Learn To Think Like A Millionaire

February 11, 2009 by Editor  
Filed under Abundance, Beliefs, Law of Attraction, Optimism

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Rich people have a way of thinking that is different from poor and middle class people. They think differently about money, wealth, themselves, other people, and life. Let’s examine six crucial differences between how rich people think and how poor or middle class people think.

By doing so, you will have some alternative beliefs in the files of your mind from which to choose. In this way, you can catch yourself thinking as poor people do and quickly switch over to how rich people think.

Remember, beliefs are not right, wrong, true or false, they’re just past opinions which can be changed on your command. The fact is, you can CHOOSE to think in ways that will support you instead of ways that don’t.

1. Rich People Believe “I Create My Life”

Poor people believe “Life happens to me.”

If you want to create wealth, it is imperative that you believe that you are at the steering wheel of your life; that you create every moment of your life, especially your financial life. If you don’t believe this, then you must believe you have little control over your life and that financial success has nothing to do with you. That is not a very rich attitude.

Instead of taking responsibility for what’s going on in their lives, poor people choose to play the role of victim. Of course, any “victim’s” predominant thought process is “poor me.” And presto, through the law of intention that’s literally what they get; “poor,” as in money, me.

Here’s some homework I promise will change your life. For the next seven days, I challenge you not to complain at all. Not just out loud, but in your head too. I’ve given this little challenge to thousands of people and several hundred have personally told me that this exercise completely transformed their lives. I invite you to email me with the results of this experiment. I guarantee you’ll be astonished as to how amazing your life will become when you stop focusing on the “crap.”

It’s time to decide. You can be a victim OR you can be rich, but you can’t be both. It’s time to take back your power and acknowledge the fact that you create every moment of your life. That you create everything that is in your life and everything that is not in it. That you create your wealth and you create your non-wealth and everything in between.

2. Rich People Play the Money Game to Win

Poor people play the money game not to lose.

Poor people play the money game on defense rather than offense. Let me ask you, if you were to play any sport or any game strictly on defense, what are the chances of you winning that game? Most people agree; slim and none.

Yet, that’s exactly how most people play the money game. Their primary concern is survival and security, not wealth and abundance. So, what is your goal? What is your real objective? What is your true intention?

Rich people’s big goal is to have massive wealth and abundance. Poor people’s big goal is to have “enough to pay the bills…” on time would be a miracle! Again, let me remind you of the power of intention. When your objective is to have enough to pay the bills, that’s exactly how much you’ll get; just enough to pay the bills and usually not a cent more. You get what you truly intend to get. If you want to get rich, your goal has to be “rich.” Not just enough to pay the bills and not just enough to be comfortable. Rich, darn it, rich!

3. Rich People Are Committed to Being Rich

Poor people are uncommitted to being rich.

Most of us have good reasons as to why it would be wonderful to be rich, but what about the other side of the coin? Are there reasons why it might not be so great to be rich or go through the process of trying to get rich?

Each of us has a file on wealth in our mind. This file contains our personal beliefs that include why being wealthy would be great. But for many people, their file also includes information as to why being rich might not be so great. These people have mixed internal messages around money and especially wealth.

One part of them says, “Having more money will make life a lot more fun.” But then another part screams, “Yeah, but “I’m going to have to work like a dog! What kind of fun is that?” One part says, “I’ll be able to travel the world.” then the other part responds, “Yeah, and everyone in the world will want something from me.” These mixed messages are one of the biggest reasons that most people never become rich.

In fact, the #1 reason most people don’t get what they want is they don’t know what they want. Rich people are totally clear they want wealth. They are unwavering in their desire. They are fully committed to creating wealth. They will do “whatever it takes” to have wealth as long as it’s moral, legal and ethical. Rich people do not send mixed messages to the universe. Poor people do.

I hate to break the news to you, but getting rich is not a “stroll in the park.” It’s takes focus, expertise, 100% effort, and “never say die” perseverance. You have to really commit to it, both consciously and subconsciously. You have to believe in your heart you can do it and you deserve it. If you are not fully committed to creating wealth, chances are you won’t.

4. Rich People Think Big

Poor people think small.

We once had a trainer teaching at one of our seminars who went from a net worth of $250 thousand to over $600 million in only 3 years. When asked his secret he said, “Everything changed the day I began to think big.” In my book, SpeedWealth, I discuss the “Law of Income” which states that “you will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the market place.”
Another way of understanding this is to answer the following question: How many people do you actually serve or affect?

