Earthseals

Experience increased prosperity, joy and fulfillment
-- gift from Marc Allen --

Saturday, April 2, 10-6PM
Four Points Sheraton, San Rafael, CA

Here is a guy who went from being lazy, chaotic, disorganized, slacker,
creative artistic type, unimpressive, awkward, slightly nerdly, not very
bright --- and poor: scrounging (with equally poor roommate Shakti
Gawain) to come up with his half of the $65 a month rent on their
Oakland ghetto apartment to

being lazy, chaotic, disorganized, awkward, creative artistic type,
unimpressive, not very bright, slightly nerdly --- and astoundingly
rich: scrounging for the $65,000 a month or whatever "being a
millionaire many times over" equals these days.

For me what's impressive about him is:

(1) he's the classic demonstration of "well, if this Marc Allen guy can
do it, jeez, then Anybody can..."

(2) that he's not only made himself successful, but has successfully
taught many other people to be as well

(3) he's not on the level of "you have to make it like i did" (which
in his case was book publishing)
but instead supports to find their own path and goal.
He does not teach "futures trading in options" and "how to get rich in
real estate with no money down" but

(4) has made a serious study of the simplest, most direct practical
metaphysical ways for "creating your reality" and fulfilling your
potential, using creative visualization, challenging core beliefs; this
is definitely "partnering with the Universe" in direct day to day
contact and

(5) he's into passing on what he's learned without making a killing on
the teaching.
At the start of 2005 he had a calling to offer these teachings to
friends, and friends of friends for free (previously it had been
hundreds of dollars) - so he had a weekend in February that a few
hundred people went to, and (with a bit of tweaking) he's offering
similar information again.

If you missed the first one, I am again recommending his work. If you
can't make this one, there might be one more.

http://www.successwithease.net/index.php?p=success_workshop

If you want to sign up, just go to that site.

My overview [below] is no substitute for his book, "The Millionaire
Course", but when I send out an invite like this, I like to include ample enough information ---
so that both the people who feel it is right for them to go have enough
to base this on (as well as benefiting from whatever was learned the
first time through) and for the majority getting this who won't be going (for whatever reason) that they can still get value out of reading about these teachings, and maybe apply some part of either his work, or my take on it, in their own lives.

the Marc Allen four step program:

-1: Imagine how good things could be in your ideal world.

If EVERYTHING went as good as you can possibly imgaine for the
next five years ...
what would your life and your world look like at the end of that time?
This is point blank an invitation to imagine - which appeals to a lot of
us artistic visionary types...
How good could you imagine things could be, if *everything* turns out as
good as you *can* imagine?

-2: From your ideal scenes [above], what immediately falls out as
goals/directions/categories of things that would be different?

Next, fashion some affirmations that go directly towards that
"this is happening now" - or - "i am moving in this direction"
bold enough to grab you,
but small enough that you can still find part of yourself believing that
that's possible

-- AND THEN -- as you say them, practicing them, pay close close
attention and notice what resistances, which counter intentions, what
sabotaging negating voices come up inside you.
Keep returning back to coming from your intention, to create a life you
can envision.

Stay with the process of developing big and bold enough, challenging
enough to the old entrenched stuck places and day by day, affirmation by affirmation, action by action, change your thinking habits and turn your
life course in the direction of your imagined ideal world.

-3: From your general goals and directions, now go for the specific,
doable, timeline, incremental steps that ground your desires in the
practical actions needed to accomplish them. Carry around a one page, one index card, summary of what's big, what's
next, where you are going, what you are going to do today.

-4: Develop your working partnership with higher power ["spirit, the
collective intelligence"... whatever you want to call it] to help you
carry forth this dream into reality.
Stop and check in frequently, not just once or twice a day while
meditating, asking for guidance as to what to do next, specifically, to
move forward accomplishing these goals you've been carrying around in
your pocket.

Then be willing to "run the experiment" of actually acting on this
guidance you get, of partnering with higher intelligence.

