The Map of Consciousness
What if you quantitatively knew how much further you had to go before you started seeing transformational changes in your life?
No this isn’t a pitch for some offshoot Law of Attraction course.
I recently read a book called Power vs. Force by Dr. David Hawkins. In the book, Dr. Hawkins brings up a concept that he invented called The Map of Consciousness. (He also wrote a book about this map called The Map of Consciousness as well, it’s on my reading list)
Through his research, Dr. Hawkins was able to map out a scale with levels of consciousness tying back to a core emotion.
If you use this Map of Consciousness as a reference, you can identify where you are. And also how many levels you need to ascend to get to where you want to be.
Dr. Hawkins discovered through his research that the vast majority of the population operates on an energetic log of 100-150. This means the vast majority of people operate out of fear and anger.
Power vs. Force was published in 1994, and I think those results are more true today than back then, honestly.
But here’s what’s interesting…
The studies show that at an energetic log of 200 (the level of courage), that’s when people start to make a significant change in their life. A transformation like a Pokemon evolving.
If we do some elementary school math, to get to 200, most people need to move 50-100 points up the map. There’s only one problem…
The research shows that the average person only moves up only 5 points in their entire life. This means most people never make it out of survival mode mentally.
This makes sense from a biological standpoint if we consider how our prehistoric ancestors lived.
If you’re curious…
To get to the top of the Map of Consciousness to Enlightenment, Peace, and Joy - only a few human beings have gotten there. One of them is Gandhi.
But those levels don’t make sense lifestyle or desire wise for most people, including me.
So we’ll focus on courage today.
Why am I bringing up this topic in the first place?
Because I think courage is often the missing ingredient that’s preventing someone from activating their full potential. Like a sweet hazelnut latte that’s just missing a dash of cinnamon.
And my observation from interactions with people throughout the years…
The most common excuse to not uncomfortably summon courage from within is due to a lack of external possessions. Whether that’s a skill, looks, money, living environment, experience, etc.
In business, the most common excuse is lack of skill. For our purposes, skill in this context also houses various tactics, hacks, strategies, knick-knacks, and whatever else.
So the default programming in this mode is “If I get better at my skill, I’ll get more of what I want.” We’ll just use money here as the desire.
Higher skill equals higher money. This can be true. Depending on the context, it’s more prevalent than not.
But when it comes to running a business (especially service-based), I’ve seen more instances where it’s not true.
When people play the unwinnable comparison game, usually people can’t wrap their heads around the irrationality of their situation.
“I don’t get why this person is making more money than me, I’m much better at X and Y than them!”
So the default is to go back to the cave and continue mastering the craft. Or search for shortcuts, hacks, tactics, and strategies.
I know, because I went through this phase myself. And I’m still a huge advocate of mastery, I think you should work towards it.
But to have it be an end all be all, there’s a much easier path. And that’s courage. I’ll explain in a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I got very good at the skill I was sharpening - copywriting. But if I was going for mastery, with the path I was on, I’d be living a very hard life in order to get there.
And that’s not for me.
So courage. When I see people comparing themselves to their peers who are doing better financially, but not on the same level skillfully…
There are usually 3 reasons why:
Marketing/Outreach
They lack the courage to market themselves or reach out more. And if they are, they’re giving up too early before their efforts can work for them.
Charging Higher Prices
It takes guts to charge a premium price in the market. I’ve seen a lot of talented people get stuck in the pricing game with low quality customers. They don’t have the confidence to charge a premium price for their service or product… even though they believe they’re in the top echelon skill-wise in their market. Strange, right?
As Dan Ariely said, humans aren’t rational creatures.
Adding complementary skills to their core skill
Some people develop such an obsession with their skills that they’re afraid to learn anything new. The lie they tell themselves is it’s a waste of time because they could be making progress toward mastery instead.
My fees as a copywriter went up 30X within a span of 2-3 years. I stopped doing hourly fees, but when I started, I was working at $15/hr.
I rarely do copywriting client work these days. But if I take the average of how long it takes me to spend on projects and what I charge, now it’s around $450-$600+/hr. Depending on the project.
And guess what? There are much better copywriters out than me who are struggling.
On the other hand, there are less-skilled copywriters making more than me too.
But I was able to command higher fees because I added other skills that complimented copywriting and added way more value overall to my clients.
For me, this was understanding positioning and offer creation.
You can hire a great freelancer for little to nothing off Fiverr and Upwork if all you wanted was someone to write words.
But I was able to come in and take a look at the product a client was selling, give it a new positioning, or create a whole new offer. Then write my copy on top of that.
