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Happy !!! Is all that we need today!!!
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World by Michael Anthony
http://www.HowToBeHappy.org © 2005 2 by Michael Anthony
Free E-Book
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the
World
Copyright © 2005, revised 2006 by Michael Anthony. All rights reserved.
In order to share the insights contained in this book with as many individuals as possible,
Michael Anthony gives you permission to copy this book in any form you wish for your
own use or to give it to others. You are not given permission to modify it in any way, or
sell or charge money for this book in any form under any circumstances.
After you read my Happy eBook, if you feel its insights have helped you and will help
others, a donation of $10.00 or whatever you choose is welcome to help me to maintain
and expand my efforts to help our world become more truthful and positive. I'm doing the
best I can to make this happen, but I can't do it alone. Your help is needed and will make
a difference. Since we are all in this together, enjoy my book and have fun doing your part
to help change our world for the better.
FYI – I personally spend money every day on Google AdWords to make the Happy
eBook available to you and others for free . If you feel my Happy eBook has helped
you, do your part and help out so we can help many others.
If you desire to help out, please send a check or money order in U.S. currency to:
Michael Anthony
P.O. Box 35
Danville, CA 94526
Or use your credit card or PayPal account at the Donation link on my website at
www.HowToBeHappy.org, which takes you to a secured server.
Thanks for your generosity and help in making the world a better place for all of us.
Written and Published by: Cover Designed and Donated by:
Michael Anthony Thos Chapman
Danville, California http://www.ThosChapman.com
Disclaimer
This book is not designed to provide psychological advice or to substitute for professional
counsel. Its purpose is to increase your happiness by making you aware of the
consequences of all your thoughts and actions. No responsibility is accepted for use of
this information. Use is entirely at your own risk. Information contained is for
educational purposes only.
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World by Michael Anthony
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ..…………………………………...……….………….. 4
Chapter 1: The Introduction ……………………...….…………………….. 5
Chapter 2: Owner’s Manual for Human Beings ………………………..… 13
Chapter 3: Self-Awareness and the Daily Affirmation ………………...… 26
Chapter 4: “To Thine Own Self Be True” ………………………………... 35
Chapter 5: External Versus Internal Happiness ………………………….. 38
Chapter 6: Cause and Effect -- Attractor Fields …...................................... 44
Chapter 7: The Proof is in the Pudding ………………………………..… 50
Chapter 8: Transforming Emotions ………………………...…………….. 74
Chapter 9: Have Fun Helping to Change the World …………...………… 78
Appendices I: Highly Recommended Reading or Listening ……..………. 88
Appendices II: Keep in Touch ……………………………………………. 90
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Acknowledgements
This is in memory of a very special spirit and dear friend, Linda
Harper 11/2/1952 - 8/30/2006, who taught me much by her example. She
was as hard as a rock, yet as gentle as new fallen snow.
Thanks to my mother and father for giving me the gift of life and the
positive values they taught me as a child.
Special thanks to my mentor Philosopher Edgar Phillips for teaching
me his profound insights into the chemical brain. Also, thanks to his wife,
Helen, for generously giving me permission and her blessings to use the
concepts and insights from his book, Breakthrough. Unfortunately, Edgar
Phillips is no longer with us to see his ideas and philosophies blossom and
bear fruit.
This is to thank you, if you decide to have fun changing the world one
person at a time by starting with yourself and spreading the word.
Last, but not least, thanks to my hero Don Quixote for inspiring me to
keep striving to help achieve the impossible dream of peace and harmony for
all of us.
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Chapter 1
The Introduction
If you are reading this book, you may have several questions running
through your head about me. Why did I write How to be Happy and Have
Fun Changing the World? Will this book be able to deliver the goods or am
I just a dreamer? If the insights revealed in this book can make you happy or
happier and help improve the world, why would I give something so valuable
away for free?
I wrote this book for several reasons. The first one is because I love
sharing the insights contained in this book with others and it makes me very
happy. The second one is because I wanted to reach a mass audience by
addressing a subject that would appeal to most, if not all, of the people living
on our planet. After all who doesn’t desire to be happy or happier and make
our world a better place for themselves, their children and their children’s
children?
The third reason is because I needed a feedback mechanism that you
can easily relate to and cannot deny. Everyone knows whether they are
happy or unhappy. You can decide for yourself what gives you true and
lasting happiness. You will be able to judge for yourself if what I share with
you makes total sense.
The most important reason is that this book allows me to introduce you
to eight words that will help you increase your self-awareness and happiness.
These eight words will help you make better choices that will change you
and the world for the better, in the process. If you want to be happier and
remain happy, this book will show you the way.
If you can honestly say that you’re totally happy with all aspects of
your life, are you happy with what is going on in the world? Unless you
never follow the local news and world affairs, or live in a cave in the
Himalayas, you’re probably not happy about something or at least would like
to improve it if you knew an effective way to bring about positive change.
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I acknowledge that there are many positive things about our world, but
you have to admit that some things could be much better. I’m not going to
go into a commentary about what’s wrong with the world; you can decide
that for yourself. I wrote this book to increase your self-awareness and give
you some positive steps to take, if you desire to be happier and have fun
helping to change the world for the better.
By the time you finish reading this book, you will know if I’m a
dreamer or a man with a plan that will work if you help out by doing your
part. In the meantime, here is a very brief story of my life to help you get to
know me better.
As I write this in the year 2005, I am in my early sixties. So I have
some life experience to draw on. I was born in 1943 to a very religious blue
collar family. We didn’t have much money, but I was given very solid
values. I had a very happy childhood playing on the railroad tracks and
swimming in the Baltimore harbor. Some would consider my playground
dangerous, but to me it was lots of fun and adventure, Huckleberry Finn
style.
