Let me ask you a serious question: “What do you want in life?”

Do you want financial independence? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to meet the partner of your dreams? Or maybe have a big happy family with a nice house to live in?

Whatever it is that you want from life, the very first step is to get really clear on what your dream looks like. And how can you tell if you have found what it is you would like to achieve? Well, that part is quite easy. You can watch the language of winners and compare it with your own language.

People that are going to be successful have a definite plan for action based on a timeline and an outcome. They are not afraid to fail because they know that each failed attempt is a step closer to success. Andy Nullman once said to his audience: “Jump and grow your wings on the way down.”

 People that are eternal dreamers use words like “someday I will” or “I want to” and “I wish”…

That language gives you a predetermined excuse to failure because dreamers don’t like to loose and learn from their mistakes. And here’s another clue that gives it all away: Someday never comes !

Isn’t it always tomorrow that we want to start our new diet? or tomorrow that we will go to the gym, and save the money we spent at starbucks and start all the other things we ’ WANT’ to do.

Success is not a one day event when everything suddenly goes right and you never look back to how you did things before. Success is a journey and you have to set a definite start today to embark on it or else it is most likely never going to happen.

 If you wish to achieve anything in life you must put a time limit on it. Now don’t be too strict on yourself with this one, but don’t fool around with time either. How many people do you know that have had an idea that they were excited about and then told you about it? probably a few, right?

Then you might have encouraged them to do something about it and asked them about their idea a few months later only to find out that they are still thinking about it? (Well there is a hint of what doesn’t work!)

It is easy to get to the top in life because so few people are trying. Most are giving up at the first sign of a challange coming their way, but this is really just a test of how willing they are to succeed. I’ll let you in on a little secret here: The universe never says no to your plans that are made with belief and conviction, but sometimes it will say to you : NOT YET.

So what have you got to loose other than missing out on success itself? Go on now and get started with something that has been on your mind.

I’ll be here to support you, and I promise you that in the next few weeks I’ll be sharing a few ‘failures’ of my own that turned out to be fantastic successes after all.

I encourage you to send me your comments and share your stories.

Here is a last note of inspiration that I got from a trip to Reno, NV a few years ago. I went to an arts shop and found a little decorative stone there that had the following on it: “What would you do today if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

Think of that rock and take that first step in anything you have been holding back and I promise you it will lead you to a fantastic success if you committ yourself to it.

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With our global population having crossed the 6 billion mark, there is certainly no shortage of people we ‘compete’ with for certain things in life. While the media is very good at pointing that out to us it provides little hope if you subscribe to the lack menatlity of thinking that grips most of society.

If the media were right, then how is it that a few among us should be so lucky to not be affected by the woes of a recession, or that they don’t have a foreclosure letter coming to them from their bank?

I don’t have the answer to all these questions but I will tell you this for sure: last night I went to a high-end restaurant in Nashville and had to wait for over an hour to get a table despite a confirmed reservation.

Anybody who will tell me that the people eating there are affected by the so called recession must be plain naive.

 If that is all true, then what makes the difference between those that are successful and those that are failing? Maybe there is something that they are doing different from the rest of the population that gives them an edge.

And indeed, that is the case! The single most important thing you must do in life is to be true to yourself and find out what you can do better than anybody else.

While that might sound a little crazy at first, it is the only guarantee that you will find success in what you do. Now why is that I can hear you ask…

Well, let me illustrate with a little story: I am very fond of travelling and especially enjoy beautiful hotels. So on one of my travels I found myself in Wichita, Kansas at the Hilton Hotel. A stormy afternoon confined me to my room and I went trough the nightstand for something to read.

I found a copy of a book by Conrad Hilton called “Be My Guest”, which was essentially an autobiography of his life experiences. I absolutely enjoyed the book and finished it in about 3 hours.

The single most paramount factor that helped Hilton succeed during the trying times as a hotel man, was the fact that he had a certain way of doing things.

In short : HE WAS CONRAD HILTON and didn’t try to be anybody else.

Once you accept that all you have to do is choose to be yourself everything will change. You will find your way of expressing yourself in business and in life.

You will find the thing or things that you do better than anybody else and then all you have to do is continue on your path with the firm knowledge in your mind that you will succeed with then successful formula of doing things “Your Way”.

 And when you have reached that point in your mind, something else will soon become very clear. You will realize that despite what you may have been told by your parents or society, you have NOBODY that will be able to compete with you.

