Symbolism of the Dragon Scroll

Today's blog is written by Irvin Burton, a personal trainer and champion martial arts competitor based in Santa Clarita, California. Check out our special offer to promote weight loss and fitness at the end of this essay!

Hey everyone, Irvin here again. Today, I am a guest blogger for Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. and I wanted to write something that would resonate with her audience. While fitness and martial arts is my expertise, I know people have various concerns in their life outside of fitness and martial arts training. The other day during my workout, I was thinking why not start with a metaphoric story that can apply to anyone? So today, that’s where I’m going to start; it’s a movie I’ve seen many times. In the movie a martial arts enthusiast is chosen to be the recipient of the coveted “dragon scroll,” which allegedly holds the secret to limitless power. After intense training, the martial arts master hands him the scroll and the character opens it up and finds nothing but a blank scroll. Surrounded by other masters who are eager to witness the great unveiling, they are shocked and disappointed that the masters of previous generations would hand down an empty scroll claiming it had limitless power. What a disappointment!

Later, as the martial artist returns to his village embarrassed and disappointed, he speaks to his father who happens to be the town’s top chef. His father, empathizing with his son’s situation, decides to share the secret ingredient of his famous “secret ingredient soup,” a popular dish in town. The father leans in and says to his son, “the secret ingredient is…nothing!” Puzzled, the son asks if he heard him right and the father says, “You heard me, nothing!” The son asks why he didn’t add any extra ingredients to the soup. The father says, “Don’t have to, for something to be special you just have to believe it’s special.” The main character pauses for a second and takes out the dragon scroll. He looks at it closer this time and sees his own reflection in the scroll. He says to himself out loud, “There is no secret ingredient.”

What I like about this scene is the message it is sending to its audience; that “the secret” is essentially you and how you think. Whether you’re looking to become successful in a career, graduate from college, or start your own business, your success depends on you! How do you become successful? Well, you learn, you implement, and you stay consistent! Think about this for a second. Let’s say you want to learn how to cook. The first few times you may not get the meal right, but after 10, 15 or 20 cooked meals, it will probably come naturally to you! They say practice makes perfect, and after 12 years of martial arts training and many championship trophies, I can certainly attest to that.

The problems arise when you half-heartedly commit and don’t see any progress. Most people don’t stay consistent when they are trying to achieve something. In fact, most people stop at the “education stage.” They learn something but never implement what they’ve learned and certainly never stay consistent! I’ve found that most people are pretty educated on how to obtain their goals, however few take the necessary action to achieve them. Instead, they become the “guru” and tell everyone else how to achieve their goals. Would you ask someone who is poor how to be rich even if he DID have all the necessary education? Neither would I!

In short, your success (or lack thereof) is your own fault. No it won’t happen overnight and no it won’t always happen the way you want it to. However, if you educate yourself, implement what you learn, and most importantly, stay consistent in what you do, you’ll succeed. People will take notice of your success. They will ask for your advice. They may even pay you to keep them accountable. Either way, there is no secret ingredient, it’s just you!

Thank you for reading blog today. I hope that I inspired you to take ACTION on your goals today. Remember that there are really no secrets to success; it’s just about getting started. The Famous comedian Chris Rock once said, “When I was stopped on the side of the road, no one stopped to help me. But when I got out and pushed my car, three of four people were always helping me.” People respect hustlers! Again, thank you for reading and special thanks to Sara Fogan for having me as a guest on her blog!

SPECIAL OFFER!

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is currently offering a 10 percent discount on all hypnotherapy for weight-loss/weight-management sessions. This offer is good through April 30, 2017. It is not exchangeable for cash and may not be combined with any other offer. For more information and to set up an appointment, please contact her at (661) 433-9430 or send an e-mail to calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com.

Save $250 toward a purchase of 24 sessions or more for personal training with me, Irvin Burton, CEO and Founder at Tiger Crane Martial Arts & Fitness. You can contact me at Irvin_Burton@yahoo.com or call (661) 993-8621. 

Irvin Burton is a personal trainer and martial arts instructor in southern California. He holds several college degrees related to fitness as well as a fitness kickboxing certification and is an international martial arts kickboxing champion. Irvin Burton is the CEO and founder of Tiger Crane Martial Arts and Fitness, a business that teaches kids confidence and discipline through martial arts training.

How the Law of Attraction Can Work for You!

“Before you can transform your wallet from poor to rich, you’ve

got to transform your spirit from poor to rich.” – Robert Kiyosaki

Photo by Rick Hustead

Yesterday as I drove home from my weekly business luncheon with the Network Referral Group, I wondered when I could expect to hear from a marketing executive who had promised to contact me that afternoon. My phone rang less than a minute later; it was the call I had been waiting for. 

This was not a coincidence.

Less than an hour earlier, I did a lunchtime presentation about the Law of Attraction and how it works, for the other NRG members. The talk went very well and I was still basking in a state of optimism and confidence about how this information would help me and my colleagues attract more clients in the coming week. Here are some highlights from my presentation which can help you achieve the business, romantic, etc., success you are trying to attract. This information is based on what I learned during a certification course I recently completed about this topic, taught by Joe Tabbanella, C.Ht., through the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. 

