Perception and Reality

Lots of bar exam takers at this point (3 weeks until the exam) tend to lose perspective and in some cases, any touch with reality. That prompted me to record this video about "The Map and the Territory..."

I hope you find it helpful!

Internal Representations

I rarely give up an entire post to someone else, but one of my "heroes" is Bill Harris, the founder and CEO of Centerpointe Research and the developer of the Holosync meditation system. His unique methodology has been employed by many of our bar review students as part of our Successful Test Application Resources ("STAR") with incredible success.
Bill recently sent out an email that I thought perfectly summed up the problem facing lots of bar students right now and so I want to quote it at length and encourage you to go to his website (or ours) for more information.
Take your time and read this (more than once if necessary). He's describing a basic truth about how we process information and act on it...based on something he calls "internal representations..."
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"Because the internal representations you make create your moment-to-moment feelings and other internal states, which then lead to your behaviors, the people and situations you attract or become attracted to, and what meanings you assign to the events of your life.

There are two basic categories of internal representations:

• Those of what you want (or what you think is possible)…

• Those of what you don’t want (or, what you’re worried about, afraid of, or want to avoid).

When you make internal representations about what you want, you feel good and things go pretty well. When you focus on it, you quite often get what you want. But when you make internal representations of what you don’t want…

…you feel bad, and you
often end up with more of
what you don’t want.

When this distinction first occurred to me a number of years ago, an important question immediately popped into my mind. 

You’ve probably already thought of it: 

Why do some people continually make internal representations of what they don’t want when the consequences are so negative? In other words, why do some people focus so much on what they’re afraid of, what they’re worried about, or what they want to avoid—when doing so increases bad feelings and…

…increases the possibility
that you’ll get what
you don’t want?

Perhaps you do this—though I’d be willing to bet that you’re doing it a lot less now that you’re using Holosync.

People who focus a lot on what they don’t want, unfortunately, tend to attract or create more of it. The mind is a goal-seeking mechanism. And, you tell it what to seek by making internal representations of it.

Oops.

In fact, I’ll make a blanket statement here: if an area of your life that isn’t working very well, you can be sure that in that area of life you’re focusing on—in other words, making internal representations of…

…what you don’t want.

And, you’re probably not aware that you’re doing it! What’s more, if you’re doing this outside your awareness, how much choice do you have about it?

None.

If you have trouble making money, you’re probably making internal representations of what you don’t want regarding money (not having enough of it). 

If you’re have trouble making friends, you’re probably (unconsciously) focusing on what you don’t want in that area (not having any, being alone, not being liked). 

In fact, any area of life that’s chronically problematic for you, if you’re curious enough (and aware enough) to look inside, you’ll find that when you think about that area of life, you’re focusing on what you don’t want. 

Amazing, don’t you think?

Here’s a crucially important rule about life:

Those who focus on what they want in any particular area of life tend to be successful in that area, all other things being equal. 

Those who focus on what they don’t want generally have trouble.

Another obvious and crucial question: 

What causes a person to
habitually focus on
what they don’t want?

I’m glad you asked.

If someone, experiences some sort of trauma, especially during childhood, that person will develop an underlying belief that something about the world is dangerous, or at least potentially dangerous. 

To avoid that danger, then, doesn’t it make sense that you would watch out for that danger, so as to avoid it? But, to do that…

…you have to focus
on the danger!

In other words, you have to make internal representations of what you don’t want. And doing that creates two unfortunately outcomes:

• It instantly creates some sort of bad feeling, and…

• It gives your mind an instruction: figure out a way to create or attract MORE of it.

Let me now introduce another important principle:

You can create negative feelings and negative outcomes ONLY if you do so unconsciously. If, however, you focus on what you don’t want with awareness, you will clearly see how you are creating bad feelings and negative outcomes, and…

…you won’t be able
to keep doing it.

Any motivation to keep doing it will dissolve.

To create negative outcomes, whether internal or external, the internal representations you make have to happen outside your awareness. 

Creating a feeling or a behavior has three steps:

1. You have an experience. You see, hear, touch, taste, or smell something.

2. You respond to that experience by making certain internal representations.

3. Those internal representations cause you to feel something, which leads to a behavior, a response.

Where is the choice in these three steps? 

In the second step. You have some choice about what you experience, but not a lot. You do, however, have a choice about how you respond (i.e., what internal representations you make) to the experience…

…IF you are aware of that step.

If you aren’t aware of it, it will happen automatically, based on your internal programming.

Once you become aware of what you are doing, once you actually see the internal representations you (unconsciously) make, and see the direct connection between these internal representations and what happens in your life, you’ll stop making them! 

As I said earlier, awareness gives you choice, and no one with a choice would…

choose to create bad feelings
or negative outcomes.

