I appreciate the feedback and I understand that it appears I am so far wrong, and yes, I will repeat it again.  I know it runs contrary to everything you have believed all your life, but circumstances do not cause feelings. We can’t go into great depths on this today, but I think that in another 30 seconds you will believe that this is at least a possibility, and the doorway to the life you dream of will have started to creak open. Circumstances do not cause feelings, thoughts cause feelings. As we said before, if your dog get’s hit by a car and you don’t know it, your feelings have not changes. It is only when you know it and think specific thoughts that feelings are evoked. Conversely, if you were told that your dog were hit by a car you would likely start thinking thoughts that would evoke the same feelings, even if your informant was mistaken and it was a different dog. It is literally “the thought that counts.”

In every case the feelings we feel are generated by the thoughts we think, not by circumstance. Not only is this a critical piece of marketing understanding, it may well be the one most important understanding we need in order to lead a rich, full life free from the influence of circumstance that besieges us every day. Circumstances do not cause feelings.

Think about it. This means we can feel happy, at peace, angry, distraught, or any other feeling we chose, every moment. This means that we can immediately eliminate the ability that every other person has to push our buttons. This means that we are free! Think about it. Right now you have a problem, something that is bothering you, a situation or circumstance that you wish were otherwise. It is eating at you, invading your life, your sleep, your relationships, your finances, making you feel lousy. There may be nothing you can do about the circumstance, but . . . it is not the circumstance that is bothering you, it is what you are thinking about the circumstance. Therein lays your power.

Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, the Dalai Lama, your grandfather, everyone who would wish you a joyful life is trying to tell you this in one way or another. This one concept is the key to living the live you choose to lead. It eliminates the victim option entirely. It takes away the ability for anyone else to “make” you happy or sad, and it gives you the immediate and absolute power to control the only thing you really want to control, the way you feel. Sorry, but you don’t need money to feel rich, you don’t need status to feel important, and you don’t need a lover to feel loved. You have the ability, right now, to generate any of those feelings within you without your circumstance changing. It is really that simple, but no, it’s not really that easy. The illusion of circumstance has served us for so long that we have a hard time letting go. It hasn’t been all bad either. We hang onto it because it has served us in the past, and it is much easier for us to continue believing in something that leaves us powerless. You are no longer responsible for . . . for anything . . . circumstance did it. Yes our biggest fear is of how infinitely powerful we may actually be. It is more responsibility that we care to handle, and the repercussions of this responsibility far too significant. If that is the case with you (which it is) then go with it, blame circumstance and you’re off the hook, but remember, you are the one who has chosen to stand in a dark room. If on the other hand, you want the pain to stop, the excuses to end, your smile to return, and your dreams to miraculously come true, you might decide right now, to stop believing that your feelings are caused by circumstance.

Long ago I heard that meditation will solve all of our problems. I didn’t believe it at the time, but now I see that meditation annihilates our imaginary link between circumstance and feeling. In a very short time the link abates and we are left with nothing but joy. That’s where I would start.

This afternoon I had the opportunity to visit DDB Seattle advertising agency with some of my students from Seattle U.  Once again Dan Miller gave us an excellent tour, and once again I was impressed with the agency. I was also reminded once again how easily influenced our species is and how little we believe that is true. Last year I was half-asleep in a sauna listening to four young men talk about how stupid people are who think that people’s behavior can change just because they watch a movie for and hour, “Especially when we know it’s a movie that somebody made up!”

I said nothing, but thought about marketing and advertising and the challenges that are faced every day. They collect data, they analyze, and they guess. The problem is that if they guess wrong, they are out of business, yet in the final analysis, they don’t know if their plan is going to work or not. To make matters worse, their client is not guessing, their client is calculating. They are calculating that if their business runs a 10% profit margin, and they buy 30 second spot on NBC for $100,000, it has to generate an additional $1,000,000 in sales – to break even! That’s a tough mark to hit day after day, but they do it. Not because they can analyze their way to a successful campaign, but because they have a good system, they know something of the human psyche, and they are not afraid to guess. It also works because our ego won’t let us believe that it works.

When I left the club that day there were four young men getting on their motorcycles – all smoking Marlboro’s. They actually believe that their Marlboro decision is based on taste, or price, or wisdom, but the rest of us know better – and it didn’t take an hour.

After a marketing class last night a student asked “so, if everything we do is to alter a feeling within us, but we don’t need to do anything to alter our feelings, then why does marketing work and why do we do all the things we do?”

Very good question!

It works because people believe that the path to altered feelings is through altered circumstance. And yes, it has everything to do with marketing, everything to do with life, and yes, it is not at all as it seems.  As a matter of fact, it is virtually the opposite of what it seems.  We think, all of us, that in order to alter the way we feel, we must alter our circumstances.  An advertisement promises us that if we take a certain action we will be rewarded with a corresponding feeling.  We take the action and indeed it works!  The problem is that we now must continue taking the action forever if we want to maintain the feeling.  This is why most of us spend our entire lives working frantically to alter our circumstances so that we can have a feeling we desire.  It will never work.

The good news is that  we can change the way we feel without circumstance changing.  They are independent. Feelings are not caused by circumstance.  Let me say that again, feelings are not caused by circumstance.  ”Yes” you say.  ”My dog got hit by a car, so I feel sad.”  True, but it was not the circumstance that caused the sad feeling, it was what you think about the circumstance. Therein lies our power, our hope, our only real chance to lead a joyful life.  If you did not know that your dog had been hit by a car you would not be sad.  It is only when you know, and can think about it, that you become sad.  There is nothing wrong with being sad, it is often healthy, but if you are scrambling to get enough love, money, health, power, position, or anything else in order to feel better, it’s going to be a long desperate battle, and in the end you will lose.

The key to not even having to fight the battle is to learn early in the game, that circumstance does not cause feelings and feelings do not cause thoughts. Thoughts cause feelings, and circumstance are irrelevant.  The really good news is that whatever your problem, it is a feeling, and no matter how hopeless or desperate you feel, there is nothing outside of you that needs to change in order for you to feel great.  Once again, there is nothing outside of you that needs to change in order for you to feel great.  Simply change your thoughts, and your feelings must change, regardless of what is going on around you.

In a moment advertising loses it’s hold on you, you care very little what others think, the sun starts shining brighter, and you find yourself feeling infinitely better. And somehow, that I will never fully understand, serendipity seems to thrive in this moment. Time and time again I have watched as people extricate themselves from the illusion of circumstance and find that their problems have miraculously disappeared.  This world is certainly not as it seems.