Bugs Bunny’s DNA

Why is it that no matter what he’s confronted with, Bugs Bunny always wins? Regardless of whether he’s in a face to face battle with dim-witted rabbit hunter Elmer Fudd, at odds with explosive Yosemite Sam, building creative ploys to prevent Marvin the Martian from destroying the earth, or matching wits with Wile E. Coyote, Bugs Bunny always finds a way to rise to the top. Other than the fact that the writers planned it that way, here’s what makes Bugs Bunny’s winning DNA distinct:

1. Bugs Bunny expects to win. Always. And what that means is that he is never stressed out and has not even a shred of self doubt. He is certain of success and goes about his merry way expecting positive outcomes.

Do you expect to win in your career? Do you expect to win in your life? Or are you the type of person that expects things to go wrong? Are you certain of your success or do you wonder if your time for success will ever come? Your results are a direct product of the expectations you have. Start to look deeply at the real expectations that you have for yourself and consciously direct your thoughts to have better expectations.

2. Bugs Bunny is always calm, finding a way to reduce or redirect the conflict in every situation. “Ehh, What’s up Doc?” is his unassuming way of disarming other characters and building rapport. He never frets – he knows it will all turn out fine.

Are you consumed with worry? Do you find yourself nervously dealing with events in your life? The worry, guilt, frustration and anxiety that we feel (often over things that we cannot control) consumes our energy and negatively impacts our results. Imagine experiencing life knowing that things will all turn out fine, feeling calm and at peace all the time. One of the most powerful tools for building a calm frame of mind is the process of journaling and using the exercise of writing to unload the worry and redirect to thoughts that are empowering and align with the results you are looking for.

3. Bugs Bunny is resourceful and uses all kinds of witty tactics to distract and confuse his opponents. He invents new paradigms and sells them to his adversaries. In one episode called ‘Hare Tonic’, Bugs escapes Elmer by tricking him into thinking there is a terrible outbreak of "Rabbit-itus.

Are you using all of the resources at your disposal to guarantee success? Do you tap into the people, the technology, the books, and historical success clues to help you mobilize your efforts towards winning? Write a list of all of the resources that you have access to and plan how you will methodically tap into each.

4. Bugs Bunny goes the distance. He does whatever it takes to win. He is willing to hide in a cannon, conduct an opera, and dress like a woman to get the job done. He is open, he is willing and he knows how to have a great time in the process.

Are you willing to go the distance to get the job done? Are you willing to suspend your fear, even temporarily, and forge ahead to reach your goals? Create a vision of your success and write it down. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What do you need to do to make it happen? Are you ready?

Bugs Bunny is a winner. Do you have Bugs Bunny’s DNA?

Inverse Paranoia

I tried to dissuade her but she insisted. Ferne wanted her 8th birthday party in a forest. She wanted to go on a hike and explore. She wanted to catch frogs and find new trails. “But what if it rains?” I said. “There are no washrooms in the forest,” I said. “What are we going to do with 20 kids in a forest for 2 hours?” I thought to myself. I tried to lure her into another option – I took her to the Klim Art School and the cooking facility above our local grocery store, both of which host very cool birthday parties. She was unyielding. She wanted it in a forest. So we went to check out Mill Pond, where we found the neighborhood ‘forest’. We discovered that there was a playground in the area and a small gazebo that would be a perfect location for her birthday party. She was doing a great job convincing me, and the washroom in the vicinity clinched the deal.

So we made plans. We called all her friends and invited them. “You’re having the party where?” was the typical reaction. We ordered the Messy Hands Bus to come to the area to and do arts and crafts on the bus (it was my ‘what if it rains?’ contingency plan). We called Pizza Pizza and ordered 6 extra large pizzas to be delivered at Mill Pond. We baked a fancy cake, got loot bags, and enough junk food to feed an army. We were ready.

