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  • - [Announcer] Principles for Success.

  • An ultra mini-series adventure in 30 minutes

  • and in eight episodes.

  • Episode Two, Embrace Reality and Deal With It.

  • - The path you take in life is your most important decision.

  • In my case, I wanted my life to be great

  • and I feared boredom and mediocrity

  • more than I feared failure.

  • Since I didn't start out with money,

  • and I didn't need much more than a bed to sleep in

  • and food to eat, I could skew my decisions

  • to pursue my adventures.

  • So ever since I was a kid, I ran after the things

  • I wanted, crashed, got up and ran again,

  • and crashed again.

  • And each time I crashed I learned something, got better,

  • and crashed less.

  • By doing that over and over again,

  • I learned to love this process,

  • even the crashing part of it.

  • Through it, I encountered reality,

  • and I learned how to deal with it,

  • which inspired another one of my most fundamental principles

  • which is that truth is the essential foundation

  • for producing good outcomes.

  • By truth, I don't mean anything more than

  • the way the world works.

  • I believe that we were given the laws of reality by nature.

  • Humans didn't create them, but we can use them

  • to foster our own evolution and achieve our goals.

  • Realizing that made me a hyperrealist,

  • by which I mean I became someone who has discovered

  • the great rewards of deeply understanding, accepting,

  • and working with reality as it is

  • and not as I wish it would be.

  • When I say I'm a hyperrealist, people sometimes think

  • I'm saying that dreams can't come true.

  • That's absolutely not true.

  • Without pursuing dreams, life is mundane.

  • What I mean is that to me, hyperrealism is the best way

  • to choose one's dreams and then achieve them.

  • Having big dreams plus embracing reality plus having

  • lots of determination will bring you a successful life.

  • I believe this formula is true for everyone,

  • but what does a successful life look like?

  • We each have to decide for ourselves what success is.

  • I don't care whether you want to be a master of the universe

  • or to live under a palm tree or anything else.

  • I really don't.

  • Each of us chooses goals based on our values and decides

  • on the best path to achieve them, but we all need approaches

  • to making decisions that work well, especially when facing

  • problems, mistakes, and weaknesses that stand in our way.

  • To succeed, we must embrace all our realities,

  • especially the harsh realities that we wish weren't true.

  • At first, looking at these harsh realities caused me

  • a lot of pain, but I learned that this pain was just

  • psychological and that by seeing things differently made

  • all the difference.

  • I came to view problems like puzzles that would reward me

  • if I could solve them.

  • They would help me deal with the problem at hand,

  • and they would give me principles for dealing

  • with similar problems in the future.

  • I learned to treat pain as a cue that a great learning

  • opportunity is at hand, which led me to realize

  • that pain plus reflection equals progress.

  • Meditation has been invaluable

  • in helping me see things that way.

  • I found that when I calmed myself down

  • and embraced my realities and dealt with them,

  • the rewards brought me pleasure and the pain faded.

  • Each of us has the unique capability to think logically

  • to reflect on ourselves and our circumstances

  • and to direct our own personal evolution.

  • Doing this well is just a matter of following

  • a simple five-step process.

  • In episode three, we'll explore what that process is

  • and how to use it.

  • (words whooshing)

- [Announcer] Principles for Success.

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