The Question

Bruce, in spirit of tapping into more of your wisdom, what are some of the techniques you’ve used personally or have seen work well in others to snap out of down times?

I’ve just had 1.5 days of feeling quite down. I’ve done some good analysis on it and one of my actions from it was to ask you the question above.

Techniques/Things that have worked well for me in the past have included:
· Exercise / swimming

• Eating fruit
• Calling a friend
• Writing in my diary
• Tidying up
• Listening to great music

Let me know! I have a sense you’ll have some great insights.

My Answer

Great question Richard and thank you for reaching out.

Everything you listed is what I would call a fix – like a band aid that does not deal directly with the source of the wound.

Techniques are all good and well and can work in the short term to relieve pain, but the pain always returns later and with more intensity until the source is handled.

Let’s get to the root of why you are feeling down and sort that out, and then take what we get. Getting to the source may be painful (or not) and that is why so few people ever get there.

If you’re feeling down, it’s almost certainly becasue one or more of the following are true for you:

• You are resisting what is so
• You have broken your word to yourself or another
• You are attached to an idea or person
• You are witholding something that needs to be expressed
• You are only seeing one side of the coin (think DeMartini)

So, I have a few questions for you with regard to you feeling down:

• What are you RESISTING?
• What are you doing or not doing that dishonours an agreement(s) to yourself?
• What are you doing or not doing that dishonours an agreement(s) to another?
• What idea or person are you attached to?
• What are you withholding (not saying) from another?
• Where are you only seeing one side of the coin on an important issue in your life?

Assuming that you answer these questions and discover the real cause of your down-ness, let’s look at what you can do to get your life back to feeling gratitude.

• If you’re resiting something, can you let it go? What would happen if you did? Can you accept that thing or person just the way they are? More accurately, WILL you accept that thing or person just the way they are?
• If you have dishonored an agreement(s) to yourself, what do you need to do to restore it?
• If you have dishonored an agreement(s) to another, what do you need to do to restore it?
• If you are attached to something, can you let it go? What would happen if you did? Can you accept that thing or person just the way they are? More accurately, WILL you accept that thing or person just the way they are?
• If you are withholding, what do you need to express to another?
• If you’re only seeing one side of the coin, what is the other side? If you are only seeing drawbacks, what are the positives. If you are only seeing benefits, what are the drawbacks. Seeing these opposites and getting the perfection of the equilibrium of Life will bring you to gratitude.

After answering these questions, get back to me with what you learned and the action steps you are going to take. We can also discuss this on our next call if you like.

With love,

P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so please leave me a comment…

www.TEDxSinCity.com

P.S. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you’re going to let go of as a result of watching the video.

P.P.S. If you missed the incredibly valuable teleseminar I recorded with Hannes Dreyer and Mike Handcock last week, make sure you listen to it or download it here.

I have.

This weekend, I conquered a childhood fear and fulfilled a lifelong dream at the same time… and then I created a 3 minute video to inspire you to conquer yours.

Life’s too short to be held back by limiting beliefs and irrational fears.

Watch the video and conquer yours…

Your partner in success,

P.S. In this quick video I reveal a very out of fashion clothing accessory. Wear it at your own risk…

P.P.S. Please leave a comment below and let me know what fear you’re going to conquer this week and how you’re going to do it…

“What’s up, honey?” I asked, sensing she was really upset?

“I just missed a Skype call with an important client,” she confided.

Tears began to well up behind her eyes and I knew she was beating herself up for missing the call and probably thinking that she had potentially tarnished her professional reputation in the eyes of an important new client…

“What’s wrong with me that I can’t even make a simple call on time?” she exclaimed in exasperation…

This was the second time in one day she had missed a scheduled call and she was understandably frustrated.

Here’s how I coached her back to the point where she was smiling and laughing again…

“Honey, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you…

Instead of thinking about this as a problem with YOU, let’s approach it in terms of a problem with the SYSTEM you use to schedule calls across time zones…”

It was her 4th week traveling on the road with me and she was still not used to scheduling her business calls across multiple time zones.

“How come you missed the call, honey?”

“Well, he’s on Central Standard Time and I’m on South African time, so I proposed a time to him and then added on 7 hours to figure out the call time here in South Africa… except, I counted wrong and entered the wrong time into my calendar, and then missed the call… Dumb, dumb, dumb!”

I suggested we leave ‘dumb’ out of the equation and just look at the system…

“Where was the point of failure in your scheduling system?”

“In relying on my math to calculate the time difference between CST and South Africa time.”

“So, what could you do in future to ensure that you calculate the correct time?” I asked.

