Tag: the movie The Secret
Your Secret Desire
Elsie Lincoln Benedict – the forgotten wonder woman of self-help who I wrote about here on my February 15, 2015 blog post – taught me something profound.
Book from 1921
I was reading her 1921 book, How to Unlock Your Subconscious Mind (sometimes called Mental Analysis: How to Unlock Your Subconscious Mind) when I came across this insight in the final chapter:
Insight from Elsie
“Whatever your conscious mind affirms, visualizes and suggests to the subconscious, the subconscious will build into your life.”
For you and I today, that’s probably not news. But in 1921, it was a breakthrough new concept.
It basically said that you could choose what you want with your conscious mind, and with intention and imagery, you could get it into the subconscious, where it would take seed and begin to grow.
Why is this so important?
Because Elsie said something else right before revealing that concept that was even more insightful, and something so profound that I had to reread it a few times.
Elsie wrote –
“This newest, hitherto unpublished and most far-reaching of all the discoveries concerning the laws of human life is that every human being GETS his supreme subconscious wish.”
In short, there is a type of prime directive in your subconscious mind.
It is the secret guiding desire for your life.
You may not know what it is, but your subconscious is attracting into your life everything to make it real.
What you are getting right now is a match to the secret desire of your subconscious – your “supreme subconscious wish.”
In my own work, I talk a lot about counter-intentions.
A counter-intention is a hidden belief in contrast to what you consciously say you want.
You might consciously say you want a new job, but unconsciously believe you won’t get one due to the economy (or some other excuse/reason/belief), and your unconscious, being more powerful, will make the counter-intention come true.
Ad for free lectures circa 1917
Elsie would probably agree but her deeper insight is that the subconscious has one major intention and it will allow nothing to come about to contradict it.
Elsie explains –
“Let us repeat: Your supreme subconscious wish dictates your life. It permits nothing seriously to interfere with its materialization. It is automatic, implacable. What you want most of all, as a condition in your life, it will get for you.”
Now think about this.
If your conscious intent is to attract more money – for yourself or others or causes you believe in – but your secret subconscious wish is to avoid money so you consider yourself “spiritual,” then your subconscious mind will make sure that you get your chief hidden intention — and stay broke.
Your subconscious secret desire will win.
It’s the same scenario with anything you can name.
Want a relationship but secretly want to stay alone because it feels safer?
Then nothing you do will work because the secret intent of your subconscious will control the outcome. You will be alone but “safe.”
Want better health but secretly want to stay ill so you can avoid taking actions and risks in the world?
Then your overriding subconscious desire will make sure you stay ill. You will be sick but “risk free.”
Elsie goes on to explain that your secret desire is for a feeling or condition, not anything specific. She says –
“Our supreme subconscious wish is never for any specific thing or person but for a condition, a certain avenue of self-expression.”
Elsie’s insight, offered in 1921, is a mind opener.
Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Here’s why –
First, realizing you have a secret subconscious “prime directive” helps explain why you are attracting what you have in your life: your subconscious insists on it.
Second, realizing you can change your subconscious secret desire to something else – with your conscious mind affirming and visualizing a new outcome – is enlightening and empowering.
Once again, Elsie has rocked my world.
I trust you see the power of these insights from our dear woman of the 1920s.
But here’s a suggestion –
You can sit and reflect on what your subconscious might want for you, which will help explain what you are attracting into your life.
You can then use your conscious mind to offer new instructions to your subconscious, reprogramming it to help you attract more of what you consciously prefer.
Got it?
Elsie was pointing the way to the hidden operations in our mind, long before positive psychology and neuroscience came into play.
Thank you, Elsie.
I love you.
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – Unraveling your own beliefs can be tricky, since you are the one wrapped up inside of them. The fastest way to expand your mind is with the help of your own Miracles Coach. Check out Miracles Coaching.
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Forgotten Wonder Woman
Elsie Lincoln Benedict.
Recognize her name?
Neither did I until I found a copy of her 1928 book, Brainology.
Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Turns out this remarkable woman was the most popular self-help author in the world in the 1920s – seen by over three million people during her lifetime – before radio, television, and of the course the Internet.
The only person maybe more well known as a speaker was the former athlete turned fiery evangelist Billy Sunday. (I’ll pause while you Google him.) But even his extreme popularity shrunk in the 1920s as Else’s grew.
Elsie was an American suffragist leader, international lecturer, and popular author on psychology, self-improvement, and more.
She created and ran the Benedict School of Opportunity and founded The International Opportunity League, a book and correspondence business.
She traveled the world with her husband, Ralph Benedict, visiting at least 55 countries, and wrote about their adventures in a popular book, Our Trip Around the World.
She was born in 1885.
She was a millionaire by 1920.
