The first one, The Fountainhead told of an architect who does everything to perfection. He is impeccable. If you were to buy one of his houses, everything would be exactly right and, even more, you would have to let him build it his way. There was no compromise—it was the first time I’d heard that.

Atlas Shrugged was about people who rebelled against the social system and felt everyone should get paid fairly for what they do. It was very interesting to me and I thought wow here is something about standards and taking a stand. Still, although these books inspired me to look at my own standards; the first time I began to wake up was when I did the Experience.

I was 26 and in college. It was so amazing because although I thought it may improve my life a little bit, or help me feel better about myself’ I never had the thought that I could wake up in a weekend. It just never occurred to me!

At first I resisted a lot, and then by Sunday of the Experience I popped! I got it that I am in charge. And that, to me was the waking up process when I realized, I am in charge of the way I feel. It is not the event. It is not what happened to me in the past. It is that I have the choice. That realization was the beginning that changed my whole life.

Ending the Trance

And the isa Experience is not about changing you or fixing you because there’s nothing wrong with you! The purpose of isa is to wake up—to transcend—to end the trance. What happens as we go through life is that we fall asleep and even though we look awake because our eyes are open, we are asleep, living in our head, talking to ourselves and worrying all the time.

Before I did the isa Experience I woke up every morning and hit the snooze button—once, twice, maybe four times and I hated that about myself. Every night I thought, tomorrow morning, I am not going to hit the snooze button and even though I really meant it, every morning, I would hit the snooze button!

Our Personalities

I never understood why that happened until I discovered we have all these people inside our mind with lots of different personalities and agendas. Most of them don’t even know each other, yet they all want to be in charge.

So for example, let’s say I’m driving home from work when suddenly the exercise personality takes over and says, let’s go exercise!

It seems like a good idea, so I say, I’m running as soon as I get home. I drive up to my house, get out of my car, run upstairs and put on my running outfit. Then as I’m running down stairs, suddenly a different personality takes over, the one that likes to watch TV, and it gives the command, let’s watch TV. So instead of heading out the door to go running, I make a little U-turn in the hallway, and end up in the living room watching TV in my running outfit!

Then, suddenly the eating personality takes over and gives the command, let’s have cookies NOW! So I go to the kitchen and get some cookies. Now I am watching TV in my running outfit, eating cookies!

Then, all of a sudden a fourth personality takes over—the one that loves sleeping and says, hey, let’s take a nap! So I fall asleep. Then maybe, a few minutes, hours or even days later the exercise personality comes back and says, hey what happened to our exercise? We didn’t do it! Now, most people have no idea this is going on, because the personalities are disconnected and not in communication with each other. And the big problem is this: We have personalities that are very irresponsible. And when the irresponsible one takes over—everybody pays. So if the one that eats a lot takes over, we start getting really fat: I go to the beach—I can’t fit into my bathing suit and I feel miserable. Now ALL the personalities pay for the one that wants to eat a lot.

It’s like the price I paid when I used to hit the snooze button. When I set the alarm, the disciplined personality was telling me to wake up with the alarm, get out of bed and be happy. What happened was that I woke up with the lazy one in charge. Instead of getting out of bed happy, and alive, I hit the snooze button and ended up feeling bad about myself.

Taking Charge

When I did the Experience I woke up and began to understand, aha! The game is to create somebody to take charge of all these personalities. You know, people have created terrible things in their lives because they are not in charge. There is an angry personality in there that whenever it takes over, does a lot of damage and even puts holes in walls. Or we may have this really irresponsible personality who likes to drink. Then the racecar driver takes over and says, let’s drive really fast!

Now the problem is this: all the personalities pay the price for that one irresponsible personality, including maybe ending up in jail having killed somebody. So I feel a lot of the suffering, problems and upsets we create are because nobody is in charge of these personalities.

I once heard somebody talk about it in a way that made so much sense to me: Imagine a country being run by a president who gets elected every five minutes. So for five minutes one president decides, we’re driving on the left side. We’re doing it the English way. Five minutes later, a new president takes over and says, cancel that, we’re using horses. Five minutes later another president says, no, wait a second we’re walking.

Can you imagine? We couldn’t do anything. And that’s what happens to us. We can’t move because all these personalities take over. So for five minutes we have a really good idea, except we don’t execute it because another personality takes over, and then another one.

So the waking up process is about creating a manager—a person who oversees all these personalities—someone who is bigger and fully aware of all these little personalities—someone who is in charge.

This is what the isa Experience is all about.

Waking Up

“Good Evening! Welcome to the isa Experience.”

Ole P. Larsen, founder of the Institute for Self Actualization (isa), spoke these words in February, 1977 when he facilitated the first isa Experience to forty-nine people in Pensacola, Florida. Since then, thousands of people world wide, from all walks of life, young and old have graduated from the Institute. And while many have worked at being Facilitator in Training, Ole has passed the torch to just one: his student of twenty-seven years, Luis Cordoba.

This book is dedicated to Ole and the discipline, training and commitment of the student/teacher relationship. It is about the process of waking up and the laws of life that create health, wealth, happiness, and the fulfillment of purpose.

