By Michael J. Kline

​I’m a procrastinator – I admit it - especially about writing. I’ll get better - one day!
Just the other day, I sat down at my computer to write – I’ve got several ideas for new stories – starting with hobbies we seem to be re-discovering during the pandemic. I tell myself “Kline, just sit your butt down in the chair and start writing”!
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I sit down at my computer – a brand new Surface Pro – I’d seen it in the Microsoft Store window at the mall a million times - $2600 for a laptop – that’s crazy!  But maybe it’s just the inspiration I need – like a muse, or at the very least an invaluable tool! It’s so sexy – and look at the keyboard and the magic arc mouse – and the color options – that blue is totally my color – blue enough, but not too blue – steely, soft and bold at the same time. I think it’s the color of my eyes – if I still had young steely blue eyes that were soft and yet bold… never mind that. This will make writing so much easier!

So I’m sitting at my sexy, blue, soft-touch keyboard, feeling young in the… eyes…  yeah.. well… I need a coffee.  I make a fresh coffee – Starbucks – quarantine style. Reminds of those halcyon pre-covid days when I’d sit at the Starbucks in the mall and write – the mall with the Microsoft store.  Then I realize my coffee habit costs more than the Surface pro!  Focus dammit. I clear out my emails, as required if I’m to focus. Balance the checking account, clean my desk, and check Facebook to see if yesterday’s video of my puppy Luke swimming has any more likes. (We were at 72 likes and three shares as of this morning).

Ok, now it’s time to write – about what? Oh yeah! I was going to write about hobbies – dammit, that reminds me, I was going to start making bread again. I even got the last three packets of yeast at Publix. I wish we still had Piggly Wiggly stores here, it would be so much more fun to say I got he last three packets of yeast at the Piggly Wiggly.

If I dust off the bread machine and get something started now, it will be fresh and hot for dinner. Thirty minutes later, back at my sexy blue, soft-touch keyboard, nothing left to separate me from changing the world with a few carefully chosen words of wisdom and inspiration. I realize I could use a fresh coffee.  I resist – it’s time to write – look at you Kline!  The very model of self-discipline!  Own it!  You’re writing! and avoided getting another coffee!

Just then Luke (the puppy) starts barking like crazy. I rush out to see what’s happening and he’s sitting in the middle of the kitchen barking at the bread machine that had just started pounding and bouncing on the counter, kneading life’s greatest treasures (flour, fat and sugar), into what would soon yield toasted cinnamon raisin bread lathered with a questionable amount of butter. And maybe some powdered sugar.  And what the hell, a little honey. Who am I kidding, a lot of honey. As the machine pounded and bounced on the counter, I realized I had not prepared our little Luke for this type of crazy.  I had introduced him to the vacuum cleaner, the hair dryer, and the doorbell. It never occurred to me to prepare him for the trauma of a bouncing pounding machine in the kitchen that runs by itself.  He’ll be talking about this with doggy therapist one day. Oh god. What if we’re on the Dog whisperer one day?! I’ll be scolded on national television for making cinnamon bread more important than my dog’s emotional well-being.
Am I over-thinking this? I don’t know. I have to wonder though - what would be different in my life if my parents had not prepared me for the surprises, the curve balls and the potholes of life?  What if I had never been exposed to life’s proverbial vacuum cleaners and bread machines?!  We can never be prepared for every specific bump (or pandemic, murder hornet migration and locust swarm), life might throw at us. We can be prepared though. We can build resilience to be able to handle whatever amount of cray cray shit shows up in life. That’s it!  The gift of divine procrastination has once again paid off, fulfilling my quest for the next story topic – Like a puppy with a bread machine, you don’t need to control everything to be able to handle anything.

Michael J. Kline is a Master Certified RIM Practitioner and Trainer, Jack Canfield Associate Trainer and Barrett Certified Consultant. You can reach him through his website www.intus.life, or e-mail, mike@intus.life.

I just finished teaching RIM Essentials in Denver where we had several coaches, a couple therapists, three educators and a few military veterans. What an amazing experience not just for the learning, but the personal journeys, as well. What became very clear is, RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) is as much a movement as it is a technique. RIM is a completely new paradigm of how we experience and work with emotions and the world needs it now more than ever before.
 
As emotions continue to drive our behavior and decisions in all walks of life, it’s time we stop pretending that emotions don’t belong in the workplace, home, school, or anywhere else. Like it or not, emotions are always present, we just pretend that we set them aside, but we don’t.
 
During the training one student shared that she is always stuck in her analytic mind and work, answering to budgets and spreadsheets. The truth is, those budgets were created from emotions, and perhaps from fear or desire.
 
Children are dying because we don’t know how to allow and process emotions. Employees are disengaged, unproductive, calling out sick and quitting their jobs because they can’t bring their true selves to the workplace. Parents don’t know what to do for their children. Children don’t know what to do with their fear or anger. Voters don’t know what to do with their frustration, fear and even rage. I’d say it’s time for a new paradigm about emotions. It’s time for a movement.
 
If you work in a corporate setting, does behavior matter? Does decision making matter? If you work with parents, leaders, couples, vets, trauma clients, men, women, or children… anyone with emotions… which is everyone, can you see how emotions are driving their decisions and behavior?
 
RIM is an entirely new way of thinking about emotions. We can do our own work by turning on our Emotional Operating System or EOS, while also helping our clients do the same. We are not victims of our experiences. Our unconscious mind is driving our decisions and behavior. One of my favorite quotes is from Carl Jung. He said “Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. We are not as subject to fate as we think we are.
 
If you would like to have an even greater impact on the world, join the RIM movement. Free yourself of the limiting power of emotions and welcome the empowerment of your own Emotional Operating System. When you see how easily and quickly you can get to the root issue through the unconscious mind and watch it dissolve, you’ll want to do it with nearly every client.
 
Upcoming training dates are online at www.intus.life/learn-rim
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Need more info about RIM?

I need to blog more. I see my last post was Mother's day! I find it interesting that with all the great and joyful things going on in my life, the last time I was inspired to share on my blog page was about mother issues - and here she is again! Maybe it's time to let go. Again.

Ever have one of those experiences where you want to curse it and thank it at the same time? I just finished a retreat where, once again, I got so much more than I expected. During a RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) meditation, my adopted mother appeared and stirred up some old crap I thought was long gone. Dammit and thank you. I felt a need to share how it ended to anchor my own experience, and perhaps help someone else who might be carrying around similar crap.
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Dear Mom,

I wrote you a letter because there are some things I’ve never said and I’m sure you would never listen anyway.

You’ve been gone from this earth for years and gone from my life for years longer. I forgave you many times, I swear I tried again and again. Every new chance I gave, you blew it. I knew you needed love as much as I did, I just didn’t have any more to give.

So, I worked on me, I forgave me, I learned to love me or at least like me more than I did. I learned to embrace my own life and made it good. I found the love I was missing inside me. I found happiness, it was all around me, I was just blinded by sadness. I stopped crying for these things. I gave up much, and then I gave up trying so hard.

I have no more tears for you. Tears just blur my sight and I see now I have much to see now. I see my purpose, I see my value, and I see I don’t need you.

As I wrote those words, my body shook, and my eyes leaked again. No this is not tears, this is the water here to snuff out the ashes, the embers of hate, rage, anger, sadness and pain still smoldering inside. This water flowing freely from my eyes wash away the remnants of you that still cloud my vision, the remnants I thought were long gone.

