Last week my son Brennan came down with a case of lice.  We have no idea where he got it from.

It could have been school.  I could have been trying on Halloween masks.  Who knows?

If you have never had to deal with this crap, then you have no idea.  It’s rough.  The medical treatments are all incredibly toxic so we went the natural route.  It’s slower, but still effective.

The actual lice is killed almost immediately, but these little things called “nits” are left behind.  Actually, they are eggs…which it not only a disgusting thought…but a massive pain in the ass.

The school won’t let a child come back until every single nit is gone.

We picked…then picked some more.

There were thousands.

So I shaved Brennan’s hair down to where it was tight to his head.  It looked like I got all the nits…or at least I thought I did.

Come Monday…the school sent him home again.

The only thing left to do was completely shave his head.  We talked about it and Brennan was totally cool with going “Bruce Willis.”

Kids rock that way.

So here I am shaving away and I have about a third of his head completely bald and thinning out the rest.

Then it happened.

In an instant I got absolutely overwhelmed with emotion.  It hit me out of nowhere.

And it hit me hard.

As I shaved my amazing 5½ yr old’s head and looked into his eyes with his new very fashionable look…I got images of kids with cancer and leukemia after chemo treatments.  I got images of kids who have to shave their heads for brain surgery.

In that moment, everything collapsed together – Brennan, chemo, leukemia, trauma, pain, helplessness, family challenges, appreciating things, losing things,  – it just all came over me and tears started rolling down my face.

I started thinking about how fricken fortunate I am.  I started thinking about all the people in my life that I love and am grateful for.

I started thinking about all the opportunities I am afforded and in actuality…how easy my life is.

And I started thinking about how I often take these things for granted.

So far today my biggest challenge was to get Brennan to eat breakfast…pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of life.

And yet we often make these small challenges seem HUGE.

I usually shift pretty quickly from things.  I take my lessons and go.  This one floored me.  I was numb for hours.  I had a mastermind call with my team leaders later in the morning and was moved to tears again in appreciation of their contribution to my life.

At a very real level, I am still in it.

Brennan often teaches me lessons.  He does it virtually every day.  But this experience was the most profound of all.

Sometimes we need reminders.  We need to relearn.  We need to unlearn.  We need to reprogram and reconnect.

Here is what my little lice infested angel reconnected me to…

Stuff In Life Just Happens…We Choose The Meaning

How often do we get sucked into believing something or thinking something just because that is what is familiar to us in our past…or most of the rest of the world believes a certain way?

Nothing in life inherently has any meaning.  Zero.  Ziltch.

We CHOOSE whatever meaning we want and we attach it to the events in our lives.  The events themselves give us nothing other than an experience, which alone is meaningless.  Additional years aren’t always liberating…sometimes they can aid us in creating mental prisons.

Experience is indeed the best teacher, but we have to bring awareness to what it is actually teaching us.  If I had to shave my head as a teenager I would have been devastated.  Even today, it would be a serious gut check moment.

Brennan has no negative anchor.  No need to impress.  No comparative judgment.

He has no past experience to limit how he embraces this moment and because of that…he grabbed every ounce of positive emotion from it.

Imagine if you had to shave your head today.  Would you embrace it or would it stop you in your tracks?

What emotions and fears would it bring up for you?  What would you make it mean?

We Need To Unlearn To Move Forward

It’s often said that things like fear of __________, (success, failure, embarrassment, not fitting in, etc) are “part of the human condition.”  I believe this to be true, but I would change it slightly.

I believe these things are “Part of the human conditioning.”

For the most part, we learn about fear…we aren’t born with it.  We learn most of it before we are seven, then the rest of our lives reinforce it.

Mentally, we become our own best supporter of limited thinking.  I see it over and over again.

I have been a student of personal development for over 20 years.  I have been facilitating programs that help people move through this stuff for 15 years.

And I still get stuck…all the damn time.

We HAVE to set up supportive structures in order to have any shot at UNlearning, reprogramming and creating massive success for ourselves.

You truly make up and choose your beliefs.  Your current ones have been hardened by life over the years, but they are NOT permanently fixed.

Begin today to look at the beliefs you have and look at what you want.  Are they in alignment?

If they are…awesome.

If they are not…awesome.  Now let’s change them.

Then give yourself plenty of opportunities to create small victories that support your new beliefs.

Brennan didn’t have anything to unlearn.  I do.  You may as well.

Start unlearning your ass off and set yourself free.

It’s NOT About Living Like You Are Dying

I’ve never liked this philosophy.

“Live like you are dying.”

“Live each moment as if it’s your last.”

