Redesigning Life Through Think And Grow Rich with Armin Shafee

 

Experiencing a life-altering situation can lead you to decide to reset, redefine, and redesign life. Armin Shafee, international speaker, success coach and Vice President of Think and Grow Rich Institute, shares his journey to redesigning life. He walks us through the time he experienced a near-death situation that led him to majorly pivot his life, change philosophies, and see things differently. Believing how you need to fill your mind with knowledge and information to change your situation, Armin dives deep into why he is living, loving, preaching, and teaching the Think and Grow Rich book and its theories.

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Redesigning Life Through Think And Grow Rich with Armin Shafee

I’m excited about this show. I have a special guest with me. I cannot wait for you to read his story. Almost dying at the age of eighteen, Armin Shafee was reborn and made a life-altering decision to reset, redefine and redesign his life. That led Armin on a long journey of studying and mastering the top sciences and philosophies in the world to take possession of his mind. After using Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success philosophy to produce unheard of results in his own life and business, Armin was introduced to the President of Think and Grow Rich, which led to the first partnership in the history of the Think and Grow Rich Institute. I want Armin to come on and share with us the rest of the story. Armin, welcome to the show.

I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here. It was such a delight and a privilege to meet you at the business conference. When I first saw you and we connected, I knew that I had to have you on the show. It turns out, you have an incredible story and journey that the world needs to hear. I want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to introduce you, have you on the show and to share your story with us. Tell us about how things got started for you. You had a near-death experience. I’m sure the audience wants to know what in the world are you talking about.

The day was December 22nd. It was right around Christmas. It was the greatest and worst day of my life. It started at 9:00 AM where I was promoted to Sales Leader in my company. I made the most money in two weeks in sales. I was eighteen years old at that time and my ego blew up. Everyone else was older than me in my team. I had made the most money. I got my first car three weeks prior to that. I was starting to become independent. The day started really well. I did what most people would do when you have a little bit of success. You celebrate. Usually, a celebration is somewhat in the nature of doing less work and putting your foot off the pedal, which is what I used to think. From 9:00 AM, I spent the entire day doing nothing, other than feeling good about the fact that I got these promotions. My day ended in work, around 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM and that started the beginning of my celebration. The friends I was with at the time were great guys but with terrible habits. We went and party hopped a ton of different places. I did a lot of things I would never do now that I thought back then was fun.

My day ended at 3:30 in the morning. I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t high. I had none of that stuff but I was tired. I was driving home and I’m about two major intersections away from my house. I’m less than five minutes home. I was tired. It was winter so I had to keep blasting. I had a hypnotic song playing from Frank Ocean. It was putting me in this hypnotic state where I was getting tired. Because I was tired, I started challenging myself. I like to talk to myself a lot. In the car, I was driving. I’m thinking, “How can someone fall asleep behind the wheel? What an idiot. Who would do that?” I’m thinking this in my head because I’m thinking, “I’m tired,” so I’m imagining, “What if that happened?” I’m like, “Who would do that? Your eyes are closed and there’s a moving vehicle. You’re signing your death. It’s happening if you close your eyes.” As I’m talking to myself in my mind, I had no idea when it happened but I was driving awake, I fell asleep and dreamt that I was driving. It’s as scary as it sounds. I went into a vivid imagination, where I was driving in my sleep. I thought I was still driving awake. I didn’t know when it happened.

My car started to swerve to the right. I was over to the left side and I woke up going over the sidewalk. That woke me up. I was like, “What is that?” It’s rumbling and I hit a massive utility pole, a thick wooden one. When that hit, my eyes popped open. All I remember in that millisecond when my eyes opened because I closed them right after, was my dashboard was flickering lights. I can smell burnt plastic. The radio popped. Things are spinning. There was a half a second and I opened my eyes. I’m like, “I’m dying.” I closed my eyes. My car spun and knocked off a fire hydrant. It landed on this downward slope into a parking lot. It stayed there. I remember opening my eyes. I’m like, “What happened? Did I crash my car?” I was an optimist. I came in and I’m like, “I made a lot of money. I’ll pay for the car.” I found my phone. I got out of my car. I walked to the front. I’m looking at this beautiful piece of machine that I bought three weeks ago. I’m like, “I’ll fix this with $4,000. That’s how much I made in two weeks.

When the cops came, they’re like, “Fix what? There’s no car left.” I’m like, “That’s how that works. I didn’t know. I’ve never had a car.” They said, “No.” It means it’s gone just write it off. The tire was not existing. Half the engine was on the ground. When they came and they analyzed the situation, if I had a passenger in my seat, they would’ve died because I hit on the other side. I got very lucky. When I say I almost died, I was this far away from killing myself. For some reason, on my side of the car, my airbag didn’t explode. Everything was on the right side of the impact of the car. My life was saved. I only came out with a few broken fingers. My rib cage was bruised from the seatbelt. Every other part of the car was gone. I’m like, “That’s weird.” As if there was a bubble protecting me in my seat. What’s scariest was five minutes prior to that, I dropped off a friend. That person could have been dead.

That night, I feel like I died. That was that close. I was in my room. I thought I was tough. I’m like, “It’s okay.” My ego was like, “It’s good. You’re this guy.” I’m sitting in my room. I started crying my eyes out. I’m sitting there like a little boy bawling my eyes out from the fear of seeing my own funeral. I’m seeing my family crying. I’m like, “I’m so young. Why would I let this happen?” It was scary. When you start to see the reality of you dying soon, all these questions came in like, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? What am I doing in life right now?” I chose to give the meaning to this entire experience as a wakeup call. I could have looked at it like, “I’m an idiot,” and I move on with my life but I’m like, “No.” Because deep inside, I knew at that time I’m like, “I’m not doing something I want to do. I’m being someone I’m not.” We have a BS meter. My BS meter was on the red zone but I was okay. I was justifying it because I was making so much money.

