When I was a kid I asked my parents for a guitar for Christmas. I was probably under ten years old. They were struggling, scarcity minded, hard working folks who weren’t convinced I’d actually practice or stick with it. So they gave me a Roy Rogers special cowboy guitar, made out of cardboard.
It took me almost fifty years to get over it.
But these days I love attracting guitars and playing guitars. I’m fortunate enough to know musicians as well as guitar teachers. Weekly lessons with Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon are a blast. Talking music with guitarist Pat O’Bryan is always enlightening. And meeting luthiers (guitar makers) is also educational and inspiring. (Pic’s of Pat and me.*)
Recently I met Mark Erlewine. This luthier made guitars for every rock star I’ve ever admired, including Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill of ZZ Top, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, Johnny Winter, Don Felder, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Buffet, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Billy Squier, Bruce Springsteen — and the list goes on (!).
Turns out Mark has a little shop in Austin, Texas, which isn’t far from my home. I went to see him one day to check out a Mark Erlewine invention actor Michael J. Fox used in the famed movie Back to the Future: a travel-sized electric guitar called a Chiquita.
Side note: I love travel guitars. I have several, including a pride and joy called a TommyHawk, which was made for me in 1996 by the late Tom Barth. Only 300 were ever made. One went into the Smithsonian in 1997. I want another, if you come across one. (Pic’s of my TommyHawk, with a pocket sized paperback book.)
I went to Mark’s shop. He’s a soft spoken, gentle, humble man. He didn’t explain the gold record on the wall. He didn’t brag about all the photos on his walls of famous rock stars playing his guitars. Instead, I asked to see the Chiquita and he showed it to me. I loved it and bought it. (Pic’s of Mark and his Chiquita.)
But I didn’t stop there.
Now that I’m attracting new guitars, I’m always on the look out for the guitar with magic powers. The one that plays itself. The one that makes me sound better than what I am. I started to believe Mark could be the inventor of the Harry Potter guitar – the one that turns me into a shredding wizard with the guitar as my magic wand.
So I looked around Mark’s shop. He had a couple display cases. In one hung a guitar that seemed alive. Its soul was calling me. The flame top seemed to whisper my nick-name, Mr. Fire. (Pic of me and Mark.)
I asked to see that guitar.
Mark made it in the 1980s, the body out of one block of wood and the neck out of Brazilian rosewood. It has a whammy bar on the front and a sustain plate on the back of the neck. I played it and loved it. (Pic’s close-up of the flamed top.)
What are the lessons here?
First, give your kids what they want. Had I started playing the guitar when I was seven, I’d be far better at playing today at almost fifty-seven. But my father wanted me to play the accordion. He bought me one of those. He paid for lessons for me, too. But I wanted to play the guitar.
Two, go for what you want. Too many people settle. They settle for what they think is possible rather than stretching and persisting. If you really want to be something or do something, don’t give up or settle for less. Hold to the dream. I’m taking guitar lessons today to bring to life my dream of playing from earlier days. I’m going for what I want. Childhood dreams do come true.
Three, have fun. I’m delighted to be at a place in my life where I can take time off to look at cars or guitars. I still do my work, of course. I’m still more productive and prolific than the average ‘Joe”. I still practice the seven steps in Attract Money Now. I still donate to worthy causes. But I also take care of me.
How about you?
Who are you taking care of these days?
What dreams remain alive in you – waiting for you to says YES to them?
What did you want to have, do or be as a child that might be fun to experience today?
What are you waiting for?
You can at least begin right now.
Ao Akua,
PS – Need help understanding the Law of Attraction? Claim your free 30-minute coaching session with one of my Miracles Coaches. It could change your life.
PPS – See the world’s only Alien Guitar.
* How’d Pat and I get so trim? The answer is at this secret location.
Hybrid cars are coming out of the floors and ceilings these days. While I’m still excited (and still waiting) for the Scorpion, that incredible hydrogen-gas super exotic car being made for me, I’m also keeping my eyes open for other green auto innovations. When Porsche announced its 918 Spyder, a battery-gas hybrid futuristic super car, the entire car world sat up and took notice, including me.
The thing is, the car might be an illusion.
After the Porsche 918 hit the cover of many magazines, including Automotive, I went looking for it. According to one article, if Porsche got 1,000 firm orders for the car, they’d make it.
That surprised me.