See where it leads you.

Over and over he says,
and you would probably agree,
that all this is nothing new, merely a collection of what other people
have said.
You've probably heard this all before.

What's remarkable is sitting and seeing this not-very-impressive guy who
has actually applied what you've known, who "ran the experiment" and
made a tremendous success with this information, while you --or at least
I-- was off doing other things, struggling a bit confusedly, not quite
on this royal road to success. Even though the path was clear. It kinds
bangs into your head, that why was I not doing this, what part of my
life thought that dithering around with distractions, and "getting away
with it" was a better choice than what Doc Phil would call "requiring
more of my life", stepping up, moving beyond fears? ?

Again, what's great about Allen is that he gives the lie to all those
people who say you have to work work work work, being really really
focused, stay on the job 50-60-80 hours a week (he says he rarely works
half that, doesn't "do Mondays" at all [!], never gets in to work before
noon'ish, his desk is a total mess, he's always losing things...) give
it your all, sacrifice forever to make it, make it, make it. Never stop, never give in, never give a goddamn inch, eternally on guard,
hyper-vigilant. Stand up straight! Burn the midnight oil twice as long
as your nearest competitor. If you accomplish one goal, go right on to
the next!!

His favorite preamble for ALL his affirmations, that he wraps around all
his goals is: "In a relaxed and easy manner, in a healthy and positive way,
this or something else that's better,
for the good of all concerned..."

From Theory to Practice... from ideas to action... from him talking to
your life changing...

It may be tempting fate for him to offer all of this to all of us for
free.
"Yes, yes, yes, I've heard this all before. I KNOW that!
...took the seminar, bought the book, got the video...
got the vehicle parked in the driveway,
but it doesn't really affect my life,
I don't DO any of the things I know I SHOULD to make the different
course corrections I need to make to get where I want to go.
Powerful weekend, yeh yeah.
Now it is the following Wednesday, and what? What has remained?"

It's like it all evaporates.
Weekend seminar workshop high, then back to the old life, unchanged?

If you pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars,
if the cost of the education has been painfully high,
then your motivation to apply some of these technologies and insights is
more obvious.
And the tendency to let inertia and the old habits slide back in perhaps
can be deterred for a while.

You got this info for free, the tendency, all the more so, is to let it
wash away, without much effect.

But still his inspiration is to get this out to people, even though he runs that risk, so there you are.

What works to take ideas into action? What would it take in your life, to actually implement and practice these understandings and insights?

What do you know about your process that reinforces and reminds you of
what you want to do, of where you want to go?What we've learned so far is that "practice groups", ongoing connections between participants, seem to be most efficacious. So instead of Marc talking for two days (as he did in February, (I will say, to an increasingly antsy room...) he has one day to tell the story and present (what I have outlined above) and the second day will all be about "MasterMind groups" - forming into groups of [i'm guessing] half dozen people who will keep in contact with each other in the months and weeks ahead, to keep each other on track, to compare notes, to remind and remember.

First day free (if you haven't been before).
( If you hae already and you want to come back, email ruby yeh:
rubyy@comcast.net)

There is a charge for the second day, if you want to come back to do the practice groups, (~$50)

Allow me a meta-comment, framing and contextualizing his work, an
insight that I found helpful in digesting his work,

in thinking about, what made him so outrageously successful when any
number of my friends are still kind of puttering around, treading water,
with occasional bursts of brilliance, sure, but nowhere nowhere at all
near having their potential fully out there manifesting powerfully
wonderfully in the world...

It seems to me that most of the self-help, success trainings, seminars
fall in two directions:

On the one hand you have the "Modern" go-get-'em, rah, rah, work hard,
focus clearly, set your goals, be unswayable, stay the course, "you can
do it", create your reality, goal-driven behavior, take charge, control,
focus, step up, be the alpha wolf, ... On the other hand you have the more "Green", sensitive, relax, go with
the flow, open into the wider spaces, it's all happening for a reason,
"the world to be perfect needs only our assent", tomorrow doesn't exist,
yesterday was but a dream, surrender, let go, be swept along by the
power of Now, it's bigger than you think, there are no mistakes, all is
perfectly in divine order, it could not be otherwise...

