The Serendipity Factor

Incredible things happen independently of those you personally create. I call these serendipitous blessings. When you're pushing hard on door A, someone or something opens door B. Often, when you look through door B, what's behind it is much better than what you were going after in the first place. However, you wouldn't have seen door B open if you hadn't been in the hall pushing on door A. Get in the here and now and look for the other opened doors, or go open some doors on your own.

When you learn to tap into your Conquering Force at full power, achievement and success are a foregone conclusion.

Tiger Woods's father, Earl Woods, said, "I never asked him to practice." At the tender age of two, Tiger had memorized his father's work number and would call him to ask if he could practice with him that day. This love affair with golf was no weak flame. Tiger said that he was fascinated with golf because his father seemed to enjoy it so much. Tiger's amazing success came from his Core Desire to play golf.

In Aikido expert Tom Crum's book, The Magic of Conflict, we are taught that if someone tries to punch you, you don't try to block the punch but rather use the energy from the punch to your own advantage. When you try to block a punch, you are using your power and strength to resist the other person. This sets up a win-lose confrontation. In Aikido, your strategy is to step aside with an accepting and pivoting movement, using the attacker's energy to throw him, or to apply a neutralizing technique. The key, as Tom teaches it, is to learn how to be centered, with both mind and body relaxed and alert. In this state of heightened wareness and connectedness, you stop thinking about mechanics and start to go with the flow of energy.

Centering yourself means gathering all your energy and focusing it on your physical center. When you are centered, you are also connected to a universal energy. You use adversities as opportunities to learn, grow, and move forward in your life. If you respond to events in a centered way, you will remain positive and progressive, keeping your energy and perspective focused on your Core Desires. If you are not centered, you are easily knocked off balance in tough times, responding negatively to everything that happens and with a tendency to take adversity personally.

Core Desires seem to give a person superhuman power to destroy all barriers and obstacles and achieve. When you are pursuing your heart's desire, you will remain centered- physically, mentally, and spiritually.