Tag: Books

Back on September 1st I wrote about how I used the Law of Attraction and the Law of Right Action to attract legendary singer-songwriter-guitarist Melissa Etheridge.

At that time I hadn’t met her yet or had my songwriting lesson with her.

Well, now I have.

With Melissa Etheridge (!)

As I write this in Los Angeles, I had my session with her yesterday, at her home.

She met me outside her door, hugged me, gave me that Melissa million dollar smile, and said, “I didn’t know you were a fan.”

A “fan” is an understatement.

I’m a fan-atic.

I’ve been in awe of her performing and her music since around 1995.

To be standing with her was surreal.

As it turns out, Melissa is a fan of my work, as well as the work of the rest of the teachers from the movie The Secret. She’s personal friends with Tony Robbins. (Tony introduced ho’oponopono to her and her sweet spouse.)

She reads all the deep-end metaphysical books. She says she began around 2003 by picking up Ken Wilber’s The Theory of Everything, which is like learning how to swim by being dropped in the Atlantic ocean.

Her spirituality and understanding of manifestation has helped her awaken and achieve even greater levels of success in more recent years.

She told me that laying on her back, with cancer, and watching the movie The Secret, forced her to think about what she wanted in her life.

“If I am this powerful being who gave myself cancer and can create whatever I want, then I want healed, I want to make more music, and I want to win an Oscar.”

Of course, she went on and did all of that.

My time with Melissa was about songwriting, but she began it by asking about my life in music, my books, and then showing me her guitar collection.

Her favorite guitars are in the trailer that goes on the road with her. But she has a guitar room with them lining the walls like playable art.

And she has a studio with old and new and prototype guitars. (Ovation is releasing a ME electric in January). She also has more guitars in storage.

In Melissa’s guitar room in her home

Of course, I related, understood, and told her of my own collection, which she says she wants to see one day.

We went in her home studio to focus on my actual lesson.

We each had a guitar. I had my songbook, where I jot ideas and snippets and songs. She said the songbook is sacred. (Later, I had her sign mine, making it even more priceless to me.)

Melissa wrote this in my sacred songwriting notebook

From there she had me pick a song idea. She wanted to know the why for writing a song.

“What’s important to say in the song? Why do you want to write it? What’s the intention for it?”

She told me how she wrote some of her own songs, first thinking about why she wanted to write them.

She explained that for her song, Pulse, she wanted people to know that the person who went into a nightclub and shot dozens of people did so because he was in pain.

She also explained that for the Al Gore slide show about global warning, she wanted people to know that “I have to change,” not anyone else.

I found her to be a deep thinker, cutting to the core with her messages.

I told her about wanting to tell people how they could be happy now, and manifest their lives using the Law of Attraction, and more.

She nodded, accepting my reasons.

From there, for Melissa, it all begins with what I call a brain dump.

“Just write words,” she said. “Let it be okay whatever comes.”

She also advised to “fall in love with words.”

She uses a paperback thesaurus to look up other words, so she isn’t using too common or too cliche of words.

While I had been using Masterwriter, a popular software for songwriters, I found using a printed thesaurus slower but more enlightening.

The time spent looking up a word gave my mind time to think, and the alternate words were often surprising and triggered other thoughts.

We began with me wanting to write a song about Miracles, since my new book is titled The Miracle.

Melissa and some of her guitars

But within minutes the song became about The Great Something, a concept I write about in my book The Secret Prayer.

Instead of saying God, or Divine, or Universe, I refer to the super power behind all of life as “The Great Something.”

Melissa loved “The Great Something”‘ because it made you want to know more.

In a song, it would make you want to listen.

I got excited watching the song unfold with Melissa’s help.

Melissa often writes pages of words and phrases, knowing that later she will edit them.

“Editing is the fun part,” she told me.

She pointed to the back cover of my album, One More Day, to the line, “Self-help messages in 3 minutes or so.”

“That’s the challenge,” she said, smiling bright. “To condense pages of ideas into a three minute song.”

“That’s why I’m here,” I said. 🙂

Her songwriting template, more often than not, is to write a verse, then go right to the chorus, then to a versus, chorus, bridge, and chorus again.

