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By Sam Sadat

Life is a banquet, yet tragically, many are starving to death. That’s the focus of this article. Consider the story of some people on a raft off the coast of Brazil, dying of thirst. They were unaware that the water beneath them was fresh. The river’s force pushed fresh water miles out to sea, right where they were, but they didn’t know it.

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Similarly, we are surrounded by joy, abundance, and love, but most people are oblivious. Why? They’re brainwashed, hypnotized, asleep. What’s the solution? Wake up! Don’t dwell on past mistakes made while you were asleep. Why lament actions taken in a hypnotized state? Why identify with such a person? Wake up! Adopt a new mindset and a new perspective. If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Scientifically speaking, this statement has been validated by Quantum Mechanics.

The first step is to wake up. It’s challenging to let go of the things you’ve been conditioned to believe are essential and vital for your survival. Second, understand. Understand that your current ideas might be wrong and that these ideas influence your life, creating chaos and keeping you asleep. Ideas about love, freedom, happiness, and more. It’s difficult to listen to someone who challenges these cherished ideas.

Interesting studies on brainwashing show that you’re brainwashed when you adopt an idea that isn’t yours, but someone else’s. Strangely, you might even be willing to die for this idea. A key indicator of brainwashing is how you react when your beliefs are attacked—you feel stunned and react emotionally. This isn’t an infallible test, but it’s a good indicator that you’re dealing with brainwashing, defending an idea that was never yours.

We often listen from our programmed, conditioned, hypnotic state. Imagine someone saying, “Steve, how you’ve changed! You were tall and now you’re short. You were well-built and now you’re thin. You were fair and now you’re dark. What happened to you, Steve?” And Steve replies, “I’m not Steve. I’m Ron.” “Oh, you changed your name too!” How do you get through to people like that?

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The hardest thing in the world is to listen and to see. We avoid looking because it might lead to change. We fear losing control over the life we’re desperately holding together. To wake up, you don’t need energy, strength, youthfulness, or even great intelligence. What you need most is the readiness to learn something new. Your chances of waking up are directly proportional to the amount of truth you can handle without running away. How much are you willing to accept? How much of what you hold dear are you ready to have shattered without fleeing? How open are you to thinking about the unfamiliar?

As Joseph Campbell famously noted, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” We all have tremendous potential to achieve our dreams. Waking up isn’t a gradual process; it’s a quantum leap that can happen instantly. All you need is to be open to all possibilities and attached to nothing.

Sam Sadat is a founder and president of Sam’s Real Estate Investors Club (SamsREclub.com) and Greater LA Real Estate Investors Association (GLAREIA.com). I welcome your comments.