Rawlin Vanatta is a Renaissance man of sorts in DeKalb County. On the business front, he’s the owner/operator of White Possum Grille, an idea he first cooked up in 2011 soon after he was a business major at Tennessee Tech University. He’s also a senior sales associate at Avant-Garde Marketing Solutions, and he’s developed a new casual clothing line called Wearing the Future (www.rawlinvanatta.com)
Creatively, he is a singer/songwriter who founded the band Jubal’s Cry and has penned a variety of songs including “Daisy Duke Dixie,” “Fish Tonight,” “Letters in Red,” and “Hurricane.” He has written with James Treadwell, Dillon Carmichael, Shelby Lee Lowe and Burton Collins.
“I’ve always been driven,” Vanatta said. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve been an only child. I’ve always wanted to prove myself. I always wanted to be the best at anything I did. That was programmed into me.
“Everybody wants to experience more than what they’ve already experienced. What drives me is recognizing that we truly have limitless potential.”
He studied how to become more successful with some of the world’s foremost experts on human potential, most notably Bob Proctor and Peggy McColl. Motivated by his discoveries, Vanatta wanted to share the information, which led him to tackle his latest endeavor. Combining both his creative and business sides, he wrote a new self-published book, “We Think in Secret: Know Yourself, Overcome Yourself.” It’s available atwww.wethinkinsecret.com, as well Amazon.com.
“If you can wish it, imagine it, or dream it, it can be a reality. The only problem is subconsciously people have been programmed with another behavior.
“There are secret thoughts that exist that you’re not conscious of that are controlling every single action that you do every single day. Our actions are what dictate our results.
“Our subconscious mind is very much like a thermostat,” Vanatta explained. “The thermostat is controlling the temperature of the room. We have secret thoughts that dictate our income level, secret thoughts that dictate our weight, our body image, how we look, what kind of clothes we wear, how we walk, what accent we have, what language we speak, etc.”
Unfortunately, he said stinking thinking blocks our goals from becoming a reality. Vanatta, a Christian who is a member of Memorial Baptist Church, likens the concept to Solomon’s words of wisdom, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, King James Version).
“The trick is to implement new thoughts, ideas, and emotions towards new mental pictures that we have,” said of the neuro-linguistic training. “We have to create them. We have to attach new good memories.”
“Most people when they go on a diet think I’m going to eat salad forever. As they’re eating salad, they’re thinking, ‘Man, I wish this was a steak.’” What they’re doing is actually strengthening their old way of thinking because they’re saying this is really not what I want and they’re attaching positive feelings to the steak and negative ones toward the salad. Our body is always seeking to stay away from things we don’t like and attract us to things we do like.”
Vanatta uses famous inventor Thomas Edison, who attended school only two years, as an example of someone who dodged negative, thanks to his mom. According to Edison’s diary, a teacher at school sent a note home for his mother and instructed him not to read it.
“His mother opened it up and read it to him out loud. “Your son is so brilliant that he no longer needs to attend this school.” That sent him into a drive. Later on in life, he found that note and he opened it up, and it actually read, ‘Your son is too dumb to be in this school. He needs special attention. He needs to be in a different kind of school. He’s not allowed to come back.’ If she would have read him that, it would have been a completely different world for him.”
Vanatta said his book explains how people can reach their goals with a different approach that works permanently, even after many failed attempts.
“I can show people a complete understanding of how they can achieve anything that they’ve ever wished in their life. They must understand who they are, what their purpose is in life, which is not as hard as it seems like it is, and they have to pick a goal.
“Almost every other self-help program that I know of seeks to control that bodily behavior, which is always temporary. If you can change the secret thoughts that are existing subconsciously, then you can change your behavior. Then, your behavior changes your results.”