After high school, I worked for two years to earn enough money to pay
for my first year of college. Working part-time jobs during college paid for
the rest. I was one of the rare kids in my neighborhood that went to college
instead of going to work on the waterfront, or in the local factories like their
fathers.
I majored in business and economics at the University of Maryland
and graduated in three and a half years. I had a great time during my college
years, and even became President of my fraternity Sigma Pi. My only regret
was not taking the full four years to graduate .
From there I went to New York City and worked in the Wall Street
area as an international banker for one of the largest banks in the world. In
the evenings I worked on getting my MBA at New York University. I even
got married to a wonderful woman. In the so-called “real world” I was
making a lot of progress, but I realized that I wasn’t having much fun
anymore in my world.
The child in me was growing up and becoming unhappier day by day.
By the time I was in my middle to late twenties, my ambition had dried up. I
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started to search for what would make me happy again. I looked into the
future and realized that the outside world of riches and material comfort had
little to offer me as a means to achieve true and lasting happiness.
I started reading books on philosophy and metaphysics. Blessed with
a strong and ambitious spirit, I read lots and lots of these books. My inner
world was coming alive again and my relationship with the “real world”
outside was coming to an end.
My promising career in international banking came to a close. In my
early thirties I moved to San Francisco. Eventually, I got a friendly divorce
and kept searching for the answer to what would make me happy. My
former wife and I are still the best of friends.
During this period of soul searching to find the answer of how to be
happy, I would take high commission sales jobs with the hopes of making a
million dollars so I could be financially independent and quit working. But,
my spirit was restless and wanted me to keep searching for happiness. So I
did. In hindsight, I probably would have made my millions if I loved what I
was doing and stuck with any one of the several opportunities that I left
behind. However, I’m glad that I kept searching.
It wasn’t because I lacked discipline. I lacked direction. I had enough
self-discipline to swim a mile or two in the frigid waters of the San Francisco
Bay almost everyday for five years. I’m pleased to let you know that I swam
across the span of the Golden Gate Bridge four times and from Alcatraz to
San Francisco twice. I had plenty of self-discipline.
In my late thirties I met my mentor Edgar Phillips who taught me the
secret to happiness which I will share with you in this book. Armed with this
knowledge, we tried to take it to the business world through a program
designed to increase productivity in the workplace.
Unfortunately, during the early 1980’s the business world had a hard
time accepting the major principle of Edgar Phillips’ philosophy. Can you
imagine that the business world didn’t readily accept being 100% truthful, no
matter what the consequences?
I found out that business at that time had a hard time relating to the
concept that being totally ethical would increase productivity. There was
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some interest, but I did not find any serious players in the business world that
were open to what I had to share.
Since I’m not easily discouraged, I found success sharing this
information with athletes because I related it to a feedback mechanism that
they could not deny. I tied performance to the mind/body connection and it
worked like a charm. In 1984 I moved to Los Angeles to be near the
Olympics.
There, I met Ruby Fox. Ruby was struggling at the 1984 Olympic
trials and had one last chance to make the U.S. Olympic pistol team. After
only one forty-five minute mental training consultation with me, she shot 299
out of a possible 300 score and made the Olympic team.
During the Olympics, Ruby got into a sudden death shoot off for the
Gold Medal. She ended up with the Silver Medal because she became giddy
after a long string of perfect scores during the shoot off, and lost her focus.
Afterwards, Ruby told me that she was very happy with her Silver Medal and
it was an experience she will never forget.
In 1987 two-time world champion Lynne Jewell asked me to help her
and her partner Allison Jolley to prepare mentally for the 1988 Olympics in
Seoul, Korea. I did and they won the Gold Medal in yachting.
During the 1990’s I fine-tuned my mental training program by
working with golfers. I helped many golfers for free and supported myself
with part time sales jobs when they were available because I was very good
at selling products and services that I believed in.
There were times when I would sleep in my car or wherever I could to
make ends meet. You couldn’t pay me enough money to keep me from
doing what I loved, even though I was not being paid. At times, I was forced
to stop and regroup.
I’ve had many adventures -- and misadventures -- that I could share
with you, but I’ll leave that for a future book. Indeed, I was a Man with a
Mission that could be slowed down, but not stopped.
Eventually, I did start charging for my one-on-one mental training
consultations, and I trained well over half of the head PGA golf teaching
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professionals in Palm Springs. I wrote and self-published the book The
Mental Keys to Improve Your Golf and began selling it on the internet from
my website http://www.mentalkeys.com in 1999.
In 2004, I produced a CD, “Using The Mental Keys to Polish the
Wheel,” which has been very well-received as a complimentary addition to
my book. If you are a golfer and want lower scores, then please read my golf
book and listen to my CD.
I offer a one-year 100% money back guarantee on my book and CD.
Very rarely have I received requests for refunds. Instead, I have received
hundreds of emails from golfers living in every corner of the world, telling
me about their lower scores and how my book applies to their life, as well as
their golf. (For those of you that are not familiar with golf, the lowest score
wins.)
If you are curious about what golfers have to say about The Mental
Keys to Improve Your Golf, then please visit my golf website at
http://www.mentalkeys.com, and read the countless testimonials from golfers
at every age and skill level, raving about their lower golf scores. I receive so
many positive comments from golfers that I rarely add the new ones to the
website.
It may have taken me a while to get here, but I’m a very happy person
and my spirit is having fun again. Now, it’s my turn to help you and many
others by sharing what has made me very happy.
Here is the answer to the last question. Why would I want to give
away something so valuable for free when it took me many years of my life
searching to obtain it? As I mentioned above, it makes me very happy
sharing this information. Plus, I would like to do my part in helping to make
our world a better place to live. I totally believe in the power of the insights
contained in this book. I know without a doubt that they will make you
happier. They work for me and will work for you if you use them. The
choice is yours to put these insights to work for you.