That night when I was sitting in my room crying, I was crying off the idea that I could have lost my life so irresponsibly and so young. Even up until then, I had done a lot. I was proud of myself, “If I did this up until now, what if I stayed alive?” I had a death conversation with myself where I thought I died. The person I was before that crash is not dead because I made a decision. I was sitting there in my room and I’m like, “No more. I’m not doing this job because this job brings the worst out of me. I’m not going to hang out with these people. I don’t want to do any of this.” It took me a couple of weeks to get out of the job, but I left it. When I left it, I was on this whole new journey. That’s where I felt like I was reborn. I went on this, “How do I get rid of my bad habits?”

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I have terrible habits. I had terrible ideas. I had terrible belief systems that made me an inauthentic person, a person of liability to the society and not as an asset. I had to change all these things. That’s the journey I went on to understanding these new sciences. I meant sciences, I’m talking about metaphysics of thought versus the energy, the Law of Attraction and principles of success. That’s all I did obsessively. I had no income, no job and no nothing. All I would do was go to the gym, go read books, do vision boards, go on nature walks and meditate. I was trying to figure out how to figure out this internal thing. That put me on this new journey which I became this new person.

Now, you’re this new person. You have these new ideas. You’re learning these new philosophies. How did that start affecting your trajectory of life?

I’ve heard a quote back in the day. I love it still to this day, “Information can change situations.” If you fill your mind with the right type of knowledge, that knowledge can impact. It can also not impact. It can change your situation. If I told you how you could make $1 million within six months and you could see how it could work and is possible, you’ll never be the same if you truly believe in it. You can go to bed and wake up as the same person, knowing something you did not know before that could change the situation within six months. It’s haunting you. You have the choice to take action on it or don’t take action on it. I got introduced to ideas like that, not specifically money but ideas on how I can change my reality in life.

I’m like, “How can I be the same anymore?” I can’t. “How can I live as the person I used to be if I knew these things exist?” I didn’t know that thought can produce things. I didn’t know I can create things through attraction. I didn’t know that through meditation, I got to still the mind. I didn’t know the spaces between the lines. I didn’t know this stuff. When I started reading these books, getting exposed to these audios and learning from all this, I started to expand my awareness, my consciousness. It’s not to be so woo-woo, I got into the metaphysics of life. There are energetic laws that aren’t visible that because they’re invisible, we don’t pay attention to them but it’s the most powerful form.

If we understand and if we use these magnificent weapons of blessings, we can use it to get what we want. There was an eight-month period of self-discovery where I was reading books like Ask and It Is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks. I was reading Think and Grow Rich. I was listening to audiobooks that friends of a friend were like, “You’ve got to listen to this guy.” I was sitting down for hours, brainwashing myself because my brain was dirty. I need to give it a wash. As I gave my brain a wash, I was filtering out bad habits and putting in new ones.

From the early stages, I’m like, “I have to make this a habit because this is determining my success.” One habit was I needed to develop the habit of what Napoleon Hill calls an Auto Success Reflex. It’s your ability to take a defeat and turn it into success as fast as possible. At the time when I was doing it, I didn’t know it was called an ASR. At that time, I said to myself, “If bad things happen, I have to build a habit of always responding with, ‘This is a good thing. I don’t know why yet,’” or saying, “I can’t wait to see how this turns out to my benefit.”

Building this mental habit, this belief pattern of, “Something bad happens. This is a great thing.” It’s being positive, no matter what happens. I’m like, “I’ve got to build this habit. If I’m negative, I’m screwed.” You can’t produce positive things from a negative attitude. This was one of the first habits I have to build. It was difficult. It was easy if small things happen. I’m like, “This is fine. It was meant to happen.” It’s when bad things happen, bad arguments or payments overdue and stress on you. I’m saying, “Everything’s terrible around me. The entire reality I am living in is terrible. This is all part of the story. It’s going to be a good thing one day.” That was the habit I have to build. That’s the hardest part of the transformation. Have you ever seen that Spider-Man movie, where he has the Venom on? He has to rip it off. It feels like that. A negative mental attitude feels like you’re ripping Venom off your suit. It keeps holding onto you. It’s a willpower, you ripping it off. Eventually, it all gets off. That’s how it was. It was eight months of ripping Venom off me.

I went through that same experience. One of the things that allowed me to develop the mentality that you’re describing is the Law of Polarity. I too have read a lot of Napoleon Hill’s work. I’ve read a lot of Bob Proctor’s work like You Were Born Rich. Bob Proctor studied a lot of Napoleon Hill’s work but he talks about the Universal Law of Polarity that says, “For everything, there’s the exact opposite.” If there’s something that you fill up, by default, by this law, there’s a down. If there’s a left by default, there’s a right. When we take a look at these situations, if you want to call it good, by default, then there’s something bad. The way to reverse that is to say, “If I’m dealing with something bad, there’s something good.” You have the power to choose what it is that you want to focus on. Choose to focus on the good side of it.

