Tag: Christian D Larson

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

When I attended my fourth transformation camp with legendary Body-for-Life fitness icon Bill Phillips, I briefly told the group (at Bill’s invitation) about the power of “I AM.”

Afterward, Bill told me, “We could do an entire seminar on just ‘I AM’.”

Here’s why Bill is right:

Receiving fitness award from Bill Phillips

Anything you say after the words “I AM” creates your future.

You can say, “I AM broke” and your mind will create that reality.

You can say “I AM alone” and your mind will mirror that affirmation, too.

You can say “I AM ill” and your mind will manufacture a life to reflect your statement.

You might think that you are simply speaking what you are observing, but in reality you have created your current reality by your previous “I AM” thoughts, and your current “I AM” observations are creating the future you are about to experience.

Hang on.

This will get clear in a moment.

By the same token, you can take the same two words and attract something positive.

“I AM wealthy” will begin to create a life that attracts wealth.

“I AM loved” will begin to attract a life where you are loving and loved.

“I AM healthy” will begin to morph your body into one of health and fitness.

In other words, your new statements of “I AM” will begin to attract and create a life that will match it.

At first it might feel awkward, or even a lie, to say “I AM wealthy” when you don’t yet see wealth, but it’s those previous “I AM” observations about lack that created the current lack.

Stick with me.

This technique can transform your life forever.

Why do these two simple words have so much power?

Neville signed message to you

Neville Goddard, one of my favorite mystical teachers, wrote:

“I AM wealthy, poor, healthy, sick, free, confined were first of all impressions or conditions felt before they became visible expressions. Your world is your consciousness objectified. Waste no time trying to change the outside; change the within or the impression; and the without or expression will take care of itself. When the truth of this statement dawns upon you, you will know that you have found the lost word or the key to every door. I AM (your consciousness) is the magical lost word which was made flesh in the likeness of that which you are conscious of being.” ― Neville Goddard, Your Faith is Your Fortune

In other words, you have already been practicing this technique of reality creation.

Whenever you said or thought, “I AM losing” or “I AM struggling” or “I AM not popular,” you were creating your own reality, not just observing it, albeit unconsciously.

All of your self negations, or statements of negativity, or lack, were actually attracting the very life you were complaining about.

It probably felt like you were just commenting on “what is” but in reality you were affirming what will be.

Neville also wrote —

“Chance or accident is not responsible for the things that happen to you, nor is predestined fate the author of your fortune or misfortune. Your subconscious impressions determine the conditions of your world. The subconscious is not selective; it is impersonal and no respecter of persons. The subconscious is not concerned with the truth or falsity of your feeling. It always accepts as true that which you feel to be true. Feeling is the assent of the subconscious to the truth of that which is declared to be true. Because of this quality of the subconscious there is nothing impossible to man. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and feel as true, the subconscious can and must objectify. Your feelings create the pattern from which your world is fashioned, and a change of feeling is a change of pattern.” ― Neville Goddard, Resurrection

The secret to creating a new reality is in first noticing what you are saying right now after “I AM” and then noticing how you are feeling.

If you don’t like either, you can change them.

As Neville pointed out, your subconscious/unconscious will ignore the outer and focus on the inner: your predominant thoughts and feelings.

It will then go about creating a mirror to what you are doing inside yourself.

Obviously, it would be wise to start speaking what you prefer and feeling it as already real.

My latest book

Instead of letting your thoughts and spoken words be about what you don’t want, think and speak what you do want, and feel as though it is already real right now.

Speak as if what you desire is here: “I AM happy” versus “I WANT to be happy.”

The first phrase will begin to attract that reality now; the second phrase pushes it off in the distance and leaves you in a state of “want.”

You don’t want to want; you want to be right now.

As Neville said –

“Dare to believe in the reality of your assumption and watch the world play its part relative to its fulfillment.”  ― Neville Goddard

The power of “I AM” is not new.

Every great New Thought teacher from Joseph Murphy, Walter C. Lanyon, Walter Devoe, Lillian DeWaters, Emmet Fox, Ella Wheeler, Christian D Larson, Edna Lister, Wayne Dyer, Joel Osteen, Oprah, and Thomas Troward have written or spoken about it.

What might be new is actually using it with conscious intent.

For example:

I AM a strongman!

The other day, when I went into my gym for an upper body weight lifting session that I had learned from Bill Phillips, I told myself “I AM strong!” and “I AM a strongman who can lift more than ever!”

Those two words helped me have one of the most intense workout sessions of recent memory.

They triggered an inner strength that attracted an outer strength.

And all I did was leverage the two most powerful words of all time: “I AM!”

Try it.

I AM confident you will love it. 🙂

Ao Akua,

joe

PS – Need more clarity? Check out Miracles Coaching and my free books (three volumes so far) from my Miracles Coaching secret sessions:

Vol 3 of "The Miracles Manual" available free. Just click image.