Smart

Are you smart enough not to be stupid? Find out in this mini podcast from John Morgan.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

Find the written versions of these podcasts on John's website: https://grasshoppernotes.com​​ 

"The Grasshopper" the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

• Mindfulness
• Peace of mind
• Creativity
• How to stay in the present moment
• Spirituality
• Behavior improvement

And stories that transform you to a wider sense of awareness that presents more options. And isn't that what we all want, more options? 

John uploads these podcasts on a regular basis. So check back often to hear these podcasts heard around the world. Who wants to be the next person to change? 

Make sure to order a copy of John's new book: WISDOM OF THE GRASSHOPPER – 21 Days to Creativity. These mini-meditations take you inside where all your creative resources live. And you'll come out not only refreshed but recommitted to creating your future. 

It's only $16.95 and available at BLURB.COM at the link below. https://www.blurb.com/b/10239673-wisd...

Also, download John's FREE book INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change. It's available at John's website  https://GrasshopperNotes.com

Transcript

Smart

You may need to be smart to get through school but you don’t need to be intelligent to get through life.

There are probably no dumb doctors. Even the one who graduated at the bottom of their class had to have had some smarts to get through medical school. Smart is overrated. I used to work with a guy who was dumber than a stump who went on to be a roller rink mogul and made more money than all of his coworkers combined. His IQ was close to that of a plant but it didn’t stop him from succeeding or being happy. I'll now quote a question a friend of mine asks. “If you’re so damn smart, how come you’re not rich?”

When you adjudge yourself as smarter than someone, it proves very little. It just puts another notch on your belt about how superior you believe you are to them.

If you think about it, your intellect is a collection vessel for facts, figures and concepts, and logic is the conscious assembling of that data. The bigger the vessel, the bigger the bragging rights. It is amazing to me how often what we know keeps us stuck in the snow. We dig ourselves deeper into our ditch because we are flooring the gas pedal of logic to get unstuck.

Smart and not so smart, alike, are programmed by another part of their mind that doesn’t pay attention to logic. This "other-than-conscious" part of your mind weaves whatever data that got into your facts and figures receptacle (intellect) into patterns of thinking and behavior that have nothing to do with logic. These routines that form will run us for the rest of our life unless we outgrow them. Here’s the rub that will rub your nose into reality – your superior intellect will never figure out how to outgrow a pattern logically.

For example, there are smart and stupid fat people. Reminds me of a story . . .

When I was in high school we had a neighbor who had a degree in nursing and had a master’s degree in nutrition and she was the head dietician at the local hospital. She could tell you the chemical composition of any food or beverage and she also had complete conscious command of the caloric content of any meal. She weighed close to 300 pounds. She was smart and dangerously overweight.

Staying with weight for a moment . . . you didn’t gain weight intellectually. You didn’t say to yourself, “I think I’ll go up 2 or 3 pants sizes.” You won’t lose weight intellectually either. That’s called a diet. Yes, you will drop some pounds as long as you intellectually follow the dictates of the diet, but the minute that conscious effort wanes, you go back to where you were and then some. Your weight is controlled by patterns formed a long time ago.

Everyone has the ability to communicate with and update the part of their mind that weaves data together that forms patterns that were originally purposeful. You may have outgrown the purpose that a pattern was originally formed for, but the pattern keeps running because it’s never been updated. The pattern doesn’t know why it runs; it just runs because that it's purpose. You can't update it by being smart. You update it by getting your intellect out of the way – no matter how large or small.

The intellect is a wonderful part of our mind and it serves an important function. The difficulty is when it attempts to do a job it’s not suited for. That’s when we fall face first into the mud and stay there.

When you learn to affect the part of your mind that updates your patterns, you go to the head of the class.

The frame of mind that you enter through quiet contemplation or meditation is the place where all patterns can be updated. Just make an intention and then enter your mental place of quiet reflection with that intention in mind and watch the magic begin to work. You'll need to do this practice with frequency to get results. It sure beats having to use logic to explain why you’re not where you want to be.

Having written this over 15 years ago, I was struck with serendipity when I saw this post from my friend Jerry Stocking written today.

"It takes being stupid to be certain. Intelligence requires fostering of possibilities. Especially the possibility of being wrong. Truly intelligent people know knowledge never rests, but if it did it would be on a foundation of abandoned certainties."

And finally, I'll sign off this mini podcast with a maxim my 4th grade teacher taught us:

“You can have what you want or your reasons why not.”

All the best,

John