For instance in my business, some trainers enjoy speaking to groups of 20, others are comfortable with 100, others like an audience of 500, still others want 5000 people or more in attendance. Is there is a difference in income between these trainers? You bet there is.

Who are you? How do you want to live your life? How do you want to play the game?

Do you want to play in the big leagues or in little league, in the majors or the minors?

Will you play big or play small? It’s your choice.

But hear this. It’s not about you. It’s about living your mission. It’s about living true to your purpose. It’s about adding your piece of the puzzle to the world. It’s about serving others.

Most of us are so stuck in our egos that everything revolves around “me, me and more me.” But again, it’s not about you, it’s about adding value to other people’s lives. It’s your choice. One road leads to being broke and miserable, the other leads to money, meaning, and fulfillment.

It’s time to stop hiding out and start stepping out. It’s time to stop needing and start leading. It’s time to start being the star that you are. It’s time to share your gifts and value in a BIG way. There could be thousands or even millions of people counting on you. Are you up to the challenge for our society and our children’s sake? Let’s hope so.

5. Rich People Are Bigger Than Their Problems

Poor people are smaller than their problems.

Getting rich is not a stroll in the park. It’s a journey that is full of obstacles, twists, and detours. The simple fact is, success is messy. The road is fraught with pitfalls and that’s why most people don’t take it. They don’t want the hassles, the headaches and the responsibilities. In short, they don’t want the problems.

Therein lies one of the biggest differences between rich people and poor people. Rich and successful people are bigger than their problems while poor and unsuccessful people are smaller than their problems.

Poor people will do almost anything to avoid anything that looks like it could be a problem. They back away from challenges. The irony is that in their quest to make sure they don’t have problems, they have the biggest problem of all… they’re broke and miserable.

The secret to success is not to try to avoid or shrink your problems; it’s to grow yourself so you’re bigger than any problem.

Imagine a “level 2″ character person looking at a “level 5″ problem. Would this problem appear to be big or small? The answer is that from a “level 2″ perspective, a “level 5″ problem would seem BIG.

Now imagine a “level 8″ person looking at the same “level 5″ problem. From this person’s perspective, is this problem big or small? Magically the identical problem is now a SMALL problem.

And for a “level 10″ person, it’s NO problem at all. It’s just an everyday occurrence, like getting dressed or brushing your teeth. Whether you are rich or poor, playing big or playing small, problems do not go away. If you’re breathing, you will always have so-called “problems.”

What’s important to realize is that the size of the problem is never the real issue. What matters is the size of you!
Remember, your wealth can only grow to the extent that you do! The idea is to grow yourself to a place where you can overcome any problems that get in your way of creating wealth and keeping it once you have it.

Rich people do not back away from problems, do not avoid problems and do not complain about problems. Rich people are financial warriors and when a warrior is confronted with a challenge they shout: BRING IT ON!

6. Rich People Focus on Opportunities

Poor people focus on problems.

Rich people see potential growth. Poor people see potential loss.

Rich people focus on the rewards. Poor people focus on the risks.

It’s the age-old question, is the glass half empty or half full? We’re not merely talking about “positive thinking” here, we’re talking about a habitual way of seeing the world. Poor people come from fear. Their minds are constantly scanning for what’s wrong or what could go wrong in any situation. Their primary mindset is “What if it doesn’t work?” or, more bluntly, “It won’t work.” Rich people, as we discussed earlier, take responsibility for creating their life and come from the mindset, “It will work because I’ll make it work.”

In the financial world, as in most other arenas, risk is directly proportionate to reward; generally, the higher the reward, the higher the risk. People with rich mentalities are willing to take that risk.

Rich people expect to succeed. They have confidence in their abilities, they have confidence in their creativity and they believe that should the “doo-doo hit the fan”, they can always make their money back or succeed in another way.

On the other hand, poor people expect to fail. They lack confidence in themselves and in their abilities, and should things not work out, they believe it would be catastrophic.

You have to do something, buy something, or start something in order to succeed financially. You have to see opportunities for profit all around you instead of focusing on ways of losing money.

T. Harv Eker will be a featured trainer with The Masters Gathering, which will bring some of the world’s greatest teachers together for on amazing event. Join the masters here…

This Article Doesn’t Exist

February 9, 2009 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs, Learning, Negativity, Optimism

What are you worried about right now?

Well, it’s an almost guarantee that you are worried about nothing, for the very reason that you don’t exist!

You have no worries because you have no mind or body or life to worry with — it’s all an illusion. No worries, but more significantly, no worrier.

If you think this sounds like utter nonsense, some of the most brilliant scientists, philosophers and theological thinkers of our century would disagree with you.

