Can Giving a Gift Land You in Debt?

The custom of gift-giving is one that is missing in the United States, even as we prepare to celebrate Christmas. Why? Gift-giving in other cultures does not stem from a capitalistic commercialism, but rather from the spiritual interaction between a gift giver and a recipient. It has less to do with what you give, and more to do with how you give and to whom you give. It is a practice of cultivating a generosity of spirit that includes rightful action to a community.

Dana

In Buddhist philosophy, dana was the spiritual practice of giving that helped to reduce the imperfection of greed in a person and improve their karmic score. Hindus give dana and have very elaborate rituals over what type of gifts will produce what type of karmic benefits. Give a gift of sesame seed to a temple and you get a karmic bonus of fertility. Beyond giving a gift, the recipient also has certain obligations. They must respect the act of the giving as a sacred act, just as the recipient offers it in that same attitude. If the gift is not respected, it is said to lead to the downfall of both the giver and the recipient. Also, giving certain types of gifts actually boomerang on you karmically, rather than raising your karmic score.

It is also suggested that you should not give gifts to people who are not in your spiritual lineage. Some traditions say certain people can only receive gifts. I’ve even heard of other teachings where women must always give, but never take. In Hindu gift-giving one should try to seek out Brahmins to gift as the act is considered “rightful giving” and reaps many spiritual benefits, unlike giving to someone who uses the gift but returns no spiritual teachings to a community. Obviously, I’m not here to argue over whether these traditions are correct or not. I am just suggesting that the act of giving is intrinsic to spiritual wealth, but it comes with some responsibilities. It also has to do with why so many people land into debt.

Generosity

There are supposedly five stages in the Buddist practice of dana. In the conditional giving stage, you give something because you expect something in return. That is not considered bad, but merely somewhat ignorant. You are expected to do this practice until you can give without expecting anything in return. In America, this amounts to our ideal of “earning one’s wage” or even a fair business transaction. It is tied into our beliefs about integrity and work. We expect that everything we work at will yield some result. However, that’s just not realistic. There are plenty of hard workers that never get the fruits of their labor, for various reasons. I am not about to dump more on them to suggest that they have bad karma either. There are plenty of people who give of their time and efforts working for companies that destroy our environment, steal from people with usurious interest rates, and generally have unethical business practices. And, they make a fortune at it while they’re doing it. I’m not going to suggest they are due bad karma either for doing it. For one thing, this type of teaching has no effect on people who willfully sow bad seeds and it does nothing to help those that have sown good seed, but failed to reap a harvest. Thus, for me at least, gift-giving is not about bettering my karmic odds at all.

Maybe I’m a Miser

I admit that I have no patience for a consumerist Christmas, whether it is giving out tons of presents or sending out Christmas cards. The earth is not going to jump up and down for joy because several forests were decimated over the practice of giving out Christmas cards. I don’t like the unspoken obligation that stems from our puritanical roots that when you get a gift, you’re supposed to give one in return. For one thing, some families have no understanding that the annual Christmas-giving frenzy is a horror for single individuals, with or without children. One family of four (a couple and two children) can give one present of high worth to one individual, but the expectation is that that individual should give back four presents of similar worth each because “the kids are too little to give.” This is despite the economic inequality of that family earning twice as much as the individual that is now responsible for four “gifts” of similar value. In a commercial and “equitable” way of looking at things, the gift recipient is a miser for not giving gifts to everyone on Christmas of similar worth. In a spiritual sense, the GIVER is the one committing a sin against the sacred act of gift-giving. Regardless, that gift-giving act then becomes something that puts both people in debt. The kindest thing one can do then is to opt out of this madness.

Proper Gift-Giving

Do I know what the proper way is to give a gift or receive one? I really don’t think our American culture has an inkling about that. It is something we need to learn from Asian or other similar gift-giving cultures. I know that I have plenty to learn in this area. For one, I have learned over the years that it is not proper to give for altruistic reasons alone. One MUST consider how the gift will be used and who is getting it. I suppose that’s rather judgmental of me, but I consider a gift given to a stranger of far more value than one given to someone who will feel obligated to return something to me. I consider my time at work a gift and that means that sometimes I don’t give as freely in some projects that I consider will produce a negative community result or uphold ideals that will bring down the company or harm others – despite them being framed in altruistic terms. On the other hand, sometimes I give way more than is expected because I know it will be of benefit to others, even when it is framed in commercial terms. In this respect, I do not believe giving one’s life in a fruitless war is appropriate gift-giving unless it is to defend a nation’s peoples. Similarly, some people who work in companies that are unethical are there to plant good seeds in a field full of thorns. You really can’t tell the wheat from the tares until it’s time for the harvest. You might think that an individual or company that gives lots of money to a specific cause is generous and altruistic, but later you find out that they are trying to “greenwash” themselves to fool buyers into trusting their brand. They may give with the right hand a little and take back way more with the left hand – causing tremendous damage to the community all for the sake of hidden greed.