“It’s stating the problem in the verse, and often a solution in the chorus,” she explained. “The next verse might spell out the problem more, and the chorus will again offer the upbeat solution.”

One of the biggest insights for me was the idea of writing in the first person.

Melissa says that first person songs are more personal and hit home with people.

Second person, or ‘you’ oriented songs, are one step removed from the listener and have less impact.

More often than not, she writes in the first person.

Melissa showing me her all-time favorite guitar, a Fender Telecaster. “If there’s a fire and I can only grab one guitar, it’s this one.”

I started to play with the idea of writing The Great Something song in the first person. I instantly felt more connected to the song, and felt more power in the message.

I also saw myself get more excited and inspired.

“Always write from inspiration,” she had told me earlier.

“Get to that place where you have tingles of excitement for whatever you are about to write,”she added. “Never write without the tingles.”

She doesn’t meditate but often walks in nature, looks at trees and flowers, reads some poetry, reviews songs from people she admires, from Bruce Springsteen to Neil Diamond, all to ignite her inspiration.

I told her I smoke cigars.

She didn’t seem to relate to that.

Of course, she lives in a state where cannabis is legal.

Later she asked me to sing for her.

Now try to imagine that.

I’m a star-struck beginner at singing, sitting in the home studio of a rock and roll legend who has the most soaring voice of all time, and she says, “Sing for me.”

That’s like having Elvis ask you to sing.

Well, I did.

Melissa showing me her rare Rickenbacker “Cadillac”, an electric 12-string that can be turned into a 6-string with an awkward device

I played a snippet of my song One More Day, off my One More Day album, and a snippet of my song Today’s the Day, off my Strut album.

I also played a little instrumental, to give her a sense of what Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon and I create.

I was off key, out of step, and out of tune, but I did it anyway.

Melissa smiled big and said she bets the recorded versions with the band are stellar.

I then asked about singing advice.

Melissa took a breath and gave me a long, wise, hypnotic answer about watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV and being influenced by Tom Jones, Janis Joplin, Robert Plant and others.

She noticed their joy in singing was what was so captivating.

Melissa showing a “Mustang” guitar given to her by the Ford Institute

She went on to say she wanted her music to be ballsy, not girlie.

She didn’t want to sing head voice, though she could.

She wanted something deeper and harder.

I related and told her I often felt more comfortable singing with a baritone guitar, which lowered my voice into my chest.

“That’s a good place for your voice,” she said. “It’s at home there.”

She also gave advice on performing.

“Never perform sitting down,” she said. “It cuts off your breathing.”

“And always eat, be hydrated, and get plenty of rest, so you can deliver your performance with full power.”

I’ll be processing my time with Melissa Etheridge for the rest of my life.

I found her open, loving, generous, spiritual, fearless, talented, present, friendly and wise.

Thanks to Melissa, my new album has a new title

She even invited me to speak on her next cruise ship concert. (!)

I was a fan (fanatic) before meeting her in person.

Today I’m in love.

Hey Melissa, I want to come over – again!

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – Please note that whenever you have an expert coach you, your experience and expertise leap in incalculable measures. Melissa Etheridge heard a limiting belief come out of my mouth that I didn’t hear and I was the one who said it. We all need a coach. Consider Miracles Coaching.

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.

Around 1990, Jerry Hicks called me.

I had been working for Jerry and Esther Hicks, of Abraham fame, for years, to help get their books and audios out to the world about the Law of Attraction.

I always loved it when Jerry called, as he was upbeat and articulate, and always complimenting me on my ads, letters, advice, and so on, that I was creating for them. He was cool.

So his call wasn’t unusual and it was certainly welcome.

But this time Jerry had something new in mind.

“I have an idea for a law of attraction calendar,” Jerry began. “I’m not sure how to explain it so a printer can get my vision, so I thought you might help me.”

Jerry went on to explain an idea I quickly regarded as genius.

He wanted to create a page-a-day calendar, but in a special format.

“The front side will be quotes and passages from Abraham,” Jerry explained. “But the back side needs to be in two columns.”