Science and math suggest that we humans don’t exist, (even though there is really no math or science — more illusions!)

The advent of quantum mechanics and modern physics increasingly imply that our existence as human beings is a kind of persistent illusion. We are under the false assumption that we’re people, we only imagine we have bodies and brains, and minds functioning inside those brains. Illusions, all of it.

Listen to what one of the greatest physicists of the century, Authur Eddington said of quantum theories:

“In the world of physics…the shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper…the frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadow is one of the most significant of recent advances.”

By “shadow” Eddington meant illusion. More than any other science, it is particle physics that is confronting the fundamentals of reality, and more and more, the evidence point to the fact there is no reality!

For the past 300-some years, the world has been under the impression that everything is made up of atoms, “the building blocks of the universe.” It was the great Isaac Newton who solidified our impression that atoms were like billiard balls. Pile enough of them on top of each other, set them in motion and you get rocks, trees, animals and people.

But in 1900 Albert Einstein’s hero, the brilliant Max Planck, revealed some incredibly disturbing discoveries he made while trying to solve problems concerning the radiation of energy.

To make a long story short, Planck was forced to conclude that matter at its most fundamental level is not continuous, not solid. There are no tiny billiard balls. When you break down an atom, you get an electron, a proton and maybe a neutron. But it turns out these are not the smallest units either. You can break things down further to bosons, quarks, W particles, tachyons and a lot of other shadowy “things” that just sort of wink in and out of existence.

Where do things go when they “wink out?” Nowhere! They cease to exist! Then they come back again.

So what? you might ask. Well, as you know, the human body is made up from the fundamental elements of nature. We are mostly water, but we also have iron in our blood, calcium in our bones, and such. But each of those substances are made up of individual atoms, which in turn are made up of ghostly bits of nothing that just sort of come and go, in and out of reality.

Scientists call this blinking process “quantum fluctuation.”

So when the elements of your body fluctuate, so does your body, and so do you! So does you brain and the chemicals in your brain! In fact, you may be in a state of nothingness more often than you are in a state of somethingness (even though there really is no somethingness!)

As the currently popular medical guru Depack Chopra points out, all of us our dead (nonexistent) for much of the time, yet we are all constantly afraid of dying, not realizing we are dead much of the time! (Oh by the way, there’s no such thing as time either. Einstein proved it was an illusion, but we won’t get into that right now).

Even at its most solid state, the atom turns out to be not very solid at all. Atoms are 99.999999 empty space. If the nucleus of an atom were the size of a ping-pong ball, and if you were to place it in the center of a large football stadium, the electrons that orbit around the nucleus would be at the outer walls of the stadium.

What is between the nucleus and the electron? Nothing! And what are the nucleus and electron made from? Smaller and smaller bits of energy which are not solid, but actually whirling fragments of light.

Even a block of solid lead is nothing and light, acting as “something.” So is your car. So are the chemicals in your brain. So are you.

Once during a long, boring drive from Grand Forks to southern Missouri with one of my graduate school professors, we became embroiled in a lengthy debate about the deep issues of the universe. I argued that all was illusion, and he argued for solid reality. When I mentioned the unreal nature of fundamental particles, he said:

“That makes no difference! All this means is that these flucuating bits of energy are what we are made out of — but we are still us, still the same, still real solid people. Are your saying is that we are more fundamental than atoms.”

He also said: “If I whacked you with a baseball bat, I bet your pain wouldn’t feel like an illusion!”

At the time, I was stumped to answer because that was before I understood the nature — or more accurately — the mechanics of illusion. I didn’t realize that even our argument was an illusion!

The fact is, my professor and I could have argued for years on end and neither of us would have convinced the other because BOTH of our aurguments were false! Why? Because neither of our arguments exist!

The fact is, language is one of the primary ways in which we become deceived into believing in solid reality. Once a creature reaches the stage where it can manipulate symbolic language, you can bet that creature is deeply buried under many layers of illusion.

I also should have quoted the Uncertainty Principle and the Incompleteness Theorm to my professor.

You see, the idea that language is all illusion is not a simple belief, but a fact which has been proved mathematically. Back in the 1920s, a German math genius by the name of Kurt Godel produced a rigorous mathematical demonstration which showed that all logic was ultimately self contradictory.

Godel’s proof is known as Godel’s Theorm, but also as the Incompleteness Theorm. It states this:

“It is impossible to to establish the logical consistency of any complex deductive system except by assuming principles of reasoning whose own internal consistency is an open question as that of the system itself.”

