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

A sense of purpose doesn’t come from thinking about it. It comes from taking action that moves you toward the future. The moment you do this, you activate a force more powerful than the desire to avoid pain. We call this the “Force of Forward Motion.”

Visualize everything that was happening around you. Focus on the gratefulness you were feeling at the time. Now, connect that gratefulness to the presence of an unimaginably generous force.

When we anticipate run-ins with these people, we waste a lot of time worrying about how they’ll treat us and how we’ll react. This doesn’t prepare us for the interaction, it’s just another version of the Maze.

When you move toward it, pain shrinks. When you move away from it, pain grows. If you flee from it, pain pursues you like a monster in a dream. If you confront the monster, it goes away.

To reiterate: as human beings we are given access to the infinite, but we have to work for it; it doesn’t come for free.

The Tool in Brief 1. Standing in front of any kind of audience, see your Shadow off to one side, facing you. (It works just as well with an imaginary audience or an audience composed of only one person.) Ignore the audience completely and focus all of your attention on the Shadow. Feel an unbreakable bond between the two of you—as a unit you’re fea

There’s a hidden, inner strength that you cannot find unless you push yourself through adversity.

The Tool in Brief 1. Focus on the pain you’re avoiding; see it appear in front of you as a cloud. Silently scream, “Bring it on!” to demand the pain; you want it because it has great value. 2. Scream silently, “I love pain!” as you keep moving forward. Move so deeply into the pain you’re at one with it. 3. Feel the cloud spit you out and close behi

First, think of the problem as a random hardship, occurring in an unthinking universe that doesn’t care about you or your evolution. How does that feel? Now, think of the same problem as a challenge posed by a universe that wants you to evolve and knows that you can. How does that feel?