“Well, I guess if I entered the time of the call into my Google calendar in Central Standard Time, Google can display it accurately in my local time zone and I won’t have to do the math…”

“Exactly!” I shouted with delight.

“With that new SYSTEM for scheduling calls across different time zones, you’ll always know the right time for the call in your time zone…”

I could see the color returning to her face and she leaned over and hugged me (I like hugs).

“See how changing an element in the system is a more effective approach to fixing a problem than trying to fix yourself?”

“Yes!” She exclaimed with a grin on her face, “I feel soooo much better.”

So, the moral of the story here is this:

If you approach your everyday breakdowns in terms of a system failure instead of a personal failure, you not only bypass the bad feelings of beating yourself up, but can look at your problems objectively and create solutions that would never have emerged had you given in to the trap of trying to fix yourself.

Trying to fix yourself assumes that something is wrong with you… and nothing could be further from the truth.

Here’s the unconscious logic that occurs in your brain when you try to fix yourself:

• Something is wrong with me
• If something is wrong with me, I must be broken.
• If I’m broken, then nothing I try will ever work…
• If nothing will ever work, I will always be a failure…
• If I’ll always be a failure, then what’s the point in trying anything ever again…

THE RESULT: Endless self doubt, depression and no action – not exactly a recipe for success…

Sound familiar?

So, next time you think you’ve screwed something up, STOP – then approach the breakdown in terms of a system fault instead of a personal fault. See if you can fix the system, and then go reward yourself for being so smart!

That’s all for this week…

Your partner in success,

P.S. If you want to create a system for success in the area of money this year, make sure you watch this video about the SYSTEM OF MONEY from my mentor, Eben.

P.P.S. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you learned from this article…

How To Stay Positive, Even Your Inner Voice Is Trying To Sabotage You

I recently received an email from one of my readers asking me for advice on how to stay positive, so I decided to share what I replied to him.

What follows is my response in the form of a TOP 20 list of all the things I do on a day to day basis to stay positive,  keep myself inspired and make sure that little voice in my head tells me great things about myself and my future…

BE WARNED: This is not your traditional positive thinking crap. These are simple, yet profoundly effective tips for staying in a positive frame of mind.

Lastly, please forgive me for not always going into greater detail on each item on the list. It would take an entire book to do each one justice. However, the tips are self explanatory and you can use your common sense to apply them in your life.

My Top 20 Ways To Stay Positive:

The following is a list of things I do and think regularly (if not daily) to stay in a positive frame of mind. If any of these speak to you, use them and let me know your results… Of course, this list is far from complete, but it contains my personal favorite techniques…

Your Body:

Your state of mind is influenced by your energy levels. The following tips will help your body operate at peak performance and keep your head clear. When your body is running like a finely tuned machine, your mind follows suit.

• Exercise daily. This increases blood circulation to the brain, giving you more energy and keeping your mind clear. Make sure you choose exercise that is fun for you.
• Add lots of raw vegetables, nuts and fruits to your diet and stop eating crap. The quality of the food you eat will determine how you feel. How you feel will impact what you think.
  Crap food in = crap thoughts and feelings out…
• Eat a nutritious breakfast – it’s the most important meal of the day. I make a green smoothie every morning. Here is a link to a video a friend of mine made teaching how to make a green smoothie… http://www.theshawnstevensonmodel.com/green-warrior-shake/
• Take some time out every day to do an activity that is fun for you. This will release Serotonin in your brain and make you feel good, promoting a clear mind and good feelings.

Your People:

I’ve heard it said that our lives are the sum total of the 5 people we spend the most time with…

• Hang around with high quality people who support where you are going in life.
• Share yourself vulnerably with the people in your life. Vulnerable does not mean weak – in fact, it takes a lot of courage to be totally open and honest with people. Being this way regularly will grow relationships built on trust and honesty. These relationships are your support line when you’re not feeling great. Also, don’t pretend that everything is OK if it is not. Just sharing your challenges with another person you trust can get rid of a lot of the anxiety you may be feeling at the time.
• Contribute to the people around you regularly in whatever way you can. It will make you feel good about yourself. Also, what comes around tends to go around, so by contributing, you can be sure that you’ll be contributed to in some way in the future.
• Personally, I have made a commitment to myself not to withhold important communications from the people I love. When we don’t say something you know needs to be said, we bottle it up inside, and that pressure causes tension in our mind. This tension often manifests itself in the form of negative thoughts and low energy. So, say what needs to be said (with love of course) and most times you’ll immediately notice a sense of relief.
• I also have a commitment to love my family. I believe that our relationship to our parents is of FUNDAMENTAL importance to our happiness. Notice that I said our relationship to our parents and not with our parents. Even if your parents are no longer alive, you can still relate to them with love. If you know you are harboring resentment towards a parent, seek counseling or get the issue resolved. Whatever the case, LOVE your parents and you’ll love yourself. I wish I had the space to write more on this topic, but I’ll have to save it for a future post…

