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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Which Came First: Consciousness or Light?

Sometimes on Facebook we talk about more than just what's for dinner.  Last night, pal Andrea de Michaelis of Horizons Magazine posted a question, and then promptly went down for a nap in her Big Puffy Chair.  The question was, Which Came First -- Consciousness or Light?

Good question, Andrea! 

Several people chimed in with a guess at the answer.  Most of us suggested that consciousness must have come first.  As students of the Law of Attraction, it only seems to make sense.  Consciousness is a creative force.  The creation myth in Genesis says that God (supreme consciousness) created light by speaking it into existence.  "Let there be light!" he decreed; and there was light.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Focus: Why Lasers are So Powerful

I had a fascinating discussion last night with a master networker.  So fascinating, in fact, that long after it was over I couldn't stop thinking about what I had learned from it.  Have you ever had one of those moments where you learned something so profound that you suddenly realized that until this moment you had pretty much just been throwing sand in the wind?  Last night's discussion was like that.  Instead of sleeping, which is what I really, desperately, needed to be doing, I lay awake thinking about ways I could implement what I had learned.

As the title to this blog hints, the discussion was about focus, specifically as it applies to business networking.  Now, I've spent a lot of time on these pages talking about having a Clear Definite Aim, and about consistently holding a Clear Mental Image of that aim firmly in view.  I've explored how knowing exactly what you want is the first step toward manifesting it.  We spent a week doing exercises learning how to discover what it is that we really want, and we practiced spending time visualizing ourselves already having it.  Yet out there in the networking world, my efforts have been unfocused and vague.  I guess that explains why I've only gotten meager results.  Why is that?

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Masterheart

In earlier posts we explored the idea of the Mastermind.  We learned that no one who has ever been wildly successful in his or her career has achieved that success alone.  Those who have succeeded have assembled around them a team of people, each of whom are either experts in their field or who are solidly supportive of the desired goal.  That team is what is known as a Mastermind.  The idea is that the combined thinking of a group of people focused on one goal is a powerful attractor.

The Mastermind concept arose during the height of the Industrial Age in America, as captains of industry began to build their fortunes around new technologies like automobiles and steel.  It is the idea behind the huge corporate monopolies that arose during that time.  Although the idea is still valid today, our world has changed quite a bit in the past 100 years.  The quality of our goals has changed.  Today, few people I know want to go out into the world to become corporate giants.  Sure, we would enjoy having the freedom that more money brings, but I don't know anyone who wants to be the new Henry Ford.

In my circles at least, most of us just want to be happy, and we want to be surrounded by happy people.  We want to do work that we love, and we want that work to add value to our collective world.  Yes, we still have dreams.  I have a friend who has a dream of having a chain of insurance offices, because she loves helping people by protecting their cars and their homes.  I have another friend who, like me, wants to make a living writing books.  Yet another friend wants to teach people to cook mouth-watering dishes using organic and raw ingredients.  I have several friends whose big dream is to raise a happy family without having to struggle to find enough money to pay for basic expenses.  These are all heart goals more than money goals.  I'm thinking that instead of assembling a Mastermind team, what some of us really need is a Masterheart.

On The Attitude of Gratitude Project, I've seen first-hand the magic that can happen when people put their hearts together.  My friend Susie was diagnosed earlier this year with Stage 3 breast cancer.  When she went for her initial mammogram she was told that she needed to start putting her affairs in order.  Can you imagine going in for a mammogram and being told you are going to die, without any preliminary discussion of options?  Well, Susie wasn't having any of it.  She wasn't ready to die, and she had no intention of accepting her doctor's death sentence without a fight.  She had the surgery, she suffered through the chemo and the radiation treatments, and she fought with all her might to live.

I spoke with Susie this past weekend as we met to celebrate her complete recovery.  She told me that the most important factor that contributed to her recovery was the combined love of everyone that supported her during her healing period.  Susie had the love of friends and family, she had loving caregivers, and she had the combined support of all of her online friends on Facebook and the grateful people on The Attitude of Gratitude Project.  Most of all, though, Susie had Ian, whose loved helped him to be strong for her even when she was too weak to be strong for herself.  The combined love of all of these people is what healed her.  Susie lived because she was fortunate enough to have a Masterheart.

I'm thinking it's a good idea for each of us to assemble around us a team of people that qualify both as a Mastermind and as a Masterheart.  Some people on your team will be helpful by offering their knowledge; others will be helpful by offering their love.  I firmly believe that without love all success is hollow.  In order to properly receive that love, though, it will be necessary to have an open heart.  If you want to get love from others, it is first necessary to give love.  Make it a point to practice loving everyone who crosses your path, even people you don't know.  Many of us are afraid to love, because loving makes us vulnerable to be hurt.  Do it anyway.  Your life may depend on it. 

As the Wizard told the Tin Man, "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."  Love freely; love deeply.  You'll know you're doing it right when you start seeing it reflected back at you everywhere you go.  Then, the whole world will be your Masterheart.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Thoughts are Things

What are you thinking right now?  Is it a happy thought?  Are you thinking about how blessed you are to have such a wonderful life?  Are you thinking how wonderful it is to have so much free time that you can sit down and read something just for fun?  Maybe instead you're thinking thoughts that are stressing you out.  You're thinking you're rushed for time, you're brooding about being so broke all the time or possibly you're irritated at someone or something and you're reading this as a form of escape.  Are you always aware of what you're thinking, or do your thoughts run freely and unbridled through your brain?  I'm thinking that if you knew exactly how powerful your thoughts are you would want to make an effort to harness that energy to your advantage.  

Here are two good reasons to learn to be more careful about which thoughts you allow into your brain:  First, what you think is a direct cause of how you feel.  Your mood at any particular time is always the direct result of what thoughts you are thinking.  No exceptions.  Next time you find yourself in a foul mood, pay attention to the thoughts that are running through your brain.  Odds are you're in a rant of some kind, and the words you're telling yourself are feeding your funk.  Ever notice how you can be in a really good mood and someone will say or do something that ruins it and leaves you grumbling and angry?  It wasn't that outside event that changed your mood, it was, as the friends of Bill W like to put it, your own stinkin' thinkin' that bummed you out. 

As a recovering emotional basketcase, this first reason is why I eventually learned to control my thoughts.  I tend to brood, darkly.  So darkly, that I developed a terminal illness:  a depression so profound that for over three years it was always a miracle when I made it through the day without taking my own life.  I would call my best friend and ask her, "Cindy, explain to me again why it is that I need to stay alive?"  And she would always list reasons for me until she finally hit on one that my brain could believe and focus on.  It wasn't always the same one; most often it was my cat, Pearl, who needed me because she was afraid of everyone else.  Between them, Cindy and Pearl kept me alive; they both stayed by my side long after everyone else I knew had backed slowly away from the crazy woman that I had become and left me alone to wallow in the darkness.  I will always be grateful to Cindy for her patience and her compassion during that time. 

My psychiatrist got rich off of me.  Well, he got $400 a month; the medication he prescribed cost me another $350.  While I was under his care I got progressively worse.  It got so bad at one point that he actually told me that "we" wouldn't be able to manage this for long as an outpatient.  He told me to prepare for the fact that eventually I would be living out my life in the State mental hospital as an indigent patient.  No, he wasn't trying to scare me; he was just being clinical.  Somehow, though, even through my medicated fog, there was a part of me that refused to accept that.  Oh, it would have been easy to give up and allow his proclamation to become my reality.  If would have been easy to just be crazy and locked up, letting the state feed me and clothe me and give me a place to stay, rent free, for the rest of my life.  It would have been even easier just to die and put everyone out of their misery.  But there was still a tiny part of me that wanted to fight for my life.  That small part of me THOUGHT that somehow I could beat this thing.

One day, Mr. Psychiatrist Moneybags gave me one of his textbooks.  I was in graduate school at the time, and he knew me well enough to know that I devoured textbooks.  I was obsessed with soaking up knowledge, a fact that was both a symptom of my pathology and ultimately the thing that brought me back into the light.  The textbook was called Cognitive Therapy.  It was a new concept to me at the time, and it really opened my eyes.  Basically, the theory is exactly what we are talking about here.  Some people are crazy because they think crazy thoughts.  All you have to do is teach them to think better thoughts and they'll be OK.  Apparently my doctor had never actually read this book, because he had never tried this on me.  His job was to write prescriptions.  At any rate, that book saved my life.

So, the first reason to control our thinking is to control our mood.  We do not have to believe everything that we think.  We can choose to stop thinking thoughts that make us miserable and choose instead to think pleasant thoughts that keep our mood and our vibrational energy high.  Second, the graduate level reason for choosing our thoughts, is that what we habitually think eventually becomes what manifests in our world.  Again, no exceptions. 

Wallace Wattles, that Law of Attraction guru, states this as his First Law: 

"There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the inner spaces of the universe.  A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.  A person can form things in his thought and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing that he thinks about to be created."

