Curious about the Phenomenon: Do We Really Experience It? What Triggers the Experience?

Definition: That which strikes one as strange, unusual, or unaccountable; an extraordinary or very remarkable person, thing, or occurrence; as, a musical phenomenon.

“The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.” - Thomas Sowell, American economist

I have been reading and listening to Dan Kennedy for years, so when I read about his “The Phenomenon™ DVD Adventure,” I ordered it. As advertised, “the DVD transports you through a portal most people do not even know exists … into a different world … with different ‘rules’ than you’ve been conditioned to believe … where ‘regular people’ achieve extraordinary goals at amazing SPEED.” To hear an interview about it click HERE

Kennedy talks about triggering many periods of experiencing the “Phenomenon™”. This is a time period where one accomplishes in 12 months as much as he or she has accomplished in the last 12 years. Many gurus will tell us how success takes time. And yet, the premise of the “Phenomenon™” is the use of SPEED. I know that it has changed my thinking and attitude (and I have only watched it once so far). I am planning to have it change my outcomes!

How do the experts write about phenomena:

• “No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.” - John A. Wheeler, American scientist
• “Giving a phenomenon a label does not explain it.” - Taylor Caldwell, American author
• “The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.” - Swami Vivekananda, Indian clergyman
• “The phenomenon develops calmly, but it is invisible, unstoppable. One feels, one sees it born and grow steadily; and it is not in one's power to either hasten or slow it down.” - Leon Foucault, French inventor
• “Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.” - Polly Toynbee, English journalist

Let’s read some quotations with a different twist on phenomena:

• “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.” - Tom Wolfe, American journalist
• “As soon as you forbid something, you make it extraordinarily appealing. You also bring shame in as a phenomenon.” - Jock Sturges, American photographer
• “I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.” - Martha Graham, American dancer
• “Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.” - Pope John Paul II, Polish Pope
• “Although the dream is a very strange phenomenon and an inexplicable mystery, far more inexplicable is the mystery and aspect our minds confer on certain objects and aspects of life.” - Giorgio de Chirico, Greek artist

Isn’t it interesting how one word – phenomenon – can generate so many diverse thoughts and ideas? As always, I will leave you with three additional quotations to consider. Do let me know what you think. And, if you should watch Kennedy’s DVD, let me know how it affected you.

• “Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.” - Jacques Ellul, French philosopher
• “The best way to investigate the elusive phenomenon called the creative process may well be to target all the misconceptions, to explain what the creative process is not.” - Lukas Foss, German composer
• “There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.” - Erich Fromm, American psychologist