Brian Vaszily - The 9 Intense Experiences: An Action Plan to Change Your Life Forever

Contents

Copyright 2011 by Brian Vaszily. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Vaszily, Brian, date.

The 9 intense experiences : an action plan to change your life forever / Brian Vaszily.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-59635-7 (hardback : acid-free paper))

1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Change (Psychology) I. Title. II. Title: Nine intense experiences.

BF637.S4V38 2011

158dc22

2010045248

Dedicated to my mother, Maryann Vaszily. Scholars, authors, doctors, artists, and sages have guided me and I am grateful, but they dont hold a candle to you. You live the knowledge, you live love, and that has been by far the greatest lesson. Thank you.

This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An Important Note for Doubters and Skimmers

This book will have you laughing out loud, crying to yourself, getting lost, dreaming vividly, giving stuff you love away, and running around in your underwear. It is unlike any other book youve ever experienced, but dont let that stop you. It will change the course of your life in powerful and positive ways. And it will do so rapidly. You will soon see why the profound changes I am promising that you will discover with The 9 Intense Experiences are natural and inevitable.

If you are seeking to overcome barriers to your happiness and success, such as fear, guilt, anger, depression, heartbreak, low self-esteem, apathy, feeling overwhelmed, and not knowing the direction to take in life, this book will inevitably help you. If you want to achieve greater success in your career, love life and other relationships, health, weight, finances, or all of these, this book will guide you in powerful ways you cant yet imagine.

In todays go-go, faster-faster, feel-as-if-you-are-getting-nowhere world, many people tend to believe they have visited and know a lake, when in reality their eyes have only skimmed the surface of that lake. Were in an age of skimming life when we were born to dive deep, and that causes a painful disconnection from the success, happiness, and inner peace we are meant to have. That is precisely the disease that this book cures.

A term I often use for this problem is the Muddy Slope Syndromewhen you have it, you feel as if life is an uphill climb in the pouring rain, and youre moving faster and faster and digging in deeper and deeper, trying to get up that hill. The faster you move and the deeper you dig in, the muddier that slope gets, and you slip farther and farther backward. You feel increasingly weighed down and blinded by the mud splattering all over you.

Please do yourself a giant favor: take a few deep breaths and slow down long enough to read just a bit more of this book. Slow down the way you slow down to kiss your lover, the way you slow down to eat really good chocolate, or the way you slow down to savor whatever you already know gives your life vibrancy.

After reading just a few more sections, you will understand why this book will inevitably change the course of your life in powerful and positive ways. It will make perfect sense. Youll also have more than a few big aha! moments that will immediately provide you with greater energy, clarity, and focus, and theres nothing wrong with a little instant gratification!

We are constantly invited to be who we are, Thoreau wrote. Deep inside, you already know who you are. If you can see yourself achieving greater happiness and success in your relationships, finances, health and weight, career, and elsewhere in your lifethat is who you already are. You cannot see something that is not there.

The challenge comes from clearing through the rust and crustanother phrase I often use to describe the years and decades of self-sabotaging habits, thoughts, and emotions that paralyze your ability to be, and sometimes even see, who you are.

As you will shortly discover, intense experiences are precisely how to clear through all of that rust and crust. So dive deeper. Accept the invitation to finally be who you know you really are. Life is way too short not to. Now is the time. You absolutely deserve it. And by the way, youre going to love it.

Preface: An Unusual Phone Call to My Father

Ive pulled into a strip mall parking lot. The rain beats on my car windows, and the steam from my breath makes them hazier still.

Hey, Dad, its Brian, I say into my cell phone. Theres no need for a phone, but it helps with this connection. I swallow hard. Its been a long time.

It is 2002. A decade ago my first wife, Mireya, was twenty-three, I was twenty-two, and we were raising our one-and-a-half-year-old son. We were both full-time college students and working minimum-wage jobs. We were deep in debt, on food stamps and welfare, and living in an apartment smaller than some closets. When Mireya got pregnant in 1990, we had been dating for only four months. At age twenty, when I discovered that I was going to be a father, my own father had already been on his deathbed for three months in a hospital. Prior to that, hed been dying for more a decade at home from emphysema, alcoholism, depression, and bitterness.

Dad lived what his World War II buddies would have called one hell of a lifehigh highs and very low lows. He was born in Brooklyn but raised on a sugar beet farm in Hungary by an aunt who often beat him. He moved back to Brooklyn, where he boxed, played handball, and indulged his passion for learning languages. He spoke several by the time he enlisted in the U.S. Army. By the end of his life, he spoke at least seven fluently. He served in intelligence during World War II, doing secret work throughout Europe. During the war, he fell in love with a Russian spy. One day she disappeared, and he never heard anything about her again. He eventually fell in love again and married. During an argument with this first wife early in their marriage, she was hit and killed by a vehicle. Over the years, he launched several businesses, including a restaurant, import/export companies, and other ventures. He married again; his second marriage ended in divorce. Several years later, when I was three, his thirteen-year-old son from this second marriage was also hit and killed by a vehicle.