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I want to talk about one of the foundational lessons that I’ve learned and concepts I’ve really experimented with when it comes to getting more of what we want out of life.
It could be money, fame, achievement, success, whatever it is we want. It all happens in these three levels of consciousness of evolution — levels of your own personal development.
We can break these down into three levels.
If we understand what these three levels are, how to move from one level to another, and what the actions are that are necessary in each stage — we can get way more of what we want.
It’s been one of the coolest concepts I’ve ever learned.
 

Where Did This Come From?

I initially learned this from a man by the name of Eben Pagan, who’s an incredible entrepreneur and an even better teacher. I learned about this through one of his programs called Self Made Wealth.
The way I would describe the first stage of our own personal human evolution is the take, take, take stage. In the take, take, take stage, that’s where we’re born. That’s the way we live as a child, as an infant. We’re always looking out for ourselves. We’re making sure that our basic needs, wants, and desires are taken care of.
Now, that’s totally normally for a human being to be in that stage.
It’s what we’re born into, but ultimately, it’s important to move out of that stage and into these other two stages.
The reason for that is that when we’re in stage one, if we’re constantly living for ourselves, and we’re not thinking about others, we’re kind of coming at the whole game of life. We’re coming at the game from a — there’s not enough to go around for everybody — type of mindset. That’s generally what you continue to get.
 

Expectations

At level two, you have a one-for-one sort of stage or level, where everything you do is an exchange.
Every dollar that you give somebody or spend on somebody is an exchange. If I buy you a burrito, you buy me a burrito. If I pick you up from the airport, you owe me a favor.
That type of mentality leads to a lot of internal pain in the person who’s waiting, because what’s happening at level two is that there’s an expectation, right?
Pretty basic. You’re doing a favor for somebody, and you’re saying, “Well, I gave you one, you give me one.”
And there’s an expectation.
The problem with that is we can’t control everybody. We can’t make sure that every single person gives us a favor back. So next thing you know, you’re finding yourself doing two favors, three favors, four favors, for somebody, and you’re like, “Wait a second. This person just doesn’t get it. What’s going on? They’re not doing anything for me.”
That causes a lot of internal pain, suffering, and we try to control that other person, or we get mad at them for not reading our minds and knowing that they should be doing the same thing.
And you know what?
Some people are just never going to know to give back. But even if they were, even it was a one-for-one exchange all the time, that still is not a state where we’re getting what we really want in life.
 

The Power of Giving

Where we get what we really want is level three.
Level three is when we give, give, give, and we give without expectation.
We give purely for the sake of giving. It’s not as easy to just give, because our brain wants to immediately take us back to either level two or level one.
The way I do it, is I turn it into a game. I think about how I could do something for someone that would excite them, that would surprise them, make it fun.
Things that are just unexpected.
The beautiful thing about level three is that when you start playing at level three, you start to attract level three people. Keep in mind, you may start giving, but that’s going to get annoying after a while if that person still doesn’t get it, right?
But when you start to act that way and be that kind of person, you start to attract those type of people. Your peer group changes. Your friends change. Your environment changes. You start to be able to play the game of life with people that just get it.
What happens is actually really incredible. You’re surrounded by a group of people where their only focus is on creating and giving more to the environment around them, to create more fun, more whatever, for everyone around them.
Now I don’t like using use the word (because it’s a bit of a platitude), but this is an abundant mindset, right? The idea is simple, that there’s more than enough to go around. That’s the state that we’re operating from. It is truly an abundant, plentiful, mindset.
 

Why Does This Matter?

Giving without expectation, and knowing that life has a way of bringing it back to us. For some reason, our brains are conditioned to protect us, right?
That’s just what they do, so we’re thinking, “If I give, am I going to have enough to take care of myself?”
But that comes from a fight or flight perspective. That’s just your amygdala firing off and taking care of you, and protecting you, and there’s fear involved with just giving, going, “Where am I going to be able to … Am I going to” …
Especially when it comes to money for people, if they give too much and wondering if they’re going to get their investment back.

Tweet: The most beautiful thing is when we just give without expectation.

It leads to so many incredible situations and experiences in life.
Try it out. See what you think.
As always, let me know how it goes.
 
Photo credit: Walking towards the light—CC license