The key insight here is that your experiences, and certainly your response to your experiences, don’t “just happen” to you. Your experiences—how you feel in each moment, how you behave, and the people and situations you attract or become attracted to—are something you DO. 

So when you feel overwhelmed, over your threshold, ask yourself, “Okay, how am I DOING that? How do I DO feeling overwhelmed?” Overwhelm doesn’t “just happen”—there’s something you DO that creates it. 

You DO feeling overwhelmed by focusing, in some way, on something you don’t want. 

The way out of this is to develop the awareness that allows you to clearly see what you are doing inside that create the bad feelings, the negative behaviors, or that causes you to attract or become attracted to people and situations that don’t serve you.

This is exactly what happens to those who use Holosync regularly. Long time Holosync users universally report that over time…

…they become amazingly
aware of HOW they’re
creating their lives.

Next, if you practice directing that awareness to the internal processes that directly create how you feel and behave, what seemed to be just happening becomes a choice."

Are you crazy yet?

I know, I know. There's less than 45 days until the Feb 2012 bar exam and no one understands what you're going through! Awful, isn't it? Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way. Here's a video I recorded on that subject. I call it "Reality Sets In." I hope it helps!

Exercise actually helps you study...

For quite a while now, I've been a proponent of the newer educational theories linking physical activity and exercise to improved mental performance. Here's a link to one of my videos on the subject.




Last week the following article quoted Dr John Ratey, who wrote the book "Spark" that I reference in my work. I think the article is worth a read...


“Exercise doesn’t make you smarter…it just makes you normal.” This great quote from John Medina in Brain Rules illustrates the essential role that physical activity plays in maintaining a sharp mind. The brain is best at solving problems related to surviving in an unstable environment, and to do so in nearly constant motion. This is what the brain did for virtually all of human history until we engineered the need for physical activity out of everyday life.


Rush to the Head
Exercise literally increases the blood volume in a region of the brain called the dentate gyrus, a vital part of the hippocampus. Exercise also stimulates BDNF, a protein which exerts a fertilizer-like growth effect on certain neurons. This protein keeps existing neurons young and healthy, rendering them much more willing to connect with one another. It also encourages neurogenesis, the formation of new cells in the brain. The cells most sensitive to this are in the hippocampus, inside the very regions deeply involved to human cognition and memory.
It’s what happens after exercise that optimizes the brain. Exercise increases levels of IGF-1 (a growth hormone), and in the hippocampus IGF-1 increases neuroplasticity (the way we learn associations with things), and neurogenesis. It’s another way exercise helps our neurons bind.
“The way exercise changes our brains is more effective than wine, medicines, and doughnuts,” says John Ratey, author of Spark. But too often, this is what we use to attempt to manage stress.


Find Stress Relief
Stress, lack of exercise, and junk food harms your brain. Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. The hormones released in response to stress are meant for immediate danger response, not chronic stress. Chronic stress makes adrenaline scar blood vessels while cortisol damages the cells of the hippocampus. Since exercise influences metabolism, it serves as a powerful way to influence synaptic function, and thus the way we think and feel.
As hard as it might be right now, instead of wine, medicine and doughnuts, what might be best to deal with stress is to get moving. Even if it’s just taking a short walk. The more you move, the better you’ll feel. Your movement choices don’t have to be exercise or nothing. A little exercise with a lot of movement in general can help you cope with stress – a great coping strategy to have at this time of year.
No matter how sharp or smart you are, your brain gets better with physical activity. It has a 100% effectiveness rate and the side effects are a healthier body as well!"


Great advice and I encourage you to try it for yourself. It will make a difference!

Studying for the bar exam on an iPad

One of the things I hear a lot lately are happy, surprised students who are discovering how much they really, REALLY like studying on their iPad with Celebration Bar Review's iBar program. So, when I saw this article last week about why people are excited about learning content on an iPad I wanted to share it with our readers.


I absolutely agree with the author about the novelty, portability and ease of use with tablets but I would add this about the use of an iPad for the bar - it just makes it all manageable.


Anyone who's received the stacks of bar review books and (in the old days, tapes or CDs) knows how overwhelming the process could be. I'm sure that many people took one look at the box and mentally gave up on their studies. The same for those in classroom courses - too much information, too fast and too many distractions. Not a good way to study productively.


Instead, today with our iBar program, everything you need to study for the test is in the palm of your hand. There's even a study guide book built in to the device!


We were the first bar review to put our course online, the first to use iPods, the first to offer tablet apps and of course, the first to put our entire course catalog on the iPad. We're proud of those firsts because they each represent a focus on the student and the learning rather than the marketing and the hype. If you're looking for a course that knows how to integrate technology and teaching, take a look at our offerings. Like our current students, we think you'll be impressed!

Should you use a former bar grader as a tutor?