Your Thoughts And Feelings:

The way you see the world directly impacts the thoughts you think and how you respond to life. Here’s a list of ideas and beliefs I have. Try them on and see if they fit you…

• I have a commitment to myself not to judge anything as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. It is what it is…
• I have a commitment to myself to find the blessings in any circumstance. This way, I ALWAYS benefit, even when at first it appears as if life is throwing me a curve ball…
• I have a commitment to myself to feel grateful as much as possible and I focus on cultivating gratitude.
• I have learned to trust that the tough times always pass, and that I am always looked after by Life (or some higher power). I consciously cultivate this belief and look for evidence of it, so I see it every day. This is a VERY powerful belief to cultivate and can remove all future based fear.

Your Work:

Given that most of us spend about a third of our life at work, here are some basic, yet powerful tips for staying positive and focused while working:

• Take regular breaks and if you can, nap once a day for 20 minutes. A nap will recharge you and clear your mind of clutter.
• Focus on your strengths at work and if possible, delegate your weaknesses… If you’re an entrepreneur, go take the Wealth Dynamics test to find out your entrepreneurial strengths.
• Complete the tasks you set yourself. Set yourself one important primary priority task to achieve every day and get it done. It will give you a sense of satisfaction and help you experience making progress. Feeling like you are not making progress in life sucks (at least for me it does)!

Habits To Adopt:

Your results in life come from your habits. I have made many of the things on this list a habit, and do them daily. Try some of these out and watch how your state of mind improves magically.

• Before I go to sleep I run over my day and congratulate myself for everything I did well and let go of any judgment about the things I did not do well. This keeps me feeling like I am making progress and doing a great job in my life.
• When I’m feeling really low, I pull out a pen and pad and begin writing down my feelings and my thoughts. This helps me get clear on what I am really feeling and seeing it on paper helps me understand what is going on. I don’t stop writing until I feel better.
• Perhaps most profound for me, I have managed to ACCEPT my life just as it is and as it isn’t. As a result, I rarely get upset. Practice not resisting things the way they are.
• Perhaps the most powerful habit I have adopted is waking up and immediately visualizing my day going well. I do this to keep my focus on where I am going and why I am going there. It motivates me and keeps my mind in the space I need it to be in order to be successful in my life.  To help me visualize, I use the Relaxation For Manifestation audio program. It’s the best.

Print this list out and try out a different tip each day. Notice the results and keep doing what works for you.

VERY IMPORTANT: Smile, take a break and get outside today and always remember… You are amazing!

P.S. I’d love to hear your ideas to add to this list. Please leave them below. I read each one.

P.P.S. If you liked this post, please share it with your friends using the links below.

Have you ever experienced the frustration of attracting the same negative experience into your life over and over again, and not knowing why or what to do about it?

Perhaps you keep attracting romantic relationships that never turn out the way you’d hoped they would… or business partnerships that always seem to turn sour…

Whatever it is, the technique I’m going to share with you in this article will help you destroy your destructive patterns so they never haunt you again.

To make this article more valuable to you, stop reading for a moment and find yourself an example to work with.

• Close your eyes and think of an experience you had recently where someone ‘wronged’ you and you still have not forgiven them
• When you’ve found one, think of at least two more times when you experienced that same kind of situation with someone else
• Do this now and don’t read on until you have completed this exercise

If you did this work correctly, you’ll have just uncovered a PATTERN that you repeat in your life and probably have no idea what to do to stop repeating it. Well, I’m about to help you with that…

Unfortunately, Forgiveness Rarely Makes A Difference

In my experience, what usually ends up happening is once we forgive the person who ‘wronged’ us, another situation just like the first one appears and we find ourselves in the same place again – frustrated, upset and not knowing what we are doing to attract this negativity over and over again.

Sound familiar?

I’ll share an example from my own life:

For many years, I kept attracting business deals that would leave me feeling ‘screwed over’ by my business partners and contractors. The last time this happened was when I was getting my new company logo designed a few years ago.

A friend who owned a design company offered to do the job for me at a discounted rate. Long story short, 9 months later he had still not delivered. When I confronted him, he became defensive and the whole deal went south. I ended up losing my 50% deposit, one of my best friends and never received the logo.

Although I had forgiven all the people who had ‘screwed me over’ in the past, I was still attracting this frustrating circumstance.

Forgiving someone may restore your relationship with that person, but it’s not going to stop you attracting similar circumstances again and again in the near future.