Whew! That’s just a fancy way of saying that, no matter what your viewpoint — it’s wrong! You will never be able to convince someone of what you believe because all rhetoric is, by nature, fundamentally inconsistent.

That’s why arguing politics and religion is so frustrating — no one is ever right, literally! All arguments are rigged from the start!
.
But there’s even more bad news for reality. It’s called the Heisenbreg Uncertainty principle, suggested and later proved by one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, the great Werner Heisenberg. His principle states:

“The position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time, not even in theory. The very concepts of exact position and exact velocity together, in fact, have no meaning in nature.”

What this means is that physical objects cannot be pinned down to absolutely exist in any one place at any given time. Like Godel’s Theorm, this principle comes with a rigorous mathemetical proof.

So not only are all verbal arugments fundamentally inconsistent, and therefore false, but physical matter ultimately cannot be measured.

As one physicist put it:

“Our conception of substance is only vivid so long as we do not face it. It begins to fade when we analyze it … the solid substance of things is another illusion … we have chased the solid substance from the continuous liquid to the atom, from the atom to the electron, and there we have lost it.”

It’s amazing how complimentary Godel’s Theorm and the Uncertainty Principle are — they both devastate the idea of a solid physcial world filled with ultimate “truths.” There are no objects, no people and no truth. We’ve only been tricked into thinking so, as weird as this sounds.

Who have we been tricked by? Ourselves! And we don’t exist! Odd!

You might ask: How does knowing that you don’t exist help you with your daily troubles? Well, in fact, it helps a lot. Indeed, this knowledge can lead you to an extreme state of happiness, even bliss. How?

By getting to work at realizing that you are buried under many layers of very tricky, persistent illusions, which because of their mathematical inconsistency, are driving you nuts! It seems like you can never find ultimate truth, true peace and the purest of love becaue you are trying to get these things under the false assumption that they exist in some real way. They don’t. And neither does pain, suffering and worry.

The greater degree to which you become aware that you and your world is all sticky illusion, the greater your feeling of being happy, loving and truthful will become. Why this is so becomes plain when we give a more conventional example of how illusions cause pain.

We all know someone who has mistaken money for what money represents, or mistaken money for happiness. Money itself is just paper, a symbol which rerpresents material goods. Some people fall under the illusion that money is an end it itself, so they mindlessly persue more and more of the green stuff until they have a heart attack and die.

All would agree it’s good to be free of the illusion of money and materialism.

Well, as it turns out, the more illusions we get rid of, the better off we are. Getting rid of illusions like money, drugs and sex addictions is easy compared to getting rid of major illusions like death, time, language, and physical existence, but it’s far from impossible.

I should warn you also, that the more you try to achieve happiness, the worse off you’re likely to get because happiness is an illusory concept which does not exist. You’ll get very frustrated, although frustration does not exist either. Sorry.

So it’s better to work on getting rid of illusions themselves and let the rest take care of itself.

The brilliant psychologist-philospher-author Ken Wilber describes seven layers of illusion in his groundbreaking book, The Spectrum of Consciousness. In this book, Wilber takes you step by step through the kind of illusions human are trapped within, from Nothing to the deepest layer of illusion, which he calls “dualisms.”

The more you understand the nature of illusions, the various kinds of illusions, (especially language, time, the separation of objects in space) the more likely you are to find your way out.

This is what Zen and other forms of meditation are about — to get you to stop thinking so that the ultimate silence of the greater reality of Nothing can be realized.

But as any Zen master would warn you, the minute you start thinking that Zen meditation is going to help you, or that the Zen philosophy is going to help you, or any philosophy or any religion — in that assumption you get lost again!

What’s truly weird about illusion is that you have to use illusions to get rid of them, and it’s hard describe how this gets done. Remember Godel’s Theorm: all arugments based in language are fundamentally inconsistent, and therefore, just more traps.

Even what you are reading here right now is a trap, though this article strives to point out the fact that you are trapped by illusions! But I think it’s at least better to know you’re in jail, than being in jail and thinking this prison we call “life” is our true home.

Some might say: “Okay, but it’s better to exist as an illusion that suffers than to be nothing at all!”

So let me throw you this bone: The big Nothing scientists and philosophers speak of is not so much the complete lack of anything, as it is a singularity of pure Virtual Potential. It does not exist, but has the potential to exist if it wants to. It’s Nothing, but a kind of dynamic Nothing. Whatever. Words and labels are tricky.

But the reason you have the illusion of being, along with its joy and suffering — you want it. At the same time, you can have the bliss of realizing Infinite Potential without the suffering of the illusion of objective existence. In fact, this is your condition right now. You just don’t know it. It’s weird.