The universe responds to our thoughts and turns them into "things."  Thoughts are things.  As Einstein put it, E=MC2 ... Energy and Matter are made of exactly the same stuff.  What that means is that if you are always thinking things that stress you out and make you unhappy, angry, depressed, or worried, those very things you are thinking will be what crosses your path out in the real world.  Is it just irony that people who spend a lot of time worrying about being robbed, who spend money on security systems and who are afraid at night to be in their own home alone, are the very people who get robbed?  People used to yell at me for always leaving my doors unlocked.  They would show me news reports of home invasions just blocks away from where I lived.  I would always ask, "Was the house locked up, or did they break in?"  Without exception, the intruder had to bust his way in.  Now, I'm not telling you to unlock your doors, I'm just saying that you get what you think about most.  

This is the reason that visualization is such a powerful tool.  We did some powerful visualization last month when we did the Prosperity Project together.  Do you remember how it felt to imagine yourself spending all that money?  I recommend that you spend a few minutes every day deliberately visualizing yourself in your happy place, whatever that may be for you.  See yourself doing the things you will be doing after you have finally achieved your dreams and made your fortune.  That exercise alone is very powerful and will serve to move you in that very direction.

Today, though, what I'm wanting to suggest here is that even when you're not actively visualizing that you become aware of each thought as it enters your mind.  As you go through your day, become the silent observer who watches your thoughts.  For now, don't judge them as good or bad thoughts; simply observe what you think and how your thoughts make you feel.  When you find yourself thinking a negative thoughts, notice it.  Say, "Hmmm.  That's a negative thought."  And then go about your day.  If you  do that consistently, two things will happen:  First, by observing your thoughts you are no longer identified with them.  Negative thoughts will no longer have the power to destroy your mood.  Second, you will find yourself discarding negative thoughts in favor of better thoughts.  You Spirit wants to soar free and wants to be light and happy. 


Eventually, as you become more and more aware of the connection between your thoughts and your reality, you will begin to ask yourself this question:  "If what I am thinking about right now became my reality, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?"  I guarantee that when you become aware enough to ask yourself this question, you will quickly begin to cast down destructive thoughts and to focus on more positive stuff.  As Paul writes in Philippians 4:8,  "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."  For that, my friends, is what your life will become.  No exceptions.

Friday, October 23, 2009

The Pain Body

Does this sound familiar?  You're going along being all spiritual, mood is light, and you're able to handle whatever comes along without breaking your stride.  You're proud of the progress you've made, and you feel like your ride on that emotional roller coaster you used to be trapped on is finally behind you.  Then, someone says something that totally sets you off:  your blood starts boiling and you fly into a rage.  Or, if you swing the other way and your anger tends to get directed inward, you tumble down into a deep depression.  What just happened?

I have a friend who used to be a heavy drinker.  Generally, he tends to be an easy-going and generous guy, but when he drank he turned into someone he called Him.  Him was just down-right mean and abusive.   You could always tell when Him woke up and was ready to wreak havoc:  He would push his glasses down to the end of his nose and peer over them in a warning glare, then he'd let you have it.  Even now that he's been sober for a long time, every now and then Him will rear his ugly little head from time to time.

We all have a Him inside of us.  Only in my case, it's a Her.  A few years back I picked up a copy of Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now, in which Tolle explains what is going on here.  Tolle calls this emotionally-charged alter-ego The Pain Body.  The Pain Body is made up of all of the unresolved emotional issues from our past.  In her book Molecules of Emotion, scientist Candace Pert explains that any time we do not fully process emotions, they actually become a part of our physical biology and embed themselves in our cells until a future episode awakens them.   Over time, these molecules of emotion take on a life of their own and become our Pain Body.

We basically have two intelligences working inside us.  First, there is our thinking, which is basically the stories we tell ourselves inside our head.  Thinking can be a very useful tool, but most of us confuse what we think with who we are.  Second, we have emotion, which is our body's intelligence.  Abraham-Hicks calls our emotions our Guidance System:  emotions tell us when something is good or bad, when we are moving toward or away from that which our real self knows to be true and good.  Your thinking has the power to control your emotion.  This is a wonderful thing to know if you are able to control your thinking.  If, however, you believe that the voice in your head is really you, you will tend to forget that you shouldn't believe everything that you think.  You'll also notice that when you tell yourself certain stories in your head you tend to get REALLY upset.  Then your Him surfaces and all bets are off.

Emotions are very useful when they are a reaction to a real event; unfortunately, they react just as strongly to a perceived event, which is why if you have certain conversations or think along certain lines you can activate your Pain Body.  The Pain Body is an energetic entity located within, but separated from our total energetic field.  We all have one.  Usually it lies dormant until something happens to set it off.  When that happens we are no longer the ones steering the ship:  the Pain Body has taken control and the best that we can learn to do is manage it until it subsides again.  If we are emotionally mature or very fortunate, our Pain Body lies dormant most of the time.  Some people, however, are almost entirely controlled by their Pain Body.  You know them when you see them:  they thrive on drama and are always reactive and easy to offend.

So how do we learn to control this evil twin that lives inside us?  How can we learn not to become possessed by Him, or to send Him packing when he rears his pointy little head?   The Pain Body thrives on pain.  It can be activated by pain, offense, insult, worry, fear ... and once it awakens, its survival instinct will take over and it will want FOOD, which it will expect your thinking to provide.  When the Pain Body awakens you will notice that your thinking changes along with it.  You begin telling yourself stories in your head that serve to perpetuate the anger, fear, or worry ... whatever is the dominant emotion of your Pain Body.  You'll call your friends and tell THEM the story so that you can hear it all over again.  The more you tell it, the more angry, fearful, or worried you become.  If you tend to be depressed instead of angry, you will crawl into your dark place and wallow.

The only way to prevent the Pain Body from taking over, or to send it back to sleep in its coffin, is not to feed it.  We must become aware enough of what is happening that we can stop the negative thinking that is feeding our Pain Body.  Remember the two intelligences?  Of the two, the only one we can control is our thinkingEmotion just happens.  When we are sad, we are really sad.  When we are angry, there is no doubt that the anger is real.  Even though we may describe ourselves as emotionally immature and we think that our emotions are the problem, they're really not.  It's always our thinking that's the problem.

Next time you notice that your Pain Body has taken over and you find yourself overwhelmed with negative emotion, try this technique:  First, feel the pain.  Really feel it.  Remember that your Pain Body grew out of your unwillingness to fully process the emotion the first time around.  So in order to heal your Pain Body you must, sooner or later, feel the emotional pain.  But here's the difference:  This time you will practice feeling the full force of the pain without the accompanying story you tell yourself in your head.  Instead, you will think something like:  "Oh, there's anger here.  I feel really angry.  This is what it feels like to be angry."  Allow yourself to fully feel the anger.  Notice what is happening to your body when you are angry.  Where in your body do you feel the anger?  Do you clench your teeth?  Your fists?  Does your stomach get tied up in knots?  What exactly is happening to you?

If you find yourself telling the story of your anger, STOP.  Strive to become an observer, only.  By watching the anger instead of becoming identified with it, you cease to feed the Pain Body and begin to actually heal the pain.  Remember, some of us have very powerful Pain Bodies, so you will have to allow it space to run its full course.  Without food, though, it will fall dormant again sooner rather than later.  At first this might be hard:  When the Pain Body has awakened, it is running the show and it will not want to be killed off.  It will take control of your thinking, speaking, doing.  You must regain control, and you can do that by dis-identifying with your thoughts.  When the Pain Body takes over, become aware that it is definitely Him and NOT you who is throwing this temper tantrum.  Stand aside and observe.  If you do this every time, your Pain Body will eventually become weaker and will awaken less frequently and with less force.

Does this mean that you will never get angry again?  Of course not.  There are real reasons to become angry, and our emotions are given to us to protect us and to teach us what is right and what is wrong for us.  But you will become angry because of something that is happening in the present moment, not re-living past anger; and you will feel and express your present anger so completely in the present moment that it will not be able to turn itself into a molecule of emotion that adds to your Pain Body. Eventually, you will almost forget that you ever had a Him.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Finding Time: Whatever Happened To Servants?

What ever happened to servants?  I watch old movies and everyone had servants.  Even bachelors had a man who did all the cooking and cleaning.  The Bradys had Alice.  On Bonanza they had Hop Sing the Chinaman (that's what people called them then).  In black and white movies there was always some woman (often a negro woman) dressed in a crisply starched uniform who brought in the cocktails at the end of a long day.  Rich people had butlers, even if they did end up being the one who killed the guy.  Back in Gone With The Wind days they had slaves, which were servants you adopted like a pet. On Leave It To Beaver, Mrs. Cleaver was the servant.  Remember when moms stayed home and baked cookies for afternoon snacks and wore those cute little dresses so they would be pretty when their man came home?  Remember those days?

