One of the most common questions I get asked about the Law of Attraction is how well it works for different things in life. Can you manifest a car? A spouse? A million dollars? The short answer to this is “Yes, you can absolutely manifest all those things and more.”

Then why is it, I hear you asking that not many people seem to be good at creating their perfect scenario on life and the vast majority seem to be chasing a dream that eludes them forever?

And there is an answer for that, too. The Law of attraction always works, no matter what. The wishing well of the universe is always on, so there is no time or instance in which it doesn’t work. That being said, most of us are not deliberately living our lives, because we keep unconsciously recreating the same stuff over and over.

How then do we actually know if we are a vibrational match to attract what we really want? That’s the easy part. If you had the right vibration to attract money, that money would be available to you right now. If you had the right vibration to attract a car of your dreams, that car would be in your driveway today.

The key is to observe this before we endavour on any new manifesting sprees, because without that clarity of our present capabilities we will keep spinning our wheels for a long time to come.

Look for a follow-up to this post with a more in depth focus on the law of attraction in the next few days.

And don’t forget to leave a comment and join the conversation since the best learning in life usually comes from the experiences of out peers.

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I have had my fridge for a number of years now and often times when I openend the door to take something out, I caught myself focusing on the big Energy sticker inside. You know which one that is, it’s the sticker that tells you how much electricity your fridge uses in an average year.

The number in my fridge is quoted at 651 kWh per year. My next question to that statement is: What does that actually mean? If my fridge takes 651 and all other ones you can buy today with similar size and features only use 500 that must mean I am wasting energy, right?

I am drawing the analogy to personal growth here because it dawned on me what I had just understood. You cannot compare anything unless you are comparing it to the right things. And that is where most people go wrong in life and in measuring themselves.

Firstly, I am a big advocate of creating a little competition to get fired up, but when you compare results in your personal growth, do yourself a favor and don’t compare them to other people. The reason you are keeping score is for yourself and not to get jealous or get sidetracked from your progress. In short, measure any improvement against where you started and compare that to where you are at today.

What is the best way of doing that? I would suggest you get a journal and see if you can committ to a daily routine of writing for maybe 10-15 minutes at first. If that seems too much, try writing for 3 days in a row and then take a 3 day break. Just like most other things in life, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Eventually it will become second nature almost like eating, which is a very persistent habit that most of us reinforce about 3 times per day.

When you journal, it’s important to keep a date and maybe another reference point for yourself, because to measure your progress, it’s often great to be able to go back and give yourself a reminder that you have already achieved so much more than you give yourself credit for.

Lastly, I recommend being easy on yourself especially in the beginning. Set your intentions, start to manifest and let them unfold in your reality. The best part is that you get to celebrate your success along the way.

And much like your fridge, when it comes time to reach a better level of saving energy or upgrading, you will have to invest a little to get that new result. In Personal growth you invest in yourself and the outcome will be with you for good.

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Why we do what we do

Our world of human behaviour is not a rational one. That can be seen as bad, because it makes bahvious hard to explain and predict. Or it could be a blessing, because it allows us to create Psychology and other studies that produce a ton of books on this topic each one promising to unlock the deeper secrets of our brain and emotional driving forces.

So what then is it that explains what we do? If humans were rational then a certain cause would always have a certain effect, and that effect would be a guaranteed outcome every time. In other words, if you do A you are guaranteed to get B as a result.

In the world of Science that may hold true, but when you introduce our brain and emotions into to equation it’s all different. So then, how can I claim in my headline that there is only a few simple things needed to win? Well, let me illustrate.

In Sports there is the clock that often seperates the first place winner from the runner up by mere thousands of a second. Or it’s a tenth of an inch that decides over victory versus being on the back bench. The difference between top stop and second is arguable very, very tiny.

On the flip side, however, the ’payoff’ the winner receives is almost exponentially larger than that given to the 2nd spot. Tiger Woods is slated to cross the billion dollar line in career earnings next year, while most PGA tour players will mostly break even for the year.

Let’s cut to the chase

In 99% of all of us, we know exactly what we would need to do to get ahead. But we don’t do it because we think that success is so far away that we can forsee years of slavery to our profession or calling before we get to reap the rewards. I’m here to tell you that is bogus.

Everything in nature (of which we are part as a human race by the way) grows in a non-linear fashion. It grows exponentially. Said differently, if you simply had to put in one more hour, or send on more email or do one more thing to improve yourself and your ‘product’  and deeply held the belief that it would put you over the top to spark that exponential growth, would you do it?