So yes, I wrote you a letter, and as my pen hit the paper, my fingers wrote out their gratitude, it seems my hand remembers being little, when you adopted me and gave my life a second chance. It knows you chose to help me. It remembers being given a new space to grow, learn and be safe. As my heart was inspired from what my hand was writing, it too, remembered feeling loved and supported. Then my shoulders looked into the eyes of my heart and joined in reminiscing, remembering how they first felt wide and strong, ready to handle any weight given me. My arms and legs shivered with the vibration of all that is. My pen could hardly keep pace with my thoughts, my feelings and my heartbeat, so my gut gave it some advice. My gut told the pen to just say what it wants, let go of editing and just tell you what has never been said completely, what it felt has never been heard by you. The pen shocked my unaware intellect as it expressed gratitude for all the advice you gave me, for the times you encouraged me, for the lessons you taught me, for the love you gave me, for the honesty you always shared, you were always so fucking honest. It wrote down how much I hated your honesty and the judgments it carried. It told the paper everything. I hate you. I’m angry with you. I hate you. Do you hear me? I fucking hate you! I’m through! Then it knew I was really through. My hand automatically went back to the word "hate" and added a "d" to the end. I hated you. Past tense. I was angry with you. Past tense. I am through. Present tense. I am through with hate and anger. I let it all out, including all the smoldering remnants. This is what forgiveness is, it’s turning the tears of pain into the water that snuffs out the still-glowing embers of pain, anger, sadness and hatred. I put all those things in the letter, then I put the letter in the fire. As that letter burned, I watched with crystal clear vision through the blur in my eyes, as the smoke carried it all away. And as the smoke rose into the clouds, the setting sun sent forgiveness to dry my eyes, and a new fire flickered in my heart. A brilliant jewel appeared in my chest and reflected the light of the fire into the night air as love. The sky sent it back to me. I am grateful that you teach me still. I learned tonight, I can take light and warmth from the fire and it still has light and warmth. I learned that you needed love as much as I did and I can give you love and compassion, and it costs me nothing, for this is the light and warmth of my new fire.

Yes, I freely give love and compassion, for this is the light and warmth of my new fire.    

​Mixed Feelings on Mother’s Day
By Michael J. Kline

Here in the US and some other countries, today is Mother’s Day. As we realize it is a regional holiday, not a universal law of nature, you get to choose to participate or not, and to the degree you want. You also get to feel how you want to feel about it. In my own experience and working with clients, I know Mother’s Day can be challenging. This article is for those challenged today. That may be due to the loss of a mother, the quality of relationship with your mother or your role, or lack of a role as a mother. It may be for a hundred other reasons. The point is, you might feel something other than like a Hallmark Card. That’s ok.  Feel what you feel.

As a child, I took pride in making cards and gifts in school. In my teen-years, I made the effort to celebrate brunch and dinner with the family. Over the years those days felt more and more hollow until I knew it was downright fake. In my twenties and thirties, I would alternate a couple years not on speaking terms with mom, (when life was easy and fun) and a couple years when we would make up (when life was stressful and burdensome). Eventually, I realized I had the power to say enough is enough. It was difficult and painful, but less difficult and painful than subjecting myself to the constant devaluing antics of a bitter, sad, angry woman I couldn’t help or change.

At age fifty, during a RIM session (Regenerating Images in Memory), I changed my perception of my mother to Aunt. I had accepted her as my mother in every way for the 40-some years since she and my uncle adopted me, following my birth-mother’s death when I was seven. I had no memory of my birth mother. After decades of forgiveness work and trying to understand this relationship and my low self-worth, the breakthrough moment came when I fired her as my mother. I instantly realized that while she never could be what I needed as a mother, she had gone far above and beyond any expectation of an aunt. She took us in, fed us, housed us, educated us and did the best she could with her limited awareness, knowledge, skills and tools. When I lowered the bar for her, I could finally forgive her. Following forgiveness, finding gratitude for the gifts received was easy. My loss of a mother was not on her.

During another RIM session, I was able to sense the feeling of being held by my birthmother. The sense was an overwhelming feeling of unconditional love, safety and protection. I cried a lot, I smiled a lot and I discovered that at some level, at some point, I was wanted, valued and loved.

What I find again and again working with clients is, that it is never too late to create a happy childhood. Thanks to RIM, we actually have the power to not only create a perspective shift, or a re-frame, but we also have the power to create an entirely new experience in our imagination. Our bodies, our unconscious mind and our nervous system, treat a well-imagined event similar to a real event. So, while we intellectually know it was an imagined event, we feel completely different. We can neutralize the negative emotional charged stories we tell ourselves. The story shifts from draining to empowering; from suffering to freedom. Our brains never stop growing and changing. Thanks to neuroplasticity in our brain, we now know that anything is possible.
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I hope you have something beautiful to celebrate today. I invite you to consider celebrating you. You have already survived everything that has ever happened to you. You have within you, everything you need to be who you want to be; who you were meant to be.

By Michael Kline
(An experience during my ten-day silent retreat, while walking in the woods.)

Hello tree… I said as I realized I sounded like a crazy person, or at least like the sort of person I would have previously thought crazy. Hello.

You look so sad. I’m so sorry you’re just leaning there, lifeless, full of holes, no branches, no leaves, no bark, just rotting away. How sad to just be there decaying, with no purpose, no meaning. What happened?
I bet you used to be a big deal in these woods. You must have been very tall and straight, powerful and full of life and possibility. You must have housed hundreds of birds, thousands of insects. You provided shade and shelter to animals, and small delicate plants, you dropped your leaves every year to fertilize the soil, you had deep roots, the very model of strength and stability. What happened that you lost it all? How sad to see you like this now.

I am not sad, said the tree. I was a big deal in these woods. I have been very tall and straight, powerful and full of life and possibility. I have in fact, housed thousands of birds and millions of insects. I had the honor of providing shade and shelter to animals, and small delicate plants. I was happy to drop my leaves every year to fertilize the soil, and yes, I was blessed with deep roots, so strong and stable.

I am still full of life, I am full of holes and many animals and insects still make use of me, as I ever so slowly continue to feed the soil for new life to spring up, full of endless possibility. I will never die, I simply change with the times to accommodate my highest purpose in this moment. It is my joy to be here, still beautifying the woods, sill providing what I can provide. And in my later years, to be a teacher to all who seek my wisdom. Thank you for visiting me.

What happened to you, my human friend, that you see sadness here? How sad that is.
 
As I burst into tears, I said thank you to the tree. Oh Tree, it’s me who is sad, that is my sadness I see as I look at you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, so that I might live as greatly as you. That I might be always serving in the best way I can to support, shelter, feed, nurture and love others. That I might always contribute what I can that is needed in each moment. That I may know my purpose and share my many blessings with all who pass by.

As my sadness faded, I felt the underlying fear arise in my body, that was hiding beneath the sadness. The fear that I would waste my most vibrant years and die alone in the woods unappreciated and unused. As I studied the tree further, and appreciated the beauty of its state – the soft bark-less wood, the perfect holes showing how much life still happens here, the graceful stance, even as it leans but would not fall.

As the fear faded away, my body replaced it with goosebumps of excited possibility and tears of joy.

Current neuroscience confirms that 95% of decisions are emotional, not logical. The conscious logical mind can only process 3-4 pieces of new information at a time. Decisions are made by using our subconscious mind filled with a lifetime of experiences, memories, emotions, beliefs, successes, and failures.
 
It’s no surprise that clients get stuck in old stories, negative emotional memories, and repeating patterns of behavior. Since decisions are emotional, having clients shift their perspective or re-frame a situation using logic is limited.
 
To promote permanent change, a more whole brain and body approach that incorporates the subconscious mind filled with negative emotional memories is worth pursuing. The RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) technique created by Dr. Deborah Sandella, releases and regenerates negative emotional memories into positive ones.
 
I invite you to meet your peers and experience the profound power of RIM on our International Group RIM Zoom.
 
Click through for more info about RIM and to sign up for the Zoom.
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By Rebecca MacLean and Michael Kline

Let's just call them resistant, rather than uncoachable, shall we?

If you search articles about coaching the “uncoachable”, you will notice many say “These clients aren’t worth the effort.” “Try to avoid those clients, and if you have them, accept that they are not ready for coaching; end the relationship.”

