The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion

The point is that a tool—unlike an attitude adjustment—requires you to do something. Not only does it take work, it’s work you have to do over and over again—every time you get frustrated. A new attitude means nothing unless followed by a change in behavior. The surest way to change behavior is with a tool.

To control behavior you need a specific procedure to use at a specific time to combat a specific problem. That’s what a tool is.

Real change requires you to change your behavior—not just your attitude.

Little by little, the tools in this book (and the philosophy behind them) made themselves known. The only standard they had to meet was that they worked.

Real happiness is the constant presence of higher forces in our lives. And the universe has been designed so that higher forces are available every moment of every day. We simply have to use the tools to stay connected to them.

Close your eyes and return to the image of the deathbed self you saw in Chapter 6. He sees your paralysis in the situation you picked and exhorts you not to waste the present moment, creating an urgent pressure to act. With your eyes still closed, relax for a moment and look around you. The willpower you’ve created has attracted a huge throng of ot

Close your eyes and start ruminating on your dissatisfactions. Then, imagine the entire society around you in a similar, discontented state. How does this affect people’s sense of responsibility for one another? Now, erase that image and do the Grateful Flow. Feel yourself overwhelmed with appreciativeness for everything you’ve been given from the

Close your eyes and visualize your Shadow. Feel how embarrassed you would be if it were revealed to other people. Imagine millions of people around you feeling the same way about their Shadows, doing everything they can to conceal them. What happens to a society in which everyone’s hearts are closed off to one another? Now, tell your Shadow you’ve

A society that cannot include the other is a society that has broken its own spirit.