There’s another law called the Law of Relativity. The Law of Relativity says that you will be looking at a situation like, “This is so big. It’s so great. It’s so bad.” You would ask yourself, “What are you comparing it to?” It’s only bad based on whatever you are comparing it to. Nothing’s good or bad until you compare it. Nothing is big or small until you compare it to something else. That level of thinking allowed me to develop a mentality and an approach to how I see things in the world, see things that happen to me, see things that I’m dealing with, see things that are challenging and see the resistance that I may be dealing with. I’m very familiar with that. You’ve got this new philosophy. You’re approaching things differently. After you’ve made the shift in your mind, what were some of the things that came up for you where you applied this philosophy and it worked out into your favor?

One thing was I started practicing it. I have these mini miracles happening. I’ll have a little positive moment. It’s not life-changing but it was making me believe in these laws more. I was driving my mom’s car and I was going to pay for gas and the gas was already paid, “How was it replaced?” I will act surprised but I walked out like, “This is normal.” This stuff happens because of the Law of Attraction. I’m a positive person. Positive things are going to happen to me. I built that mosque. At one point, anything happened was a great thing. I was so sold on that idea that I felt nothing bad ever happened. Even if bad things did happen, I’m like, “This is great.” People are looking at me like, “This is terrifying.” “How do you see that? I see this.”

I had a lot of those things. These are all petty stories too because there are small little things. I look back and I’m like, “That was a miracle to me.” For example, I would have a phone bill coming. I had no income, no job, no nothing. All I did all day was learn, workout and meditate. In my mind, I was like a monk. I was a jobless monk. One time, I had to pay a phone bill within three days. I don’t want to ask my mom. I had a level of pride too. She already helped me so much. I’m like, “I don’t want to ask for money from family. I’ve got to figure this thing out.” I sat there and I’m like, “I’m going to manifest the money to pay for this phone bill.” Nowadays, if someone said that to me, knowing how much I know, I’d look at them like, “What a waste of energy. You are so powerful in trying to pay off a phone bill.” Back then, that was huge to me.

Compared to my reality, paying my phone bill was huge. I’m sitting there. I’m like, “I’m going to manifest it.” I called my friend. He does landscaping. I’m like, “David, can you give me a job for a day?” You can make $120, landscaping for twelve hours straight. They’ll pay cash. I’m like, “Can you give me landscaping for a couple of days?” He’s like, “No one’s hiring in my team.” I’m like, “Come on. I know you can. Figure it out.” He’s like, “My boss is not going to bring you on. It’s useless. We don’t need more hands.” I’m like, “Just in case, ask and let me know.” I hung up. In my mind, I’m like, “I don’t care what he said. I’m going to get what I want.”

I’m sitting there, visualizing him calling. I focused on this one. Visualize that it’s going to happen to you. A couple of days passed by, he calls me, “I don’t know what to tell you. He said you could come work.” I’m like, “I know. I expected that.” He’s like, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 9:00.” I said, “Okay.” I worked for two days. I made $180 landscaping. It was the worst. I am not meant for labor. I’m sitting there suffering. It was terrible. I was there and they’re smoking cigarettes every 30 minutes. This is the environment I tried to get out of from the other place. You don’t blame them. That’s all they do, labor work. I made $180. I paid for my phone. I had some extra cash. I paid for some protein powder at the time because I was so broke. I couldn’t afford protein powder. I would swallow raw eggs. I thought that was okay. I’m like, “I’ll swallow raw eggs. It’s cheaper.” I started building my belief in this thing. I’m like, “If I need something, I can manifest it.” Small things like that would happen. I’m sure other things as well that I’ve probably forgotten about happened but it’s small things. I manifested a job.

I don’t know if this was a mini-miracle or if it was bad etiquette. I had a protein powder. I paid $55 or something for it. That lasts me a month and a half. It’s almost done. I look at the expiry date. I’m like, “This is expired.” I take it back to the store. I’m like, “I just want you to know this is expired. What’s up with that?” They’re like, “We’re so sorry.” I’ve had 35 days of this. It was five days left. They look at me like, “We’re so sorry. We’ll give you a new one. Don’t worry.” I walked out with a whole new protein powder for another 45 days. I didn’t pay anything for it. “You’re a success in everything.” I can get anything I want. It’s ridiculous. That was how big I was thinking at that time. Even though I knew all these laws, I was prone to my reality. At that moment, I need $55. I made that money. I got this protein powder for free.

Back then, I was like, “I was manifesting.” That was the example of the Law of Attraction in terms of Auto Success Reflex. You would think an average person will look at this protein powder and say, “It’s expired,” and get angry, “I’m so pissed.” They’d be negative about it. I built the habit of, “This is a good thing. I don’t know why yet.” It turned out to be a good thing. I got a brand-new protein powder and the other one didn’t kill me. I didn’t even notice it was expired. That was my belief. Those were the examples that I use in my life at that time to believe in these Universal Laws. I’m like, “My protein powder was expired and it turned out to give me two protein powders.” This is the Law of Attraction. At that time, it was my life. I was at eight months of that. It’s hilarious.

Let’s talk about where you are. What would you advise someone who wants to change the game in their life or in their business? With the information that you have and the philosophies that you follow, what’s your advice to that person?

If I was with a real person, I would ask way more questions. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is there’s no such thing as generic success principles. It’s Universal Laws, but they’re applied differently to everyone’s different situations. If I went back to me back then, I would tell that, “Armin, go learn something that produces a high income for you, a skill and go render it to be one service. Right now, you’re self-absorbed. You think the Law of Attraction is based on what you and you only in this world can do. It has nothing to do with you.” Do you want to go create wealth? Do you want to create abundance? Do you want to create prosperity? Do you want to have peace of mind? Go learn how to be of service to someone else because the other people have the money that you want to earn. It doesn’t come out of thin air.

