Blog - Part 20

How Long Do You Think It Takes?

One of the Absolute Best Ways to Boost Your Prosperity

How long do you think it takes to have prosperity begin to flow to you? A week? 2 weeks? A month? Would you be surprised to hear that you can start creating immediate prosperity for yourself?

And here is the most amazing part:

In just 1 minute you can learn how to boost your prosperity. Over the next few weeks I am going to share with you valuable video tips to get your prosperity power into high gear.

Start today with my new video series, Prosperity in a Minute

Prosperity in a Minute Tip #1:

Stop Waiting for Prosperity – Create It!

What’s Your Financial Superpower?

What if you already had everything you needed to be great with money? What if the power was within you all the time and you just needed to learn how to access it? We all have financial superpowers, but for many people they have yet to be revealed. Often all you need is to be reminded about the power you have within you to be great.

You now have the POWER

When our son turned five years old he had a very important talk with his pre-school teacher, Mrs. Brown. She sat with him at one of the tiny pre-school tables, looked deeply into his hazel eyes and told him “You now have the POWER.” Benjy asked her “What power?” She replied slowly as she delivered this critical message, “You are five years old now … you have the power to ride a two wheeler.” He nodded accepting the new gift which had been bestowed upon him … his bike-riding super powers. Shortly after that morning, Benjy took his first successful ride without training wheels.

What if you were given financial superpowers?

What would you choose? Super natural savings abilities would be awesome. Maybe you’d pick investing x-ray vision – able to clearly see the opportunities that abound. Perhaps you’re a generosity giant, using your money as a force for good in the world. How about money magnetism: the ability to draw money and opportunities to you easily and effortlessly?

Many people are blind to the strengths they already have inside to successfully create their own prosperity. By having the light shine upon your strengths you can clearly see what was there all along.

So, by the power vested in me as an Abundance Activist®, I grant you the clarity to recognize the financial superpower you have within.

Turn your superpower on and see what happens!

Worried About Money? This Fear-Busting Strategy Will Surprise You!

Here’s a regular practice that will make a huge difference in creating a positive outlook:

Make a true difference for others without expectation of anything in return.

Studies have shown that givers are happier. Generosity breeds financial contentment: People who are great with money know that when they give to people in need (and causes that they value) it shifts their attention from themselves onto helping others. Studies on happiness have shown that when we assist others we benefit as well. Financial stress is usually associated with fears of not having enough, losing what’s been accumulated or making a big mistake. Giving is an amazing stress buster.

How and where you choose to give will depend on what you most value in life. But you can start today by doing something unexpected for someone else.

Are You Tangled In a Web of Money Lies?

I was recently in a women’s clothes store in my home town. As I was trying on a top I overheard a conversation between a woman who was checking out and the store owner. I happen to know that the shopper is a successful professional. Here’s how it went (the names are changed to protect this woman’s marriage…)

Shopper: Oh, I’m so sorry, Lisa, but I need to pay cash for this sweater and I’m a little short. I’ll run over to the ATM at Walgreen’s. I’ve learned after 26 years of marriage that it’s better if my husband doesn’t know what I spend money on so I don’t want to charge it or write a check.

Store-owner: I completely understand, Barb. Women do this all the time here.

Seriously?! What’s this about?

Is it that these women don’t truly spend money on things they value and then are embarrassed to talk to their spouse or partner about it? Is it that they are spending money instead of working toward some joint goal? Is it that they feel guilty that their husband is earning money and they are spending it? (Clearly not the issue for the woman that I eavesdropped on.)

What I would want to ask this woman is, “How would you feel if your husband was doing this to you?”

What we put out into the world is what we get back. Secrets create separation. From a financial standpoint, a marriage is like a business partnership. A healthy money relationship includes creating a vision for your financial futures, building a solid and healthy plan, as well as sharing information. If you are hiding financial issues from your spouse you are creating big cracks in your financial foundation.

Have a conversation.

I’m not suggesting that every penny spent must be reported and justified to your partner. Instead, have money allocated each month for each of you to spend as you please. Any extraordinary expenses over a certain dollar amount (at a level which you both decide) should be discussed.

Quit hiding shopping bags in your trunk or the back of your closet! Stand in your power around money and make purchases you feel great about!

Olympic Winners: 4 Ways to Tap Their Success

The personal stories of the athletes are one of my favorite parts of watching the Olympics. I love hearing about their journey to get to London, their struggles and triumphs. I am also fascinated by the training the athletes commit to in order to make the Olympic team.