According to John Mattone, a globally respected leadership coach authority, it generally benefits no one to consider a client “uncoachable.”  John goes on to explain “Most of all, successfully coaching the resistant requires understanding the cause of the client’s reticence so that it can be addressed.” Others advise, “The coach must help the client uncover their own intrinsic motivation to change.” But none of them really tell us HOW to do that. The advice is: walk away, refer the client to therapy, or “it just takes time to build trust.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t help you in your next session; it leaves you frustrated and most likely down one paying client.
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The Real Problem
Have you considered the possibility that the client’s resistance is the work they need to tackle? The client isn’t resistant to coaching per se, the resistance is the problem revealing itself to you. 
According to cognitive neuroscientists, people are conscious of only about 5 percent of cognitive activity, so most decisions, actions, emotions, and behavior depends on the 95 percent of brain activity that goes beyond conscious awareness. The late Dr. Robert Zajonc, social psychologist at the University of Michigan, explained “In many cases when people explain why they’ve made a decision, they are simply rationalizing, attributing what sounds like a reasonable basis for what is really a murky, unknowable process.”
Piotr Winkielman, a researcher and professor of psychology at UC San Diego, states, “The affective system responsible for preferences is separate from the cognitive system responsible for inferences; because early affective processes are automatic and therefore inaccessible to higher-order interventions; and because early affective responses are not represented as conscious feelings.”   That’s why your client doesn’t know what’s stopping them, they just reactively resist. 
The Solution
A technique called Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM)® developed by Dr. Deborah Sandella, RN, PhD, makes this murky and unknowable process known. The early affective processes are quickly brought into conscious awareness so that higher-order interventions rewrite the automatic responses and preferences. Using this technique, clients can safely, consciously, and quickly tap into true sub-conscious motivations for behavior, understand the origin, and resolve any that are no longer serving the client. RIM does not require the coach to be the expert. It is a non-threatening, emotionally safe, client-directed process that navigates directly the root cause of resistance, making the “uncoachable” not only coachable but on a direct path to change. It is important to note that this process is not as complex as it may seem at first, and can be done within the boundaries of coaching. RIM does not require therapy skills and is careful in its training to draw clear lines separating mental health issues from coaching work.
RIM utilizes the client’s imagination, body sensations and images to bring the sub-conscious into awareness. “Language is limited,” Gerald Zaltman, an emeritus professor from the Harvard Business School says, "and it can't be confused with the thought itself. Images, however, can capture unconscious feelings, often discovering a core; a deep metaphor simultaneously embedded in a unique setting."
Dr. Sandella explains how RIM utilizes those images for healing and creating behavior change. “The latest neuro-science findings support the efficacy of RIM® by explaining that the brain and nervous system is “plastic” or changeable. Since the brain registers an imagined experience similar to a real experience, we can re-generate emotional memory to create neuro-pathways for new endings to old stories. All the while, factual memory remains stable. During the RIM® process clients integrate a new felt body-experience that translates to automatic or reflexive behavioral, physical, and psychological changes.” This transforms the uncoachable client’s subconscious resistance into drive and motivation so your coaching can gain traction.
Rebecca MacLean www.macleanlifecoaching.com and Michael Kline www.intus.life are Master Certified RIM Facilitators, who love hosting retreats, teaching, supporting coaches and playing in the world of personal and professional growth.

By Jack Canfield
When we have a big question or an important decision to make, many of us look outside of ourselves for the answers. We turn to Google. We get advice from our friends and family. We read books or consult the teachings of experts. Yet we often neglect to consult the most important authority of all: our own intuition.
Your subconscious mind is the source of your hidden genius and will always provide you with the knowledge you need to move forward in the right direction. This is true for all people, not just those who consider themselves to be psychic or highly intuitive.
Consider this: have you ever been thinking about someone – and out of the blue the phone rings and that exact person is on the line?
Or have you ever felt like someone is watching you – and when you turn around you see someone staring at you from some distance away?
These are just two common examples of your intuition at work. Just like memory, critical thinking, and intellect, your intuition is a mental muscle you can strengthen and use to create success and become the best possible version of yourself.
Here are seven tips on how to develop your intuition and leverage it to make wiser, more soul-inspired decisions for your life.
1. Recognize when your intuition speaks First of all, in order to be able to use your intuition, you must able to recognize it when it speaks to you. Intuition usually isn’t loud or demanding – it’s subtle and communicates in different ways for different people.
For example, you may receive visual messages, such as images that appear in quick flashes or visions that unfold slowly, like a movie.
Your intuition might speak to you as a hunch, a thought, or in words. You may even be able to enter into a dialogue with your intuition to get more information and clarity.
Alternatively, your intuition may speak to you in physical sensations, such as goose bumps, discomfort in your gut, a feeling of relief, or a sour taste in your mouth.
You may receive intuitive messages through your emotions, such as feelings of uneasiness or confusion when your inner wisdom is steering you away from something – or feelings of euphoria and profound peace when you’re being guided down a path that will lead you to greater personal joy and abundance.

Sometimes intuition messages are simply a deep sense of knowing and certainty. If you’ve ever felt that you knew something to be true in the depths of your heart or soul, chances are it was a message from your intuition.
2. Deepen your intuition through meditation In order to access your intuition, you need to deepen your connection to it – and meditation is an excellent tool for this. Regular meditation will help you clear your mind of distractions and teach you how to better recognize the subtle impulses from within.
I recommend you set aside time each day to meditate on your own, or use guided meditations such as those found in my Awakening Power program.
It doesn’t have to be long – even 10 minutes a day will yield powerful results and will make it much easier for you to notice your intuition when it speaks to you through words, images, emotions, or physical sensations.
If you don’t already practice meditation, you can learn how to meditate here.
3. Dedicate time to listen to your intuition each day Life is busy, and in the rush to cross off items on our daily to-do lists, it’s easy to forget to stop and tune into our higher intelligence. But your most valuable wisdom comes when you are most open to receiving it.
That’s why I encourage you to devote time every day – multiple times a day, if necessary – to consciously give your intuition center stage. This is especially important when you’re being asked to make any important decisions. Be sure to take some time to sit with your intuition and look inside yourself for the answers before you choose which path to take.
4. Ask questions Receiving wisdom from your intuition shouldn’t be a passive experience. Get specific about the information you need and what kind of answers you’re looking for. The more clearly you pose your questions to your innate wisdom, the clearer the answers will be.
5. Write down your answers Intuitive messages are subtle and can fade from your conscious mind very quickly unless you take action to record them. In fact, neuroscience research indicates that intuitive insights not captured within 37 seconds will likely never be recalled again.
Journal writing is a highly effective way to access your intuition and capture its wisdom. I suggest you make a regular practice of journaling for just five or ten minutes a day – you’ll be amazed at the clarity of what comes through!
6. Take immediate action The Universe rewards those who take action – and so does your intuition. When you act on the information you receive from your inner source of wisdom, you open the channel between your subconscious and conscious mind even wider and will receive more intuitive messages that are stronger and easier for you to hear and act on.
7. Trust yourself The more faith you demonstrate in your intuition, the greater the results will be.
Whether you want to make better decisions, solve problems faster, or create winning plans for your life, you will achieve your goals faster and more effectively when you tune into your intuition and listen to what your inner wisdom has to say.
Trusting your intuition is all about trusting yourself – and the more trust you place in yourself, the more success you will have.
Easier said than done? I can help
Developing a strong connection with your intuition can be challenging, especially if you’ve spent a lifetime second-guessing yourself or not trusting your own decision- making skills, or if you have too many other “voices” in your head – voices of self-doubt, or blame, or judgment – drowning out your intuition.
If you feel like you need more help with this, I invite you to join me in person at Breakthrough to Success this August. In just five days, we’ll work together to quiet the voices that don’t serve you and strengthen your connection to your inner source of wisdom.

Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul® and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

​My Friday night date night? Our big night in the city was spent at my chiropractor, who held a movie screening for the bestselling, award-winning iTunes documentary, Heal. Heal, stars some of the world’s leading scientists as well as spiritual teachers, including Deepak Chopra, Bruce Lipton, Marianne Williamson, Michael Beckwith, Joan Borysenko and more.

If you’re a leadership or executive coach, I have five surprises for you. If you’re a health or wellness coach, or are interested in wellness, this movie is a more obvious MUST SEE!