Wasn’t the car already made?
Wasn’t a thousand orders thinking small (for Porsche)?
Anyway, I wanted to be one of those buyers. I went online and searched. I couldn’t find a single site where I could place my order. Weird.
I called a Porsche rep in Houston I met recently. He had no idea how to order the car and barely knew as much as I did about it.
I contacted Porsche in Austin. An upbeat salesperson there called me back. He had seen me on the cover of Austin Fit magazine and remembered me and the Scorpion (below). But he was in the dark about the Porsche 918.
Meanwhile, I went online to the Porsche corporate site and sent emails to every manager I could find.
No one wrote me back.
Then a friend forwarded an article to me about Porsche now having 900 orders for their new car. I was frustrated.
How are those 900 people placing their orders?
I decided to write the reporter who wrote the article. He instantly wrote me back, giving me two key contacts within Porsche HQ’s itself.
I wrote both of them.
I gave each my office phone, private mobile phone, and my email address.
So far, neither has written back.
What am I to make of this?
Maybe Porsche is just photo-shopping a car into existence to drum up publicity for their other hybrids coming out in a few months.
Maybe Porsche is like so many big corporations, just not communicating with all their other departments.
Maybe I’m not supposed to have the Porsche 918 hybrid.
I have to admit that from a Law of Attraction standpoint, the latter explanation seems to make more sense.
But why?
Let’s dig into this a bit…
I’ve said many times that the meaning you give an event is the belief that attracted it.
If I declare that the new Porsche isn’t for me, then that’s the belief that attracted this scenario. It has nothing to do with Porsche. It has everything to do with me.
Again, as I’ve said and written many times, and recorded in such audio programs as The Secret to Attracting Money, the meaning you give an event is the belief that attracted it.
What was the meaning I gave this event?
What did it mean that I was/am having trouble placing an order for the Porsche 918?
I had to really think about this. The answer wasn’t instantly there. But after a little reflection, there it was.
Truth is, I’m still excited and eager to finally receive the Scorpion. While the wait has been seemingly forever — they’ve been telling me “thirty days” for years now — the car is worth the wait.
I’ll have the second one they make. It’ll be an honor, a collectible, and a historic moment – on the level of owning one of the few Tucker cars in existence.
In short, the Law of Attraction is always working – just not on the conscious level you may have thought.
You have to remember that what looks like failure could be a message – a message from the Divine/unconscious – about what you really want, about what you really believe, and/or about what the Universe wants for you.
This all boils down to trust.
While I could muscle my way into ordering the Porsche 918 – by maybe flying to Porsche company headquarters and handing them my order – it’s clear I’m getting a different signal.
All these bumps and blocks aren’t there by accident. They aren’t saying Law of Attraction doesn’t work. Instead, it’s working just fine.
Don’t blame gravity when you trip and fall. It’s working. You weren’t watching where you were going.
Don’t blame Law of Attraction when you don’t get what you want. It’s working, too. You’re simply getting what you unconsciously want.
As always, the whole idea here is to awaken.
Awaken to our inner power, our inner Divinity, and maybe our inner race car.
Ao Akua,
PS – While writing this very blog post, my server went off line and lost my writing, which wasn’t completed with the ending insight above, but was still important. It gave me pause. I wondered why it seemed like I couldn’t even write about not attracting the Porsche 918. Then I realized, again, that I really want the Scorpion. Once I got the lesson, I no longer needed the experience. The blog returned. The Porsche 918 remains a ghost. The Scorpion will appear when it appears (or something better will). All is well. Life continues. And I have plenty of other cars to drive anyway. So there.
What’s the right question to ask in virtually any situation?
The right question is the one that moves your energy (and vibration) upward.
Most people ask “what if down” questions.
What if this goes wrong?
What if it doesn’t work out?
What if she leaves me?
Those questions take your energy (vibration) down. It closes your mind from seeing possibilities.
But the right question to ask is the one that takes you UP.
What if this goes right?
What if this works out?
What if she stays with me?
Those questions take your mind in an expansive, possibility thinking new direction.
The best way to understand “What if UP” thinking is to get Mindy Audlin’s new book, What If It All Goes Right?. That’s her and me below.
What if her book changes your life forever in a positive way?
What if you went and ordered it right now?
Ao Akua,
joe
PS – If it means anything to you, I wrote the foreword to Mindy’s book. It’s about how I taught the Russians what if UP thinking. You’ve got to read that.
