September 25 2022

Life’s Missing Instruction Manual By Joe Vitale Book Summary

Sherming Book Summaries, Sex & Relationships

Life’s Missing Instruction Manual, The Guidebook You Should Have Been Given at Birth By Joe Vitale

Table of Contents

Recommendation

Joe Vitale’s life manual is packed with his highly personal brand of new-age wizardry and inscrutable passages from other modern day self-help philosophers. With aphorisms, maxims and fables on ideas and subjects ranging from sex, food and forgiveness to personal finance, taxes, purpose in life and how to handle death, he proffers a broad, mixed bag of advice – some he wrote and some he anthologizes – with a touch of humor and a dash of preachiness. Rather than presenting a singular world view or moral system, Vitale combs popular self-help best sellers, consults some sweeping religious concepts, and synthesizes their teachings with his own insight. The resulting book is at times quite sharp and smart, and at times simplistic and sentimental. getAbstract recommends it to those who are seeking meaning in their lives and peace in their relationships. Vitale offers enough diverse insights, both familiar and fresh, that some of them are bound to apply – if only to spur your thinking.

Take-Aways

You shape reality by directing your thoughts as well as your actions. You can control what you think and, therefore, what reality you create.
You cannot control the universe, but you can affect it to benefit your life.
You will become like those whom you chose to have around you. Select carefully.
Obstacles and disasters affect every life. How will you respond? What will you learn?
At the end of the day, it is up to you to decide how you will consider the world. No philosopher, religious figure or other thinker has all the answers.
You can’t choose your parents, and in many ways you can’t choose your children. People are who they are. Learning to accept them is a worthwhile challenge.
Cultivate crucial life skills: learn to listen, learn to forgive and learn to recognize how your deeds affect others.
You can’t change human nature. No matter how hard you wish they would change, people will act like people.
Life is extremely short – be mindful of how you are living. You only get one shot.
Be nice.

Life’s Missing Instruction Manual Book Summary

Your Power over Reality

Your body comes fully assembled, but it will require food, exercise and sex. It is capable of smiling, which is a powerful communication tool. And, it is capable of laughing, something you should do regularly. Most people see reality as something that they exist within, in their physical form, rather than something they are responsible for creating by how they “focus their mind.” The truth is that individuals exercise choice and can shape reality. By force of will, you can decide to be happy. By controlling your thoughts, you can exert influence on the conditions around you, recognizing that:

Life does not have to be hard. With the right perspective life can seem easy and enjoyable. Attitude is up to you.
The thoughts that you have actually exert energy on the world around you.
You can learn to manipulate your thoughts, choosing which ones to accept and which ones to reject, in order to shape reality to your will.
The situations you find yourself in often are manifestations from inside your mind. You are responsible for how your inner self affects the outer world.
Your actions define your nature, and so your nature is also malleable to your will. You define yourself, so positive affirmations have positive impacts.

“Energy makes up your entire world – you, me, this book, the chair you’re sitting on, the room you’re in and so on. How you think begins to organize energy into form.”

In this world where the thoughts and nature of the individual are in constant interplay with external reality, a “law of attraction” is at work. Both the things you love and the things you hate “will be drawn to you” because you focus on them. Therefore it is important to be very mindful of what you choose to focus on; the concepts and thoughts you entertain will become part of your reality. This gives you the power to influence your circumstances positively, simply by using your mind. As Buddha put it, “Everything that is, was first a thought.” By positively controlling your thoughts, you can:

Achieve goals by fully imagining success.
Gain serenity by releasing bad thoughts and discarding old limits.
Build your self-esteem by focusing on the positive.
Control the beliefs that dictate your behavior.
Direct your future by conceptualizing it in your imagination.

“You’ll find this hard to believe at first, but everything in your life is a projection from the shadow side of your own mind.”

There are, of course, limits to the power you can exert over reality. You cannot stop catastrophes from occurring, nor can you alter nature. But you can shape the social realities surrounding you. And because individuals determine so much of reality, it is important to be discriminating about the companions you select to have around you: “If you hang out with losers, you will gravitate toward losing. If you hang out with winners, the same is true.”

“The only limits are your own mental ones.”

You want a number of different types of people around you who will have a positive impact on your life and will complement your best aspirations and ambitions. Such people include:

People who achieve – This can mean different things, and certainly does not necessarily equate to wealth.
Kind people – It makes no sense to spend time with people who are not kind; life is too short.
Positive people – “People who get things done” are good to keep around, as they will spur good things to happen for you.
People who can see the future – It is important to befriend “a true psychic,” someone who has the wisdom required to see circumstances over the horizon and to prepare whatever might happen.
People who are grounded in reality – And who can communicate directly.

“See life for what it is. Realize you have control only over your tiny piece of the overall puzzle. Realize that, when you fit your tiny piece into the overall plan, it is there for the good of all.”

The lyrics to the 1960s song “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” contain a powerful lesson about the way that the world works. The lesson is that “everything happens for a reason.” Obstacles, challenges and disasters are the root of wisdom. Everything that happens, good or bad, contains a lesson that you can capture if you are mindful and open to the inherent teachings in your life.

“The point of power in your life is now.”

Most important, you create your own worldview. Be selective and responsible. Any of the religious or philosophical systems you encounter are ultimately based on opinion. At the end of the day, it is up to you to choose the foundation of how you will view the world.

Do Unto Others…

The Golden Rule – “Treat others as you want to be treated” – is a “million-dollar principle” by which you can live your life. It is the first and most important rule for interpersonal communications. Recognizing the connection between yourself and others is the first step to a successful, happy life. Understand it, and you will benefit from the “Law of Reciprocation,” which results in others helping you get what you want because you do the same for them.