While watching the movie, there were several (ok, maybe 20) places I wanted to pause the movie and talk about how the same principles apply to behavioral change, and issues that deal with our emotional/mental blocks in business, relationships, self-esteem and more. The fact is, we have more control over our health and all aspects of life than we have been taught to believe. The RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) tools we use and teach, can be learned by any therapist, social worker or coach, even without a background in psychology. The documentary inspired me to share these thoughts, summarized as:

Five surprises about emotional work in coaching:

1. When you’re a hammer, everything is a nail. I can only help people who are ready to do the work and want results. Most people who hire a coach or therapist fit in this category. I have used the same coaching tool to help a fifty year old executive deal with business decisions as I do with a thirty year old full-time mother dealing with her chronic sore throat.  Whaaa?!  (True stories, on my website). Our decisions and behaviors are controlled by our emotions. Even the analytic client with the spreadsheet behind every decision (you know who you are), is still driven by emotions, including the need for the analysis! And that’s ok! The process of helping a client manage and release stuck emotions and old beliefs is simple, proven and effective, without reliving old stories, traumas and dramas. So, regardless of the client or the root cause, the process is the same. The emotion doesn’t care why it’s there, it’s just there and can be released.
2. It’s the environment, stupid! This was the title of my favorite chapter in the book, The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton, who in the late 1960’s was an early stem-cell researcher, atheist and super-science researcher and professor. Dr. Lipton, (who has become a big believer btw), in the documentary, expanded on his views about the environment in which our cells live, and how much we can impact that environment. Consider how easy it is to conjure up an image of standing on the edge of a cliff – your body responds and changes its chemical makeup just from the thoughts you create. Now consider the well-documented impact of stress on the body. Now consider that we know emotions occur in the body, and have been doing so since the day we were born. Our early programming and emotional memoires stored in the cells of our body, continue to drive our decisions and behaviors and trigger stress responses and all the related chemical changes to the environment in our body. We can change from reactive to proactive and create much better outcomes. We can, usually in a single RIM session, create a major shift in our clients’ emotional memory, generating a new belief – not just to feel better, but to feel different. Not merely a new perspective or reframe, but a new feeling and belief at a much deeper level. This is just as powerful as the original belief formed at an early age. Consider what’s possible if we can change decisions and behaviors regarding business, leadership, relationships, and health.
3. Clients aren’t broken and we don’t have to be the expert to fix them. Just because the root of a challenge is hidden in a deep emotional experience, does not mean the client is broken and needs to be fixed by an expert. You can learn the skills to process that work without referring them to a specialist. My own clients will sometimes say “I don’t want to go there”, understandable, given the thought of going into old scary dark places in their past. We don’t have to. The RIM process follows whatever shows up for the client and is led by them. Using the gentle, yet powerful tools of RIM, the client discovers how easily they can identify the root issue, and dissolve or change it, in less than an hour.
4. Emotions do belong in the workplace. Let’s stop pretending they can be left at the door. The truth is, all coaching is personal work and private. Most people don’t want to think about their feelings, yet they can’t stop thinking about their feelings. If I have the trust, and the client is ready for real, sustainable results, I simply ask them if they are willing to try something different, they always say yes. And they are always grateful.
5. It’s not about your relationship with the client. The thing is, all humans want love and connection. We can help them learn to connect more deeply with themselves and the important people in their lives. Of course, we can connect more deeply with our clients, and our connection and trust is valuable in our relationship, but it really is not about their relationship with us. We teach them to not need us in this way, and help them develop the relationship with themselves.

We really do have more control over all aspects of life than we have been taught to believe. If you would like to explore RIM as a tool to deepen your skills, fuel a new direction for your work, add an exciting new feature to retreats or coaching packages, or just to enhance your personal journey in this world, join us, or re-join us on a free group Rim experience call. If you’re already familiar with RIM and want review the details of the RIM Essentials training program, click here.

RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) is an innovative transformational method that can be used as an adjunctive technique in traditional psychotherapy or as an innovative practice model. I developed this method of working with clients after 25 years of doing traditional psychotherapy as a university professor, community mental health program director,  and  private  practitioner. A synthesis of a variety of techniques that access the unconscious mind. This therapeutic tool combines Ericksonian Hypnosis (Gilligan, 1987), Interactive Guided Imagery (Rossman, 1987), and Somatic Therapy concepts; it provides us the language to program the unconscious radar, so we can consciously choose our direction and heal  our history.
 
Practicing RIM over the last 10 years, it has evolved into a completely new practice model. I have labeled it Transformational Coaching to distinguish it from psychotherapy. Traditional psychotherapy is a pathology- centered model where the relationship between client and therapist creates a laboratory to offer clients a reparative experience. The client is considered broken in some way, and the therapist’s job is to facilitate the fix. In comparison, RIM shifts the focus of connection away from client and therapist and refocuses on the relationship between client and inner self. The coach is a guide who escorts clients to their inherently whole center beneath the layers of human experience. Repeatedly seeing the remarkable results, I have come to truly trust the wholeness that lives at the heart of every human being. Clients also recognize their true selves and are amazed at their own power and wisdom. It becomes a healing moment and frequently, they are initiated on a journey of relating to their inner self and unconscious mind with increased respect and wonder. About Learning RIM...

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RIM uses preverbal primary image associations to dip into the well of the unconscious and bring back hidden insights. As Socrates profoundly described eons ago, imagination is the language of  the  soul.  Anna  Wise (2002) has demonstrated in the biofeedback lab that the unconscious mind can be heard in the quiet spaces between the chatter of our intellectual thoughts. When you  slow  down  rapid-fire  thinking  focused  on the external world, you sense the insight of your unconscious. Merely by closing  your  eyes,  you  begin  to focus in the direction of the invisible unconscious.  Try it, and notice how easily your attention shifts from external analysis to intuitive sensing.
 
Research has proven repeatedly the immense power of imagination. For example, Baylor School of Medicine physician Dr Bruce Moseley (Moseley et al., 2002), surprisingly, found that patients who received placebo surgery for severe debilitating knee pain had the same level of improvement as those patients who had the shaving of damaged cartilage and surgical removal of inflammatory material in the knee joint. The placebo group who received “fake surgery” were sedated and given three standard incisions. The surgeon also talked and acted as if it were real surgery, including splashing salt water to simulate the sound of the knee-washing procedure. After the release of these findings, the media filmed people from the placebo surgery group walking and playing basketball, things they could not do before surgery.
 
More recently, Dr Joseph Disperna explained in the movie What the Bleep! (Arntz et al. & Vicente et al., 2004) that the same parts of the brain light up on an MRI when a person looks at an actual object, or if they imagine the same object in their mind. In other  words,  the  brain does not distinguish the difference between real and imagined experience. This is very good news—it suggests that we can transform traumatic or troubling memories and destructive beliefs, and the mind will integrate the new transformed version.
 
The relationship between the body and the unconscious has become the focus of an explosion of new research since Dr Candace Pert (1997) discovered that neuropeptides and their specific receptor sites are scattered throughout the brain and the body, including the immune system. Pert suggests the neurologic patterns of our unconscious experiences are recorded at these sites; thus, the body holds a cellular log of unconscious content that is activated as a default response whenever triggers are present.
 
The logical mind attempts to keep life predictable by analyzing, thinking, and rationalizing our subjective life experiences. As humans and especially Americans, we have learned to trust our intellectual function to keep us safe, and we expect that if we vigilantly analyze the world around us, we will remain in control. The unconscious, intuitive mind, on the other hand, is illogical, invisible, and ungrounded in reality. Nighttime dreaming is a wonderful example of pure unconscious process. Unlike indigenous cultures, we have been taught to mistrust the invisible, so the insights and gifts buried in the unconscious mind are frequently uncultivated and even feared. Learn the RIM Method...
 
The Process of Implementing RIM
 
Founded upon these scientific findings, RIM allows clients to replace unconscious destructive and painful images with positive images in the same way a message on a cassette tape can be erased and a new message recorded. This process offers a seamless flow through four simple processes for transformational healing:

(a) Close eyes, relax and slow brain waves; (b) Follow the trail of images through the unconscious; (c) Transform, edit, and delete mental images; (d) Locate pain as felt-body experience; (e) Transform, edit, and delete felt-body experience; (f) Save new desirable images in body.