So, how come FORGIVENESS (apparently one of the most highly ‘evolved’ things you can do) rarely makes a difference?

Because in order to forgive someone for something, you first need to RESIST what that person did and judge it as being wrong, and…

What You Resist, Persists…

So, whatever you are RESISTING in your life right now will have a nasty habit of coming back to haunt you – over and over again in the future.

Why?

Because, the things we resist are usually the same things we FEAR and because of the way the Law Of Attraction works, we always attract the things we FEAR into our lives.

For example, if you fear your partner will cheat on you, you’re most likely going to attract partners that cheat. As long as you resist the experience of ‘cheating’, you’ll attract it.

In my example, I feared being ‘screwed over’ so much, that I attracted that experience – over and over again.

So, what can we do about this dilemma?  The solution is counter intuitive (as often the best solutions are).

An Alternative To Forgiveness

The best way to eliminate FEAR (and negative patterns) is to stop RESISTING your life the way that it currently is.

Resisting your life is like trying to paddle a canoe upstream, against the current. This requires a LOT more effort than padding the same canoe downstream – using the current instead of resisting the current.

So, instead of forgiving someone for ‘wronging’ you, change the way you see the thing they did and you won’t need to forgive them in the first place!

I’ll admit, this is an advanced concept and does take some practice initially, but it is 100% within your reach.

From Fear To  Fun

When you quit resisting your experience of the world and the people in it, most of your fears (if not all) will disappear – almost instantly. Then, the world becomes a much more FUN place to play in, people become a lot more interesting and you become a lot happier.

To stop resisting, you need to quit seeing your experiences as wrong or bad.

If you don’t believe me just yet, humor me and try this idea on like you’d try on some clothes in a department store. You don’t have to buy them; you’re just trying them on. In the same way, I’m not asking you to believe me, just to consider this as an idea.

Allow me to explain…

Duality

Everything in the Universe has an equal and opposite charge. Black has white, day has night, up has down and the front of your hand has the back of your hand.

Are you still with me here?

This concept is often called the law of DUALITY. Isaac Newton described this phenomenon in his third law of motion as “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

What this means for you is that every problem you experience has an equal benefit to you. Problems cannot exist without their corresponding benefits, like up cannot exist without down.

Consider this: perhaps the reason you get upset is because you only see ONE side of the coin (the bad side) and don’t ever dig deep enough to discover the equal BENEFITS (the good side) that this problem brings to your life.

When you can authentically allow the BENEFITS you receive from your so called ‘negative’ experience to  inspire you, your jaw will drop with gratitude and you’ll stop resisting, allowing blessing and good times to flow to you.

Stop Resisting It, Stop Attracting It

When I first tried this with my logo ‘problem’, I was astounded to see that there actually were just as many benefits to not having gotten my logo from my friend, as there were drawbacks:

1. I got a better logo elsewhere for 1/4 of the price
2. I learned to set powerful boundaries with a very upset man
3. I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to stand up for what I wanted
4. I discovered an awesome new graphic designer that I am going to hire in the future and save tons of money on my designs

But my BIGGEST breakthrough happened when I realized that the VERY thing I was resisting (being screwed over), was what I was actually doing to others in business.

This was a bitter pill for me to swallow. I mean, I considered myself a fair and honest businessman. However, when I looked deeper, I realized that when I negotiated in business, I often negotiated to win, sometimes without concern for whether or not the other person won too.

All I was interested in was getting the best deal for me.

Upon reflection, I realized that I was doing the very thing I hated having done to me!

When I saw this, I was horrified and shocked…

So now, here is the toughest question:

Where do you do the VERY EXACT same thing that the person you need to forgive has done to you?

This question is incredibly important. Until you can accept a trait within yourself, you’ll never be able to accept it in another and you’ll continue resisting and attracting that same trait as an experience in your life.

I know this kind of thinking is challenging, but you can do it…

I’ve witnessed a rape victim uncover where she ‘raped’ other people metaphorically. When she saw how she was just like the rapist, she broke down in tears and let go the pain of being raped. Answering this question changed her life.

After I did this exercise, I made a promise to myself that from then on, I was only going to enter into win-win business agreements.

Since then, I never again experienced feeling screwed over, and have (finally) broken the pattern of attracting those kinds of people and experiences into my world.

How To Break The Cycle Of Repeating Negative Patterns

Use this technique to quit resisting when you next experience someone ‘wronging’ you.

• STEP 1: Write down exactly what happened and the exact traits the other person displayed that upset you
• STEP 2: Write down where you have displayed these exact same traits with someone else
• STEP 3: Write down the benefits you received from having had the experience of being ‘wronged’
• STEP 4: Write down the opportunities you can create now that you’ve seen the benefits

Take a moment now and complete this exercise.