Can we please have those days back again?  OK, while I was writing that I began to realize the answer to my own question.  There seems to have been an issue with human dignity in the whole servant issue.  Chinamen and negros weren't really human, were they?  Certainly slaves weren't.  Eventually, as we became a more enlightened world, we began to wake up to the fact that all humans are first-class humans, and that no segment of the population should be made to serve another segment.  I think we may have gotten a little carried away with that.  Just saying.  I mean, no one could call a butler undignified, so what happened, really?

Before World War II (I'm going by movies here; I'm no historian), servants seem to have been more prevalent.  In the 1950s, we see the mom staying home and doing all the work herself so that her man would have a nice home and the kids would always have a beautiful, well-dressed mommy to come home to (and warm cookies).  Then, women got uppity and were no longer content to stay home and take care of the house.  They wanted to become doctors and lawyers and rocket scientists.  Instead, they became secretaries and waitresses, but at least they were earning their own money.  Eventually, most women entered the workforce, which left no one at home minding the oven.  Slowly, insidiously, we have reached the point where everyone has a job.  Everyone has to have a job.  It's the only way we can survive in this expensive world.

So now, no one is left at home to do the cooking and the cleaning.  And now, it is no longer politically correct to have servants.  And now, my house is a disaster on most days, with unwashed dishes and a dirty floor.  What kind of cruel trick is that?  The servant thing wasn't such a bad system, was it?  People who were born into lower classes could become servants and then get to spend their lives living in beautiful mansions they didn't pay for.  Is that so wrong?  When we were younger, my brother wanted to grow up to be a butler for just that reason.  I thought he was crazy, but now I'm beginning to realize he was on to something.

Back when I was a French major, I remember having this conversation with one of my colleagues.  We always spoke French when we were together, because that's how you learn a foreign language.  On that particular day I remember complaining about not having enough time to do all the housework, and I made the comment that I wished I had a wife who would take care of all that for me.  Only in French the word for wife is femme, the same word that means woman; and unfortunately for me, my colleague was a lesbian. So for a while I was very popular among the French Lesbian crowd, until they all realized it was just a bad translation.  But I digress.

There are only so many hours in a day, and we must spend those hours doing the most important things and letting the other things slide.  I've gotten very good at ignoring dirty dishes and unwashed floors, simply because it does no good to stress over them.  But not having food to eat after a long day at the pool store is where I'm beginning to draw the line.  Sure, I know how to use a crock pot.  But I think the world is ready for another shift.  Just as not every woman should have been forced to stay home to cook and clean, not every human in America should be forced to go out and get a job.  Someone should be encouraged to stay home and take care of the busy working people.  There are actually some people out there who would prefer to stay home and take care of the people. 

Maybe if more people started thinking this way, we'd see ads on Craig's List for live-in homemakers that weren't code for "I want someone to be my bitch."  Maybe we could have some sort of communal living arrangement where everyone gets to contribute what they do best:  some would be wage earners and some would be support personnel, staying home to bake the cookies.  Maybe we could do away with money entirely so that no one would have to work and we could ALL stay home and bake cookies. (Oh, no!  My friend Lee is right -- I AM a communist!)  

Given a choice, I will always be the one who goes out to work.  When I was a kid playing house with my brother, I used to make him stay home and watch the babies while I went off to work with the briefcase.  He hated that game, because I would spend the time shuffling papers around and calling it work, while he sat in the stairwell with our "family."  When he tried to walk away from all the dolls because he was bored out of his mind, I would yell at him, "Get back there and take care of those babies!"  I was kind of bossy. 

The point of all this socio-political rambling is that I need help.  I am fortunate to be doing work that I enjoy, but I work from 5:30 every morning until about 8:00 every night, most of it spent away from home.  I can't find a way to manufacture more time, or to clone myself; but I am no longer willing to live in a dirty house.  I am no longer willing to live on fast food.  I want real meals and a clean kitchen.  I want a clean floor and a bed that stays made, with lavender-scented pillows.  I want a mom, a wife, a servant, a butler.  Whatever.  I want help!  I want someone who will take care of me so that when my work day is done there's a hot meal waiting for me.  And maybe some cookies.  Is that really so wrong?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Asking the Right Questions

Most of us stumble through life without knowing exactly where we are headed, and not a clue as to how to get there.  Our lives unfold haphazardly, as we react to the seemingly random people and situations who cross our paths.  We walk through life as if through a dream, believing our dream to be real.  Eventually, some of us become tired of bumping around in the dark, and begin to search for answers, or at least a few clues. We learn to ask questions of life.

Questions are very powerful, because if we ask a question often enough, Spirit will always reward us with an answer.  It's important to choose our questions carefully.  Our questions can empower us, or they can continue to keep us bound in negativity and strife.  What kind of questions do you ask?

Maybe these questions sound familiar to you:  Why does this keep happening to me?  When will I ever find someone?  Why can't he ever pick up his clothes?  Why does the car break down every time I've got a few dollars saved?  Why am I the only one who ever does any work around here?  Why can't that kid just do what I tell him to do? Could you drive any slower?  I could go on, but you get the idea.

We may not realize it, but what we say to ourselves holds immense power over how our lives unfold.  When we ask questions like these, we think that we are just blowing off steam, but in reality we are reinforcing the exact things that we would like to see changed.  We always get the answers to our questions, so if you are wanting to know why your spouse is always lazy, you will be sure to get more and more experience with a lazy spouse. So, let's learn to ask more empowering questions.

When I reached the darkest point of my life, I ran off to DC to live with my brother for a while.  I knew that whatever I was doing was wrong, and staying with my brother was a way of regaining my center.  I knew that meditation would help me find my way out of the darkness, but I didn't know how to go about it.  Because I had been asking the question, "How do I meditate," I was led to the sangha of the Venerable Zen Master PoHwa Sunim in Alexandria, Virginia.  Sunim was wonderful.  The first night I met with him, he took a long hard look at me and said, "All of the problems that you see come from within you; all of the answers that you seek also come from within you."  Sunim teaches that when you sit in zazen you must also have a question; otherwise, you are just sitting quietly.  Brains need something to work on, and a question gives our brains an anchor while we meditate.  

Here is the question that Sunim gives to his students:  "By what means am I breathing?"  You gotta love zen questions.  It really is a brilliant question for meditation, since we are focusing on our breath while we are asking it.  It also is a question you could ask your whole life and never really know the answer to.  It focuses on the point in our bodies where spirit meets flesh.  It also serves to bring us outside of ourselves so that we become the silent observer instead of the one embroiled in drama.

As fascinating a Sunim's question was, though, it is not necessarily the type of question that I'm talking about here, although the process is the same:  Get quiet, ask your question.  Repeat.  Here are some examples of some empowering everyday questions you could ask yourself:

  • How can I make this better?
  • How can I learn to get along better with my boss/spouse/child/neighbor/co-worker? 
  • How can I gain control over my diet and exercise?  
  • How can I take this idea and turn it into money?  
  • How can I find time to work on my dream? 

If you want to get even deeper, try some of these questions:

  • What is it that I really want?  
  • What does it really mean to love someone?  
  • What can I find to be grateful for today? 
  • What can I learn from this?  
  • How can I add value to someone's life today?  
  • How can I use my greatest talents to make a difference? 
  • How can be of service?  
The questions we ask ourselves really matter.  If we want to get really good answers, we need to learn to ask great questions.  At the very least, when you catch yourself asking those disempowering questions, STOP.   Here at The New Book of Clues, we specialize in questions.  At best, we'll find a few clues along the way.  If it's answers you want, I suggest you look inside yourself.  The answers you seek will be there waiting.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Prosperity Project: Clear Definite Aim

Within every highly successful person is an unquenchable thirst for adding value to the lives of others.  Ralph Marston
 
Greetings, prosperous ones.  We have come to the end of our Prosperity Project.  We have pretended that we had lots of money to spend, and that game showed us a bit about what it is that we really value.  We have spent the past few days looking at the things that we enjoy doing most, and we have taken some time to decide what we are most passionate about.  Now, it's time to put it all together.  Today's question is the big FINAL EXAM:  What is it that you really want? 

Back in the very beginning of the Prosperity Project, we talked about a lecture by John Maxwell called How To Make Your Dreams a Reality.  In his lecture, Mr. Maxwell gave us a checklist to help us gauge how likely we were to manifest our dreams.  Do you remember that list?  Maxwell's final dream test question was Significance.  How does your dream add value to someone else?  Does your dream benefit others? 

Can you figure out a way that you can spend your days doing the things you love, for the reasons that you are most passionate about, in a way that other people will benefit from it?  If you can find the answer to that question, then you have found the key to bringing in the money you've been just pretending to spend until now.  If you can find the answer to that question, then you have found your Clear Definite Aim.  

