True Wealth

Earlier this Spring I went to a very inspiring program that the elementary school did for their janitor. Mr. Harvey had been at the elementary school since 1997. At 76 years old, he retired earlier this year. The kids (and staff and parents) miss him terribly.

I can’t imagine that an elementary school janitor makes very much money. I don’t know if Mr. Harvey had a different career, and then became a school janitor to supplement his retirement money, but here is what I know about Mr. Harvey:

Every day I saw him at the school he really seemed to want to be there. He was always happy and definitely loved his job.

The kids loved him! They were all so sad that he retired. They all wrote him notes and delivered them to him. In addition to those notes, my Kindergarten daughter informed me that during “free choice,” everyone in her Kindergarten class made things for Mr. Harvey.

He loves the children. There isn’t a child in that elementary school who didn’t know Mr. Harvey.

He had an amazing singing voice. You could often hear him in the morning singing as he set up the tables in the cafeteria. He would also sing at school functions.

He worked hard. More than once I had to track him down and ask him to help me with something at the last minute. He never complained. He was always happy to help out!

When Mr. Harvey entered the cafeteria for his special retirement program, everyone spontaneously gave him a standing ovation. He was a great man who worked hard and loved what he did. And he was happy.

I came home that day and found some wealth tips in my inbox. As I listened to them I couldn’t help but think that Mr. Harvey gave me my best wealth tip of the day. Do what you love and love what you do. Spend every day being as happy and helpful as you can. Brighten up another’s day. Treat everyone with respect. Work hard. Never hesitate to help another human being – don’t complain about it either because one of our greatest privileges in life is being able to serve others.

I feel wealthier already! Do you know someone like Mr. Harvey — someone who may not make a whole lot of money, but really seems to prove that you don’t have to have money to be wealthy?  Please comment below and share the story of the “wealthy” person you know!

Magic Question – Part 3 of 3

Earlier this year I was on a marketing call that was so much more than a marketing call! It was more about getting rid of clutter and getting to the bottom of who we really are.

The speaker introduced me to this powerful 4-word question: “So I can what?” Use it over and over again until you find out what is really important to you. For example, if you say that money is important to you, you would follow it up with “So I can what?” If you say spend more time with your family, then again you would follow it up with “So I can what?” You keep asking this over and over until you get to the very bottom of what you want.

In my case, I got to “connecting with people,” and couldn’t think of an answer to the question, even though I was pretty sure I could go deeper. He advised me to just stay with that answer for a while and keep asking myself the magic question until I got an aha! After the call, I got the aha! and was able to go down even deeper! I love connecting with people so I can share knowledge! I love to teach and to learn, and that is what gets me really, really excited! Now I will stay with “teach and learn,” and perhaps one day I will have another aha! and go even deeper!

The cool thing is that when you get that deep inside you, you realize that what you really, really want, you already have! And it will be something that will always be with you — and cannot be bought or sold with money. It will not depend on popularity or on others agreeing with you. It is who you are at the very core!

The closer you get to who you really are, the less fear you will have in your life! How cool is that?

Magic Question – Part 2 of 3

Many of us spend a lot of our lives in resistance. We are pushing so hard against what we don’t want that we are actually creating it! You may even know that you are in resistance, but you don’t know how to get out of it!

Resistance often leads to self-judgment or judging others. I had an experience where I was really feeling bad about a particular relationship in my life; in fact, I was beating myself up because of these bad feelings I have been carrying these past years. Finally I backed up and said, “Isn’t it interesting that I feel this way about this person?” Immediately, all resistance, stress, judgment, and negative emotion left me. We know that “that which we resist, persists,” but that concept had never been so clear to me as it was on that day.

And the magic question that dispelled the resistance was “Isn’t it interesting that…?” It totally allowed me to look at the situation in a different light. And then I followed it up with the first magic question: “How can I…?” “What can I do differently…?”

For example: “Isn’t it interesting that my son always pushes my buttons?” “Isn’t it interesting that I have 6 hours’ worth of work, and only 3 hours to accomplish it?” “Isn’t it interesting that I got upset when that driver cut me off?” “Isn’t it interesting that I need $1,000 for an unexpected bill, and I don’t have any extra money in my account?”