Think about it: there are hundreds of hotel chains but there was only ONE Conrad Hilton, there are thousands of singers but there was only ONE Frank Sinatra…

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…Once you have had about 5 days to experience the calm and peacefulness of this exercise, you can begin to move to another step.

In her book “Creative Visualiztion” Shakti Gawain gives a full account of how to write powerful affirmations that will stimulate the mind to prepare itself for a successful future. In my previous post I mentionend the most common one which deals with creating more financial abundance.

Before I give you an example on how to apply the above strategy I want to share something of importance with you. The most crucial step to improving your financial situation actually lies in clearing your limiting beliefs about money which are the real reason you have not been able to attract it so far. The majority of people have no problem with the statement : “I want more money” but when we dig a little deeper they believe many negative things about having money or about how they view rich people.

I won’t endavour to clear all the limiting beliefs that seperate you from having money, but I want you to know about the most im portant one. You have to believe deep inside that you deserve to have the money you intend for. One way to speed up this process is to spend the money on things you care about before you actually have it. By this I mean to go and play the money game that I have outlined in a previous post. It will help ease your mind and facilitate the exercise I am about to describe.

Now back to the original exercise: once you are in your meditation and you have a quiet mind, it can be veiwed as a blank slate for you to create anything from. Deepak Chopra has called this the “infinite field of potentiality” in many of his works. Any intention that is introduced into this field will manifest itself in proportion to your subconscious being ready to receive what you are asking for.

That means that if you state a sentence such as : “I am now making more than $ 5,000 a month from my work and I deserve it” you have effectively managed to create a fertile ground for this intention to become a reality.

What is very important for you to do now, is to continue with your mindfulness meditation on a daily basis and be consistent in your affirmation. If your mind has no or little experience with this it may take some time before you see results but I can promise you this patience is well worth it and as you get better at it, manifesting money or anything else you intend for will become an easy and fast process.

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The other day I wrote about setting your dreams high enough to have something to aspire to, and today I’ll follow up to that post with another priceless secret.

Most people have actually no idea what it means to fully focus on their dreams and intentions. Or worse, they might not even really know what it is they want from life and thus wander around with many ideas but their lack of a broader plan will keep them in misery.

For sake of arguement I want to focus on those of you that have a dream in somewhat defined form, and to make things a bit more concrete, let me pick the most common intetion i have come across by far: “I intend to have more money.”

I understand that money is not everything in life and that there are so many other beautiful things we can focus on, however most people would still go for money first and all the other things they could potentially get with money after that.

So here is what I need you to do:

Find a quiet space where you are sure not to be disrupted for about 5 minutes or so.

Sit comfortably, or lie down if you wish and close your eyes.

Now all I need you to do is breathe and focus all your mind’s attention on that action.

You will invariably notice that your mind wanders all over the place, and that is ok…

When it does, simply bring it back by focusing on only your breathing.

If you can committ to doing this for about 5 days without missing a day and can last for about 5 minutes each day without your mind wandering, you have already mastered the foundation of attracting things into your life.

The next step will be a simple addition of a carefully worded intention…but I’ll be writing about that tomorrow in a seperate post.

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I vividly remember the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger from a few years ago when he told a reporter that there is no sense in being modest with your dreams. To the contrary, he has always followed the philosophy that you have to have a few dreams in the bank because sooner or later you will fulfill one and nothing is gonna burst your bubble faster than having no dreams to chase.

Last I checked, Schwarzenegger had pretty much fulfilled enough dreams for a few human lifetimes. He went from a teenage bodybuilder in Austria to Governor of California in a mere three decades or so.

Another one of my favorite examples is Richard Branson, who bet his shirt a few times over, and built up a few companies such as Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic and now a little phone comany offering just about the coolest mobile phone system I have ever used. He became a billionaire - but not by being modest.

There are two main elements I want to hit on with my post today that will get you started on being a master visionary/ or a full dreamer with a vision to go for.

1) Don’t bother with the small stuff keeping you busy every day while you follow the system we like to call ’society’. Go big on your dreams. If it stretches your imagination, you have a good start. If you ever had a conversation with your parents or close friends and they told you there was no way something you felt passionate about could be done - BINGO - you hit the nail on the head and just found yourself a dream for the vision vault.  Notice I said ‘vault’ ? Dreams and visions are cool, but chances are few people will support you in your path in the beginning so it would be wise to protect you dream.