By not charging for this book, I take away all of your objections and
reservations for not getting a copy and reading it. All you need is the desire
to be happy or happier. You may even desire to have fun helping to change
the world for the better.
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I know that you will benefit from what I’ll be sharing with you, and
many readers will tell their friends about How to Be Happy and Have Fun
Changing the World. They, in turn, will do the same.
Through the power of the internet and word of mouth advertising,
millions of individuals like you will read this book. It will have a positive
influence on many lives, and eventually our planet’s values. By the time you
finish reading this book, you will understand “why” and “how.”
If the insights revealed in this book make you happier, and you would
like to help me maintain and expand my efforts, feel free to send me a
donation. If not, that’s OK because I’m not in this for the money. I gave up
being motivated just to make money a long time ago. However, your help is
needed and will make a difference. So enjoy my book and help out .
Now that you know where I’m coming from, keep an open mind and
enjoy reading the rest of this book. The proof is in the pudding.
"The Joy of Life"
This is the true joy of life. The being used for a purpose
recognized by yourself as a mighty one. The being a force
of nature instead of a feverish and selfish clod of ailments
and grieving senses complaining that the world will not
devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole
community and that as long as I live it is my privilege
to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used
up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief
candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I
have got to hold up for the moment, and I want to make
it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on
to future generations.
-George Bernard Shaw
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World by Michael Anthony
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Chapter 2
Owner’s Manual for Human Beings
When I was growing up, my parents didn’t give me an Owner’s
Manual for Human Beings. How about you? Were you given an owner’s
manual explaining how you were designed to function? Did it come with
instructions how to operate correctly and happily?
My mentor’s explanation of the chemical brain and how the brain
processed information, along with his total commitment to the truth, no
matter what the consequences, was an owner’s manual that made sense to
me. Edgar Phillips gave me direction and started me on the road to
happiness. Reading about the insights of other great teachers and thinkers,
helped me to fine-tune this owner’s manual that I’m about to share with you.
Human beings were designed by the Creator to all function the same
way. A good analogy is the hardware of a computer. We are all hard-wired
the same. What makes us behave differently from each other is the way we
think, feel and act, which is our software.
What most individuals don’t realize is that the power of your brain or
computer’s hardware varies according to the chemistry of your brain. You
can dramatically increase the power and efficiency of your brain or personal
computer by optimizing the chemistry of its cranial fluid. Let’s take it step
by step.
Improve Your Brain’s Chemistry
It is critical to conceptually understand that your brain actually
secretes chemicals corresponding to your positive and negative thoughts.
The resulting chemistry of your brain’s cranial fluid influences all of your
natural abilities and functions. This, in turn, determines how well you
perform in everything you do because your brain is like a powerful computer.
The power and efficiency of your wonderful personal computer can be
increased dramatically by optimizing the chemistry of your brain’s cranial
fluid. This fact is very easy to demonstrate in the world of sports with
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athletic performance because of the mind/body connection. I have proven
this to be true many times in the arena of athletic competition.
I am not going to explain the specific details of your electrochemical
nervous system and list the numerous biochemicals that affect your behavior
and performance. This book takes a common sense approach to a very
profound conceptual explanation of what makes you tick as a human being.
The details are not that important. The concepts are!
For example, do you know the chemical composition of the gasoline
that powers your automobile or how the engine in your car works? You
know that if you turn on the key and step on the gas pedal, your car runs. If
not, you take it to a mechanic to have it fixed. You know that if you put
water in the gas tank, your car will not run. It is not necessary for you to
become a chemist or a mechanic to drive your car, as long as you understand
the basic principles. It may be nice to know the details, but unless you want
to be a chemist or a mechanic is it worth the time to learn?
The same is true of your electrochemical nervous system. It may be
interesting to know the details. However, do you really have the time or
desire to get a Ph.D. in neurobiochemistry, like Doctor Michael Raleigh at
the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA School
of Medicine in Los Angeles, CA? Doctor Raleigh specializes in the
neurotransmitter serotonin.
While he experiments primarily with monkeys, he has done tests with
athletes and fraternity members at UCLA. His research supports the findings
that higher levels of serotonin in the blood correlate to higher performance
levels and that changes in behavior cause serotonin levels to change. I had
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the opportunity to meet with him in 1984 while I was in Los Angeles for the
Olympics. He agreed that my owner’s manual made sense and I was going
in the right direction.
If you want an eye opening account of how positive emotions cause
chemical changes that help heal the body, read esteemed endocrinologist Dr.
Deepak Chopra’s Quantum Healing (Bantam Books, 1989).
Your mind and body function together. Athletes live and die by the
performance of their bodies. From their own personal experiences, they
easily relate to the concept that their negative thoughts cause their brain to
secrete chemicals that immediately impair their performance. This
awareness helps them to be more objective and positive when dealing with
challenges. It helps them to control their emotions and increase their
performance.
A good metaphor to help you understand the influence of your brain's
chemistry on your performance is a fine-tuned racing engine. Those engines,
designed to run on super high-octane gasoline, sputter when using regular
gasoline.
This is similar to what happens when you are negative. You put lowoctane
chemicals in your brain, causing your performance to suffer. When
you are positive and operating on instinct, your brain, metaphorically,
secretes super high-octane chemicals and your ability to perform excels as
you enter the “zone.”
Your brain receives input through your five senses.
