This was in line with Fabian’s plan – removing suspicion from himself to an apparent Government operation. Yet, behind the scenes, he was still in control.

Indirectly, Fabian had such control over the Government that they were forced to do his bidding. He boasted, “Let me control the nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” It didn’t matter much which group of Governors were elected. Fabian was in control of the money, the life blood of the nation.

The Government obtained the money, but interest was always charged on every loan. More and more was going out in welfare and handout schemes, and it was not long before the Government found it difficult to even repay the interest, let alone the capital.

And yet there were people who still asked the question, “Money is a man-made system. Surely it can be adjusted to serve, not to rule?” But these people became fewer and their voices were lost in the mad scrabble for the non-existent interest.

The administrations changed, the party labels changed, but the major policies continued. Regardless of which Government was in “power”, Fabian’s ultimate goal was brought closer each year. The people’s policies meant nothing. They were being taxed to the limit, they could pay no more. Now the time was ripe for Fabian’s final move.

10% of the money supply was still in the form of notes and coins. This had to be abolished in such a way as not to arouse suspicion. While the people used cash, they were free to buy and sell as they chose – they still had some control over their own lives.

But it was not always safe to carry notes and coins. Checks were not accepted outside one’s local community, and therefore a more convenient system was looked forward to.

Once again Fabian had the answer. His organization issued everyone with a little plastic card showing the person’s name, photograph and an identification number.

When this card was presented anywhere, the storekeeper phoned the central computer to check the credit rating. If it was clear, the person could buy what he wanted up to a certain amount.

At first people were allowed to spend a small amount on credit, and if this was repaid within a month, no interest was charged. This was fine for the wage earner, but what businessman could even begin? He had to set up machinery, manufacture the goods, pay wages etc. and sell all his goods and repay the money. If he exceeded one month, he was charged 1.5% for every month the debt was owed.

This amounted to over 18% per year.

Businessmen had no option but to add the 18% onto the selling price. Yet this extra money or credit (the 18%) had not been loaned out to anyone. Throughout the country, businessmen were given the impossible task of repaying $118 for every $100 they borrowed – but the extra $18 had never been created at all.

Yet Fabian and his friends increased their standing in society. They were regarded as pillars of respectability. Their pronouncements on finance and economics were accepted with almost religious conviction.

Under the burden of ever increasing taxes, many small businesses collapsed. Special licenses were needed for various operations, so that the remaining ones found it very difficult to operate. Fabian owned and controlled all of the big companies which had hundreds of subsidiaries.

These appeared to be in competition with each other, yet he controlled them all. Eventually all competitors were forced out of business. Plumbers, panel beaters, electricians and most other small industries suffered the same fate – they were swallowed up by Fabian’s giant companies which all had Government protection.

Fabian wanted the plastic cards to eliminate notes and coins. His plan was that when all notes were withdrawn, only businesses using the computer card system would be able to operate.

He planned that eventually some people would misplace their cards and be unable to buy or sell anything until a proof of identify was made. He wanted a law to be passed which would give him ultimate control – a law forcing everyone to have their identification number tattooed onto their hand. The number would be visible only under a special light, linked to a computer. Every computer would be linked to a giant central computer so that Fabian could know everything about everyone.

The story you have read is, of course, fiction. But if you found it to be disturbingly close to the truth and would like to know who Fabian was in real life, a good starting point is a study on the activities of the English goldsmiths in the 16th & 17th centuries.

Money is NOT a commodity, it is a system of debit-credit bookkeeping – nothing more.

About the author:
This story was written by Larry Hannigan in 1971 – The sole purpose is to explain the simple maths of reality and the current Banking System – that is – 100 plus NOTHING does NOT equal 105 – and that charging interest on something that is created out of nothing, makes it impossible to repay, giving great power to those who do create money out of nothing – ie the Banks.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

If their plan was exposed, the scheme would fail, so they agreed to form their own secret alliance. Each returned to his own town and began to operate as Fabian had taught.

People now accepted the receipts as being as good as gold itself, and many receipts were deposited for safe keeping in the same way as coins. When a merchant wished to pay another for goods, he simply wrote a short note instructing Fabian to transfer money from his account to that of the second merchant. It took Fabian only a few minutes to adjust the figures.