Oh, you could be wrong.  It could be something else entirely.  Be willing to be wrong.   Whatever it is, if your heart is behind it, if it feels right to you, if it feels exciting yet terrifying at the same time, then go for it, even if it turns out to be crazy.  Even if it's not practical.  Even if you really should be doing something else.  DREAM BIG.

OK, so you've decided on your Clear Definite Aim, the big idea that you have that excites you, that you feel passionate about, that you know in your heart (even if it terrifies you and you know that people will laugh) is right for you, then I urge you to continue the daily visualization that we've been doing here on the Prosperity Project.  Spend 15 minutes every morning pretending that you are engaged in that occupation.  See yourself performing your favorite activity, and see people benefitting greatly because of what you're doing.  See the people being so grateful for the benefit that you are providing them that they give you large amounts of money in compensation.  Enjoy the way that feels.  See the people you do business with growing and thriving because of what you provide them.  See yourself receiving the revenues that your joyous work provides.  See it.  Feel it.  Stick with it.

The secret to visualizing is not to waver.  Once you've chosen your Clear Definite Aim, then begin to clarify your vision.  The more laser vocus you bring to your visualizations, and certainly the more emotionally you engage in the procedure, the stronger the attraction you create.  We have gotten a lot of practice here on the Prosperity Project in creating an imaginary world.  Take what you have learned here and continue in your make believe world.  See yourself as a million-copy-selling author.  See your photographs on the cover of magazines all over the world.  See your business ten times its current size, enriching the lives of people all over the world.

Is that it?  All I have to do is pretend I'm making money and I'll make money?  No, of course not.  There's way more to it than that.  But that is without a doubt the very necessary first step.  If you will take this one step, then you will have gone a long way toward making your dreams come true.  At least you know which direction take, and that's more than most people ever decide.

My work here on The New Book of Clues is not to provide answers.  There are experts for that.  My work is to suggest questions and to provide clues that might lead you to the answers that you seek.  I hope that you have enjoyed our journey as much as I have.  The Prosperity Project has taught me much about my relationship with money, and I am anxious to see what happens when I begin spending 15 minutes every morning visualizing myself as an internationally popular writer and speaker making huge amounts of money from my books and conferences.  When I come through your town on my tour, I hope that you stop by to visit.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Imagination and Passion

Greetings, prosperous ones.

Yesterday we looked at some qualities of successful people, and if you're anything like me you found some areas that you can improve in your own life.  My guess is though, you already possess most of those qualities in adequate amounts.  The fact that you are even here, reading these pages, shows that you have a clear desire to improve yourself along these lines.  My suspicion is that we are not yet succeeding because we have not yet become clear  as to what it is that we really want to do with our lives.  We have not yet decided on our Clear Definite Aim. 

We did, however, spend a few days thinking about our favorite activities and our strongest skills.  We have decided which tasks we perform that engage us so completely that time drops away and we are able to work effortlessly for long periods of time without tiring.  Wouldn't it be nice if our favorite hobby were also the way that we earned our money?  Then, we could play all day.  But surely there's more to it than that.  I was about to say that you can't get a job watching TV all day, but then I've seen some security guards who do just that.  What I will say here is that I believe we can create for ourselves whatever kind of job that we can imagine.  We just have to be creative.  That's the Imagination part Napoleon Hill talks about.

Money comes to us because we add value to the world.  If we're on the couch watching House, we're not providing anyone value.  If, however, we get an idea while watching House that we turn into a screenplay of our own, or if you're a doctor watching House and you get an idea that helps you save a life, now value did ultimately come out of that activity.   What will turn our favorite activity into revenue is a creative idea.  We must use our imagination to figure out a way that we can use our best skills and our favorite activities to provide a much-needed service to the world.  This will require thinking outside of your everyday TV-shaped box. 

For example, it's one thing to be a writer; it's another thing to be a writer with a message; and it's quite another thing entirely to be a writer with a message that the world is ready to embrace.  If you are a photographer, you probably have thousands of world-class photographs sitting in your files.  How do you package those in a way that they can become revenue for you?  Or if you're not feeling particularly entrepreneurial, how can you find someone like, say, National Geographic, to pay you lots of money to travel all over the world taking pictures?  Or maybe the thing you really want to do is that one crazy dream that came out as the answer to yesterday's question, that wildest dream you have that you've never pursued because it's just not practical.  Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible that if you were to really do that one crazy thing, it would be the one change that would make all the difference for you.  I'm just saying. 

As we've been saying all along, we must start right where we are, and we must start at the beginning.  Once we decide what we really want (and we're a long way yet from deciding that, aren't we?) we can't just quit our current jobs and jump into our dream jobs.  Life doesn't work that way.  There's karmic momentum that we have to contend with.  We must continue to carry on with our current lives, making sure to do everything in that Certain Way, consciously developing the character traits of success.  No, the beginning doesn't involve taking radical action; the beginning involves dreaming.  Before we can claim our dream life, we must first know exactly what it looks like.  To borrow from both Hill and Wattles, we must determine what precisely is our Clear Definite Aim, and we must continuously hold a Clear Mental Image of that before us as we go about our current activities.

Of all the steps and obstacles that we will encounter on the journey to our heart's desire, deciding a Clear Definite Aim is by far the most difficult.   It is why most people never even get started.  Most of us want conflicting things.  For example, I want to travel all over the world, but I also want to sing in the local community chorus and grow a garden.  I really like my current job at the pool store, and I know I could turn that into a money making enterprise that would reward me handsomely, yet it conflicts with my lifelong desire to see the world and to have several residences scattered all over the planet.  I also want to be an internationally known writer and speaker, and I can't see myself having time to do all that and build a pool store empire. 

We are all of us juggling conflicting desires that cancel each other out.  We are also further confused because some of what we think we want is actually what someone else wants for us.  Many of us are trying to fulfill our parents' dreams or our spouse's dreams.  Perhaps we have chosen our current profession because it is what was expected of us.  If our goals and our career have been chosen to please someone else, then our participation in that activity will always lack the passion necessary to drive us to success.  We must choose our own dreams, even if it outrages and scandalizes our tribe. 

So how do we untangle this knotted mass of conflicting dreams and obligations?  We use our imagination, of course!  A great way to find out what we really want to be, do, and have is to take the Passion Test.  Developed by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood, The Passion Test helps you to determine your top five passions in life.  You can take the Passion Test online, but they will first ask you to sign up for a 30-day free trial.  You can also pick up the book at a bookstore or check it out from your local library.  It will be well worth the time and money involved to get the full version. 

In the meantime, though, here is the Cliff Notes version: 

First, make a list of everything that you are passionate about.  In this stage it does not matter that you might have conflicting desires; this is the brain dump portion of the exercise.  Don't censor yourself:  Coffee made my list, because first thing in the morning I am passionate about that first cup!  Write down everything that you will be, do, and have when your life is ideal.  Everything.  For now it doesn't matter how you could ever accomplish any of these things, it matters only that you want them.  DREAM BIG!   Remember that we are looking for your passions, not your goals.  "What's the difference?  A passion is how you choose to live your life.  Jack chooses to live life as a multimillionaire.  A goal is something you aim to achieve.  The goal could be stated as 'to earn $2 million within the next year.'"


Next comes the test part.   Got your list?  Look at the first two items on the list.  Of those two desires, which one is more important to you?  If you had to choose one and let the other go, which one would you keep?  Now, take your keeper and compare it to the next item on the list.  Of those two desires, which is more important to you?  Continue to compare the items on your list, judging between two at a time which is most important to you, until you reach the bottom of your list.  The last one standing will be labelled Passion #1.  Then take the next item on your list and repeat the process until you have chosen your top five passions.  If you get stuck, ask yourself this question:  "If I could be, do, or have 1 and it meant that I could never be, do, or have 2, would that be OK with me?  Which one matters more."

Here is an example from the book to show you what they mean:

Jack's initial list:
  1. Being of service to massive numbers of people. 
  2. Having an international impact.
  3. Enjoying celebrity status.
  4. Being part of a dynamic team.
  5. Having a leadership role.
  6. Helping people live their vision. 
  7. Speaking to large groups.
  8. Having an impact through television. 
  9. Being a multimillionaire.
  10. Having world-class quarters and support team.
  11. Having lots of free time.
  12. Studying with spiritual masters regularly.
  13. Being part of a spiritual leaders network.
  14. Creating a core group of ongoing trainers who feel identified with my organization.
  15. Having fun, fun, fun!
Now here are Jack's final five top passions after submitting the above list to the passion test.

  1. Helping people live their vision.
  2. Being part of a dynamic team.
  3. Being of service to massive numbers of people
  4. Having an international impact
  5. Creating a core group of ongoing trainers who feel identified with my organization. 
As you can see, this process will require some time, so I suggest that you don't try to do this at work while the boss isn't looking.  Take some time with it.  Go into your quiet place and really give it your full attention.  I plan to do mine this evening; although I've done this test before, we are continually evolving, so our list will evolve with us. 

