Build Soul Equity – Blog 77

“Each experience through which we pass operates ultimately for our good. This is the correct attitude to adopt and we must be able to see it in that light.” – Raymond Holliwell

“No matter what an experience looks like on the outside, there’s soul gold in there somewhere. Find it.” – Victoria Moran

In last week’s blog, I shared with you the amazing experience of a friend of mine who transformed what seemed to be a tragic life experience into a triumph for himself through a simple shift of attitude. This week, I couldn’t resist sharing with you another Victoria Moran piece on the same issue, but from an even bigger-picture perspective. She says, and I firmly believe, that life continuously presents you with many such opportunities because they are intended for your soul’s training and development.

As a Certified True Purpose Coach ™, I spend much of my coaching time helping my clients find their Life Purpose, the essential quality they embody and the unique and special blessing they are meant to give to the world. (My own “essence” is Transformational Love and my blessing to the world is to teach people to love themselves.) One of the tenets of True Purpose Coaching ™ is that everything that happens to you from the day you are born is meant for your soul’s training and development, thus enabling you to live your Life Purpose at a higher level.

That is why I completely agree with Victoria’s point of view that life’s ups and downs are all meant to bring us our Highest Good. What follows is Chapter 66 of her wonderful little book of wisdom entitled Creating a Charmed Life:

Build Soul Equity by Victoria Moran

Everything around us has varying degrees of worth. The house you live in, for example, has a certain appraised valuation, but the replacement value given it by your insurance company is higher. And if two of your children were born there, you and your [spouse or partner] added on the art studio with your own labor, and your oldest daughter had her wedding there last spring, its perceived value to you is immeasurable.

Just as a realtor, an insurance adjuster, and a homeowner can place different values on a house, our ego and our soul place different values on our daily activities. It is tempting for the ego to let the boring, difficult and unpleasant aspects of our lives convince us that life is largely boring, difficult, and unpleasant.

The soul – our animating, motivating, inner essence – can use the trials and the tedium to its benefit. It can celebrate the very circumstances that jar the ego; enduring a lengthy traffic jam or an interminable meeting, having no time to ourselves or spending too many Saturday nights alone. Living through these, and learning through them, builds soul equity that’s worth more than money in the bank.

Once you’re convinced that you’re here to learn and grow and expand your capacity to love, know, and experience life, you’ll start to value everything you do and everything that happens to you in terms of soul equity. Then you’ll feel less pressure to radically alter your life or yourself. Uncovering the intangible treasures within the obligations you already have and within the [person] you already are becomes much more appealing.

You build soul equity by learning the lesson within every experience, remembering it, and applying your expanded insight to a similar circumstance when it comes up later. Soul equity increases as you search out the meaning inherent in the simplest goings-on of daily life. If seeing a squirrel collecting acorns for the winter reminds you that you really ought to be saving more for your retirement, don’t brush it off because you’re not supposed to get investment advice from wildlife. Look for the metaphors around you, majestic truths packaged inside modest events.

From time to time, take stock of the soul equity you’ve capitalized to date. What did it take to acquire the patience, perseverance, wisdom, humor and faith you have today? Whatever your process has been, you have priceless assets to show for it.

The soul equity abundant in a charmed life is not accrued only on uphill climbs. It also comes from the joys of your life, provided you’re totally present to them. The paradox here is that being alert for the good things is guaranteed only when you’re willing to be an equal-opportunity experiencer. You have to suit up and show up every day – whether you’re taking a vacation or taking inventory, whether you have a five-year-old who’s a nonstop delight or a teenager you sometimes wish would join a traveling circus.

No matter what an experience looks like on the outside, there’s soul gold in there somewhere. Find it. Appreciate it. Let it figure prominently in your net worth. ___________________________________________________________________ If you have missed any of this year’s F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. This series of 60-minute live classes will teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life. Mark your calendar now to join us on Wednesday, December 2 at 6:00pm PST for the last class of the year, “Dreams Delivered!” You won’t want to miss these jaw-dropping true stories from my coaching clients who created prosperity for themselves in record time, simply by putting the Law of Attraction to work for them!

Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links.

Your questions and comments are most welcome! To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

Flip it Upside Down – Blog 76

Without the difficulty of being hemmed in, the tree in the forest would not be forced to marshal its power to grow toward the light.  It must truly bring forth all its inner strength to spread its branches.  If it becomes grand, it is in part because of its suffering.  Thus the times of adversity can be crucial to the development of one’s inner personality. – The Tao 

I have said many times in my blogs and monthly Create Prosperity Now tele-classes that I believe everything that happens to us will ultimately prove to be for our Highest Good.  That doesn’t mean there won’t be some pretty rugged challenges along the way to receiving your Highest Good!  But holding to your faith that every adversity will ultimately benefit you can help you weather life’s storms and appreciate the sunshine when it comes. 

Wally “Famous” Amos, of chocolate chip cookie fame, has experienced his share of adversity in life.  He went from rags to riches with his cookies, only to lose control of his company to a mega-corporation and have to start all over.  But Wally Amos has never let adversity divert him from his goal of creating prosperity and happiness for himself and others, so he has now made a whole new fortune with “Uncle Wally’s Muffin Mix.” 

This is a man who has lived through some “tough economic times” before these still facing many in our nation and in the world.  His philosophy reflects what I believe to be true about the Law of Attraction: You can use it consciously to help you manifest what you WANT or unconsciously allow it to manifest what you DON’T want. It’s all about your own focus and attitude! Therefore, I think what Wally has to say about the proper attitude to adopt toward adversity is worth heeding: 

“By now, we all know we are in ‘tough economic times.’  It is a phrase that has become a permanent part of our language.  I believe it is also a phrase that prevents us from climbing out of a negative situation.  We are focused on tough economic times, not on answers and solutions.  What you give attention to grows.  I have learned through my personal challenges that the only way we can move through adversity is to maintain a strong, positive mental attitude, regardless.  It is not a sign of weakness.  A positive attitude is as strong as steel.  It will consistently lead you to the answers and solutions you need to move through challenging situations. 

We have been conditioned to believe that adversity is negative.  Overcoming adverse situations is how we gain strength and character.  It forces us to get on top of the circumstances and not lie down under them.  Adversity reminds us that we are stronger than we could ever imagine.  It’s a mind-set that actually helps us to flip a situation upside down.” 

This week, I received some concrete proof that what Wally says is absolutely true – you CAN “flip a situation upside down,” through faith that there is always an opportunity waiting for you inside every adversity and that the Universe always aligns circumstances to produce your Highest Good. 

The proof came in a letter from my friend “Mitch,” whom I have written about several times before in this blog because he so often inspires me with his “look for the good in adversity” attitude.  This young man lives in one of the most challenging daily circumstances I can imagine — federal prison.  His non-violent, self-destructive crime stemmed from his fundamentally good but somewhat naïve and immature personality. Mitch has always wanted to help others, but couldn’t help himself, and got arrested for a crime that involved using the internet, which made it a federal offense.  As I have learned through our correspondence, federal time is hard time.  Things you and I do and say without thinking on the “outside” as a matter of course, could get us killed on the “inside.” As a result, Mitch has grown up very fast in the past year he has been incarcerated.

 I send him a copy of my blog every week, and he sometimes writes back about how it helped him maintain the right attitude in a challenging situation.  This week, he wrote his entire letter about how he used the belief I hold that every adversity contains the seeds of opportunity to take a personal disaster and “flip it upside down.” The following is an excerpt from his letter, which he has given me permission to share with you: 

“This past week has been a whirlwind.  I told my Dad that things never change in prison. But are constantly changing.  It is a weird paradox/phenomenon. 

The first of the changes is that I was fired from my job in Electrical.  Like 90% of everything around here, it was over stupid politics.” 