This new system became very popular, and the instruction notes were called “checks”.

Late one night, the goldsmiths had another secret meeting and Fabian revealed a new plan.

The next day they called a meeting with all the Governors, and Fabian began. “The receipts we issue have become very popular. No doubt, most of you Governors are using them and you find them very convenient.” They nodded in agreement and wondered what the problem was. “Well”, he continued, “some receipts are being copied by counterfeiters. This practice must be stopped.”

The Governors became alarmed. “What can we do?” they asked. Fabian replied, “My suggestion is this – first of all, let it be the Government’s job to print new notes on a special paper with very intricate designs, and then each note to be signed by the chief Governor. We goldsmiths will be happy to pay the printing costs, as it will save us a lot of time writing out receipts”. The Governors reasoned, “Well, it is our job to protect the people against counterfeiters and the advice certainly seems like a good idea.” So they agreed to print the notes.

“Secondly,” Fabian said, “some people have gone prospecting and are making their own gold coins. I suggest that you pass a law so that any person who finds gold nuggets must hand them in. Of course, they will be reimbursed with notes and coins.”

The idea sounded good and without too much thought about it, they printed a large number of crisp new notes. Each note had a value printed on it – $1, $2, $5, $10 etc. The small printing costs were paid by the goldsmiths.

The notes were much easier to carry and they soon became accepted by the people. Despite their popularity however, these new notes and coins were used for only 10% of transactions. The records showed that the check system accounted for 90% of all business.

The next part of his plan commenced. Until now, people were paying Fabian to guard their money. In order to attract more money into the vault Fabian offered to pay depositors 3% interest on their money.

Most people believed that he was re-lending their money out to borrowers at 5%, and his profit was the 2% difference. Besides, the people didn’t question him as getting 3% was far better than paying to have the money guarded.

The volume of savings grew and with the additional money in the vaults, Fabian was able to lend $200, $300, $400 sometimes up to $900 for every $100 in notes and coins that he held in deposit. He had to be careful not to exceed this nine to one ratio, because one person in ten did require the notes and coins for use.

If there was not enough money available when required, people would become suspicious, especially as their deposit books showed how much they had deposited. Nevertheless, on the $900 in book figures that Fabian loaned out by writing checks himself, he was able to demand up to $45 in interest, i.e. 5% on $900.

When the loan plus interest was repaid, i.e. $945, the $900 was canceled out in the debit column and Fabian kept the $45 interest. He was therefore quite happy to pay $3 interest on the original $100 deposited which had never left the vaults at all.

This meant that for every $100 he held in deposits, it was possible to make 42% profit, most people believing he was only making 2%. The other goldsmiths were doing the same thing. They created money out of nothing at the stroke of a pen, and then charged interest on top of it.

True, they didn’t coin money, the Government actually printed the notes and coins and gave it to the goldsmiths to distribute. Fabian’s only expense was the small printing fee. Still, they were creating credit money out of nothing and charging interest on top of it. Most people believed that the money supply was a Government operation.

They also believed that Fabian was lending them the money that someone else had deposited, but it was very strange that no one’s deposits ever decreased when a loan was advanced. If everyone had tried to withdraw their deposits at once, the fraud would have been exposed.

When a loan was requested in notes or coins, it presented no problem. Fabian merely explained to the Government that the increase in population and production required more notes, and these he obtained for the small printing fee.

One day a thoughtful man went to see Fabian. “This interest charge is wrong”, he said. “For every $100 you issue, you are asking $105 in return. The extra $5 can never be paid since it doesn’t exist.

Farmers produce food, industry manufacturers goods, and so on, but only you produce money. Suppose there are only two businessmen in the whole country and we employ everyone else. We borrow $100 each, we pay $90 out in wages and expenses and allow $10 profit (our wage). That means the total purchasing power is $90 + $10 twice, i.e. $200.

Yet to pay you we must sell all our produce for $210. If one of us succeeds and sells all his produce for $105, the other man can only hope to get $95. Also, part of his goods cannot be sold, as there is no money left to buy them.

He will still owe you $10 and can only repay this by borrowing more. The system is impossible.”

The man continued, “Surely you should issue 105, i.e. 100 to me and 5 to you to spend. This way there would be 105 in circulation, and the debt can be repaid.”