If you do the exercise completely, openly and with radical honesty, you’ll find yourself no longer resisting.

Better yet, you’ll no longer need to forgive the person, because you’ll no longer see their actions as bad.

Most importantly, you’ll stop attracting that type of experience into your life.

If you really want to lock in your personal transformation, you may even want to buy the other person a gift to thank them for bringing so many benefits into your life.

Where Else You Can Use This

This exercise is SO great because it quick and easy! With practice you’ll complete it in your head in a matter of seconds.

Use it when:

• You have an argument with your lover
• Your boss or colleague annoys you at work
• Somebody betrays your trust
• Another driver cuts in front of you in a traffic jam
• Anytime you feel bad

Try this on authentically and with a commitment to making it work and I promise you a transformed life where your problems melt away and transform into gorgeous benefits.

You’ll Be Sexier!

Once you become proficient with this new mindset, you’ll notice a nice benefit: People will WANT to hang around you, do business with you and have sex with you (no kidding)!

Why?

Because EVERYONE loves being in the company of someone who does not resist them.

Having cultivated this quality in myself, I am often amazed at the incredibly powerful people who choose to hang out with me, not because of what I have accomplished or because I may be interesting to talk to, but because of the space I provide – a space where they are not blamed and can feel at home to be themselves.

Last but not least, if you’re willing to take this idea into every area of your life, you’ll begin attracting MAGIC like you will not believe…

Let’s Sum It Up

I know this is a radical concept that challenges conventional wisdom,  and I know  that if you read my blog regularly, you’re open enough to receive it.

I want to acknowledge you for reading this far and (hopefully) doing the exercise. It takes courage to look at yourself with such honesty. Well done!

So, let’s wrap up with a summary of what we have learned:

• We all have limiting patterns that we repeat in our lives over and over again
• Forgiving someone is like a band aid – it’s a temporary fix, but does not stop these patterns repeating
• What you resist – persists, because we attract the things we resist into our lives
• We live in a world of duality and every problem or ‘negative’ experience contains a hidden benefit(s)
• We get UPSET only because we don’t see both sides of the coin (good and bad)
• People who see both sides of the coin are SEXY!

Practice the 4-step exercise above and you’ll find yourself a much happier person who can attract a LOT more of what you do want into your life.

Last, but not least, if you’re willing to take this idea into every area of your life, you’ll begin attracting magic like you will not believe!

Please leave me a comment below and let me know what you learned from this article and doing the exercise.

P.S. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr John DeMartini for teaching me this concept.

P.P.S. If you decide to purchase one of my transformational mind programming products, I promise that I will not RESIST when you do so! Click here to see them all…

> BEWARE:

I’ve had enough!

I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with all the CRAP written on the internet about how to attract money using the Law Of Attraction.

Not because I don’t think it’s possible to attract opportunities to make money, but because most of the information is just plain USELESS! By useless, I mean that it is not actionable and you can’t do anything with it.

I searched Google for “attract wealth” and here are some of the gems I found:

“Step into the flow of the Universe and ask for money help…”

At first glance, this looks like an innocent enough premise, but when we dig a little deeper you’ll discover that statements like this often leave us more confused that before we read them.

Check this out… Could you please tell me exactly WHERE I find this universal flow. Once I’ve found it, HOW do I step into it and HOW do I ask for money help? Do I go looking for a universal river at full moon and then bathe in it?  Do I howl into the night sky “I need money help!” and hope the Universe is listening to me?

See what I mean? This is not actionable advice, so in my mind, it’s totally useless. Unfortunately, many of the “new-age” or “spiritual” teachings that are popular today, are filled with this useless crap.

Here’s another:

“Learn to vibrate at the frequency of money…”

This one cracks me up…

I may not be the smartest guy on the planet, but could someone please tell me exactly how many Hertz (cycles per second) money vibrates at? I’d also love to know HOW to vibrate myself at that frequency, so I can attract some of this money too.

I decided to try vibrating at the frequency of money just to see if it worked…

In my gym, I have this cool fitness gadget called a Power Plate. You stand on it and it vibrates your body like a jack hammer. I kid you not. I stood on it this morning and set it to HIGH, hoping that it could vibrate me to the frequency of money…

Vibrating to attract money?

Unfortunately no money fell from the sky. However, I did make a few sales from my website, but I doubt that was from vibrating for 5 minutes. Maybe if I can get Power Plate to add a MONEY switch in addition to the HIGH/LOW switch, I’ll be able to attract some more money.