Here then, is today's study question:

What are the top five things that you are most passionate about being, doing, and having in your ideal life? 

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Service

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Napoleon Hill's Law of Success

Welcome back, prosperous friends!

We have been exploring together the question, "How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?"  We have decided that it's not what you do so much as how you do it that matters.  Each of us will ultimately pick a different What, but the How will be the same for all of us.   In his book The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill breaks down the fifteen qualities of a successful person.  Let's count down to number one together.

Quality #15:  The Golden Rule.  Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  If you are to be successful, you must have a code of ethics which guides your actions.   Karmic law treats everyone equally:  what goes around comes around.  If you consistently treat others honestly, fairly, generously, sincerely, then that is how the world will treat you in turn.

Quality #14:  Tolerance.  Live and let live.  We are all different, and it is our differences that make this world such a beautifully rich tapestry.  Intolerance, ignorance and superstition have been the cause of all wars, conflicts, and strife.  We must learn to question our most deep-seated assumptions about what we believe to be right, and must learn to make room in our minds and hearts for points of view that differ from our own.

Quality #13:  Failure.  Interesting that failure would be a quality of success, isn't it?  According to Hill we learn more from our failures than from any other lesson.  He prefers to call them "Temporary Defeats," because it's only a failure if you quit.  Hill lost his fortune more than once.  Every time, just before the big fall, he felt like he was on top of the world.  They say that "pride goeth before the fall," and Hill found that to be true in his case.  He eventually, after about the sixth time, started learning that every time he got cocky it was a sign that he was taking himself too seriously, and that if he weren't careful everything would soon fall apart.  Don't be afraid of failure, but don't rule it out either.  It's just a thing.  Learn from it and move on.  Hill writes, "You have failed many times?  How fortunate!  You ought to know, by now, some of the things NOT do do." 

Quality #12:  Co-operation.  Hill describes two forms of co-operation that are essential to success:  "First, the Co-operation between people who group themselves together or form alliances for the purpose of attaining a given end, under the principles known as the Law of the Master Mind.  Second, the Co-operation between the conscious and the sub-conscious minds, which forms a reasonable hypothesis of man's ability to contact, communicate with and draw upon infinite intelligence."  We cannot attract that which we desire unless our mind and our heart are of one accord.  We cannot make progress in the physical world if we are at cross-purposes with our team.  The key is focused effort, all working toward the same end.  We cannot be successful in a vacuum, so learning to cooperate with others is an essential quality to cultivate.

Quality #11:  Concentration.  "Concentration is the act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation."  In addition to consistently focusing our mind on our desired goal, we must also form consistent habits that move us toward that goal.  (We will find that focus is a recurring theme in many of these qualities.)

Quality #10:  Accurate Thought.  "Accurate thought involves two fundamentals which all who indulge in it must observe. First, to think accurately you must separate facts from mere information.  There is much "information" available to you that is not based upon facts.  Second, you must separate facts into two classes; namely, the important and the unimportant, or, the relevant and the irrelevant. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:  "Don't believe everything you think."  Learn to cultivate a discerning mind.  It will be well worth the considerable effort.

Quality #9:  Pleasing Personality.  An attractive personality is a personality that attracts.  If we are wanting to learn to attract abundance, being attractive is an important quality to develop.  Quality #15 dealt with our character.  Here, we are focusing on the externals:  body language, clothing, facial expression, handshake.  But even if you are, as Hill so colorfully puts it, "as homely as the circus fat woman," there is one key that will always cause others to see your personality as a pleasing one, and that is by "taking a keen heart-interest in the other fellow's 'game' in life."    When building your business network, don't aggressively sell your wares to your colleagues.  That is a sure way to annoy people, which is definitely not attractive.  Instead, learn to approach each business relationship with the question, What are the biggest challenges you face in your business, and how can I help you to resolve them? 

Quality #8:  Habit of Doing More Than Paid For.  This is easier to do when you are able to do the kind of work that you LOVE.  "A (wo)man is most efficient and will more quickly and easily succeed when engaged in work that he loves, or work that he performs in behalf of some person whom he loves."  We talked about this quality in an earlier post.  If you think you should be earning $100 an hour instead of $10 an hour, then work as if you already being paid the larger amount.  If you truly hate your job and cannot find anything about it to love, then this might be hard for you.  So here's my advice:  Quit.  Even if the new job is still not the job of your dreams, using a different set of skills might be more appealing to you.  Life is too short to do work that you hate.

Quality  #7:  Self-Control.  Discipline.  There really is no way around this one.  Every morning I have to wake up two hours early to write this blog before work.  Some days I really don't want to get out of bed.  It takes a lot of self-control to make ourselves do unpleasant things, or even do pleasant things consistently.

Quality #6:  Enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm is "the vital moving force that impels action.  The greatest leaders of men are those who know how to inspire enthusasm in their followers ....  Mix enthusiasm with your work and it will not seem hard or monotonous.  Enthusiasm will so energize your entire body that you can get along with less than half the usual amount of sleep and at the same time it will enable you to perform from two to three times as much work as you usually perform in a given period, without fatigue."  Find a way to do your work with enthusiasm.

Quality #5:  Imagination.  "The imagination is both interpretive and creative in nature."  Let your mind be free to wander.  Dream big dreams.  If you can see it in your mind, you can make it happen in your world.

Quality #4:  Initiative and Leadership.  Do what needs to be done without being asked.  If you have ever had employees, you will agree that initiative is a rare quality.  "One of the peculiarities of Leadership is the fact that it is never found in those who have not acquired the habit of taking the initiative.  Leadership is something that you must invite yourself into; it will never thrust itself upon you."  Even if you are currently doing a job that you dislike, you can begin to practice the habit of taking initiative.

Quality #3:  The Habit of Saving.  No matter how little money you make, even if you are making less money than you need to get by, make it a habit to always save a certain percentage of every dollar that you bring in.  People are not wealthy who have not amassed a sum of capital.  Capital is just a fancy name for a big pile of money.  Start saving yours now. 

Quality #2:  Self-Confidence.  We talked about this quality in great detail a few days ago in an earlier post.  I have a colleague who, when introducing himself at networking functions, describes himself as "quite possibly the best carpet cleaner on the entire planet."  That's self-confidence, and if I were to ever have a carpet, he would be the guy I hire.  Be that guy. 

Quality #1:  A Definite Chief Aim.  I have saved this quality for last, because this is exactly the question we are trying to answer here in Phase 2 of the Prosperity Project.  What work should I be doing that will earn me the kind of money I would like to be making?  In order to be successful, we must FOCUS our energies and activities toward one specific goal.  We cannot work two or more businesses at the same time and be successful at either one of them.  This is a challenge for people like me who must work one job to pay the bills while building my dream business in my spare time.  If you find yourself in that position, it is important to compartmentalize your time.  While at your job, do your work with enthusiasm, take initiative, and always do more than you are paid to do.  When the time clock rings, it's time to leave the job behind and to focus on your true life's work, whatever that may be.  If you do not have the luxury of already working in your dream job, then you will need to be extremely disciplined to carve out sufficient hours during your day to make progress toward your Definite Chief Aim.  It is why I wake up hours before the sun to write before I go to work.  If I am serious about being a writer, then I must do whatever it takes to find the time to write.

***
We'll look more at this topic tomorrow; but for now, here is today's cluster of study questions:

Is there some activity that you've always wanted to do, but haven't?  Does your practical side get in the way of living your dream?  Is there something that you wanted to be as a child but which seemed impractical when you got older?  What is it that you are doing in your wildest dreams, when no one is looking? 

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Do What You Love, Do It With Others

Greetings, my prosperous friends.

Every day we're learning a little bit more about how we can go from making the small (or nonexistent) amount of money we are earning now, to making enough money that we can have real wealth.  We decided that wealth is simply the freedom to be, do, and have anything that we can dream of, and that money is only an energetic tool that can help to make that happen.  And yesterday, we explored the idea that successful people exude self-confidence because they are doing something that they are knowledgeable about and that they do well. 

So now, let's look at our answers to yesterday's study question.  When you are in the flow, when time stand stills, when you are doing work that you enjoy, what are you doing?  The answer to that question is one clue to answering the question, "What can I do that will earn me some real money?"  

On Day 27 of the Prosperity Project, we talked about the idea of a Master Mind.  People like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie amassed huge fortunes because they didn't rely only on their own limited personal knowledge.  Instead, they assembled a team of people, each of whom were experts in their particular field.  These people didn't need to know everything about making cars or steel, they only needed to know their own part of it.  If everyone on the team does what they do best, then they will be doing work that engages them and for which they have a passion.  A team assembled around that level of excellence is bound to be successful.  Ford and Carnegie themselves were doing work that they did best:  they were excellent at having a vision, seeing the big picture, and organizing and directing the efforts of their team. 