A lot of people who read this article are going to say: “Jeez! What a load of utter nonsense!”

And guess what? They’re right!

Article Source: Ken Korczak http://ironghost.wordpress.com

The Law Of Life

January 21, 2009 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs, Law of Attraction

Whatever you give away today or think or say or do
Will multiply about tenfold and then return to you

It may not come immediately, nor from the obvious source,
but the Law applies unfailingly through some invisible force.

Whatever you feel about another, be it love or hate or passion,
Will surely balance right back to you in some clear or secret fashion

If you speak about a person, a word of praise or two,
soon tons of people will speak kind words of you

Our thoughts are broadcasts of the soul, not secrets of the brain.
Kind ones bring us happiness, petty ones bring untold pain.

Giving works as surely as reflections in a mirror, if you send hate,
hate you get back, but loving brings love nearer.

Remember as you start this day, and duty crowds your mind,
that kindness comes so quickly back to those who first are kind..

Let that thought and this one direct you through each day…
The only things we ever keep are the things we give away.

~Anonymous

Why Change Can Be A Challenge?

December 18, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs, Better Living, Fear, Learning, Performance, Self Improvement


Great article over at Scientific American… Millions of us dream of transforming our lives, but few of us are able to make major changes after our 20s. Here’s why….

“The shortest path to oneself leads around the world.” So wrote German philosopher Count Hermann Keyserling, who believed that travel was the best way to discover who you are.

That was how 22-year-old Christopher McCandless was thinking in the summer of 1990, when he decided to leave everything behind—including his family, friends and career plans. He gave his bank balance of $24,000 to the charity Oxfam International and hitchhiked around the country, ending up in Alaska. There he survived for about four months in the wilderness before dying of starvation in August 1992. His life became the subject of writer Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book Into the Wild, which inspired the 2007 film of the same name.

Read more…

Advice From The Dalai Lama

It’s been making the rounds, so I figured, why not here for those who haven’t seen this list before. Instructions for Life in the new millennium from the Dalai Lama:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rules: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

The Difference Between Liberals And Conservatives?

September 18, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs

You decide. An interesting discussion that deserves a critical look. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. He pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.

Food For Thought…

September 15, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs, Motivation, Optimism, Purpose

Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous war novel, M*A*S*H, only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow decided to publish it. It became a runaway bestseller, spawning a blockbusting movie and highly successful television series.

Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution, gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.

When NFL running back Herschel Walker was in junior high school, he wanted to play football, but the coach told him he was too small. He advised young Herschel to go out for track instead. Never one to give up, he ignored the coach’s advice and began an intensive training program to build himself up. Only a few years later, Herschel Walker won the Heisman trophy.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.

Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

Colonel Sanders had the construction of a new road put him out of business in 1967. He went to over 1,000 places trying to sell his chicken recipe before he found a buyer interested in his 11 herbs and spices. Seven years later, at the age of 75, Colonel Sanders sold his fried chicken company for a finger-lickin’ $15 million!

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. The University of Bern turned down his Ph.D. dissertation as being irrelevant and fanciful.

The movie Star Wars was rejected by every movie studio in Hollywood before 20th-Century Fox finally produced it. It went on to be one of the largest grossing movies in film history.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15 out of 22 in chemistry.

When General Douglas MacArthur applied for admission to West Point, he was turned down, not once but twice. But he tried a third time, was accepted and marched into the history books.

After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

The father of the sculptor Rodin [The Thinker Statue] said, “I have an idiot for a son.” Described as the worst pupil in the school, Rodin failed three times to secure admittance to the school of art. His uncle called him uneducable.

Babe Ruth, considered by sports historians to be the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.

Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

Margaret Mitchell’s classic Gone with the Wind was turned down by more than twenty-five publishers.

When the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book was completed, it was turned down by thirty-three publishers in New York and another ninety at the American Booksellers Association convention in Anaheim, California, before Health Communications, Inc., finally agreed to publish it. The major New York publishers said, “It is too nicey-nice” and “Nobody wants to read a book of short little stories.” Since that time more than 8 million copies of the original Chicken Soup for the Soul book have been sold. The series, which has grown to thirty-two titles, in thirty-one languages, has sold more than 53 million copies.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere… son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” Elvis Presley went on to become the most popular singer in America.

Dr. Seuss’ first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. The twenty-eighth publisher, Vanguard press, sold six million copies of the book.

