Got It: The Answer to a Confident, Productive and Stress-Free Life by Lindsey Reed.  Glows Coaching and Books, 2017

Rooted in Lindsey Reed’s lived experience, ‘Got It’ is a significant book for our trouble-torn times. Even though she had a successful career until 2005, she always felt like an “anxious wreck.” A stint with NLP helped her to “analyse the structure of [her] thinking,” and realize that to be truly confident all she needed was to tap into her inner wisdom, which necessitated a bit of “un-learning or un-thinking.”

The unlearning is about the myths associated with confidence: that a confident person is either arrogant, or extrovert, or competent. The fact is that arrogance only masks fears and anxieties, being an extrovert only helps in getting on well with others, and competence does not necessarily reflect confidence.

The Latin origin of the word “confidentia” means to have full trust in oneself.  This is in the very nature of human beings, but quite often they do not know it. Sydney Banks became aware of it and let the world know about it. Born in Scotland, he moved to Canada, became a welder, attended an awareness workshop, and learnt that insecurity lies in one’s thoughts, which transformed his life. Realizing that “life is pure, formless energy,” he gave up his job and started lecturing on the three principles that form the nucleus of Lindsey’s book:  “Mind, which is the source of all intelligence, Consciousness, which allows us to be aware of our own existence, and Thought, which guides us through the world we live in as free-thinking agents.”

Lindsey equates these three—mind, consciousness, and thought—with magic and expounds them in detail. Mind is the source of energy and innate intelligence, and a limitless source of creativity and wisdom, which provides insight and inspiration. Consciousness gives life to thoughts through our senses. It is like a projector for which it needs energy (from the mind), and images (from the thoughts). It is quite well known that every human being gets about 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts every day.  They keep on coming and going, are neither positive nor negative, and one may accept them or let them go.  Unfortunately, most of us cling to them, especially the negative ones, which proves the source of all our troubles.  Through a forceful image, Lindsey makes us understand that thoughts are like waves in an ocean, and ocean is made of water and not of waves. Lack of confidence arises from our thoughts, which consciousness brings to life.  If we understand that we are not our thoughts, then we are our masters.

Lindsey believes that understanding the connection between these three principles provides the same cognitive and psychological benefits that we get from meditation. If we do not give power to our unhelpful thoughts then we do not need meditation, “no mindfulness, no turning the negative into positive.”  Lindsey dwells on the fact that we associate thoughts with beliefs, and these we either borrow or make them up, but the brain has an amazing capacity to do what she calls “synaptic pruning,” getting rid of old and undesirable things. If we let them stay, then we are bound to suffer from lack of confidence that adversely affects virtually all aspects of our life.  Confidence is like the sun, which is always there, even when it might temporarily be surrounded by clouds.  Being there, confidence is beyond the feelings of fear, anxiety and low esteem.

Lindsey discusses the negative impact that lack of confidence has on our finances, causing anxiety and stress; on our time, leading to procrastination, occasioned by fear of failure; on our relationships, leading to friction and conflict, and affecting morale and productivity; and on our health, both physical and mental, caused by anxiety, stress and worry.

All these things will disappear if we understand the true relationship between mind, consciousness, and thoughts. We have to master thoughts and not let them be our masters. When that happens, we can become energetic beings and our consciousness will reflect only the best that we can think of.

Lindsey provides a neat summary of her entire thesis at the end of her book to reaffirm our faith in ourselves and lead stress-free and productive lives.

The book is available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Got-Answer-Confident-Productive-Stress-Free-ebook/dp/B06X3RKJRZ#reader_B06X3RKJRZ


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