For instance, the IMF has been accused of giving loans to struggling countries only to later use those loans to bankrupt and take over an area. This trickles down to farmers losing needed credit to farm their lands and losing a heritage that might have been in their family for generations. The bank takes the lands and it is not even worked or harvested. It is used to amass wealth and control territory and gain political power by buying politicians. That same land may end up being “gifted” to people in support of the corrupt political system as a thank you for their support. This is a prime example of gift-giving at its worst and the giver and the recipient land both in debt. Ultimately, I think that if we figure out the proper attitude towards gift-giving we may be able to heal what is wrong with our capitalistic system. After all, how many experts have said for years that we are headed for a “gift economy”? Yet, we still have no idea what the proper way is to give and take in a responsible fashion that does not harm others and creates abundance for the community.

How a Person of Integrity Gives a Gift

These five are a person of integrity’s gifts. Which five? A person of integrity gives a gift with a sense of conviction. A person of integrity gives a gift attentively. A person of integrity gives a gift in season. A person of integrity gives a gift with an empathetic heart. A person of integrity gives a gift without adversely affecting himself or others. – http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.148.than.html

*This is the first part in a series I am going to be doing on gift-giving and the gift economy.

Connection as a Path to Wealth

None of us would be here in physical 3-D if we didn’t in some form believe in and enjoy separation. Limited physical reality offers many advantages over being fully connected. We get to imagine that we’re not the primal cause of everything that befalls us. We get to pout and pull the silent treatment, thinking that this will keep us from seeing the truth about ourselves. We don’t have to feel everyone’s emotions, disappointments, hurts, jealousy, anger, etc. We can insulate ourselves in our ego and find that on the surface, life in 3-D is not so bad when compared to being fully connected. Even our money system reflects ingrained values of separation, which is why it will ultimately fail.

Widening Awareness and Money

A friend of mine who is involved in self-development made a fascinating observation the other day. He said that the Internet was a mirror of our collective widening awareness in the Shift and that whether we liked it or not, there would come a time where we do not have the option to close down and stay unconnected. This, I believe is the greatest fear that humanity is staring down at this moment. It’s decision time and the question is: “Can we connect or do we choose disconnection?” Many choose disconnection, and the numbers of the dead keep rising.

I’ve been imaging several abrupt disconnections in my life, from a broken relationship to a phone cut off or an Internet interruption. The Internet lapse was the most telling since it had to do with my finances. I have the bill on automatic withdrawal (another telling euphemism for a preference for separation) and it had failed due to a change in the account number at my bank. They had re-issued all the numbers and I hadn’t updated mine. I woke up one morning to my home page being hijacked with a nasty message about an unpaid Internet bill on an account that 1) was on automatic withdrawal, 2) was not a subscription service. As far as I was concerned, they do not have a right to hijack my browser because I fail to pay a bill on an account that is not contracted. In my mind, they declared war by crossing my boundaries and being intrusive. Perhaps, in their mind, they felt they were doing me a service and notifying me in the clearest terms why my Internet was suddenly cut off. Regardless, the Internet, Smartphones, even applications that control your house are establishing paths of intimacy with remote people and things that some of us consider completely unwelcome. We like our privacy, even if on the face of it, it is a preference for separation.

Can I Imagine a Connected, Loving, World?

Obviously, the question life is putting towards me is: Can I imagine a connected, loving, world? Connection and intimacy have never been the same thing for me.  I can be very intimate with people all over the world, but I simply don’t want them calling me up or showing up at my door. The truth is I would feel completely overwhelmed. Yet, the phone, the Internet, my creditors, and all many of other physical relationships insist in sharing my physical space. I can’t get away from it. As my friend suggests, I have to make a choice to either go with the energy or fight a losing battle. We are being asked to look at our preference for disconnection and separation and we’re being asked to find ways to stay connected, despite many of us not feeling happy or safe about that prospect. It’s too unfamiliar.