Of course, I didn’t always win. Worst case scenario, the client was still profitable minus my fees.
But I’ve been a part of some campaigns that would’ve paid for my fees 10-100X over because of my efforts.
Another scenario where lack of courage is the missing piece…
Have you heard a friend or anyone say this in some shape or form?
“How did he get that girl/guy? I’m so much smarter and better looking!”
I have a friend who’s been fawning over this girl since high school.
He’s so afraid to talk to her despite other friends telling him that it’s okay. And his previous attempts never led anywhere… because HE never escalated it.
And you know what he said he needed before making a real valiant attempt at asking this girl out?
He needed to get better at his skill. (I’m not joking)
And he needed to get rich. Have a nicer car.
Well since then, all those things have happened on some level. He got better at his skill, is getting paid more for it, and got a nicer car.
But still no attempts at asking this girl out.
I told him he could be next the Gatsby for all I care, but he’ll still lack what’s needed to do the next step.
Courage.
Okay, so how do we move up the map to this critical level?
The obvious one is by practicing acts of courage. But also practicing some of the emotions above courage like understanding, forgiveness, optimism, trust, etc.
Like anything else, it gets easier the more we do it. To the point where it becomes second nature or a new normal.
I’m putting myself accountable for this too. I’m getting little traction right now via email or social media to get clients.
So I’m gonna fly to where my clients are in July and talk to them in person.
I don’t know whether or not it’s gonna work out. I have zero control over that. I can only control the act of getting there and trying.
Of course, I’m scared. Nervous. Anxious. But courage doesn’t eliminate fear.
It’s just doing things anyway despite being scared.
Don’t think you need to take giant leaps to get started.
I heard a sports psychologist talk about how he trains fighters mentally for their matches.
An MMA fight could last anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes depending on the fight.
But instead of telling his clients to focus on going hard for 15 or 25 minutes…
Or even winning each round…
This sports psychologist tells his clients to focus on winning the next 15 seconds. Whether that’s getting a better position, being more aggressive, and throwing more strikes.
Then win the next 15 seconds. And the next 15.
Soon the round will be over, and eventually the fight itself.
Tiny steps.
Raise your prices a little for your next project.
Send a message to 1 potential person you’d like to work with.
Spend 10 minutes learning a new skill you think would complement yours.
Just let the magic of compounding and consistency take over from there.
Week 42 Updates
Triaphilia is the fear that bad things come in 3s.
I’m not sure where the origin of this comes from, and I don’t believe in this superstition at all.
But of course, this week it happened to come true for me.
I pulled a muscle in my back on Saturday during a workout. Woke up stiff on Sunday, but still bearable. But Monday…
It hurt to walk. Muscle spasms made it painful to even sit in my chair. It started to make me think this was worse than a strained muscle.
Plus, Monday is a performance day for me. I get a lot of writing done.
And even when I had to stop every 15 minutes to stretch out my back, I still got what I needed to be done to the best of my ability. Wincing every few minutes while typing.
Tuesday, I woke up with my left eye half-swollen shut. A stye in my inner eyelid has decided to manifest itself overnight. And now I looked like a longtime crew member on The Black Pearl (Pirates of the Caribbean reference).
Wednesday, I walk out to get my daily 5 minutes of morning sunlight. And it smells like I’ve had a bonfire in my backyard the night before. I was legit worried something had burned down.
I’m really disconnected from current events, but apparently there are some serious wildfires going on in Canada and the smoke has found its way down the east coast of the US.
Now there are air pollution warnings in my area. That eliminates my afternoon walks or any yard work I have to do for the time being. (don’t mind the delay in yard work)
Despite all these things happening, the world still moves forward. Time moves forward. And I have obligations and things I need to get done. This foreshadows a topic I’d like to discuss in the future talking about how discipline is more important than passion.
Because discipline is what got me through this week and why I didn’t miss any steps.
Anyways, still waiting on the referral and agency proposals from last week.
But still ticking up in subscribers:
1,798 (+43) = 1,841 subscribers
During periods like these, I think having a gratitude practice in place is super helpful. It’s easy to get down on yourself, but you have the power to not feel that way.
Anyway, that ends this week’s issue. If you’re worried about my back, it’s all good. It feels a lot better this Thursday morning, almost back to normal.
I’ve been telling people how I have a grudge against manga author Togashi, who writes my favorite anime/manga Hunter x Hunter. How he needs to stop bitching about his back problems and get back to finishing HxH’s story.
Well, I can sorta empathize with him this week.
As always…
Trust the process, love the process.
Kevin