This amazing woman wrote numerous books, such as Practical Psychology (1920), and with her husband, Unlocking the Subconscious (1922), How to Make More Money (1925), and their standout bestseller, How to Analyze People on Sight (1921).
Self-Help from 1928
I found Brainology: Understanding, Developing and Training Your Brain, and couldn’t believe it was written in 1928 but as useful today as it was when it first came out. She was way ahead of the modern fields of positive psychology and neuroscience.
Who was Elsie?
Apparently she was a cutting-edge leader, a petite woman with a commanding presence and charming personality, speaking and writing on what Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie and a long list of men would do later.
Elsie Lincoln Benedict
In many ways, while Elsie was just as upbeat as Hill or Carnegie, and just as subtly metaphysical, she was more practical. She gave people the nuts and bolts of how to succeed by teaching them practical psychology.
Hers was a common sense approach to a happy, healthy, prosperous life.
And she championed women’s rights.
She spoke — in the 1920s, remember — on such topics as Sex Psychology, How to Choose a Mate, How to Get Anything You Want, How to Succeed in Business, and more.
In 1922 she told an audience, “Most people use less brains in selecting the person with whom they are to spend their lives than they do in choosing an automobile, a bicycle or a cut of steak. Love isn’t enough; there must also be understanding.”
She made money even during the Great Depression. Her talks (usually free) inspired people. She urged them to think right, take action and take care of themselves. She also wrote, Outwitting the Depression.
She believed in the “work cure,” which was a new way to handle nervousness and hysteria and other psychological problems of the early 1920s.
The idea was to get you to do useful activities, like taking a college class, learning carpentry or music, or running an office.
The “cure” for what ails you was in the “work,” or the doing, of something meaningful.
Instead of disconnecting from life, you re-connected to life.
In 1923, the Oakland Tribune called Elsie “Wonder Woman,” explaining that “..she actually MAKES OVER THE LIVES of those who follow her wonderful, powerful teachings.”
When Elsie was asked, in 1920, how she attracted 3,000 people at a time to her talks, with hundreds being turned away due to lack of room, she replied, “Because I talk on the one subject on earth in which every individual is most interested – himself.”
Ad for Elsie
I got so excited discovering Else that I went looking for more of her books. I found a pristine 1920 edition of Practical Psychology.
What a treat!
I was impressed at how her clear, direct, conversational writing style communicated practical insights about everything from how to stop worrying, how to build self-confidence, to how to make money.
Elsie's 1920 genius
I of course jumped to the How to Make Money chapter, which was the last one in the book.
Knowing all her readers would do what I did, there’s a line in parenthesis in that chapter where she says, “You are reading this chapter first!”
Elsie knew people.
While I haven’t seen her use the phrase “Law of Attraction” – yet, as I haven’t read all of her books yet – she certainly knew the power of the mind to direct action, which attracted results.
In that last chapter in Practical Psychology she writes:
“All men and women who have climbed to the top of life’s ladder climbed up mentally first.”
When her husband died in 1941, Elsie withdrew from public life.
She was heart broken.
She stayed plugged into life by traveling and visiting family.
1921 course by Elsie
But her public appearances and books were over.
She died in 1970.
I’m glad I discovered her.
She was one of those pioneers who paved the way for many others, including me and other Law of Attraction authors, by stepping forth in courage to share her message of self-help and self-improvement.
“Make a rule to dwell on nothing but the strong and good in life and people.”- Elsie and Ralph Benedict, Brainology, 1928
Thank you, Elsie.
I love you.
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS — Heather Mickelson, Else’s great granddaughter, is bringing the “forgotten wonder woman” back into public awareness by reissuing her lost books, writing a biography, and carrying her work into the modern age with humanitarian efforts. Heather’s site explains it all. See http://www.elsielincolnbenedict.com/
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Brain Change
What I teach is that when you change your inner beliefs, your outer life changes.
In other words, what you are attracting today is due to your mental programming, whether you consciously realize it or not.
Your beliefs set up a “filter” in your mind.
Your brain then only allows you to perceive what is a match to your existing beliefs.
Given that, how do your change your beliefs – especially when you may not even know what they are?
There are lots of ways, but here’s a new one that is easy, fun, and a joy to do http://www.OneMoreDayCD.com
Here’s the story —
Brain Change in 3 Minutes
Every song on my forthcoming new album is a type of “3-minute self-help book.”
In other words, each song delivers a powerful message, and in about three minutes.
This is a breakthrough new way to get the positive messages I teach straight into your mind, by simply *listening* to this music.
The messages are the ones I spend entire books writing about, whether how to “Nevillize” a goal, or attract what you want, to songs designed to motivate, inspire, and awaken.
So, each song is a self-help book in about 3 minutes. 🙂
I posted a video on Facebook of me talking about one new song and over 12,000 people went to see it and many wanted that one song right then and there.