A New Path to Wealth

Yet, here I am developing techniques for this path of connectedness and using it every day to create income. I had another friend recently who was very high up in a hierarchical corporate system and he made a lot of  money. After getting to know him, I realized his life is precarious, at best. He has already seen the effect of putting all his faith in a system that is failing, yet he does it again. He lost his home in the house collapse, his wife, and the only way he can get his children to call is by sending them money. He still believes acting responsibly in a job is going to save him having to establish authentic and creative connections because he’s still heavily invested in the mirage that separation brings wealth. It did in the past, but energies are shifting and if we don’t shift with them, we will find out too late that we trusted in the wrong model. He is counting on the retirement package, most probably a packet of lies that will fall apart just as he is set to retire. One day, he will do like millions did before him, he will go to work after having served faithfully for years and they will tell him he is no longer needed. He does not have a home and with no money no way to foster good connections. He does not understand how to create wealth, only how to exploit an old, worn-out, and failing system.  Until he has the courage to open to connections, his fabulous salary is more a liability than a blessing. It can not produce the type of wealth he desperately desires and it blocks him from exploring other paths. It takes courage to open to the path of connection and material wealth is not the ultimate goal. Ultimately, the connection itself is the wealth we obtain, and a byproduct of that can create more opportunities and a stabler path in life.

If I Had A Chance To Invest In Amazon Again…

Many years ago, I worked at a patent and trademark research firm. This was right about the time that the WWW got online and companies were starting to appear. Part of the research expanded to domain names for copyright infringement, and so there was a lot of talk and looking at new companies, one of which was Amazon.com. As an avid reader and book buyer, my jaw literally dropped when I saw this store and I jumped up from my screen and ran into my bosses office and said: “Oh, my gosh! This company is brilliant! If I had money to invest in it now – I would! Get whatever money you have extra and invest in Amazon.com. It will be HUGE!”

Why I Chose To Be Poor

Did I take my own advice? No. Why? Because I was convinced that I knew nothing about investing and that I had no spare money for investing. So, I let that mega opportunity pass me by – even though I recognized it as a gold mine!

Now, when I put up my blog survey to hear what topics people wanted to read on my blog, the number one selection was: “How To Create More Income.” Yet, even if a mega opportunity stares you in the face, are you going to choose to be poor, like I did? I can tell you what I think the next Amazon is for me, but will you believe me? Will you not invest and choose to be poor, like I did? It’s not that  the opportunity doesn’t appear that’s the problem, it’s that few people fail to take advantage of the opportunity EVEN when they recognize it for what it is. Why is that?

Kiyosaki’s Choose To Be Rich Program

All it really would have taken for me to profit from Amazon.com would have been the research to learn how to buy stock and the determination to use my own funds to do it, no matter how little. Over the years, I’ve had the same pattern, over and over. I am very good at spotting hit money makers, I am just not good at following through on them. And, yet, no one gets rich from work alone. If you want to create wealth you have to create a business or invest, you have to plant seeds that grow on their own. That’s the Rich Dad path, as Kiyosaki states in his program “You Can Choose To Be Rich.”

Your Mind Is The Only Obstacle

I have come to see all obstacles as self-inflicted. The only true obstacle in your life is your mind set. Yes, there are external conditions that hamper us, but they started in the mind first, in how we perceived ourselves and how we limited ourselves. The beliefs we have and nurture make up what happens too.  There are plenty of reasons not to do something, and most of those are just our way of subconsciously limiting our future choices and wealth.

A Hot New Opportunity

Now, I have found another very hot opportunity. I didn’t think twice even though money was tight this week. This is a company I have been involved with for over 10 years and that I have reaped at least $30,000 extra in my association with them already. It was a no brainer to upgrade to become a business partner with them for $72.  After October 30th, the cost to be an business partner would have gone up to over $250! I never did it before, even though I was tempted, for solely one reason: I am an at-home Internet worker, and they were a face-to-face company. This has ALL changed! Even so, that wouldn’t have been enough NOW because I already am self-employed. I don’t want another job, I want a business or investment opportunity – a set it and forget it money-maker! With their partnership with the Blastoff Network, I am now in a position to do exactly that. Build my wealth and put it on auto-pilot. And, you can too!

I Will Help You Do It!

