I’m living my “bucket list” dream of being a musician by recording my fifth singer-songwriter album (my eleventh as a music artist).
The songs on this new album are apparently better than ever, as legendary musicians are saying the lyrics are “perfect” and “hypnotic” and “every song is a favorite.”
Drummer Joe Vitale – yes, he has the same name as me – who is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has created over 200 albums, with over 50 being gold (and many platinum) records – asked me how I came up with the songs for this new album.
Here’s what I told him:
1. Intention
I have an intention to turn one of my messages into a song. In other words, I have positive messages – the ones I spend entire books writing about – and I want to morph them into songs people want to hear.
2. Inspiration
I have a Cuban cigar (now legal) and relax. Anything could help, as long as it relaxes me, and lets my mind drift. This mind wandering is what allows me to receive a song to match my intention.
3. Implementation
I pick up an acoustic guitar — usually the one Tony Nobles made for Ray Wylie Hubbard that I later bought – and just ad lib a song. I let it be nonsense or sense. I try not to judge too early. I want the song to come to me, from the muse or my mind, or the dance of both.
4. Record
I then turn on the voice recorder on my iPhone and record what is coming. This may be an entire song, a few chords, lyrics, or other snippet. Doesn’t matter. I record it.
5. Revise
I then transcribe the song, so I have the words on paper for me to tweak or approve. I usually spend a lot of time bringing the message into rhyme and polished form. I’ve learned you can polish inspiration.
From there, it’s a matter of living with the songs and seeing if they take more refined shape and that I really like them.
After that, it’s time to get my band together – Daniel Barrett, drummer Joe Vitale, Glenn Fukunaga and Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon – and see how they can help me arrange the music to fit the message. (Sometimes I have guest artists, as well. Grammy nominated singer Ruthie Foster sings on my new album.)
The result is a Hypnotic Song.
And because they are generally three minutes long, the songs are like 3-minute self-help books.
My new album – the one we just completed recording – contains the best songs I’ve ever written so far.
From rock to jazz to poetry to sing-a-long, there’s something for everyone.
It’s called “One More Day: Life Lessons in Hypnotic Song.”
You can pre-order it at One More Day.
I’m sharing this with you today for a few reasons:
1. I want you to go for your dreams, too.
Whatever your secret positive desire, you deserve to experience it. You’ll never know if you don’t try. Do it. Now.
2. I want you to set intentions and trust that inspiration will come to you as a result.
While intentions can be limitations, they can also be directives. Use them as starting points to “call forth” something great.
3. I want you to be fearless.
Being a musician in my sixties is a wild jump for me, yet it is not only working, but working flawlessly. My music is well received, my songs and singing are getting better and better, and I’m having a blast. Had I not faced the early doubts and fears, I would have missed this incredible life.
Sing your song, dance your dance, live your life.
Pre-order the new album “One More Day: Life Lessons in Hypnotic Song” by clicking right here.
Expect Miracles!
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – I posted this brief video on Facebook and 12,000 people viewed it there. It’s a sneak peek at a song off the new album, with me describing the depth of it, and how it moves me. See http://youtu.be/xiELqAr1Exk or you can see it on the album site right here.
A friend about to turn 40 years old sent me this question –
“What is the main/biggest thing you wish you knew about money before you were 40?”
I thought about it and came up with the following answer:
Stop worrying; it all works out.
Since I’m now in my sixties and have gone from homeless to poverty to filing bankruptcy to sleepless nights and more, only to end up living the life of one of the rich and famous, I’d say that all my worrying didn’t help at all.
Worry is a belief. It’s trained behavior. Most of us think if we worry, we will whip ourselves into doing something. But worry doesn’t stimulate right action. It stimulates more worry. And from a Law of Attraction view, worry begets worry.
Think about it: Under the feeling of worry are fear based thoughts, such as “What if this doesn’t work out?”, “What if my car is repossessed?”, “What if I lose my job and then…and then…and…!?!”
Those thoughts will create a reality that matches them.
Those thoughts will lead to desperate behaviors, and cause you to ignore more prosperous opportunities.
Those thoughts will create the same old scenario.
As I’ve said many times, you will easily attract what you fear or what you love, because both are strong emotions packed with high voltage energy.
It’s wiser to focus on what you love rather than on what you loathe.
Come from faith rather than fear.