Fabian listened quietly and finally said, “Financial economics is a deep subject, my boy, it takes years of study. Let me worry about these matters, and you look after yours. You must become more efficient, increase your production, cut down on your expenses and become a better businessman. I am always willing to help in these matters.”

The man went away still unconvinced. There was something wrong with Fabian’s operations and he felt that his questions had been avoided.

Yet, most people respected Fabian’s word – “He is the expert, the others must be wrong. Look how the country has developed, how our production has increased – we must be better off.”

To cover the interest on the money they had borrowed, merchants were forced to raise their prices. Wage earners complained that wages were too low. Employers refused to pay higher wages, claiming that they would be ruined. Farmers could not get a fair price for their produce. Housewives complained that food was getting too dear.

And finally some people went on strike, a thing previously unheard of. Others had become poverty stricken and their friends and relatives could not afford to help them. Most had forgotten the real wealth all around – the fertile soils, the great forests, the minerals and cattle. They could think only of the money which always seemed so scarce. But they never questioned the system. They believed the Government was running it.

A few had pooled their excess money and formed “lending” or “finance” companies. They could get 6% or more this way, which was better than the 3% Fabian paid, but they could only lend out money they owned – they did not have this strange power of being able to create money out of nothing by merely writing figures in books.

These finance companies worried Fabian and his friends somewhat, so they quickly set up a few companies of their own. Mostly, they bought the others out before they got going. In no time, all the finance companies were owned by them, or under their control.

The economic situation got worse. The wage earners were convinced that the bosses were making too much profit. The bosses said that their workers were too lazy and weren’t doing an honest day’s work, and everyone was blaming everyone else. The Governors could not come up with an answer and besides, the immediate problem seemed to be to help the poverty stricken.

They started up welfare schemes and made laws forcing people to contribute to them. This made many people angry – they believed in the old-fashioned idea of helping one’s neighbor by voluntary effort.

“These laws are nothing more than legalized robbery. To take something off a person against his will, regardless of the purpose for which it is to be used, is no different from stealing.”

But each man felt helpless and was afraid of the jail sentence which was threatened for failing to pay. These welfare schemes gave some relief, but before long the problem was back and more money was needed to cope. The cost of these schemes rose higher and higher and the size of the Government grew.

Most of the Governors were sincere men trying to do their best. They didn’t like asking for more money from their people and finally, they had no choice but to borrow money from Fabian and his friends. They had no idea how they were going to repay. Parents could no longer afford to pay teachers for their children. They couldn’t pay doctors. And transport operators were going out of business.

One by one the government was forced to take these operations over. Teachers, doctors and many others became public servants.

To be continued…

About the author:
This story was written by Larry Hannigan in 1971 – The sole purpose is to explain the simple maths of reality and the current Banking System – that is – 100 plus NOTHING does NOT equal 105 – and that charging interest on something that is created out of nothing, makes it impossible to repay, giving great power to those who do create money out of nothing – ie the Banks.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

Fabian was excited as he once more rehearsed his speech for the crowd certain to turn up tomorrow. He had always wanted prestige and power and now his dreams were going to come true.

He was a craftsman working with silver and gold, making jewelry and ornaments, but he became dissatisfied with working for a living. He needed excitement, a challenge, and now his plan was ready to begin.

For generations the people used the barter system. A man supported his own family by providing all their needs or else he specialized in a particular trade. Whatever surpluses he might have from his own production, he exchanged or swapped for the surplus of others.

Market day was always noisy and dusty, yet people looked forward to the shouting and waving, and especially the companionship. It used to be a happy place, but now there were too many people, too much arguing. There was no time for chatting – a better system was needed.

Generally, the people had been happy, and enjoyed the fruits of their work.

This was the Government’s one and only purpose…

In each community a simple Government had been formed to make sure that each person’s freedoms and rights were protected and that no man was forced to do anything against his will by any other man, or any group of men.

This was the Government’s one and only purpose and each Governor was voluntarily supported by the local community who elected him.

However, market day was the one problem they could not solve. Was a knife worth one or two baskets of corn? Was a cow worth more than a wagon … and so on. No one could think of a better system.