Over and over in interviews the athletes share how important the mental preparation is to their success. There is so much that we can learn about creating prosperity and success from these athletic superstars.

Mental Training Just As Important as Physical Training

Did you know that the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has 4 full-time psychologists on staff to help their elite athletes with mental conditioning? Here’s what they say on their website: “Both research and our experience strongly suggest that as athletes move up into the elite ranks, mental training skills become as important as the physical side of the sport.”

4 Ways to Tap Success of Olympic Winners

The USOC suggests mental training guidelines which could just as easily apply to building wealth.

Mental training can’t replace physical training. Similarly, picturing abundance isn’t enough; you must also take responsible actions with your money.
Physical training and physical ability are not enough to succeed consistently. The right mindset is crucial for both athletic success and financial success.
A strong mind might not win an Olympic medal, but a weak mind will lose you one. Having the right mindset might not ensure that you’ll hit every one of your goals, but a weak one will make is harder to hit your targets.
Thoughts affect behavior. Our thoughts and beliefs affect everything we do. Our thoughts are like the ruder of a boat – they guide our actions. Right thoughts + Right Actions → Right Results.

Recent Training Research

Dr. David Hamilton (Institute of Sports Science research) writes about recent research carried out at the Institute of Sports Science at the Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany. They compared 5 different groups of people. The first group did 100% of a training program physically, the next group did 75% of the training physically and 25% of the training in their minds, the third group did 50% physically and 50% mentally, the fourth group did 25% physically and 75% mentally and the last group did not train.

Ready for this…

There was only a very small difference in physical improvement between the group doing 100% of the training in the gym and the group only doing 25% of the work in the gym and 75% of the training mentally.

Picture Your Financial Goals and See Opportunities

This type of mental training is not just effective for physical activities. We can use mental training for our financial success as well. There is a small part of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) which acts as a filter for important information between your conscious and subconscious mind. This is what helps us to hear our name being called across a crowded room, but ignore the background noise of glasses clinking. We have the ability to actually help to program our RAS. The more you program your RAS with thoughts and pictures of your goals, the more likely you are to be open to seeing the opportunities to help create these goals.

3 Keys to Programming your RAS

1. Choose a Time When You Are Calm

2. Focus on What You Want

It is crucial that you focus on what you want to have happen as opposed to what you don’t what to happen. Your RAS is not very discriminating. If you focus on what you don’t want, for example if you say to yourself, “I don’t want to have to worry about money,” your RAS will focus on worrying about money. Instead, focus on “I have financial freedom.” Create a specific mental picture of what financial freedom looks like to you. For example: Where do you live? How do you spend your time? Who is with you?

3. Feel the Sensation of Success

Here’s another crucial part of the formula. As you are picturing your goals, make sure to feel the emotion you will feel when your goal happens. If you are not sure how you will feel, before you start the visualization process think back to a time when you felt very successful. How did you feel then? Happy? Excited? Calm? Actually feel this emotion as you are creating your mental picture of accomplishment.

This visioning process will train your mind for success. It is so easy in today’s economy to focus on volatility and problems. Stop it! If this is what you focus on, you will find lots of evidence to support your experience of problems. Instead, if you look for the opportunities that arise in times of change, you will find those.

As Henry Ford said: “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”

5 Rules People Who Are Great with Money Know That Others Don’t

1. SPEND CONSCIOUSLY. A wise (and financially savvy) woman once told me: “The less you need the more you have.” Need is the most important word in that sage advice. It is easy to build a lifestyle with things that feel like needs. Problems arise when the things you spend money on become needs and the thought of losing them grips you in fear. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t spend money on things you value, indeed you should. But spend money intentionally.

2. BE A GREAT SAVER. It may seem painfully obvious, but spending less than you earn is one of the most important ways to build financial flexibility for yourself. Designing a lifestyle that is based upon only utilizing a portion of your income is really one of abundance: you have more than enough money to do what is important to you. The rest is put away (or given to causes important to you). This will allow you to have greater choices when you are ready to make financial transitions in your life.

3. THINGS ALWAYS WORK OUT THE WAY THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK OUT. People who are great with money take personal responsibility for their financial situations. They don’t blame the government, their employer, their estranged spouse, their dead-beat son or their parents for the realities of their financial lives. Instead they learn from past mistakes and move on. They adapt to changes in the economy and look for opportunities.

4. GENEROSITY BREEDS FINANCIAL CONTENTMENT. People who are great with money know that when they give to people in need (and causes that they value) it shifts their attention from themselves on to helping others. Studies on happiness have shown that when we assist others we benefit as well. Financial stress is usually associated with fears of not having enough, losing what’s been accumulated or making a big mistake. Giving is an amazing stress buster.

