Tag: bestseller
The LOA Glad Game
One of the best Law of Attraction books you could read today was first published in 1913.
Let me tell you about it…
Recently we watched the PBS television remake of the classic children’s book, Pollyanna.
I absolutely loved the new movie.
The acting, scenery, editing and story were virtually perfect.
There have been other movies of Pollyanna, going way back to 1920 with famous silent film star Mary Pickford. And of course Disney did their version in 1960 with Hayley Mills.
But this recent version is fresh and timely.
And I loved being reminded of the message in it.
At the core of Pollyanna’s sunny personality is “the glad game.”
In short, it’s the ability to find something to be glad about in any situation.
“There is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.” ― Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna
As Porter’s books reveal, this is at first something you have to train yourself to do. Even Pollyanna wasn’t born knowing it. Her father taught it to her.
It reminds me of the art I bought a few months ago:
“Train your mind to see the good in every situation”
In short, you can train your mind to see the good.
It’s what recent neuroscience is telling us.
You are not your brain; you are the operator of it.
You can teach your mind how to look for the “glad” in life.
And once you “get it,” looking for the glad in any situation becomes a fun challenge.
But the payoff is happiness.
And isn’t that what you want?
On my forthcoming new album, I plan to record a song called “Look for the Light.” It’s a reminder that there is light in everything.
But after seeing this remake of Pollyanna, I also wrote a song called “The Glad Game.”
I’m dedicating my forthcoming sixth singer-songwriter album to Melissa Etheridge. It’ll have a “glad” song on it.
I’m using what I learned from my private lesson with rock icon Melissa Etheridge to write something memorable.
And all of this got me wondering where the glad game came from.
Did Eleanor Porter invent it?
“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out! … The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes—his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest! … When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that…” – Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna
In my new book, The Miracle: Six Steps to Enlightenment, I mention a little book called Just Be Glad.
My latest book mentions a 1912 book called “Just Be Glad”
I went looking for it and found it.
It’s by Christian D. Larson, a popular New Thought author of such books as Your Forces and How to Use Them. He also penned the famous Optimist Creed, which I’ve reprinted in a book or two of my own.
Larson’s glad book came out in 1912.
Porter’s glad novel came out in 1913.
I can’t find any references to any “glad game” before 1913, when Pollyanna: The Glad Book was first published.
Certainly after the book became a bestseller, it triggered more books, a board game, a play, movies, and rumors have it there were glad game mastermind meetings.
Pollyanna became a huge bestseller in 1914, became a publishing phenomena, ignited a joyous, glad-hunting following around the world, and is still regarded as a classic of children’s literature today.
Maybe Larson’s little book gave Porter the idea for her novel. I can’t say. It’s not likely, though.
Porter was probably finishing her novel and sending it to the publisher in 1912, when Larson’s book arrived.
Eleanor Porter author of Pollyanna and many other books
So I think Porter deserves full credit for creating the idea of The Glad Game.
But I was also curious why the glad game isn’t talked about much these days.
Considering how much stress is reported in the world, and how much “fake news” is triggering unsettling emotions in people, learning to play the glad game would be welcome relief.
It could even be healing.
It could even help us return to a clarity of mind where we could better see our choices.
In fact, the glad game could be a wonderful way to change your inner vibration to one that is higher, brighter, and even wiser.
As you know, you get what you radiate.
Change the dial inside, using the glad game, and you can attract happier results.
So, why don’t more of us play the game?
My guess is that critical, skeptical, wounded, or cautious people think being a “Pollyanna” is not being a realist.
Over the decades, the term “Pollyanna” has come to be an insult; used to tell someone they are foolish, not in touch with reality, and possibly even dangerous to themselves.
But being a Pollyanna is making a choice on how to see the world.
You can still see the challenges, and still see the good in them, and still act to change them.
Letting situations or other people steal your happiness is being a victim.
Choosing to see the good/glad in situations or other people is being empowered.
You have a choice, of course.
For me, life is an optical illusion.
You see what you unconsciously expect and believe.
Like Pollyanna, you can consciously choose to look for and find the good/the glad/the light.
It’s your choice.
“Be glad. Be good. Be brave.” – Eleanor H. Porter
Remember, if you see the good but just sit there, you aren’t co-creating your reality.
You want to see the good, see the actions you need to take next, and do them.
After all, when Pollyanna was injured by a car, she didn’t give up. (She did briefly, but she pulled out of it.)
Instead, she got treatment and she got better.
Eleanor Porter, the author of Pollyanna: The Glad Book, explained it this way:
“Pollyanna did not pretend that everything was sugar-coated goodness, instead Pollyanna was positively determined to find the good in every situation.”
Note the difference?
Just looking at the world with blind eyes to objective reality is not what the author meant; it was looking at the world and finding the good in it.
Eleanor Porter once told an interviewer –
“People have thought that Pollyanna chirped that she was ‘glad’ at everything … I have never believed that we ought to deny discomfort and pain and evil; I have merely thought that it is far better to ‘greet the unknown with a cheer.'”
I believe the 1913 book was an unrecognized Law of Attraction resource.
Maybe it’s time for all of us to read it again, or at least go see the movie.