Fabian had advertised, “I have the solution to our bartering problems, and I invite everyone to a public meeting tomorrow.”

The next day there was a great assembly in the town square and Fabian explained all about the new system which he called “money”. It sounded good. “How are we to start?” the people asked.

“The gold which I fashion into ornaments and jewelry is an excellent metal. It does not tarnish or rust, and will last a long time. I will make some gold into coins and we shall call each coin a dollar.”

He explained how values would work, and that “money” would be really a medium for exchange – a much better system than bartering.

One of the Governors questioned, “Some people can dig gold and make coins for themselves”, he said, “This would be most unfair”.

Fabian was ready with the answer. “Only those coins approved by the Government can be used, and these will have special markings stamped on them.” This seemed reasonable and it was proposed that each man be given an equal number. “But I deserve the most,” said the candle-maker. “Everyone uses my candles.” “No”, said the farmer, “without food there is no life, surely we should get the most.” And so the bickering continued.

Fabian let them argue for a while and finally he said, “Since none of you can agree, I suggest you obtain the number you require from me. There will be no limit, except for your ability to repay. The more you obtain, the more you must repay in one year’s time. “And what will you receive?” the people asked.

“Since I am providing a service, that is, the money supply, I am entitled to payment for my work. Let us say that for every 100 pieces you obtain, you repay me 105 for every year that you owe the debt. The 5 will be my charge, and I shall call this charge interest.”

There seemed to be no other way, and besides, 5% seemed little enough charge. “Come back next Friday and we will begin.”

Fabian wasted no time. He made coins day and night, and at the end of the week he was ready. The people were queued up at his shop, and after the coins were inspected and approved by the Governors the system commenced. Some borrowed only a few and they went off to try the new system.

They found money to be marvelous, and they soon valued everything in gold coins or dollars. The value they placed on everything was called a “price”, and the price mainly depended on the amount of work required to produce it. If it took a lot of work the price was high, but if it was produced with little effort it was quite inexpensive.

In one town lived Alan, who was the only watchmaker. His prices were high because the customers were willing to pay just to own one of his watches.

Then another man began making watches and offered them at a lower price in order to get sales. Alan was forced to lower his prices, and in no time at all prices came down, so that both men were striving to give the best quality at the lowest price. This was genuine free competition.

It was the same with builders, transport operators, accountants, farmers, in fact, in every endeavor. The customers always chose what they felt was the best deal – they had freedom of choice. There was no artificial protection such as licenses or tariffs to prevent other people from going into business. The standard of living rose, and before long the people wondered how they had ever done without money.

At the end of the year, Fabian left his shop and visited all the people who owed him money. Some had more than they borrowed, but this meant that others had less, since there were only a certain number of coins issued in the first place. Those who had more than they borrowed paid back each 100 plus the extra 5, but still had to borrow again to carry on.

The others discovered for the first time that they had a debt. Before he would lend them more money, Fabian took a mortgage over some of their assets, and everyone went away once more to try and get those extra 5 coins which always seemed so hard to find.

No one realized that as a whole, the country could never get out of debt until all the coins were repaid, but even then, there were those extra 5 on each 100 which had never been lent out at all. No one but Fabian could see that it was impossible to pay the interest – the extra money had never been issued, therefore someone had to miss out.

It was true that Fabian spent some coins, but he couldn’t possibly spend anything like 5% of the total economy on himself. There were thousands of people and Fabian was only one.

Besides, he was still a goldsmith making a comfortable living.

At the back of his shop Fabian had a strongroom and people found it convenient to leave some of their coins with him for safekeeping. He charged a small fee depending on the amount of money, and the time it was left with him. He would give the owner receipts for the deposit.

When a person went shopping, he did not normally carry a lot of gold coins. He would give the shopkeeper one of the receipts to the value of the goods he wanted to buy.

Shopkeepers recognized the receipt as being genuine and accepted it with the idea of taking it to Fabian and collecting the appropriate amount in coins. The receipts passed from hand to hand instead of the gold itself being transferred. The people had great faith in the receipts – they accepted them as being as good as coins.

Before long, Fabian noticed that it was quite unusual for anyone to actually call for their gold coins.