“Although you may never be able to wrap your head around this concept, all time happens right now.”

The following 15 concepts are helpful when considering your relationships with other people in your workplace or your family:

“Your parents did the best they could” – Being a parent is hard and often the people who have the job are unprepared for it. But it is important to recognize your parents’ humanity. Don’t hold grudges against them. They probably didn’t know any better.
“Your children will become what they become” – Ultimately, you cannot control what kind of people your kids become. You have some control, but they will grow to be their own people, pick their own friends and conceptualize their own destiny.
“You can achieve anything with support” – No matter what goal you set for yourself, if you receive enough support from the people around you, it is possible to achieve it.
Listening is an incredibly important life skill – Research shows that most people retain only about 20% of what passes through their ears, because they are “distracted, preoccupied or forgetful three quarters of the time.” Learning to listen is one of life’s greatest lessons, and pays great social dividends. Learning to hear what others are really saying is key to a successful life.
“What you do influences people down the chain” – Many social interactions are the compound result of prior social interactions. Negative social behavior begets more of the same, spreading from one person to the next. To make the world better, decide to exercise control over this phenomenon – counteracting it by behaving positively.
“People like nice people” – In other words, “be nice.” This is simple, but true advice. Mean people are much less likely to get their way in most social circumstances.
“People want to be loved” – If people feel they are loved, they will respond with love.
Know “how to end an argument” – Learn to become the first person in any given dispute to end a conflict with an apology. Apologies disarm tense situations.
Understand “how to deal with an enemy” – It may be counterintuitive, but ask your enemy for advice. You gain the high ground, and “the enemy will open up to you.”
“Everyone is going through something” – You may feel, on occasion, that you are the only one going through one of life’s myriad challenges, but you are not alone. Recognizing that will make you empathetic and will help you find common ground with other people.
“People respond to flattery” – Telling someone that he or she is smart, capable or otherwise terrific will always create goodwill.
“People will never argue with you if you never make them wrong” – Remember that lesson about listening? If you listen when someone confronts you with a complaint or argument instead of immediately defending yourself, you can disarm the situation before it becomes negative.
“People will follow commands that make them feel superior” – Phrasing commands in such a way as to appeal to people’s egos is an excellent way to produce a positive response in most circumstances.
“People unconsciously respond to your unconscious intentions” – What you don’t say to people is almost as important as what you do say. Your unconscious intentions will be apparent to people, whether you verbally express them or not.
“People will never change their human emotions or basic desires” – No matter what happens in the course of human history, people will remain largely the same.

Do Unto yourself…

The world around you, to a certain extent, conforms to the world within you. The reality you project actually influences your circumstances. In some ways, “the universe will always say yes to your thoughts.” If your thoughts are positive, then reality will bend toward the positive. If your thoughts are negative, then reality will contort in such a way that it produces negative results. Recognizing these rules of nature will help you steer your own experiences in the right direction and will help produce the results you want.

“The top three goals of everyone alive are food, love and money. They were the same in the 1700s and they will be the same in the 2700s.”

When in doubt, your gut is a good barometer of the path you should take in most situations. Your “sixth sense,” or intuition, is often a healthy signal during situations that require making decisions. Other people’s advice can be valuable, certainly, but never discount your own instincts.

Forgiveness is as much about you as it is about others. The anxiety that bitterness and grudges create is counterproductive, and can prevent you from living fully. When you learn to forgive, you free yourself to become your best. And, the person you must learn to forgive the most is yourself. Being “friends with that reflection” you see in the mirror is crucial.

“Walk a little, wobble, fall down. Get up again. That’s the real secret: Get up again.”

Another complex phenomenon you must understand is one that is at the root of the physical world: time. The present is the only thing you can affect; the past and future are out of your hands. So, learn to think of time as “an illusion,” and recognize that the present is where you must invariably exist.

However, You Can Prepare for the Future

Take as many steps toward any goal as you can, but just as happens when a baby learns to walk, the “first steps are awkward.” As long as you continue to work toward your goals, you can always pick yourself up again if you stumble. When preparing for the future, you can achieve your goals more easily if you follow these rules:

Always remain grateful – Relative to human beings in developing countries, you probably have a very high standard of living. Remembering that will help you maintain a sense of perspective.
Think of what you desire as if you already achieved it – When you announce your desires, they are more likely to be fulfilled.
Pursue opportunities when they arise – Unexpected opportunities will often present themselves. Go with your gut, trust your intuition and pursue them.
You must have trust.

“You are hereby authorized to do whatever you have the guts to try. You…don’t ever have to ask anyone’s permission to be successful or happy at anything. If you think you can do it, you can do it. You’re authorized by the power vested in your own soul…to live your dreams to the max.” [ – Pat O’Bryan]

And lastly, dealing with death is a crucial life lesson. Of course, if in fact “you’re the one who died,” you can stop reading now. But if your heart is still beating, at some point in your life you will be confronted with death and grief. The positive response is to find the good in your life and live in the present. In fact, it is quite short. When you consider your life in retrospect, you will want it to appear “beautiful and abundant” rather than “ugly and desolate.”

About the Author

Dr. Joe Vitale is president of his own marketing firm and the author of numerous books, including The Attractor Factor, The Greatest Money-Making Secret in History and The E-Code: 33 Internet Superstars Reveal 43 Ways to Make Money Online Almost Instantly. His next book is titled There’s a Customer Born Every Minute.

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