Tag: Bill Withers
Motivational Songs
Motivational songs?
Yes.
Why?
Because everything programs you.
You don’t have to be consciously focused on conversations around you, or the media blaring news over TVs in a bar or restaurant, or billboards in your field of vision as you drive, or even the music playing in the background as you work, walk, rest, exercise or lounge.
It’s still all programming you.
Your mind is picking up around 40,000,000 bits of information in every second.
Even right now, as you read these words.
You’re not aware of it all, thank goodness, because another part of your mind is filtering it.
That other part lets you become aware of only what is necessary to your goals and survival.
But that other part is also receiving all that other programming.
When it comes to attracting more of what you want using the Law of Attraction, you need to become aware of this hidden programming, and consciously surround yourself with what supports you.
And that’s where I want to talk about motivational songs.
Music can program you for lack and limitation.
I’ve written about this many times, explaining if you can’t seem to get what you want today, it could very well be due to the Rolling Stones singing “You can’t always get what you want” into your brain since the 1960s.
Great song.
Lousy affirmation.
What we need to do today is carefully choose what we allow into our heads.
We have choice.
You can still listen to the Rolling Stones, or any other band you love, just with an awareness of the lyrics and the consciousness to prevent any limited thinking programming.
You can also search for more upbeat, positive music.
For example, more and more music is being called “healing music” and “self help” music. It’s music intentionally created to motivate you, inspire you, or even enlighten you.
A quick search brought up these top motivational songs:
- What A Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong
- Eye Of The Tiger – Survivor
- Over The Rainbow – Judy Garland
- Beautiful Day – U2
- Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Marvin Gaye
- Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles
- Imagine – John Lennon
- Walking On Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves
- Don’t Give Up – Peter Gabriel
- Let It Be – The Beatles
- I Feel Good – James Brown
- Heroes – David Bowie
- Heal The World – Michael Jackson
- Get Up Stand Up – Bob Marley
- Walk – Foo Fighters
- Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
- Dream On – Aerosmith
- Perfect Day – Lou Reed
- Lovely Day – Bill Withers
- Smile – Nat King Cole
You can of course create your own playlist of self-help or motivational songs.
Meanwhile, let me share some of my own adventures in making motivational music:
Back in 2011, when I began recording my first album, I consciously decided to make it a “meditation meets the blues” recording.
I brought in my muse and support at the time, Sarah McSweeney, and together with producer Daniel Barrett, we created Blue Healer.
We also recorded it in record time (no pun intended), so I could be on the cover of Austin All Natural magazine announcing my first ever music album.
We succeeded, too.
My famous band
My next album in 2012, was my first singer-songwriter one.
I knew I wanted to create songs that helped me feel inspired and motivated. The album title track, Strut!, was a rally call for people to “strut around” when they felt down.
It’s the positive psychology principle that just smiling, even when you don’t feel like it, will change your internal state.
Fake a smile to feel a smile.
Strut to feel like strutting.
My first major music video from the Strut! album became, over the years, my all-time most watched video. You can still see “Everybody’s Going Through Something” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzT_yljj-SU
At this point I’ve recorded five singer-songwriter albums.
I’m going to record album six in January, after my private songwriting lesson with the legendary Melissa Etheridge next week. (!)
I’ll again attract my all-star band back into the studio:
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer Joe Vitale (yes, same name as mine),
- legendary bass player Glenn Fukunaga,
- Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon,
- and of course my producer, Daniel Barrett.
Together we’ll make more motivational songs.
But I’m not the only one creating music to help people.
Free book at http://www.healingmusicbook.com
In the last few years of making music, I’ve met many other artists creating their own forms of motivational songs, or healing music, and self help music.
For example –
- Jana Stanfield, another great singer, told me about a group of singer-songwriters who were all making positive music. Called EmPower Music & Arts and it’s at https://www.empowerma.com/
- Bob Baker, well known for his books on how to market music, dropped by one day and gave me a copy of an album he created with Pooki Lee. I listened and loved it. Opening Up to the Good is all about feel-good music you feed your mind. Check it out at https://soulmassage.bandcamp.com/
- Ruthie Foster, a Grammy nominated blues singer I adore, made an album with me (!), and Daniel Barrett, called Stretch. We call it musical medicine. Details at http://www.transformingmusic.com/
- And of course Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon and I have recorded several instrumental albums, many of which are bestsellers for us. Almost all of them are inspired by the Hawaiian spiritual healing system called ho’oponopono. You can read about those albums and others at http://www.allhealingmusic.com
I could go on.
Obviously, you have choice in what you listen to.
The Jive Aces, a really cool swing-jump-jazz dance band from the UK, has a video that makes me smile whenever I watch it. Over 2,000,000 have seen it. It’s “Bring Me Sunshine” and you can watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXvJ8UquYoo
The point of this post is to help you remember to consciously guard the roads into your mind.
Whether it’s audio or visual, you want to feed your brain what will nourish and support you.
Listening to the right music is one key way to do it.
Meanwhile, dance, sing and strut your stuff!
Ao Akua
PS- A list of my singer-songwriter albums is here at CDBaby and almost all of my albums so far are listed at http://www.allhealingmusic.com
Member BBB 2003 – 2017
Selling Out vs Sold Out
Many people new to the Law of Attraction confuse material gain and spiritual awakening. They think it’s either-or: either you attract the money or you attract the awakening, but not both.
Obviously, that’s not what I teach.
In my books, such as The Awakened Millionaire, I explain that you want to profit from your passion, and that being true to yourself in business is also being true to your spiritual path.
It’s not either-or.
It’s both.
One evening I watched a documentary called Still Bill, on Bill Withers, the singer-songwriter famous for such tunes as Grandma’s Hands and Lean on Me.
In one scene in the film, he was congratulated for not “selling out.”
Bill paused and then said, “Look. We are all entrepreneurs. What’s the best sign we could ever put in our store? The greatest sign we can hang in our window is ‘SOLD OUT.'”
I loved his clarification.
Bill wrote songs true to him, and along the way he sold millions of them.
He didn’t “sell out” but he surely “sold out.”
Singer Bono once said “Selling out is doing something you don’t really want to do for money.”
I don’t want you to pursue money for money’s sake, but to instead pursue your passion and make money from it along the way so you can continue pursuing it.
In other words, focus on your passion, create a product or service true to you, promote it honestly and relentlessly, and then enjoy the profit from your work.
Sounds healthy and wise, doesn’t it?
You can do this, too.
It’s knowing your calling/passion/life mission, and being at peace with success, as you express yourself in the marketplace.
It’s not about “selling out” but being “sold out” while doing what you love.
I know people who deceive themselves into thinking they can’t make money doing what they love because they would be too focused on the material.
They completely forget that the material is the concrete form of the spiritual.
Judging “stuff” as not spiritual is spiritual snobbery; it’s a self deception; it’s an ego trip.
I’m not talking about hoarding or whoring, but about being comfortable living well as you do well.
As Milton Friedman said, “Rich or poor, it is good to have money.”
Anyone who wants to awaken needs to embrace all aspects of life and quit judging parts of it or themselves as bad.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
It doesn’t take much character to judge anything as lowly; it’s takes much character to see the good in all of life.
Again, you can use the Law of Attraction to attract cars and cigars or spirituality and enlightenment – and you can use LOA to attract all of it.
The only limitations are in your mind.
That said, what would you welcome into your life?
As Arnold Patent, one of my favorite teachers, once said, “You can have it all!”
But, will you accept it?
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – You can always get greater understanding of these principles about Law of Attraction and more in my Miracles Coaching program.