SENSE STIMULI
See
Hear
Feel
Taste
Smell
Whenever you ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘feel’, ‘taste’, and ‘smell’ something
(stimuli), it enters your nervous system as an electrical impulse through a
neuron (nerve cell). Once the electrical message reaches the end of the
neuron (called a synapse) the electrical impulse/message converts into a
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biochemical (called a neurotransmitter). Then, this chemical message is
converted back into an electrical impulse/message when it reaches the next
neuron. This process repeats itself over and over until the message reaches
the brain and is acted upon.
In reality you have an electrochemical nervous system. As the
chemicals change, the messages change and your brain’s performance varies
accordingly. When you are positive and operating on instinct, your brain,
metaphorically, runs on super high-octane chemicals. Your performance
excels and you feel at your best.
It is important to realize that your electrochemical nervous system is
an alternating electrical current that generates an electromagnetic field, which
is infinite in nature. The strength and quality of your electromagnetic field is
felt by those around you. As your awareness increases you will realize that
you can’t hide your feelings from those you interact with and they can’t hide
theirs from you. That’s why you have good chemistry with people you enjoy
being with and bad chemistry with those that you don’t.
What is even more important to realize is that the electromagnetic field
that your thoughts create cause attractor fields which affect your life and
happiness. We will talk more about the importance and power of the
electromagnetic fields your thoughts generate in this chapter and in Chapter
6: Cause and Effect -- Attractor Fields.
You can increase your natural abilities and happiness by consciously
adjusting the chemistry of your brain's cranial fluid. This fluid is affected by
your thoughts, diet/nutrition, exercise, rest, environment and physiology.
CRANIAL FLUID’S CHEMISTRY AFFECTED BY:
Thoughts
Diet
Exercise
Rest
Environment
Physiology
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THOUGHTS: As previously discussed, your positive and negative thoughts
cause your brain to secrete chemicals. These chemicals, in turn, affect all
your natural abilities and functions. Your thoughts have two components:
facts and emotions. Every stimulus you receive through your nervous system
is nothing more than a fact. However, you attach emotions to these facts.
It is imperative for you to realize that negative emotions cause adverse
chemical secretions and hinder your natural abilities. Increase your
awareness of the profound influence negative emotions have on your brain's
chemistry, performance and happiness. Become more objective and
restructure any negative emotional attachment you have to certain facts.
Facts are merely facts. However, you can choose your emotional response to
them. I’ll tell you how as this book progresses.
DIET/NUTRITION: Everything you eat and drink is a chemical, which
affects your performance and how you feel. If you doubt this, observe how a
person’s behavior changes when they drink some alcohol. Better yet, ask
them how they feel the next day if they drank too much .
Since there are many good books available on nutrition, I will just
briefly touch on this subject. In the early cave dwelling days there were no
factories and no processed foods. Humans are designed to live on natural
foods with the proper amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fat.
I advise you to eat wisely and in moderation. Also, do not become
neurotic about what you eat. Your emotional state is far more important than
what you eat, even though what you eat is important.
EXERCISE: When I work with a boxer, swimmer, runner or any athlete
who has to push himself to higher levels of physical exertion, I can normally
skip this section. His or her daily training routine already includes several
hours of intense physical conditioning. However, outside the world of sports,
most individuals are out of shape. How about you?
In the early days of time, humans engaged in many forms of physical
activity just to survive. Your body is designed to function properly with
physical exertion so it can remove toxins and secrete beneficial chemicals. If
you do not believe this, exercise the next time you are depressed. Notice
how much better you feel after exercising.
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For your body and mind to function at their best, it is important to
exercise to make up for the lack of physical activity resulting from today’s
modern conveniences. Is 20 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week
too great a price to pay for a healthy body and an alert mental state?
When I lived in Palm Springs, I swam a mile almost every day. One
day while I was showering after a swim, another swimmer remarked to me
how much better he always felt after swimming. Then he added, “It is not
like golf, which makes me feel worse after playing a bad round.”
REST: Sufficient rest is necessary for the body to eliminate toxins and
rejuvenate itself. Have you ever noticed that you sleep more when depressed
than when you are excited and happy to be alive?
While you sleep, your brain is busy processing all the information it
received during the day so that it can make spontaneous decisions when
you’re awake. This will be covered in greater detail when I explain
“Changing Your Tape” later in this chapter.
ENVIRONMENT: When I refer to environment, I’m not just talking about
the air you breathe and your physical surroundings. I am more concerned
with the people around you. The electromagnetic fields they generate, as
well as their thoughts and actions, can adversely affect you.
I strongly recommend associating only with positive people, or keep to
yourself. The only time you should associate with negative people is when
you are trying to help them. Your stronger electromagnetic field and positive
thoughts and actions will have a positive effect on them.
Researchers have found that emotions, positive and negative alike, are
nearly as contagious as colds and flu. You can catch feelings of elation,
euphoria, sadness and more from friends, family, colleagues, even strangers.
Mood "infection" happens in milliseconds, says Elaine Hatfield, a
psychology professor at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and a coauthor
of Emotional Contagion (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
When interacting with a negative person, take extra steps to remain
positive. Otherwise, you may be influenced by his or her negativity.
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PHYSIOLOGY: Your body reflects your emotional state. When you are
positive and confident, you stand erect with your chest out and a smile on
your face. If you just won $10,000,000 in the lottery, imagine how you
would feel and how your physiology would respond . You would feel on
top of the world. Everyone watching you will see it by the way you carry
yourself.
Imagine how you would feel and look if you lost your winning lottery
ticket . If this depressed you, your eyes would be down and your shoulders
slumped. Some individuals would probably feel like killing themselves for
losing their winning ticket.
Your physiology works both ways. Your body reflects your feelings.
However, how you carry your body affects your feelings. One of the
quickest and easiest ways to improve your chemistry is to change your
physiology. By taking slow deep breaths, standing tall and sticking your
chest out, you automatically increase your chemistry and immediately feel
better. Raise your eyes to the sky and smile right now. Do you feel a change
in your energy and alertness? If you always carry yourself like a winner, you
will feel like a winner.