Why two columns?

“In the first column, people can write their to-dos for the day,” Jerry told me. “That would be their meetings, calls, appointments, and the stuff anybody would write for their errands for the day.”

And the second column?

“The second column is where people can write what they want from the Universe,” Jerry said. “Their intentions and desires can be written there, as a kind of task list for the Universe to do.”

I loved the idea. Basically, you use one side of the page to write your to-dos and you use the other side to tell the Universe what to do for you. Pretty cool.

But Jerry wasn’t done.

“You then take the sheet, fold it in half, and put it in your wallet or purse. You carry it throughout the day, as a reminder of what you need to do, as well as a reminder to the Universe of what you want.”

Jerry added, “And the calendar will be big, as there will be one sheet for each day. You can start on any day, write the date on that page, and use it daily from then on.”

I helped Jerry communicate his vision to a printer and the first Abraham calendars were printed. I began to use mine and was absolutely thrilled by it.

It was fun to list my errands but far more fun to tell the Universe what I wanted.

And carrying the page in my pocket was a constant reminder of my goals and dreams.

It truly became a daily lesson course in what Jerry called (and I loved) “The Science of Deliberate Creation.”

I don’t recall what happened, but at some point I stopped using it.

Later, of course, Jerry passed away.

I had to look at the Abraham site to see if they even still sell the famous law of attraction calendar. (They do. See http://www.abraham-hickslawofattraction.com/lawofattractionstore/product/ABCN.html )

I’ve since started using the Abraham calendar again, and I love it.

If you are wanting to deepen your understanding and daily use of the Law of Attraction, then I encourage you to go get the Abraham calendar.

Ao Akua

Joe

PS – I am not an affiliate for Abraham or Esther Hicks and make nothing if you go buy the calendar or anything else from them. I’m just sharing.

When you combine the Law of Attraction with a new way to pray, the results are miracles.

But how do you pray for a miracle?

My latest book, “The Secret Prayer,” is an Amazon #1 bestseller, attracting 5-star reviews, and getting high praise from experts like this —

“‘The Secret Prayer’ holds the key to fulfilling your heartfelt dreams, goals, and desires. I love this book. Read it and use it. It will change your life!” — Dr. Susan Shumsky, author, ‘Instant Healing’ and ‘Miracle Prayer’

“Joe Vitale’s book is stimulating you to pray again with gratitude for who you are and what you have.
In his own unique style, he gives you new tools to revise and deepen your connection with the Universe. This book touched me deeply.” – Marie Diamond, Global Transformational Leader, Speaker and Author, Star in ‘The Secret’

“Joe did it again!! I love his new book. It’s inspiring, filled with practical wisdom and massive insight!”
– Janet Bray Attwood – New York Times Bestselling Author ‘The Passion Test’ and ‘Your Hidden Riches’

“Few people truly ‘get it.’ Joe gets it, he got it right in The Secret, and he totally nails it in the The Secret Prayer. This is the book that will lift people out of misunderstanding prayer, invites them to take responsibility for their divine inheritance, and thereby unleash their unimaginable power over all things. A book that can put any life on a fast track to greater happiness and fulfillment.” – Mike Dooley, NY Times Bestselling author ‘Infinite Possibilities’ and ‘Leveraging the Universe’

Go get “The Secret Prayer” on Amazon today for your Kindle or Kindle reader (it’s a #1 bestseller in 3 categories) –  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XV1Q9JG

OR go get the audio version of the book, read by me, at — http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/The-Secret-Prayer-Audiobook/B00XWDOBCA/

OR you can get the beautiful printed paperback at – http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Prayer-Three-Step-Attracting-Miracles/dp/1512264156/

Get copies for yourself, family and friends, and clients and others that you care about.

What if we could change ourselves and the world with the right prayer?

What if it really works?

Expect Miracles.

Ao Akua,
Joe

PS – Maybe the greatest praise came from my niece, who texted this to me:

“I must say it opened my eyes and my heart. I have to thank you for writing it. I never even thought about the things you said in this book. I plan to use your three step prayer from now on.”

That one touched me.

