Welcome to Manifest the Big Stuff, your weekly intentional manifesting tune-up and check-in, helping to keep you on the right track to manifest a more pleasant version of reality in accord with new paradigms from quantum physics.
Today's episode is an exciting one all about performance. How performance is inescapable, and how it can be a tremendous asset to your intentional manifesting. Today, I'll address how performance played out and played a huge role in helping me recently run the Kentucky Derby Festival mini-marathon.
I'll also show you how you, like me, have an inner Han Solo that you can tap into any time and every time you physically engage your body in some kind of movement or exercise.
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And you won't want to miss it when I reveal how beneficial it is to build performance opportunities intentionally into your manifesting efforts and give you an example from my own life for how to do that.
I'm Greg Kuhn, the Law of Attraction Science Guy, author of the life-changing “Why Quantum Physicists” book series, and your host. This is an inspiring and uplifting episode. I'm excited to share it with you. Let's get started.
I recently ran the Kentucky Derby Festival mini-marathon, a 13.1-mile race that is, by design and intent, 100% performative. Intentional manifesting is also performative like the race.
But unlike the performative nature of intentional manifesting, everyone running the mini marathon knew they were running a race. In fact, that was the point for many of us.
I truly got into the performative spirit, getting to my starting corral early. I stretched and warmed up, and I strutted and peacocked while I did it. I'm proud of my physique. It's toned and it's muscular, and I've earned it.
There was a communal excitement among all the racers. Electricity was in the air. I was pumped up, and it sure seemed like everyone else was too Performatively, I have to say, that I didn't finish as quickly as I planned, so there was a little bit of disappointment.
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I finished 58 out of 270 men in my age category, so it wasn't that bad a performance, just less than I had planned. When the starting gun sounded, I took off and enjoyed the pace, the cheering crowd, and my fellow runners.
Somewhere around mile two, I started getting passed more than I'm used to, and I jokingly said to myself, “I'm sure all these folks are running marathon relays”. Now somewhere around the four-mile mark, I started to notice a certain type of physical pain that signaled me that I was going to need to become Hans Solo for the remainder of the 13.1-mile race.
Let me talk about being Han Solo for a minute. That's a metaphor I refer to all the time when I run. Han Solo is, of course, one of the main characters in the Star Wars movie franchise, one of the heroes.
The original Star Wars “A New Hope” came out in 1977. I was ten years old and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I saw Star Wars 25 times in the theater. My best friend and I used to catch the Saturday matinee and then sit and watch the next two showings without leaving the theater.
So I know Han Solo very well. Han Solo was a pilot. He flew the Millennium Falcon. The Millennium Falcon never failed to deliver. It always pulled through and saved the day for the heroes. Why did it do that? How did it do that?
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Not because the Millennium Falcon was the most cutting-edge starship. Actually, it was a piece of junk. When Luke Skywalker first saw it, he scoffed at it. It was past its prime. Because in its current shape, even when it was at its best, other ships could catch it now. And the truth is, it wasn't always at its best.
But, the Millennium Falcon was always able to save the day, always able to come through because of Han Solo. Han Solo knew how to pilot the Millennium Falcon. And when you're moving your body, when you're exercising, within the confines of a doctor's care and advice of course, your body is the Millennium Falcon and your self is Han Solo. Your self is the pilot of you.
During the time that I was intentionally engaging my inner Han Solo around the four-mile mark, a runner behind me clearly said, “slow down”. I was wearing my air pods with noise canceling turned off so I could hear what was going on and he definitely told me to slow down.
I thought he must have noticed a pain in my gate and was giving me some friendly advice. And I took his advice, and at the same time he passed me and I saw that he was talking to his running partner. I decided, however, that the quantum field was speaking through him to me. He was right about slowing down. I remembered I don't have to power through pain. That's not how I run. I listen to my body.
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And at that point, I realized that I had begun to push myself through my pain performatively, which can be the dark underbelly of performance. I needed to hear what he said.
I did slow down enough to get back to my true running goals. Just like running in my neighborhood when no one is watching or cheering for me. Intentionally running rather than performatively running to the best of my ability, in each moment, using each of my muscles to do their job, to hold my body in form, holding my body up and moving it forward through time and space. And then supporting all of those efforts with my breathing.
I did want to perform. I was in the middle of running the Kentucky Derby Festival mini-marathon. But I also remembered that the best performance, in my experience, is always unearthed and unleashed by focusing only on being intentional about what I'm doing.
Being Han Solo for the rest of the race worked by remaining focused on intentional running, rather than performative running where I was concerned with my pace. I ran the entire race and I know I did as well as I could. For me, intentional running is mental, not physical.
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Staying focused on being intentional for the duration of my run is a mental task. Staying focused on being intentional is more important than being performative. Staying focused on being intentional elicits whatever level of performance is possible.
Staying focused on being intentional is more challenging than pushing your body with a performative focus. And I found the payoff is commensurate with the higher degree of challenge.
Just a couple of days ago, I contemplated the videos that I'm making to accompany my podcast on YouTube. And I'd like to use that to illustrate how beneficial it can be to intentionally build performance opportunities into your manifesting.
A lot of people listen to this podcast on YouTube. Most of the video that I post to accompany the podcast are videos of me stretching after runs. And once again, a couple of days ago, I was recording myself stretching after a run.
