I generally have no opinion of such matters, yet, this one hits close to home. I am a coach to some very powerful executives at Goldman Sachs and frankly, they are leading the transformation of Wall Street from the mindset of greed, back to the mindset of service and doing what’s right for the customer.

If I was coaching Greg Smith, he would likely be a central “Change Maker” in Goldman right now. I respect Greg for his courage and would encourage him to use it to serve the nation, his customers and himself.  In doing so, Goldman Sachs would become a better place to work and undeniably more profitable.

Here’s the coaching I would give Greg today: In his article he states, “The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college, that I can no longer, in good conscience, say that I identify with what it stands for.”

Greg, what you are for, is more powerful than what you are against.  What you resist will persist.  What you accept will transform.  You have the power to transform what appears to be unchangeable aspects of the world, with a simple change in perspective.

Here’s the perspective I would suggest you adopt:

Everything changes.  Nothing stays the same. If you don’t like the change, then do something about it.  You are not a victim of your circumstances. The only reason you would avoid standing up for what you believe in, is the fear of not being accepted. I understand this fear. I have never seen a more political environment in a company.

When you tame The Drunk Monkey, (my nickname for the talking in your head) you can release your attachment to being liked and fitting in.  When you stop trying to be liked by people and take a stand for what you believe in, the people around you are magnetized to you.

Here are the questions you need to ask yourself:
1.  What am I committed to?
2.  How can I be a part of the solution?
3.  What changes will I need to make in my process to bring the culture back into alignment, with the principles I hold so dear?

This is not an easy thing to do.  The Drunk Monkey in your head can not stand change and begins to diminish it, make it wrong and justify why things should go back to the way they were.  The Drunk Monkey tells you to simply oppose the new conditions rather than do anything about it.  Apparently, complaining and resigning ones self to long term misery, is more appealing to The Drunk Monkey, than the short term pain of confronting the situation and creating the change you seek.

Gandhi said it best, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Being the change takes courage. It takes extreme self honesty. You have to learn to tame The Drunk Monkey in your head and no longer allow its perspective to run your life.

If you allow yourself to be a puppet to The Drunk Monkey, your life will be mostly frustration, with moments of happiness and peace.

Tame The Drunk Monkey and you start to feel happiness and peace most of the time, with brief moments of frustration.

Greg, I whole heatedly admit I do not know the entire situation that you faced, but I am glad that you had the courage to say what you did.  It is giving me an opportunity to use your words as a teaching tool for the people who care about my message. For that I’m grateful.

As a coach, I am confronted with this question on a daily basis,

“How can I feel more happiness and peace in my life now?” 

The answer is simple but most people don’t like the answer.  “Grow up!”  Now I’m not trying to be sarcastic or condescending, hear me out on this one.  Most people are still utilizing behaviors they learned in kindergarten and on the play ground as their tools for success.  And guess what?  It ain’t workin’.

Your so called “Inner Child” isn’t so inner after all.  In fact, it’s quite outer.  One of the most important steps towards happiness and peace is giving up the behaviors you adopted as a child in favor of more conscious, responsible and adult solutions.

Here are 19 ways your inner child messes up your life and ensures you don’t experience happiness and peace.

1.  Self-pity.  Why me?  I’m a victim.  If life was different, then I would be able to be happy!

2.  Jealousy. Being attached to people will make your life miserable.  People will do what ever they do and all you can do is manage your promises, commitments and attitude towards them.  Managing their behavior will only annoy you.

3.  Envy. The Drunk Monkey (your mind) declares, “Now is wrong.  It will be better when you have that stuff over there.”  You will never arrive.  You will never have it all.  We coach people who make hundreds of millions of dollars and they still believe that someday it will all be better when they have more stuff.

4.  Competitiveness. No one is competing with you.  Everyone is trying to get ahead in a world were all the measurements are figments of your imagination.  To compete is to say that there is a way you can be a loser.  You never lose, you just learn.

5.  Temper tantrums. Manipulating people with your anger is something all children learn to do early on.  To continue to use it into adulthood is a guaranteed way to create suffering for you and others.  Most people will opt to not deal with you.  Your life will be small.  You may succeed but your life will be small as in shallow.

6.  Emotional Outbursts. Same thing as above.  If you use this as your way of getting what you want, then you will have a life filled with conflict, struggle, anger and doubt.  You will feel lonely your whole life and not really know why.

7.  Resentments.  If your life is not fulfilling, then this is the number one reason.  This is the highest priority of your Inspired Action Coach.  When you let go of your resentments, everything in your life gets better, and quick.  Standby, I’m going to start uploading some coaching calls where I help people let go of their resentments.

8.  Hatred. The Drunk Monkey loves to hate.  To hate is to demonstrate that you are in control.  To hate is to show the world that you will not be messed with.  But there is one problem.  You get what you focus on.  If you hate, you will bring negative situations upon yourself.  Give it up, today.

9.  Rivalries. To be in a rivalry means you perceive there is a lack of something.  Lack of attention.  Lack of recognition.  Lack of glory.  These are childish misconceptions.  You can always get the attention you deserve.  To be in a rivalry makes sure that you never feel satisfied, even when you win.