RIM allows us to: 

1. Reveal undesirable unconscious images
2. Intuitively correct healing images
3. Write new endings to old experiences
4. Re-do regrets
5. Edit, delete, and transform painful memories
6. Rehearse desirable outcomes
7. Free physical discomfort held in the body
8. Settle with those who have passed

 
For example, a middle-aged widow came in for a session complaining of loneliness since her husband’s sudden and traumatic death 12 years earlier. When I inquired of her unconscious mind as to where in her body the pain of her husband’s death was hiding, she saw in her mind’s eye it was in the skin covering her total body. Deepening her experience by asking the color of the pain, she gasped slightly, and said with a gulp, “Its black, I’m wearing the widow’s black as my skin.” When asked what she would like to do with this blackness covering her skin, she said through tears, “It’s already changing, soon as I saw it, it spontaneously began to change; it’s becoming a vividly colorful mural of life and nature.” Within a month, she had her first date in 12 years, and is currently in a relationship.
 
Research Findings
 
The RIM method has been tested both in research and clinical experience. The study (Boxwell, 2006) involved 52 participants who suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They were introduced to the RIM workbook and audio program (Sandella, 2002) and asked to do the exercises as directed. The clients were able to significantly reduce the hallmark symptoms of this stress-related disorder and to increase significantly the quality of life by using the RIM workbook and audio program for 6 weeks. The findings suggest that individuals suffering from IBS were overly reliant upon their intellectual function, and that the RIM program shifted their attention away from overachieving to trusting their inner guidance. It is interesting to note that those who consistently wrote down their insights following RIM sessions had the best results, and those unfamiliar with their inner life took almost 4 weeks of practice before experiencing benefit. Learn RIM...
 
Clinically, the effectiveness of RIM was tested when a workshop participant whose psychiatric background was unknown spontaneously disassociated at a personal growth retreat far from home.
 
Jan stood under a sunny tropical sky, as her eyes filled with terror and a faraway blankness, and she fought off an invisible intruder. Rather than trying to draw her out of the disassociation, I used the RIM™ technique of following her fully into the inner experience already playing.

When asked what she was seeing or feeling inside her body, Jan described, “a knife in my vagina.” Feeling a wince of concern,  I continued and asked what she wanted to do with the knife? “Remove it,” came her response and I quickly encouraged her to do so. When asked where she wanted to discard the knife, she spoke with intense emotion, “I want to kill my mother with it.” After a moment of hesitation, I proceeded to suggest she bring up an image of her mother in her imagination. Immediately, she said, “No, then I would be like her; I don’t want to be like her, I want to throw it in the ocean.” At which time, she imagined throwing the knife into the adjacent ocean, and seeing it sink to the very bottom where it quickly slid beneath the sand and disintegrated.

When asked what image she’d like to place in the space where the knife previously had rested, nothing came into her mind. At that moment, however, across my mind flashed the image of a healthy, strong young tree. So, I soothingly shared this vision with her. After receiving her agreement, I let my intuition spontaneously describe the tree roots growing down and out through the soles of her feet deep into mother earth. In this hypnotic moment, I quietly reassured her that this was her new earth mother who was always there to support and nourish her true self. As she and I witnessed her inner process, her well-rooted tree instantly grew and the branches opened upward to Father Sky as she felt the warmth and comfort of tropical sun on her head. When we finished integrating this new image in her body, she was fully present in her body and with me, I immediately asked her to return to the group activity she had left only 20 minutes earlier.

She easily reintegrated into the group engaged in an art project and drew an image of a small tree with expanding roots and a few rising branches with green leaves. During the rest of the retreat, Jan engaged with the other participants in a new, open way, sharing that she “felt more normal than ever before in her life.” Months later, her partner shared that Jan previously had tried hospitalization, medication, and psychotherapy and nothing had worked until this RIM™ experience.

More about RIM...

Learn the RIM Method...
 
If you want to learn more about RIM, you can order Dr. Sandella’s newest book, Goodbye Hurt & Pain, 7 Simple Steps for Health, Love and Success everywhere books are sold, and visit www.riminstitute.com.
 
References
Arntz, W., Chase, B., & Vicente, M. (Producers), & Vicente, M., Chase,  B., & Arntz, W. (Directors). (2004). What the bleep do we know! [Motion picture]. United States: Lord of the Wind Films.
Boxwell, A. (2006). The efficacy of guided-imagery/visualization and journaling in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine, 16(2), 21–24.
Gilligan, S. (1987). Therapeutic trances: The cooperation principle in Ericksonian  hypnotherapy.  Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.
Moseley, J. B., O’Malley, K., Petersen, N. J., Menke, T. J., Brody, B. A., Kuykendall, D. H., et al. (2002). A controlled trial of arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee. New England Journal of Medicine, 347(2), 81–88.
Pert, C. (1997). Molecules of emotion, the science behind mind-body  medicine.
New York: Scribner.
Rossman, M. (1987). Healing yourself: A step-by-step program for better health through imagery. (Bressler and Rossman are authors of Interactive  Guided  Imagery).  New  York:  Simon  & Schuster.
Sandella, D. (2002). Releasing the inner magician, ways to find a peaceful and happy life (book and CD). Denver, CO: The Inner Magician Series. (2016) Goodbye Hurt & Pain, 7 Simple Steps for Health, Love and Success. Newburyport, MA:  Conari Press
Wise, A. (2002). Awakening the mind: A guide to mastering the power of your brain waves. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam Books.

By Michael Kline
When we conjure up an image up a leader in business, we might see the stereotypical tall, white man, with chiseled jaw, expensive suit, power tie, you get the picture – a sort of super-hero with an MBA and an unhealthy amount of confidence matched only by his lack of compassion. The strong, results-oriented driver personality, win at all costs, take no prisoners, bottom-line boss image can provide a sense of comfort to employees, investors and clients alike, especially when feeling anxious about the future. It makes sense to our primal nature that a strong leader can solve our problems and keep us safe.
 
No offense to tall people or nice suits, I happen to like both. The problem with becoming a leader (boss), or choosing our leaders with this mindset, is that our tribe isn’t fighting off wild animals and other invading tribes. Of course we all feel fearful at times, and of course it’s natural to respond to fear from the reptilian part of our brain that says we need power or protection to overcome whatever it is we fear.
 
A research team at Cornell University studied the leadership styles, backgrounds and track records of 72 senior executives across 31 companies and concluded that harsh, hard-driving, executives actually diminish the bottom line, while self-aware leaders with strong interpersonal skills produced better financial results. “Bully traits that are often seen as part of a business-building culture were typically signs of incompetence and lack of strategic intellect. Such weaknesses as being arrogant, too direct or impatient and stubborn, correlated with low ratings for delivering financial results, business/technical acumen, strategic intellect, and, not surprisingly, managing talent, inspiring followership, and being a team player.”  There is a better way.
 
While Self-awareness get little attention in the business world, the Cornell study reveals that it should actually be a top concern. High self-awareness scores were the best predictor of overall success. It makes sense that executives who are aware of the lenses through which they filter their perceptions and assumptions might have a more honest grasp of reality, affecting their relationships, decisions and actions. Further, having realistic confidence and an awareness of their own limitations would allow them to hire subordinates who complement their talents.
 
According to Daniel Goleman, renowned Emotional Intelligence expert, “self-awareness is the skill that requires the most patience and honesty, and provides the best foundation for further developing Emotional and Social Intelligence in both work and life situations.” 
 
It seems that soft values drive hard results.
 
Goleman’s research colleague, Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, explains the mind-body connection of self-awareness. “We know that Emotional Self-Awareness can begin with sensations in your body or with your thoughts. When emotions are activated, they are accompanied by bodily changes. There may be changes in breathing rate, in muscle tension, in heart rate. Emotional Self-Awareness in part is the awareness of one's own body.”
 
As a RIM practitioner (Regenerating Images in Memory), I learned this from my teacher and mentor Dr. Deb Sandella, founder of The RIM Institute and author of Goodbye Hurt and Pain. It’s called interoception, the sensing of feelings as they flow through the body, bringing helpful feedback, if we pay attention. With RIM, we guide clients to use body sensing to tap into these usually unnoticed emotions.
 