It doesn’t work for me.  Honestly, if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?

For me, what works is to be completely present at all times.  Do all I can in all I do.  Be joyful.  Let people know how I feel and how much they mean to me.

My little 40” Jedi is a masterful teacher.  These lessons for me were so unexpected.

It literally came out of nowhere…but it was exactly what I needed.

I am so incredibly grateful for lice.  If you have any question as to why…look at the pure joy on Brennan’s face in the photo below.  He could give a rat’s ass about his hair…it doesn’t define him.

What life-changing lessons are you walking past everyday because they are disguised as tiny obstacles, nuisances, “problems” or challenges?

Please forward and share this with everyone you know who has children and anyone who is committed to living an authentic and joyful life.

You can inherit it.

You can win it, as in the lottery or gambling.

You can preserve and grow it, such as in investments.

Or, you can build it through a business venture.

Regardless of how you do it, having prosperity consciousness is paramount. Why? Because our results in life will eventually align with our mindset…there is no way to avoid it.

This is why 33% of lottery winners are broke after 5 years, regardless of the amount.

This is also why short-term business successes don’t last for many people.

Most people’s prosperity consciousness is NOT supportive of the life they say they want.

They say they want wealth, but their predominant thoughts say otherwise.

Having a prosperity mindset is far more than just wanting nice things. It’s really much more about perceiving the world as inherently abundant.

When you come from a place of abundance…you ALWAYS see possibility. You become very proactive and creative as opposed to reactive.

We all know people who seem to live with their glass half empty. Actually, many people live thinking they don’t even have a glass.

This is not about what is happening in the person’s life. This is about their view of what is happening and their desire, commitment and belief in shifting it.

Unfortunately, much of the world tends to program people for lack and limitation.

Look around you at the media. Look at how you were raised. Look at your friends and family. There is no judgment here, however most of us were not given the tools to see the world abundantly and to believe that we truly deserve to live out our greatness.

Instead, we are constantly surrounded by messages that tell us we aren’t enough, that we don’t have this or that, that we can’t do this or that and that success is a matter of fate, luck or some other force outside of ourselves.

I’ve done seminars for years with young people and have talked about prosperity consciousness. In rooms of hundreds I ask them to finish the statement…

Rich people are _____________ .

What do you think the answers are?

Stingy, stuck up, lucky, arrogant, mean, jerks…

Occasionally, we get some supportive ones like generous, friendly and happy. But almost without exception, 75-80% of the responses are negative descriptions.

Ironically, 95% of the room say that they want to be wealthy.

If you understand this very basic idea, you are more than halfway home to understanding how to create wealth.

If you believe that rich people are…say…jerks, then subconsciously you will continue to sabotage your success because you don’t actually want to be a jerk. As long as you continue to relate being rich with negative attributes, you will undermine your own efforts to create success.

The reality is…

Rich people aren’t anything…other than rich. Everything else is subjective and based on the individual person.

I know plenty of broke people who are stingy, stuck up, lucky, arrogant, mean, jerks…

Money has nothing to do with it.

To begin creating wealth, you must rewire yourself for abundance.

Take inventory of how you view wealth, money and success.

Take inventory of how you hold your self-worth.

Begin seeing possibility in everything…even if you go with your first choice. Look for options. Prosperous people always see choice, rather than limitations.

When faced with seemingly either/or situations, stop and try and figure out how to have both.

This is a great practice in prosperity.

Know that you were born into this world whole and complete. You are still that way regardless of how many messages you hear to the contrary.

Choose now to take on one area of your life. How can you shift your mindset to be more abundant? How can you create greater choice?

Pick an area – business, relationship, self, spirituality, health – and design exactly what you want from a place of total abundance.

Squash any thought of lack or limitation as you do this.

Decide your course of action and just go for it.

Take action now. Your dreams are closer than you think.

Your life is your own creation.  It’s your game.  What rules are you playing by?  Are your belief systems about money, success, family and business serving you or getting in your way?

Enjoy this short video inspired by the Jedi himself.  Please share it with your networks and share your comments below.  People all over the world need to understand how to get out of their own way to create success.

Children are brilliantly in the present.  In many ways, they are fearless.  Fortunately, they have yet to be “trained” into being rational or thinking that they can’t do something.  What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Can you connect with that fun, courageous, unlimited, powerful and FREE child within you and let go of self-limiting beliefs?

What is really fun about this video is that I didn’t say a word to my son before we started filming other than, “Brennan, we are going to make a video.”  His presence and comments are priceless!  Help make Brennan famous – share this post with your networks, retweet and please leave your comments below.