He thought to himself, “Here I am in possession of all this gold and I am still a hard working craftsman. It doesn’t make sense. Why, there are dozens of people who would be glad to pay me interest for the use of this gold which is lying here and rarely called for.

It is true, the gold is not mine – but it is in my possession, which is all that matters. I hardly need to make any coins at all, I can use some of the coins stored in the vault.”

At first he was very cautious, only loaning a few at a time, and then only on tremendous security. But gradually he became bolder, and larger amounts were loaned.

One day, a large loan was requested. Fabian suggested, “Instead of carrying all these coins we can make a deposit in your name, and then I shall give you several receipts to the value of the coins.” The borrower agreed, and off he went with a bunch of receipts. He had obtained a loan, yet the gold remained in the strong-room. After the client left, Fabian smiled. He could have his cake and eat it too. He could “lend” gold and still keep it in his possession.

Friends, strangers and even enemies needed funds to carry out their businesses – and so long as they could produce security, they could borrow as much as they needed. By simply writing out receipts Fabian was able to “lend” money to several times the value of gold in his strong-room, and he was not even the owner of it. Everything was safe so long as the real owners didn’t call for their gold and the confidence of the people was maintained.

He kept a book showing the debits and credits for each person. The lending business was proving to be very lucrative indeed.

His social standing in the community was increasing almost as fast as his wealth. He was becoming a man of importance, he commanded respect. In matters of finance, his very word was like a sacred pronouncement.

To be continued…

About the author:
This story was written by Larry Hannigan in 1971 – The sole purpose is to explain the simple maths of reality and the current Banking System – that is – 100 plus NOTHING does NOT equal 105 – and that charging interest on something that is created out of nothing, makes it impossible to repay, giving great power to those who do create money out of nothing – ie the Banks.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

His passion for learning was rejuvenated, however, after years of meditation, and reading philosophy and psychology. With this rekindling of the learning process, Waitzkin took up the martial art Tai Chi Chuan at the age of 21 and made rapid progress, winning the 2004 push hands world championship at the age of 27.

After reading Joshua’s most recent book The Art of Learning, I thought of a million topics I wanted to discuss with him – topics such as being labelled a “child prodigy”, blooming, creativity, and the learning process. Thankfully, since I was profiling Waitzkin for an article I was fortunate enough to get a chance to have such a conversation with him. I hope you find this discussion just as provocative and illuminating as I did.

The Child Prodigy

S. Why did you leave chess at the top of your game?

J. This is a complicated question that I wrote about very openly in my book. In short, I had lost the love. My relationship to the game had become externalized-by pressures from the film about my life, by losing touch with my natural voice as an artist, by mistakes I made in the growth process. At the very core of my relationship to learning is the idea that we should be as organic as possible.

We need to cultivate a deeply refined introspective sense, and build our relationship to learning around our nuance of character. I stopped doing this and fell into crisis from a sense of alienation from an art I had loved so deeply. This is when I left chess behind, started meditating, studying philosophy and psychology, and ultimately moved towards Tai Chi Chuan.

S. Do you think being a child prodigy hurt your chess career in any way?

J. I have never considered myself a prodigy. Others have used that term, but I never bought in to it. From a young age it was always about embracing the battle, loving the game, and overcoming adversity. Growing up as a competitor in Washington Square Park helped me avoid the perils of perfectionism-it was a school of hard knocks, and those guys always kept me on my toes for complacency.

On this theme, I think losing my first National Chess Championship was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, because it helped me avoid many of the psychological traps you are hinting at. That year, between ages 8 and 9 was one of the most formative periods of my life. I had felt my mortality, came back strong, and went on to dominate the scholastic chess scene over the next 8 years. On some fundamental level, the notion of success in my being was defined by overcoming adversity-and it still is.

The truth is that throughout my careers in both chess and the martial arts, I often knew that my rivals were more naturally gifted than me-either with their mental machines or their bodies. But I have believed in my training, my approach to learning, and my ability to rise to the challenge under pressure.

S. In general, do you see any disadvantages to being labeled a child prodigy?

J. Yes, there are huge disadvantages if you buy into the label. The most perilous danger, in the language of Carol Dweck, is that we internalize an entity theory of intelligence. The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability as opposed to resilience and hard work, we will be brittle in the face of adversity.