Your thoughts, diet/nutrition, exercise, rest, environment and
physiology have a positive or negative impact on your brain’s chemistry
which affects how well you perform and feel. To become happier and more
successful, part of the process is to consciously work on increasing the
chemistry of your cranial fluid so your brain can perform more efficiently
and at higher levels.
Since your thoughts have the biggest impact on the brain’s chemistry,
that’s where I’m going to focus in this book. When you have positive
thoughts, your brain secretes positive chemicals and increases the power of
your brain. When you have negative thoughts, your brain secretes negative
chemicals and decreases the power of your brain. This is a simple, but
profound concept to realize. Your happiness depends on it.
In the world of sports, this is very easy to demonstrate because the
mind/body connection provides you with immediate feedback. When you
are positive, your performance excels. When you are negative, your
performance is adversely affected. My book The Mental Keys to Improve
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Your Golf explains this in great detail in relation to golf. This same
understanding applies to your entire life.
However, when it comes to your personal, social and business
behavior, the feedback may not be as obvious or as immediate. It may take
you days, weeks, months or even years, to see or feel the repercussions from
your negative thoughts and actions. I’m sure that if you reflect on your life,
you will know exactly what I’m talking about
Since you know the story of your life better than I do, I’m going to let
you provide your own personal experiences and stories of how positive and
negative emotions affect your happiness. Don’t confuse short term pleasures
from external sources with happiness. True and lasting happiness always
comes from within. External pleasures never last.
Your thoughts from outside stimuli have two components: facts and
emotions. While you may not be able to control the facts you encounter in
your life, you can choose how to respond emotionally to these facts. If you
choose positive emotions, you will be happy. If you choose negative
emotions, you will become unhappy. Your happiness depends on what
emotions you choose to experience and how you live your life. Your own
life experiences will prove this to you if you are honest with yourself.
Let’s take a quick look at the major positive and negative emotions.
Anytime you have any degree of love, generosity, praise and bravery or
multiple combinations of these emotions, your brain secretes positive
chemicals and enhances your natural abilities. Positive emotions make you
happy.
Anytime you have any degree of hate, greed, jealousy, and fear or
multiple combinations of these emotions, you immediately lower your
brain’s chemistry and your ability to reason and function at a high level.
Your negative emotions are the cause of most of your bad decisions, actions
and unhappiness you experience in your life. The rest is caused by ignorance
or lack of self-awareness. Stop and let this sink in.
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World by Michael Anthony
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Changing Your Tape
Let’s take a look at why you think and act the way you do. Your brain
starts working at a very early age. Approximately six months after
conception, your brain starts recording all of your mother’s thoughts and
actions while you are in her womb.
Your brain continues recording all your thoughts and actions
throughout your entire life. While you are reading this book, your brain is
busy recording and comparing the information that I’m sharing with you to
your past thoughts and actions. We will call the recording process of your
brain – your tape.
Your tape is a conceptual representation of the entire history of all
your previous thoughts and actions. The importance of your tape is that your
brain or computer is programmed to make similar decisions according to
what is in its data base (your past tape). On your tape is a record of all your
positive and negative thoughts and actions that make up your life or comfort
zone.
Your brain spontaneously uses all of your strengths and weaknesses
recorded on your tape in its decision making process. Your tape is
programmed to keep you at your present level and within your comfort zone.
How you think and act today is merely a reflection of what is on your
past tape or software. Most of your current beliefs were put on your tape by
your parents and your social conditioning. The same holds true for your
emotions.
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Don Miguel Ruiz in his book The Four Agreements (Amber Allen
Publishing, 1997) describes in great detail how your tape and everyone else’s
tapes are programmed by their parents and society. Reading his book will
help you realize that many of your beliefs and thoughts on your tape are not
your own. They were put there by others and you readily accept them as
your own. Your present level of happiness is a reflection of what you have
recorded on your tape. Our owner’s manuals are very similar.
Since your brain is programmed to make decisions similar to what is
on your tape, the biggest challenge you face when trying to change your past
thoughts and actions to increase your happiness is your present thinking and
belief system. Your level of self-awareness of what exactly is on your tape
and understanding of how you were designed to function according to
Universal and Natural Laws, greatly affects your ability to change and your
current happiness.
In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to increase your self-awareness
so you will know what to change on your tape to increase your happiness.
However, change is never easy.
When you try to change, you have to overcome what is on your tape.
Your tape’s job is to have you repeat what you have done in the past. Your
job is to increase your desire and determination to change. Your tape does
not care whether you are positive or negative. It is only concerned with
having you repeat your past thoughts and actions.
I want you to completely understand that your tape is not your enemy.
It is your friend. Without your tape, you would not have a memory. You
would not know your name, who you are, how to talk or anything else that
you have learned during your lifetime. Your tape provides you with your
data base for going through life. It’s not your tape's fault that you and your
social conditioning have allowed it to accumulate negative thoughts and
actions that are holding you back and affecting your happiness.
Learn to be very honest with yourself. Find out what is on your tape.
To reprogram your tape, you must increase your strengths and overcome
your weaknesses. You are not going to change yourself overnight. It takes
time, depending on the strength of your desire, and the positive actions you
take to change.
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If you decide to change, but repeat the same mistakes or negative
behaviors, do not become depressed or beat yourself up. Instead, laugh at
yourself. Acknowledge that your tape is strong and very good at what it
does. After all, it knows everything about you. It uses all your weaknesses
and excuses to keep you where you are. Learn to become comfortable with
who you are and what is on your tape.