This is the perfect opportunity, as it is low cost entry right now, and the basic level is free! It is partnered with Blastoff, a company that may or may not be bigger than Facebook in a few years, but I want to get in on the ground floor!  Join the network first, and I will send everyone in my network a free 10-page report telling you how to create a “set it and forget it” business with it, no matter what your niche is! This you get only for joining using my link. It is completely free to join my network, and from there you can learn ways to create multiple streams of income, some require an upfront investment and others do not, choosing which is right for you. There is no obligation to buy anything! Do yourself a favor and take the time to investigate this opportunity during the pre-launch! After October 30th, major players will be advertising this network, and you will have missed out on the BEST WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY  I have seen in many years. Don’t choose to be poor like I did with Amazon,  join today!

Great Job Perks for WAHMs

If you’ve been debating whether to start working at home, wahms (work-at-home moms) can tell you there really are some definite perks to doing so. Of the millions of women returning to the work force, due to their spouses being unemployed, the ones that become wahms end up getting some really great perks. When you include them in your wealth equation, you may find that they are really quite priceless.

Why I Like To Work From Home Freelancing

• No commute – No gas costs and no traffic to deal with! Whether gas goes to $5/gallon or not, it’s not going to cut into your monthly budget.
• Less food and clothing expenses – While many wahms like to work in their pjs, I’m not one of them. I like to get up early, dress smartly, and have a cup of coffee – made at home. That simple act leads me to at least a $5 savings at Starbucks, every day.
• Flexible hours – This is really the prime motivation most people, especially moms, go into work at home businesses.  Need to pick up the kids at 2:30 pm? Okay. You’re the boss, just schedule your work around it.
• No daycare costs – Why pay someone else to watch your kid or do afterschool camp when they can just be home? It’s hard to do when you have multiple kids, but one or two can be fit in with a work at home opportunity.
• Schedule errands away from crowds – Shopping can be done during the week, away from crowds. Appointments scheduled outside of rush hour. You can easily save four to five hours a day in your schedule by working at home. Two hours for commute back and forth to office and another three waiting around the post office, the checkout and bank lines.
• Feel the seasons – When you work for corporate, you don’t get to really enjoy the seasons. You’re stuck inside, in an artificial environment, and it affects your moods and your health. Work at home and enjoy the luxury of taking a bath at mid-day during summer or working by the fireplace in the winter.
• Healthier for you – You are less stressed and more easily take care of your needs. This can lead to a healthier you, especially if you include regular exercise in your schedule at home.
• Find greater work/life balance – Since you get to schedule your own jobs, you get greater work/life balance.  With that comes a deeper appreciation of life and work.
• It’s easier to market yourself – You don’t have to meet people in person to do work at home marketing. You can just join social networks and job boards and meet as many new, fascinating, and fun people as you like! This can widen your network very quickly!
• Your future is as big as you make it – You’re not limited in your role as a wahm. You can make your career as big or as little as you need it to be. It’s exciting, it’s fun, and definitely gives you life skills that can improve your performance, even if you finally decide to go back and work for someone else!

Anyone else out there finding the perks too good to be true? Let me know what you like about working from home!

Me Money To We Money: Why I Wrote It

Every writer dreams of being published, but sometime that’s not the primary motive for writing a book. That was the case with me. Fundamentally, I didn’t write the book, the book wrote me. It crept into every pore of my skin, and insinuated itself in every facet of my waking life, and, even my dreams. The book demanded to be written, and that’s the simple truth.

It Has A Message We Need To Hear

In this time of financial catastrophe, and an uncertain future, we need to know that we still really do create our own reality. The Divine Within is still in full control of what happens to us, even if our trials are not famine and pestilence, but rather foreclosure and bankruptcy. Many people would suggest that the topic of finance and spirituality don’t mix, sort of like science and religion. I don’t believe that’s true because I’ve seen how paying attention to my spirituality has reaped major dividends in happiness and material wealth. Yes, the form may not be as easily recognizable as a dollar bill in the bank account, but even that eventually comes forward as other obstacles to prosperity vanish through our inner work. It has been proven over and over to me: We create our reality flawlessly, from day-to-day, sometimes when we even have no money left in the bank.

YCYOR Needs Details

The “You Create Your Own Reality” (YCYOR) genre has been made famous by such books as the Law of Attraction or movies like The Secret. Prior to that was Seth and Jane Roberts. These books also had the same fabulous message, but were a little short on details, in my opinion, or a bit too complex to decipher into working methods.  Are thoughts really things, and do they create our reality? Or, is that just possibly one limited view of a more expansive model? Even if they did, how the heck does one control their thoughts or change limiting belief systems? Is it even necessary to do so or will other more powerful techniques help you to achieve the same ends? Following the Elias material, a successor to Seth, and having dealt with this teacher in dream work, I elaborate on the details of the reality creation cycle so that anyone can understand exactly how they create reality, and not just accept it on faith.

