The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion

Inner Authority Imagine that you’re standing in front of an audience of one or many. See an image of your Shadow off to one side, facing you. Ignore the audience completely and focus all of your attention on the Shadow. Feel an unbreakable bond between the two of you—as a unit you’re fearless. Together, you and the Shadow forcefully turn toward the

A sense of purpose doesn’t come from thinking about it. It comes from taking action that moves you toward the future. The moment you do this, you activate a force more powerful than the desire to avoid pain. We call this the “Force of Forward Motion.”

When consumers say, “taking care of us,” they really mean exonerating us from the struggle. But the story explains that God’s real “job” is to keep us in the struggle. This view of God doesn’t go down well when your ultimate goal is a life of ease.

The central task of an adult is to find her purpose in the world.

Watch little kids, particularly when they’re playing. They aren’t self-conscious or insecure. They express themselves freely and exuberantly. They almost never freeze.

Pillar 1: Thinking about higher forces is worthless, you have to experience them.

Over and over again, we’ve seen how hard it is to make insecurity go away. Facts and logic don’t work. Insecure people often go to extraordinary lengths for some goal they hope will make them feel better—they’ll lose weight, get an advanced degree, work 24–7 to win a promotion. But every time, the sense of inadequacy returns; insecurity seems to ha

Pillar 3: Personal problems drive the evolution of the individual.

That’s the genius of the tools. Each tool in this book lets you “imitate” the workings of a different higher force, putting you at one with it and tapping its energy.