After you acknowledge that your tape has beaten you, decide who is in
control -- you or your tape. There are some things your tape has total control
over, since you may not presently be strong enough to change them. Do not
become discouraged. Get more determined and work harder and smarter to
change what you can. Eventually, you will acquire enough strength and
wisdom to overcome your tape in the areas where it presently controls you.
If you truly desire to be in control and implement the knowledge that I am
sharing with you, it is just a matter of time and effort until you master your
tape and increase your happiness.
Fortunately, you can change your past tendencies because the most
current portion of your tape has the biggest impact on your decision making
process. Otherwise, you would be a robot and never could change.
Whenever you attempt to change anything on your tape, you face a battle
between your desire to change and your tape's desire to do its job. The
strength of your desire to change determines your success against your tape.
Many individuals in our society are overweight and out of condition.
Most of them have a desire to change for the better, but their desire is too
weak to overcome the strength of their tape. However, when faced with a
life threatening heart attack or stroke, many of these individuals change their
behavior. Their strong desire to live gives them the strength to overcome
their past tape. They exercise, change their diet and lose weight.
Desiring to increase your happiness may not be a life or death decision
for you. All I can say to you is that the greater your desire to increase your
happiness, the greater will be your success. You do not have to go to the
extremes that I did, but it certainly accelerates the process. The better you
understand how your tape operates; what is holding you back; and how to
implement change; the easier your journey becomes to higher levels of
happiness and bliss. Your level of desire is one of the major keys to success.
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When you go to sleep, your brain is busy processing all the thoughts
and actions that went on your tape during the day. If you did something
different from your normal routine, like exercising or dieting, your brain has
to decide to either assimilate this as a new behavior, or reject it. Your brain
needs to know how to respond in the future. By putting new thoughts and
actions on your tape consistently for thirty days or more, your brain
assimilates these as new habits. They become a part of your normal tape
response.
The best times to give your tape goals or instructions on how to
improve your behavior are just before going to sleep and when you wake up.
While you sleep, your brain examines the goals or instructions that you just
put on your tape. It has to make a decision how to respond when you wake
up. It asks itself, "Whom do I believe, the new you or the old you?” The old
you probably has been making similar goals or resolutions off and on for
years, seldom carrying them out and behaving the same way for most of your
life.
Your brain, more than likely, will believe the old you and instruct your
tape to forget last night's goals or instructions. Your tape will go about
business as usual. Therefore, immediately upon awakening reinforce your
goals and put the instructions back on your tape. Remember, the most
current portion of your tape has the biggest impact on your decision making
process.
Assume you achieve your goals for several days in a row. For
example, you actually do exercise or diet. Now, while you are sleeping, your
brain starts to realize that it should begin listening to the new you. It begins
to tell your tape to start responding accordingly and in about thirty days you
develop a new habit. Then, your tape works for you, instead of against you.
The more success you achieve, the easier it is to be even more successful
because your tape becomes your ally. Now, it insists that you keep on
improving. Your comfort zone expands to accommodate the new you as the
old you drifts away.
As I mentioned above if you do something new or behave differently
for thirty days, your tape will accept it as the new way to respond. However,
if you give your tape an inch, it will go back to its old way of responding.
That’s why change is never easy.
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Whenever you attempt to change anything on your tape, you face a
battle between your desire to change and your tape’s programming to keep
you where you are. Your degree of self-awareness and the strength of your
desire to change determine your success against your tape.
The time and effort you spend reducing the negative emotions and
increasing the positive ones on your tape will determine how much you can
increase your happiness. Wouldn’t it be nice to be happy all of the time and
live in a state of continual bliss?
Before I show you how to increase your self-awareness so you can
make better choices and reprogram your tape to increase your happiness, let’s
review the key points of the Owner’s Manual for Human Beings.
Key Points of Owner’s Manual:
1) The power of your brain or your wonderful personal computer varies
according to its chemistry.
2) Your brain’s chemistry is affected by your thoughts, diet, exercise,
rest, environment and physiology.
3) Your thoughts affect your electrochemical nervous system and
generate electromagnetic fields that create attractor fields which affect
your life and happiness.
4) Your present thoughts and actions reflect what is recorded on your
tape.
5) Your tape is programmed to repeat its past and does not want to
change.
6) Strong desire and proper direction are necessary to change what is
recorded on your tape.
7) Increasing your positive emotions and decreasing your negative
emotions will enhance your brain’s chemistry and natural abilities.
8) Increasing your self-awareness leads to better choices that increase
your chemistry and happiness.
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Chapter 3
Self-Awareness and the Daily Affirmation
Many individuals relate to having a spirit, mind and body even though
they do not fully understand or comprehend it. However, most individuals
believe that they are their mind, which is run by what is on their tape. This
causes them to think that their mind or ego can make them happy.
If you believe that your mind can make you happy, I highly
recommend that you read Eckhart Tolle’s wonderful book, The Power of
Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (New World Library 1999).
In this book, I am talking to your spirit and depending on your spirit to
relate to what makes you happy. In my other book The Mental Keys to
Improve Your Golf, I talk to golfers and depend on their mind/body
connection to relate to improving their performance.
Since the mind/body connection does not lie, a golfer cannot deny that
what I say makes total sense because the feedback is immediate and very
obvious. Many golfers use The Mental Keys and see their scores quickly fall
as a result of changing their negative emotions into positive ones. My
reputation in the world of golf continues to grow as more and more golfers
read my book, lower their scores and tell their friends. Helping golfers to
lower their score is a piece of cake.
I have received many requests from my friends and other individuals
that don’t play golf to write another book for them. This is another reason
why I wrote this book.