A couple of minutes into it, I asked myself, “Why am I doing this? Why am I filming myself stretching? Do I think that strangers are going to watch this video and be entertained by it?” And as is my custom, I was asking myself those questions legitimately with the intent to truly answer them. Not as sarcasm or self-criticism.
And here was my process of self-examination and the answers it revealed.
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My first answer was, I filmed myself stretching for YouTube because I noticed that even more people were watching my podcast on YouTube than listening on podcast apps like Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google. And YouTube, when I published the podcast without video, creates a fake waveform video to fill the void.
And I thought, why not pair some actual images, photos, video to accompany my voice when I publish Manifest the Big Stuff on YouTube? Nobody has to watch it after all if they don't want to. But at least it would be more entertaining than the waveform video that YouTube inserted.
And I continued to answer: “Stretching is something I do after every run and it usually takes me anywhere from 14 to 18 minutes, so it's pretty good at filling the time. And I run a lot, so there's always going to be a lot of opportunities to film myself stretching.”
I was satisfied with that answer, but I wanted more. So I continued to ask myself, “Well, do I think people are entertained by me stretching? Do I truly imagine that people want to watch me stretch?”
Once again, literal questions that I want to answer, not self-criticism. And here was my answer: stretching also serves as accountability for me because it is performative for anyone who wants or needs to see with their own eyes that this is really who I am and what I do. You can see it. I am doing the things I talk about during Manifest the Big Stuff.
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I truly live in accord with what I share, and I only share things that shine light on how I really live. And running is a big part of that. I talk about it all the time, I use it as one of my primary metaphors, and for good reason. And here, on YouTube, is some proof of that, if you want it. Especially as it gets warmer and I take more clothing off.
And there's another way that stretching serves to provide accountability. It provides accountability for myself. It puts me in what I call a positive checkmate. Meaning, because I film myself stretching, part of my routine is always putting my body on public display.
I know that whether or not I walk, my talk is going to be out there for anyone who cares to watch, to evaluate, and to judge. As long as I'm doing that, even if I wanted to, I couldn't hide. That's the essence of a positive checkmate. And for me, that is always a great thing to create and always a tremendous asset to my intentional manifesting efforts.
So positive checkmate in this situation is win-win. I show you, if you want to see, that I am who I say I am and do what I say I do. And knowing that you can see those things with your own eyes and form your own evaluation, allows me to double down on what I do.
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Thus, the deep underlying reason, the final answer to my original question “Why I film myself stretching?”, passes my own muster. I am not only good with it, I understand why I do it and I relish it.
I hope you find some value in the stretching videos too, one way or another. But even if you don't care at all for them, at least it's something to look at if you want to.
Of course, without an audience, there can't be a performance, at least not a public-facing one. And with an audience comes evaluation, critique, judgment. I give you permission to focus solely on satisfying yourself to the very best of your ability. It's okay to do that, to focus completely on satisfying yourself. You not only have every right to do that, but I'm encouraging you to do so.
And the more thoroughly you focus on satisfying yourself, first and foremost, the less pressure you will feel, the less you will worry about others' opinions of you.
And part of that, practically speaking, comes from the simple fact that focusing solely on satisfying yourself usually produces the best performance you're capable of.
You are definitely not God, the quantum field, the universe, or whatever label you want to give. You the time-space event, possessing consciousness and experiencing material reality in three-dimensional time-space, are not dependent upon any outside source to manifest and experience the reality you truly desire.
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You're not completely capable of manifesting that reality all by yourself, but you are not beholden to anything outside of yourself either. Here's what I'm talking about. Your self is just as responsible for your pleasing material reality as is the quantum field. Because you manifested that reality just as much as the quantum field did.
Yes, your reality would not exist without the quantum field, but neither would your reality exist without you. The quantum field doesn't manifest reality for you. The quantum field manifests reality with you in partnership, in collaboration.
You are beholden to the quantum field for your reality, because without the quantum field, your reality wouldn't exist. But you're no more beholden to the quantum field than you are to any collaborator. Meaning, yes, you're beholden, but not 100% so. The quantum field is 50% responsible for the manifestation of your version of reality in every moment, you manifest the other half. In this way, you and the quantum field are equals.
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Don't run yourself ragged trying to solve the mystery and finally please the quantum field enough so that you'll be granted the reality you truly desire. It's much more powerful to focus instead on intentionally manifesting your reality and being grateful to the quantum field for its half of that equation.
And now my quantum tip. A brief, powerful takeaway that you can employ in your intentional manifesting right now.
Life throws a lot of punches at you, and a lot of them land. Thus, one of the most powerful intentional manifesting tools is to roll with the punches. When you roll with the punches, you don't fight the part you can't change the: punch. You change the part you can: your response to it.
But even if you roll well with the punches, remember to be patient and kind with yourself. Because even when you roll with them like a pro, they are still punches.
Thank you for sharing some of your valuable time with me today. The positive impact your decision has on my manifestation of Greg Kuhn is tremendous. To say thank you, I've got a free book for you. It's on my website. It's called “How Reversing Seven Words Can Change Your Life”.
And it's a powerful introduction to the quantum paradigms that have changed my life and so many others' lives. Please go to whyquantumphysicists.com to grab your free copy of this life-changing book.
And one other thing, please. If you found value in Manifest the Big Stuff today, please recommend it to a friend. I truly appreciate the opportunity to be of value to you today. I look forward to sharing another opportunity to be a valuable part of your reality again real soon.