This is what you will get from reading this book:

• The Mandala Map of Creation – A map of how a cycle of creation is implemented and what specific cycle creates wealth or poverty.

• Overview Of Core Belief Systems – An overview of seven of the ten core belief systems that influence what you create in your reality, with specific regards to money imagery.

• Information On The Shift Of Consciousness – This is an event that is influencing our reality right now, according to Elias.  It’s like a big tidal wave that’s hitting our shores and either drowns us or carries us to distant shores. Learn how to pay attention to the shift in your own consciousness to surf the wave, instead of struggling within it.

• The Two Natural Flow Paths – Why some people create in a negative natural flow and others choose a positive one, so you can decide which is right for you.

• How To Engage Cooperative Groups – Understanding why our economic models have relied on competition, and how to re-orient to a way of working that chooses cooperation over competition to meet the same, or bigger,  goals.

• How To Create Value Through Connection – Why the model of conquest is being replaced by connection through social networks.  How you can create value using a model that brings more compassion, connection, and trust in your life.

• Understand What You Want In Your Life And Create It Without Money – This is the biggest technique included in this book. Once you realize that you can have what you want (through the action of paying attention to your reality creation cycles), and without creating financial obstacles, you will be free to be anyone you want to be. You will achieve a freedom even money can’t buy.

To get a copy, order Me Money To We Money here.

If you have a blog or site and would like to review the book, email me at moylan.claire260 at gmail dot com.

What Your Gut Instincts Can Tell You In Business

People will tell you that your emotions will kill you in business, and a good deal is done with a poker face and the drive of a hired assassin. However, what if your business is about freelance writing, or about something where you’re passionate about what you do? That’s when your emotions are there for a reason, but they can still lead to being used by others who try to take advantage of that emotional charge.  The key to understanding how your emotions can help, instead of hurt you, in business is to learn how to use your business judgment, along with your emotional instincts, to cue you into bad customers before you get into relationships with them.

Every Business Relationship Is Like Dating

We can laugh or cringe at the dating horror stories of the woman who always ends up with the batterer, the drunk, or the just plain weirdo. Yet, sometimes our businesses attract the same types of deadbeats and we just drum it up to a bad economy, when it might be the way we’re doing business that is generating these bad business relationships. Just like a woman who does too much upfront in a relationship, a business owner who provides too many products or services before figuring out what the other party is going to provide back is in for the same sort of co-dependent, miserable, times as a single on the dating scene.  How do most people avoid these soap operas in their lives? They tend to rely on their “gut instincts” and emotions to let them know when they should pass on a relationship that’s going to be a downer, no matter what. When faced with a one-liner from a potential deadbeat customer (whether romantic or business), your gut instincts will tell you something is really wrong, and you can choose to acknowledge this or face the consequences later.

So Many Frogs, Few Princes

There was a question posted on Facebook recently: “Do I prefer the customer who offers a high price and fails to pay on time or the one that offers a low price and pays immediately?” What’s missing from this question is the value of the work. What sort of value do you place on your work? Is the customer willing to recognize the actual, intrinsic, value of the work or are they looking at the dollar bills? If you are working with a low-paying customer, be assured they’ll never be satisfied with the value of the work. They’ve already said as much by refusing to pay what it’s worth. More than likely they will try to chintz you even more in future projects. The same is true for the one that offers a high price and refuses to pay, as if your work is free or you are not a top priority when it comes to paying their bills. Sometimes, you get a high paying customer that is so demanding that you spend so much time with them, that if you added up the hours, you’d make less than the low-paying clients. Unfortunately, the additional criticisms and demands spell out exactly the same thing:” They don’t value your work.” Which begs the question:

Why don’t they go elsewhere then?

How You Create Your Own Customers

The reason, as hard as it may be to believe, is that you allow them to stay there repeatedly disrespecting the value of your work because you don’t believe it’s worth much either. The irony of the whole situation is that just like an abusive partner picks someone who they admire to belittle,  these customers actually like your work or they wouldn’t be there. It gives them great joy to find someone who wants to be involved with them because they don’t think much of themselves either. As the relationship continues, of course, the emotions become louder. Something is wrong, but the familiarity of it may lead to ignoring the fact that the pay is getting less and the demands are getting more. It may be hard to cut these people out of your life, but ultimately, it may be what your business requires to survive.  Ignore your gut instincts at your own peril at this point.