And then when you’ve removed the resistance and judgment, it’s easier to follow those questions up with “How can I have a peaceful and fulfilling relationship with my son?” [spend time with him doing things he enjoys] “How can I accomplish 6 hours’ worth of work in the next 3 hours?” [Maybe some of it can be done another day; maybe some of it can be delegated; maybe a simpler process will come to you] “How can I be at peace while I drive?” “How can I attract an extra $1,000 in the next couple of months?” [Maybe I can do a week-long summer camp for Preschoolers or elementary school students – or drama – or dance – or piano]

It’s been fun to see how “interesting” my problems really are!

I’m curious to see how it works for you, too! Won’t it be “interesting” to see if it works for you, too?

Magic Question – Part 1 of 3

I have learned that when I ask better questions, I get better answers! There are open-ended questions (an infinite possibility of answers) and there are closed-ended questions (yes or no). Using a closed-ended question (one that has a very specific answer) is like searching the hard drive of your computer. You are very limited in the number of answers that are available. Using an open-ended question is like searching the internet – the number of answers available are infinite, and it’s possible that you will find an answer you never would have thought on your own.

This week we are going to explore the power of using open-minded questions in our self-talk, and in our talk with other people. I call these magic questions.

The first magic question is using words like “How…” or “What if…” instead of “Why…” or “Am I…”.

So instead of asking “Why am I always broke?” or “Am I ever going to lose weight?”, try asking questions like: “How can I double my income this next year?” or “What is one thing I can do differently that will greatly increase my financial outlook?” or “How can I change the way I view my body/weight loss?” or “What is something I can do differently to achieve a healthier body?”

Try it out! I would love to hear the experiences you have with this!

What makes you real?

This is one of my favorite all-time quotes from a lady who I really look up to and admire, Marjorie Hinckley:

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”

Take some time today and think about — and WRITE DOWN — some of the great things you do all the time that make you a real person! Focus on all the great things you do, and you will start to see what an amazing person you really are!!!

We are Real!

I love it when certain themes keep coming up for me over and over! Then I know I really need to pay attention and learn from them! One theme that has been coming up for me a lot lately is how we see ourselves. So that’s what I’m going to blog about this week.

Most of you know that I recently lost 30 pounds. I hate that when I look in the mirror instead of celebrating the 30 pounds I have lost, I often feel myself getting discouraged over the 30 pounds I still need to lose. How many times do we look in the mirror and see the one or two less-than-perfect features on our bodies, while we totally overlook our beauty?

The media is lying to us when they tell us what the perfect woman is supposed to look like. They use tricks like lighting, angles, photo-shopping, etc to enhance the looks of the models. We were never meant to look like that — we were meant to look like what we see when we look in the mirror!

A picture is worth a thousand words so I’m going to stop talking now and let you watch this instead:

Ego vs. Love

If you are like me, you have probably noticed that sometimes these principles work really well, and sometimes they don’t seem to work as well! When I first started learning these principles, this really frustrated me because I know these principles work!

Then I realized that it makes a huge difference if my motive is based in ego (impressing others, proving to myself I can do it, worrying about what others think of me, doubting that I can really do it, etc) or in love (wanting to help others, being connected to God, knowing that with God all things are possible, being grateful for all I have).

It’s basically another way of looking at competitive vs. creative. Sometimes the ego is pretty subtle. I have thought some of my motives were noble, but when I really stopped and evaluated I realized I was too concerned about what others thought or I was too worried to truly be coming from a place of love…

Becoming

Several months ago I heard someone talking on the Oprah show. She was talking about making a list of all the qualities you want in a future companion, and how helpful it could be. (Even if you are married, you could take these same principles and apply them in other areas of your life.)

I always smile when people talk about these lists, because I made a list like that several years ago. I listed 67 qualities I wanted in my future husband. I marked the qualities that were essential with an “E” and I marked the ones that would be nice with a “W” (for wants).

But, this is the important thing I did that no one mentions, and I believe this is the reason it works for some people and not others! It makes me crazy that the “experts” leave out this all-important step: When I finished writing the list, I looked at it and said, “Now I need to become this person.” And I went to work becoming the very person I described in my list!