I think you’ll find something glad in it. 🙂
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – Learn about the recent PBS TV version of Pollyanna here:
https://www.amazon.com/Pollyanna-Sarah-Harding/dp/B01N67733P/
I think Eleanor Porter would love my latest book, or at least my new colored glasses
The Prosperity Factor
My first book was published in 1984.
It was called Zen and the Art of Writing.
My first book published in 1984; received no money but the road to credibility was born
It contained methods for increasing creativity, from NLP to meditation to Focusing to improv, all tools I had studied along the way in developing myself as a writer.
It was cause for celebration as I had struggled my entire adult life to get published, through homelessness and poverty, and a lot of desperate days and nights.
Well, I was finally published.
But ultimately that led to disappointment.
Because I didn’t have a name, or a following, or a marketing formula, or a very good publisher, the book was a dud.
I didn’t receive a dime from the book.
Ever.
No advance.
No royalties.
Nothing.
I was left to continue my struggle.
It would be almost ten more years (!) before I had a book published that did anything for me.
In 1992 I released The Seven Lost Secrets of Success and got a taste of what it’s like to be a rising star as an author.
I discovered that a book is an advertisement for my services.
People would read it and want to do business with me.
I never received an advance for the book, though.
But being the author of it brought me opportunities.
I was invited to speak at events, go on radio shows, get hired to write sales letters and ads, and more.
The book brought me business.
But it would get even better.
In 1994 I wrote The AMA Complete Guide to Small Business Advertising for the American Management Association.
I received a small advance – finally – for that book.
At first I was disappointed at such a low amount.
But after decades of trying to get published and finally receiving an advance, even a small one, I was grateful.
And that book changed my life.
Complete strangers and large companies hired me without meeting me, all because I was the author of an important book.
I’m talking known entities like The Red Cross, as well as movers and shakers such as politicians, lawyers, authors, speakers, celebrities, oil magnates, millionaires and billionaires, CEOs and more.
All I had to do was answer the phone.
And by then I had a bit of a local name as a copywriter, had my own small database of fans, and was with a publisher that at least knew a little about marketing.
I was able to leverage my books into attracting more money.
Being an author made me an author-ity.
That was a turning point in my career.
That experience of being published and being seen as the authority happened repeatedly, and kept growing, as I kept writing, publishing, and marketing.
In 1996 I wrote one of the pioneering books on how to make money online.
It was titled Cyber Writing and it, too, brought me more business as a copywriter, even though the book itself brought me almost nothing in terms of royalties.
And because the Internet was now available to the masses, my audience became the entire world.
Of course, releasing Hypnotic Writing (thanks to Mark Joyner’s persistent encouragement) as my first e-book (and later selling it to a major publisher) did wonders in establishing me as the copywriter to hire.
I became an Internet celebrity.
I could list more publishing milestones, both audio and print, but you get the idea.
Obviously, being an author gives a credibility that is bankable.
But the best was yet to come.
I've written way too many books to list here, but this one got me into the movie "The Secret"
In 2006 I was invited to appear in what became the hit movie The Secret — invited because of one of my books (The Attractor Factor) — and I ended up in the New York Times best-selling book, The Secret, too.
And while I wasn’t paid to be in the book (or the movie), being included in such historic wonders brought global attention to me and elevated my career into outer space.
Being a contributing author in such a mega-bestseller brought me even bigger and better opportunities, even when neither the book or movie brought me anything directly financially.
I’m now an acknowledged success.
The offers and opportunities keep rolling in.
It’s a sweet life.
But it sure didn’t happen overnight.
What I’m offering you today is a way to have “overnight” success – and save yourself all the hassle and disappointment I went through – by being a coauthor in my next bestselling book, what I’m calling “The Prosperity Factor.”
A few people want to know why there’s an investment to participate.
Easy answer:
Because you’re paying to skyrocket your career in one strategic move.
You can play the game and try to get published on your own.
I did that.
It took me DECADES.
Literally.
And even if and when you get published on your own, you still need to promote your book.
If you don’t have a built in audience, or a reputation, or a list, or a plan, good luck.
I tried that, too.
Took me years.
What I’m offering you is a one time chance to explode on the scene – riding on my name and fame, benefiting from my database and strategy, and guaranteed to be a bestselling author almost overnight.
I have a team in place to help you.
I have the printer and the contacts.
They all need paid.
Your investment is an investment to leap over the desperate masses and shine as a bestselling author – now, not decades from now.
It’s an investment in yourself.
Believe me, if I could have done this in my struggle years, and hitched my wagon to a star, and had success as an author almost instantly, I would have grabbed it.
It would have saved me years to decades of waiting, praying, trying, hoping and struggling.
If you see the value of being in and on the cover of my next bestseller, and advancing your career in one smart move, then go to http://www.instantbestsellingauthor.com
This is your chance.
Seize it.
Ao Akua,
PS – Keep in mind that a lot of people will want to be in this book, and space is obviously limited, so if you are sincerely interested in advancing your career in one strategic smart move, then please zip over to http://www.instantbestsellingauthor.com right now. This is your moment. Grab it. Why not do it right now, while it’s on your mind?
Member BBB 2003 - 2015