Learning To Trust Yourself In Business

Once you learn to disentangle yourself from these types of customers, the newer ones that are worth your time will appear. At the point you start to trust in your own innate worth, the deadbeats and abusers will begin to scatter because you either 1) Refuse to engage these customers, or 2) State the value of your work upfront and expect and get fair recompense for your work or they walk away. You learn to negotiate difficult customers so that you’re both on the same page or you clearly realize from the start that the relationship is not a match. At that point, you will have learned to trust yourself and appreciate the value of your own work enough for it to generate the customers who can do likewise. Whether in dating or business, once you learn to trust your own judgments and listen to what your emotions are telling you about the other party, the ability to select the right relationships becomes clearer and easier, and far more profitable.

The Death of Originality

Celebrities are originals, typically, that influence mass culture. When a celebrity dies, all the potential for creating new impacts in our society dies with them. That’s why it’s so shocking to hear news of the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. When they go, there truly is a mourning for the loss of their originality.

The Loss of Originality

In a way, I see these deaths as symbols for a trend going on in America and a mood that is becoming persistent. It’s almost a grieving for the loss of originality. This country was founded on an original way to govern, a new social system, and the ability of each individual to reach their highest potential with hard work and through their own efforts. Celebrities are evocative symbols of this system that exemplifies the potential for taking anyone and catapulting them to fame and fortune. If the value they create is large enough to benefit society, whether in entertainment or some other fashion, the reward for this originality is wealth, due to increased social value.

Value Is Still Here

The recession has made it clear that we’ve rested our laurels on past history of providing value, without continuing to be consistent in this area. A culture sprung up where it became more fashionable to exploit value, and that ideal eventually kills those willing to offer value. In order to see more new value as a culture, we’re going to have to learn ways to support the green shoots of value, instead of jumping in to harvest it before its time. It means we need to spend more time identifying sources of value, nurturing those sources, and be patient while they mature. When one source of value or originality dies, it has to be replaced by another in order for society to continue to evolve forward. The nice thing about humanity is that we are all originals. It’s just a matter of knowing how to contribute our own unique specialness in ways that contribute to other’s social well-being to generate a transaction of value to both parties. This requires some introspection and that’s where our grief can help us. It can help reset our internal compass to focus on what we can bring to the table too, instead of what has been taken away. When we start to appreciate our own unique gifts and feel safe enough to share them with others, without fear of exploitation, it can genuinely recreate society from the roots up.

When Opportunity Doesn’t Come Knocking

I’ve been musing on how opportunities present themselves to some people and not to others, and what those people do with them. Many people are sitting on the sidelines in this bad job market, and getting either no job opportunities, or bad ones. Others get job opportunities and (believe it or not) turn them down. The whole “opportunity” concept is really curious to me. It depends on where you live, who you are, and how well you can spot and judge an opportunity when it presents itself.

Cycle Of Life And Opportunity

Some people suggest that if you just network, work hard, and be positive that opportunities will just come knocking at your door. I think we’re seeing that this just isn’t the case, as millions of people are doing just that with their job search and nothing comes of it. There are few jobs and that’s the reality of the situation. It’s like when you want to grow a garden, you have last year’s seeds, and instead of waiting for spring, you plant them in the winter. How much do you expect to reap just because you took the trouble to dig the frozen soil, and plant a seed? Zero, because it wasn’t the right time nor was there an open opportunity, and open door, in that environment. You aren’t going to make the winter spring by thinking positive thoughts. It takes more than that.

The 80/20 Individual

I read this great book: The 80/20 Individual. It talks about how you take the 80/20 concept and apply that to becoming more productive as an individual. In this case, in my interpretation, you should learn how to spot 20% of your opportunities that will yield optimal results and ignore the other 80% as trivial time wasters. The better you get at that, whether it is reducing networking to better connections, applying energy to productive projects, or creating things that produce spectacular income results – you will grow less variety, but you will reap richer rewards and quicker too. It’s working smarter, not harder. It’s understanding that just because an opportunity presents itself, it doesn’t mean that it’s worth your time. That’s why, I believe, that those people getting the most opportunities are also the ones that are turning them down. They are able to spot those that will bear fruit sooner and avoid those that don’t, so they have a track record of success. Others may not produce as much success in their careers as immediate results, simply because they picked the wrong opportunities to work with or the time to fruition is beyond their length of service. They attract opportunities, by virtue of a track record of success, but the opportunity presenting itself isn’t sufficient to generate success. In a way, they create more of what they did before, and that magnetizes a larger vortex of energies, then they have to become very selective.

