The Big Leap

To make the kind of leaps Michael Dell makes, we must practice a specific skill. That skill is to identify and transcend our Upper Limit, (Location 57)

When I hit my Upper Limit, I manufacture thoughts that make me feel bad. The problem is bigger than just my internal feelings, though: I seem to have a limited tolerance for my life going well in general. When I hit my Upper Limit, I do something that stops my positive forward trajectory. I get into a conflict with my ex-wife, get into a money bind, or do something else that brings me back down within the bounds of my limited tolerance. (Location 105)

There’s an even bigger reason you might feel some resistance about transcending your Upper Limit Problem. Speaking personally, I found that my biggest resistance was the fear of owning my full potential. As I explored this fear, I realized that making such a big commitment put everything on the line. It eliminated any excuse I’d ever allowed myself for failing to achieve what I set out to do. (Location 209)

“Fear is excitement without the breath.” Here’s what this intriguing statement means: the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it. (Location 230)

Feel the fear instead of pretending it’s not there. Celebrate it with a big breath, just the way you’d celebrate your birthday by taking a big breath and blowing out all the candles on your cake. Do that, and your fear turns into excitement. Do it more, and your excitement turns into exhilaration. (Location 235)

The goal in life is not to attain some imaginary ideal; it is to find and fully use our own gifts. (Location 241)

Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure. (Location 253)

Guilt is a way our minds have of applying a painful grip on the conduit through which our good feelings flow. (Location 260)

Your capacity expands in small increments each time you consciously let yourself enjoy the money you have, the love you feel, and the creativity you are expressing in the world. As that capacity for enjoyment expands, so does your financial abundance, the love you feel, and the creativity you express. (Location 274)

If you focus for a moment, you can always find some place in you that feels good right now. Your task is to give the expanding positive feeling your full attention. When you do, you will find that it expands with your attention. Let yourself enjoy it as long as you possibly can. (Location 279)

In her meditations, she visualized herself onstage at the Grammy Awards, receiving the accolades of the music industry for the new music. She even visualized the specific dress she would wear when she received the award. Not long afterward, she was standing onstage receiving a Grammy for that new album, Nick of Time, (Location 339)

The fear of being fundamentally flawed brings with it a related fear. It’s the fear that if you did make a full commitment to living in your Zone of Genius, you might fail. It’s the belief that even your genius is flawed, and that if you expressed it in a big way, it wouldn’t be good enough. This belief tells you to play it safe and stay small. That way, if you fail, at least you fail small. (Location 560)

Hidden Barrier no. 3: Believing That More Success Brings a Bigger Burden An old belief that you’re a burden can hold you back from expanding to your full capacity for success and enjoyment. If this belief has a grip on you, your Upper Limit mantra goes like this: I can’t expand to my highest potential because I’d be an even bigger burden than I am now. (Location 609)

I’m walking down the street of my town on a Saturday afternoon. I pass a jewelry store where my wife, Kathlyn, and I have bought beautiful pieces over the years. I glance in the window as I pass, admiring some of the items. About fifteen seconds later I notice some worry-thoughts about money. Specifically, the worry-thoughts are about whether we have enough money to help a gifted young member of our family go to the private music conservatory she wants to attend. I notice the worry-thoughts and let them go, just dropping them in mid-thought without pursuing them. I wonder what positive thing is trying to come through. I feel a pleasant sensation in my throat. As I walk along, I let myself feel it thoroughly, savoring the pleasant sensation. A few minutes later, getting into my car, the insight occurs to me that seeing the jewelry in the window triggered a wave of guilt about the level of abundance my wife and I enjoy, compared with other members of our extended family. Seeing the jewelry also sparked a feeling inside me of how much I love and appreciate my wife, and how I wish there was some piece of jewelry that could really express the depth of those feelings. I sit in my car for a few moments before turning on the engine, letting myself enjoy the sweet feelings of how much I love and appreciate my wife, and how much I appreciate the prosperity we’ve created in our lives. I realize there’s no physical object like jewelry that could express those feelings. They exist in the nonmaterial world, in the feeling of flowing connection between us. I pick up my phone and call Kathlyn. She’s out doing errands, too, and it turns out she’s about two blocks away from where I’m sitting in my car. I tell her the sequence I just experienced, from the glance in the window to the worry-thoughts to the delicious moment of letting myself feel the overflow of love and appreciation for her. I say, “Let’s make sure we take more t...