The subconscious speaks in metaphors and images while the intellect speaks in thoughts and words. When we use imagination to translate and synthesize feelings, a whole-brain experience is created. The results are profound. Neuroscience explains how it works—this ability to change our emotional memory to create new endings to old stories that shape our self-concept, world-views and limiting beliefs.  All the while factual memory remains intact and the client remains in total control. In addition to relieving stress, anxiety, emotional and physical pain, the client enjoys increased internal insight, resourcefulness and self-awareness. 
 
Because emotional work is invisible and intangible, it can seem complicated, difficult to measure, time-consuming, expensive, and unrelated to the bottom line. The opposite is actually true. In reality, results can be simple, quick and easy. New methods such as RIM, can produce immediate results in improved self-awareness, which is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence, repeatedly shown to influence job satisfaction and job performance for employees and effectiveness for leaders.
 
For more information about leadership and team development or RIM, visit www.intus.life/RIM or email mike@intus.life.

By Michael Kline

It’s common to hear coaches say that therapy is about the past and coaching is about the future. Yet, we all know that blocks from the past make our clients’ progress slower.
Imagine the power of being able to redo past events.  We’d go back in time and say the things we wish we’d said, but didn’t.  Sound intriguing?  What if your clients could project their voice in a safe way into old dangerous events?

Like you, my beliefs and attitudes have been shaped by events throughout my life. My interactions with parents, friends, bullies, employers, lovers and pets have all influenced my worldview and my approach to everything from business to eating habits, and not always in a good way. By changing my emotional memories, I have dramatically increased my emotional self-awareness and in the process, shifted many of my beliefs about how the world works.

My life changed in early 2014 at my first Jack Canfield retreat, when I was brave enough to stand up and share a personal experience with about 100 future friends. Jack personally led me through a light RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) process that quickly and easily had me looking out of my own eyes as my 7 year-old self. With Jack’s careful guidance, I re-experienced, through my imagination, the learning of my mother’s death in a completely new way, with a very different level of support. While my factual memory remains intact, I also now have a new emotional memory of the event and a sense of love and support I had not previously known.

I immediately signed up to learn the RIM process with Dr. Deborah Sandella, founder of The RIM Institute. I wanted to do for my clients and students, what Jack did for me. As powerful as the experience was, I’ve discovered it was only the tip of the iceberg of what is possible.  RIM has been nothing short of a miracle in my life that I now share with clients as we explore new possibilities.

Many clients who come for business help, or who are referred by other coaches, easily discover that emotional blocks are holding them back. I use RIM to help them dramatically boost their emotional self-awareness and shift deeply-held limiting beliefs to create a much brighter future. A recent client reported that one RIM process cleared what years of therapy didn’t. Another client, diagnosed with full-blown PTSD, quit her psychiatric care years ago, claiming each session made her worse. After years of trying “not to think about it”, she came in for a single RIM session and all symptoms disappeared. It is common for clients to rave about dramatic or unexpected positive results. Disclaimer: Let me be clear, I do not diagnose or treat mental illness, and I support traditional psycho-therapy, which offers great relief and benefit for many.  RIM is an organic transformational technique.

I continue to be humbled and amazed by the results of this simple mind-body technique. It’s no surprise that Master Certified Coaches who experienced the process recommend it as a valuable tool to help their clients. If you would like to learn more about RIM for your personal growth, self-awareness, emotional intelligence and well-being, or as an advance coaching skill, visit www.intus.life/rim.

By Deborah Sandella, Ph.D.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with emotion? 
We all have at one time or another. The invisible and out-of-control nature of feelings can cause us to fear intense emotion and desire to push it away. For the last 40 years, I have helped clients work through emotional pain and trauma, which has led me to an important perspective on our mental health.  
My experience has convinced me, and research has shown, that we are born with a reliable system for processing life’s experiences of pain and doubt quickly and effectively. Our natural curiosity and joy can be felt more easily than we’ve realized. We just haven’t understood how it works—until now.
My psychological technique is called the Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM®) Method; it introduces a new paradigm of how our emotional system works. I have turned away from the idea that painful experiences have to permanently damage us. I believe we have an emotional operating system that can help expand positive feelings and dissolve painful ones.

Research into Memory
In 2000, a graduate student at College of William & Mary discovered that recalling a memory biochemically destabilizes it and creates a window of time in which the memory can be transformed.
It’s kind of like how you unlock the icons on the screen of your smartphone. Push and hold a specific icon, and they all start to jiggle, allowing you to move or delete them before relocking the screen by clicking a button. 
Similarly, we can mentally push on a memory, regenerate a new version and resave it. This isn’t reliving the memory, but recalling a hidden sabotaging experience and emotionally changing it to one in which you have what you want.
When you engage in this process rather than merely talking about painful memories, remarkable results are possible. You can:

• Calm anxiety quickly with simple inner body sensing
  
• Resolve unfinished issues, even when the other person isn’t available or willing to participate
• Interrupt repetitive, self-defeating behavior by finding the root experience and regenerating it
  
• Allow uncomfortable emotions to expire naturally
• Defuse suicidal thoughts when the root experience is sensed and regenerated
• Diffuse relationship tension as each partner dissolves unconscious childhood rage by regenerating these experiences.

Victimizing experiences from your past can be regenerated to create a neurologically grounded memory of personal authority—the freedom to speak and move.

Rewriting Emotional Pain
For example, consider Gina (client’s name has been changed). Gina is in her early 30s when she comes in for a session. Although she is very successful in her career, she is not having luck with dating, but wants to marry and have children.
When I guide her to gently close her eyes and focus on her breathing, she settles into her chair and relaxes. Turning attention to sensing her body, she dips deeper into inner awareness.
Gina’s imagination brings up an image of her fifth grade school cafeteria. She sees herself standing in line, when a boy in her class tells her, “You’re ugly.” Humiliated, she swallows her tears and wants to crawl under a table to hide. 
Now that she has unlocked this long-forgotten memory by recalling it, we can regenerate a new version. First we call in a virtual resource to bring safety, and an image of Gina’s mom shows up beside her. Within the security of her mom’s presence, Gina is free to say to her classmate what she’s feeling: “You hurt my feelings. Why are you being so mean to me?”
I ask Gina to move her awareness into the boy, and try to sense what he might be feeling. She senses his answer: “I said it because I like you, and that’s the way I talk to my guy friends, so I thought it would work with you.”
Gina is shocked by this admission. Never had she imagined this boy might have liked her. In this critical moment of revelation, her self-esteem starts to regenerate as a female who is attractive to men. When she stands up to leave, her body posture is noticeably different from her shy entrance. She holds herself taller and walks with more feminine grace.
A few months later, Gina finally meets a man she likes, and they begin to date. A year later they are engaged—and now are married with two children.
 
Try It for Yourself
Try this technique the next time you are feeling stuck or troubled by feelings rooted in a painful experience from your past. You will find that your emotional operating system is smarter than you think; you have many more resources than you’ve imagined.
Now it’s time to consciously use those inner resources to create your best life.
 
About the Author
Deborah Sandella, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, university professor, and originator of the RIM Method, a heavily-backed neuroscience tool for reducing stress and improving quality of life. Her book Goodbye, Hurt & Pain: 7 Simple Steps to Health, Love, and Success will be released September 1, 2016.

