Scott Free Thinking

A lot of people who I have talked to have often said things like, “Wow, Scott, you’re such a doer,” or of course, other variations of that, like “Wow, Scott, you’re a real go-getter.” And no, I’m not just talking about my mother, my friends, my immediate family, there are a lot of people who barely know me who seem to feel I’m destined for great things. I got this impression from Dawn Kilgore, the director of public information for League City, from some of the people helping me a year or two back at Learning Strategies, and most of all as of recently - from girls I’ve been talking to.

So what gives this impression? Or rather, what information are they basing these things off of? What allows a person to not only be successful, but also give off a radiating aura of success to others? Some other questions one might ask are, what are the benefits of being and appearing successful? Well, the benefits tend to be obvious, don’t they?

At age 18, I am the co-director of a Houston production company called Barton Ct. Productions Inc., an author of my first book, The Island of Yellow, I’ve been the webmaster of a number of websites, and of course, I’ve graduated from high school. As far as my hobbies and ‘jobs’ go, I’ve been involved in the areas of digital video production, music, writing, some journalism, web design, and more. I’m pursuing a PhD in Psychology, and prior to even entering college this last semester I’ve read hundreds of books on the subject, ranging in topics from education, to mental disorders, to sexuality, to lucid dreaming, and more.

So maybe this is sounding interesting. A lot of people want to know how I do this, how can a guy who is only 18 years old(and I’ve really been carrying on a lot of these projects since age 13), do all of this stuff at once, and be carrying on so much simultaneously?

Well, the first part of that secret, is that I love what I do. Unless you love what you are doing, there is really no way you are going to have an easy time being so occupied with everything you are doing all the time. I spend over 80% of my waking hours on writing, researching, and working on these different projects. It occupies a lot of my time. So whether you want to become massively proactive in seeking out these goals, or whether you just want to be able to accomplish more while having free time, I am going to share some of the techniques and resources that I use. I should also add that a side effect of some of these techniques, is that you will sort of involuntarily find out more about your soul, and your inner self.

1. PhotoReading - The PhotoReading Whole Mind System, developed by Paul Scheele of Learning Strategies Corporation, is a highly effective method for changing your reading speed to get through your reading material three times faster, and it is also a unique system to completely change how you process printed information. I’ve been PhotoReading for 4 years, and without this I would not have been able to digest the hundreds of books I have, in such a short period of time, and have such an elaborate understanding of the subjects I desire to have knowledge in. There are three different ways to learn PhotoReading. The first is the three day seminar, which is, last I checked, about $750-$800, the self-study course for close to $300, and then the least popular and cheapest method which is learning from the book - it will set you back a hefty $16.95, as well as shipping and handling.

I personally learned from the book by itself, and it took me about a month to a month and a half to get the basic concepts down to the point where I could begin using it effectively. You’re looking at less time to learn the entire process with the more you’re willing to pay. The primary advantage to doing the three day seminar is the amount of coaching you’re getting from their certified instructors. With any option you choose(except the book, supposedly, but I recall them giving me free help anyway), you’ll get free success coaching. In fact, I think with any course from Learning Strategies they give you free success coaching. Not a bad deal, considering some of the potential you’re harnessing.

2. NLP - Another highly powerful tool in channeling your potential for success may just be Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a special ‘technology’ that allows you to change behavior, in either yourself, or in others. Created by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, both of these authors are good ones to start with in seeking out material on the subject. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, studies the effect of language on the mind, and on behavior. If you’re a fan of meditation or hypnosis, you’ll likely be a fan of NLP.

For me, NLP was one of the central concepts in me overcoming shyness, meeting and beginning relationships with girls, and also examining the general positiveness or negativeness of my own thinking. There are dozens of books out there on NLP, and recently in the past year or so they even released Neuro Linguistic Programming for Dummies, which, to my pleasant surprise, is actual a decent volume of text on the subject. It is difficult for me to explain to you what exactly NLP is, or how powerful it is, but all I can tell you is that if you think you could take my word on everything else, you may also want to take my word on NLP.