I should pause to say that Mitch made about $26 a month in prison wages at his job as an electrician.  Some of his fellow inmates have jobs that earn them just $5 a month.  Yet, ALL of them must purchase their toiletries and other supplies in the prison commissary at the same prices you and I would pay at the local drug store.  The prison job an inmate can secure is critical because the higher paying the job, the better the living conditions it buys. For example, for his first couple of months there, Mitch wore his hair very long, while he saved up enough for a haircut.  Right now, he’s saving for new boots because his old ones fill up with water when it rains. Mitch is fortunate to have friends and family who help by sending him a little extra money each month, enabling him to make a phone call and write a letter or two to friends and family each week. 

I’ll paraphrase a bit, as his letter continues: 

“One of the Christian brothers I was associated with and helped me get this job was promoted to the ‘Lead’ position in electrical.  Hierarchy is based on pay grades – Grade 5 at the bottom and Grade 1 at the top.  Everybody starts at Grade 5, at $5.25/month and works their way up.  I made it to Grade 3 ($26-27/month).  Grade 1’s, by the way, make $50-70 a month.  

This guy who was promoted to Lead wanted me off the team because I associate with a person he does not like.  The two used to be friends, but had a falling out.  Our new Lead wanted me and the guy he had a falling out with fired, and he convinced our Foreman in charge of our team to get rid of us. 

I’ve seen this script/routine before and I was concerned.  I got to talk to my boss and he lets me know he is ‘letting me go because there are too many members on the team.’  It was ‘nothing I did’ but he was ‘too top heavy’ and needed to ‘trim the fat.’ By the way, three hours after my firing, due to being ‘overstaffed,’ the boss hired a new electrician.  I was livid. 

Then the guy who pushed to get me off the team started to spread rumors about me. He is a congenial, affable man and people tend to believe him.  My reputation was tarnished as a result, and while on the outside I wouldn’t care, here it’s a big deal.  I could be looking for a job and my reputation would follow me…” 

At this point in reading Mitch’s letter, I was beginning to get pretty livid myself, and was  wondering what advice I could possibly offer to help him triumph over what seems to be a hopelessly broken, unjust and corrupt system in which the Bad Guys often appear to win. 

But just then Mitch’s tale of  “adversity” began to take an unexpected turn: 

“Reading your blog, you say that all things our life happen for our Greatest Good.  This firing out of my control was the Universe’s way of acting for my Greatest Good.  I’m looking for a job and I close my eyes and ask, ‘Universe, guide me in the direction to show me the optimal job for me.’ Within 30 seconds, I see a guy I know.  I ask him if there are any openings in his shop.  He thinks so, but says to talk to the Grade 1 (aka #1) guy and ask him it it’s OK.  The #1 could agree or not.  And if he does agree, he puts in a ‘good word’ for you, which speaks volumes… 

The #1 of this crew happens to be my bunkmate.  It’s common courtesy to help your bunkmate, whether it be for soup or for a job.  If the #1 says ‘Hire this boy,’ he gets hired, and I did – in the carpentry shop.  I am now a carpenter, which is 180 degrees different than an electrician.  While Electrical runs on scarcity, Carpentry runs on abundance.  Electrical is fearful to train because that person could use his new knowledge to usurp power, while Carpentry embraces training…In the following 72 hours, I learned more in Carpentry than I did in 11 months in Electrical…I always work with my Bunkie, who gives me things to do.  Now, I actually look forward to work!  What can I learn?  I also signed up for the carpentry class and got a carpentry book I am studying. 

So many good things came out of this, that I don’t have space to write it all.  I’ve made many mistakes, but unlike Electrical, I don’t get chided and blamed for the project failure.  I’m working hard and I’ve got something to prove – that the rumors about me are false and, more importantly, that I can do this!  I’m not a bookworm/nerd, but I can craft or make something with my hands. 

The Big Lesson: My arrest was bad and traumatic.  But it ultimately is for my Greatest Good.  When I was livid about being fired, I didn’t realize that it was the opening for me to have this job I love.  What does this mean when I get out?  I don’t know – but I can’t wait to find out!” 

Thank you, dear “Mitch,” for reminding us that the Law of Attraction is ALWAYS working to attract to us whatever we choose to focus on.  And the Universe is ALWAYS working to deliver our Highest Good – regardless of the adverse circumstances we temporarily find ourselves in – provided we are willing to ASK for help, BELIEVE it will be delivered, and then RECEIVE the answer (and ACT on it) when it comes. 

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If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes can teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life. Mark your calendar now to join us on Wednesday, December 2 at 6:00pm PST for the final one of the year, which is entitled, “Dreams Delivered!” Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links. 

Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

Cooperate with Benevolence – Blog 75

Look for the good – in yourself and all around you. Positive thinking may not be a panacea, but it is the most basic way we have to cooperate with benevolence. – Victoria Moran 

There are two reasons that I am excited to share with you another wonderful chapter from Victoria Moran’s amazing little book Creating a Charmed Life: 

1)     It allows me to give you great value while saving myself about half a day’s writing, as I must attend to some important personal matters this weekend. 

2)     It provides a beautiful lead-in to this month’s Create Prosperity Now tele-class that I am in the midst of preparing, which teaches you a very powerful technique for ensuring that the Universe delivers only its very BEST to you. 

Victoria and I are so much on the same wavelength, it is as much a pleasure for me to share her thoughts and suggestions with you, as it is to share my own.  I hope you enjoy this chapter and that you will take a moment to actually DO her suggested exercise.  It has an effect similar to keeping a Gratitude Journal, but even more powerful! 

Creating a Charmed Life, Chapter 49:

Cooperate With Benevolence 

By Victoria Moran 

It doesn’t take any more time to think in a way that makes your life better than it does to think in a way that makes your life miserable.  People whose inner spirit spills over into  their lives in the real world look for the good, and their days flow smoothly most of the time.  When you ask how they are and they tell you they’re fine, they mean it.  This isn’t the kind of positive thinking that’s regimented and enforced, but simply a nod to the good given often enough that it becomes natural. 

We tend to get what we look for.  But just as it’s easier to let our bodies sag than to exercise consistently, it’s easier to let our thinking slump into negativity than to jog it up to something better.  Some will even argue that there are certain benefits to awaiting doomsday: if it doesn’t happen, you get to feel terrific.  There’s also a kind of superstition around expecting something awful and somehow willing the dreaded event away.  You could think of it as prophylactic worry. 

Nevertheless, truly spiritual people and truly happy people (those particular demographic groups tend to overlap) expect the best to the point of annoying everyone else.  It’s even more annoying when marvelous things keep happening for them, which they generally do.  The point is to learn how to be just as annoying as they are. 

From a purely mathematical viewpoint, you’re better off expecting a positive outcome, because that’s what usually happens.  Life has a vested interest in perpetuating itself.  Therefore, it tends to come through for its participants the majority of the time.  This is not to deny the existence of delay, disappointment, loss and sadness.  Even these, however, when you can stand apart and view them in retrospect, are often part of a progression toward greater good. 

Help yourself get comfortable with expecting the good by making a positive precedents time line.  Go back over your life and bring to mind your successes, your growth spurts, and your victories.  List them.  Stick with events you remember, not those that you were told.  How far back you’re able to go isn’t important.  The abridged time line of a fifty year old might include the following: “Age 4: wrote name.  Age 7: rode two-wheeler.  Age 12: sang solo in group assembly.  Age 17: won scholarship.  Age 28: stopped drinking.  Age 31: son born.  Age 42: master’s degree.  Age 50: silver wedding anniversary.” 

A positive precedents time line is visual evidence of both your capabilities and life’s generosity.  It’s human nature to focus on the ways we’ve fallen short and extrapolate from these evidence for continued failure.  Realizing that we have set some extremely positive precedents is solid backing for thinking well of the future. 

Look for the good – in yourself and all around you. Positive thinking may not be a panacea, but it is the most basic way we have to cooperate with benevolence.

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Don’t miss my “Fall into Prosperity” special for the month of October!  You can have a specific dream come true, often in 30 days or less — 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!  I’ve helped over 150 clients so far to get what they want using my patented Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) system, and I know I can help you, too! But you must call or email me by October 31 to schedule a F.R.E.E. no-obligation phone consultation.  