...ime to celebrate what we have.” She agrees and gives me a big virtual kiss. I say good-bye, start my car, and head home. (Location 810)

Criticism and blame are addictions. They are costly addictions, because they are the number-one destroyer of intimacy in close relationships. (Location 864)

The key insight: each entity in a situation represents 100 percent. Each entity in a conflict has 100 percent of the responsibility for resolving the conflict. In other words, person A is a whole and complete 100 percent, and person B is a whole and complete 100 percent. (Location 984)

These delicious feelings have nothing to do with my secretary. I’m using my affair with her to awaken feelings I’ve been submerging for years under my dutiful life and comfortable marriage. This affair is showing me that I am failing to be my best and settling to live beneath my Zone of Genius. My affair is an Upper Limit Problem. I’m going to make a sincere commitment to living in my Zone of Genius, so I can feel ecstatically alive all the time without lying and cheating to get there! (Location 1039)

If you think of integrity as a physics issue instead of a moral one, you’ll see that it belongs alongside unarguable forces such as gravity. Long before morality came into play, the original definition of integrity had to do with wholeness and completeness. To be in integrity meant you were whole and complete. To be out of integrity meant a breach in your wholeness had occurred; there was a gap in your completeness. Thinking of integrity as a physics issue gives you a much more practical tool than regarding it simply as a moral issue. Morality is about good and bad, right and wrong—all of which are highly arguable. Physics is about did and didn’t, not is and isn’t. (Location 1105)

Early in my work on transcending my own Upper Limit, I made a key discovery: if I could consider, even for a moment, that I was not upset for the reason I thought I was, I could break out of the trance I was in. (Location 1159)

Discovering your Zone of Genius is your life’s Big Leap. Everything up until now has been about hops, not leaps. Hopping, though it seems safe, is actually hazardous to your health. If you confine yourself to hops, you run the risk of rusting from the inside out. (Location 1289)

people have a carefully crafted, well-justified story about why they can’t take their Big Leap. For one person it was about the family: “I can’t possibly take the time to write [“make a video,” etc.] because my family needs me.” For another person it was about stress: “I tried getting up at 5 a.m. for a while to work on my book, but I couldn’t do that and do a good job with my 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. therapy clients.” (Location 1346)

It’s common in the beginning stages of meditation to criticize yourself when your mind wanders, to think of meditation as a conflict between your mantra and your wander-thoughts. As your practice matures, though, you usually realize that criticizing yourself for your mind’s wandering is just another thought. You let go of it and return to the mantra. Gradually the habit of self-criticism disappears and is replaced by an openhearted feeling of self-acceptance. (Location 1646)

I expand in abundance, success, and love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same. (Location 1657)

The universe will teach us our lessons with the tickle of a feather or the whomp of a sledgehammer, depending on how open we are to learning the particular lesson. Getting stubborn and defensive invites the sledgehammer; getting open and curious invites the feather. (Location 2175)

The first barrier is the false belief that we are fundamentally flawed in some way. If we carry this feeling within us, we sabotage our success because we think we’re essentially bad. If something good happens, we must mess up to offset it, because good things can’t happen to bad people. (Location 2204)

The second barrier is the false belief that by succeeding, we are being disloyal to and leaving behind people in our past. If we harbor this feeling within us, we sabotage our success because we think it’s disloyal to our roots to soar too far into the stratosphere. The third barrier is the false belief that we are a burden in the world. If we carry this feeling inside us, we sabotage our success so that we won’t be a bigger burden. The fourth barrier is the false belief that we must dim the bright lights of our brilliance so that we won’t outshine someone in our past. If we hold this feeling inside us, we tend to hold ourselves back from expressing the full potential of our innate genius. (Location 2206)

We transcend our Upper Limit Problem each time we make more room inside us to feel more love, abundance, and success. It’s done moment by moment, and the moment goes like this: We catch ourselves worrying or starting an argument. Suddenly we realize we’re Upper-Limiting. We let go of the train of worry-thoughts or the huffy point of view, taking a deep breath or two for relaxation. Perhaps we wiggle our toes or stretch our shoulders in a gesture of opening up space to feel more love, success, and abundance. A moment later we break free of the Upper Limit and feel a flow of good feeling again. In wink-of-an-eye moments such as these, we expand our capacity to enjoy more love, abundance, and success. These moments are the springboards of our Big Leap. (Location 2218)

I am part of the whole, all of which is governed by nature…. I am intimately related to all the parts, which are of the same kind as myself. If I remember these two things, I cannot be discontented with anything that arises out of the whole, because I am connected to the whole. (Location 2270)

The ultimate joy of being an entrepreneur is creating something that people find valuable, particularly if it’s something that hasn’t existed before. (Location 2297)