It’s a case where the individual isn’t the driving force of success, but it’s an understanding that it’s a partnership between those seeds that were sown before, by someone else, and the opportunity of time that now presents itself to be the person that reaps the harvest. It’s a matter of cooperation between various principles in life. Success is never a standalone project. Many others always contributed, but only those at the right place and time get recognized for their contribution, and reap better rewards. Doing that, they magnetize more opportunities in the same direction, but not all of them are guaranteed to yield good results.

Finding Or Creating Opportunities?

I don’t believe an opportunity can be created at the wrong time and I am more and more convinced that we don’t find opportunities, they are attracted to certain people. Whether the opportunity is to make a million dollars or to get mugged, these “open doors” of chance always seem to go to the people who have a track record of being able to produce those results, over and over. It is a combination of who we are (what energies we emanate) and how we are in alignment with our place in the world and history. The person who ends up successful isn’t the one that “makes it happen” but knows exactly how to position themselves to reap the rewards.

Learning To Judge Opportunities

See, I learned long ago to weed out people in my immediate circle who attracted drama and calamity. It just follows them wherever they go and no matter how much you help them, they continue to attract it until something within them changes. They can have spectacular opportunities to change (as a crisis will often provoke), but they fail to take advantage.  So, they continue to attract more and more crisis, and it becomes a very bad cycle that continues until something within shifts. Before that happens, they’ve often dragged you down with them too. Should we fail to help those in need? No. However, I am more and more convinced that only 20% of people who actually need help are ready to get it and shift out of their situation. It’s up to us to figure out who those people are as they represent the best return on our investment of time and help.

Now, I don’t believe crisis is always necessary to create opportunity, and I try to align with business people who are attracting what I want, not what I don’t want. If I learn what they do to create what they want, then I can also do the same. This is what makes me think that they aren’t any smarter than I am, more blessed karmically, or even luckier. No, it’s some basic skill of being able to place themselves in a spot where 20% of their efforts produce 80% of their results in consistent and profitable ways. That’s what makes them different. Often, they don’t create their own opportunities, they capitalize on others. They don’t find opportunities, these drop in their laps – as if magnetically attracted. They don’t accept all opportunities, and I would suggest they’re very picky individuals. Once they do, though, they work just as hard, and smart, as anyone else and KNOW that they picked a winner.

Yet, there is much more to this subject. There is always opportunity out there, that’s true. Is it the right opportunity for what you want to create? That’s the real question.

Appreciation And Manifestation

I have been practicing my appreciation and gratitude, and I’ve noticed that when things are darkest, that’s when we can really mine these attitudes and make them our backbone through future misfortunes. I’ve also noticed that sometimes I appreciate things before they happen, and just through the act of expressing thankfulness, that thing manifests in my life. Take for instance, my cat, Shakespeare.

Shakespeare is a sissy cat (don’t let him hear me say that), but he is adorable and ever loving. He does have a hunter instinct, but he doesn’t have much to hunt in the house. So, I was appreciating Shakespeare one day in my gratitude journal and how we have no mice in the house because of him. I figured that just his presence scared them away. Well, a day later, Shakespeare caught a mouse and laid it out all dead in front of bathroom door, where I couldn’t possibly miss it because that’s the first place I go in the morning. So, while I was appreciating the fact that we have no mice because of the presence of my cat, right after that Shakespeare caught one and killed it! So, apparently we did have a mouse in the house (although a rather skinny one, thank god!) and maybe my appreciation helped him to manifest the kill! So, now Shakespeare’s nick name is “mighty hunter”!

That’s not the only thing that has turned out a bit conspicuously “coincidental” between my appreciation journal and my reality. At times, my work has slowed and I began to appreciate the fact that I am self-employed and not a laid off employee. That while my work might slow down, it won’t ever go away completely. So, I was expressing my appreciation for the work that did come in, during one of the slow periods, and for the ability to work at home and a day later, I got a huge order for work. Coincidence?

I see more and more of this dynamic as if appreciation is the oil that powers the engine of manifestation. It can be something very small or big, but eventually as I read back on my appreciation journal, I begin to see more and more that the things I appreciated before became heightened in my awareness and manifested more clarity and solidity in my reality. So, I am continuing to write in my appreciation journal and it has been a very fascinating experience!