Once we determine what your specific 30-day goal is, we can decide together whether Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) can help you get it!  

And if you contact me by the end of this month, you can have private, one-on-one coaching at LESS than half of my normal coaching fee!  

This great offer won’t be repeated this year, so don’t delay!  Contact me for all the details and to schedule a complimentary consultation: caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com or toll free (888) 503-8145.

______________________________________________________________________

If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on October 28 to learn “How to Get The Best in Life.”  Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links. 

As always, your questions and comments are most welcome! 

 

Make the Leap – Blog 74

“In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first forward step in faith.” – Friedrich Schlegel 

The highlight of my week was an eye-opening email exchange with one of my relatives, a young man in his mid-twenties. He just got married a few weeks ago and right after he returned from his honeymoon, he wrote to explain to me and other close friends and family about the serious financial circumstances he and his new bride were facing. 

Being a very independent, intelligent and resourceful young man, he hated to have to admit that he was in a difficult situation and to ask us for help, even though it came about through no fault of his own.  Unbeknownst to me, he was fired from his job seven months ago, and had been struggling ever since to find work.  This wasn’t the result of the poor economy, although the big retail chain he worked for was certainly feeling the pinch.  What happened was that his store had been the victim of a series of employee thefts that were clearly an “inside job.”  Although it had been going on for some time, store security had been unable to catch the thieves, who clearly had access to the building late at night. 

According to this young man, his supervisor was under a lot of pressure because the store was performing very poorly anyway, and with the added losses from the thefts, she was afraid for her own job.  She felt that she had to do something to save herself, so she identified the person carrying a television out of the store on a grainy, dark surveillance tape as my relative, because she said she recognized his “walk.” 

Based on no more evidence than that, he was arrested at his home that night.  The next morning, after he was able to call a lawyer, the charges were dropped because there was absolutely no other evidence to substantiate his supervisor’s flimsy “identification” of him.  Nevertheless, the retail chain fired him for “employee theft.” He resides in a state where an employer can fire you for any reason, so his only recourse to fighting for his job would be to go through a long and expensive legal process, for which he did not have the money nor the temperament.  He simply didn’t want to waste any more of his precious time and energy fighting back against the injustice, but chose instead to focus on finding another job.

Even in this economy, with his skills and winning personality, he received several good job offers.  However, all were rescinded when background checks by his prospective employers showed that he had been arrested for theft. (Apparently, an arrest, even one where all charges are ultimately dropped, remains on one’s record in his state.  I find that appalling, but that’s what’s so.)  To make matters worse, he couldn’t collect unemployment because of the reason given for his termination. 

I know this young man well enough to believe him 100%. He has completed two years of law school and knows that the odds of fighting this and winning without incurring massive debt were very slim.  I respected him for maintaining a positive focus, holding his head up and simply going forward with his life, rather than wallowing in anger or self-pity.  But I honestly couldn’t understand why the Universe wasn’t supporting his intention to find a new job.  He and his wife were not making it on her salary alone, for a reason for that was entirely unjust.  He was innocent, so why was this happening to such a good person? I just couldn’t accept that this was the way that the Law of Attraction appeared to be working. 

It is one of my fundamental beliefs that 100% of what happens to us is ultimately for our personal Highest Good.  Certainly, bad things DO happen to good people every day.  It may feel awful to go through it at the time, but in the end, such tragedies always produce some important inner growth and development that strengthens us and makes us wiser, more resilient, and often materially better off than we were before.  The biblical story of Job is all about that.  According to the tale, God allowed Job to be put through unspeakable hardships to prove to Satan that his faithful servant Job would never renounce Him.  And Job never did.  While others mocked him, he clung to his faith that God would ultimately save him from every ill that had befallen him.  When he passed the faith “test,” God elevated him far beyond the life that had been taken from him, and gave him honor and riches beyond what he had ever hoped to possess. 

I believe the story of Job is meant to teach us that when we have faith in divine laws and believe in our heartfelt desires, the Universe ALWAYS supports us.  The help we receive may not appear immediately, because our timing is not always Divine timing, but it DOES eventually appear.  The apparent delay may well be due to the Universe moving many intricate, interconnecting pieces of the “How” into place – all the people and resources needed to deliver our heart’s desire in the best possible way for our Highest Good.  And once all the pieces are aligned, we often get a lavish surprise when we least expect it, delivered in a bigger and better way than we had ever dared imagine for ourselves. 

My young relative had already recounted the circumstances of his current situation to me several weeks ago, but the “twist” that I learned just a couple of days ago, was a startling revelation that made his whole Job-like situation make sense to me for the first time. 

His recent email said,“I’ve been butting my head up against this job thing for 7 months now.  It’s interesting that four different people have told me at various times through the last 7 months, including my wife and mother, that they’ve felt in prayer that perhaps God’s plan isn’t for me to get another job, but to throw myself into full-time ministry.  It’s tough because I know we have bills that aren’t getting paid and we can’t stay afloat on just my wife’s income, but mom said something to me the other day that struck me.  She said, ‘sometimes God’s provision doesn’t come until we fully commit.’ I’ve been waiting for God to work things out so I can be secure in going into full-time ministry, but that would require no faith, so perhaps what I am supposed to be doing is just taking the step of faith. I would love not to have to get another regular job and just be able to put all of myself into the ministry He has called me to and put in my heart, but it’s a big decision.” 

Bingo! That’s the moment when it hit me that my beloved relative’s situation was NOT caused by cosmic injustice or some sort of fluke in the Law of Attraction.  Instead, I believe that his situation is the opportunity for manifesting his Highest Good that the Universe has been trying to deliver to him for seven months, only he hasn’t been catching the signals!  He has fervently wanted in his heart of hearts to go full-time into purposeful work that he feels called to do, that lights him up and that many others say is perfect for him.  His only mistake has been trying to follow his OWN limited-view plan for how it should unfold. 

I think his mom nailed it: The Universe only delivers the means when it knows for sure that we are COMMITTED to our goal. As my favorite Master Manifester, Edwene Gaines, says, “When you put yourself in a position so the only way you are going to get through it is by going FORWARD, with no “back door” escape route, only then does God know that you are 100% COMMITTED.”  Only then do the unlimited forces of the Universe come out to support you and give you everything you need to complete your Divine assignment. 

I haven’t yet heard the end of this story from him, but I am pretty sure that his further prayer and the support of his family will give him the faith he needs to commit 100% to what he knows is right for him.  He must simply give up worrying about HOW it will happen.  Remember, the “How” is none of your business!  How your good comes to you is up to the Universe.  Your job is simply to say, “Yes!” and to be open and receptive to the Universe’s specific instructions as they begin to appear. 

What are YOU secretly wishing you could be doing or having?  Do you spend every day doing something that lights you up and fulfills you?  Or are you doing things that bore you just to pay the bills?  Do you feel that there is no way for you to have and do what you are REALLY meant for?  

Well, I believe that if you are truly 100% committed to having what you want, you must prove it to yourself and to the Universe.  You must take one specific ACTION that demonstrates your commitment, and then stand back and watch as the Universe begins to support you in moving forward with it. 

You alone must decide what the appropriate action for YOU to take is; it might not be responsible to others involved if you simply quit your day job tomorrow.  But if you will take one specific step toward your dream in faith, without knowing in advance just HOW it will work out, the Law of Attraction will respond, and limitless forces will surely come to your aid in miraculous ways you cannot now begin to imagine.

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Don’t miss my “Fall into Prosperity” special for the month of October!  You can have a specific dream come true, often in 30 days or less — 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!  I’ve helped over 150 clients so far to get what they want using my patented Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) system, and I know I can help you, too!

But you must call or email me by October 31 to schedule a F.R.E.E. no-obligation phone consultation.  Once I know what your 30-day goal is, we can decide together whether Practical Prosperity Coaching (c) can help you get it!  And if you contact me by the end of this month, you can have private, one-on-one coaching at LESS than half of my normal coaching fee! 

