What To Say When You Talk To Your Self

by Shad Helmstetter

say that I called you this evening and told you that I had just chartered an airplane to fly to Europe, and I was inviting you and your family or friends to join me. We are all going to go to Europe for a fabulous two-week vacation (all expenses paid, of course). But now, let’s say that just as we are boarding the plane, we overhear the navigator talking to the captain. We hear him tell the captain that the airplane’s on-board computer––the computer that flies the plane––is programmed wrong. It has been programmed so that seventy-five percent of the directions that will control the plane are the wrong directions. If you knew that the airplane’s on-board computer was programmed wrong, what would you do next? You would get off the plane! You certainly wouldn’t want to be on an airplane with bad computer programs. You would know that the plane would have to do one of two things: it would either land in the wrong place (not a happy thought while flying over the Atlantic) or it would crash. And that is exactly the kind of programs most of us have. No wonder things don’t work. No wonder we dream, hope, try, struggle, get by, fall short of the mark or fail. No wonder we would like to get more out of life, solve some problems, or reach some goals––but can’t seem to be able to. We’ve got a bad set of programs. We have been trying to achieve our goals with our own onboard computer pre-programmed to hold us back––or fly us in the wrong direction. Do you want to live with any bad prog...