10.  Competition. Again.  To compete is to fear that there can only be one winner.  What you seek is the experience you think winning will give you.  Focus on getting that experience and don’t worry about who placed in what order.

11.  Seeking the limelight and admiration. The Drunk Monkey is always trying to be the biggest.  It believes if it is admired by all, then it will survive longer.  It believes if it is admired that it will be able to spread its DNA all over the planet.  Aren’t you ready to grow up?  You are going to die no matter how popular you are.

12.  Willfulness. Isn’t it bizarre how old people display behaviors they developed as 2-year-olds?  Willfulness is just a form of righteousness.  An addiction to being right.  Why?  Because The Drunk Monkey believes that being right will help you survive longer.  It won’t.  It will just make you miserable.

13. Blaming others. To be the victim and not take responsibility is standard protocol for most people.  The truth is, you are not always responsible.  But that’s not a very powerful place to stand.  In the end, there is no blame to be assigned.  There is just the experience you are choosing to have.

14.  Thwarting responsibility. Related to blaming others.  This kindergarten behavior is about declaring yourself powerless.  The only powerful thing to do in your life is take responsibility no matter what.  The person who takes responsibility has options and power.

15.  Making people wrong. This is The Drunk Monkey’s favorite past time.  By making people wrong, you get to be right.  The Drunk Monkey perceives that by being right, you will some how win more favor and stay alive longer.  Maybe you’ll get the more attractive mate if you are more right then others.  Good job, little monkey!

16.  Looking for favor. The class clown.  The know it all.  The helper.  The kiss ass.  They are all looking for favor.  Looking to be more.  Seeking the limelight in hopes of being better then others.  You will get ahead, have it all and still be live with fear and anger if you don’t let go of the idea that something outside of yourself will give you happiness.

17.  Collecting stuff.  The Drunk Monkey believes that more stuff means more life.  By more life, I mean more prestige, more security and more power.  Things do not create any of these effects.  I have seen many clients get the $7,000,000 house and instantly think it is too small or not enough.  Next they are on to the cars, plane and on and on ad infinitum.  What do you think you will accomplish with all your stuff?

18.  Showing off.  It’s all about winning favor and being special for The Drunk Monkey (your mind/survival mechanism).  Apparently The Drunk Monkey believes that if people love and adore it, then it will live longer.  It doesn’t happen and eventually you run out of tricks to show off with.  Then what do you do?  FIND TOOLS TO BE HAPPY NOW.  Good thing you are reading this blog.

19. Petulance. Which means feeling unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered.  Why do we allow ourselves to go down these dark roads?  First of all, no one has ever asked you to question them.  Second, you get so much juice from this kind of behavior.  You get to control people.  You get to manipulate.  You get to be the victim.  All of which messes your life up.

And that does it.  19 ways your inner child messes up your life.  I hope you gained some new awareness from these posts.

Over the last 3 years I’ve stumbled upon very powerful spiritual principles that have a profound impact on happiness and success.  I’ve been sharing these secrets with my private coaching clients and now I’m ready to share them with a small group of very special people.

I don’t know if you will qualify to be in the group.

But if you are interested in hearing all about it so that you can apply, then please join me this Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific / 7pm Mountain / 8pm Central / 9pm Eastern.

Register Here 

On this 60-90 minute telephone conference call I will explain:
- What the mastermind is
- What I mean by “Profound Spiritual Breakthroughs to Happiness and Success”
- Who should join
- What the qualifications are

I can’t admit everyone to participate in this because my goal is facilitate a spiritual transformation for a small group of people.  We are going to be spending a lot of time together both on the phone and in person breaking through deep rooted spiritual blocks to happiness and success.  The mix needs to be right if we are going to accomplish the goal.

I hope you will join me and find out if this is right for you.

If your intuition and pushing you towards see what it’s all about, then do everything in your power to be on the call…okay?

Matthew Ferry

P.S.  This is a call designed to introduce you to the mastermind group I am assembling.  So if you want to experience profound spiritual breakthroughs to happiness and success, then be on the call to learn more.

You Can Choose Happiness by Changing How You Take Action

Negative Energy Release Script

by Matthew Ferry
www.matthewferry.com

I am not a victim of my circumstances.  I am the creator of my experience.  That doesn’t mean I’m the creator of life.  That means I get to decide how I feel and what I experience in any given situation.  I release all victim energy, take a deep breath and focus on what I want.

I don’t hold on to grudges.  Grudges are like picking up a hot coal to throw at someone else.  It only hurts me.  I am not committed to being in a negative state.  Even though I find myself going there automatically.  My goal is to catch myself in the act and divert my attention.  I am committed to feeling good and being in Harmony with all of life.  It’s not easy.  But that’s my goal. I release grudge energy.

I do not allow myself to go into the energy of hatred.  Sometimes I go there but I realize very quickly that this is not the energy I’m committed to.  So I let it go and I let it go now.  I realize that everybody is doing the best they can. It’s no up to me to determine how people should behave or how life should go.  I am practicing being at peace with the way that life is.  I’m practicing allowing life to be exactly the way it is and then, making the best of the situation.  I release any and all hatred energy.