This great offer won’t be repeated this year, so don’t delay!  Contact me for all the details and to schedule a complimentary consultation: caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com or toll free (888) 503-8145.

 

Allow for Miracles – Blog 73

 “Don’t get too sophisticated to be frequently amazed.” – Victoria Moran

While I realize summer is officially over, I must give you one more taste of Victoria Moran’s wisdom because this topic is one that is especially close to my heart: Miracles.  I am a huge believer in them as a part of daily life, and I can honestly say that hardly a week goes by when I don’t experience at least one miracle myself, as well as getting reports about their miraculous experiences from my clients.  

My Practical Prosperity Coaching © system relies on miracles, in a way, because the critical step of determining HOW your intention will be fulfilled is left entirely up to the Universe to decide and deliver to you.  Thus, when you put The Law of Attraction into action in your life on a daily basis, you can count on the answers to many of your desires to be delivered in totally amazing, extraordinary and unexpected ways!  I’ll share one of my own mini-miracles that happened just this week at the end of the blog. 

What follows next is “Allow for Miracles,” Chapter 69 of Victoria Moran’s wonderful little book, Creating a Charmed Life, in which she tells you how to nurture more miracles to appear in your daily life: 

The word miracle is unpopular with many pragmatic people.  It conjures up the notion of  some event that can have no rational explanation or, as one of my friends put it, “‘Miracle” sounds like a TV preacher asking for money.” It’s the word I need to use here anyway: miracle, according to Webster’s second definition, [is] “evidence of Divine power in human affairs.” 

When you look at miracles in this way, you can see that we are swimming in a sea of them.  Being in the right place at the right time, having precisely the item or the information you need, running into just the person who can help you solve a problem – you can see all these instances as “evidence of Divine power.”  When you notice these events for a time, you come to expect them.  Once you expect them, they show up like stepping-stones along your path.  People might comment on how lucky you seem to be, on how things so often work out well for you. 

The three-part process for bringing such miracle into your life is this: 

1. Look for evidence of divine power in your daily affairs.
2. Invite more of it in.
3. Be a catalyst for this power in other people’s lives. 

To look for indications of divine power, avoid taking things for granted.  Really look at what you see – in nature, in people’s faces, in human creations of art and technology.  Don’t get too sophisticated to be frequently amazed.  You don’t have to verbalize juvenile exclamations like “Wow!” and “Awesome!” but think them all you want. 

Invite more divine power into your material world by expecting the best and doing the necessary footwork to birth those expectations.  Act as if what you want were probable (refer back to Secret 34, “Study Method Acting”*), and allow for the possibility that the true miracle may lie in an alternative outcome. 

You can also lure miracles – or serendipity or right results; you can call them whatever you like – by speaking positively.  Use words that are hospitable to whatever mobile miracle might be passing by.  Even in something as insignificant as seeking a parking space, you may as well help on some level by saying, “I tend to find really good parking spaces” instead of “With all this construction, we’ll never find a place to park.” 

(A fascinating aside here is that if you use the first statement and park three blocks from where you’re going, you’re likely to think, “This is great – only three blocks from the door.”  If you use the second, you’re apt to complain, “Three whole blocks – as usual!  I ought to keep hiking boots in the trunk.”) 

Finally, be a stimulus for other people’s miracles.  Encourage them to see their potential and life’s potential.  Remind them of the evidence of divine power you see in their lives already.  Be a miracle provider by putting your own energy and generosity to work on another’s behalf.  And continue to allow for miracles, both minor and momentous, in your own life.  That’s how you show evidence of what can be. 

Well, I would say that Victoria Moran’s final paragraph in this little gem of an essay is what I consider to be my true job description.  One of the affirmations I say aloud every day to prepare for my own daily miracles is, “As I bless others, so shall I be blessed.”  And when I say “bless,” I mean exactly what Victoria described – I want to assist you in any way I can to nurture your belief that you really CAN co-create miracles in your daily life!  When I can be of service to you in this way, I know that the Law of Reciprocity will certainly make miracles show up regularly in my life, too! 

One of these miracles in my own life happened just this week.  My husband and I needed to hire an attorney to help us with some complicated paperwork, and the fee for his services was in the four figures. (He gave us a $200 discount, however, which is something of a miracle in and of itself!)  This lump sum was NOT in our budget planning for the month, so we put down a small deposit and went home to seek “divine power” to assist us with creating the rest of the money. 

The next morning, while I was on my walking meditation, silently repeating the mantra, “God alone fills every need,” it suddenly came into my head that my safe deposit box held two gold coins that I had purchased as an investment over 20 years ago.  While I was vaguely aware that the price of gold has shot up since I bought them, I hadn’t thought about them for a long time. When I got home, I decided to call a precious metals buyer and seller to find out what they were worth.  The very next day, I was standing in his shop, happily watching him count out a large stack of $100 bills that very nearly covered the balance due to the attorney.  

If that isn’t a miracle – “evidence of Divine power” in my daily affairs – I don’t know what would qualify.  I find it amazing, extraordinary and unexpected that I still had these coins in my safe deposit box after all these years, and that they just “popped” into my consciousness exactly when I needed a special resource to meet my unexpected need.  I guess my mantra was right, after all! 

* Note: I quoted this chapter in my Blog 70.

_______________________________________________________________________________

If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on October 28 for the next one. Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links. 

Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

Integrity Fuels Intention Part II – Blog 72

 “I can change only myself, but sometimes that is enough.” – Ruth Humlecker

 As I explained last week, I am reprinting the text of my latest free Create Prosperity Now tele-class about integrity so that if you missed the call, you won’t miss this absolutely essential prerequisite to your ability to manifest your desires. 

Here are the four major aspects of Integrity that, in my experience, have the biggest impact on our ability to live a life of freedom and ease, where we effortlessly attract the people, ideas and resources to us that help fulfill our Intentions with ease and grace: 

1) You must keep your word to others (be consistent and count-on-able).

2) You must keep your word to yourself (be valuable to yourself).

3) You must complete any incompletions in your life.

4) You must clean up any messes you make as quickly as possible.

 Last week, I reprinted the first two steps that we covered in my August 27^th tele-class.  Here is Part II, covering the final two steps you must take to create the foundation for living a life of integrity and abundance: 

3) You must complete any incompletions in your life.  In Coach U, where I took my Life Coach training, they call these “tolerations” – things you are tolerating, putting up with, that don’t serve you and cause a level of chronic annoyance and guilt.  Like a dishonored promise, an incompletion clutters up your “clearing closet” and interferes with creating new Intentions. Something NEW can’t show up for you when your space for receiving it is full of unfinished business.  

Incompletions are often of your own making, but even if you didn’t cause the original situation, if you don’t get it resolved, it will keep you from manifesting what you want in your own life. Incompletions can be big or little projects you haven’t finished, such as cleaning out the garage or finishing a low-priority work project that’s been in your in-basket forever. 

But there can also be incompletions in relationships with people in your current life or in your past. A relationship incompletion might be that you know you were not 100% authentic in expressing your opinion with someone who asked for it, or you are still holding a grudge with someone, or you feel chronically disempowered around someone because you didn’t say what you needed to say about what they did to you or what you did to them.  

Who do you need to apologize to?  Who do you need to stand up for yourself with? Who do you simply need to say, “It’s over” to?  

When you don’t say what you need to say to be complete with someone else, you are sending the message to the Universe that “I don’t matter.” And if you don’t believe in your own value, since energy attracts like energy, according to the Law of Attraction, then you can count on attracting people and situations that will constantly send you the message that you aren’t valuable to them, either.  Getting complete with another person can be one of the most liberating things you can possibly do for yourself – and it will have a huge impact on your power to manifest what you want for yourself and your life. 