One instance of NLP might be how the mind cannot process a negative. For instance, if I were to tell you to not think about jumping off a bridge - it’s too late. You’ve already thought about it, just based off of reading the sentence and processing its meaning in your mind. Language, and its developed associations, has an unmistakingly dramatic affect on our way of thinking, our attitudes, and again, our behavior. NLP has all kinds of practical purposes. I’ve used this for job interviews, seduction, making friends, and self introspection - a wide range of uses.

3. The Method of ‘Letting Go’ - So far in the previous two items listed here, I’ve talked a little bit about PhotoReading, which is for the area of learning, NLP is often geared toward social interaction and studying behavior, but for emotions I like to always come back to the ideology of ‘letting go.’ Just what does it mean to ‘let go?’ Well, unfortunately, a lot of people do not understand its meaning. When you’re feeling really depressed, angry, or any other negative emotion, you might try simply letting go of it! It’s simple, straightforward, yet a lot of people have a great deal of trouble with it. The reason? I think the reason is that most people confuse “letting go” with repressing their emotions. To let it go does not mean to push it aside, to suppress it, to cover it up. No, sir - it means to LET IT GO. Letting it go means dropping it and really dropping it. One simple exercise you might try for this area is, when you’ve got a thought or emotion you’d like to let go of, pick up a small object like a pencil and just start letting it go from even just a few inches in the air. Notice how the sensation of dropping the pencil again and again feels - and then try to synchronize that feeling with how you treat your negative emotions.

Some books to check out on this subject include the popular bestseller Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin, and The Power of Letting Go by Patricia Carrington PhD.

4. Lucid Dreaming - This last one is one of my personal favorites, and in terms of material achievement, you’re not talking about something too substantial, most of the time, but you more often are talking about exploring the inner sections of your soul when you step into the realm of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is dreaming while knowing that you’re dreaming. Are you dreaming right now? How do you know? What clues or hints would you have? I’ll give you one hint - pinching yourself doesn’t help.

The interesting thing about dreams is that they stem from the power of your subconscious mind to simulate and display an alternate reality that feels exactly like the waking reality you walk and talk through every single day. Your brain is like a supercomputer, one that you can play videogames on where the graphics are so good you just can’t tell the difference between the game and reality. Dreams are like this, and for that reason you can use dreams as a test bed for a lot of different kinds of situations. Taking control of your dreams will allow you to tap directly into the relationship between your conscious and subconscious mind. Anyone you talk to can be a realistically oriented conversation. Anything you do can bend the rules of physics and the limits of your waking life. You can fly, blow things up, have sex with anyone, the list goes on and on. Of course, there are more interesting uses of this, like utilizing the dream world in your search for the meaning of life, and so on. Indeed, you can get deep into the soul with lucid dreaming.

The best book to start with this I think remains to be from the same guy who proved lucid dreaming exists, Stephen LaBerge, and his book, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.

So these are just a few tools, techniques, and practices that allow me to accomplish everything that I accomplish on almost a daily basis. But then again, there’s some good old fashioned ones you may want to keep in mind and try to apply to your own life as well, things like self-determination, persistence, and so on. Sometimes, and quite possibly even most of the time, just sticking to a goal and continuing to experiment and try new things will allow you to achieve that goal.

Some people have recoiled in disbelief, or they’ve laughed out of not knowing what to think of these things. To some, the idea that a successful person who is proactive in achieving their goals would use such strange things like NLP, PhotoReading, lucid dreaming, and other mental enhancement methods, is just odd and unexpected. It quite possibly is. Really, what it all comes down to, when you’re talking about some of the greatest minds in history, including that of Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein - all those geniuses - it’s all about using your mind differently, in a more effective way, and that’s what these tools & methodologies are really all about.