These two philosophies obviously are diametrically opposed to each
other:you meet with some resistance -----
do you automatically redouble your efforts and surmount it, don't take
No for an answer? or do you automatically surrender to "well, i guess the Universe is trying to tell me something", let go and let god?

Marc spends a lot of time chronicling what a messed up space case he is,
and was. And would have you believe that most of the time he is just going with the flow, in a relaxed and easy manner... and this is often true, and as I said above, one hugely valuable part is that his success gives the lie to those who say you can ONLY make it if you're fiercely out-Alpha-ing everyone else.

But, I would argue that at KEY times, at just the right moments, he IS all
about focus and take charge and take no shit and get things done, and
saying No, and not budging...

That, in fact, the key to his success is NOT the philosophy of go with the flow, power of Now [a book which he in fact published] but instead is in precisely the meta-ability to KNOW WHEN to choose the go with the flow "surrender" strategy and when instead to employ the opposite counter strategy of "stand firm, take charge, stick your oar in the water, MOVE!"

Both, I say, are equally valuable and extremely appropriate, but at different times, in different circumstances [regardless of how much either school is hot to make you believe otherwise, that it has the lock on the One Way truth].

What's true in my life is that the key ability, the core of wisdom is precisely that "META"-ability to know when it's the right time to apply each, when to focus and get down to it and when to relax and open to the wider field.

This is not something that is widely discussed, thought about, or even named! but has time and again proven the difference in my life.

And I found it extremely helpful to employ this filter, this thought too, when sitting in the audience listening to M. Allen.

He doesn't talk about it in his presentation. He may even be unaware of this meta-ability of his that he's honed.

But if you listen for it, you will hear it right alongside these two hugely conflicting messages, the subtext of his knowing, of his ability to discern, to choose wisely, WHEN to employ each, he knows, for example, when to "let the car drive him not onto the freeway and to his office, (even though he is late by all standards) but to the woods!" (where he relaxes and does some yoga, and stretches out under the trees) and then, when the job-related solution brilliantly pops into his head, he immediately grabs pen and paper to write it down.

One can easily imagine the opposite in our lives, yes? Where we force ourselves to go into work even when we don't feel like it? And then when some inspiration does come to us in some relaxing moment, (in the shower ,or close to sleep) we just kind of go with the flow and relax it slipping away?

He is teaching us we don't JUST have to be that rah rah, Get Your Goals
in Order and march on, focused, work work work, Type A model.

And while he claims he is a Type Z (as in zzzzzzzzz) person, surrendering to listening to the wider realms, I say again that if you listen closely you will discern the core ability of AT KEY POINTS being extremely laser-focused, (if only in short bursts between naps), that he in fact oscillates over to the "goal-directed, this is your LIFE!!, take your choices seriously, damnit, keep an eagle watch on your thinking!!" point of view but does it with an exquisite sense of timing, of when to push, and when to allow when to stand tall, and when to bend...

The Serenity Prayer is the one place I've met that talks about this
openly, clearly: sometimes it's time to get up and do what needs to be done! and sometimes it's hey far far wiser to let go, relax back down from
what is beyond your control anyways and the key key learning is the meta-knowing of when to apply which of these strategies.

That's my two cents. (If you want me to send you a longer paper I'm
writing on this meta-ability, let me know.)

Love to hear your thoughts. Hope your lives are progressing well. And
the planet is being moved, by those in partnership with some higher
consciousness, towards being a place we are all happier to be a part of...

Paul C. Hoffman
(v) 510 496-3463
best email address for me is still earthsun@pacbell.net

(despite the fact that this letter is orginating from
paulhoffman@pacbell.net) the back up is always paul@earthseals.com