A massage therapist I know asked me if he should start asking people to donate money for his services rather than pay a specific price. He thought the former would be the ultimate demonstration of abundance consciousness.
What do you think?
Is leaving the payment up to the customer or client a sign of prosperity?
I say NO.
Not wanting to charge for your services is a cop out. It’s a mind trick. It’s a sly way to trick yourself into thinking you’re so prosperous you don’t need to charge, where in face you’re actually saying you’re so afraid of money that you don’t dare ask for what you want.
Think about it.
If your electric company said, “Hey, we’re prosperous, so just pay us what you think we’re worth,” what would you pay them?
Be honest. Most people would practice scarcity consciousness and pay little or nothing, even when the service provided is one most of us need to survive comfortably.
Don’t think you’re immune to the money mind trick.
Decades ago a therapist I knew experimented with not charging for his service, charging a high fee, and charging a low fee.
The people who saw him for free or the low fee didn’t respect him, or his time, and didn’t change.
The clients who paid the higher fee showed up on time, paid attention, did the work, and got better results.
Money is just a tool, but it’s a loaded gun emotionally. Unless you get clear of the meanings around it, you’ll be like the massage therapist who thought he was being prosperous by asking for love offerings, when in fact he was being afraid.
I wrote an entire book to help you get clear around money, called Attract Money Now. I’m giving the e-book version of it away to take away your excuses for not being prosperous.
Have you asked for the book?
Have you read it?
Have you applied the seven principles in it?
Face it. You need money to accomplish most of what you want in life.
Even people who want to make a difference in struggling countries, find that having money makes it easier to make that difference.
I’ve been able to donate thousands of dollars to build schools, fix schools, and help children in need, as well as start a movement to end homelessness which CNN will televise.
Even people who want to volunteer for non-profit organizations find that they need money to live, travel, eat and work.
A friend of mine once said, “I want to do volunteer work, but I can’t afford it.”
Money is a powerful tool. You can use it however you please, but only if you have it to begin with.
Get clear with money and attract more of the results you want in life.
Begin by reading my book. Just click right here.
Remember, it’s free.
But if you’d feel better buying the hardcover version of the book, and if that would get you to actually read and implement what you learn, it’s available right here.
Consider what Arnold Patent wrote, “The sole purpose of money is to express appreciation.”
Go express some.
Ao Akua,
PS — The beautiful hardcover edition of my latest book, Attract Money Now, comes with a DVD of a fiery live presentation by me. It’s described right here. It’ll shake up your beliefs about money so you can use the Law of Attraction and the Law of Right Action to actually manifest some. Go see.
People have been asking for scientific evidence for the Law of Attraction ever since the movie The Secret hit the Internet four years ago last month.
I’m excited to report it’s here in the form of a readable book.
I was in Utah last week visiting my Miracles Coaching team when I decided to walk off dinner by going to a bookstore. There I found the brand new book, The Science Behind the Secret: Decoding the Law of Attraction, by Travis S. Taylor, Ph.D.
That book kept me up all night. It’s riveting. Taylor is a physics, aerospace and electrical engineer. He worked for the Department of Defense and NASA. He also writes sci-fi books. After he saw the movie The Secret, he began exploring the history and evidence for the Law of Attraction.
According to Taylor, the Law of Attraction is not new. He can trace it all the way back to Jainism in ancient India, about four thousand years ago. He follows its development through Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) on to around the mid-1800s, when people such as Helena Blavatsky, James Allen, and William Walker Atkinson specifically used the term “Law of Attraction” in their books. Taylor continues his historic overview right through the 1980s, with books by Jerry and Esther Hicks.
Also according to Taylor, the Law of Attraction is not a law. He declares that the “law” is more an adage; a philosophical or psychological maxim. He doesn’t dismiss it; he simply says it’s not a law by strict scientific proof. There’s no empirical evidence for it.
But Dr. Taylor doesn’t stop there.
Turns out he’s a fan of The Secret. He calls the teachers in it (apparently even me) “Yoda’s.” He really likes Louise Hay (who isn’t in the movie). He says you can influence reality by how you think. His entire book is a respected scientist’s view of how the Law of Attraction (law, maxim, or adage) actually works.