OF COURSE YOU WOULD !

Allow me to quickly give you an example from the blogging world. Darren Rowse over at Problogger has a little survey on his blog that asks this: “How Many Posts Did You Publish On Your Main Blog In May?”

Are you ready for the results? Here they are: Out of 10 possible answer ranges from zero to 81+ the overwhelming majority of nearly 1900 votes posted a whooping 1-10 posts in the whole month of May. I think that says a lot right there. Even more astonishing is the fact that 71 % or respondents have not hit the one post a day for their main blog and are topping out between 21-30 per month.

So if you ever wondered why 10 % of the bloggers make about 90 % of the money out there, here is your answer.

Want to turn this around in your favour?  

It’s easy - really!

Just follow the simple philisophy of one per day. Do one more targeted thing than the day before, or apply one more small idea. The results, I promise you, will not be simply one more dollar from this exercise, but over time they will create an unsurmountable lead that propels you to the top. Growth is exponential, your input is marginal.

Have fun winning !

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Let me be very clear about this right up front: I am NOT telling you that sharing is a bad idea - because it is not. I am also not telling you that charity is a bad idea - because it is not. What I am going to address in this posting is a more subtle but equally widespread tweak if you will, that could be the difference between financial independence and neverending poverty for YOU.

But first, a little story. A good friend and coach of mine, once told me about her background in Software support to merchants and end users. She was in a service oriented business and would answer various questions to troubleshoot issues for her callers.

One day she decided that it would make sense for her to adjust her rates and increase them, because she felt that she was always busy and many clients called back to ask her fos advise again and again. Since she was not the manager she sat down with her boss and informed him of her rate increase. At this point, not only did the manager not object to this idea, but none of the clients even mentionend that they were unhappy with the higher rates.

As a matter of fact she was even busier than before, except now getting higher pay for her time and expertise.

In Blogging and in many other business ventures, whether online or offline, some of use choose to get paid for our time and others for our performance. If you ever intended to really succeed in any business you have to know what you are worth to others and be prepared to charge them that rate. I know that this seems really obvious, but for every successful website I looked at in the past month I found at least 5 that are not ever going to make it in the way they are set up and run.

I’m not talking about the design, flashy code or banner spots. What I mean is a simple page that let’s people know the rates for advertising, reviews promotions and other services. You have to  remember that the customer will generally take the lazy route to get what they want from you. So if you have a clear and confident pricing structure with available space or time and an easy way to pay for it, you are half way home.

 And here is one other point that I cannot stress enough: Don’t be afraid to charge people for something that you are good at. Don’t pretend you are a charity, or that you are not worth the full price for some reason or another. I’ll let you in on a little secret from a marketing maverick that I greatly admire. His name is Donny Deutsch and he currently has a show on TV called “The Big Idea”. His background is the CEO spot of a large advertising firm so you better take note of his advise, since it’s battle tested.

He said: “When I submitted a proposal to a client, I always made sure that we were priced at the top of the competition. Firstly, because I knew we did great work and had success to back it up, and secondly because we could always negotiate and come down a little if the client had concerns or requests.”

I think that is a great philosophy that is totally underused today. How many times do you see businesses compete on the lowest this and the lowest that? Enough already ! If you are giving top tier value, charge a top tier price and leave the competition in the dust.

Everything else is leaving money at the table, and in my opinion, that giving your money away where you don’t have to.

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Congratulations on making it to this page. I’m proud of you. The reason I say this is because most people have the faint wish or idea to improve something in their life but will never take action.

Others have identified what they would like to change or at least confirmed that they would like to change something, and thus go to educate themselves on what can be done about it.

And this is where I come in with my blog. I’m not perfect - far from it, but I would like to share my experiences and my resources with you. What the majority of people in life fail to realize is that it takes determined and consistent action to achieve almost anything.

There is no such thing as a free lunch or “buy this book for 99,- and make millions tomorrow without any effort.” However, on the flipside most people also don’t give themselves credit for how far they have already gone towards a goal and thus burn out from frustration before they get to see the sweet payoff.

Today I will keep post very brief, but I want to give you a pat on the back for anything that you have achieved already, whether you know it or not. Keep doing what feels right and remember that you are often closer to the finish line than you think.

Let’s celebrate success and motivate you and those around us not to stop before the finish line.

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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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