I used to think I would be walking down the street and finding money. That’s what I thought was the way I can produce wealth. I was missing a practical variable in that equation. The practical variable was, “What do I need to do to change my situation?” It’s not what I have to think only. My thinking was delusional. It was right but there was nothing attached to it that made it practical. In Think and Grow Rich philosophy, of why I’m still in love with it, why I preach it and why I teach it. Why I work with the president so much is because Napoleon Hill, amongst many other philosophies you can read, is the only one that did 25 years of himself practicing what he put in there. It’s a practical philosophy. There was nothing in it that is anything but practical. Anything it teaches, even if it’s a Law of the Universal Law, he brings it into a practical example of what that looks like. Back then, that’s what I was missing.

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I was in the clouds, but I wasn’t grounded. If they’re in my shoes back then and they’re like, “I’m doing all the right things but nothing good is happening. My life hasn’t changed, but I’m positive,” I understand but that’s the price you pay to become the person that’s going to have what you want. Now, what do you do for other people that are going to get you what you want? It only comes from other people. It doesn’t just show up depending on the desire you have. If it’s money, it comes from someone else’s bank account. Go service something to them that makes them want to pay you money.

In those eight months, I was missing the most obvious variable that I didn’t think about. Go do something that makes you money. I was so depressed. I was sitting there for eight months. I’m like, “I’m such a nice person. I’m so honest. I’m so integrable. If I had $1 million, I would do good for the world.” Everyone says that. “I’d be such a good person. I deserve the money.” No, I didn’t deserve money. That’s why I didn’t get it. I only deserve an income when I earn it through rendering service and usually, rendering service before I’m paid or more than I’m paying. That’s the extra mile, as Napoleon Hill said. If someone’s reading this that’s like, “That’s me. I’m in the clouds. I know I’m on the right. I was energetically wired to have what I want,” but the reality isn’t changing.

When my reality changes, when I took a job, where I’m selling, I made sure that I took all those principles I mastered and I brought it into the workplace. I brought into an environment where I’m rendering service to clients. That’s when I changed things around. I started earning a very nice income. Because I had great habits built, so I became a good salesman. I became a good asset to my environment, to my team. All the mindset stuff and all the attitude that I developed had to now be utilized. You’re not utilizing the Laws of the Universe and practical success philosophies. If you’re in your room all day, if you’re at home all day and if you’re meeting the same friends all day, you’re not. I had someone like this come up. I was blown away. This person is so in the clouds. It’s unbelievable. I’m like, “You’re not in Earth anymore. Your head is somewhere else.” I can’t explain too much out of confidentiality but I was wondering, “Has it ever struck this kid to do something that makes money?” He was blown away. He’s like, “I don’t understand. The universe is testing me.” I’m like, “No one’s testing. You’re just not doing work. That’s all that is. Go and pay the price.”

Let’s talk about that. I could sense that someone may be reading this and they said, “I want to render service,” but they’re struggling with creating that vehicle. The service is the vehicle to the money or whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish in life. There may be someone who’s struggling with that. Maybe they don’t have the belief. Maybe they don’t have the creative imagination to create that. It’s not this person that you’re using as an example. It’s for someone that get to this. What do you say to them?

I had someone FaceTime me once. I did an on-the-spot coaching session with them. This guy was in his 30s, 40s. He’s like, “I’m trying to find my purpose in life. I want to do this thing.” I’m like, “Why?” I always ask for questions. This is Think and Grow Rich or TGR coaching. The president and I developed these things based on the principles. He said to get four obvious questions. Number one is, “What do you want?” It always comes back to this. This question is the hardest to answer. Before you can answer this authentically, in your mind you’re dodging obstacles of fear, limitation, social heredity and all this BS that makes you not accept what you want. You think, “This is what other people want.” Let’s take away what other people think. “It’s what I want if it was easier.” Take away the easiness. “This is what I would want if I take away the limitation.” “What do you want?” I ask, “Why do you want it?” The why is the motive.

Napoleon understands the science of motive. Even in the 1900s he understood, “People aren’t going to have what they want if they don’t have a motive.” The what-you-want is the desire. We’re talking about Napoleon Hill. The number one is the desire. What is your desire? What makes that burning desire? Emotion. Emotion comes from motive. A motive gives you emotion to the desire, which creates a burning desire. I say, “This is what you want. This is why you want it.” Someone always says, “I want to help people.” Everyone wants to help people. I’m not going to defame this idea of helping people. It’s not what you want. Half of the time, others told you should want that. You feel guilty if you don’t like, “I’m a bad person.” Sometimes you don’t want to help people. Sometimes you want something for yourself. You’ve got to get rid of that guilt. It’s okay to want something that has nothing to do with helping people. Most people make you think like, “You should help people. That’s the new trend.” What do you mean the new trend? Are you living in your reality or in other people’s opinions?

Number one, half of the time, you don’t want to help people. You want something for yourself like a car. You want some money. You want some freedom. You want some relief. The other half of the time, you do want to help people, but you’re so delusional in your idea of how you think you can help the person. It’s not practical, so you never actually help anyone. You just want to help yourself. That’s the thing. What do you want? Some people will say, “I want to help people.” I always look at that person. I say, “Why?” They give me this nice story. The stories are like, “There are so many women out there that their husbands take advantage of them.”