5. FOCUSING ON WHAT YOU HAVE WILL BRING MORE OF WHAT YOU DESIRE. People who are great with money put their attention on what they appreciate in their lives as opposed to what is lacking. They share about how content they are and what is working well. You won’t hear them saying that they don’t have a fancy car or go on big vacations; instead, they’ll share that they really love their home or spending time with their grandkids. When we put our focus on what is working well, and not on what’s missing in our lives, we are not only happier but abundance finds us!

Prosperity on Demand

I’ve been traveling around the country and speaking on the topic of prosperity for a great portion of my career. And it doesn’t matter where I go or who I end up talking to – I always seem to get the question, “How do I create more in my life?”

What I’ve found is that the key does not lie in understanding your asset allocation and it doesn’t matter if your business is at five figures or six figures monthly – prosperity and how you think about what you’re creating is an inside job.

My business actually has grown in the last two years and I know a lot of people in America have had a reverse experience. So, I’ve decided to host a free one-hour teleclass and tell you exactly how I’ve done what I’ve done.

You’re invited to:

Prosperity on Demand:

How to Create Abundance Anywhere, Anytime-

No Matter What!

When: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 4pm – 5pm CST

And don’t worry if you can’t attend live – we will be recording this call. All you have to do is register for the call and I will send you the recording.

Click here to register today!

In this 60-minute free course, you will:

Discover the Great with Money Prosperity Formula– a proven method to increase your prosperity that I’ve been teaching my students for over 20 years
Learn how to create and manifest your goal in 3 minutes or less
Uncover the ONE step that many people miss when building their dreams
Learn what to do if you feel you’re doing every thing right and you still aren’t reaching your goals

I would really love it if you could join us. Remember: If you can’t attend live – we will be recording this call. Just register for the call and I will send you the recording.

I will also be announcing a new group program I am going to be doing and the results of a pilot test I held over the last couple of months where I worked with a select group of entrepreneurs are helping them rapidly increase their prosperity and abundance quotient.

You can have what your heart desires and make a true impact in our world. Just remember – prosperity is an inside job. Once you learn the principles I’m going to teach, you can literally create your best life – no matter what happens in your life!

Hope to “see” you there!

PS I only have a limited number of conference lines, so be sure and reserve your seat today.

PSS Yes, you can forward this information to your friends!

Click here to register today!

Skinny Pop’s Success: Lessons I Learned

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Skinny Pop co-founder Pam Netzky at a program at Metropolitan Capital Bank. She has an amazing entrepreneurial spirit and left the audience members inspired to grow their businesses.

When I introduced Pam I said “She is a snack food rock star in my house!” She and her partners have created incredibly delicious popcorn that doesn’t have any artificial anything in it. (Although I am fairly certain there is some unlisted drug that causes me to want to eat an entire bag in one sitting.) If you are not familiar with Skinny Pop you’re missing out. If it is not being sold in your area yet – just wait – the company is growing by leaps and bounds. (2019 UPDATE: it is everywhere now!!)

Here’s what I learned from Pam:

Don’t let what you don’t know stop you. Pam had no background in food, cooking, packaging, distribution etc. before they started the company. She knew she had a great product and just needed to learn how to get it out to the stores.
Don’t get married to your business plan. Before Skinny Pop, Pam’s plan was to open gourmet popcorn shops in Chicagoand then expand to different cities. A competitor (with a much larger budget) beat them to New York and failed. She was grateful they failed and not her company – but realized that their own business plan no longer made sense. Her ability to change course lead them to create the recipe for healthier popcorn with a totally different distribution model.
Don’t whine about the economy. She started Skinny pop during the recession (and had sarted another business on Sept. 1, 2001). Certainly not ideal timing.
Be willing to take a risk!

Here’s a bonus lesson: Click to find out why Arianna Huffington says women should “sleep their way to the top!”

3 Lessons I Learned from 1000 Ghanaian High School Kids

I recently returned from a two week volunteer trip with our 13 year-old daughter and 16 year-old son, to Ghana. We had been there 18 months earlier and were looking forward to being back in the community with the incredibly friendly adults and beautiful children. Three days into the trip, while visiting the senior high school, I was invited by the Assistant Head Master, Samson (not his real name but he told me to call him that as even Ghanaians have trouble with his name), to speak to the students about investing in their future. I explained that I typically speak to adults, but if he thought it would be helpful I would be happy to talk to the kids. I assumed it was for a class of thirty -I later learned it would be for 1000 students and their teachers!