2) If you have no idea at all on how you are gonna do what you dream about, don’t worry. Les Brown once told me at a speaking event: “It’s none of your business how you’re gonna do it. So just be hungry and go for it.” The rest will take care of itself.

I found that to be true. Over the last few years I have been witness to marvelous dreams becoming reality. Some were my own, some were of people I knew , but all seemed too good to be true to society.

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Let me tell you a little story about a problem I have been having: The last car I bought was a lovely VW Golf back in ‘99 , and although I adore that car and it may very well be built to last forever, I starting feeling the need for a newer car.

That said I have been browsing websites, papers and have visited at least three dozen car dealerships in search for the right fight. To no avail. For about two years I managed to procrastinate and simply told myself that surely this time was the last repair I was going to pay for before I would sell or trade in my VW. It got so bad at one point that a good friend of mine even told me the last few repair bills were higher than the actual value of the vehicle.

I thought I was doing great with my half-hearted search efforts mainly because I managed to keep myself busy instead of actually moving towards my intended new car. Enough is enough, something had to change. But what was I doing wrong. Having read and applied a few rules of setting a clear intention and then simply letting go of the outcome while fully trusting that the results would be there I surrendered to the basic principles of the Law of Attraction.

The missing element was clearly the fact that I had no clarity in my intentions on what I was really looking for. Simply having the idea in my head that one day I was going to buy a car that would be the perfect fit in every way was not enough to set the wheels of the universe in motion.

So, here is the list I made for myself regarding the car I intended to find:

 2003 Model or newer

Toyota Corolla, Matrix or RAV4

75,000 km or less

A/C is a must have

no silver, red or green car

single owner

local car

no ex-rental vehicle

no accidents

$ 12,000 or less

Being very proud of my list, I lokked at it a few more minutes on the Thursday I wrote it and then simply folded it and put it into my desk drawer. The very next Saturday, I set out to find my perfect car in one day of shopping. For those of you that didn’t yet read my ‘About’ page, I am German and we tend to take cars very seriously.

My girlfriend and I drove to about three dealerships without any convincing leads and the day was moving by quickly. Then we stopped by another seller only to find out that all they sell for used cars are vehicles with accidents that have been fixed up to look good as new. Getting slightly frustrated I wanted to try one more lot, but they were hard to find and so we ended up parking in an adjacent car lot instead. The sales guy was about ready to pack up for the day, but decided to speak to us anyways.

And that was a good move…

In the back of his lot, hidden behind countless other cars was a white Corolla that looked as good as new from where we stood. So Iasked about my must have’s and it turns out the car made the cut. After a short test drive and a look under the hood, I took only about 15 minutes total to buy this car, get it insured and drive home with it. We were obviously happy to have found something that day, but the true realisation hit me the next day when I cleaned up my desk drawer.

Here I had the original list of the intentions I had communicated to my subconscious mind and as I went through it I couldn’t help but feel overhwhelmed by the accuracy of its manifestation:

We had bought a

2003

Toyota Corolla

70,500 km

with A/C

in white

from a single owner

local to our province

it was not an ex-rental

accident free

for $10,000

Imagine that without me even looking at that list while we were shopping or consulting it after the initial time I had written it. Now that was truly amazing.

The lesson here is as simple as it is profound - Never underestimate the magic of clarity ! It changes everything when you get clear on what you want and then simply set it and forget it. (At least consciously).

So next time you are getting to a point of frustration with anything in life:

Take a piece of paper, get clear and then let the universe handle the rest. It may take you more than one Saturday to manifest what you intend for, but I am here to tell you it works every time and always delivers.

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Dr. Wayne Dyer once said these words that change everything about our reality. He told his audience: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Take a second to read that again and then tell me you are not at least a bit curious about this statement. I know I was when I first heard it. Does this mean I can actually have a say in what happens to me? Better yet, can I control ‘MY OWN’ reality?

And indeed that’s what he meant, because once you understand the profoundness and the depth of this truth, it will change your life and turn it upside down. When was the last time you felt that all things are pointed against you. Did you ever think that there is nothing you can do to change the world around you because you are just ‘one’ person and there are so many unknown factors?

What if I told you that against the seemingly staggering odds of you affecting anything in this world, there is a surprising and simple way to change what you experience ? Would you be cusrious to know a bit more ?

Of course you would.