The challenge in writing this book is that outside the world of athletic
performance, the feedback from your emotions may not be as obvious or as
immediate. It may take you days, weeks, months or even years, to see or feel
the repercussions from your negative thoughts and actions. However, be
aware that it is just a matter of time until any negativity in your life
eventually catches up with you and affects your happiness. There is a perfect
accounting system in the universe. You can’t hide or escape from it.
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Since the negative emotions on your tape adversely affect your mind’s
ability to function and reason, it’s a lot easier to relate to your spirit and not
have to concern myself with trying to relate to what is on your tape.
If your tape is very positive, you will agree with the eight words that
I’ll be sharing with you shortly in the form of a Daily Affirmation. This
affirmation will dramatically increase your awareness even if you don’t live
this way 100% presently. If your tape is full of negative emotions, you will
feel that this Daily Affirmation is impossible to live by 100% of the time in
the so-called “real world.”
Whether your tape is full of positive or negative emotions, your spirit
will relate 100% to the affirmation on the next page. I strongly recommend
that you print out this Daily Affirmation and put it in a nice frame where you
will see it frequently every day like I do. Then, I challenge you to see if you
can live by these eight words 100% of the time for 30 days.
Before I share this affirmation with you, I want to acknowledge that
you are already doing many things right in your life or else you wouldn’t
have achieved your present level of success and happiness. You have to
admit, however, that we all have room for improvement.
Why settle for less when you can have more? Why just be happy or
content when you can have a life full of joy and bliss?
Please turn the page and read the Daily Affirmation out loud to
yourself three times and see how you feel. Then reflect on what the world
would be like if everyone lived this way.
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Daily Affirmation
I
AM
ALWAYS
TRUTHFUL,
POSITIVE,
AND
HELPING
OTHERS
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World by Michael Anthony
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Can you even begin to imagine what the world would be like if
everyone was always truthful, positive and helping others? Would it change
the world we live in? You bet it would. It would probably come close to
living in heaven on earth.
Is it possible for this to happen? Maybe not in our lifetime, but it can
happen over time if everyone focused on living according to the Daily
Affirmation. Wouldn’t a better world be a nice gift to leave to your
children’s children or their children’s children?
Even if only a small percentage of our earth’s population were always
truthful, positive and helping others, our world would change for the better
because the creativity and power of those that lived the Daily Affirmation
would overwhelm and positively influence those that weren’t. The rest of the
world’s population would eventually follow out of their own self-interest to
become happier and more successful.
The only question left to be answered is, “Are you going to be one of
the leaders that help change our world for the better by living the Daily
Affirmation 100% of the time, or are you going to continue to live your life
according to what is on your tape?” The negative emotions on your tape are
limiting your ability to find creative solutions to your and our world’s
challenges. After all, our world’s challenges are merely a reflection of the
composite of the tapes of all the individuals that make up our global society.
If you doubt this, I invite you to read Power vs. Force: The Hidden
Determinants of Human Behavior by David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. (Hay
House, Inc 1995). In his book Dr. Hawkins presents a map of consciousness
that explains why the power of one individual like Mahatma Gandhi was able
to defeat the force of the entire British Empire through the principle of nonviolence.
Your spirit has enormous power at its disposal if you use it wisely.
You can make a difference if you choose to. The Daily Affirmation will help
you to realize how.
Allow me to ask your spirit three questions. Are you always truthful
100% of the time? Are you always positive 100% of the time? How much
of your time and energy do you spend helping others?
Pay close attention to your gut feelings or other changes in how your
body feels when your spirit asks your mind or tape the same questions at the
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end of this paragraph. Because of the spirit/mind/body connection you will
experience chemical changes in your body corresponding to your answers.
When you tell the truth, you will feel strong. When you don’t tell the truth,
you will feel weak and sheepish.
Stop reading and ask yourself the following questions. Then pause
and spend some time reflecting on your honest answers to these questions.
• Am I always truthful 100% of the time?
• Am I always positive 100% of the time?
• How much of my time and energy do I spend helping others?
If you answered 100% or came close to 100% to all three of these
questions, you know exactly where I am coming from and you are without a
doubt a very successful and happy person. If not, you have work to do that
will increase your happiness.
I’m not there 100% yet, but I’m working on getting closer every day.
If you desire to become happier and have an impact on changing your life
and the world that we all live in, I invite you to make living the Daily
Affirmation a major part of your life.
By the way, in reference to the above questions, who is doing the
asking and who is doing the answering? Is it your mind talking to itself, or is
it your spirit talking to your mind? Are you two different people in one?
The purpose of this Daily Affirmation is not to create angels. Its
purpose is to create self-awareness by having your spirit guide your thoughts
and actions throughout your life instead of having your past tape continue to
run your life for you.
Start saying this Daily Affirmation out loud to yourself several times,
or more, throughout the day for the next thirty days and watch your selfawareness
increase as your spirit witnesses what is on your tape. Hopefully,
you will use the Daily Affirmation as your compass for the rest of your life.
Here is how the Daily Affirmation will increase your self-awareness
and lead you to better choices that will increase your happiness. Your tape
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automatically has you repeat or make similar responses to what you have
previously done. If you have lied in your past, your tape is programmed to
have you lie again in the future unless you make a firm commitment to
change your tape’s programming.
I admit that I have lied in my past. If you are honest with yourself,
you will admit that you have lied at least once in your life or maybe more
often. By repeatedly telling your tape that "I am always truthful" you create
an internal conflict between your spirit and tape when faced with a choice of
lying in the present or telling the truth.
You will experience this conflict as a chemical change in your body.
You know what guilt feelings feel like, don’t you? The Daily Affirmation
will make you very sensitive to them and help you to do the right thing, in
spite of what your tape wants you to do. It will make it harder for you to
rationalize why it’s OK to lie, especially when you see others around you that
are not always truthful.