By Michael J. Kline
In our last article we talked about setting bigger goals. I hope you were inspired to do so, because you deserve and are capable of a joyful, abundant life. Once you successfully quell the voices in your head enough to set some really exciting goals, expect to experience some considerations, fears and roadblocks. Most people take this as a sign to stop; as confirmation that the voices in their head were right all along. Don’t fall for it.
Considerations will come up fast and furious. It is common to worry that you don’t know how. That’s ok, remember there is nothing you do now, that at one time, you didn’t know how to do. You are capable and will find resources not yet known. You may feel that you don’t really deserve what you want. You do. Ask any qualified coach for resources to help you get unstuck. If you are a couch potato and set a goal to get in shape, you may consider it will require getting up early to start training, or that dieting will be hard. So what? Just decide you are willing to pay the price and you will. Brian Tracy put it very simply. He said “decide what you want in life, figure out what the price is, and go about paying that price”. If you don’t want to pay the price, you can’t have it. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Fear, we like to refer to as F.E.A.R. as False Evidence Appearing Real.  You may fear humiliation just by telling people about your goal. You may find some people who are jealous because they never let themselves set their dreams as goals, but you will also find supporters who will help you achieve your goal. If you don’t tell people, no one will help you achieve it. You may fear failure, or losing money or emotional or physical pain, or even losing friends. Expect the fears as part of the process. Take adequate caution to make wise decisions, and get on with your work. When you get stuck in fear, we have a wide variety of tools to help. One of the most powerful I’ve seen is RIM (see www.intus.life/rim).
Roadblocks are simply things that will need to be dealt with. You may need to find a partner or borrow money, get more education, change your schedule, or negotiate arrangements with your family. Unlike fears, roadblocks are real things that occur outside of yourself. Remember, resourcefulness is the most valuable resource of all. I was born into poverty on my alcoholic father’s junkyard and now I live on the golf course in a beautiful country club. If I can do it, so can you.
Michael Kline is a Certified Jack Canfield Success Trainer, Rim Master and Coach, living in Sarasota. He can be reached through his website, www.intus.life or mike@intus.life

By Michael J. Kline
Whether it’s sales goals, health goals or a goal to have more free time, the rules apply just the same. We were taught to set "realistic" goals, but when was the last time you got excited about something “realistic”?!  One of the world’s great leaders in peak performance, Jack Canfield, taught our signature Success Principles workshop to a statewide group of Realtors.  65% of them doubled sales in one year, 85% in two years. (Experience a taste of this program for free at RASM), I asked Jack if there was one specific thing that made the difference in those results. Without hesitation, he said “yes, we asked them to choose a goal to double or triple their sales, and they did.” He went on to explain “Your performance never exceeds your highest vision”. I will never forget that great quote and it’s my #1 reason to set bigger goals. But just saying it, doesn’t make it so, right? How can this be realistic? First of all, let go of the realistic rule.
 
My #2 reason, is the voices in your head are lying to you. We start out believing it’s not possible for us. Meanwhile, we have so much evidence of what is possible. We see our competitors doing it, but we can rationalize: they have more money, better people, got lucky, etc. It is completely normal to hear voices in your head telling you to stay safe, but the voices lie, telling you that more success means less family time or that you don’t know how to do it. You may not know yet, but think of what you do today that you didn’t know how to do a few years ago.
My #3 reason to set bigger goals, is because it is as easy as setting your GPS.  When you program the GPS in your phone, it gives you directions only after you put in the destination. As you take action and treat any result as feedback, you adjust course and keep moving. The directions will continue to appear as you need them.
After you set your bigger goal, there will be considerations, fears and roadblocks for sure, which we tackle in my next article. There is still plenty of time to make 2017 your best year yet. Join me Tuesday, Dec 13th at RASM for a FREE, 90 minute Success Principles workshop, courtesy of Debbie Love at North American Title.
 
Michael Kline is a Certified Canfield Success Trainer, Rim Master and Coach, in Sarasota. He can be reached through his website, www.intus.life or mike@intus.life

By Michael Kline
 
The most popular acronym to help remember he rules of goal setting, is S.M.A.R.T. (Usually taught as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed). It’s time to rethink some of this for a powerful twist.
 
S stands for specific. Nothing new here, but are you really being specific? Vague is saying “I want to earn a living”. Specific might sound like “I want to earn $100,000”. Really specific might be “I want to earn $100,000, as a buyer’s agent, working an average of no more than 35 hours per week and taking at least 3 weeks of vacation”. Unusual clarity of goals is one of the most common attributes of the most successful people in business. If you think you are specific enough, get a little more specific anyway and ignore the voices in your head telling you otherwise; we’ll get to them later.
 
M stands for Measurable. As you dive deeper into the example above, we see we can measure the dollars, and the work hours and the vacation time. If we added that the work should be enjoyable and stress-free, how would you measure that? We might set a separate goal in our personal life area, around managing stress – practice yoga 3 times per week, or walk 45 minutes 4 times a week, etc. Think of ways you can measure the things that will produce the outcome you want. Maybe you set a goal to hire a part-time assistant by Feb 28, 2017, or to refuse listings that you don’t really want to take. Yes, refusing some listings, will help you make more money, but that another article.
 
A stands for Attainable (or achievable). Here’s what is new: If you know how you will attain it, it is too small!  That means you should set a goal that feels a little bit UN-attainable! Set the goal that would be a stretch to attain it. If you know how to make $40,000 a year, making $50,000 is not a stretch – that is just hoping for the same amount of work you did this year and a little good luck. To double your income is a stretch – yet totally doable – have other people in your position done that? Yes, many have. In fact, nearly everyone who makes that income, once earned your income. There is overwhelming evidence that it is attainable, and the only challenge is you do not yet know how you will do it. This is goal setting, not strategy setting, so set the big goal. If you wait to know how first, you will never do it and you will never get to know the strategy. The GPS in your car or phone will not give you directions to get across the state until you program in the destination. The same holds true for setting a goal. The directions for getting there come after you program in the destination.
 
Advanced students only: The A could stand for Actionable. You could abandon the entire discussion of attainable, throw caution to the wind and just go for it. All that matters is the goal is actionable – meaning it is something you control – don’t set a goal for your spouse, child, or boss, to be something different. If it is something you can take action on, go for it!
 
R stands for Relevant.  I have always heard other trainers teach that R stands for realistic or reachable – this makes no sense to me, since reachable is a lot like achievable. Redundant, don’t you think? Relevant to what though, you may ask. Relevant to your life purpose, passion and legacy. Relevant to your other goals – are your career goals compatible with your health, relationship, spiritual and personal goals? Who are you? Who do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to have been when your life is over? Are your goals relevant to what really matters and to what is really worth doing in the grand scheme of things? Every time I teach a passion tester life purpose workshop, even the most successful people discover opportunities to bring more joy and meaning into their lives. Relevant may not be the first thing that impresses short-term thinkers, but it is the most sustainable and impactful in the long term.
 
T stands for Timed. This is similar to measurable. Quite simple to apply, and the more detailed you get, the better. Instead of saying “earn $100,000 this year” say “by 5pm, December 20, 2017 or sooner”. If you have a vision of  taking off the rest of the year to enjoy family time, so you will need to create a clear vision of going home to celebrate exceeding your goal by 5pm on the 20th. When you create a clear vision and tie it to the emotions of creating that vision, the goal is even more powerful.
 
So what about things that are not in your control? Market conditions will either make life easier, the same or more difficult. Ever wonder how some people excel during difficult times? Watch less news and spend more time focused on your goals. For example, spending an hour meditating every day may bring the inspiration or idea that allows you to double your income in a down market. This happens all the time. Have you ever spent weeks seeking an answer to something, then all of a sudden out of nowhere, when you are quiet for a moment, the answer just comes to you?
 
My first discovery of this was way back in the recession of 1992. I was managing a travel agency, selling to small corporate accounts in Orlando. The travel business was down, and four nearby travel agencies closed their doors that year. We grew by over $1,000,000 in sales and merged one of the closing offices into ours. While our neighbors were watching the news and anguishing over dropping sales, I was cold calling on businesses who were looking to spend less on travel. They did spend less, and they spent it with me. Subsequently, I have bought and sold twelve homes as a side-line. In recent years, masses of amateur “flippers” watched too much HGTV and with dollar signs in their eyes, paid more than renovation projects were worth. This may or may not help you sell homes. It certainly makes it harder for you and other clients to find quality investments. In a down market, everything changes. In an up market, everything changes again. In business, change is not good or bad, it just is. Change is always an opportunity to the calm mind with a clarity of specific goals.
 
Michael Kline – A Certified Jack Canfield Success Trainer, Speaker & Coach. You can reach him through his website www.intus.life, or e-mail, mike@intus.life

By Michael Kline

It’s that time of year when Real Estate agents should be thinking about bigger goals for 2017. Most agents will set goals for a ten or twenty percent increase. What would it mean to you if you set a goal to DOUBLE your sales and your days off and what if you ACHIEVED your goal? Sixty-five percent of agents who completed The Success Principles Training, doubled their income AND their time off, in one year! What would that do for your lifestyle? Your family? Your health and wellness? Why don’t more agents set and achieve bigger goals?