Reality is a subjective experience for each of us, which explains why one and the same objective experience can prompt people to have completely different labels for that experience.  Let’s take a simple example to illustrate my point on that: Imagine you are waiting at a bus stop and the bus is late. That is a common experience most of us had in our lives. Now imagine that one person is putting the label on this event that says: “I hate the fact that the bus is late because it will cause me to waste my time here while I could be doing something else. ” The other person looks at the SAME event with a different label and thinks positively: “I don’t mind that the bus is a bit slower today because I have an interesting book with me and since I’m in the middle of the chapter, I’ll probably get a chance to finish this one while I am waiting. ”

As you can see from this example, the choice in the label is what decides whether we have a positive or a negative experience. Let me give you a quick story from my own life that just might convince you. A couple of years ago I rented the two top floors of a large old house in an area that had some problems with frequent break-ins. It wasn’t really a bad area of the city, but because most houses had lots of lush greenspace and there wasn’t too much street-lighting, it was an easy neighborhood for thieves.

In that house there also was a basement unit that had a seperate entrance around the side of the garden. That unit waqs home to the teenage son of the homeowner and a friend of his and shortly after they moved in they ended up with a puppy. It wasn’t a small dog either, they had gotten a Rottweiler. Within a few months the dog had grown and slept outside in the yard. All along the dog was fairly noisy at night, scratching, whining and at times barking at a squirrel in the bushes. At first that bothered me since the favorite area where the dog slept was right below my bedroom window and sleep was only possible with a few interruptions. So what to do about the noisy dog ?

One day, I decided to reconsider my options in the matter and looked at the situation in a different way. I no longer viewed the dog as a nightly nuissance because of the noise, and instead I was thankful that we had such a large dog to guard the property at night. Suerely, if I can hear the dog, everyone else could too, and no burglar would be dumb enough to climb over a gate straight into the yard of a male Rottweiler. And here is the amazing thing that happened right after that decision. 

I never once had a noise issue with the dog again. It was in the yard every night and did it’s rounds, but there was little barking, scratching or other disruptions to my sleep. I actually slept much better than before becaue my mind was made up that we were not going to have a break-in at this place due to an attentive watchdog that I had embraced as part of the household.

There is an element of the subconscious mind that makes a switch and suddenly you see the world around you with a different filter. You may argue that nothing has changed to the outside observer, but I am here to tell you that it doesn’t even matter because the only reality that will matter to you is the subjective experience of it.

I suggest you make a list of things that are currently weighing on your mind and then see if you can’t find a shred of good in each of them. Once you have that anchor, rewrite each with the new label and then throw out the page with the old issues. You will be amazed at what regular practise of this simple strategy can do to improve your life every day.

Over time, the new way of thinking will take hold in your subconscious mind and you will default to positive interpretations of your reality shedding the burden of being a victim of your daily life and taking control of your reality.

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Money makes the world go ’round, and it also is on most people’s mind for one reason or another for the better part of the day. I would be willing to bet that most thoughts we have with regard to money are in a negative context. We worry that we don’t or won’t have enough of it to be happy or simply to pay our bills and have a little left over at the end of the month.

Do all of us feel that way, or is there a person that doesn’t have those worries? If there is, they surely must be ‘filthy’ rich and that is why they can afford not to worry about it. Or maybe they were given a lot of money by their parents and thus if they should run out, they can simply go back to them and get more.

I am writing this post today to dispell that thinking and show you the most important difference between those worried about money and those that re not. You will be surprised to find out that it has nothing to do with how much you already have or who is supplying you with it.

If I look at my own experience of interacting with rich people and poor ones, there is a consistent pattern that both groups have. I have never met a rich person that is truly worried about money, but almost all poor people are. You may think this is an obvious statement, but hear me out first.

So does this mean that those worried about money are poor because of it, or are starting to worry about it precisely because they are poor in the first place? And , likewise, are those comfortabble with money rich because of it, or are they somehow rich first and simply have grown so used to it that it makes sense to stop the worry?

I am here to argue that the state of mind preceedes the appearence of the reality we live in and that is particularly true about money. If you are comfortable around money and are open to making more of it - guess what, that is what will happen to you. On the other hand, if you are constantly worried about the lack of money, you are programming your mental computer (your subconscious) to keep you in that lack of things.

Thus you will not find the same opportunities for making money as an abundant thinker. Should such a person happen to come across a large amount of money, chances are they would manage to loose that amount which puts them right back to square one. After all, isn’t this were they are comfortable ?