Come from prosperity rather than panic.
Said another way –
Watch which thoughts you feed. If you think lack and limitation but pray for peace and prosperity, you are like a farmer who plants strawberries but prays for tomatoes.
I’ve learned that I need to work but not worry.
Trusting work, faithful work, passionate work.
But no worry work.
Using worry and fear to motivate yourself is a fool’s game. It doesn’t help.
Had I known this fact of life before the age of 40, I would have been happier and slept better, and probably reached success sooner.
In short, keep working, stop worrying.
My friend also asked —
“What single factor/knowledge/idea would you say was the most influential in being financially free and successful?”
Again, I meditated on the question and came up with this answer —
Realize money can come from multiple avenues.
For decades I thought money would only come to me from my writing. I couldn’t see any other way. While I continued to labor at day jobs I hated, just to survive, I also continued to write and submit my work to publishers. My entire focus was on money coming from writing.
I couldn’t see the bigger pie.
I couldn’t see the world of infinite possibilities.
I couldn’t even imagine it.
When I began to expand my mind, through books and audios I borrowed from the library, and allowed money to come to me in new and even surprising ways, my income increased.
For example, I began to speak in public.
That was a huge undertaking for me because my natural inclination at the time was to be a book nerd and live in the library. Public speaking was terrifying. Even traumatizing.
But I did it as it introduced a new way to receive money. Either I would get paid to speak or I spoke for free but sold my books in the back of the room. It worked.
I did more than speak, too.
I also tried publishing my first book as a correspondence course. This got my mind to relax the restraint that published writing meant having a publisher. It didn’t. I could take a book, break it into lessons, and sell it as a course.
I tried it once with a classified ad. (This was long before the Internet.)
It failed.
But a decade later, when I tried the same thing online, it became a major income stream for me. It led to my creating e-classes, and attracting tens of thousands of dollars (and a BMW Z3, which was a big deal for me at the time) as a result.
Learning to expand my mind about how money could come to me also led to recording audios.
The legendary publicist and dog lover, Paul Hartunian, told me how easy it was to make audio programs in my home. I listened to this wonderful mentor and acted.
I bought a cheap cassette player, put pillows under the window and door cracks, and recorded a marketing program in my bedroom. Most of it was based on what I learned from researching P.T. Barnum, and writing a book about his business secrets, titled There’s A Customer Born Every Minute.
I sold that home made program for $500 a copy. It later became my first Nightingale-Conant program, called The Power of Outrageous Marketing.
And that, of course, led to me creating numerous audio programs for Nightingale, and becoming one of their best selling authors ever.
My mind expanding didn’t stop there.
All the self-study I had put into becoming a writer meant I had skills most others didn’t have.
Bob Bly taught me (through his books and later with snail mail letters he was kind enough to write to me) to be a copywriter. That lead to a nice income writing sales letters, ads, and more (eventually even writing sales copy for Jerry and Esther Hicks, of Abraham fame).
As I continued to expand my mind, I learned about direct mail marketing.
I borrowed a little money from my parents, rented a mailing list, and sent out a sales letter I had hypnotically written about a new software program. (To show you how long ago this was, the program was DOS based and came on a floppy disk).
It worked.
I still remember opening my post office box and seeing an order for the software. I felt like I had won the lottery.
I also wrote a book about my own invented form of copywriting, had it bound at Kinkos, and sold it at my talks. That self-published manual later became my first e-book, thanks to Mark Joyner, which led to a long series of profit attracting digital products.
It changed my life forever.
It’s still famous today, in print and as an e-book, titled Hypnotic Writing.
And all of this was long before I was ever invited to be in the hit movie The Secret, which of course also changed my life forever, as it shot me into global notoriety and led to numerous unexpected opportunities.
I could go on, but you get the point.
My income increased when I didn’t insist that it come to me in a particular way.
Expand your mind to allow money to arrive in other ways.
Money doesn’t have any beliefs about you; you have beliefs about money. It will come to you if you don’t block it or wear blinders when it drives by your home.
To help you stop worrying and expand your mind —
Read books by Catherine Ponder, Arnold Patent, Napoleon Hill, and me.
Read The Power of Impossible Thinking by Yoram Wind and Colin Cook.
Read Create or Die: A Manifesto for Fearless Creators Everywhere by Dr. Morgan Giddings.