Except for one minor thing…what if the gazebo was being used by other people? It was a public park after all, reserving the space was not a possibility, and the likelihood that another family would be using it on a beautiful summer day on a Sunday afternoon was pretty high. I chose to ignore that possibility and decided that we would arrive and the gazebo would be waiting for us without a fuss. I imagined the party in the gazebo and that was that. I could literally visualize the event in the gazebo. (Admittedly, I brought a table cloth to put on the ground just incase my plan didn’t work and we needed to find a location on the forest ground nearby.)

So here’s what happened: we arrived at Mill Pond and the gazebo was waiting for us. No fuss. We set up a couple of picnic tables, and had the party in the gazebo. The guests were amazed. “How did you think of this place?” they asked. “Did you have to reserve the gazebo?” “Weren’t you afraid that someone else might be here when you arrived?”

“No,” I said. “I have inverse paranoia.”

“What’s that?”

“I believe the universe works in my favor.”

They looked at me with a blend of marvel and incredulousness. But indeed the universe worked in my favor that day!

By the way, when I checked the weather that Sunday morning, it was forecasted to rain in the afternoon, but even the rain cooperated and waited until the party was over before it decided to come by for a visit.

Ho’oponopono

Imagine taking responsibility for everything in your life…

I don’t just mean your health, your wealth, your family, your career, your relationships, your well being, and your over all happiness.

I mean EVERYTHING - Everything that crosses your path in any shape or form. Every problem you see, hear, or witness in the world – poverty, racism, illness, even a road accident across the street that you happen to witness from your bedroom window. Everything.

You are probably thinking that the concept is insane. It’s not humanly possible to take on that kind of responsibility. Nobody’s shoulders are that big and some things are simply not in our realm of responsibility. It’s just not realistic.

For the longest time I was a proponent of the school of thought that those who had the courage to take responsibility for themselves alone were way ahead of the game. Those who were not impacted by others opinions of how to live, how to work, or how to behave, and did not let fear hold themselves back were my heroes. They were people that really owned their lives; they were people that I wanted to emulate.

Until I came across Ho’oponopono.

Ho’oponopono: “To make right; to rectify, to correct” is a Hawaiian problem solving methodology that suggests that in order to solve the problems around us, we must focus on cleaning them out of our system first. So if there is a person that we are not fond of because he is greedy or self centered, we must look inside and clean ourselves of greed and self centeredness first. If we look at the problems in our life, be it with our children, our colleagues, our neighbors, our homes, our parents, etc… there is really one commonality among all these problems – it is us. As such, in order to solve our problems we must begin the process internally. And in order to solve the problems that cross our path, even big ones, like world hunger, cancer, and terrorism, we must also begin with ourselves.

According to Ho’oponopono, our problems are a result of the memory of painful past events, experiences, and feelings that continue to be triggered and recycled in our brains. In order to truly live from inspiration we must work at cleaning out those memories to arrive at a place of no painful memory, or point zero, and truly living in the present moment. How is this done?

Love, and forgiveness. In fact, it’s as simple as retiring negative feelings by replacing them with energy and thoughts that are more useful.

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len used this technique to help treat patients who were in an institution for the criminally insane. These patients lived their lives shackled in handcuffs to circumvent the danger they might inflict on the doctors and other patients. Dr. Lew treated them without having any face to face contact with them or even any interaction with them at all. He looked at their medical/psychological files and studied their criminal records. As he looked at each case and read about their criminal activity, he noticed his reactions ranging in intensity from deep sadness to outrage and repulsion. He began to work on himself and through meditation; he cleaned up these feelings and replaced them with love and forgiveness. He repeated the following mantra, “I love you, I’m sorry, forgive me, thank you.” As he continued to do this, the dangerous threat of the patients started to diminish to the point at which many of them were unshackled and some were even released.

I know this sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus but my instincts tell me that on a pretty deep level this has the possibility of having a profound impact on our world. Imagine if each of us took the responsibility to clean ourselves of the poison we ingest daily. Imagine if we worked at eradicating the toxins of hate, resentment, jealousy, anger, despair, and depression that seep into our thinking and our general disposition on an ongoing basis. Imagine if we understood that peace, true peace, begins internally. How powerful would that be?