When I met my husband, I knew on my first date that I could marry him. I was 26 years old, and had never felt that before – I was a skeptic, and definitely not a believer in “love at first sight”. So I was really surprised when I came home from that first date and knew with a certainty that I could marry him. Now I realize that I was in vibration with the person I had described and immediately recognized it (for those of you who are religious, I recognize that the Spirit bore witness to me that night, but I also believe that it did because I had prepared myself to receive the answer). I lost the list long before I met my husband, but my husband definitely has all the qualities I remember being on the list (the wants as well as the essentials).

In “As a Man Thinketh” James Allen said: “Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”

There is a big difference between wanting a million dollars and becoming a millionaire. The wanting is just idle dreaming; the becoming requires inspired, consistent action towards a goal/vision (which, of course, requires the goal/vision to begin with). Applying it to my personal example above, there is a big difference between wanting a great partner, and defining what a great partner is and working to become a great partner yourself!

Belief and Gratitude

Before we go on to the next law of success, I want to spend a little more time on belief and gratitude — these two things can make all the difference in your success! Belief and gratitude speed up the creation process; doubt and fear reverse the creation process.

Belief.
To speed up the creation process, we need to increase the level of belief in our dream, getting rid of all doubt and fear. It helps to have a huge goal that drives and excites us (we will talk about how important that excitement is in a later post)! But when it comes to taking inspired action steps towards accomplishing that goal, it works better to break it up into small, believable steps.

Stephen R. Covey put it this way: “…there is no shortcut. If I am at day two (to use the analogy of the six days of creation) and desire to move to day six, I must go through days three, four, and five. If I pretend to be at day six in order to impress others, eventually I will be found out… I must move through each of the intervening steps. If I try to push too hard or to go too fast in order to shortcut the process, I may… drop back to day one.” (The Spiritual Roots of Human Relations, p.14-15)

Your dream should be so big that you have no idea how you will ever accomplish it! Your goals, on the other hand, should be broken down into believable steps, each step building on the previous step.

For example, your dream may be to be a millionaire. Maybe you’ve never made more than $40,000 per year in your life. The thought of $1,000,000 totally excites you, but you have no idea how to get $1,000,000 (or you would already have it). If your goal is to make $1,000,000 it will be totally frustrating because you don’t know how to do it. But you could probably think of ways to increase your income from $40,000 per year to $50,000 per year. Once you are on track to do that, then you can probably find ways to increase to $75,000 per year. Then $100,00 per year. Then once you have seen success in making these leaps, you can start taking bigger leaps! These leaps don’t have to take a year — for some people each of these steps may take a couple of weeks, and for others they may take at least a year.

Always ask open-ended questions while you are going through this process. Using the example above, let’s suppose you have never made more than $40,000 per year, and you would like to increase that to $50,000 per year. If you ask a yes/no question like: “Is it possible for me to make $50,000 per year?” then you will go into an analytical mode and you will calculate that you have never made more than $40,000 per year. Your conclusion will be that “No,” you can’t make $50,000 per year.

Try asking a question like this instead: “How can I make $50,000 per year?” or “What can I do do increase my income by $10,000 per year?” Instead of going into analytical mode, this type of question will take you into creation mode where you start creating solutions and ways to accomplish your goal!

Gratitude.
Gratitude works with belief to speed up the creation process. I have unsuccessfully tried keeping gratitude journals in the past. Then I heard someone speak about a journal they kept where every day they recorded how God’s hand had blessed them that day. I started doing this, and it completely transformed my life! I found that acknowledging God’s hand in my life every day increased my awareness of how rich and blessed my life already was. This new awareness and knowledge automatically increased the amount of gratitude I was feeling!

Gratitude is a very high vibration (we will talk about the Law of Vibration in a later post), and when we are in a state of gratitude we automatically attract great things to us! When the right teachers and situations are finding us, we are able to more quickly and easily accomplish our dreams!

Live Your Life on Purpose

I have always known I had a specific life purpose, and yet for years I lived with doubt, fear, and worry. Part of me had goals, dreams, and ambitions and part of me was self-sabotaging all my efforts to live that great life.

Several years ago, I started a journey to discover how I could live the great life that I knew I was capable of. My journey to re-discover my dreams has been one of re-discovering passion and joy! It has taken me on many twists and turns that I never could have possibly anticipated. My journey has introduced me to so many great coaches, mentors, teachers, and friends!

It is now my passion and joy to share these life-changing, joy-creating principles with as many people as possible!

Join me in my blog journey as I share so many of the things I have learned these past couple of years!