Paradigm Shift

Sometime in 2002 I was sitting in the living room of a house I was living in with 4 roommates. Looking at the wall-length bookshelf, my eyes casually passed over the 50 or so books previous roommates had left behind in the house. My gaze rested on a small white audio book on the lowest shelf. I picked it up. It was Awaken the Giant Within, by Tony Robbins. I took it to my room and put the tape in my walkman. That program gave me something I had been looking for for a long time, a promise of hope. I began listening to it over and over.

Soon after that time I got a job painting animation at a local studio in Vancouver. I took the tape with me to work and listened to it all day long in the background as I worked. The job was so repetitive that I could divide my attention easily between the two things. The constant stream of positive affirmations elevated my state of mind. I felt really good about myself for the first time in a long time.

A few months later, I happened upon a contest that was being held by the Vancouver Art Gallery. There were two prizes being awarded. The one was a $500 shopping spree at a local art store, and the grand prize was a $10,000 trip for two to France. The winner would get the chance to spend 3 weeks painting and drawing in the French countryside. It was literally my dream. I couldn’t think of anything on earth I would rather do at the time. I made it clear that I was going to win that contest. Robbins had affected something in me. I was on fire.

Before work the next day I rushed to the information desk where applications were being given for the contest. I took one and read it carefully. The conditions for entry were that you needed to submit one drawing with the application. It was a random draw, not based on the quality of the artwork submitted. Plus, you could enter as many times as you wanted.

I sat down that night to work on a drawing to enter. It took me about 8 hours to complete, and when I was done I took it back to where I got the application. As I was leaving I saw a bunch of the other drawing entries hanging on a wall near the information desk. It was disheartening. There were so many. I didn’t stand a chance of winning with just one entry.

I knew that listening to Tony Robbins had affected me in some way, but at that moment it became clear just how. A voice popped into my mind saying, “You’ve got to make it a must”. I turned around and went back to the information desk. I took 5 more applications with me, and went home to complete them. The next day I brought them in, and that voice popped back up. “You’ve got to make it a must to win”. Then it hit me. If I could enter as many times as I wanted, and the only thing I needed to enter was a drawing, I could take all my old drawings and use them to enter the contest with. I turned around and went back to the desk. This time I walked away with 50 applications. I was full of energy.

I went through old sketchbooks and cut out 50 drawings and filled out the 50 applications. I took them in and went to work. As I was sitting there at my desk, I realized that this was my chance. This was an amazing opportunity sitting right in my lap. 50 entries were not nearly enough. I had to win!

The next day I walked up to the information desk. “I’d like 500 applications please”, I said. The woman behind the desk looked at me with a stern look. “I can’t do that”.
“Why not?”, I asked.
“I just can’t”, she replied.
There was a small stack of application forms sitting right on the desk in front of her. I turned the top one to face me and read the line about entering as many times as I like.
She begrudgingly reached under the desk, unlocked it and pulled out a stack of applications. As I was walking away with my stack of 400 applications, the most she would give me at a time, I heard the guy that had been behind me say, “I’d like one, please”.

Over the course of the next four days I was filling out applications every second that I wasn’t doing something else. I even encouraged my girlfriend, Inha, to help me with it. I had a couple life drawing pads from film school that were filled with sketches that I used to accompany the applications. The drawings were something I had been holding onto because I used them for my portfolio for looking for work. In the end, I had no art to use for my portfolio. ‘God, I had better win this thing’, I thought.

I had put so much in it, that by the day the draw date came, I was burning with anticipation. About an hour after the draw, I called in to ask for the results. They weren’t in yet. But what they could tell me was that there were about 800 entries. I had over half the entries. I had effectively made my odds about 50/50. I put down the phone and waited.

About 2 hours later I got a call. I looked at the screen of my cell. It was a number I didn’t recognize. My heart exploded in my chest. I picked up the phone. “Hello”.
“Is this Michael Mueller?”
“Yes.”
I can’t quite remember what was said after that, but I had won the grand prize. I hung up the phone a few minutes later and ran around my room screaming with delight. I won. I had actually done it. I won.

I ran to Inha’s place. We both screamed with delight for a bit and then went out for lunch to talk about our upcoming trip to France.

Winning this contest was a massive lesson for me. The only reason I entered as many times as I did is because I was literally programmed by Tony Robbins to believe I could do anything. I know my old programming. I would have entered once, maybe. But the way I handled this was a radically new way of thinking that would change everything for me from then on. Winning this contest solidified the idea that I could do anything. I had proven it.

It’s interesting that up until the draw date I told everyone I worked with about the contest. They all knew what I was up to, and not one of them entered. They were artists. They could have done what I did. Anyone could have. But most people believe that incredible things don’t happen. Even when the opportunity is right there, people ignore it. We are programmed by popular culture to believe life is boring and nothing amazing happens. But if we can step out of that way of thinking, amazing opportunities are all around us.

A few months later, Inha and I went to France for 3 weeks for free. It was incredible.