Hello everyone! Mike Arend here, founder of Infinite Success Academy, Author of "You're The One - an adventure into truth" and, the Soul Mechanic.
You may have noticed that some of my posts have been rather hap-hazard lately and that's because I just got back from a three week trip to Germany. The purpose of the trip was to visit family and speak at a "Find Your Flow" conference in Basel Switzerland near the end of the trip.
I was excited to have been chosen to speak in Basel because there were many well known, both European and North American, gurus speaking there including one of my mentors Neale Donald Walsch.
However, when I applied to be a speaker there I didn't realize what the process entailed for selection. I had submitted a video, but it turns out the organizers of the event posted them online and had people vote on which one they liked the best - American Idol style.
After much Soul searching, I decided to not participate. You may find this counter productive for me, but I had made a decision about 10 years ago that I no longer wanted to come from a place of competition, but from a place of creativity. Now, lest you think I'm no longer competitive and wonder how I get things done, let me assure you, I am still fiercely competitive, but only with myself.
I believe that competition between others only serves the "little" me, my Ego. This Ego is such a hearty task master and it will quickly overtake your life if you let it. It wants to be in charge, squashing anyone or anything in it's path, including you. The Ego isolates, the True Self unites. When the fulfillment of someone else's desires starts to feel as good as when you are fulfilling your own, you know you are traveling the path of expanded consciousness, not the Ego.
In life, we all know that Egos clash and there is so much energy expended to protect the personalities we have created. But these personalities are not who we are. You see, you can never really succeed at the level of the Ego. Oh sure, you can point to those that have, but their success is fleeting and will never last. Inevitably they will destroy themselves.
The Ego has a limited perspective. We must see ourselves as we really are, someone that can manifest anything they desire when coming from our True Selves. Once we come from this place, a place of creativity, we narrow the gap between ourselves and others. The Ego only widens this gap and encourages us to feel separate from others.
Perhaps you can now see the irony of a spiritual event running a competition to see who will, or will not speak at their event. I just couldn't bring myself to stand on that stage and talk about oneness, and feel I had participated in a competition that did nothing but separate me from someone else. No worries, there will be other events to speak at, although I dearly wanted to meet Neale.
Creativity is where we need to focus, not competition. Don't get me wrong, we need competition, but we need only compete with ourselves, not with others. Forget about useless comparisons with anyone else but yourself. Each one of us is unique and has their own filtered perception on the world. How could you honestly expect to "Be" like anyone else?
Rejoice in you and create your own reality. Drive yourself to succeed at what "you" want. Compete with yourself to constantly improve, because after all you're here to become "your" greatest version, not anyone else's idea of who you are.
You've been listening to the Soul Mechanic and it's been my absolute pleasure to serve you. Sending you Love, Happiness, and Abundance. Now, and always.
Bye for now!

Hello everyone! Mike Arend here, founder of Infinite Success Academy, author of the soon to be released book "You're The One - an adventure into truth" and, the Soul Mechanic.
"Worrying is like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere."
Worry. We all do it to a certain degree, but what is it anyway? Wikipedia defines like this:
"Give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles."
It's really just a form of anxiety, which when left unchecked becomes stress. But stress, the father of both worry and anxiety, doesn't exist in the physical world. If I ask you to go out and get me a bucket of stress, what would you come back with? Now, you may stress out that you couldn't find any stress, but stress is not a physical thing so that means it must be a mental image of something.
OK, so now we're getting somewhere. Our minds spend most of their time trying to protect us from harm, that's it's number one priority. So when we don't suffer from physical danger (thankfully today most of us don't on a regular basis) the mind needs to make some of the far lesser things more important and "seem" like danger. In strides worry, followed by anxiety, and then finally stress.
So what can we do? Worry really starts when we feel that we no longer have control over the outcome of something so since control is at the root of worry, I try to follow this simple plan that usually stems the tide of excessive worry:
I ask myself the following question, "Do I have control over the situation that has arisen?" If the answer is "yes", then there is no need to worry because I have control and can directly affect the outcome.
If the answer is "no," I do not have control, then again there is no need to worry because I have no control over the situation. In both cases worry is useless and can do nothing to solve your problem let alone the problems of others. Now, if I could solve my own or others problems just by worrying, I'd be worrying all the time! But it can't, so it makes no sense for me to worry.
When we allow our minds to be taken over with worry it comes up with all kinds of scenarios, and almost all of them aren't even plausible. Things are very rarely as bad as they seem or that we make them out to be, so all that worry has gotten you no where, just like you were sitting in a rocking chair.
You've been listening to the Soul Mechanic and it's been my absolute pleasure to serve you, sending you Love, Happiness, and Abundance. Now, and always.
Bye for now!