Napoleon Hill Discusses Andrew Carnegie

August 11, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Abundance, Beliefs, Fear, Law of Attraction, Motivation, Negativity, Optimism, Power

An oldie but a goodie. Napoleon Hill talks about the wisdom the billionaire Andrew Carnegie shared with him some hundred years ago.

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The Strangest Secret (Video)

July 10, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Abundance, Beliefs, Law of Attraction, Power

Earl Nightingale’s classic, The Strangest Secret, earned the first Gold Record for the spoken word, with sales exceeding 1 million copies. Nightingale, known as the “dean of personal development,” reveals how he discovered and lived the secret to success.

Louise Hay - You Can Heal Your Life: The Movie

This entertaining and inspirational movie based on the best-selling book of the same name is hosted by author and teacher Louise L. Hay. This film gives penetrating insights into Louise’s fascinating personal story; and shows how her views on self-esteem, abundance, and the metaphysical causes behind physical ailments were developed. It also reveals how she applied these concepts to her own emotional, spiritual, and professional life.

A number of luminaries in the fields of self-help, philosophy, health, spirituality, and New Thought join Louise, giving their take on success, happiness, and the myriad ways in which people can heal their own lives. And there are also gripping firsthand accounts from others who have been positively affected by Louise’s work.

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Some Thoughts On The Mind…

Throughout history, in every great teaching, culture and religion, a central principle is the power of our thoughts to build the life we desire. The essential power of our thoughts is no secret…except to those who have yet to learn it.

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“For as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”
– Proverbs 23:7

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts. A man’s life is the direct result of his thoughts… We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.”
– Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha)

“To know, yet to think that one does not know, is best; not to know, yet to think that one knows, will lead to difficulty.”
– Lao-Tzu

” A thought is an idea in transit.”
– Pythagoras

“He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger… Men of superior mind busy themselves first getting at the root of things; when they succeed, the right course is open to them.”
– Confucius

“Let go the things in which you are in doubt for the things in which there is no doubt.”
– Mohammed

“Mind is the creator of everything.
You should therefore guide it to create only good.
If you cling to a certain thought with dynamic will power,
It finally assumes a tangible outward form.
When you are able to employ your will for constructive purposes,
You become the controller of your destiny.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda

“They can because they think they can.”
– Virgil

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
– Marcus Aurelius Antonius

“It is not the events but our viewpoint toward events that is the determining factor. We ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than removing tumors and abscesses from the body.”
– Epictetus

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
– Shakespeare

“I think, therefore I am.”
– Descartes

“The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”
– Sir James Jeans

“Mind is the Master-power that molds and makes, and man is Mind, and ever more he takes the tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; Environment is but his looking-glass.”
– James Allen

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve.”
– Napoleon Hill

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret — curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.”
– Walt Disney

“Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.”
– Alice Meynell

“Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”
– William James

“Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.”
– James Allen

“When you rule your mind you rule your world. When you choose your thoughts you choose results.”
– Imelda Shanklin

“Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life become more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.”
– Edward Rickenbacker

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
– Michael Jordan

“We are what we think; as we desire so do we become! By our thoughts, desires, and habits, we either ascend to the full divine dignity of our nature, or we descend to suffer and learn.”
– J. Todd Ferrier

“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved on the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires. Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own furtive of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit; bad thought, bad fruit.”
– James Allen

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Yogi Berra

“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.”
– Gerald G. Jampolsky

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”
– William James

“To think health when surrounded by the appearances of disease or to think riches when in the midst of the appearances of poverty requires power, but whoever acquires this power becomes a mastermind. That person can conquer fate and can have what he or she wants.”
– Wallace D.Wattles

“What the mind does not attend to, the mind dismisses. What the mind attends to, the mind considers. What the mind constantly considers, the mind believes. What the mind believes, the mind eventually does.”
– William J. McCrane

“Man, alone has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone can dream and make his dreams come true.”
– Napoleon Hill

“Just as each plant has its foundation in the hidden soil of the earth, so too are your thoughts based in the inner part of yourself… By learning what goes into creating within the inner part of your mind and what the process of growth is for your thoughts, you can learn how to make your thoughts stronger and healthier, and enrich your existence.”
– Brad Jensen

“Your thoughts are the architects of your destiny.”
– David O. McKay

“Reality is not so much what happens to us; rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.”
– Dr. Albert Ellis

“Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere — your ideal of what you long to attain — the ideal of health, efficiency, success.”
– Orison Swett Marden

“We tend to get what we expect.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you’ve thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind.”
– Stephen Covey

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
– James Allen

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”
– Plutarch

“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.”
– Earl Nightingale

“Our imagination is the only limitation to what we can have in the future.”
– Charles Kettering

