My latest book releases this month. It’s “Unexpected Kindness.”
Then I realized it was a book.
I named the book “Unexpected Kindness.”
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.