Listen to audio programs from Nightingale-Conant, from Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Mark Victor Hanson, and me.
Listen to The Secret to Attracting Money by Joe Vitale.
Of course, you still have to follow your passion, take inspired action, maintain your character and your health, but the above will get you going in the right direction to attract more money.
Happy New Year!
Expect Miracles!
Ao Akua,
NOTE: If you are truly panicking because the bills have piled up, you’re out of work, and you see no end in sight, remember that there are numerous resources available to help you. Yes, take care of your mindset, but also call for help when you need it. The back of my book, Attract Money Now, has a resource section. It’s free right here.
PS – The fastest way to expand your mind is with the help of your own Miracles Coach. Check out Miracles Coaching.
For only $61 – my age later this month – you can have a box of goodies shipped direct to your door worth over $400.
These aren’t just any goodies, either.
The cool box you will get – or your friends, if you get it as gifts for lucky others – will include my brand new all saxophone album, which some call “a masterpiece” and “mesmerizing.”
You can’t get it anywhere else.
And you’re essentially getting it for free because of everything else you will get in this limited offer.
But if you don’t care about the sax, or praying to the Divine through music, or how women swoon to my sax playing, there are plenty of other collectibles in the box.
DVD’s, CD’s, bestselling book, and more.
Everything you will get – and it’s a lot – over $400 worth – is described at – http://hypnoticbirthdaysale.com
This deal won’t last forever because I won’t, the holidays won’t, and my inventory won’t.
Help celebrate my 61st by getting $400 worth of surprises — for yourself or others — for only $61.
Please go see – http://hypnoticbirthdaysale.com
Happy Holidays!
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – Think what a bundle like this will cost when I turn 80. 🙂 http://hypnoticbirthdaysale.com
My brand new self-help music video was just posted. It’s the dance friendly title song off my last singer-songwriter album, Reflection. You can see it right here:
http://youtu.be/jLwQk1LgxKg
And the first video, which has been seen by more than 100,000 people so far, based on the song ‘Everybody’s Going Thru Something’ off Strut!, my first singer-songwriter album, is here:
http://youtu.be/YzT_yljj-SU Enjoy!
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS — The songs and their albums are on iTunes. A portal to all of my albums (so far) is at http://www.allhealingmusic.com
In my quest to quickly learn how to play the saxophone, I sought out great players to listen to, model, and study.
It didn’t take long to discover sexy sax superstar Mindi Abair.
Her latest album, Wild Heart, is already topping the Billboard charts. She’s been on American Idol for two seasons. She toured with Aerosmith. She’s been on Letterman. She played with Bruce Springsteen. She’s breaking through to even wider mainstream public awareness. Her blend of rock and jazz is just the right combo to excite and inspire me.
I had a sax lesson with her via Skype that helped me with numerous sax playing issues. That was a turning point in my playing. As a result, I’ve already played sax on several albums, from Invoking Divinity and Afflatus, to a forthcoming album with twice Grammy nominated singer Ruthie Foster and my music producer Daniel Barrett.
And then I hired Mindi to perform a private acoustic concert for friends.
That’s where I became even more enthralled and inspired.
Mindi is open, generous, loving and lovable.
She spent time with each of my friends. She showed me her sax (Yamaha Custom Z alto) and answered more of my questions about playing.
And her playing stunned me.
She’s smooth, hot, sultry, jazzy, rocking, screaming, soothing, and more.
When I grow up, I want to play like her.
She put thought into which songs to play for me and my friends.
She considered my interest in positive thinking and played her song “I Can’t Lose” (off the Wild Heart album).
She heard that one of my guests loved the song “Summertime” and played her powerful version of it.
And she told stories.
Each song was introduced with a charming behind the scenes story.
It made the show intimate and unique and unforgettable.
Her guitar player was just as warm and talented.
Randy Jacobs played for Ringo and Willie and a long list of greats. He was as humble and friendly as Mindi. (And he was very impressed that drummer Joe Vitale, the “other” Joe Vitale who is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, recorded several albums with me.)
Check out Mindi Abair at http://www.mindiabair.com/
Check out Randy Jacobs at http://www.randyjacobs.com/
And here’s Mindi showing you how it’s done…
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – Mindi Abair was kind about my sax playing, too. She called me (in a Tweet) a “killer saxophonist”! Thank you, Mindi! 🙂