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives. The first order of business of anyone who wants to enjoy success in all areas of his/her life is to take charge of the internal dialogue they have and only think, say and behave in a manner consistent with the results they truly desire.”
– Sidney Madwed

“A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.”
– Anacharsis

“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”
– Harry F. Banks

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“Every achiever I have ever met says, “My life turned around when I began to believe in me.”
– Robert Schuller

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence
– Albert Einstein

“It is not who you think you are…or even who you think you are not that really determines success…it’s who you think you are becoming…”
– Doug Firebaugh

“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.”
– Robert Bolton

“Once you begin to believe there is help ‘out there,’ you will know it to be true.”
– Saint Bartholomew

“What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists…and it becomes available only when you are in that state of mind in which you know exactly what you want…and are fully determined not to quit until you get it.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.”
– Dale Carnegie

“Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things. Prosperity is not just having things. It is the consciousness that attracts the things. Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just having money or things.”
– Eric Butterworth

“The person who sends out positive thoughts activates the world around him positively and draws back to himself positive results.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“The Law of Attraction attracts to you everything you need, according to the nature of your thought life. Your environment and financial condition are the perfect reflection of your habitual thinking. Thought rules the world.”
– Joseph Murphy

“People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance.”
– James Allen

“Truly, thoughts are things, and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence and a burning desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.”
– Napoleon Hill

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
– Romans 12:2

Going With The Flow (Video)

Let go of your resistance and understand how good it can feel by letting go. The following video by Esther Hicks is a wonderful discussion on how going with the flow can improve many areas of your life. Fear, depression or loss of control is just another way of hanging on and not letting go. When your stream is moving fast and your not flowing with it, your life becomes increasingly miserable. Not going with the flow is at the heart of every negative emotion you’ve ever had. Stop paddling upstream against the current.

The Foxhole Manifesto

June 4, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs, Fear, Purpose

Interesting video. I think it’s a genuine attempt to see religion in the many ways people in our society view God. This is one man’s attempt to reconcile these different points of view.

Why Do We Lie?

May 22, 2008 by Editor  
Filed under Beliefs, Motivation, Negativity, Self Esteem, Self Improvement

We all lie, all the time. It causes problems, to say the least. So why do we do it?

It boils down to the shifting sands of the self and trying to look good both to ourselves and others, experts say.

“It’s tied in with self-esteem,” says University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman. “We find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels.”

Not all lies are harmful. In fact, sometimes lying is the best approach for protecting privacy and ourselves and others from malice, some researchers say. Some deception, such as boasting and lies in the name of tact and politeness, can be classified as less than serious. But bald-faced lies (whether they involve leaving out the truth or putting in something false), are harmful, as they corrode trust and intimacy—the glue of society.

Kidding yourself

Many animals engage in deception, or deliberately misleading another, but only humans are wired to deceive both themselves and others, researchers say. People are so engaged in managing how others perceive them that they are often unable to separate truth from fiction in their own minds, Feldman’s research shows.

For instance, In one experiment, Feldman put two strangers in a room together. They were videotaped while they conversed. Later, independently, each was asked to view the tape and identify anything they had said that was not entirely accurate.

Rather than defining what counts as a lie and to avoid the moral tone of the word “lie,” Feldman’s experimenters simply asked subjects after the fact to identify anything they had said in the video that was “not entirely accurate.”

Initially, “Each subject said, ‘Oh, I was entirely accurate,’” Feldman told LiveScience. Upon watching themselves on video, subjects were genuinely surprised to discover they had said something inaccurate. The lies ranged from pretending to like someone they actually disliked to falsely claiming to be the star of a rock band.

The study, published in the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology, found that 60 percent of people had lied at least once during the 10-minute conversation, saying an average of 2.92 inaccurate things.

“People almost lie reflexively,” Feldman says. “They don’t think about it as part of their normal social discourse.” But it is, the research showed.

“We’re trying not so much to impress other people but to maintain a view of ourselves that is consistent with the way they would like us to be,” Feldman said. We want to be agreeable, to make the social situation smoother or easier, and to avoid insulting others through disagreement or discord.

Men lie no more than women, but they tend to lie to make themselves look better, while women are more likely to lie to make the other person feel better.

Extroverts tend to lie more than introverts, Feldman found in similar research involving a job-interview situation.

Workplace lies

Other research has delved into prevarication in the workplace.

Self-esteem and threats to our sense of self are also drivers when it comes to lying to co-workers, rather than strangers, says Jennifer Argo of the University of Alberta.