• Visualize the outcome. How will you look/feel/behave with you have achieved your goal? Really get into the imagery about your desired result. Really see yourself experiencing and enjoying it and what it will mean for you. Remember: The subconscious mind does not know the difference between fantasy and reality, so this kind of imagery exercise will reinforce the experience of having what you want to attract, in your subconscious mind.

• Ask yourself: Why do you want “X”? How will actually obtaining this thing or person that you want to attract help you feel just as good as you do right now, in this visualization/imagery exercise about having attained it?

• Give yourself permission to have and enjoy this state of abundance and success. A lot of people reinforce and believe a subconscious mental script they learned at a very young age which discourages or even disparages success. It is important to believe that this old script is just a story you have told yourself, like a fairy tale; it is not written in stone. You can rewrite the ending by choosing to believe your power to create the positive outcome you want and deserve.

• Get yourself (subconscious mind) into a state of having and receiving what you want to attract. A caveat: If you focus more on something you want to avoid vs. what you really do want in your life, you will inadvertently attract the thing you do not want. So be positive and specific where you direct your intention!

• Structural Tension and Psychic Alignment: Structural tension occurs when, using visualization, your subconscious mind gets so into that state of receptivity—truly enjoying the experience of receiving your goal—that your physical body starts working to actualize it in real life. Psychic Alignment refers to the way in which the structural tension attracts this goal: The more you believe it and the more real its attainment is in your subconscious mind, the harder your conscious mind will work to make sure it happens. Once you feel so good, so energized, so excited in your belief that this success will be yours, the question that remains is when, not if, it will happen.

• It may take some time to realize your goal through this process. Sometimes it is fairly quick, such as my example of answering a phone call I had been waiting for right after I thought about the person I wanted to talk to. Other times, it can take days, weeks or even years to come true, with various diversions and setbacks along the way. I have wanted to be a therapist since I was eight years old, but it took almost 30 years, and a seven-year stint in magazine publishing before this happened. The idea of becoming a hypnotherapist never entered my mind until I met a representative from HMI in 204 who invited me to participate in a free, month-long course at the college. The rest, as they say, is history, and I love and am so excited about my vocation as a certified hypnotherapist.

For more information about this topic, I invite you to read my other blogs titled: The Power of Thinking; Intuition and the Law of Attraction, “Extra” Sensory Perception and the Law of Attraction; and Just What I Need When I Needed It. If you would like to start using principles of the Law of Attraction to in your life, call me at (661) 433-9430 and set up a hypnotherapy appointment with me today!

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2017

Preparing for Success

(This blog was originally posted on July 21, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Fotolia

   There are various paths to success. On the one hand, you can make a detailed plan about what you need to do then follow specific steps or a strategy to actualize your goal. Alternatively, you get an idea or feel inspired about something you would like to achieve and then wait and see how it will work out without you having to do anything else to facilitate the desired outcome. Sometimes success just falls into our lap; you are in the right place at the right time and good fortune falls into your lap. And then there are different combinations of these paths that yield varying results in actualizing your plan.

•     Oprah Winfrey once said: “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” This philosophy empowers and encourages us to achieve our goals by planning and doing the ground, grunt and glory work, as it were, to facilitate this success. Luck or serendipity may play a part in this outcome; but the most important component of your success is what you are willing to put into it. The greatest risk (or guarantee) of failure or a sub-par performance is when you slack off or stop paying attention to what you need to do to realize your dream. Here are some examples of these behaviors and outcomes:
•          “Perfect practice makes perfect performance.” This is a popular training motto among athletes and performers, but it’s obviously applicable to every area of our lives. I lost count of how many martial artists repeated this mantra when I wrote training and technique articles about them for Black Belt magazine. For example, kickboxing champions train to connect all of their techniques in practice; otherwise, they risk pulling a punch or kick during a competition that could cost points or even the match. Michele Krasnoo, an actress and kickboxing champion, once explained how she studied video-recordings of each of her training sessions and competitions. She explained that she was looking for errors in her technique; moreover, she said, if she didn’t find a mistake (or ten) then she hadn’t been looking hard enough and would re-watch the footage. Right away, I loved her humility and dedication to improving her game and adopted this philosophy in my dressage training.
•          “You can’t win the Lottery of you don’t buy a ticket.” This quote is actually from an episode of Chuck Norris’ hit series Walker, Texas Ranger. The point is, if you don’t show up mentally, emotionally and physically and put in the effort to achieve your goal, you will not succeed. Winning the Lottery has more to do with luck and chance than skill, but you won’t be able to collect that multimillion-dollar jackpot if you don’t hold the winning ticket.
•         “Buy a cheap suit, get a cheap suit.” This quote from Pet Shop Boys front-man Neil Tennant says it all about the direct relationship between quality of workmanship and quality of your product. While he was referring to the cost of clothing and the quality of its materials and manufacture, this philosophy could also speak to the metaphor about self-worth. When you don’t believe (or perceive) that you have value—i.e., low self-confidence and low self-esteem—your motivation to continue to grow and strive takes a hit, as does the “products” that you create at work, hobbies, etc. If you don’t make your best effort and employ your skills and expertise in the project, if you don’t use the finest-quality materials or technology, the quality of your product will suffer. I teach my clients about the Mental Bank Concept to help them appreciate and increase their self-value and self-esteem. As these perceptions increase and they start taking actions to “attract” what that they want, more and more opportunities and goals become manifested in their lives.

 Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015