For all those in New Orleans, my heart goes out to you on Gustav. You are all in my thoughts and prayers these last few days…

The Theory of Wealth Relativity

I’ve noticed something interesting about the way my losses and gains are manifesting. I used to lose a few dollars here and there and gain a few dollars here and there. Who doesn’t have the story of getting a rebate only to have a bill for the exact same amount show up unexpectedly? It always seems the debt is exactly equal to the gain. Recently, I’ve been losing thousands and it’s downright scary. My only hope is to gain thousands to even out the ledger. So, I was discussing the loss of the buyer’s earnest money and my friend said:”A thousand dollars is a lot of money to lose.” And, I replied:”No, it’s not. It’s not even 1% of the purchase price.” I was thinking about the $4,000 approximately I lost at the beginning of the year because of car troubles. Relatively speaking, I’d be jumping for joy if all I lost was $1,000. But, the same is true about the gains now too. If I only make $1000 that’s not very much. I want to make many thousands and I really should manifest many thousands to pay off the debt on the car. My idea of how much money is a lot has gotten skewed. I now think in many thousands and that’s being reflected in my losses, and hopefully in the future in my gains too. I remember when the idea of working with many thousands would have been completely inconceivable to me. I didn’t have that much to lose nor that much to gain either.

How Much Do You Think You Can Afford To Lose?

That’s how much you’ll ever be able to gain in your lifetime. It made me think of Donald Trump gaining millions and losing millions, then gaining them all back. Most of us would have a complete heart failure the moment we lost the millions, especially if they were Daddy’s monies. But, if you’re working with millions, that’s probably just the way it works in that stratosphere. You can’t hope to handle millions, if you’re not willing to risk losing millions. People may view you as filthy rich, but to you a million is like a thousand to someone else. It’s all relative.

When I figure out how to use that change in relative value to my advantage, I’ll let you all know. I have a few thoughts on it right now, that I’ll share below, but I think there might be a goldmine of information in this one little creation. There have been occasions where I manifested many thousands and that, incidentally, was the time when I started losing thousands too. Prior to that, the income had been relatively stable with no major surprises either way. Now, I’ve been in this “thousand” loop of gains and losses for about eight years now. So, if I shift to a higher income, I assume I will probably have higher risks of losses too. It’s downright weird. So, I’ve been contemplating this theory of wealth relativity and finding out how to use it to my unfair advantage.

The Belief In Fairness

One of the key beliefs that could be influencing this creation in my reality is the belief in fairness. I read somewhere that if you believe in fairness, you can never expect to get rich. The reason for that is not that you have to be immoral to be rich, but if you want to be on the side of the cashflow quadrant that uses other people’s time and money to gain you wealth, well, that’s perceived as a bit unfair isn’t it? But, really, it’s all about choices. Some people choose to work for other people all their lives and never invest. Their payback is security. Their gains and losses are never traumatic. Others choose to build businesses and hire people willing to work for them. They assume larger risks and they can have huge losses, but also huge gains too. The only person that judges it as fair or unfair is the person making that judgment. Is it fair that millionaires make money off other people’s sweat? Is it fair when someone does all the work and another reaps the benefits? Is it fair if they make huge gains in an investment? To the average person, they might suggest it is unfair, or at least due to luck. It’s not. It’s due to skillful direction of their energies to create that which they want, regardless of the impediments. The same belief that makes life fair is the same belief that keeps you poor. Now, you can start appreciating that life is COMPLETELY UNFAIR because that’s what’s going to eventually make you rich.

In fact, I’m thinking I’m mighty pleased I lost a downpayment on a townhome on that deal. It was not a good deal and relatively speaking, it’s peanuts. It’s completely unfair that she pulled out, but I can appreciate that this may lead to an even better deal with someone else. So, keep your wits about you when life becomes unfair and learn how to appreciate the downs in life too. In fact, I think that’s typically how people get rich in the stock market: they appreciate a low asset and then sell it to someone. They never buy high and sell low. They always buy low and wait for it to appreciate and then sell high. The same can be done in our creative energies of manifestation, I think, if we learn the art of appreciation and gratitude, even in our losses. Then the absolute value of something diminishes in your mind as you focus on only appreciation of that asset and it manifests. That’s what I think so far, but I will let you all know how my experiments in changing my beliefs and installing appreciation works in the end.