Now, I want to digress here for a moment to point out that not everyone is destined to be a master of industry.  Not everyone is an entrepreneur, so although it is popular in these times to entertain the idea of starting your own business, that route may not be for you.  Remember, that wealth is being free to be, do, and have, whatever you want.  Owning your own business may require that you spend long hours doing work that you hate, and being tied to a business that you can't leave or it will fail.  That is not freedom. 

My brother, for example, is a master craftsmen.  He can take old furniture and turn it into a priceless work of art.  He can turn fabric into stunning high-end draperies that have been showcased in major national trade magazines.  He loves working in his shop; he is the very best at what he does, and he enjoys his work immensely.  He is limited in the money that he can earn, however, because his earnings are tied to his personal labor.  Granted, he gets top dollar for his work because of the level of excellence that he puts into his pieces, but if he wants to make any real money at it he needs to hire help.   He tried that for a short time, but realized that he was spending his time managing his staff instead of working in his shop.  Instead of being a master craftsman, he had turned into a manager and hated his job! 

The point that I am making here is that our aim is to create the life that will bring us the most pleasure.  We want to have a life that is so enjoyable that when we open our eyes in the morning we bound out of bed ready to greet the new day.  If we hate our job, that is very unlikely.  If we hate our job, it doesn't matter how much money it pays.  If, then, we are to be successful, we want to design a life around activities that we enjoy.  We want to spend our days doing what we love to do best. 

In order to be successful, in order to earn larger wages doing work that we enjoy, we should follow Ford and Carnegie's lead and become a part of a Master Mind team.  That could take many forms:  we could be the entrepreneur who is the visionary who puts that team together; we could form a partnership with others who are starting up a new enterprise, or we could be happy simply being an employee of a company that pays us to play at what we love all day.  We don't have to own a business in order to be considered successful, we simply need to be doing work that makes us happy.  

So how, then, do we get there?  As the Munchkins told Dorothy, "It is always best to start at the beginning."  Start where you are.  If you have a job already, even if it is a job that you don't particularly enjoy and that does not pay you much money, begin working that job as if you are an integral part of a Master Mind team.   Do your part of the job with enthusiasm, with the idea of advancing the cause of the team. It will be wonderful practice for you, and because you will now be focusing on the positive aspects of the job instead of on the parts that you hate, you will begin attracting more opportunities to be an essential part of a successful team.  I guarantee that if you begin working your current job with enthusiasm, you will find that your current job will evolve:  you will find yourself spending more time doing work that you love, and less time doing the stuff you hate. 


If you do not currently have a job, then you have lots of free time on your hands.  Volunteer for something that allows you to use the skills that you identified yesterday as being your favorite thing to do.  Don't worry that you're spending your time working for free; you will be adding value to the world by doing work you love, and the Universe will reward you by sending to you more opportunities to do that work for a fee.  Remember that the Universe wants to support you. 

Today's study question will help you to gain a clearer picture of the kind of work that you are ultimately wanting to attract to yourself:

IF MONEY WERE NO OBJECT, HOW WOULD YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS? 

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Self Confidence

Welcome back, prosperous friends!

Yesterday we learned that it's not so much what you do, it's how you do it that really matters.   We realized that no matter where we want to end up we always have to start right where we are.  We spent some time imagining how we would do our current job differently if we were being paid ten times as much to do it.  What did you notice when you did that exercise?  As you saw yourself going through that well-paid imaginary workday, did you notice that you carried yourself differently?  Did you speak with more authority?  Did you seem to have more self-confidence? 

Self-Confidence is definitely one of the characteristics of doing things in the Certain Way.  It is one of the qualities that make up How You Do It.  Napoleon Hill talks about the importance of self-confidence in his classic, The Law of Success:  The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan for Achieving Your Dreams.  Here is what he writes: 
Perhaps you have wondered why a few men advance to highly paid positions while others all around them, who have as much training and who seemingly perform as much work, do not get ahead.  Select any two people of these two types that you choose, and study them, and the reason why one advances and the other stands still will be quite obvious to you.  You will find that the one who advances believes in himself.  You will find that he backs this belief with such dynamic, aggressive action that he lets others know that he believes in himself.  You will also notice that this Self-confidence is contagious; it is impelling; it is persuasive; it attracts others.
You will also find that the one who does not advance shows clearly, by the look on his face, by the posture of his body, by the lack of briskness in his step, by the uncertainty with which he speaks, that he lacks Self-confidence.  No one is going to pay much attention to the person who has no confidence in himself. 
He does not attract others because his mind is a negative force that repels rather than attracts.  
That all seems pretty clear, and when we encounter a person who is completely self-confident or completely self-conscious, we recognize it instantly and respond to them accordingly.  But people are complex creatures.  We are hardly ever completely anything.  If you're like me, even if we are sometimes insecure and self-conscious in some situations, we also have certain areas in our lives where we are very confident.  When we are engaged in a particular activity that we do well and we enjoy, we move confidently.  We are enthusiastic and totally in the flow.  Work that we do in that state takes on a certain quality of excellence.

Here's today's study question:

THINK ABOUT THE DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES THAT YOU ENGAGE IN EVERY DAY, BOTH FOR WORK AND FOR PLAY.  WHEN YOU ARE TOTALLY IN THE FLOW, WHEN YOU LOSE TRACK OF TIME, WHEN YOU ARE WORKING CONFIDENTLY AND UNSELF-CONSCIOUSLY, WHEN YOU ARE JOYFUL AND STRONG, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THAT MOMENT? 



Thursday, October 15, 2009

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It

Greetings, prosperous friends!  Yesterday we gave some thought as to what wealth is, and we found that we are already abundantly wealthy right where we are.  We remembered that if we focus on the wealth that we already have in our lives, even more wealth can be attracted to us.  We learned that the secret is to look upon all that we already have with an attitude of grateful appreciation, seeing it all as very good.

Start Where You Are
In Phase 1 of the Prosperity Project we had dreams of homes and vacations, gifts to friends, charitable foundations ... all things that require big money.  How, then, do we get from where we are now to where we want to be?  The answer has always been to Start Where You Are.   Buddhists have been teaching us that for centuries.  The Tao Te Ching teaches that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Since all we ever really have is the Right Here And Now, we have no choice but to change our lives in this present moment by changing ourselves.  Since in the present moment we have whatever job we have (or don't have), then instead of trying to change WHAT we do we should focus on changing HOW we do things. 

The Certain Way
In The Science of Getting Rich,  Wallace Wattles tells us that in order to earn more money we must do all that we do in what he calls a Certain Way.  In an earlier post, we learned that when we do things in the Certain Way we make it a point, in every transaction, to give people more in use value than they give you in money.  We learned to always give way more than we are paid to give.  We also learned to be larger than our current position, by never leaving undone anything that can reasonably be done by us.  Not to say that we should overwork, but we should always do all of today's work today.  Tomorrow's work will take care of itself.

Do Today's Work Today
Wattles is very clear on why we should never leave work undone, and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense:  When we set our intention, when we have a Clear Mental Image of what it is that we want to create in our lives and we intend to make that a reality for ourselves, the universe starts setting things up so that our dreams can materialize.  That requires an incredible amount of orchestration, because other people will need to be inspired to do their part, which in turn will cause even more people to do their part, which will eventually cause a synchronistic opportunity to present itself to us, which will be the break we need to materialize our dreams.  If, however, we fail to do that one all-important thing because we're too busy watching General Hospital; if we decide to wait until tomorrow, or the weekend, or next week to get around to it, then it throws off that divine timing.  By doing the thing we were inspired to do that very same day we get the inspiration, we are honoring the Universe's time schedule.  If we fail to do that one thing, then the Universe's beautifully orchestrated miracle of timing is thwarted, and things must be set up all over again.  What could have happened quickly for us, now must take quite a bit more time ... all because we got in our own way by procrastinating!

It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It
Many of us here on the Prosperity Project have been wondering what THING we can do that will earn us large sums of money.  We are looking at our present jobs realizing that no matter how hard we work, we will never make a lot of money there.  Napoleon Hill tells the story of a man who worked outside his office window selling peanuts on a street corner.  That man worked hard every day; he was always busy.  When he wasn't selling peanuts he was cooking peanuts and doing all the busywork involved with selling food.  But in spite of how hard he worked all day, he still only earned pennies.  Many of us are like that peanut seller:  We are busy all day, working hard with little time for ourselves, to earn just a few pennies a day.  Many of us work hard all week and barely make ends meet.  People who make gobs of money work no harder than we do, they just work a bit differently.