A Packed Room

A few days later I arrived at the Akwamuman senior high school to a packed room of students, teachers and administrators sitting on benches waiting for me to begin my presentation on success. As I took the microphone from the assistant headmaster and said my first words, I realized only one syllable from each word was actually coming through the speakers. The high school AV team quickly took the microphone to try to get it to work. After about 10 minutes it was suggested that I stand on the floor behind the 5’ tall speaker equipment to get the best sound. That didn’t seem like a very good plan so I went back on the riser and proceeded to speak very loudly (yelling at times over the sounds coming from outside the open-air dining hall that also serves as the school auditorium).

Success Formula

For the next 45 minutes I shared strategies for success and prosperity with these young future leaders. We talked about the Success Formula: What you think + What you say + What you do = Your results. I explained that most people focus solely on the “doing” part and miss the other two crucial components of this formula. These kids are often told “study hard, do your assignments, come to class”. Yes, and… it’s also important for them to remember to think positively about their abilities and to say good things to themselves and others. If they only study hard, but doubt their abilities or say that the work is too difficult or that they aren’t very bright it won’t matter how much time they put into their school work – their results won’t be as strong as they could be.

I told them “You are GREAT!” They told each other “You are GREAT!” and celebrated with high-fives. They listened attentively (for the most part – they are teenagers after all) and many took notes.

I hope that I shared information that was valuable for them.

I know that I learned 3 major lessons from this experience:

1) The importance of being creative and flexible. I was initially very intimidated at the prospect of speaking to high school kids – I typically speak to adults. As I was preparing I knew that the presentation I use in the US would not work in Ghana– my stories and jokes would not play with this audience! This inspired me to create new material and ideas for this group (all of which I will continue to use).

2) The importance of ingenuity and support. With the help of other volunteers we were able to get a lap top and projector working to show a video that I knew the kids would love. And, even though the microphone didn’t work I was able to get my ideas across to this large group.

3) The importance of clarity of vision. The week before I left for our volunteer trip to GhanaI shared with a friend that I wanted to expand my speaking reach globally. I assumed this would happen with a new business venture that I have started. Already, my goal to speak internationally has manifested in a big way!

As I was leaving the high school that morning I met a boy named Confidence. What a wonderful name! It reminded me that when we have “confidence” in our dreams and passion and purpose, we can easily create what we desire in our lives – it just may show up differently than we expect.

Doing Everything Right and Still Not Reaching Your Goals?

We have an air mattress that’s used for house guests when there isn’t an extra bed available. It blows up easily with the push of a button to a full-size thick mattress. Our guests feel comfy as they fall asleep on this firm bed, only to wake in the morning (if they make it that long) to feel their bottoms almost reaching the ground. I call this our “de-flatable” mattress. It has an almost undetectable leak. Little by little air flows out of the bed leaving the inhabitants achy and sleep deprived. (We only use this for people under the age of 16 or guest we don’t want to stay very long.)

Often people think they are taking all the right steps toward reaching their goals; things may look good at the start – and just like the air mattress – there is a leak and they can’t figure out where. So what do you do, when you think you’re doing every thing right? Start looking for places to fix the leaks:

1. Crystal Clarity in Your Vision Are you really clear on where you want to go? Do you know what you really want to achieve?

2. Are you “wanting” what you want, too much? This sounds counter-intuitive – but when you focus on “wanting,” that’s what you get…more wanting of your goal (as opposed to achieving your goal). One of the definitions of “want” is: lacking or deficient in. So, by your laser-focus on wanting something, you are actually creating that feeling of wanting over and over. Instead, focus on the feelings you will feel when your goal is accomplished (as if it is happening right now). Now you are setting the stage for achievement.

3. Make sure your goals don’t conflict. For many years I desired to be hired for more paid speaking engagements. I always built this goal into my business plan and never hit my target. I realized when I look back upon this time that I had a conflicting goal to not travel too much, to be available for my family when our kids were young. My family goal had more energy behind it than my speaking goal. What do you desire that may conflict with a goal you are shooting for and missing?

Ready for the biggest leak in people’s plans? Drum roll please…

4. Limiting beliefs may be keeping you from your dream. According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, we operate 95% of the time from our subconscious. That means that if you are walking around with a belief like “I’ll never reach this goal,” guess what? You won’t! Negative beliefs are the most insidious culprits to our success. Tools such as meditation, affirmations, hypnotherapy as well as personal development courses such as The Avatar Course and Psych-K can all help to identify and clear limiting beliefs.

Where are your leaks coming from?

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