We think the world outside us is the only real world. Because all we’re really seeing is the world of manifestation. We don’t understand how that world was created and the influence we have over the 90 percent of what we don’t see.
The world of concept, which is contained in the world of spirit, and the world of creation, which is contained in the world of mind, facilitate and create what is manifest in the physical world. So by the time anything happens in the physical world, it’s out of our control. Do you notice that in the workplace? By the time a new system for sales commissions is implemented, the all-too-common negative reaction to change is happening and the push-back is the new problem. The influence and impact we might have had on acceptance of the system has already been undermined in the other two worlds by people’s belief that change is bad! The physical world is just the end product.
The hands-off manager will say, “Focus on the process, not the results.” The process is the mind and the spirit inside. It’s the heart of your organization. If you focus on the process, the results will unfold naturally from that. So if you have an inner process that creates a quality sales force, good customer service, a reliable product, and a good marketing plan, you don’t have to worry about how to be successful. It flows easily into fruition from that. The creative work has already been done.
The difficulty arises when you don’t have those ingredients and you try to produce an outcome anyway. It’s similar to trying to bake a cake with no recipe and no ingredients and still expecting it to come out delicious.
You can’t get there from nothing.
The hands-off manager sets himself apart by understanding the creative process and shifting the focus of his energy and attention to where he can make a difference. You can do this, too. You can shift your attention to your own thinking. That’s where you can have an impact on what shows up in your life and what shows up in the world.
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The sword and the spirit are the two mightiest forces in the world. Yet the spirit is mightier of the two.
—Napoleon Bonaparte
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The spiritual world is the world of essence. It’s that part of you that you’re learning to bring through. It’s the best of who you are, your higher self, and your most unlimited potential.
The mind is the world of the ego. Your ego has value because it identifies you as an individual and gives you access to your unique experience. Ego individuates you and brings your experience of being a singular being in physical form.
The physical world is just the world of activity. It’s the world in which you can joyfully follow through on and act out the part you’ve created internally.
The world of spirit is the world of possibility. The mental world is the world of choices. The physical world is the world of destiny.
So now you can begin to focus on where you can really cause change. If you want to make a change, it starts in the worlds of mind and spirit. Your spiritual world becomes the world in which ideas, inspiration, and insights originate. When you have an open mind that is free of judgment and expectation, you receive at a much higher level. The mental world is where you create plans; it’s the world where you use thought, analysis, focus, and attention to bring into being that which you desire to contribute to the world.
The physical world is just the world of events, of information. It’s where results occur, where data is collected, where the object is manifest, where the outcome happens, and where the action takes place. It’s the last stage of the process.
Walter owned a small manufacturing company trying to produce a better product. He was old-school and full of fear. So his approach was to simply get angry about the customer response to the product he now had. But he was making no changes in his assembly line. He didn’t understand that you can’t change a result without changing the ingredients that went into producing the result. The true ingredients that create the result are contained in the world inside you, not in the world outside you.
Walter finally sold his business at a great loss. If you truly want to make a difference, you focus on your inner systems because that’s where you have power. You don’t just focus on what’s happened in the world. All that does is act like a mirror; it reflects back to you what you’ve been thinking. Duane says:
I try to communicate to people an understanding that experience is not final truth. And they really have a hard time with that. I say, “All experience tells you is what you’ve been thinking. It tells you the results of the beliefs and ways of thinking you’ve had in the past. That’s what experience tells you. It doesn’t tell you what’s true. Just because you failed at this once, doesn’t mean you have to fail at it again. It means you never believed you could succeed, and therefore you have manifested exactly what you believed.”