Now what would you say, if I told you there is an easy way to accustom your subconscious mind to think in the way the rich do? What if I further told you that you can actually get yourself into the state of ‘being welathy’ without having to make any changes to your current income level or even spending a dime? Would you be interested in following this plan? I bet you would.

So here is what I need you to do:

1) Take a piece of paper and a pen and write your current income from your paycheck per month (after taxes) on the top of the page. (Don’t worry about writing down the cents for now! )

2) Next I want you to add one (1) additional zero after the last digit you have written down. So if you are currently bringing home $ 1,800 per paycheck the that becomes $ 18,000 for you.

3) Now I want you to go and spend that money in your mind by writing out exactly what you would buy and how much that costs you. Be creative and use realistic prices that you may see in a store.

At the end of that little exercise you should be looking at a sheet of paper that has a starting amount at the top and close to zero left at the end of the month near the bottom. You subtract each purchase from the total and you cannot spend more than you have. You can save some or invest some but as a rule of thumb, at least 80% should be spent on your sheet.

Now I can hear you asking: What is this gonna do to make me rich? The short answer - this is one of you most important lessons that build a foundation of wealth. Rich people are not afraid to spend their money, not all of it but certainly a lot. The more your mind gets used to this ‘imaginary’ spending, the more it will ease up on the lack mentality and shift over to wealth thinking. Wealthy people know that spending money creates more money flowing to them in turn.

The other aspect of this ‘money game’ is to trick you subconscious into operating a budget with larger numbers than you are currently used to. The mind cannot distinguish between actually spending that money or simply pretending to do so. Over the course of a few weeks and months that you play with this game, you will be surprised at the changes your mind makes towards money.

Try it out for yourself and let me know what happened for you.

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Yesterday morning was unlike most other Saturday mornings in the summer. I woke up completely refreshed and ready to jump into my day. It would be exciting for sure since I was looking forward to my ride on the floatplane to visit my family on nearby Vancouver Island.

It is the Canada Day long weekend, and with July 1st falling on a Tuesday this year, most workerbees stamped out early and left town either the Thursday or Friday. The reason I am stressing this is because I have never in the 10 years I lived in Vancouver had such a surreal exparience roaming through downtown because it was like an empty movie set.

Imagine a blue sky without any trace of a cloud, perfect high twenties temperature and NOBODY here to distract from enjoying it. It felt like sneaking into DisneyWorld before the park opens and having all the rides to yourself. Awesome experience! I was wandering from the bus stop over to the floatplane terminal which is about a 20 minute walk and it was serenely quiet. Sitting on a cool shaded park bench I looked up at the amazing architecture and the sun rays bouncing off the ocean less than one block away. Life moves in slow motion or so it seemed and you can hear yourself think and breathe.

So, next time you get a chance at going to a place when all the people have left to line up elsewhere, just try it and you will thank yourself by having the most amazing day. I promise it works…

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You may have already heard that whatever you focus on expands. While that statement is certainly true from my own experience, simply having a rough idea what you want to achieve may not be clear enough to get you the desired results.

Especially when you are tapping into the Law of Attraction tool set, it may be wise to take the following approach: When you set a goal it’s usually only including one of two possible outcomes. If I were to use a sports analogy for soccer, you can only either miss the goal or score one. With manifestation there are actually a multitude of outcomes possible and most of the time the outcome looks nothing like our mind initially imagines it.

If you set the goal of making $10,000 next month because you are currently only making $3,000 and once the month is up you only found yourself having $ 6000 in your bank account, you would have to admit that you missed your goal by a wide shot.

Now if you had set an intention to make significantly more money next month than last month and you found yourself with $ 6000,- at the end of that month, most people would agree that your intention is actually working. Intentions are more like a direction forwrd rather than a specific road that you are willing to take. Meaning, that setting an intention will help you allow for more flow and less restrictions on how the universe can serve you.

A law, by definition, always works for you no matter what, but it doesn’t always work the same way for everybody who applies it. Thus, leaving the universe the flexibilty to give you what you asked for but in a form and measure that you have little choice over is one of the great keys to seeing the magic of Intention- Manifestation at work.

If you would like more in depth info on this subject there are plenty of good books out there to read, and I can warmly recommend the title ‘Creative Visualization’ by Shakti Gawain. It answered a lot of questions I had and will put you on a step by step path to harness the power of conscious intention setting for you with a bit of persistence and practise.

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