Please see — http://www.thesecretprayer.com (where you can hear me lead you through The Secret Prayer for free

Thank you
I love you

***********************************************
Dr. Joe Vitale     “Aude aliquid dignum” *

Author of way too many books to mention,
including the bestseller “The Attractor Factor.”
Recent: “AT Zero” and “The Remembering Process”
Brand New: “The Secret Prayer”

A star in the hit movies “The Secret,” “The Opus,”
“The Compass,” “The Tapping Solution,” “Leap,” etc.
Coming: “Quantum Prosperity”

Voted #1 singer-songwriter by Reverbnation
New: “Reflection,” “432 to Zero,” “Invoking Divinity”
Bestseller: “One More Day: Life Lessons in Hypnotic Song”

Creator of Miracles Coaching, Hypnotic Writing,
The Secret Mirror, and The Awakening Course
Coming: “Hyper-Wealth: The Fourth Dimension Process”

See it all at http://www.JoeVitale.com

Member BBB 2003 – 2016

* 16th century Latin: “Dare something worthy”

Note: This is a commercial message.

My office tells me that people often ask, “What’s the next book I should get for my next stage of growth?”

Here’s what I think –

If you are new to Law of Attraction, or want to better understand it, then read “The Attractor Factor.” That’s the book that got me invited to be in the movie The Secret. It has changed countless lives.
https://www.amazon.com/Attractor-Factor-Creating-Wealth-Anything/dp/0470286423/

If you want to go past LOA and further understand bigger concepts, and go deeper than the law of attraction, then read “Zero Limits.” That’s the book that brought ho’oponopono to the world. It’s by me and Dr. Hew Len.
https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Limits-Secret-Hawaiian-System/dp/0470402563/

If you want to further understand the concepts in Zero Limits, then get the sequel, “AT Zero.” I wrote that book ten years after the first one. It in many ways is far deeper and better.
https://www.amazon.com/At-Zero-Secrets-Miracles-oponopono/dp/1118810023/

If you want to understand spirituality and personal growth from the clearest place I can imagine, then read “The Awakening Course.” It puts LOA and ho’oponopono and everything else into a map of consciousness you can grasp.
https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Course-Secret-Solving-Problems/dp/1118148274/

If you want to make peace with money and spirituality, then see my latest book, “The Awakened Millionaire.” It’s a manifesto to help you live and profit from your passion, using LOA and The Fourth Dimension Process, and much more.
https://www.amazon.com/Awakened-Millionaire-Manifesto-Spiritual-Movement/dp/1119264162/

If you want to understand how prayer can combine with LOA to get better results and lead to miracles, then read “The Secret Prayer.” It’s quietly been a bestseller and opening hearts and minds to a new way to live.
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Prayer-Three-Step-Attracting-Miracles/dp/1512264156/

All of the above are available in print, on audio, or for your Kindle reader. Just follow the link beside each book.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Expect Miracles.

Ao Akua,
Joe

PS – If you don’t want to buy anything but still want to learn, then go browse my new and improved main website, which has numerous freebies, articles, videos, interviews, etc., about law of attraction and much more. You’ll love it. Just go see http://www.MrFire.com

Thank you
I love you

***********************************************
Dr. Joe Vitale         “Aude aliquid dignum” *

Author of way too many books to mention,
including the bestsellers “The Attractor Factor,”
“Zero Limits” and “The Secret Prayer”
New: “The Awakened Millionaire: The Manifesto”

A star in the hit movies “The Secret,” “The Opus,”
“The Compass,” “The Tapping Solution,” “Leap,” etc.
New: “The Abundance Factor” and “iThink”

Voted #1 singer-songwriter by Reverbnation
New: “Reflection,” “432 to Zero,” “Invoking Divinity”
Bestseller: “One More Day: Life Lessons in Hypnotic Song”

Creator of Miracles Coaching, Hypnotic Writing,
The Secret Mirror, and The Awakening Course
New: “The Awakened Millionaire Academy”

See it all at https://www.mrfire.com

Member BBB 2003 – 2016

* 16th century Latin: “Dare something worthy”