4) The final Integrity issue you must master is to be able to clean up any “messes” you make as quickly and efficiently as possible.  A mess is something you did or failed to do that had a negative impact on someone else. This is a tough one for a lot of people because it’s human nature for us to not want to admit when we have made a mistake. 

But this isn’t about making yourself “bad and wrong” for doing or not doing something.  It’s about restoring your integrity whenever you realize that you have slipped out of integrity.  It should not cause you to feel guilt or shame to admit making a mistake.  Instead, it is liberating, because in restoring your integrity, you restore your BELIEF in yourself and others’ BELIEF in you, too.  It re-establishes your value in your OWN eyes, which is the most important thing. 

Cleaning up your integrity is a remarkably simple and straightforward four –step process.  Here’s all you need to do to clean up a mess you’ve made: 

Step One: Take 100% responsibility for what you did. Simply state the facts as clearly and succinctly as you can, with no excuses, no poor-me story, no “buts.” 

Step Two: Sincerely apologize for the impact you believe your action had on the other person. This demonstrates your understanding of and empathy for the inconvenience or hurt that you caused them. 

Step Three: State what they can count on you for in the future – and make sure you INTEND to be count-on-able for that. If you let someone down once and clean it up, they will almost always forgive you.  But if you promise a different behavior and then don’t follow through, they will not let it go twice. So promise a higher standard and HOLD YOURSELF to it. 

Step Four: Ask the other person what they need to say TO you or need FROM you in order to be complete with the issue. 

Here’s an example of what this would look like if you arrived 35 minutes late for lunch with your girl friend because you got caught up on an important phone call at the office. To make matters worse, in your rush out the door, you left your cell phone behind, so you couldn’t even call the restaurant to leave her a message. By the time you arrived, your friend had been frantically trying to call you, and was scared that something terrible must have happened to you. 

You say, “Susie, I apologize for being 35 minutes late. I didn’t leave on time to get here and I forgot my cell phone so I couldn’t call you and you couldn’t reach me.  I am SO sorry to have left you alone, waiting here and worrying about me because of my carelessness. What you can count on me for in the future is to be on time for our appointments and to be reachable if something out of the ordinary happens.  Do you accept my apology?” 

Susie replies: “ Well, of course I do!  I know you didn’t mean to make me worry, but I just don’t want to ever have to go through that again!  

You say: You won’t have to, I promise. Is there anything else you need from me for you to feel complete about this? 

Susie says: No, we’re good. What did you do to your hair?  It looks great! 

Then you go on with your lunch, knowing you restored your integrity by taking 100% responsibility, and your friend feels understood and complete with you. 

You should note these steps, because I promise you that you WILL have messes to clean up for the rest of your life, just like I will.  Integrity is never “handled.”  It’s never “fixed” and good-to-go forever. If you think it is, you will get complacent and that is when you can REALLY create some messes!  

Despite our best intentions, we all inevitably will still slip up from time to time.  But if you simply take complete responsibility for what you did, without exhibiting or feeling guilt, shame or defensiveness or blaming others for it, 99 times out 100, people will FORGIVE you. In fact, it is such a breath of fresh air to deal with someone who doesn’t play the “blame game,” it is likely that they will think even MORE of you for having handled yourself with such dignity in restoring your integrity. 

One of my clients got a wonderful example of this when she called her credit card company to clean up a mess she’d made.  She had forgotten to pay a bill one month and when the next bill rolled around, she discovered that the company had doubled her interest rate, as they were allowed to do after just one slip-up.  She panicked, knowing that rate was something she could not pay, and she just stopped sending payments or communicating with them.  

After our next coaching session, at my urging, she called her credit card company’s customer service and told them exactly what happened, with no excuses. She simply said, “I messed up.  This is my fault.  Now, what do I need to do to fix it?”  The customer service rep was very understanding and grateful that my client had called.  After looking up her account in the computer, the rep came back on the line and said, “I discovered that you actually qualify for a lower interest rate than you were paying.  I’m changing you to the lower rate right now.”  Not only did my client restore her integrity, she came out AHEAD financially for having done so. 

PARTICIPATION EXERCISE

Now, to help you lock in the learning, and begin your own personal practice of completing your incompletions and restoring your integrity, so you have a clear space to manifest your Intentions into, I invite you to create this little practice of getting complete with something or someone in your life that has been a nagging source of irritation for awhile. There are three steps: 

1) First, write down something specific that you really WANT to manifest in your life in the next 30 days — something you don’t know HOW to manifest right now, but you believe it would be POSSIBLE to have it manifest in 30 days.   

2) Next, write down ONE incompletion that you would be willing to complete within the next month, if you simply believed that restoring your integrity in this area would create a clearing for manifesting the thing you want to have within the same month.  The incompletion item and your manifestation goal don’t have to be directly related at all.  You just need allow yourself to BELIEVE that by simply completing the incompletion, you will be giving the Universe the space it is waiting for to send you the “How” for manifesting your desire. 

The item you choose to complete should be something substantial, such as finishing a household or work project that has been hanging over you for awhile, making a difficult phone call or writing a difficult email you would really rather avoid, or initiating a conversation with someone you need to get complete with. Make it something you are sure you can complete within one month, however. 

3) Step three is to specify just ONE specific STEP that you are willing to commit to actually DO within the next 7 days to start you on the completion project, so you won’t let your good intentions die on the vine.  

For example, you might want to manifest a new job within the next month. 

If your completion project is cleaning out your garage, for your first step you might commit to purchasing some cardboard boxes within the next 7 days for packing up the miscellaneous junk in the garage. Or for your first step, you might commit to calling up a few of your friends within the next week and inviting them to come to a clean-up-the-garage party two Saturdays from now.  

When you complete your incompletion project within the next month, it will have an amazing impact on your life that you can’t even now imagine. I promise you that you will feel SO much more freedom and ease, it will have a direct positive effect on your being able to MANIFEST the thing you want to have in your life in 30 days or less!____________________________________________________________________

 If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on September 30 to learn “The Secret to Happiness.” Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links. 

Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

Integrity Fuels Intention – Blog 71

“Until you accept total responsibility – no matter what – you will not be able to put plans in place to accomplish your goals.” – David Cottrell 

As you know, I rarely reprint the text of my free monthly Create Prosperity Now tele-class calls.  In fact, I’ve only done it once before. But INTEGRITY is so absolutely essential (and so often misunderstood) a prerequisite to your ability to manifest your desires, that I want to make sure ALL my readers receive this message, even if they didn’t have time to join me on the monthly call.  Here is Part I of the text from my August 27 tele-class: 

OK, we’re now ready for today’s topic, “Integrity Fuels Intention.” Your first question might be, “What does INTEGRITY have to do with manifesting my Intention using the Law of Attraction?”  Well, the answer, as I hope to demonstrate to you, is that it has EVERYTHING to do with it.  

If you are “out of integrity” in any area of your life, you don’t have a clean, clear space to create what you want in.  Let’s call it a “clearing.” 

This is a big topic, so I’d like to start with defining exactly what I mean by “Integrity.”  The dictionary defines Integrity as: 1) Possession of firm principles 2) Completeness and 3) Wholeness. 

But the sense in which I am using the word Integrity with you now, while it touches on all of these, encompasses much more than just these three aspects.  Here is a definition of Integrity that was created by Landmark Education, a respected personal development organization that has been a leader in the human potential movement since the 1980’s. Theirs is about the most comprehensive and PRACTICAL definition of Integrity I’ve ever heard: 

“Integrity is nothing hidden, being truthful and honest, doing complete work, working from an empowering context, and doing very well what you do, doing it as it was meant to be done or better, and without cutting corners.  In other words, honoring one’s word (doing what you know to do, doing what you said you would do and on time, doing what others could expect you to do even if you haven’t said that you would do it, and saying when you are not doing this as soon as you realize you won’t be doing it or won’t be doing it on time.)” – Courtesy of Landmark Education 

I’d like to cover with you now the four key elements of Integrity that I have seen play a direct role in what has manifested in my life and the lives of the more than 150 clients I’ve had the privilege to help reach their dreams using the Law of Attraction.  

