I am fully committed to the Master Key Experience. I began learning about these disciplines in May (5 months ago) after a convention where Mark and Lori introduced us to Color Code, I then followed up with Standing Tall/Color Code, T&GR and the Vision Workshop, so I am not a COMPLETE newbie.

I wasn’t prepared for the discipline it would take to complete the work of those programs, but now I am ready for a fresh start this week!

I didn’t jump right in to join MKE, as I did the other programs, because I just wasn’t sure. But from what I have seen in myself in the last few weeks, due to what I learned in the other programs, I know this will work and is worth the investment of time and effort to develop the habits, the disciplines, I need for success.

I’m the kind of person who takes too long to decide things. Anything. What to wear, what to order at a restaurant, you name it, whenever something is new to me, I can’t decide quickly. I guess I don’t like the risk. So the way I entered MKE, it was like having a four month preview, which I needed to plan for success this time.

The great thing about Mark’s method is that he repeats everything, often, on purpose. These ideas are simple, but have a profound impact. It’s important, very important, to faithfully put them into practice. Despite being simple, it takes time to get the subconscious heading in a new direction.

What I am learning presently from Part One of the Master Key is the centrality of creating internal Harmony. The world within develops Harmony through learning to control our thoughts and to attach the appropriate emotion to them. My external environment is a product or reflection of my internal world.

When I have achieved internal harmony, my environment will change to reflect that. Currently, my environment is giving me too much stress and I am very grateful for this opportunity to discover my true self and learn about creating internal Harmony.

I am such a newbie at this. But now I have a wonderful Guide, Stephanie. What a great thing to be instantly part of a Mastermind Group!

Ironically, back in college, I was a psychology major. My favorite area was Learning and Motivation. Look at me 45 years later: rediscovering my first love. Habits. This is the way our bodies were created to function so that our genius brain matter could enjoy life. I look forward to substituting new good habits for the old ones, to which I enslaved myself and have done me no good.

The story of the Golden Buddha is growing on me. I guess it’s almost like a switch flipped a few days ago. I’ve seen the video over and over, always wondering why Mark keeps showing it because how many times do we really need to see it? I would say, today, that we need to see it until we really understand what it means to be covered with mud and what the chipping away actually means.

The video can tell you what it means, but, you have to actually understand what in your life is mud and what is gold and how the mud can be chipped away. How is it that some traumatic incident reveals the gold or true self? That’s what I am still waiting to understand.

The first scroll, Chapter 8 of Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World, explains that the formation of good habits followed by enslavement to them, is crucial to finding success in one’s life. And how are good habits formed? By constant repetition new habits are formed. Subsequent scrolls will guide in the formation of additional good habits which are essential to avoiding failure.

And what is failure? Not reaching one’s goals.

Failure is the same for everyone. Missing the mark. Falling short. Success has many forms, however, and therefore the formula for avoiding failure is a much better principle to extract and follow no matter your particular situation.

The lives of those who feel unsuccessful are governed by bad habits while the lives of the successful are governed by good habits. The key to success is enslaving oneself to good habits. And what are these good habits? They will be revealed one at a time in the scrolls.

We are instructed to spend 30 days reading each scroll three times a day, so I am embarking on that process of reading Scroll 1 a total of 90 times. I am wondering how many days it will take before I see my conscious mind and/or subconscious mind has absorbed the contents to such a point that I become enslaved. We are cautioned to be patient. It’s a slow process, but, here at the beginning I feel like it will never happen. In the meantime I will be patient and faithful to the process and develop the habits before me.

I struggled for all these (5) months to figure out my DMP or Definite Major Purpose and still, although I wrote something down and turned it in to my Guides, it’s only a few rudimentary lines of what seems like a list of mission statements. We are to be declare the DMP out load with emotion three times each day. Although finally having something on paper to read is a relief, sometimes as I think about what I’m reading I am actually afraid I will fail. I thought it was wonderful when I first penned the words, but now it feels hypocritical.

I think somehow this is a bad habit. It feels like a bad habit. Maybe whenever I decide to do ‘something’, if I can’t get it done in one or two steps and have no detailed plan, I just give up. Possibly it’s because failure is comfortable to me.

When I was a child, I clearly remember being able to succeed at anything I wanted to do. If there was a contest, I figured out how to win it. I did what I needed to do to get the prize. Somehow, over the years, being a winner has moved out of reach for me and I find myself living in mediocrity. I am a slave to my bad habits and I’m here in MKE to replace them with good habits and a new slavery which will enable me to avoid the comfort of not meeting my goals.

I will perfect my DMP, keep it always before me and keep the promises I make to myself!