I had an interesting phone call yesterday from a former student who told me that there was a former bar exam grader now working in his law office. Apparently she's also moonlighting as a bar exam tutor. Now, I have no idea who she is or what her credentials are. For all I know, she's great and will be a big help to people, but I do have some thoughts in general on the value of former bar graders as bar exam tutors...
First, I don't think there's any correlation between being a former bar grader and a current -- and effective -- bar teacher. They are 2 entirely different skill sets. Most bar graders are relatively recent members of the bar who are either in need of some extra part time money or "encouraged" by their firms to do the work as pro bono service to the bar. Either way, these are not experienced law professors, nor even particularly good law students or lawyers. They are employees and/or volunteers (depending on the state jurisdiction) who are given relatively little discretion and have fairly specific tasks to do. How that translates to teaching others how to pass the bar - the whole bar - not just the one essay or performance test that the grader worked on - is a mystery to me.


To put it another way: I have taken Pilates classes for many years. I'm a decent student and enjoy the activity. I've worked with some really good, certified Pilates trainers. Does that qualify me to teach others how to do these workouts? I certainly hope not! And I know it doesn't qualify me to do strength training or weightlifting or Yoga. They are all different skills. I don't have the certification, the training, or the background to help others and so I don't advertise myself as a "former Pilates student" available for private workout sessions. Get it?


The second point I'd make to those who are considering using a former bar grader to teach them how to pass the bar is to look at what materials they are using. If the tutor doesn't have their own materials but simply uses another course's books and lectures, you're missing out on a lot. Anyone who's serious about this work simply has to have their own course syllabus, books and lectures. Anything less is either a shortcut (at the student's expense) or a violation of someone else's copyrights. You wouldn't be very comfortable attending a law school class where the professor had no materials or syllabus of their own but simply copied verbatim from another teacher, would you? In fact, you'd probably say this class was taught by a TA and not the Professor.  Why is this any different?


And finally, here's the real kicker about using former bar graders to help you pass the bar: the assumption you're making is that they have some hidden "insight" into what is passing and what is not. That simply isn't so. Bar exam graders don't give pass or fail grades. They read a specific set of materials and apply the same set of rules that any credible bar review course explains to its students. We do it on day one at Celebration Bar Review. It's not a big deal and definitely not a "secret." Graders are no more than hired "readers" with no discretion and no hidden tricks or insights that you couldn't obtain from a legitimate course to begin with. So what ARE you purchasing when you hire a former bar grader to tutor you? 


Actually, I'm afraid it's not very much...

Welcome to MYCelebration!

In 1995, my wife, Sara and I decided to take the plunge with a new business venture: a home study bar review course based on the then-popular SMH Bar Review course with which I had been affiliated for the last 3 years.  Following my graduation from Georgetown University Law Center and a successful passage of the bar exam using their materials, I had become a regional director and teacher for the live courses we then taught at SMH. With the founder's retirement, we acquired the core materials and decided to convert the course to audio cassette tapes, photocopied books and a lot of prayer that it would all work out.


And boy did it! 


Seventeen years later, we are the leader in personal homestudy bar review courses for the California, New York, Florida, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey and Multistate Bar Exams. We've prepared thousands of students during those years and innovated almost every major advancement in the bar review field: the FIRST bar review online, the FIRST to use iPods, the FIRST to use iPads, the FIRST to provide multiple levels of mentoring, the FIRST to offer free course videos via YouTube, the FIRST to provide full course apps for Apple, Nook, Android, the FIRST to integrate meditation, photo reading and much, much more.


One thing, however, has remained constant through all the technology and educational advancements and improvements: our commitment to students as individuals and to their success as people first and lawyers second. Oh, we've taken some heat for that. You can Google us and find some pretty awful, even downright nasty things that have been written (most of it anonymously), but you'll also find hundreds and hundreds of testimonials from people around the world who've benefited from our Christian approach to this high-stress, high-stakes exam. In fact, most of our business today comes via word-of-mouth as people tell others about their positive experiences with Celebration Bar Review. 
We don't know of any other course with greater customer loyalty than ours. In fact 100% of our 2011 students said they would recommend our course to others!


And that's why we called this blog "MYCelebration!" because ultimately, everyone who takes our course is hoping and planning to have MYCelebration when their results are released. If you're reading this blog, we assume that's your goal as well, so in this blog, we'll post our reactions to the current questions and concerns we hear on a regular basis about how to pass the bar exam. You'll find much of this same material on our YouTube page where we have posted over 75 free videos on a wide range of bar exam preparation subjects. We'd like to hear from you. What do you want to know about the bar? What rumors have you heard? What concerns you about the test? Let us know and we'll give you our thoughts through this forum. We hope you'll bookmark this site and check back often or subscribe so you'll know when new posts are made.