When you don’t have all four of these elements of Integrity in place in your life, it is impossible to attract what you want — because there is simply too much “clutter” filling up your “clearing,” which is the energetic, spiritual and mental space that the Universe uses to deliver the “How” to you.  

It is much like having your closet crammed full of an old, outdated, wrong-size wardrobe, so that you don’t have any space to hang up all the NEW clothes you are longing to buy. You simply won’t go shopping for a new wardrobe – or create new Intentions — when you know that there is no place to put them when they show up because your “clearing” closet is jammed full of all the incompletions and out-of-integrities that are cluttering up your life.  

And these incompletions and out-of-integrity habits not only prevent you from creating all the NEW things you long to have, but even worse, they stress you out, sap your energy and burden you with a feeling of “guilt” that makes you miserable instead of joyous and free. 

Here are the four major aspects of Integrity that, in my experience, have the biggest impact on our ability to live a life of freedom and ease, where we effortlessly attract the people, ideas and resources to us that help fulfill our Intentions with ease and grace: 

1) You must keep your word to others (be consistent and count-on-able).

2) You must keep your word to yourself (be valuable to yourself)

3) You must complete any incompletions in your life.

4) You must clean up any messes you make as quickly as possible. 

Let’s examine them one at a time: 

1) First, you must keep your word to others

When someone chronically fails to keep their promises to others, they become known as NOT count-on-able — otherwise known as “flaky.”  Don’t you know at least one person in your life that — much as you love them –you know deep down that if you really, REALLY needed to have someone show up for you at a specific time and place to do a specific task or there would be serious consequences for you  — you would NOT call on them? Of course you do!

That’s because, over time, that person has proven to be untrustworthy– to you and probably to everyone in their life. They are chronically late, or they forget appointments, or they change their mind and don’t tell you until the last minute, ruining your plans. (Don’t we all have someone we just know is going to be at least two hours late for Thanksgiving dinner every year, so we have learned to lie to them that it’s 2 hours EARLIER than it really is?) 

Worse yet, maybe you realize that YOU are one of these people. Maybe you know in your heart of hearts that your friends or relatives would not call on you if they really needed someone to come through for them — because they know it’s a crapshoot whether you will show up on time, ready to do whatever needs to be done or not. Trust me, you do NOT want to be one of these people.  

Think about someone you know who doesn’t keep their word to others. What is their life like? Are they living the life of their dreams? Are they envied as someone who seems to be naturally lucky, who catches all the breaks?  Or do they live in a chronic state of drama, chaos and guilt, forever having to come up with lame excuses for their behavior and knowing that they are infamous for NOT being trustworthy? 

Now, think of someone you know who is famous for being “count-on-able” and consistent – someone whose word is gold.  If they make you a promise, you know that you can take it to the bank. What is their life like?  Chances are, they are living a life of freedom and ease.  They seem to be able to do ten things at once and not break a sweat, and whenever they really set their mind to creating something they want, they always seem to get it. 

That is not a coincidence!  When you are a man or woman of your word, you have created a natural “clearing” in your life for attracting what you want and need.  You always have a clear, clean space in which to manifest a new desire  – instead of a cluttered “clearing closet” full of chaos, guilt and broken promises. 

2) Even more importantly, you must keep your word to YOURSELF. 

This is harder for most of us to do.  Don’t you usually do more for others than you do for yourself?  Don’t you hold yourself to a higher standard in your dealings with others than you use for measuring your actions on your OWN behalf?  I know it was true for me until just a few years ago.  

I was one of those “take it to the bank” people when it came to promises I made to OTHERS. I was never, ever late for an appointment and I always did what I promised to do for someone else, come hell or high water.  But when it came to keeping my promises to MYSELF, I regularly broke my word. I went off my diet, didn’t go to the gym, didn’t go to bed on time so I could be rested, didn’t take the weekend off for much-needed rejuvenation, but instead worked at my desk 6 and ½ days a week for months and months in a row, always telling myself I needed to finish just a little more paper work for my clients and my colleagues so I wouldn’t “let them down.” 

Thank goodness, I eventually came to see this pattern for what it was – an insidious way of defining myself as less valuable than others.  That’s what it really means when you break your word to yourself.  You are sending the Universe the message, “I don’t matter.  Don’t worry about me.  I really don’t deserve to have what I want because I’m not really valuable.”  Just like the “cluttered clearing” you create when you break your word to others, when you don’t keep your word to yourself, you create an energetic logjam that prevents the Universe from sending you the means for manifesting your desire. 

There’s another aspect to this, as well, which is that when you consistently don’t carry through on your promises to yourself, you begin to lose FAITH in yourself.  Faith, which is another word for BELIEF, is essential in the manifestation process.  It erodes your belief that your dreams ARE possible to fulfill, when you don’t even believe it’s possible for you to stick to your own diet and exercise schedule!   

In order to have a rock-solid belief in the possibility of manifesting my dreams, I realized that I must first have a rock-solid belief in myself.  Being count-able to myself was essential in creating this self-belief. 

That’s when I made new promises to myself that I knew I actually intended to keep — not pie-in the-sky hopes that I’d go to the gym five days a week and eat only salads and take every weekend to play –but true PROMISES I knew I could and would live up to.  And then – and this is essential – I created a workable accountability structure to support me in keeping my promises to myself. I did that by telling my friends my intentions and asked them to help me to be accountable for keeping them.  

For over a year, my best girlfriends and I have checked in by email every Monday morning to report our accomplishments: how many days we walked for exercise, how we did on our food plans and what we did to be good to ourselves and demonstrate our value the week before.  We give each other “Atta-girls” in return that add to the pleasure of carrying through on our promises. I have found that having an “accountability partner” is critical for keeping self-promises.  This is a big part of why my clients hire me as their coach – to help them stay on track for carrying out their promised actions so they can reach their goals.  I’m no different – the best coaches have their own coaches, or at least a committed friend who won’t let them off the hook! 

Please join me next week for the final two steps necessary for you to take to create a life of Integrity.  I will also share a simple but very powerful exercise that can help you to actually manifest something BIG that you want in the next 30 days!

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If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on Wednesday, September 30 to learn “The Secret to Happiness.” Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links. 

Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

Study Method Acting — Blog 70

September 7, 2009  

The closer your actual living now comes to your hoped-for living in the future, the more likely you are to grow into your vision. – Victoria Moran 

Well, it’s Labor Day weekend, which means the unofficial end of summer is here!  My favorite season has gone by quickly, but this year I am proud to say that have I truly savored every minute of it, as I hope you have.  

Part of what made this possible was the brainstorm I had early in the season to emulate Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show from my childhood and have a “guest writer” (like he had a “guest host”) stand in for me on the blog a few times a month so I could have more time for fun and play this summer.  It worked!  I feel rested and refreshed and ready for a busy fall of Practical Prosperity Coaching! And you, I hope, have enjoyed the wonderful tips for abundant living that these great writers have provided. 

To close out the summer, I’ve again selected a chapter from Victoria Moran’s lovely little book, Creating a Charmed Life.  As you know, a skill you definitely must use if you want to become a Master Manifester is vividly visualizing yourself gratefully enjoying the thing you want to manifest, even before it has appeared in the material world.  

Victoria Moran has taken this a BIG step further.  She advocates that if you actually begin living NOW the way you dream of living someday, it will make your dreams manifest faster.  I hope you make the effort to put some of her suggestions into practice because not only will they accelerate your ability to manifest your heart’s desires, but they are lots of fun too!  

Chapter 34: Study Method Acting

from Creating a Charmed Life by Victoria Moran  

You don’t need theatrical aspirations to benefit from this acting method: the method of acting as if you already lived a charmed life.  This is the fine art of faking it.  It’s not dishonest because you’re not operating outside the truth, only outside the purview of present fact.  Facts are malleable; they change all the time.  You can help change them for the better. 