The Student/Teacher Relationship

When asked recently about the student/teacher relationship Ole said, “I don’t know about being a teacher—a student, yes. As I see it, it’s about surrendering—to do whatever the teacher says, yet use common sense. The “voice” as Don Miguel Ruiz describes it in his wonderful book; The Voice of Knowledge says it all and the “voice” can be the enemy. So a student in my world is someone who is willing to listen to the “voice” of the teacher and surrender to that voice. Now, to be a teacher takes courage: I found a teacher, Willem A. Nyland, who had the courage to be the “voice” for me. Bless him and a few others I listened to who assisted me in creating the necessary distance from the “voice.” Luis has done pretty well. Yes, many a time, things went astray and when he does listen to the teacher’s “voice”, life works, works much better.”

Asked about the first time Luis recognized Ole as his teacher Luis says, “When I saw Ole facilitate the Experience; he was so good at it. He was clear and made so much sense, and I had no idea I was choosing Ole as my teacher. I did the Experience because I wanted to wake up and feel good about myself. Working with Ole I began to let go of all the garbage that was polluting my life.

When I told him I wanted to be a facilitator, he thought that was the funniest thing and started laughing so loud and hard he almost fell off his chair. He was very patient and hung in there with me and my not so pleasant personality for a long time. It wasn’t until thirteen years later, with Ole’s support and encouragement, that I finally facilitated my first Experience. That’s when I realized I was just beginning my journey and that Ole had been teaching me all along. I think if I had called him my teacher he would have killed me, because he kept saying, “At the rate you’re going Luis I will have to live three life times to see any changes in you.” I think he was looking for a more on purpose, willing student.

There is a part of me that is doing so well and at the same time there is a part of me that hasn’t started yet. When I think about somebody like the Dalai Lama, for example, or Gandhi, when I think about people like that I think I am nowhere. I am in diapers, pre-diapers. I think I have so far to go—I have so much to learn and right now I am going to keep doing the Experience. I had a talk with Ole about that and he said, “How long do you see yourself doing the Experience?”

And I said, “I don’t know Ole, I love doing the Experience.”

And he said, “When you don’t want to do the Experience anymore you cannot do it because then you would be a phony.” So right now I could see myself as an old man being pushed in a wheelchair up to the front of the room and saying, “Good Evening! Welcome to the isa Experience.” I mean why not?”

In a combination of personal interviews with Luis and excerpts from Experiences he’s facilitated in Sydney, Stockholm, Bradford, England and Chicago, you will learn the main compelling forces upon which Ole founded the isa Experience. You will read about how Luis has used them to create a magical life in which he describes himself as the happiest, healthiest and wealthiest he has ever been. As Luis tells it:I first heard about the Experience at college when I had to choose between a literature and speech class. I asked about the speech class and was told I had to get up in front of everyone and give speeches throughout the semester. I got so nervous because that was my worst fear, to talk in front of people—so I decided to take the literature class! Life is so amazing! When I went to class that first day, the professor got up in front of the room, looked at us and said, “good morning everybody. Thank you for signing up for my class.” And he kept thanking us for signing up for his class!

He was so happy that I turned to the person next to me and said, “Do you think he’s on drugs? Why is he so happy?” So I kept going to class and every day he stayed happy. Then I began to put check marks on my notebook to see how many days it would be before he crashed and became normal like the rest of my not so happy professors. He never did! A few weeks into class, he told us he’d attended a seminar called the isa Experience that changed his whole life. That he became happy and started feeling really good about himself. And that’s how I first heard about Ole and the isa Experience.

Being Scared and Doing it Anyway

So now what do I do? I stand in front of people all the time and I love it. I am so happy to have the opportunity and be part of waking people up. I ended up doing what I was so afraid to do. And you know what? I’m still scared! I’m thinking, what if people don’t like it! What if they don’t get it? What if I make a mistake? What if I look like a fool? So all those things go on in my mind and I do it anyway.

On Thursday, the first night of the isa Experience, I ask people, “How many of you are a little bit nervous about being here?” Very few admit it, and so I encourage them to participate by saying, “Put your hands up and take a look around.” One by one, people raise their hands and are very surprised when they realize they are not alone.

Working on myself, is me, creating myself becoming the person I really want to be. The key word here is “creating”. It is not that one day, by accident or fortune, you are going to find yourself being and living your ideal self.

This is the mistake lots of people make. They think, “One of these days, when I have the money, or when I find the right relationship, or when my children move out, then I am going to start working on myself and become my ideal self.”

What is so beautiful and exciting about working on myself is that I can do it right here and now with every good or bad event I am “creating” in my life. If I am having a problem with my boss at work, it is a great “problem/opportunity” to work on myself. If I am being my ideal self how would I be with my boss? Would I get angry and upset? No! Would I get frustrated and have bad thought about her? No! If I was working on myself, I would use it as opportunity to practice being my ideal self. I would not get plugged in, I would be kind and I might even elevate myself so high I would be appreciative of my boss giving me the great opportunity to work on myself through her without having to pay her any money. By the way, this is very difficult to do and very worthwhile. It will change your life.

This is one of the things we talk about at the Experience, remember?

You not wanting to get out of bed is a great opportunity to work on yourself. You start getting angry with you wife or kids — another great opportunity to work on yourself. Somebody pulling in front of your car without looking and you want to kill them is a great opportunity to work on yourself. Not feeling like exercising today is a great opportunity to work on yourself. Do it.
It will not happen over night. This is a life’s journey. We need more enlightened and responsible human beings on the planet.

May the force be with you!

In love and respect,
Luis