The secret to earning more money is to remember that what we do is not nearly as important as how we do it.  Whatever our work may currently be, we should do it with enthusiasm.   We should do more than is expected of us, and always do all of today's work today.   Yes, in order to make more money we will eventually need to do more lucrative work.  But here and now, today, we don't need to decide what that work should be.  We don't need to make plans to quit our jobs and start some get-rich-quick scheme.  We need not make any heroic efforts at changing our circumstances.  What we do need to change is how we go about doing the things that are already ours to do.  We need to BE the kind of people who deserve to be paid the kind of money we would like to be earning.  Someone once gave me some excellent advice:  If we think we should be earning $100 an hour, then we should do the job currently set before us as if we were being paid $100 an hour to do it.

Here's today's study question:  PRETEND YOU ARE A CONSULTANT BEING PAID HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO WORK IN YOUR COMPANY AND IMPROVE THINGS FROM THE INSIDE.  HOW WOULD YOU WORK DIFFERENTLY IF YOU WERE BEING PAID TEN TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU CURRENTLY EARN?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: What is Wealth?

Greetings once again, prosperous friends!  Congratulations to those of you who successfully completed the entire 28 days of the Prosperity Project, where we became accustomed to spending ever-increasing amounts of dollars.  Those of us who made it through the entire course found that our relationship with money is a little more relaxed now.  More importantly, we are much more clear on what our goals are for our life.  On the one hand.

On the other hand, although we know where we would spend money if we had it, we are still a bit unclear on how to actually earn that money.  Well, that is exactly what we will be exploring here in Phase 2 of the Prosperity Project.  I don't actually yet know the answer to that question, or I would be making more than $11.00 an hour.  But I know that it is possible, because I see others around me who are comfortably well off, able to travel, happily working high-paying jobs.  I know that if some people can do it, then we can also learn to do it ...  even in what is euphemistically known as "this economy."

This blog is called The New Book of Clues specifically because I don't have all the answers.  What I do have is a whole bunch of clues.  So over the next few weeks we'll be exploring those clues, to see if we can uncover together the secret of attracting wealth.  Before we begin, though, we should take some time to explore what we mean by "wealth."

Sure, one measure of wealth is having a lot of money.  But I've met some very wealthy people who were miserable.  For example, I know one money-rich woman who is so lonely that she pays for a companion.  She is grossly overweight because she compensates for her emptiness by eating lots of comfort food.  This woman doesn't DO anything.  She married money, and adds no value of her own to the world every day, unless you count spending money.  She spends her day making shopping lists, and then pays someone to go buy the stuff and put it away for her.  In my mind, that women may have money but she does not possess wealth.

On the other end of the spectrum,  I have a friend who has almost no money, and doesn't really want any.  When his trailer was destroyed a few years ago he had no means of replacing it, so now he lives quite happily in a tent in a friend's backyard.  He has an old truck that runs, because he is an excellent mechanic.  The truck gives him a dry place to keep his things, and gets him around town.  This particular friend works odd jobs, but nothing that keeps him too tied down.  Every morning when he wakes up he sits quietly on the riverbank while he sips his coffee, deliberately not thinking.  Some people might call this practice meditation; he would tell you that people's brains get them into an awful lot of trouble, and it's best to give them a time-out every day so they don't get out of control.  This man spends his days doing acts of service.  He attracts people who are sick and alone, and he sits with them.  It's a simple act, and one which doesn't cost him anything but time.  But I've witnessed his healing presence first-hand.  He may be gnarly looking, but when I was the one sick and alone, I welcomed his presence.

Of these two people, I would have to say that the one with no money was the wealthier of the two.  I have to be careful here, because it is examples like these that feed into my false belief that only corrupt people have money, so in order to be pure at heart you must also be poor.  I'm learning through this Prosperity Project that this really isn't a true assumption.  Money is a tool, like a hammer or this computer.   Good people can have money, just as good people can own a hammer!

So, if wealth isn't money, what is it?

Wealth is the freedom to be, do and have anything that your heart desires.  Money definitely helps, but sometimes there are creative solutions to getting what you want that don't require much money.  In Phase 1 of the Prosperity Project, we each learned that what we really wanted was to build a workspace for ourselves filled with all the tools we could ever need for working on our creative projects.  We also wanted the freedom to travel, and we absolutely all wanted to use our money to help friends, family, and even total strangers to live their dreams.  Although we had lots of money to spend, we found we weren't really interested in the money; we were more interested in the freedom that the money gave us to fully live our lives.

True wealth cannot exist without a sense of deep gratitude and appreciation for everything that we have.  It is one thing to have what you want; it is quite another thing altogether to want what you have.  Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.  My tent-dwelling friend says that he's wealthier now than he was in the days when he had lots of money, because he has learned to see his world with a grateful eye.  I urge you to look around at all that you have and to see it for the wealth that it is.  Remember that the Law of Attraction teaches that we will attract that which we consistently focus on.  If we look at what we have and focus only on the things that we don't have, we will continue to attract more lack.  If, however, we learn to look on what we currently possess and see it as wealth, we will begin to attract more wealth.

OK, so money is tight, and the lights might get turned off this week, and we might run out of fuel oil before the end of winter, and people might get sick with no way of going to the doctor, and the car might break down with no way of fixing it.  How can I look at all this and see wealth?  My answer is, don't focus on that part.  Focus on what you do have.  Do you have people or animals that love you?  Do you have a place to sleep at night?  Can you take a hot shower?  Is there hot coffee when you wake up?  Are you happy, at least some of the time?  Is there beauty around you?  Do you have harmonious relationships?  Focus on those things, because they are definitely included in the definition of wealth. 

See yourself as already wealthy.  That doesn't mean picture yourself with a lot of money, it means to see yourself where you already are, and to see, and appreciate, and be grateful for the fact that wealth is already yours.  Then watch that wealth grow.

Now it's your turn to talk.  Every day I will close with a question for you to answer.  Here's today's question:

IN WHAT WAYS ARE YOU ALREADY WEALTHY?

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Prosperity Project Day 28 - FINAL EXAM

Greetings, prosperous friends.  We have reached the last day of the Prosperity Project, and are here to spend our final $28,000.  Today, I'm going to reverse my usual order:  I'll spend first, then I'll talk: 

$28,000   Book royalties

$  2,500   Performing Arts Center building fund
$  5,000   Wealth Building Fund (Total $100,000)
$20,500   Vacation Home Fund (Total $137,000)

Wow.  I need to take a moment of silence as I contemplate these numbers.  Altogether, in 28 days we have spent $406,000.  On the scale at which money is being earned and spent out in the world, that's not really an incredibly large sum of money, but to me it seemed a life's fortune. 

I heard last night that when football players retire they get paid $25,000 a month NOT to keep playing ball.  That is $300,000 every year.  There are people out there making well over a million dollars a year doing whatever it is that they do to make that kind of money.  While I don't really need a million dollars every year to sustain the lifestyle that I've imagined over the past four weeks, I certainly would like to make more than the $11.00 an hour I'm currently making.  But then, that $11.00 seems huge compared to being basically unemployed for the past two years. 

Four the past four weeks we have imagined spending money; beginning tomorrow, we will start exploring ways in which we might reasonably earn more money than we are currently bringing in.  But first, we must take our Final Exam!

This is an essay exam, consisting of the following questions.  (WARNING:  This is a graduate school-level exam, so I will be asking you to do some serious thinking.  I urge you to take the time to formulate and write down your answers.  I promise you will learn a lot about yourself from the process.)

1.  Look over the money you have spent in the past week, and break it down into categories of spending.  For example, How much did you save?  How much did you give away?  How much did you spend on travelling?  How much did you use to pay down debt?  How much did you spend on specific projects? 

2.  How you spend your money is an excellent indicator of what it is that you truly value.  What do the above numbers say about your values?  According to how you spent your money, what is the thing that you value most of all? 

3.  Think back on who you were on Day 1 of the Prosperity Project.  How has your relationship with money changed since you've begun this game.  How have YOU changed.

4.  How you spent money in this game is pretty much how you would like to spend money if you were to have some.  Without worrying about where the money might come from, write down some long-term financial goals for yourself. 

HERE ARE MY ANSWERS:

1.  Out of 406,000 I allocated 10% as God's money, and gave about $40,000 to local classical music programs.  I spent $22,300 on my workspace, about 5% of the total money.  I spent $25,000 travelling, again about 5%.  I saved $100,000, about 25%.  I spent $39,000 on a motor home, about 10%.   I collected $137,000 to buy a vacation home, about 34%.  That means I spent about 6% of my money buying stuff for me and my loved ones, plus outright gifts of money to friends. 

2.  According to these numbers, the thing I value most is having a home base that is completely set up for me to comfortably do my life's work.  Between enhancing my current home in Florida, buying a motor home, and buying a vacation home where I can work without being subjected to the unbearably steamy Florida summers, I spent over half of my allotted money on housing.  I also greatly value traveling, because I spent a significant amount taking vacations, and quite a bit of money on that motor home and a vacation home. I want to be able to work in different locations as the mood strikes while still being at home.  I also value sharing money with others, and saving a portion of the money that I earn.  