Let’s say as a random example, “I want to help those women believe in themselves.” I’m like, “That’s great what you’re talking about. It’s a problem out there.” Here’s what I always ask. It’s such a great way to get them back in their own body. I would love for you to use this. It’s a new thing I created. I’ve never heard of this but it works. I say, “If you get that, what does that get you?” They sit there like, “I get to actually do what I want.” “That’s what we’ve been asking but you’ve been derailing from the question because you’re answering what you think others want. What do you need?” In some ways, I get the answer. “I’ll make me a lot of money.” The motive is money. Someone else would say, “That will make me feel good.” You want peace of mind. You want to feel good about yourself. You want to believe in yourself. You’re helping selfish people. That’s the truth.

Here’s my advice to the person wanting. They’re like, “Maybe I’m having a breakthrough. I’m trying to help other people.” You’re going to help other people anyways. What world do you make money in not helping someone? That’s a default. It’s like when someone says, “I’m honest. That’s why I deserve income.” No, because if it does, you’d be rich. It has nothing to do with honesty. If you’re not honest, what are you? Why is that a bonus? Someone says, “I’m trustworthy.” If you weren’t, no one would work with you anyways. That’s not a bonus. That’s what you should be anyways. It’s the president’s words in my ear. He’s like, “These are all characteristics you should have.” It’s not like, “Everyone else is bad. I’m not.” You should be. That’s not a bonus. That’s not a quality. That’s not a characteristic trait that makes you money and makes you successful. No, you should be anyways.

 

Going back to this person, I say, “You want to help people. If you help people, what does that get you?” He says, “I feel this.” “That’s what you want. What you want is to feel this, is to have this yourself.” Someone says, “It’s not about me.” I say, “If it’s not about you, who’s it about? Aren’t you living in this body? If you’re not going to help you, who is going to help you?” You would get confused. There are principles. Jim Rohn said, “Help as many people to get what they want and you’ll always get what you want.” “Yeah,” but start with why you’re helping them. This isn’t authentic, “I’m helping a person.” Someone says, “Why are you helping me?” They can’t say it because it’s, “I know I’m going to get what I want if I help you.” You can’t say that. Inside, it starts with you. It’s like trying to be in a car in the middle of the air. You’ve not accepted where you are first. You have nowhere to start. How do I help you get to the destination if you don’t know where the starting point of the journey is?

The starting point is, “Why are you doing this? What is your motive? What is it for you? What’s in it for you?” It’s not for the person, not for the world and not for the greater good. It’s for you. We all deflect that because we feel guilty. We don’t want to be self-centered. Be self-centered. Send into yourself first before you want to send to others. If you come to a Think and Grow Rich class, my favorite coaching session is with the president and he is straight. I’m a little bit nicer. He looks at someone and says, “What do you want?” The person is like, “I want to help people.” He goes, “Why?” He goes, “They need help.” “That’s all fine. What do you need to do? What’s the price you’ve got to pay?” That’s the third question. What do you have to give up? What do you have to do? They always go, “I’ve got to be able to help.” He looks at him and goes, “You need to help yourself first, don’t you?” No one wants to answer that question because they go like, “That means I’ve got to do work now. I’ve got to work on myself now. I can’t just help other people because that’s easy.”

You see these people and you can tell they’re disappointed, “I actually have to pay the price.” That’s why people don’t get what they want. No one relatively is willing to pay the price. This is the real challenge in the world. Everyone wants this disease. It’s called something for nothing syndrome. “Give me this thing, but I don’t want to do anything for it.” You’ve got this new industry called personal development. You and I are in it. We’re the producers in this industry. We produce things that consumers can have. “I’m a consumer of personal development. I buy courses, seminars and books.” Here’s the problem. For some reason, this entire industry thought, “If I’m paying the price for this seminar, this is the price I have to pay and get what I want.” No. This is the beginning. This is a part of it.

We’re starting with this advice for this person, “This is the real price you have to pay. The price always boils down to one ultimate thing. Who do you need to become to have what you want?” That’s all it is. If you know that you’ve got extra pounds on your body and that’s holding you back, you’ve got to get rid of it. If you know your relationship at home is terrible, you got to fix it. If you know you’re in a job that you hate, you’ve got to change it. If you do not want to do that, please don’t read books. Don’t meditate. Don’t pretend like you’re connected to something called infinite intelligence to God because you’re not connected to anything. Here are some reality checks for people from Napoleon Hill’s philosophy. This is something that changed my life. You cannot be connected to infinite intelligence when there is fear in your mind. How do I know this? I’m going to give you a tiny lesson that changed my life. I thought I was connected to something. No, I was just driven. I was not connected to anything but I’ll tell you why in the chapter called Applied Faith.

I always got this question wrong until I got it right. In the present, I start to understand so I can teach it. The only thing that applied faith is, is your ability to practice and activate your sixth sense. Applied faith is when you start believing in the invisible power. It’s when you start giving control to the thing beyond you. You do your own thing. You’re working on your plan, but you know the real plan comes from infinite intelligence. It comes from God. It comes back to you in another way you didn’t expect. This entire principle is based off your sixth sense, how to listen to the hunches you get like, “I feel like I should do this. It wasn’t planned but I feel like I should do this.”

That is the communication between you and this infinite power. I realized something. I was reading deeply into Napoleon’s work. I thought, “How does someone develop applied faith? I found it. The only way you can have a connection to the infinite power, have applied faith and have your sixth sense activate is when your mind is in a state of faith, which is one of the most powerful states. The only way you could do that is if you’re absent of fear. There’s no way. You can’t have fear in your mind. You can’t have fear in your life if you want to be connected.