That song – called ‘Deep Within’ – and all the others, will be on my new album.
Another song, called ‘Some Thoughts,’ teaches you that some thoughts are crappy, and some are wise – but also teaches you how to change your thoughts “like a jukebox in your mind.”
That song’s on the new album, too.
The album is called One More Day.
The subtitle is “Life Lessons in Hypnotic Song.”
Besides my band of legends – like Daniel Barrett, Glenn Fukunaga, drummer Joe Vitale and G-Monk Mathew Dixon – I’ve also added Grammy nominated singer Ruthie Foster. (!)
The new album will come on audio CD, with a booklet containing photos and lyrics.
It will be a limited-edition collectible.
It will ship (around April) with a surprise gift.
You can pre-order one or more (at a dramatic discount) right here — http://www.OneMoreDayCD.com
This will be a fun and easy new way to change your brain so you can begin to have, do, or be more of what you really desire.
You deserve it, right?
Invest in *you*.
Expect Miracles.
Ao Akua,
joe
PS – You can also see that famous Facebook video of me in the studio talking about one of the songs at http://www.OneMoreDayCD.com
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Create or Die
Bob Bly inspired me to become a copywriter back in the late 1980s.
His books, such as The Copywriter’s Handbook, always informed me in a practical way. I began my business career as a copywriter in Houston because of him. He occasionally wrote me snail mail letters of encouragement. I stay in touch with him, too.
Today he is the author of 85 books.
Eight-five!
I remember he once said he felt like he hadn’t produced much – that was back when he had “only” written fifty books – because he knew Isaac Asimov had written or edited more than five hundred books.
Five hundred!
Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
I’m running as fast as I can to catch up with Bly and Isimov.
Right now I have about fifty books out, am working on two books, editing an autobiography from my father, completing three music albums, working on new presentations for mega-talks I am giving this year around the world, developing a new process for faster attracting, practicing my saxophone, the guitar, and the synthophone, reading more books a week than most people do in a lifetime, and of course still maintaining my fitness program, writing these blog posts, handling social media, promoting my past projects (which is a giant catalog), helping my Miracles Coaches, and more. (And, of course, keeping my relationships alive and well.)
Some say I’m a “force of nature.”
Others say I should switch to decaf. 🙂
Why so much productivity?
What drives a man like Bob Bly or me? What drove Asimov?
An answer is in the new book, Create or Die: A Manifesto for Fearless Creators Everywhere, by Morgan Giddings, PhD.
"Create or Die"
Her basic premise is that unless you keep creating, you begin to die.
Literally.
Die.
Life is designed to urge you to create, to move forward, to constantly expand, grow, develop, change and challenge.
In fact, challenging yourself is one of the best ways to maintain the exuberance of life.
According to Dr. Giddings, you don’t have a real choice.
Yes, you can decide to “do nothing” but life itself, being the great creative force it is, will move you off your bed if it has to get others to move you and it out the door.
And yes, as Asimov proves, you can create and still die.
But real living comes from persistent creating.
It’s not about the end result – as that will change again in time – but about creating.
There isn’t a “finish line” or even a “perfect” solution.
There will always be something else to create. Another problem to solve.
Life is about creativity. Period.
All of the problems in your personal life – and on the planet – can be resolved with creativity.
Whether oil shortage or climate change or anything else you are worried about, there is an answer, and that answer will come from creativity.
New problems will occur, but that’s just the nature of life’s ever expansion.
And that’s an opportunity for more creativity.
The wise approach is to challenge yourself by choosing your creative projects.
Let your passion lead the way.
Let your enthusiasm for an idea burn bright in your life.
Bob Dylan is still creating, too. About 1,000 songs in this gigantic hefty book.
One of my favorite sections in Dr. Giddings’ book is where she reveals the formula for attracting money.
It goes like this:
1. Use your creativity to create something of great value.
2. Use your creativity to effectively communicate the value of your invention, product, or service to others (market it).
That’s it.
She says everything else is just “playing the lottery.”
She also points out that you need a clear idea of what you want money for, and you need to be clear of any limiting beliefs about money, in order to actually have her formula work.
I'm still creating music, too. This is album eleven.
She writes, “Though a surface-level desire for money exists, it gets distorted and watered down by all these other beliefs that are floating around contradicting it. The contradictory beliefs dilute the singular focus that’s necessary for the kind of creative action that leads to results.”
I’m not sure what Bob Bly would say, and the late Asimov is no longer talking or writing, but in my own case, I am driven by the need to communicate what I am excited about.
It’s not about money – it’s about passion.
Money becomes the pleasant side effect of creating value and sharing it with the world in creative ways.
I am driven to create by the impulse of creativity itself.
My hunch is that everyone has this impulse — yes, even you — but most people are pros at rationalizing why they shouldn’t create.