Let’s take a look at the big three:

3. Not taking the right action to achieve their goal. Most agents waste too much time doing work that seems urgent, but not as important as they think it is. They take listings they shouldn’t (at least not as-is). They are too aggressive, too passive or both, depending on the circumstances. They’re convinced they need another certification, a better website, and more marketing support. When we lean into action and use the feedback it provides, we get to our goals faster. Most agents don’t know what action to take because they don’t have a clear and committed vision of their goal in the first place.

2. Lacking a clear vision of what’s possible. The most successful people have unusual clarity of vision and purpose. While most agents think it would be impossible to double their income and time off, they can look around and even complain that they work twice as hard as some agents and they make half the money. That is proof that it is possible, because others are already doing it! They just don’t believe it is possible for them, or that the other agent has super-powers or dark secrets we don’t know about. To believe and hold a vision of the dream realtor lifestyle, to double their income and their time off, to pursue what matters most in their lives and enjoying the work along the way is just too fantastical for most people to hold for very long. Learning to take the right action is critical, knowing what action to take requires knowing your goals. Having a clear goal requires believing it’s possible and that it’s possible for you.

1. Not setting big enough goals. We know that our achievements seldom exceed our vision, so we need a bigger vision. With self-limiting beliefs firmly planted in our sub-conscious, most of us only set goals for what we know we can achieve. Most agents love reading market trends and predictions from experts on the future. High achievers take complete responsibility for creating their own future regardless of the competition, new technology and the economy. Successful agents set goals that are a stretch above what they know how to achieve. If you limit your goals to what you know how to achieve, you’re setting your goals too low. The how always shows up. If you are planning a trip, you program the destination into your GPS before it will give you the directions on how to get to your destination. The same is true with goals. Set your destination, and as you take action, you are rewarded with insights, feedback and opportunities you never could have planned if you tried.

Successful people stop the little voices in their head that tell lies about the limits of their aspirations. They take action and quickly learn to adjust for what works and what doesn’t. Achievers learn to reject rejection, overcome fears, tap into their intuition, and use the power of visualization and proper goal setting. The Success Principles have helped countless people all over the world, and we can help you you’re your team get from where you are, to where you want to be.

Michael Kline is a six-time successful entrepreneur, a Certified Jack Canfield Success Principles trainer, Master Rim Facilitator and Success Coach. He is introducing the Jack Canfield’s Success principles to Realtors in Sarasota/Manatee area with a variety of workshops now and into 2017. He can be reached at mike@intus.life or through his website www.intus.life

by Sal Martignetti
I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for all of humanity. I listen to the news, friends, family, co-workers, and everyone in between and what I hear is anger, fear, hope, and possibilities all rolled up into one package. What I realized is, our current society and societies all over the world are the result of our collective views and beliefs. This is what we’ve created together. There’s no one to blame because we’re all responsible for everything that has happened since humans have existed.

The question is, where do we go from here? Humanity has made great progress when you compare what societies were like just hundreds of years ago, never mind thousands of years. If you stop and think for just a moment about how life must have been only 500 years ago, you will realize that we are far better off today even though there’s still so much hate, crime, death and destruction.

So, what does this mean? Over thousands of years, our collective thinking has evolved into what we consider to be right from wrong and good from bad. The issue is, who gets to decide what is right from wrong and good from bad? Sounds so simplistic, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it is the root of humanity’s problems. We cannot define right from wrong and good from bad definitively because everyone has different views and beliefs. Maybe, just maybe, if we all just put aside what we think is right from wrong and good from bad, we can see things through a different lens and realize we all just want to be connected, happy, loving, and compassionate humans.

What will it take? I believe if we think, feel and act as we’re all connected to one another and anything we say and do results in saying and doing it to ourselves. If we can do this, humanity will once again, evolve to a higher level of consciousness.

Please share this with the world.

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By Michael Kline
Wisdom says “tomorrow never comes”. Wisdom also says “Failing to plan is planning to fail”.  Of course, wisdom is full of contradictory and confusing concepts. Well, confusing to some of us, and less-so to the more wizened among us. I have heard the expression “tomorrow never comes” thousands of times throughout my life. Such a cliché hardly deserves a serious listen, or does it? I don’t believe I have ever once, stopped to ponder its meaning; either the literal meaning, or the customized meaning for me.
Literally, it is a sarcastically cutesy, pain-in-the-neck expression, isn’t it? To say technically, when tomorrow arrives, you will be calling it “today”, thereby chasing the “tomorrow” reference. It’s like a dog chases its tale and cannot figure out why the tale advances at the same speed he does. I admit, I have been that dog. Ok, I’ll take that one further – I have been that dog a lot! How can we find value in this wisdom so we stop chasing our tale?
What is new and valuable to me, is discovering what I can do right here and right now to experience what I think I should be experiencing tomorrow. Ask yourself what you want for your future. Think about what that is and what it means to you. If you had what you want, then what would you have? What would that get you and what would that mean to you? Then, if you really think about whatever that is, could you not have that right now?  When I do this exercise, the answer is almost always yes. What we really want is right in front of us. Love, health, happiness, joy, are all available to us for the asking.
Working on our careers will take time. Building relationships, making new friends, saving money, losing weight, all take time and we must plan and work and be patient. I have two points about this. One, yes they take time, planning and work. Meanwhile, there is always an action step you can take today to move you in the direction you want, right now. Take the action.  Two, the rewards of this work, ultimately are not the money, the job, the big house or the perfect family. They are peace, joy, love, confidence, happiness… all of which are subjective experiences we think will be easier to find if we had the perfect body, more money and a fancy title. We could choose any of these rewards at any given moment. If we wait until tomorrow, it will look a lot like today. Not only will it be called “today” when you get to tomorrow, as the cliché explains, but more importantly, it will feel just like today. Even when all the planning pays off and you arrive at your future you worked so hard to build, unless you decide to shift your perspective, it will disappoint you.
Tomorrow never comes, yet it never goes away either. It will always be there, either tempting you with either a threat or a promise, depending on whether you choose anxiety or hope. Given its elusive nature, it may inspire you to  look backwards at all the evidence that things will never change, inviting in depression or apathy. The reality is, all of these are mere impressions, or perceptions that we choose in the moment. Perceptions can only be experienced today. Right here, right now. Your life is really just a series of todays. Decide, what will you choose to experience today?
Michael Kline is a Certified RIM Facilitator and Canfield Success Trainer for personal and group transformation. You can reach him through his website www.intus.life, or e-mail, mike@intus.life.

By Howard Stenten
How many times have you have the heard phrase, “Trust your gut?”  How many times have you done it?  Do you have a feeling deep down inside that is craving your attention?  Are you taking the time to give this feeling the attention it deserves? Do you even know it’s there?

If what Steve Jobs says is true that “intuition is more powerful than intellect,” why is it that so many of us dismiss our intuition as something that isn’t real?  Many of us tend to trust what we can hear, see, taste, smell, and feel.  We value our rational, thinking, cognitive self.  We tend to not take the time to get in touch with our sixth sense, our intuition, our very mysterious yet no less “real” ability to understand ourselves and the world around us.  When we only take the time to notice our first five senses, we stay disconnected from important feedback we are getting about who we are and how we can best serve our best self, and others.
One trait common to people that have achieved high levels of success in service to themselves, their family and friends, and society as a whole is that they place a high value on intuition and take the time to listen to its voice.                                                                                                 
It may be helpful to consider intuition as an untapped place to go for wisdom.  You have the facts. You’ve listed the pros and cons and done your cost/benefit analysis.  You know what you are “supposed to do” or are “expected to do,” but somehow the data you are getting just doesn’t feel right.  You have the feeling that there’s something more, something missing, and something beyond the grasp of the tangible sensory world.
Coaching can help you access this world.  Coaching brings you into a pro-active relationship with your intuition so that you can fully realize the power that voice deep down inside has to transform your life.
We invite you to have a free coaching session with us.   Get in touch with that very special part of you and become all of what you are meant to be.