For that reason, it is incredibly important for parents to make their feedback process related as opposed to praising or criticizing talent. Think about it-if you tell a kid that she is a winner, which a lot of well-intentioned parents do, then she learns that her winning is because of something ingrained in her. But if we win because we are a winner, then when we lose it must make us a loser.

S. If the movie of your life hadn’t been made, do you think you’d still be continuing on in chess?

J. That’s a great question. My mother would say no. I hope she is right but I’m not sure. I really loved the game so deeply, and it was a wildly intense, exciting, and spiritually rewarding process. The movie definitely had a large role in the existential crisis that locked me up and moved me away from chess.

But that period of transition taught me some incredibly valuable life lessons that have defined my growth in other arenas-so just to be clear, although it caused me some pain, I would never take back that experience. My hunch is that I would have stayed in chess for much longer and would have gone much further-but I think ultimately I would have felt like a lion in a cage sitting at a chessboard my whole life.

S. Do you think if you took up chess at a later age, you could have been a world champion in chess?

J. I have no idea.

S. Do you think you will ever return to chess? And if you do, do you think you are still capable of being the world champion? Or have you missed your boat?

J. I don’t think I will ever go back to competitive chess. I’m on to new mountains. Since winning the 2004 Tai Chi Push Hands Worlds, which is where my book ends, I decided to be a beginner again, and took up the martial art Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a fiercely competitive and physically brutal sport.

I am training full time and aiming for the 2010 and 11 World Championships-the biggest challenge of my life. I’ve also recently opened an educational nonprofit-the JW Foundation, www.jwfoundation.com , and am devoted to helping kids discover their shine in the learning process. My plate is pretty full beyond chess.

S. Were you a good student in school?

J. I was a cut up in classes that didn’t excite me, and I was passionate about what did.

S. Did you like learning new subjects in school? Are there any subjects you had trouble with? Or that you just didn’t like?

J. I never liked math much although I was pretty good at it. And I hated geography in 3rd grade.

On Blooming

S. What does the term “late bloomer” mean to you?

J. To be honest, I haven’t thought much about the term, but in my mind it implies that someone came into their own later in their life or process than most would consider typical for exceptional achievers. Of course this definition leaves a lot to be desired because I tend to consider the deeper aspects of the learning process to be most interesting, and they often take quite a bit of time, hard work, and suffering to penetrate.

S. Do you consider yourself a late bloomer in Tai Chi Chuan?

J. Well, I didn’t start studying Tai Chi Chuan until I was 21, so from a competitive athletic perspective, I was certainly a late starter-at a world-class level most of my rivals in Asia had trained full time since early childhood. I had a lot of ground to cover, and I did it essentially by taking my lessons learned in other arenas of life, chess to a large degree, and transferring them over into this new art. As for blooming, I’m still working on that.

S. In reading your book, it seems as though your major strength in Tai Chi Chuan is the way you put your mind into the game. You were able to beat players much stronger than you by “getting into their mind.” I find this fascinating. Why do you think you were so good at psyching people out? Was it because of your early chess experiences?

J. Sure, my chess experience taught me a lot about the psychology of competition. World-class chess players are incredibly brilliant people who have spent their lives figuring out ways to get it your head, to break you down. Usually every high level chess error is accompanied by a psychological break of sorts-to survive, you have to understand the inner game.

I am always looking for where the psychological and the technical collide-that surely comes from my chess study. But frankly, I think I really got good at the psychological game after chess. Chess taught me how to be relentlessly introspective, how to unearth tells in myself and in opponents, but then I really took that foundation and put it into dynamic action in the martial arts.

I work on being a heat seeking missile for dogma. If you unearth or instill a false assumption in an opponent, they are in a lot of trouble unless they feel you getting into their head and kick you out fast. Of course this eye for false constructs is an important tool in the learning process as well.

S. Do you think part of your ability to psych people out may have to do with your extraordinary intelligence compared to other players? You said something interesting in your book regarding your match with Buffalo. You say: “He was surely the greater athlete. But maybe I was the better thinker.” Is it possible that you were just smarter than Buffalo (even though he was stronger)?

J. I don’t think I have an extraordinary intelligence. Buffalo had cultivated his body his whole life, and he had that edge. I had cultivated my mind. My chance lay in making the mental game dominate a physical battle. At a high level of competition, success often hinges on who determines the field and tone of battle.