This becomes controversial because people are like, “Fear comes.” I’m not talking about you’re not going to be scared or nervous about something. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about when your reality has a fixed variable of fear in it. You have a fear of something. You’re not facing something in one area of life. At home, your marriage is your fear. You can’t talk to the wife or husband. You’re fearful of losing your job. You’re like, “I’m connected. I’m going to do this.” No, you’re not. Your mind is creating, but it’s not connected to infinite intelligence. You’re going to the ocean with a spoon. It’s so insulting to your Creator. You go into the ocean with a spoon like, “Give me this much.” The ocean is looking at you like, “Bring the building. I could fill it up for you,” but it’s because you have fear and limitation. You can’t have applied faith unless you become absent of fear.

How do you do that? You can either be in two states of mind at all times, rather than the state of fear or thinking out of the state of faith. The obvious difference is this. When you’re thinking at the state of fear, you’re always thinking, “What if this happens?” The state of faith always says, “Let’s do it. It will work out anyways.” You can’t have both. At that time, I didn’t realize it but there was a lot of fear in my life. I feared a lot of things but I didn’t know that. It’s like trying to fill this bucket so it’s fully filled, so I become fulfilled. This is what I based my reborn experience off. We don’t realize there are holes in this bucket. We’re trying to plug one hole called money and one hole called health.

There are six different holes, six different areas of life. You’ve got your mind, your relationships, your money, your emotions, your time and your health. These are the six major things you got to work on. “If I go to a real estate seminar, I’ll make a lot of money. I’ll fix everything.” No, you plugged one hole and you got five other that are leaking in your bucket. My advice to that person is, first of all, look at these six areas of your life. If you rate them from one to ten, where’s it at? If it’s not all at ten, you can’t be connected. You can start developing, but you’re not at your maximum potential until it’s all plugged. Sometimes the hole opens up. No one’s perfect. That’s okay but it’s the consciousness that you know, “This is happening. I’m going to do something about it.” Ignorance towards things that you know is causing you to be in a fear state is one of the biggest blind spots to why people don’t succeed in life. They don’t get what they want and success is very simple.

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Napoleon Hill defines it as one specific term, “Success is the ability to change the circumstances you do not like, without violating the rights of others.” It has nothing to do with money and health. If you have enough money and you’re happy, you’re successful. If you want more money, how do you change the circumstance to have more money without violating other rights? That’s a success too. It’s relative. One thing is universal. If you have any part of your life that you don’t like, you’re unsuccessful in that area because you haven’t changed it yet. If you did it through violating people’s rights, stealing, lying, whatever, you’re still unsuccessful in that area. Maybe I’m successful in money, but I’m terrible in my relationship.

I’m visualizing the people that are reading, “What are some steps they can start taking starting now because there’s so much that you gave us?”

It all starts in the same place. You’ve got to work on yourself. What do I mean by that practically? Let’s talk about paying price. There are a lot of prices you’ve got to pay. The smallest price you have to always pay, which is hard mentally but physically is the easiest thing to do, is sit your ass down with a piece of paper and pen. Write down what you want in life, what you want your reality to be like. Write down who you’ve got to be to live that life. Write down the type of lover you want in your life. Write down the type of person you got to be to have a lover. Write down the money you want to make and ask yourself, “Who do I know that makes almost that much money, with that much money or more? I want to go see what their life is so I can model that.”

It’s about working to yourself. It goes back to the same principle, “Who do you need to be? What price do you get to pay to be able to earn that right to have that thing?” That’s the real price you pay. It’s a permanent success. You got to work on yourself. I would always sit down. This isn’t a one-time thing. I’ll have a massive momentum of success and then I’ll hit this plateau. That’s normal. Everything does this. Their heartbeat goes up and down. It’s normal. Every time I hit one of those, I’m like, “I’m excited. I got a plateau.” I’m about to get out of one. That’s exciting.

Here’s what I always do as if I’m starting from scratch. I sit down again with myself. I give myself time, hours. I go, “Let me write down. What do I want? Why do I want it? What am I willing to give to get it? Am I willing to give that?” I write everything out. Literature is so important. If you’re confused about your purpose in life or what you want, there’s no problem. Here’s how you fix that. Grab a pen and try to write out what you’re thinking in your head. You can be confused and writing at the same time. It would look weird. You’d be halfway down a sentence and scribbled it and do something. You can’t do it. It’s impossible. When you’re writing, you need to have definiteness to your thinking. Why? Because you can’t write half a word and scribble it out and get sidetracked.

When you verbally talk about it, it’s easier to be like, “I want to be a millionaire in real estate and also in mortgages. I’m probably going to build a business in social media.” Try to write all that. You’ll feel ridiculous because you can’t. You want to start the first step, transmitting your reality from thought to reality. Write it. Why? It’s the most instantaneous form of taking a thought and making it real in this real world. What you were thinking in this metaphysical world, this nonphysical world transmuted itself into words on a paper in this real world. That is the most instantaneous form of taking action on what you want.

The next thing after that when it’s all written out, ask yourself, “What’s the easiest first logical step I could take?” Here’s how Think and Grow Rich works in essence. I’m telling you the level two advanced stuff. If you don’t understand the mental filters of your mind and social readiness, none of this stuff clicks. You’ve got to pick up the book and read it. If I would’ve told you just the essence of action taking with goals, after you wrote it all down and still be like, “I don’t know what I want,” write down what you think you would want. Imagine you couldn’t feel. Write it down with no limitations. What I want is a hard question to answer because you got tons of different opinions that are clouding your judgment. What if you’re like, “I want this kind of woman,” but you’re like, “Mom is going to hate this up.” That’s what happens constantly. It is so annoyingly exhausting living in other people’s opinion. Let yourself free. Relieve yourself a bit. After you write it down, you ask yourself, “What do I want?”