Hello everyone! Mike Arend here, founder of Infinite Success Academy, author of the soon to be released book, "You're The One - an Adventure Into Truth," and the Soul Mechanic.
Today I want to talk about something we all do. Judgement. It's become such a large part of our lives that we just do it automatically. We judge others at work, at home, on the T.V., on the radio, even just in our minds as we think about them. But is all this judging doing us any good?
I believe it's one of the biggest factors that holds us back from our true success. Judgment, simply put, is fear. Being "right" by making everyone else "wrong" perpetuates a negative cycle that blocks our energy and true potential.
As a form of defense many people start to criticize others, while deep down they actually feel harshly critical about themselves, and every time you judge yourself, you're blocking your inner potential. It tears you down and hinders your own success. It depletes you, and everyone around you.
Self judgment is the most limiting factor when people fail to fulfill their dreams. Judgment of yourself and others makes people wary of you and less likely to work with you on your path to success.
This judgment will stop as soon as you no longer feel the need to make others "wrong." Besides, "right" or "wrong" doesn't actually exist, remember. It's just opposite ends of everyone's perceptions of life. Nobody is perfect, and instead of focusing on your flaws and thinking in terms of perfection and imperfection, we need to keep our vision on our unfolding potential.
Once we take a step back and acknowledge that we are all just a single cell in the vast body of the Universe, it comes naturally to cooperate for the benefit of the whole, just as the whole acts for our benefit. For example, heart cells don't judge liver cells and despite their differences, each cell harmonizes and works together to keep the body healthy.
In your own life, difficulty with others doesn't have to translate into an "us" vs "them" or "me" against the "world" attitude. Once you have the intention to drop the habit of judgment, bonds of cooperation can be formed, giving you a support network beyond your ability to do everything yourself.
At the same time, non-judgment relieves you of the constant need to compare yourself to other people. There's no need for negative comparisons because your path is unique, unlike anyone else's. Acceptance is love. It's nurturing, it feeds you. Having compassion for yourself and others without criticism or judgment creates the space for more blessings, abundance and success.
Let your heart feel the connection we were all meant to share. You'll build connections with others and sow the seeds of real meaningful growth. Does that sound like success to you? I certainly think so.
The secret is to be yourself with the intent of presenting your best self in every situation. Your best self, at the deepest level, is timeless and firmly embedded in the infinite field of consciousness.
You've been listening to the Soul Mechanic and it's been my absolute pleasure to serve you. Sending you Love, Happiness, and Abundance. Now, and always.
Bye for now!

Hello everyone! Mike Arend here, founder of Infinite Success Academy, author of the soon to be released book, "You're The One - an Adventure Into Truth," and the Soul Mechanic.
I often get asked, "Am I on the right path?" People want to make a change in their lives or they already have, and feel the need for confirmation that they're on the right path. The answer to that question is really quite simple:
Of course you're on the right path, there's no such thing as the wrong path on this journey. You can never "not get" to where you are going. No matter what you're current circumstances or where you are in your life at this very moment, you are right where you're supposed to be, experiencing exactly what you're supposed to be experiencing.
You see, everyone's spiritual path is perfect. They're all different because we're all different. We all have a different life filter from everyone else meaning we all experience life differently. Even if two people are simultaneously experiencing the same occurrence, they will filter the event separately and differently based on their thoughts and beliefs (filter).
So your path is different than mine and different from your best friends, but it's still perfect because we're all headed to the same place. We're on a return trip back to the realm of the absolute. A return back to Source Energy where we will shed our frail, but lovely, physical bodies and become pure energy again.
We're just here to learn and evolve. Our Souls can't experience all this emotion and feeling in the realm of the absolute so it comes here to the realm of the physical to experience what it's like to be rich, poor, homeless, live in a mansion, atheist, priest, white, black, yellow, the list goes on and on.
Yes, that's right our Souls have already made many trips from the realm of the absolute to the realm of the physical, and will continue to do so into eternity. And as you may have already noticed, as your Soul evolves, your consciousness grows, and as it does, obstacles just seem to disappear.
The point of life on this planet then is not to "get" anywhere, but to notice that you are, and always have been, already there, and to create who and what you are. Then experience that.
The path you're on is already perfect. Stay on your present course or change it if you feel like it, but it will always be perfect.
You've been listening to the Soul Mechanic and it's been my absolute pleasure to serve you. Sending you Love, Happiness, and Abundance. Now, and always.
Bye for now!