S. In your book you discuss Carol Dweck’s work on how perceptions of the fixed nature of ability can affect ability itself. I do think that Carol’s work is important and I appreciate you citing it in your book. I was wondering though: to what extent do you think so-called inborn ability determines success in learning a new craft like chess or Tai Chi Chuan?

J. I am a nurture over nature guy. While I would tend to disagree, some might argue that I was an extremely gifted chess player. Fair enough. But there is no way you could argue that I am an athlete of world-class talent. I am able to compete at the highest levels because I have cultivated an approach to learning and performance that maximizes my strengths, tackles my weaknesses through the prism of my strengths, dissolves crippling false constructs and divisive mental barriers, and allows me to express myself through my art in as unhindered a manner as possible.

S. How much do you think people can compensate for weak natural ability? It seems like a major component of your learning technique is learning how to play up your strengths, and exploit the weaknesses of others. Could you perhaps elaborate on this idea?

J. I tend to feel that there is something a bit self-destructive in believing you have to compensate for weak natural ability, because it implies that there is one ideal way to learn something and because of natural deficiencies we are forced to take a different, much longer road. On the contrary, I have found that people at the highest levels of Quality in virtually all pursuits are somewhat unusual minds-and their “brilliance” has usually evolved from working with their natural strengths.

There is this terrible tendency in education to box all kids into the same mold-this is one of many problems with all these standardized tests. The paved road is often the dogmatic one (of course we cannot believe this dogmatically) and there is something wonderful about building a learning process around the uniqueness of your own inspirations.

On Learning

S. I read your book and thought to myself, “Wow, Joshua gets it. He really mastered the art of learning.” Your writing is so good and your points are so well made that it seems by reading your book that what you’ve discovered can be taught to anyone (although, as you mention, customized to each individual’s unique style). I can’t help but notice though how fast you learn things, even in comparison to others who are attempting to learn (and I assume with equal determination). To what extent do you think raw IQ contributes to your fast learning ability? Research does show that those with a high IQ can learn nearly anything at a faster rate than others.

J. Thank you for the compliment, but my guess is that I wouldn’t have a terribly impressive IQ. And I don’t learn so fast, I just have a lot of passion and throw my heart and soul into things that move me. Learning happens to have been an art that moves me and that I have worked very hard to understand.

S. Have you ever had your IQ tested? Would you be open to me testing you sometime?

J. I haven’t. I guess I might be open to it, but I tend to find these standardized tests to be somewhat limiting. My greatest strength lies in finding hidden harmonies-discovering connections where others might see chaos or disconnect. That is a way of thinking that I have cultivated for many years. It is one that was not ingrained, and that most people could develop if they wanted to.

S. To what extent do you think your fast learning rate is due to your disciplined technique to learning?

J. I would say that the depth of my learning (and it has a long way to go) is a result of passion, hard work, an introspective honesty, and beyond all else, a love for the search.

S. How much do you think passion and devotion to learning contributed to your success?

J. It would be hard for me to overstate it.

S. In what ways did your chess skills help you with Tai Chi Chuan? What skills were transferable?

J. This is a deep question that was at the core of my inspiration for writing The Art of Learning. It will be hard to answer this quickly, but, in short, all of the skills were transferable. The two arts became one in my mind and it felt like I was transferring my sense of Quality from chess over into Tai Chi Chuan. And this had nothing to do with these particular disciplines-they couldn’t really be more different-the translation process can be applied to anything. At the core of my relationship to learning is breaking down the barriers in our minds that divide our disparate pursuits. These walls are false constructs. If we cultivate a thematic eye, then growth in one area of life will immediately inform our other pursuits.

In truth, this is a big reason I took up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu-I am currently taking the essence of my chess and Tai Chi understanding, and transferring it over to a third art. This receptivity to thematic interconnectedness is a muscle I hope to cultivate for the rest of my life.

S. In reading your book, I wondered if you could become world-class at anything. You discovered that there are many similarities between Chess and Tai Chi Chuan. And it’s clear that your abilities are well suited to whatever is common across these two domains. But to what extent do you think you could take your insights into learning and use them to become an expert in any field?

