“Which brings us to the part that’s going to knock your socks off. Not long ago I was watching Tony Robbins’ TED talk. It’s mandatory viewing, I have to say. In his audience are some of the most highly accomplished people of our time, including Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States of America, who won an Oscar for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Robbins asks his esteemed audience to raise their hands if they can admit to failures in their life. Everyone’s hands go up. Next, Robbins asks the room full of high achievers to cite what lack of resources they blame for their failures. As each reason is called out it lights up on the screen behind the super coach: didn’t have the technology, didn’t have enough knowledge, and surprisingly, for a room full of multi-millionaires, enough time and money. A moment of humour ensues as Al Gore nominates not having the Supreme Court in his pocket for the reason he lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush.

As the powerful creators that they are, the audience, along with Al Gore, have no problem in agreeing with Robbins that all the given reasons are merely excuses, and not the honest cause of their failures. What might have been news to some or all of them is the true determinant that Robbins reveals – the emotion underlying the pursuit of end results. The perfect case in point he uses is the lack of passion Al Gore evidenced in his election campaign, which, had it been present, would have easily garnered him enough votes to win the election without the Supreme Court being forced to weigh in on the outcome.

We already know from the story of Wag Dodge and the escape fire that emotions drive decisions and actions, which constitute behavior. While we might be mystified by – or even have all kinds of theories for – the way things work out in our lives, our behavior is the cause of all the effects we generally experience. Knowing this gives you the ultimate key to creative mastery, especially when you consider the fact that every choice you make is loaded with the emotion of its motivating principle.

When you are driven by the tension to resolve your limited beliefs, the emotion corresponding with those beliefs pervade your consciousness, promoting stale thinking and strategies. In the structure of Negative Vision, you will always be struggling against your sense of separation and limitation, forever having to force your way through the fears, doubts and obstacles the underlying emotion impresses on you. 

For instance, if your ambition for high achievement is motivated by your sense of I’m Not Good Enough, the emotion of emptiness will resound in your Subconscious, even while on the surface you might feel highly enthused. End results will be attained more by hard, mechanical work than as a result of creative flow. And when you finally do get your outcome, you may feel disappointed that it is not as satisfying as you anticipated…somehow, it is meaningless, not enough. Certainly Tony Robbins’ TED Talk audience could relate to this last point.

On the other hand, when your vision is true, and your end result is born of what you honestly love, that aspiration is aligned with your Genius, the part of you connected to everything through all time and space. The corresponding emotion will carry the resonance of your most inspired level of consciousness. 

Here, I’ll just say that this Super Conscious type of emotion is not of the same quality as those we associate with Unconscious reaction, like anger or fear or shame – not even the so called positive reactions like excitement, elation or cheerfulness. It has a more refined resonance, an almost empty and serene quality, but unequivocally conveying a sense of connection to whatever you are relating to. 

This higher emotion induces creative insights and solutions, as well as enthuses you to take dynamic action. The sense of connection to your end result awakens you to its greater benefit and encourages you in its possibility, all of which energize you in following through. Under the influence of the emotion of true end results, you are automatically more engaged, inspired and proactive, all qualities highly beneficial to creating great outcomes.”

William Whitecloud