Shift Into Brilliance

What is the Shift Into Brilliance?

Over the past twenty-plus years, I've asked many, many people, "What is your dream?"

I've asked teachers, students, prisoners in jails and juvenile hall, children, legislators, leaders in the CIA and government offices, corporate business people, CEOs, entrepreneurs, those who are unemployed, homeless, rich, famous, unknown, successful, struggling, citizens, immigrants, people from different countries...as many different people as you could possibly imagine. "What is your dream?"

Not one of them had a personal dream of wanting to harm people, the Earth, or both.

Every one of them had a personal dream that involved good for people or the Earth or both.

What then, has happened to us that we aren't experiencing the happiness we so freely dream? We know harm has come to people and the Earth. Inequities, injustices, wars, poverty, disease and meaningless acts of terror force many of us to live amidst astonishing fear, death and destruction every day. We also endure social forces and economic conditions where we make choices based on survival rather than happiness, exuberance and passion.

How is it these conditions crept upon us when we all clearly have a completely opposite vision for our lives and the world? Why have we accepted the unacceptable?

The answer is simple. We settle for less! We have a vision for happiness, peace, joy and fulfillment in our lives and the world, but we believe we can't have it. We believe there's nothing we can do. So we go on with our lives, playing the game, surviving the best we can, ignoring as much as we reasonably can, and continuing to meekly accept less. Not happily, of course.

This passive weakness is not our true nature. Hardly. To the contrary, it's only something we're doing because we have forgotten what makes us strong.

What makes us strong? Our talents! Our gifts! These are the abilities you were born with that allow you to direct your life choices with strength and unassailable integrity. There is just no way around this fact. Right within you, right now, you have unique talents that allow you to act in a way that is powerful, excellent, unfettered... and pretty failsafe.

When you re-connect with these talents, you remember your value! When you remember your value, you gain self-respect and self-esteem, and you feel empowered to take action on your choices with integrity and positive intention. You are not passive.

You have talents because you are supposed to use them. In fact, your talents are the touchstone that will guide you into your most optimum life.

And when you do this, I call it a shift into brilliance.

Put the Key in the Door, Then Turn.

Notice I did say re-connect with your talents. The education system most of us grew up with did little to nothing to encourage us to develop our talents. As a result, over all our years, many of us have made choices leading us into activities, jobs, relationships and careers which are not based on our strengths. When that happens, we feel weaker and more passive than we should; we don't feel the power of our full potential that our talents give us when we're using them.

Again, the purpose of this book is to help you rediscover the brilliance you may have forgotten or were made to leave behind. If you reawaken to the value of your talents, then you can start imagining how your life, workplace or career could be so much more productive, fulfilling and enjoyable.

When we consciously align with our brilliance, the key is in the door.

Now, we turn the key. We act. We open the door to new attitudes, new expectations, a new society, new forms of education, and a new world…

Why Are You Reading This Book?

The short answer to this question is: Because you really are brilliant....and if you're not reaping the life-long benefits of fully embracing your brilliance, this book will remind you how to do it right now, right here. Today. No matter who you are, how old or young you are, where you are, what you do or don't do for a living, what you do or don't dream of becoming, your brilliance is within you now, and you are meant to embrace it. I want this book to inspire and help you remember it, reclaim it, and live your true self with it. Ultimately you will see how your true self is the true source of your deepest, happiest and most successful fulfillment.

The ideas and principles I will share with you in this book have grown out of my amazing experiences with Career Dreams, the company I formed in 1994. Although I will be describing concepts and activities utilized in this company, this book is not about the company or its workshops or seminars. This book is about how you as an individual can reclaim your brilliance and create profound changes in your life course. What do you need to know? What do you need to do?

One purpose for recounting selected situations, events, and activities in this book is to help you experience the discovery process for yourself. As you observe others and participate with them, you learn about your own brilliance along with them. Their fears, problems, and obstacles are common to all of us. Their successes – and the understandings they achieve as they recover their brilliance – are available to you and all of us. As you read, I'm asking you to participate! Answer the questions that I ask, examine yourself in the ways I describe, and begin dreaming in the ways I suggest.

Allow your native brilliance to emerge setting new directions for achievement, success and happiness. When you finish this book, I fully expect you to feel newly motivated to recover all of what inspires, drives and fulfills you.