3.  I feel much friendlier with money now than when I started this game.  I feel more worthy, somehow, as if it really is OK for me to buy the things I've written down here on these pages.  I've often thought of vacation homes before, but they were just dreams.  After going through this process for the past four weeks, I can clearly see that everything I've written down here is completely within the realm of possibility for me.  I feel more confident in my ability to earn larger sums of money, even though I don't yet know how that will happen for me.  I do notice that I am planning more frequent vacations than was my habit in the past, and I'm doing so without my usual fear of loss of income.  I have recently bought a few expensive items for myself with almost no guilt.  And I am also noticing that I am enjoying what I do have much more thoroughly than when I started this game.

4.  Here are my financial goals:
  • Save 10% of every dollar I make.  I will first amass an emergency savings of $10,000, then put the rest into a wealth building fund. 
  • Save 10% of every dollar I make, and put it into a Home fund (workspace, motor home, vacation home, in that order.) 
  • Save 10% of every dollar I make, and put it into a Vacation fund
  • Give away 10% of every dollar I make
  • Live on no more than 60% of my money.  Until I make more money, this will require loads of disipline!
  • Figure out how to make more money!  At my current rate of earning, that Vacation Home is really just a pipe dream.  But I believe that I can increase my earnings by working in That Certain Way, so I am beginning to truly believe that it is possible for me to completely finish my current home, complete with a second story, buy a motor home, and own more than one vacation home:  Carolinas, Maine, Pacific Northwest; all while doing lots of travelling.   
Well, that's the end of our game, my prosperous friends!  I hope that you've learned something about yourself, and that you and money are on friendlier terms than you were a month ago.  I applaud you for finishing this course, and know that with your vision firmly in place you will easily achieve every one of your dreams! 

I'll see you here tomorrow as we begin to explore the earning portion of this equation. 

Monday, October 12, 2009

Prosperity Project Day 27

Greetings, prosperous friends!  We have almost finished with our experiment.  Tomorrow will be the final day of our game, and so I think it fitting to schedule a Final Exam.  On the exam, I will ask you to talk about how your relationship with money has changed over the past month.  I will also ask you to write down your goals, because I know that they are much clearer now than when we started. 

But that is tomorrow.  Today, I want to talk to you about the idea of a "Master Mind."  I am reading Napoleon Hill right now, and according to him one of the most fundamental secrets to success is having a Master Mind.  Here's how it works:

When two or more minds come harmoniously together, a new mind is formed combining the best that all of the individual minds have to offer.  That new mind is called a Master Mind.  One of the most powerful Master Minds that any of us will ever have is the one that is created out of our primary relationship with our spouse, assuming that our relationship is a harmonious one.  Hill believes the Master Mind concept is the reason that happily married men are more successful than single men or unhappily married men.  (Ladies, don't bristle:  Hill was writing before World War I; the world was a much different place then.)

Hill is quick to suggest divorce if your marriage is not a harmonious one, because true power grows out of harmony.  Here's why:  Everything is vibration, and vibrations are waves.  When one wave comes in contact with another harmonious wave, the two waves join together and become one even bigger wave.  Their combined amplitude is bigger than what it was when they were single waves.  If, however, a wave hits a disharmonious wave, the two cancel each other out.  It's basic harmonics.  In music, it is the difference between a beautiful harmony and dissonant noise. 

Now, I'm not saying this to tell you to get married, or to get divorced for that matter.  I'm merely stating a principle.  I will, however, urge you to develop some harmonious relationships around the area of your life work.  We have all expressed dreams here on the Prosperity Project.  We've expressed dreams of spending money, but we've also spent some time imagining how we will earn that money.  I would like to suggest that, even if your life work is solitary, as in the case of we writers, you develop a team that can be your Master Mind.  No one who has been wildly successful has done so alone.  Even Jesus had disciples. 

If you are fortunate enough to have a harmonious primary relationship, that person should absolutely be a part of your Master Mind.  If you are currently single or your primary relationship is disharmonious, please don't consider yourself at a disadvantage here.  The world is filled with people, and ultimately you are in relationship with all of them.  Go build a team.  According to Hill, the most powerful Master Minds are built around six or seven people.  Hill gives the example of Henry Ford, who is clearly the man that Hill admired most:  Ford had no education, but he was smart enough to surround himself with people who knew everything that he needed to know to succeed in the car business.  Remember, Ford invented cars, so he was working outside the box.  Andrew Carnegie, who built a huge steel industry, knew nothing about steel manufacturing.  He did, however, know how to bring a team together and to use their combined knowledge to create his (and their) fortune.  Both men began their careers penniless, yet managed to amass incredible amounts of wealth by using the principle of the Master Mind. 

Who will be on your team?  It's OK not to know today.  It is enough to have the intention to build a team.  If you hold the intention to build your own Master Mind as you go through your day, then the Universe will be sure to send you the people that you need.  Watch for them. 

Now it's time to spend some money!

$27,000   Royalties continue to flow through Motherpearl Industries, from book and CD royalties, speaking engagements, and personal coaching sessions. 

$  3,000   Performing Arts Center Building Fund
$  5,000   Wealth Building Account (Total $95,000)
$19,000   Vacation Home Fund (Total $116,500)

I feel pleased with this, and extremely contented with my life. 

What will you do with your $27,000?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Invisible Acts of Power, by Carolyn Myss

The closing chapter of Carolyn Myss' Invisible Acts of Power:  Personal Choices That Create Miracles, contains a list that I want to reproduce here, so that I can always remember.  She calls this list Invisible Facts of Power. This is the Cliff's Notes version.  Most of the following words belong to Myss;  I only just crib them here, for my own benefit. 
  • Fact Number One:  Life is a Spiritual Journey.  We are each of us on a hero's journey of spiritual progress.  Life is characterized by change; it is by learning to navigate the storms of change that we progress along our spiritual path.  Know that underlying the storm is peace, and under the chaos is order.  Use the power of faith as your anchor:  faith that there is a reason why things happen as they do; faith that you will make it through a crisis; faith that you are moving forward to a better place ...  One of the most empowering acts of service is to believe in someone when he lacks the faith to believe in himself. 
  • Fact Number Two:  Your Biology and Your Spirit Want to Serve.  Following your intuition is vital to your own empowerment and to your physical and spiritual health.  All paths of enlightenment direct us to search within ourselves for the right energy to channel to others.  Our highest potential cannot be tapped without a commitment to reaching out to others.  Service is the most powerful act ...  Increase your attention to your body, especially when you are in need of help or around someone who is reaching out to you.  Learn to interpret your physical sensations:  they are generated by your intuition.  These sensations will direct you to decide whether you should help how much you should help, and when to say no.  At the very least, however, respond with a prayer.  
  • Fact Number Three:  Intuition Influences Every Choice You Make in Life.  You are an intuitive being.  Intuitive abilities are as natural as breathing ....  Your intuition evolves along with your sense of self-esteem, which develops as a by-product of learning how to survive ....  The goal of your individual hero's journey is to allow your intuition and spirit to become your dominant sources of power. 
  • Fact Number Four:  Your Intuition and Generosity Evolve as Your Personal Power Evolves.  Generosity is an expression of your spiritual maturity ....  Empowering someone else empowers all of humanity and ourselves at the same time.  
  • Fact Number Five:  Angels and Grace Are Real.  Believe in the presence of angels and in the power of grace.  Notice and appreciate synchronicity.  Keep an open mind that divine forces are at work in everything that happens to you, whether delightful or difficult.  
  • Fact Number Six:  You Are Never Alone.   When you feel alone, keep in mind that the aloneness is a temporary place between orbits.  You are in motion to another place where there will be love and new friends to meet you. 
  • Fact Number Seven:  Everything You Do Matters.  

Below is Myss' list of the invisible acts of power that meant the most to the people whose letters became the basis of her book.  These simple acts managed to make a huge difference in the lives of another human being.  They are things that we could all easily work into our daily lives.  I list them here to remind us, in those times when we are feeling useless and ineffective, that there are many ways to change the world, and most of those ways are easily within our grasp.

  1. Hold a door open. 
  2. Smile.
  3. Offer a kind word and encouragement.
  4. Give a compliment.
  5. Listen without interruption.
  6. Make a call when your intuition tells you to.
  7. Offer a prayer for a homeless person.
  8. Pray -- period.
  9. Forgive others and yourself.
  10. Prepare a meal for a friend.
  11. Refrain from judging another person harshly.
  12. Remember that life is full of miracles and have faith that every difficult situation can change in the blink of an eye.  
  13. Remember the truth that there is no such thing as a small or insignificant act of service.  
  14. Keep your power and attention in present time.
  15. Begin and end the day in appreciation of either doing or accepting an invisible act of power.  
 Seems to me we could all find time to do at least one of these things every day.  Listen to your body.  If you learn to hear, your intuition will tell you where and when each one of these acts would be appropriate.  How can I be of service today?