My 2009 Thanksgiving Message
Happy 2009 everyone
How are you doing? How have you been? I am writing this note as I guess I started a tradition last year of taking a few minutes (or hours) to reflect back on the year and talk about what I have to be thankful for. 2009 brought me more life changing revelations and gifts than every other year in my life COMBINED! I am so happy and grateful to have so many wonderful things happening in my life and to have happened in my life.
I had two major things happen in my life this year. (1) I recconnected with my Dad after 13 years and introduced him to his grandkids. A lot of you have heard that story, if you would like to read that, you can visit my blog at http://rayhigdon.com/my-note-to-my-dad-after-seeing-him-for-the-1st-time-in-13-years/ This is an event that changed my life, freed me mentally from some of the past baggage I had been carrying around and helped my kids understand a whole new chapter in their lives.
The second major thing, most of you have not heard. I learned why I have had every success and every failure in my life. Now that is a pretty bold statement right? It is the truth. For years I have gone around jumping from business to business from network marketing company to network marketing company to real estate to internet marketing and the list goes on and on and on. I always liked doing multiple things and some people called me a “Serial Entrepreneur”. However, I never grew ANY of them to a point of MASSIVE success. I never knew why, until this year…
This year I was introduced to an education company called Landmark - http://www.LandmarkEducation.com by a beautiful woman named Stina. Stina, changed my life. It was in this course that I was able to let go of all the past crap I had been hauling around about my childhood and my family matters and open up a whole new world. Thank you Stina, you are a brilliant light that shines on this planet and please continue to just do what you do. Now, in these courses I found out what they call my “Act”.
An “Act” is a declarative statement that we made to the world when we were in our younger years. We ALL have an act and was probably formed between the ages of 5 and 8 and it usually had to do with an authority figure (teacher, parent, grandparent, etc). Your Act is in 5 year old vocabulary and it is what you declared to the world based on an event happening that was impressionable upon you. Here is one example:
I have a friend, lets call him Max. When Max was 5 years old his Dad used to pick him up and put him on his little motorbike and let him drive it around. When Max wanted to get off, he would drive around the yard in circles which signaled his Dad to pick him up off the bike. Well, one day, his Dad was under a car working on it and didn’t hear Max. Max drive around and around until it ran out of gas, tipping the bike over and burning Max’s leg. That day, Max decided that he could not trust anyone. Max’s entire life has been filled, since 5 years old, of examples where he could not trust people. Problems in delegation, problems in managing others, even problems in relationships. But once Max learned what was making him tick, he was able to change it and now lives a much more empowered life.
So back to me…what is my act? I had what you would call a rough childhood and when I was 5 or 6 years old, something happened to make me declare to the world, “I’ll Show You”. Every success and every failure in my entire life has been based around those three words…without my knowledge! You see, up until this year I had been on automatic programming but I didn’t even know it! Let me give you some examples:
When I was in my teenage years, I’ll show you showed up in very ugly ways. I wanted to make people pay if they pissed me off, I wanted people to regret messing with me. Now, I’ll show you isn’t always bad. In corporate America I was trying to obtain a position that required a masters degree and 10 years experience, but I only had 1 semester of college and 1 year of experience but I felt I could do that job! Someone on the hiring committee said to me, “Everyone is asking for $200,000 a year, hell, we may even hire YOU!” And he laughed. My “I’ll show you” kicked in and I got that job.
You see, “I’ll show you” has actually served me well, to a degree. I have had meteoric success in almost anything I have ever done. When I worked for Sony, my superior told me he gave me the highest review the company had ever given anyone in their first 90 days. In my first network marketing company I was ranked #2 out of 500,000 as a team builder, and on and on and on. You see, I’ll show you has made me have major, quick success in all kinds of different areas, but, ONCE I’VE “SHOWN” YOU, I lose interest. You see, my whole life has been about showing other people that I am worthy. My whole life has been about proving myself to others. After getting people to believe I am good at what I do, I no longer have anything to prove or show and I move onto the next thing where I prove someone something else. Landmark education helped me recognize this and has forever changed my life. It’s funny because the people close to me, see this difference in me. This lack of need to prove myself. You see, with awareness I can make different decisions, I can choose a path that is right for me versus an automatic “I’ll show you” path.
So, done are the days where I jump from company to company, done are the days where I feel the challenge of the world forcing me to prove myself, this has opened up a whole new life. A life, that I am so very thankful and grateful for. I wish you many successes. No matter where you are in life, you can be happy. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, only the NOW matters. Appreciate and embrace this now. Drop the grudges. Drop the reasoning of why you keep yourself seperate from others. Drop the excuses that are keeping you from what you deserve. You deserve success. You deserve abundance but above all, you deserve happiness. Thank you 2009 and all of my friends for contributing to my heart and life and I love you all!
Ray Higdon
XOXOXO
If you wish to read my 2008 Thanksgiving Message go here - http://rayhigdon.com/my-2008-thanksgiving-message/