Here’s the essence of how it works. Once you develop the principles of success in Think and Grow Rich, you have to develop the sixteen and seventeen principles. There are thirteen in Think and Grow Rich, sixteen or seventeen in the Law of Success. Develop the six core principles. Pick up this book. Read it. Study it. Do it. Highlight things. Make notes. Summarize it. Do it. Read it again. I read the same book. In the last few years, I keep reading. Develop the principles and habits of this book. That would be my direct advice for someone reading this. Go buy Think and Grow Rich and read it. Study it and do exactly what you learned. That alone has made more millionaires in the last century than any other book in the world. Do that. I’m not taking any credit on this advice. It’s all from the book.

If you want to write before you buy that book, write down on paper what you want. Then you ask yourself, “What can I do right now, even if I don’t know if it’s going to be the reason why I get what I want? What can I do right now?” If someone knows, “I have to go get a gym membership, all the stuff and lose weight,” there’s no problem. “What can I do right now? I can make a healthy decision to eat the next thing that can make me feel better. That’s what I can do right now. I can decide to do twenty pushups right now, just to get my blood flowing. I can do this.”

 

The faster and shorter gap you spend between your thinking and your doing, the faster and shorter this gap becomes and the quicker you start getting what you want. People prolong things because they’re not willing to pay the price. It’s something for nothing. Write it down and ask yourself in the next day, two days, three days, “What can I do right now?” It’s small things to build your confidence up and that will become the journey, the beginning of turning on the engine and the rudder starts moving then you give faith. Faith is the absence of fear. You might not be able to do this so quickly. You might have to get rid of the fear stuff in your life.

Eventually, you get to a place where you have faith. You’re like, “I’m going to take these actions. I have no idea if this is the reason I’ll get what I want or not. I know, whether it’s this or the new plan that I’m eagerly waiting for from infinite power, I’m going to get what I want.” It’s this the level of audacity you have, this boldness you have when you say, “I’m going to get what I want one way or another.” I call it audacity. I used to call it inner arrogance. No one else has to see the arrogance, but you can be arrogant inside. Your ego is healthy in a sense. You’re like, “I’m going to get what I want. I don’t care what anyone says.” That’s a good thought to have. That’s one of those thoughts that deflect fear of negative opinions. I hope that helps.

That’s not an ego of being conceited and arrogant towards people but it’s having that confidence in the laws, in yourself and in your ability to get results. What was coming up for me as you were explaining this is taking some small steps towards certain things. Maybe you want to be a millionaire. You start doing things to become a millionaire but then you have this fear of starting a business or rendering certain types of service that would get you a millionaire status. You can start small. Maybe you want to start with some small things to develop your faith, get rid of the fear and start tackling some of the things that you are fearful of. What would you suggest in that area for some people who may have fear, in order to get the ball rolling with developing more faith?

There are two ways to get rid of fear. I’ll use different sciences. It’s good to have a big toolbox. One way and the easiest way you can start is, right now, sit down and change the mental picture you have with this fear. When I worked with public speakers at Elite Speakers Academy, I have speakers come in and they have stage fright. They’ve got nerves and all this stuff. We do something called perceptual pivoting. It’s my way of how you’d be able to go into the mind, change and pivot the way you look at something. If you have a fear of talking to your wife or husband about divorce or fixing something, if you fear of getting rid of your job, fear of failure and all this stuff, you can sit down and you can visually manipulate what it looks like. That’s proven mental science. That’s proven that it will change the way you feel about it in your body. Fear is just a body feeling. It’s a sensation in your stomach you’ve got and it’s all triggered by something in your mind.

If you want to change the fear, you’ve got to change and manipulate the thought or the mental image of it, the imaginative experience of it. Change it. It will change how you feel. That’s not permanent. If you’re still being a person who is like that and you haven’t paid the price to change who you are, it’s going to come back, but it’s a good temporary fix to give you some momentum. The second way is you face it. It’s the easiest permanent way to do it. Face it, whatever it is. Public speakers, for example, I throw them on stage. “Are you afraid? Go up there and tell us about your life.” You know the content so you can’t be afraid or nervous. You know it. It’s your life. You’re doing it. Eventually, you realize it’s just a sensation of emotional that dies out. That’s all it is.

I watched a video of Will Smith. I loved it. He was talking about the story of going skydiving. He was sweating. He gets thousands of feet into the air. He’s about to jump. He’s like, “I’m not doing this.” He’s deathly afraid. They’re like, “One, two.” On two, they would make him jump. There are no people who stop at three. They make him jump. Within seconds in the air, he realized quickly there was no point of being afraid of anything. He is like, “It’s only on the other side of fear where the greatest things in life are. I love that video. I watched it years ago. That’s what life is. Some fears are relationship fears, money fears, job fears and loss of something serious. It’s all perception. If you could change the way you look at, it’s always going to change. You’re always going to feel different.

The second, the fastest way, is go face it. I’ll give some advice. In the morning, I practice the muscle, my ability to do things I don’t want to do. Here’s how I do it. I get in the shower. As I’m doing my thing, I have these self-suggestions I give myself through Napoleon Hill. I create autosuggestion based on like, “I’m strong. I’m able. I’m calm,” and I’m always saying these things. By the end of it, I say this affirmation, this mantra for myself. I say a bunch of things like, “I’m a high performer. By this date, I’m going to have this much money.” I see all these things. The last thing I say is, “I do things people can’t do.” That’s why I’m successful. I do things people won’t do. I turn my water ice cold and I take a deep breath.