Obviously, I’m just being facetious and having some fun, but there is a point to my banter:

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to attract money. The problem (as I see it) is that most of the people who talk about ‘attracting money’ come from a mindset of lack i.e. wanting to get something for nothing.

If you believe people who tell you that you can somehow magically ‘attract’ money by doing nothing other than ‘vibrating’ or ‘asking’, you’re never going to have any (or at least not for long).

Having a mindset that supports you taking action towards becoming financially free is essential, but that alone is never going to make you rich.

Go ask anyone on the Forbes Magazine “Rich List” how they created their wealth and they aren’t going to tell you that they sat around vibrating to the frequency of money.

So, how have wealthy people ATTRACTED their wealth?

Drum roll please…

The Only Way To Attract Wealth

The way that EVERY wealth creator in history has made their money is by providing or creating some kind of VALUE that people are willing to pay money for.

Read that sentence again, because it might be the most important sentence you read in your entire financial life.

If you provide lots of VALUE, you’ll easily attract OPPORTUNITIES to exchange it for MONEY.

NOTE: You can’t attract money itself (at least not from my experience), but you can attract opportunities (to exchange some form of value for money).

If you’re still focusing on attracting money, you’re probably broke. Focus on how you or your product or service can add value to others, and then watch the money flow in.

Here’s the equation:

GIVE NO VALUE = GET NO MONEY

GIVE  VALUE = GET OPPORTUNITIES (TO EXCHANGE VALUE FOR MONEY)

Got it?

If making money is that simple, then why is it that most people don’t succeed in becoming wealthy?

I believe it’s because most people have NO IDEA what kind of value they should be adding, so they end up paralyzed by confusion (not knowing how to move forward) or beating the same old financial freedom drum over and over again doing the same thing (even if it is not working) until they give up or burn out… Sound familiar?

So what’s the Secret to creating wealth?

In my opinion, the secret to wealth creation is discovering your unique VALUE that you can add to the world, and then spreading that value in a way that is enjoyable for you.

If you’re like most people (including me a few years ago), then you probably have no clue where your unique VALUE lies or how to share it with the world, so you’re probably struggling to exchange your potential value for MONEY.

The Good News Is…

There is a way to determine what your unique VALUE is use it to create enormous amounts of wealth, without having to howl at the moon or figure out how to vibrate at the frequency of money.

If you’re interested in learning your unique value, then check out this wealth creation article.

While this article is somewhat tongue in cheek and I am guilty of laughing hysterically while writing it, the concept of exchanging VALUE for MONEY is at the heart of all successful wealth creators. Ignore it at your peril.

To debunking myths and enjoying life,

P.S. If you don’t know how to deliver your value to the world in a way that is natural for you, you’re pretty much screwed when it comes to creating wealth. It’s always going to feel like hard work and be exhausting. Make sure you click this link to learn how you can find out the EASIEST way for you to exchange your value for money. I’ve created a stunning surprise for you at the end of the page.

P.P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts once you’ve found your unique value… Please leave me a comment below.

It was dark and I was driving to the airport to collect two friends visiting me on the island. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a dog running across the freeway…

I slammed on my brakes, trying to keep the car from skidding out of control, but the dog kept running. Seconds later I felt a series of loud thuds followed by shrieks of terror and agony as the dog got dragged underneath my truck.

My heart started racing and time slowed down to a standstill as adrenaline pumped into my veins.

“Oh s#%t”, I thought to myself…

as I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the injured dog writhing in the middle of the freeway.

The dog’s agonized howls penetrated my car even though I had music playing, the windows were shut and I was 100 meters down the road.

I’m not proud to admit it, but my first thought was:

“There’s no way that this dog is going to be alive much longer… Another car will probably hit it again in a few seconds. I’m going to keep driving to the airport, pick up my friends and forget this ever happened…”

I kept driving for another 10 seconds, but the dog’s agonized howls haunted me like the sound of a baby crying for its mother.

I didn’t want to take responsibility for having hit the dog. By most people’s standards, the accident was the dog’s fault and that justifies leaving the dog to die on the side of the road.

I’ll come back to my story in a moment, but before I do, I want to ask you an important question:

Have you ever hurt someone, lied to someone or stolen something and then didn’t own up and
take responsibility for it?

If your mind is telling you that you have never done a thing like that, it’s lying to you.

Think of that time when you hurt someone, lied to someone or stolen something and then didn’t own up and take responsibility for it…

Got it?

Remember the guilty feeling immediately after you did the ‘bad’ thing? You knew you’d done something wrong.

Perhaps the memory of that event gnaws at you the way I could hear the howling dog yelping and see it writhing in the rear view mirror.