I release my greed.  I am not in a state of lack.  I may not have the money that I want.  I may not have the things that I want.  But that doesn’t mean I am in a state of lack.  I am simply in a state of desire.  I want more then what I have.  That is a normal position to be in.  My needs are being met.  The basics of my survival are being covered.  Everything beyond that is a bonus.  Therefore I have lots of bonuses in my life now and I’m looking forward to a lot more.  I release my fear of not having enough.  I release greed energy.

Some of my beliefs no longer work for me.  I release unusual laws that I’ve picked up during this life time.  I examine whether a belief works for me or not.  I do not hold myself or others accountable to agreements that they never made.  I release myself from any and all unreasonable laws, beliefs, ideals, standards or principles that do not work for me.

I release victim energy
I release grudge energy
I release hatred energy
I release greed energy
I release unusual or unreasonable laws.

I am 100% whole and complete within myself, right now.

Only problem is, most of your life is not dangerous.  Yet, The Drunk Monkey will associate anything that stresses you with danger.  Then it will begin to speculate that anything like the times you were stressed should be avoided.

When you are in Survival mode you spend enormous amounts of energy avoiding fantasies.  When The Drunk Monkey Generalizes you become hypnotized by a fantasy.

In other words Generalizing = You make things up!!

If you listen to the Drunk Monkey in action you will hear it Judging, assessing, quantifying, categorizing and generalizing.

The Drunk Monkey is not in the business of going for it, taking action, getting excited and living the dream!  The Drunk Monkey doesn’t care about creating pleasant experiences.  It could care less if you feel good.  It could care less about achieving your goals.

If you set a goal, then The Drunk Monkey will go to work inventing a fantasy about how it will all happen.  It will create a set of generalizations to anticipate the future.  In the mean time… The Universe/God/Source Energy/Life Force will conspire upon your behalf, stuff will start to happen, results will start to be produced…BUT…results will be produced in a way that looks different from what The Drunk Monkey anticipated.

EMERGENCY!!!!!  The Drunk Monkey gets scared because its expectations where broken.

When your expectations are broken, you’ve entered the unknown.  The Drunk Monkey hates the unknown and believes that it is a survival situation.  Your body gets pumped full of action chemicals.  You know these chemicals as emotions.  Fear, anger, upset, frustration, doubt… Your body will either attack or run away.  Either response will shoot you in the foot and stop you from achieving the results you want.

The Drunk Monkey wants to survive.  But you know the problem.  You are definitely going to die, someday.  Going for your goals is not dangerous.  Just different then what you do now.

• Getting ahead
• Looking good
• Being right
• Figuring things out
• Opinions, options & speculations

If you are really honest about each of these thoughts, then you see that they are about getting a mate and staying alive longer.

Major Problem:  You aren’t going to survive!  Everyone and I mean everyone is going to die!  Right?  Are you going to escape death?  No.  Then why spend time avoiding the unavoidable.  While you are studying my material, it is becoming more and more apparent that survival is an illegitimate pursuit.  There is no need to survive.

The very fact that you are reading these words tells me that you are someone who is living an amazing life. You are someone who already has a powerful influence over your world.  There is no way you could be considering living a life of happiness and success if you were in an actual survival situation.  The bottom line is you are in an opulent situation.

Let’s face it; you probably already have a car, house, clothes, electronics and many other luxury items. You are a consumer, which means that your life is not about survival.

Today Consider:  My life is about pleasure.

Your life is about getting what you want and having it all.  You are in pursuit of joy, freedom, peace, happiness and all kinds of other pleasurable feelings.  Why do you want to be in action on your most cherished dreams?  What will that powerful state give you?  More accomplishment, more achievement, more objectives completed, more creativity expression, more acquired, more expansion, more money, more, more more more more…What is the purpose of more?

To feel good.  In the end, you want to feel good.  I hate to break the news to you but, that is not a survival situation.

Consider the lengths you go to survive in non-survival situations.

Is the drunk monkey your master or servant?

How often are you listening to The Drunk Monkey say things to you?

How often does The Drunk Monkey have an opinion on your life?  Always!

Once you see The Drunk Monkey for what it is, you will spontaneously jump to another level of happiness and peace.  You will be in action without fear.

Consider these three important thoughts:

Thinking is automatic.

Thinking is not who I am.

Thinking is Survival.

Begin noticing that every aspect of your being is designed to survive.

Start to observe that your attitude, personality, mind-set, opinions, qualities and characteristics are all designed to keep you alive longer.  Each of your aspects are not designed to be goal achieving mechanisms.  The aspects of your personality… your point of view, your opinions about the world… are not designed to bring you more happiness or peace and they are certainly not designed to give you satisfaction.

Consider it’s the opposite.

“Matthew – The class I took with you is literally shifting everything. I have gone from zero to full momentum, focus, connection, engagement and bliss with my family and life. The service you have provided is the most life altering work I have ever done. Just wanted to let you know the difference your work is continuing to make in my life.”

Thanks Jennifer Loskamp