As this bone-chilling cold hits my skin, I repeat to myself, “Comfort is my enemy. Contentment is my friend. Discomfort is my growth. Discomfort is my power. Discomfort is where I grow.” I say this over and over as I bathed in this ice-cold water. It’s incredible. It wakes you up. A few years I’ve been doing this cold-water shower method. I realize in life, I did this thing where I turn the knob to the right and face cold water, which is mentally scary. In my life, I build this newfound confidence, where if I’m going to do something that’s a little risky, it’s the same response I have. “I do things people can’t do. I do things people won’t do.” It’s cold water but I run into it just like the water I do in life.

How you do one thing is how you do everything. A very cool hack and ability to break your comfort zone and confront fears is to do things that are not that scary but are in your mind. Small things like approaching a stranger and saying, “Hi.” “I’m going to faint if I do.” No, you’re not. The person is either going to reject you and say, “Who are you?” or they’re going to say, “Hey.” Do the smallest things that are easy but in relativity to your mind, it seems so drastically scary. This is what you hack. It’s a cheat. You trick your mind into feeling like you overcame this scary thing when you just turned the water cold. That little thing, perceptually rewires your brain. It gives you a little confidence. Most of the time, when people feel with this is because they try to do such big real things.

They’re like, “I’ve got to quit my career of 30 years and start my own business.” That’s hard. It’s 30 years of income but that’s their criteria. They’re like, “That’s the measurement. I want to face my fears. I’m ready for that.” Go do a week of cold-water showers. Go jump in an ice bath. Go out and talk to random strangers and do some crazy things that will make you build a muscle. That’s like saying, “I want to go and bench press 400 pounds.” It’s never going to work. You’ll never do it because you know you’ll die. Second, you’ll never begin because you’re not thinking about the next step. You’re thinking about the top of the mountain. You’re looking at it like, “I can’t jump up there.” You’re forgetting about the millions of steps you’ve got to take first.

That’s the price you’ve got to pay. Thank you for all of the information you dropped on us. You are a ball of fire. The world needs to look out for you. How can people connect with you if they wanted to learn more about you, get coaching from you and get advice from you?

Thank you for bringing me on this episode. It is my honor. You’re doing incredible things, Rodney. The world should look out for you if they haven’t already caught some of your fire. Like attracts like and I am so excited that I’m on this show. Thank you for bringing me on and letting me share this passion. I’m lit up. I get a big buzz out of being able to help and share these things in my mind. I feel selfish if I keep it to myself. Thank you for the opportunity. If anyone wants to get in contact with me, the most obvious thing to do is Google my name, Armin Shafee. I have a website called ArminShafee.com. You could see a bunch of stuff there. You can read my story. You can get in contact with me. That’s all great. Another way you can quickly respond and I’ll respond to you is Facebook. You find Armin Shafee. You’ll find me. There are not many. You click that one. The second is my Instagram, @TheArminShafee. It’s any one of those three platforms: website, Facebook and Instagram. I always love starting conversations. Every time I’ve gone on a podcast, I’ve had dozens of people reach out after. I always get on calls with some of the people. It’s a lot of fun. I hope you do reach out. I’m one of the people that would love to talk to you about your situation or continue this conversation.

I recommend that you do. Reach out to this guy. I noticed that it didn’t take long for me to understand that he has a passion and a heart by helping people in this business to get what they want out of life. Here’s the deal. You have to do the work. We’ve already seen that he’s going to bring the whip out to make you get the work done but that’s what we need in this world. There are more people that are willing to get the work done. This has been a very successful show. There are lots of good information.

For my readers out there, get out a piece of paper. Schedule out some time and write down who you want to become. Take a look at those six areas that Armin has shared with us and start right now. A lot of times, we think we need to go out in the environment and produce change, but change starts with us. It can be as simple as sitting down at the table and start writing down what it is that you want, relative to those six areas in your life. That truly is game-changing. Thank you for reading. I love you and until next time, be blessed.

Important Links: 

• Armin Shafee
• Law of Success
• Think and Grow Rich
• Ask and It Is Given
• Think and Grow Rich
• You Were Born Rich
• Elite Speakers Academy
• ArminShafee.com
• Facebook.com/arminshafee1 – Armin’s Facebook
• Instagram.com/thearminshafee – Armin’s Instagram
• Is Life Knocking You Down? Read Rodney’s inspiring story – Get Up! I Can’t. I Will. I Did… Here’s How! https://rodneyflowers.com/get-up-book/
• Recognize Your Positive Potential – Essential Assertions by Rodney Flowers https://rodneyflowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
• Get Access to Rodney’s Daily Inspiration in your Inbox Today https://rodneyflowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734

About Armin Shafee

Almost dying at the age of 18, Armin Shafee was REBORN and made a life-altering decision to reset, redefine and redesign his life. That lead Armin on a long journey of studying and mastering the top sciences & philosophies in the world to take possession of his mind. After using Napoleon Hills Law of Success Philosophy to produce unheard of results in his own life and business, Armin was introduced to the President of Think and Grow Rich which lead to the first-ever partnership in the history of Think and Grow Rich Institute.

He is an Award Winning International Speaker, the Vice President of Think and Grow Rich Institute, Success Coach to thousands of Sales People and CEO’s, Certified Speaking Trainer, The Upcoming Author of the book – The Winners Manifesto, and the Founder of International Brands, Elite Speakers Academy, and The REBORN Experience.

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