The Oracle at Wal*Mart

It was a dark and stormy night when….

I always wanted to start a story like that, but really I was enlightened by a flash of insight at the Oracle of Wal-Mart. You didn’t know that Wall-Mart had an Oracle did you?

Saturday nights are pretty wild at the Espinoza house, and this Saturday a few weeks ago was no exception. I'd just called the Chinese place to order dinner, and when I returned with the takeout grub we (the fish and I) would eat - while watching the latest recordings from the past week on my DVR.

A convalescing friend called me on my cell and asked me to stop by the nearest store and get two items on the way to pick up the takeout. That closest store is a Super Wal-Mart.

The first item was no problem: potting soil. It is was near the garden department at the west entrance to the “city-under-one-roof “ that is the Super Wal-Mart.

But the second item was a dairy product, vanilla yogurt. You could fit a par 4 hole between the two, teeing off at the garden center and tapping in your bogie at the yogurt. I would have to pass the toys, then automotive, then electronics, then crafts and hobbies, then children's clothes, then beer – I should have stopped there, before reaching Dairyland.

"Damn it," I thought to myself. "That figures. No such thing as a quick stop at Wal-Mart." I started my death march brooding.

I was tired. It had been a full week and I was starving.

I don't eat vanilla yogurt.

The food was no doubt getting cold at Phil Wong's and I was damp from the rain.

Remember, it was a dark and stormy night.

With each step I dug deeper into how bad and unfair this was. I shouldn't have to do this. I'm wasting time, this blows, etc.

Then, as I passed the guy that mixes paint, it occurred to me that I teach people how to think more positively to help them reach their (fitness) goals. "Perhaps I should try to practice what I preach."

So I immediately applied a simple technique and changed my thinking.

I started taking in really deep breaths and thinking of my goals, of what I want to have happen. I used my best confidence building visualization, and walked in a way that builds my confidence.

By the time I reached automotive I was feeling awesome. I was having a blast, and totally dominating all the others competitors in the store (hey, they were competing with me in my mind, anyway.)

I bagged me a vanilla yogurt with ease at Dairyland and soon was proudly carrying home my fresh kill, feeling like the consummate warrior.

The rest of the night was a true pleasure (well, until the takeout overwhelmed my stomach, but let's not focus on that).

I had turned it around. You know the cliché, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he?”

Well...I thought-eth really great and felt-eth really great. Clichés are true for a reason.

A stitch in time really does save nine.

Championships really are won by playing one game at a time.

It really is a good idea to buy low and sell high.
(I still don’t have that one down!)

And as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.

My insight was that my trip to the dairy section could be a mental training session. Check that, my trip to the dairy section WAS a mental training session. And it would have been a mental training session whether I'd have changed my thinking or not.

It just would have trained me to think negative, self-defeating thoughts.

That's not the life I want, but that's what I would have been training myself for. As my body was passing the toys, then automotive, then electronics, then hobbies, then children's clothes, then beer, before reaching Dairyland, thoughts were passing through my mind.

Those thoughts would either build me or crush me. I'm conditioning my mind no matter what I'm doing. I get to choose what I'm conditioning my mind for -- success or failure. And, news flash: so do you.

When would be a good time for you to start conditioning your mind for confidence?

Have a great week…