First, think about what you want to do.  What are your heart’s desires?  How would you like to improve your life?  Now, imagine that it has already happened.  Put yourself in that picture.  If you were living in every way the life you want to live, what would you be wearing?  What would you have eaten for breakfast this morning?  What dishes would you have used?  What would you be doing with this day?  What would go on your to-do list? 

As you answer these questions, consider the number of matchups you have between your existing life and your life in that idyllic, imagined tomorrow.  The closer your actual living now comes to your hoped-for living in the future, the more likely you are to grow into your vision.  Rehearse! 

Get into costume.  Start rehearsing for the life you want by looking like the person you want to be.  If this sounds like dealing with the surface, that’s because it is.  How you look is not by a long shot who you are.  But dressing the part can be the first phase in convincing yourself that it’s really yours. 

If in the imagination exercise you envisioned yourself in a designer suit, get one, even if it means going to a consignment shop or finding something out of season that’s been marked down four times.  Or maybe you plan on leaving the corporate grind to become a painter.  Rehearse your future by dressing down all weekend and bringing out your paints and brushes. 

Say your lines.  The rest of the world believes what we tell it with our words, our actions and our convictions.  We like to think that other people’s opinions don’t matter but that’s only partially true.  Other people’s opinions make up our reputation.  It’s easier to live up to one we want than live down one we don’t want. 

Therefore, include your dream when you identify yourself.  Tell people whatever aspects of your life you choose to reveal, but give star billing to the parts you’re passionate about. 

Become your character.  After dressing and talking as if your dream were already here, live the lifestyle you aspire to as fully as you can within the parameters of your current reality.  That way, when you’re actually living the charmed life you envision, you won’t be out of place.  If, for instance, you want to have more money, subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and join and investment club.  If you want to be a poet, go to readings.  Hang out in bookstore coffee bars.  Name your puppy Ginsberg. 

Learn from the leads.  Once you’re looking, sounding and seeming like someone whose dreams are taking shape, see your dreams in the flesh by getting to know people who are successfully doing what you want to do.  Join the organizations they belong to.  Sign up for the classes they teach and the conferences where they speak.  Find out what they did to get where they are and apply those techniques that strike a chord with you. 

Rehearse your dream – in costume, with lines, and as your character.  Learn all you can from more experienced actors.  Now, go break a leg! 

I hope you enjoy this last summer weekend and drink in every drop!  I’ll see you here next week with a very important topic all my own!

____________________________________________________________________

 If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. I hope you’ll join us on September 30 to learn “The Secret to Happiness.” Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links.

 Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

A Recipe for Happiness Part II — Blog 69

 

“Happiness is only achievable when it is a by-product of something else….” – Dennis Prager

Judging by reader responses to the first part of this blog published last week, the topic of happiness is, indeed, of great importance to us.  Isn’t that what we are all after in life? It’s the fundamental goal behind our intentions to create more prosperity, better personal relationships, a more fulfilling career, a fancier car, a bigger house, etc.  The point of having those things is to help us feel happy. 

However, as philosopher, author, and radio commentator Dennis Prager points out in his wonderful little book Happiness is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual, when we pursue happiness as an end goal, we can never really achieve it. He asserts that we can only achieve happiness by adhering to six values, which “…are more important than happiness – and that therefore bring people much of it.” 

In last week’s blog, we covered the first two values, “passionate and meaningful pursuits” and “depth.”  Here are the remaining four, excerpted directly from his book: 

Happiness is a Serious Problem Chapter 21 – Happiness is a By-product

By Dennis Prager

 Wisdom 

A third goal whose pursuit brings happiness as a by-product is wisdom.  Wisdom may be defined as understanding, as opposed to merely knowing. Knowledge is wonderful, but it is not the same as, not as valuable as, and does not bring the happiness or peace of mind that wisdom brings.  Computers have a great deal of knowledge, but they have no wisdom.  Indeed, this is true of many humans.  If accumulating knowledge inevitably brought one wisdom, given the number of well-educated people today, we would be living in the wisest age in humanity’s history; and given how few people in the past received much education, few of our ancestors could have been wise.  Yet probably all of us have known someone of limited education who possessed great wisdom, and all of us know some highly-educated people who are quite foolish. 

I offer no sure path to wisdom; there probably is none.  Some people seem to be born with wisdom, and some attain it through great intellectual and emotional struggle.  What is clear is that a lifelong pursuit of wisdom yields a happier life.* 

[*Author’s footnote: For the interested reader, I offer two theories to explain, in large part, the decline in wisdom in our time.  One is specialization in education: a broad-based education has been abandoned in favor of accumulating an immense body of knowledge in increasingly narrow areas of specialization.  The other is the assertion in Proverbs that “Wisdom begins with awe of God.”  Secularization has led to a number of blessings, most notably the blessing of tolerance, thanks to secular government.  But it rarely leads to wisdom.  How could it?  The denial of any transcendent meaning to human life leads ultimately to the belief that all is random and rather pointless.  And there is little wisdom to be culled from randomness and meaninglessness.  We correctly associate most religious government with a lack of tolerance.  We should just as correctly associate most secular thought with a lack of wisdom.] 

Clarity – Understanding Yourself and Life

A fourth goal higher than happiness that produces happiness as a by-product is clarity.  We might be tempted to think that we can be happy without working to understand ourselves and life – believing in a form of “ignorance is bliss” – but this is not so.  From traditional Eastern thought to modern Western psychological thought, there is widespread acknowledgment that clarity, even when painful, is a blessing, not a curse.  Great numbers of people walk through life with little understanding of why life behaves the way it does or why they themselves behave the way they do.  Yet to understand why your life unfolds in the way it does is one of the greatest sources of happiness. 

One reason is that we are far more capable of handling life’s tragedies when we have some explanation for them.  For example, when an airplane accident is explained, the friends and relatives of the passengers who died are in a better emotional position than the friends and relatives of the victims of a crash that has no explanation.  If clarity and understanding were not immensely important to our happiness, explaining such accidents would not matter.  Yet having explanations (i.e., having clarity) matters a great deal.  A lack of clarity suggests that our life is chaos; chaos suggests meaninglessness, and meaninglessness guarantees unhappiness. 

As with all growth and depth, the more you understand, the more you want to understand.  You will want to know why you lost your temper, why you yelled at a loved one, why you keep falling in love with the wrong type of person.  Clarity cannot change everything that will happen in our life, and it will certainly not change anything that has happened, but it transforms us from passive bystanders to actors. 

Goodness

A fifth example is elevating doing good over being happy.  I write elsewhere of the connection between goodness and happiness – for example, good people bring other good people into their lives, and spending our lives with such people increases our happiness.  People who make doing good and attaining good character more important goals than achieving happiness achieve happiness as a by-product of that goal.  The peace of mind and sense of self-worth that derive from the pursuit of goodness are unattainable elsewhere. 

Pursuit of the Transcendent

The final example is perhaps the most ubiquitous – pursuit of the transcendent.  Throughout history, most people have been acutely aware of the ephemeral nature of human life.  We arrive against our will, stay a short while, and leave against our will.  Today we also know that we are infinitesimally small specks in the vast universe.  Consequently, more than ever we need meaning that can come only from the belief that something permanent transcends us. 

Many will argue that there is no transcendence and that religion is largely nonsense, even dangerous nonsense.  But few can argue against the proposition that religion is capable of bringing more inner peace than anything else.  There is something in the human being that yearns for the meaning, order, community and answers that religion uniquely provides. 

Well, there you have it!  Six values that, according to Dennis Prager, can provide us with the happiness and fulfillment that we all are seeking in our lives – far beyond what most transitory material goals ever can.  

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If you have missed any of this year’s series of F.R.E.E. monthly Create Prosperity Now Tele-classes, all the audios are still available for download to listen to at your convenience. These 60-minute live classes, which teach you exactly how to put the Law of Attraction into ACTION in your life, are held the last Wednesday of each month at 6pm Pacific. The next call will be on September 30. Please email me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to receive future call invitations and replay links. 

Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To find out how Practical Prosperity Coaching © can help you create the life of YOUR dreams in 30 days or less, contact me at caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com to request a complimentary, no-obligation phone consultation.

 

A Recipe for Happiness — Blog 68

“Happiness is only achievable when it is a by-product of something else….” – Dennis Prager

 In my continuing effort to fully enjoy every last drop of my summer, I have occasionally featured some “guest writers” for this column over the past two months — both to give myself a break and, more importantly, to let you hear other voices with important things to teach us about how to live a fulfilling, prosperous life. 

In my role as The Practical Prosperity Coach ©, I have helped more than 150 clients thus far manifest a specific something that they ardently desire to have, usually in 30 days or less.  These Intentions run the gamut of almost anything you could imagine – a new kitchen, a large amount of cash, a matching set of dishware, a specific number of clients, a new romantic partner, a specific number of signed contracts, a new house, a new car, a new career, etc. etc. etc. 

The only thing that all these heart-felt dreams have in common is that the people pursuing them apparently feel that having these things will make them happier.  And isn’t being HAPPY the number one goal of human beings?  But how do you know when you have achieved happiness anyway?  How do you gain happiness and, more importantly, how do you keep it in the face of the major curve balls that Life will inevitably throw at you from time to time? 

The respected author and host of The Dennis Prager Show on L.A.’s KABC radio is a philosopher who has done a lot of deep thinking about these questions and has become something of a self-made expert on the subject of happiness.  Because it is such an important – and largely unexamined — topic in our society today, I am devoting this blog and the next to providing you with just one chapter from Prager’s great paperback called Happiness is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual. 

I chose this particular chapter because it provides a good reminder that although external things — and even people — can make our lives richer and much more pleasurable, they are not the source of our happiness.  And in fact, if we truly want to experience happiness, we cannot make it our actual goal at all. 

I hope you enjoy this excerpt and that it inspires you to go out and get this very helpful and entertaining little book for yourself…. Or just wait to cross paths with my husband, who is one of the happiest people I know. Whenever Rick runs across someone who seems to be unhappy, he has been known to give a copy away to a stranger.

Happiness is a Serious Problem: Chapter 21 – Happiness Is a By-product

By Dennis Prager 

As important as happiness is, if you make it your most important value, you cannot attain it.  Happiness is only achievable when it is a by-product of something else, and you must hold that something to be more important than happiness.* Moreover, it is impossible to fool yourself.  You cannot, for example, say, “In order to be happy I will value x more than happiness,” while in your heart continuing to value happiness more. 

[*Author’s footnote: Ask parents today what they most want for their children, and the vast majority of them will tell you that they want their children to be happy.  As well-intentioned as this is, by making happiness the greatest value in their children’s lives, these parents are, unfortunately, making it harder for their children to be happy adults.  Parents who want their children to be happy but who raise them to believe that some values are even higher than happiness are more likely to raise happy children.] 

I offer six values that are widely held to be more important than happiness – and that therefore bring people much of it.

Passionate and Meaningful Pursuits 

The first and perhaps the most obvious sources of happiness are those pursuits for which people feel a great passion and that give people’s lives meaning.  The number of such pursuits is almost infinite – from studying insects to a career in baseball to comforting the dying. 

Because of the power of passionate and meaningful pursuits to bring us happiness, it is essential to help children develop as many passions as possible.  The more passions we have – whether for people, things, work, hobbies or something else – the greater happiness we are likely to experience.  But again, we cannot fool ourselves.  Having a passion for something is not enough.  It must have intrinsic value and meaning.  Thus a person may have a passion for watching television, but watching television in great amounts is neither intrinsically valuable nor meaningful, and it is therefore not conducive to happiness.

I rarely cite studies, believing that they usually either find what common sense and human experience already know or whatever the study-maker wanted to find, but regarding the relationship between happiness and television watching, I have seen studies that have opened my eyes.  These studies found that after a certain amount of television watching on any given day, people actually became less happy.  Now one might counter that after a certain amount of time doing any one thing, one will become less happy.  But this is not true.  Take, for example, something as esoteric and uninteresting to most of us as studying insects.  Because such study, unlike television watching, can be both intrinsically valuable and meaningful, a person who loves studying insect life will not become more unhappy after a certain amount of time studying insects.  Six hours a day (the average amount of time spent watching television in an American home) devoted to studying insects can actually increase the happiness of a person – because it leads to growth and knowledge. 

To cite another example, although a career in sports can bring a person happiness – thanks to the person’s love of the sport, deep interaction with others in the game, and the mental, physical, and emotional challenges of the sport – merely being a sports fan (i.e., watching sports) after a certain amount of hours does not bring a person happiness.  Watching sports is a source of fun but rarely a source of meaning to fans.  One proof is the vast amount of gambling on sports among fans.  Gambling gives watching sports a meaning that it otherwise lacks.  On the other hand, watching sports can be meaningful to those involved in management, player development, and sports writing. 

Depth 

A second example of a goal that yields happiness as a by-product is depth.  At the present time, depth (along with maturity) is almost never cited or even considered when people – especially young people – think about what they wish to achieve.  Ask most people, “How important is being deep to you?” and you are likely to receive a puzzled response, “What do you mean?” 

The subject of becoming a deeper person deserves its own book, so I will offer only a brief definition and a few examples.  Perhaps the best way to understand depth is to think of growth: we become deeper when we struggle to grow – emotionally, morally, psychologically, intellectually, and in wisdom.  Note, please, that struggle is part of depth.  Very little that is acquired easily is deep. 

However, human nature once again works against us.  Human nature motivates us to seek immediate pleasure, not depth.  Yet those who transcend their nature and seek depth will derive great happiness from that struggle. 

Who is likely to be intellectually deeper (and happier) – the person who devotes most evenings to reading good books, taking courses, and studying a foreign language or a musical instrument or the one who devotes most evenings to watching television?

Who is likely to be emotionally deeper – the person who commits to a relationship, marries, and raises children or the single person who goes from relationship to relationship? 

Who is likely to be psychologically deeper – the person who devotes time and effort to learning about herself/himself or the one who rarely looks within? 

Examples apply to every area of life.  Even fun can be deepened.  You can relax with hours of card playing or by involving yourself with interests that make demands on you, such as taking an adult education course.  You can enjoy “easy listening” music, or you can make the effort to enjoy deeper music such as classical music.  You can watch movies that just entertain or watch movies that provoke thought as well as entertain.  You can read pop novels that just entertain or read novels that make intellectual and emotional demands as well as entertain. 

When you have experienced deeper fun, it is difficult to go back to the more superficial variety because the rewards of depth are great.  Ask anyone who has truly enjoyed both popular and classical music which one ultimately brings greater rewards (and I say this with a deep appreciation for the joys of popular music.) 

Pursuing depth is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the human being; it is one of the noblest goals in a human life; and it brings ongoing happiness.  Indeed, the journey to depth brings as much happiness as its attainment, and since depth has no limits, the journey to it never ends. 

To be continued next week: Join me to learn the remaining four values that Dennis Prager claims “…are more important than happiness and that therefore bring people much of it!”

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 MONTHLY REMINDER

The next F.R.E.E. Create Prosperity Now 60-minute tele-class will be held this Wednesday, August 26 at 6:00pm PACIFIC.  This month’s topic is “Integrity Fuels Intention.”  Join us to learn about this essential prosperity tool for attracting positive people, things and resources into your life! If you can’t be there, the call REPLAY will be sent to you, but ONLY if you have pre-registered. So send your full name and email to: caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com. The call number and password will be emailed to you the day before the call.  Please let me know if you plan to be there live or via replay, so we’ll be sure to have plenty of lines available.  And don’t forget to invite a FRIEND – they’ll thank you for it!  

Your questions and comments are most welcome!  To request a complimentary phone consultation, contact caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com.