He goes on to explain new theories of the brain, and of reality, and states you can influence reality by holding a thought with emotion and imagery. In essence what you are doing is sending a “qwiff” into the energy field we’re all in. That qwiff (a quantum wave function) goes out and gets “attracted” to (or seeks and finds) other similar qwiffs. The result is often a new reality.
Stop and think about this…
Stating there are new theories of the brain, as well as of human experience, reveals that “reality” must be a construct that matches whatever we say.
In other words, if you believe that the brain is like a computer (called a Turing Machine), you look at it as you do your Mac or PC. It’s a mechanical device that works in a linear way.
But if you trash that model of reality and say the brain is more like what physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff say, that human consciousness is a Orchestrated Objective Reduction (a type of quantum computer), then you now have a new, empowering theory: that the human mind impacts reality.
Again, please note that these scientists are all trying to figure out how the world works. Also note that they are creating theories and then testing them. Further note that as long as they believe in their theories, they can find proof for them.
Doesn’t that in itself prove what you think is what you create?
According to Dr. Taylor, who prefers the quantum brain theory of everything, you can create a new reality for yourself by imagining it’s already fulfilled. This creates an energy field that gets launched into the Universe, on a mission to find whatever it needs to become your new reality.
This fits with the concept that photons and other particles don’t organize until they are observed. It appears that when you state an intention, you help organize them. This is what I called “Nevillizing” (named after author Neville Goddard) in my book, The Attractor Factor. This is what gets everyone excited, including me.
Want a new car?
Imagine you already have it.
Want more money now?
Imagine you already have it.
What a new job?
Imagine you are already working it.
Want better health?
Imagine it’s already here.
Want a new bike?
Dr. Taylor writes —
“The right way to use your quantum brain is to set up the thought pattern of the reality that you actually have that new bicycle. You must envision yourself riding that new bicycle. You just fantasize how it feels to ride the new bicycle…This is how you set up a qwiff to get a response from the universe in a positive manner.”
By focusing your energized thought on the finished goal of what you desire, you send a type of cosmic order into the Universe. As you act on the ideas and opportunities that come to you, after you place this focused intention into the world, you tend to attract what you desire into your reality.
Of course, this is nothing new. Here’s what the mystic Neville wrote in his 1944 book, Feeling Is The Secret:
“To impress the subconscious with the desirable state you must assume the feeling that would be yours had you already realized your wish.”
Or, as Neville hand signed in one of his books: “Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.”
All of this is to say the Law of Attraction is real.
It may not be considered a law (yet) by strict scientific experiment, but it definitely works.
This is why you must monitor your thoughts and choose the ones you prefer. Those thoughts – especially when combined with emotion and image and focused on – tend to go out into the world as “qwiffs” and attract a match to create a physical new reality.
This is why new tools such as Mindy Audlin’s “What if UP” thinking are so important. What you focus your thoughts on with emotion tends to come to pass. This is why you tend to attract what you love, fear, or hate. There’s raw emotion behind those thoughts. Since you have a choice, why not choose the high road?
In fact, it’s so important to keep “upping” your thoughts to better feeling ones that I saw this sign on the sales floor of my Miracles Coaches offices:
Again, the Law of Attraction is real.
Don’t call it a law if that makes you feel better.
But the operating principle behind The Secret works.
Taylor’s book is a fun, fast read. He’s a friendly, conversational writer. He knows his readers are not physicists. He’s patient. He’s kind. He’s wise.
I love his book. It’s the best one I’ve seen yet explaining the science behind how your thinking creates your reality.
I also like that he included a chapter about skeptics. He urges you to ignore them. They aren’t helping anyone. They are very often sinister, anecdotal, and without logic.
Instead, Dr. Taylor advises to “…focus our efforts on the brighter , happier side of things and simply test our theories. The outcome will shine light on the darker corners of humanity and wash them out.”
Einstein put it this way in 1954 –
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
You can help yourself break free with Dr. Taylor’s book. If you’ve been looking for scientific evidence for the Law of Attraction or the movie The Secret, you’ll find it in the pages of The Science Behind the Secret.
You’ll find the book in book stores and of course online at Amazon.
Meanwhile, watch the thoughts you “qwiff” into the world.
What you think does make a difference.
And that’s no secret.
Ao Akua,
PS — Pictured below with me is Janeen Detrick, voted Coach of the Year in 2009. She’s one of my Miracles Coaches. Hear me interview her by clicking right here.