New Thinking Techniques
The challenge I took upon myself was to refine and improve my techniques of thinking.
If “thoughts become things,” in other words, I wanted to know a) whether this was true, and b) how I could improve my thinking
to build bigger and better things.
We don’t really teach thinking techniques in our schools, but I came to see that there is a vast, unexplored landscape of the mind that can be mapped and mastered. If I put in 10,000 hours on blockchain and investing research, I put in way more than that on New Thinking.
Like learning to play a musical instrument, this involved many years of practice and experimentation. I tried out dozens of techniques, ranging from the 2,000-year-old Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to modern-day books like The Secret. (As a lifelong learner, I’m still trying new techniques today.)
I took the techniques that seemed to deliver the best results, and developed them into a 21-day training program for my book Mind Hacking (which is available for free online, or as the bestselling Audible audiobook that you can enjoy with daily guided meditations).
So I haven’t exactly hidden my interest in the relationship between mind, consciousness, and reality: that our minds have the power to alter our consciousness, and – with time and persistence – alter our reality. Where I’ve been quiet is with my beliefs on the nature of why this works.
Here’s a quote by Wallace Wattles (pictured above), who was one of the founders of the New Thought movement, and certainly the one with the funniest name:
“There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.”
The idea that the world of thought is actually a “place” made of a “substance” which can be “molded” or “formed” is what I have come to believe.
I put all these words in quotes because it’s a “place” in the same way the world of mathematics is a “place,” it’s a “substance” in the same way a body of knowledge is a “substance.” These are imperfect words that we use for physical reality; the world of thought is different. It's finer, or subtler.
In the world of thought, we are actually moving around this mental matter, forming new structures and concepts, and (if we do it with enough skill and persistence) we can actually bring them from the world of “thought” to the world we call “physical reality.”
Again, think of the architect that builds a structure in his mind, drafts up a blueprint, then works with builders to bring it into being. At one level, we all understand this is just the way things work. It's common sense.
But when you say, “You can use these same powers of thought to build wealth with blockchain investing,” some people look at you like you’re cray-cray.
Here we go anyway: You can use these same powers of thought to build wealth with blockchain investing.
How to Think and Grow Rich
I could write another book on how we go about practicing these techniques, and in fact I hope to unpack more of this in the weeks and months to come.
One good place to start is the creation of desire. We’ve all started some new habit -- a new diet or exercise routine -- only to lose our desire for it in the first few weeks. The “fuel for the fire” is desire. (Which rhymes.)
You can try starting and ending each day with a simple mental affirmation like the following:
I am building more desire for building more health, wealth, and happiness.
That’s it. If you want to infuse it with some positive feeling, or smile as you’re saying it, that will help. (You can see more of the cognitive research behind these techniques in Mind Hacking).
It does take time, so you really want to commit to this experiment. This is why I keep a Moleskine notebook where I write down these daily “thought loops,” so I can see physical proof of my mental habits.
It also takes work, so you can’t just expect to “think and grow rich.” (A better title would have been “Think, Plan, Do, and Repeat Until You Grow Rich.”) But you're already doing the work, by learning and reading all you can about blockchain investing.
So, congratulations on making it this far in today's column. I know you’re serious about this – or at least intrigued enough to give it a try.
Who knows? With a little courage, maybe you’ll come out of the closet with me.
Health, wealth, and happiness,