Consider for a moment that your “Howling Dog” is your conscience…

It’s your heart trying to tell you to do the right thing, the scary thing, the terrifying act of taking responsibility for your actions.

Think back to your incident again…

Remember how quickly your mind kicked in to shut your Howling Dog up and justify why it was OK not to take responsibility? That’s what our minds do in an attempt to keep us ‘safe’ or out of trouble.

Here’s the problem 99.9% of people don’t admit to themselves:

Whenever you hear or see your Howling Dog and you ignore it, it haunts you unconsciously and slowly, but surely eats away at your aliveness.

First, the guilt makes you tired and lethargic…

Then, as time passes, you forget that the incident ever happened BUT it leaves behind a slow-release poison that begins killing you from the inside out.

You begin feeling emotionally dead inside…

After a while, feeling dead becomes normal and life stops being a fun, joyful experience.

You LOSE the ability to attract good things into your life.

It’s as if your attraction magnet breaks down…

I know that you know what I’m talking about…

After years of silencing or killing your Howling Dogs (i.e. not taking responsibility for your actions and ignoring your conscience)…they KILL YOU – from the inside.

This often manifests as disease in your body or an inability to attract ANYTHING good into your life. It’s as if your life has become poisoned.

If you can relate to this, there is only ONE thing you can do to save yourself.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for your actions TODAY. Otherwise, you’ll wake up tomorrow forgetting you ever read this email and you life will remain DEADENED.

I’m not kidding!

I have a challenge for you today…

I challenge you to call the person you wronged and apologize to them and take responsibility for the impact of your actions.

I challenge you to own up to stealing, lying, cheating or whatever else you’ve done that you’re too scared to take responsibility for.

Start with just ONE thing. The BIGGEST thing. Clean that up first. You know exactly which one I’m talking about… It’s that BIG thing that you’re hiding, afraid someone might find out about.

Why would you want to do this?

Because it’s the only way to truly be FREE.

I fully expect that you won’t actually do what I suggest, because just the thought of it is going to scare the socks off you, BUT if you are up to the challenge then later on I will share a process you can use to clean up the mess seamlessly so you are free from all poisons in your life.

Here’s how I silenced my howling dog…

Somewhere in the middle of this, my heart managed to override my head and I turned the car around to go find the howling dog and take responsibility for hitting the poor little guy.

I was hoping that the dog would be dead by the time I arrived, because I had no idea what I’d do if it was still alive.

I had SO many thoughts, most of which were awful, wondering whether to leave it on the side of the road to die or not. I was so confused.

As I approached the place where I had hit the dog, I saw that the dog was still alive, panting with saliva running down its mouth and a trail of blood marking its agonizing journey dragging itself to the side of the road with its front paws only.

I jumped out of the car and slowly approached the now quiet dog, who looked at me with pleading eyes as if to say, “Please help me”. I could see it was probably a stray dog because it had no name tag.

I stroked its head to calm it down and then picked up the bloody dog in my arms and placed her gently in the back of the truck.

There was NO way in hell I was leaving her there and there was no turning back now.

This choice left me with two challenges:

1. I had no idea where to take a bleeding animal at 9pm on a tiny Caribbean Island and
2. my friends were still waiting outside the airport for me.

I had to act fast because the dog might not live much longer and I wanted to do everything I could to help it.

I was 3 minutes from the airport, so I decided to collect my friends first and figure out what to do with the dog as I drove… Along the way I, called around and found a number of a vet on the island.

Arriving at the airport, I hugged Michelle and Schalk hello and welcomed them to the island, and explained that they needed to sit with their luggage on their laps because there was an animal in the back which needed our help.

15 minutes later we were pulling into the drive of the vet’s surgery.

The vet pinched the dog’s paws and to my surprise, she stayed calm and didn’t make a noise. I thought of how brave she was, only to have my illusion shattered when the vet told me that she was probably paralyzed and that’s why she didn’t react.

He told me he would give the dog painkillers for the night and talk to me in the morning. We agreed that if an owner did not claim the dog by the end of the next day, we would put the dog down.

I was all shaken up and it took me a few hours to calm down and relax after all the adrenaline. I felt sad about the dog, but peaceful about doing the right thing.

The vet called me the next morning and told me nobody had claimed the dog. After much deliberation we agreed that the best thing for her was for her to die peacefully and to put her down. I felt sad for her but knew that it was the right thing for her.

A $500 vet bill (reduced to $250 by the kind receptionist) and a huge learning later, my conscience is now completely clear.

I took responsibility for my part in the accident and now I’m free to return to my life full of joy and free from guilt and remorse.

As I walked along the beach this morning, I thought of her and said a little prayer to thank her for the valuable beautiful lesson she taught me. I wished her well in “Doggie Heaven”, imagined her eating loads of big bones and running around freely on good legs and felt a sense of freedom again.