Your spirit will want to tell the truth and your tape will want to do its
job. Your tape wants you to repeat what you have done in the past. This
gives your spirit a great opportunity to take a hard look at why you have lied
in the past. It forces you to start realizing that you are your spirit and not
your mind. You have a choice and do not have to automatically repeat what
is on your tape even though your tape is programmed to have you repeat your
past thoughts and actions.
If you examine your motives for lying, you will find them based on the
emotions of hate, greed, jealousy, fear or multiple combinations of these
negative emotions. By eliminating lies (including those little white ones)
from your life, you keep negative emotions from recurring on your tape.
This enhances your brain's chemical balance and increases your awareness,
sensitivity and intelligence.
Whatever level of truthfulness you have achieved in your lifetime, try
raising your standards until you are 100% honest. I can honestly say that I
am 100% truthful, most of the time . As hard as I try to be 100% truthful,
there are times when a reflex lie from my past tape slips by or tries to.
If I catch myself in a lie by feeling it in my body, I quickly take a look
at why I lied, or why I am about to lie. Upon reviewing my tape I find that
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hate, greed, jealousy or fear is causing it. Then, I make the necessary
adjustments in my life and tell my tape to do my best never to lie again.
Most of the time I’m successful in not allowing a reflex lie to slip by. You’ll
find this true for yourself if you start living the Daily Affirmation without
exceptions.
You have the right of privacy and silence. If someone asks you a
question and you want to reserve your privacy, you do not have to answer
them. Become a diplomat and answer with another question or tell them that
you prefer not to answer their question. Also, it is better not to upset or
disturb another person's feelings or chemistry. You do not have to tell white
lies to protect them. Instead, be kind and diplomatic in your response.
Sometimes the truth, as harsh as it may be, is totally appropriate depending
on the situation. Just make sure you intend to help the person, instead of
venting any negativity on them.
Once your awareness and sensitivity to the chemical reactions in your
body increase, you will realize the person you lie to the most is yourself.
Every time you tell yourself that you are going to do something and do not
do it or visa versa, you have lied to yourself and your tape. Is it any wonder
your tape just laughs at you when you say you are going to change your
negative habits or emotions? Your tape knows all of your strengths and
weakness. It does its best to keep you where you are. It takes self-discipline
and direction to become the master of your tape and in control of your
happiness.
Two of the most important things that I have learned over the years are
the power of self-discipline and the importance of making correct choices.
Below are some of the late Napoleon Hill's thoughts on self-discipline from
his book, The Master-Key to Riches published by Fawcett World Library in
1965 with the original copyright in 1945.
"Our Creator gave us all a free will to make our own choices. You are
where you are and what you are because of your habits of thought. Your
thought habits are subject to your control. Self-discipline is the principle by
which you may voluntarily shape the patterns of thought to harmonize with
your desires and goals. It is the one privilege which determines more than all
others the position in life you occupy. Ponder this thought carefully for it is
the key to your mental, physical and spiritual destiny. Put your thought
habits in order and they will carry you to the attainment of any desired goal
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you aspire to reach. You must feed your mind with your definite major
purpose in life and go the extra mile to control all of your thoughts."
If you desire to be happier and more successful, your thought selection
gives you the ability to shape and mold your life into whatever you desire.
Only your tape and wrong choices can hold you back. With desire, selfdiscipline
and the specific direction the Daily Affirmation provides, you can
become the master of your tape and destiny. More importantly, you can
become very happy and live a fulfilled life.
Your tape is going to continue doing whatever it is used to until it
realizes that you mean what you say. If your tape controls you in a certain
part of your life, acknowledge your weakness. Make a game plan to gain
control in that area -- one day at a time. I’ll show you how later.
By daily affirming that "I am always truthful, positive" your spirit will
become very aware whenever you are or have been negative. This helps you
to stop rationalizing and justifying the negative emotions that you have
associated with certain facts on your tape.
Negative emotions poison your thinking and are the cause of much
unhappiness. It is a lot easier to become always truthful than to become
always positive. However, you will be much happier if you make it a point
to do your best to be always truthful and always positive.
As I mentioned before, your thoughts from outside stimuli have two
components: facts and emotions. Realize that facts are merely facts. You
may not be able to control the facts, fair or unfair, but you can change or
transform any negative emotional response you may have to them. I’ll
explain how as this book progresses.
By daily affirming "I am always truthful, positive and helping others",
you remind your spirit that by helping others you are helping yourself. By
merely shifting your focus from yourself to helping others, you will find that
you automatically feel better and happier. Your spirit is elevated when you
help others.
If you are already very positive and in a position of comfort, lend a
helping hand to those who are in need. One of life’s greatest pleasures
comes from helping others. If you do not believe this, ask any parent,
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teacher or individual who spends his or her life helping others. What do you
think Mother Teresa would have replied if you asked her, “Does it make you
happy when you help others?”
If you really want to help someone, tell them about this book or give
them a copy. Then, strongly recommend that they make the Daily
Affirmation a major part of their life. Better yet, be an example for them to
follow by living the Daily Affirmation 100% of the time.
This Daily Affirmation is a wonderful compass that can help guide
your spirit through the maze of life, if you use it.
If you truly desire to be happy and have fun helping to change your
life and the world around you, reflect on this affirmation at least three times a
day, every day and observe how your gut or body feels. When necessary,
make the appropriate adjustments on your tape in order not to repeat any
deviations from the Daily Affirmation of
I
AM
ALWAYS
TRUTHFUL,
POSITIVE,
AND
HELPING
OTHERS
How to be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World by Michael Anthony
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Chapter 4
“To Thine Own Self Be True”
“This above all: to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
-Shakespeare – Hamlet
It’s not my place to tell you that you do or don’t live by the Daily
Affirmation 100% of the time. All I can do is st
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