A recent study she co-authored showed that people are even more willing to lie to coworkers than they are to strangers.

“We want to both look good when we are in the company of others (especially people we care about), and we want to protect our self-worth,” Argo told LiveScience.

The experiment involved reading a scenario to a subject, telling them they had paid more than a coworker for the same new car. When the coworker, in the scenario, mentioned what they had paid, $200 or $2,000 more in different versions of the experiment, the subject was asked to report how they would respond.

Argo found that her subjects were more willing to lie when the price difference was small and when they were talking to a coworker rather than to a stranger.

Consumers lie to protect their public and private selves, she wrote in the Journal of Consumer Research with her colleagues from the University of Calgary and University of British Columbia.

Argo said she was surprised that people are so willing to lie to someone they know even over a small price discrepancy.

“I guess closely tied to this is that people appear to be short-term focused when they decide to deceive someone—save my self-image and self-worth now, but later on if the deceived individual finds out it can have long-term consequences,” she said.

Feldman says people should become more aware of the extent to which we tend to lie and that honesty yields more genuine relationships and trust. “The default ought to be to be honest and accurate … We’re better off if honesty is the norm. It’s like the old saying: honesty is the best policy.”

Source: LiveScience

Is There A Time In Your Life When You Finally Get It?…

…. when in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out: ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes. This is your awakening.

You realize that its time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that he is not Prince Charming and you are not Cinderella and that in the real world there aren’t always fairy-tale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you, and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate, or approve of who or what you are… and that’s OK. (They are entitled to their own views and opinions.) And you learn the importance of loving and championing yourself, and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval. You stop bitching and blaming other people for the things they did to you (or didn’t do for you,) and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected. You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say, that not everyone will always be there for you, and that it’s not always about you. So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself, and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance. You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties, and in the process a sense of peace & contentment is born of forgiveness.

You realize that much of the way you view yourself and the world around you is as a result of all the messages and opinions that have been ingrained into your psyche. You begin to sift through all the crap you’ve been fed about how you should behave, how you should look, how much you should weigh, what you should wear, where you should shop, what you should drive, how and where you should live, what you should do for a living, who you should sleep with, who you should marry, what you should expect of a marriage, the importance of having and raising children, or what you owe your parents.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And you begin reassessing and redefining who you are, what you really stand for. You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you’ve outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with, and in the process you learn to go with your instincts. You learn that it is truly in giving that we receive. And that there is power and glory in creating and contributing. You stop maneuvering through life merely as a “consumer” looking for your next fix.

Your learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life. You learn that you don’t know everything, that it’s not your job to save the world and that you can’t teach a pig to sing. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and you learn the importance of setting boundaries and of learning to say NO. You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love: Romantic love and familiar love. You learn how to love, how much to give in love, when to stop giving and when to walk away. You learn not to project your needs or your feelings onto a relationship. You learn that you will not be more beautiful, more intelligent, more loveable or important because of the man or woman on your arm or the child that bears your name. You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn that just as people grow and change so it is with love.

And you learn that you don’t have the right to demand love on your terms. And, you learn that alone does not mean lonely. And you look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that you will never be a size 5 or a perfect 10 and you stop trying to compete with the image inside your head and agonizing over how you “stack up.” You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs. You learn that feelings of entitlement are perfectly OK and you learn that it is your right to want things and to ask for the things that you want and that sometimes it is necessary to make demands.

You come to the realization that you deserve to be treated with love, kindness, sensitivity and respect and you decide you won’t settle for less. And you allow only the hands of a lover who cherishes you to glorify you with his or her touch… and in the process you internalize the meaning of self-respect. And you learn that your body really is your temple. And you begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin eating a balanced diet, drinking more water and taking more time to exercise. You learn that fatigue diminishes the spirit and can create doubt and fear. So you take more time to rest. And, just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that for the most part, in life, you get what you believe you deserve..and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen. More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You also learn that no one can do it all alone and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.

You learn that the only thing you must truly fear is the great robber baron of all time: FEAR itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears, because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your terms. And you learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom. You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes “bad” things happen to unsuspecting, good people. On these occasions you learn not to personalize things. You learn that God isn’t punishing you or failing to answer your prayers. It’s just life happening. And you learn to deal with evil in its most primal state: the ego.

You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to building bridges instead of walls. You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Slowly, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise never to betray yourself and never, ever to settle for less than your heart’s desire. And you hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind. And you make a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

Finally, with courage in your heart, you take a deep breath and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.

Author Unknown

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