Excuses are easy.
Wimping out is easy.
Just coasting is easy.
The challenge – and the voltage of life itself – comes from creating.
Ray Bradbury, the legendary sci-fi writer who wrote classic books and unforgettable stories – who wrote every day of his life – once said in an interview:
“There’s an Egyptian myth I heard about years ago that when you die as an Egyptian and you go off to visit the gods the first question asked of you at the gates of heaven is ‘Did you have enthusiasm?’ And if you answer negatively you don’t get in. My response to everything in life that I really loved has been enthusiasm.”
You most likely have a desire to create something.
A book, song, movie, business, product.
I have no idea what your secret creative urge might be.
But you do.
Dr. Giddings is giving you a wake up call.
Either create – or die.
And ignore the skeptics, critics, and cynics.
Dr. Giddings writes, “Cynicism is rooted in fear…Worse, it’s toxic to creativity. To be creative, it’s essential to express yourself fully, from your own unique vantage point.”
Critics and the like are living in fear and building themselves up by tearing others down.
Ignore them and pursue your dream.
“Creativity is an inside game,” Dr. Giddings writes. “It’s never about pleasing external critics. It’s about producing something that you feel is great, and then connecting with the right audience who will like whatever it is that you produced.”
I’m sure Bly and Isimov would nod in agreement.
Before I dismiss class today, here’s a final thought to consider:
One of my favorite authors during my development as a writer was Jack London, who once wrote –
“I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom
of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”
I agree.
Now, don’t you have something to create today?
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – I didn’t want to write this post. I was tired, my eyes were blurry, I had other things to do. But the creative urge in me pushed from inside and said “Write this.” I obeyed. And guess what? I am not tired, my eyes are not blurry, and the other things I have to do are next. Follow your creativity. Live your dreams. Expect Miracles.
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Feel It Real
A secret to using the Law of Attraction to accelerate your results is to feel what you want to have, do, or be as already done.
Instead of seeing it off in the future, you feel it in your life right now.
In my books, such as The Attractor Factor, I called this technique a way to “Nevillize” your goal.
I coined the term (with the help of famed copywriter David Garfinkel) more than a decade ago, as a respectful nod to Neville Goddard, the mystical author of numerous books, about his innovative way to manifest.
Neville autograph
I love Neville. I have all of his books, and all of his audios. I have many autographed copies of his rare early editions. I have the original private lessons to a course he taught. I have all of his lectures transcribed in a twelve volume set of books.
Neville Goddard
I’ve written about him and talked about him, in public as well as private, on radio shows and at dinner parties.
And I even republished his first book, At Your Command, back in 2005, way before the movie The Secret.
Neville's first book
Obviously, I love the work of Neville Goddard. 🙂
It has greatly influenced me personally and professionally.
But here’s the best news of all —
I recently wrote a hypnotic song to communicate Neville’s core message.
It’s called “Feel It Real” and it will be on my forthcoming fifth singer-songwriter album, One More Day: Life Lessons in Hypnotic Song.
Self-Help Songs in 3 Minutes (or so)
The song is designed to teach you the Neville method – how to Nevillize – in about three minutes.
And to make the song as wonderful as I could, I brought in some of the best musicians on the planet, from Rock and Hall of Fame drummer Joe Vitale (yes, he has the same name as me), to bass man Glenn Fukunaga, to Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon, and producer Daniel Barrett.
AND I brought in Grammy nominated singer Ruthie Foster to add her soaring vocals.
Grammy nominated singer Ruthie Foster
The result is a song that is a joy to hear over and over again, that teaches you the Neville method, and that raises your vibration so you really can “Nevillize” your desires.
I’m proud and jubilant to bring you this new Hypnotic Song.
The song is loving homage to Neville, who (in 1969) said –
“Feel in depth, for what you feel deeply is more vital than what you think. Every day you can think about how wonderful it would be if – and never act. But if every day you would feel how wonderful it is now, it will become true.” – Neville
And –
“You must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled until your assumption has all the sensory vividness of reality. You must imagine that you are already experiencing what you desire.” – Neville
My song “Feel It Real” reminds you of Neville’s message with these lyrics –
...the secret to life
is to feel it real
no need to wonder or worry
no need to visualize or delay
just feel what you want real
and feel it done today…
“Feel It Real,” along with nine other tracks, will be on the new album. I’m putting together a collectible, limited edition package, complete with audio CD containing all ten tracks, lyrics book with photos, which you can pr-eorder at an impressive discount right now by clicking right here.
Meanwhile, think of what you want, embody it as already completed, and “Feel It Real.”
Expect Miracles.
Ao Akua,
Joe
PS – Excerpts from the following books by Neville can be read online:
Awakened Imagination
Feeling is the Secret
Seedtime and Harvest
The Power of Awareness
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