I’ll never forget the sound of that Howling Dog and it will always be reminding me to listen to my conscience, take responsibility for my actions and keep living the best life I can.

I hope you choose to take me up on my challenge and take responsibility for something in your life that is eating at you. Be FREE from your howling dogs and experience peace and joy in your life.

The Howling Dog Challenge

Here is a process you can use for cleaning up ANY of your Howling Dogs in your life:

1. Grab a pen and write a list of all the crap you’re avoiding dealing with in your life.
2. Next to each item, write down how what you did (or didn’t do) impacted the person you did it to. Don’t stop until you are truly present to how your actions impacted the other person. If no other person was impacted (this is rare), write down how it impacted you.
3. Have a conversation with the person(s) involved and apologize for what you did. You may want to ask them, “What can I do to make this right for you?”
4. Now here is the most important step. Do whatever needs to be done to make it right for the other person.
5. Now, notice how good you feel and how a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. You have taken responsibility for your actions and are free.

Taking responsibility takes courage and I fully expect that you WILL NOT take responsibility for your action you identified above.

I expect your mind is already talking to you telling you why I’m an idiot for suggesting this and why you are better off keeping quiet etc etc blah blah fish paste…

I dare you…

I dare you to take up the Howling Dog Challenge and then leave a comment below this article and let me know what you took responsibility for, what happened and how you feel afterward.

Your friends,

and  Sammy (the name I gave my brave Howling Dog)

P.S. I want to acknowledge Werner Erhard, Brad Blanton and my Howling Dog for inspiring this article.

P.P.S. Take the Howling Dog challenge. It will set you free and allow you to attract BIG things into your life again.

Want to solve ALL your problems in one  go?

Sound like hype? Well, read on…

Earlier this week, I was coaching a friend who struggles to consistently do his visualization exercises each morning.

When I asked him why he struggles, he delivered his usual response, “I have a discipline problem”.

I had to contain myself from laughing as I slowly and deliberately responded with, “Really…”

I quizzed him as to where I could find his “discipline problem” and suggested that he might consider getting it seen to by a doctor!

You get the idea…

Every day we all tell ourselves stories about ourselves and our lives that are complete lies.

My friend does not have a ‘discipline problem’.

If I cut him open and looked inside his head, I am certain that I would not find a ‘discipline problem’.

His ‘discipline problem’ exists only in his thoughts about himself, but not in reality.

I like this example because it perfectly illustrates how we create our world in a very literal way through our thinking. My friend’s thoughts about his imaginary ‘discipline problem’ actually cause him to act in a way that keeps him stuck.

“You Have No Problems”

So how can my friend fix his discipline problem? The first thing I explained to him was that in reality, there was NO discipline problem at all, so in reality there was nothing to fix.

The moment he saw this for himself, I could almost hear the sound of his mind creaking as it expanded to accommodate this new idea. A second later, I saw the lights go ON in his mind and he got it.

My friend saw that each time he listened to his voice in his head telling him to skip his daily visualization session, he sold out on himself and more importantly, he sold out on accomplishing his dreams and living the life that he had recently designed.

My coaching was, “When you stop telling yourself that you have a problem, your problems magically disappear.”

However, if it were that simple, the world would not have ANY problems…

To get rid of ALL your problems, you need to turn your problems into a blessings.

How To Turn Problems Into Blessings

1. Write down and look at all the BENEFITS of your ‘problem’. Write down everything that you have gained out of having your problem.

2. Don’t stop until you are so totally grateful for your problem that you would not want it to go away if you were to forfeit the benefits you get from the problem.

3. Now that you are grateful for your ‘problem’, be sure to visualize the outcome you want EVERY day. The fastest and easiest way to do this is with my Relaxation For Manifestation program.

If you practice this technique in every area of your life, you’ll come to the conclusion that your life is perfect!

• Try doing this with your relationships that don’t work…
• Try it with your financial problem…
• Use it on your weight problem…

If you authentically make this technique a part of your daily thinking, the way you look at your life will radically shift and you can get a brand new life overnight.

Seriously!

Another benefit is that when you truly experience that your life is perfect, you automatically begin attracting BIG miracles at warp speed.

However, unless your mind is programmed to achieve your goals, there ain’t no chance you’re ever going to achieve them. Be sure to check out my Relaxation For Manifestation program. It will put your visualization on steroids.

Till next time, count your blessings.

P.S. If it’s WEALTH that you are after, I still have a few of last week’s special mystery discounts available on my Relaxation For Wealth. Grab one here.

P.P.S. Please leave your comments below.