Do you believe what you want most is right in front of you, and you’re just not seeing it? Our recent guest, James Purpura asked Todd and I this question. How would you answer it?
“Picture in your mind a man. This man wants more than anything to be loved. He wants to be in a relationship, but he has abysmal self-esteem; a terrible self-image.
James Purpura
One day this man walks into a store. The woman behind the counter starts flirting with him.
Is he likely to recognize the flirtatious behavior?”
Probably not
What you feel on the inside is what’s reflected on the outside. Perception is about seeing opportunity right in front of you….or not.
“If this guy can have the thing he wants most in the world standing right in front of him and misses the opportunity to get it; could this be happening to you?”
James Purpura
The principle of perception is this: If you don’t have what you want already, then this scenario is likely happening to you every single day.
Low self-esteem (a belief on the inside) keeps this man from seeing the opportunity to have exactly what he wants, and he fails to react in a successful way (a projected behavior on the outside)
James Purpura experienced life’s extremes. Drug addiction, solitary confinement in jail, and self-introspection. Like many of us, he reached a point in life where personal change was necessary, or self-destruction was imminent.
“By the time I got to Kindergarten, it became apparent I had pretty severe learning disabilities. The first day of special ed class the teacher brought me to the front of the room.
“Only retarded, stupid kids go to special ed.” The teacher said.
I was shocked and embarrassed. As I walked out of the room the entire class called me stupid.”
James Purpura
James hoped this was a one-time occurrence. Nope. Every single day the teacher called him up in front of the class, called him stupid, and had his classmates repeat the same.
From that point forward, James felt like a victim in life.
“Things were happening TO me, not BECAUSE of me.”
One day while in solitary confinement incarceration, James made a list of people whom he felt had harmed him. He would try to offer forgiveness to those on his list.
“The only common denominator between all the people on this list and the situations that involved me, was ME. What if I somehow created all of this?”
James considered his discovery more deeply, even recognizing that a person could not create SOME of his/her life. Either he was the creator ALL of his experiences, or not.
“If I was the creator of my experiences, that meant I could create something new, different, and magical in its place.
If I wasn’t the creator of my experience than it meant the world really was a crappy place, and I probably don’t want to be here anymore.”
Instead of offering forgiveness to the people on his list, James offered gratitude to them for giving him choices.
Since then, James has been on a mission to figure out how we can all go about creating our experiences. It became about what he chose to believe about himself based on the abuse he’d suffered.
“If your life is not what you wanted it to be, it’s not because you did anything wrong, it’s because you made the only choice you could with the information available to you.
There’s nothing wrong with YOU, it’s only an information problem. We get our information through perception.”
“Whatever you’re trying to create in your life: money, happiness, well-being it’s all about perception. Creating money is about shifting your perception of the outside world. Creating well-being is about shifting your perception of the inside world.”
James and his wife, Steph have written a book, and produced a movie (of the same title) for anyone who wants more. Perception: Seeing is Not Believing is available now.
You have the opportunity and the availability to change your interpretation of self and the world around you; shifting what you feel and believe on the inside, and create a magical life for yourself.
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