J. This is an interesting question. I think my ideas could be applied to just about any field, and I would have a lot of confidence taking on most arts. I think there are obviously some things that we are weakest at, and it would be absurd to spend a lifetime in those arenas-in my case, anything related to neatness – that said, our strengths can be applied to disciplines that might seem as unrelated as possible.

Just to be clear, I don’t think my approach has anything to do with what happens to be common ground between chess and Tai Chi Chuan. The connections were in my process, and that process, or anyone’s personalized variation of it, could be applied across the board.

S. In your book you describe a moment in your match with Buffalo where you say: “I reached deeper than I knew I had and won the most dramatic point of my life.” You then say: “I saw parts of myself I didn’t know about.” Could you please elaborate? In other words, can you demystify “reaching deeper” for me? Do you think most of us are capable of more than we realize?

J. Yes, I do-no question about it. Growth only really comes at the point of resistance, but that is the moment that we tend to stop. Because it hurts. Whether we are confronting our psychological foibles or our physiological limits, it is much easier to turn back from the challenge than to push through the discomfort. I think digging deeply into ourselves, pushing our limits, is a muscle that can be cultivated like any other – incrementally.

If we embrace these outer limits of our ability as something malleable that can expand with training, and if we embrace the discomfort of these moments of growth, then we start to love the richness of the self-discovery. The discomfort becomes exquisite.

Learning becomes life.As for that moment against Buffalo, I had lived as a competitor for over 20 years and had no idea what I could really do when pushed so far past my “limit.” Fortunately I had trained to be able to meet the challenge, even if I had no idea how big the challenge would really be. We have remarkable reservoirs.

S. What does it mean to “feel space left behind”? You use that phrase a lot in your book, but I’m honestly not 100% clear on what it really means.

J. This is an idea that applies to most disciplines. Every movement, be it mental or physical, tends to both take space and leave something behind. We are conditioned to see what something does more than what it doesn’t do. This tendency is a construct. Dogma. Training yourself to see newly created emptiness can be quite powerful.

S. In your book you say: “The only thing we can really count on is getting surprised.” Can you please elaborate a bit on this?

J. Sure. I wrote those words reflecting back on the ups and downs of my competitive careers thus far and more specifically on the 2004 World Championships, the most brutal experience of my life. I have learned that in those rare moments of truth in our lives, we have to be willing to let go of the comfort of our knowledge, our preparation, our sense of control, and we have to flow with an improvisational spirit that embraces chaos, turns adversity to our advantage, and digs into our deepest reservoirs of energy and creativity.

Our relationship to the learning process, in my opinion, should be one that prepares us for that freedom under pressure-or more truly, that liberates us to live every moment with that openness to unexpected beauty. Learning and peak performance aren’t about control or memorization or perfection-they are about something much deeper, something more essentially human.

S. What role do you think intuition and the unconscious plays in the learning process?

J. A tremendously important one. A huge part of my process involves breaking down the walls between the conscious and unconscious minds, so technical growth sparks creative leaps, and perhaps more importantly, creative leaps can inform the direction of technical growth.

The chapter entitled Slowing Down Time and the second to last chapter of my book in which I was training for the 2004 World Championships really go into my system for cultivating the intuition. Opening up communication between these different components of our minds is another muscle that we can all develop if we understand how.

S. What role do you think flow plays in the learning process?

J. It plays a critical role. People often make the mistake of dividing the learning process from performance psychology in their minds-as if they can learn for a lifetime and then perform at their level of ability whenever necessary. I believe this is short-sighted from two perspectives.

One, the ability to perform under pressure is an art of its own that must be cultivated as a way of life. And perhaps more importantly, if we are not deeply present in the day to day learning process, then we will not be learning at a high level. The ability to enter a state of flow is one that should be integral to every aspect of our life in learning. And again, it is not so hard as long as we take it on systematically.

S. Do you think you’d ever consider taking up breakdancing? I have enjoyed learning how to breakdance and think you’d be quite good at it!

J. Thanks man. No breakdancing for me yet. One thing at a time.

Scott Barry Kaufman has published multiple journal articles and book chapters relating to intelligence and creativity and is the editor of two forthcoming books. Interview © 2008 by Scott Barry Kaufman.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download