Sometimes working with a client or a coachee, I find myself referencing a sequence in the movie ‘Minority Report’ a box office hit back in 2002 about solving crime in the future

There is one scene where Chief John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, used futuristic visual displays to move and present real-time information. That very impressive CGI sequence is how I perceived the world of those whose learning style was visual.

Neuro Linguistic Programming, NLP programming suggests that we encode internal experience using sensory modalities and that language reveals which system is dominant in the moment.

The 5 modalities are Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic (physical sensation), Olfactory (smell) and Gustatory (taste).

I always thought that I was visually dominant which is why I was so impressed with Minority Report but it turns out that I have a bit of auditory and kinaesthetic going on too.

Anyway, back to the movie.

The central premise is that the police in the future are able to arrest criminals for crimes they are yet to commit through the use of ‘Precogs’  short for ‘precognitives’ who can predict the future.

So much for the future, turns out that ‘precognition’ is a thing of the present.

Recently I was explaining to someone how I had manifested something bad into my life – literally thinking that someone would get in touch with me soon to deliver bad news and literally the next morning, I received a text from that person with the bad news.

That’s not manifesting that’s precognition, I was told. Manifesting is often confused with intuition too, they continued.

All news to me and if I’m honest I always struggle talking about manifesting if only because of the bridal party it can attract.

So, here’s the difference between the 3 according to my friend.

The core principle of manifesting is that your thoughts, belief or energy influence future outcomes.

A theme of the movie The Secret, manifesting assumes that attention can influence outcome, that belief influences material results.

From a metaphysical perspective, the universe responds energetically to thoughts.

John DeMartini

From the psychological perspective, manifesting works because what you focus on alters behaviour. That behaviour then alters opportunity. The subsequent confidence alters risk-taking and risk-taking alters outcomes.

Manifesting is what happens when you combine focused attention to aligned action with the magic ingredient, persistence.

Back to my point, I didn’t manifest the bad luck, I pre-cogged it.

‘Precognition’ is the principle of receiving information about a future event before it happens.

It is based on the notion that the future already exists in some form and that information can be accessed ahead of time – like the Samantha Morton character in Minority Report and the snooker balls.

That’s all a bit woo-woo because there is no real scientific evidence that humans can access future events in this way. It is however a thing in parapsychology and spiritual traditions.

Psychologically it is thought that humans are prone to subconscious pattern recognition and rapid threat prediction based on our prehistorical ancestors dodging sabre tooth tigers etc…

Throw in coincidence and selective memory and voilà – the bad news was always there or there abouts for me anyway.

The third one, ‘Intuition’ is rapid unconscious pattern recognition based on accumulated experience.

It just feels intuitive only because we don’t see the mental steps that the brain is taking to access already stored data.

(There are of course some things that happen in life that are just mental – things that have no rhyme nor reason that are just unexplainable. We have all encountered these things…haven’t we?)

Why am I writing this?

There are times recently when I have reflected on those life events that have led to massive course correction. Life changing events – avoidable or otherwise – that in turn lead to better life situations. It doesn’t feel like that at the time but things do get better.

And then they get worse.

“This too shall suck. This too shall pass.”

The law of impermanence.

If we are not careful we can get caught up in a negative-only image of our lives, one that can infect every part of our being.

There is an interesting podcast with Aubrey Marcus and John DeMartini – Marcus has created a cult following around his ability to adapt elements of spiritual traditions and maybe monetise them on the way through? (IMHO a bit of a grifter) DeMartini I have met, at one of his seminars in London. A largely expensive encounter where I attended his Breakthrough Experience some of which is outlined in the podcast. He’s nothing if not enigmatic.

He does make a point that is represented best by the quote from Henry Ford that is often his quoted thus:

“You either think you can or you can’t but both ways you are right.”

It’s important to be aware of how you think – good thoughts or bad thoughts, optimistically or pessimistically – because I’m starting to believe that you will become those thoughts at some point.

In sales there are enough people out there trying to disrupt your success without you leading the charge.

Not just in sales – in life in general.

I was talking to a very successful business man this week who was telling me that he treats opportunities like buses. If one comes along that doesn’t suit him, he waits for the next one, confident that something will come along that will be just right for him.

In his words “There is plenty of stuff out there – I’ve no bother waiting for the right opportunity to come along.”

He has supreme confidence that there is more than enough – I asked him about his optimism and he just laughed and pointed at the land that he owns and said:

“Sure, pessimism would have been no help to me here.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Thanks for reading.

Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash