September 3rd, 2010 | Posted in Uncategorized
If You Can’t See The Absurdity, It Will Surely Sink You
It is no accident that the great American screwball comedies were mostly produced in the 1930s, during The Great Depression. Let’s put it this way, in any economic reality, there is a very serious side and a very silly side. Either extreme can do someone in, but a balance is optimum for surviving and thriving whatever is happening. This is why today’s economic woes have produced so many late night talk show gags, and fodder for so many stand-up comedians. When things are looking dark, nothing turns on the light switch faster than a smile, a giggle, or a guffaw.
Many of you know that I write cartoon gags for several magazine cartoonists. It pays very little, but it keeps my sense of humor sharp and current. A recent submission:
CHAIRMAN TO BOARD.
“In order to alleviate our employees’ job insecurities, I’ve hired a group of unemployed motivational coaches.”
Look for this in an upcoming issue of The Wall St. Journal or Harvard Business Review. I recently discovered, in a box filled with old photographs that was in storage for nearly 15 years, a collection of greeting cards I had gathered in my travels, well over 100 brand new cards that either were touching or funny. And one of these featured 10 Money Jokes in the form of questions on the cover, with the answers on the inside. If any of them make you smile, or if none of them do, you may discover something about how seriously you take the subject of money–and whether it’s time to lighten up.
1. How is money like sex?
When you really need it, you’ve never got it.
2. How do you come home from Las Vegas with a small fortune?
Go there with a large fortune.
3. Have you heard about the Zen philosophy of money? (my favorite one)
You start with $10,000, zen you have $8,000., zen you have $4,000.
4. What’s the height of cheapness?
Taking an anorexic to dinner.
5. Did you hear about the accountant who was shy and retiring?
He was $25,000. shy, that’s why he’s retiring.
6. What is six inches long, has a head on it and drives women wild?
A $100. bill.
7. Why did the Japanese call girl go broke?
No one had a yen for her.
8. What is man’s greatest labor-saving device?
The love of a rich woman.
9. Have you heard about the woman with a million-dollar smile?
She only smiles if you have a million dollars.
10. Are there more important things than money?
Yes, but they don’t stay with you if you don’t have money.
Okay, I never said they were all in good taste or politically correct. Perhaps it is time to look at your own attitudes about money in terms of how willing you are to laugh about it. It wasn’t too long ago that I looked at my checking account the day before a deposit was due in. It had a balance of exactly 38 cents. I laughed. And this was a choice from among a number of other less nurturing emotions. What kind of choices do you make in these situations?
Jerry
August 21st, 2010 | Posted in Prosperity Consciousness
Do Money And Happiness Go Together Or Not?
This seems to be an age-old debate, and from time to time I have put my two cents worth into it, as in this recent Facebook post:
The biggest lie in the universe: Money can’t bring you happiness. In fact, the joy of the recipient is the most noble purpose money has and the only righteous justification for its existence.
Of course, it’s not a black and white issue. Remember, I’m saying money can bring you happiness, lots of it. But I’m not saying money always brings happiness, and the big difference is at the heart of Moneylove and the entire field of exploration known as prosperity consciousness. If you have a healthy attitude about money, it will almost always bring you happiness–if you don’t, it won’t. For example, this comment from Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, who has a book entitled, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being:
“When you get more money, very quickly, you become adapted to it. And the things you have always looked forward to buying now become commonplace. And the other thing that happens is, your aspirations begin to rise, so that, if you survey the American people and you say, how much money do you need to live a really completely happy life, and then survey them 10 years later, you will find that, 10 years later, they want a lot more money than they did 10 years before.”
Bok was recently interviewed by the PBS Newshour’s Jeffrey Brown, along with his wife of 55 years, Sissela, whose new book, Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science, will be published this Fall.
I must admit I was a bit envious of the Boks when I saw them interviewed, as it has always been my fantasy to be in a relationship with a fellow author and perhaps even collaborate on some project. I think Derek Bok came up with a great formula for a successful marriage, when he said:
“Write different books, noncompetitive books about the same subject, and you have guaranteed interesting dinner table conversations for months on end.”
Being Rich Helps
Sissela Bok noted that most people writing about happiness seem to be cheerful people, which is not always true about people writing about things like child abuse and other forms of depravity. But I note that it’s also true that people writing about how money is not essential to happiness are often rich. Certainly the Boks are, and a great example of how to have a meaningful, fulfilling life despite having an abundant amount of “old money.” Being a native of Philadelphia, I am quite familiar with the Bok family. Derek Curtis Bok’s great-grandfather was the founder of Curtis Publishing, which produced Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post. His grandmother founded the internationally respected Curtis Music Institute. His father was a prominent judge.
I think it is true that if you expect more money to bring you happiness, you may be disappointed. Money by itself isn’t much good (unless you are now living a life of major deprivation, hunger, hopelessness), unless you know how to receive and use it well. In other words, how to enjoy it, how to have fun with it, how to play with it, how to laugh about it, how to let it tickle your prosperity bone.
Money alone may not bring happiness, but neither does it bring sadness. Emotionally, money is neutral. But the emotions you have about money are what determine how you feel about it and how much of it you can attract and produce.
My silly aphorism for today:
Happiness is a warm hundred dollar bill received with joy and spent with pleasure.
Jerry
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August 8th, 2010 | Posted in Prosperity Thinking
Do Others Say “Impeccable” Or “Integrity” Speaking Of You?
One of the things I do regularly in my creative process is write down random thoughts, sometimes rambling thoughts, on various subjects that interest me or spontaneously pop into my head. And, to be honest, sometimes when I revisit these weeks or even months later I wonder what the hell I was talking about at the time–though usually I figure it out, and this figuring it out is one of my most productive intellectual exercises. I continue to believe that our brains are really very much like muscles and need to be exercised regularly to work their magic.
So here’s a recent paragraph I wrote:
integrity..consistency of values, actions, principles…a coherent synergy of the whole of one’s being. Together with impeccable…
which means having no flaws…A double “I” power behind one’s quest for prosperity….I am walking my talk, having a consistency between what I say and what I do…in other words, I walk my talk…and I do it flawlessly, or impeccably…without equivocation, or ambiguity, or hesitation, or inconsistency.
It seems obvious to me that I must have looked up a dictionary definition of “integrity” before writing the above, but it’s a word and concept that has always appealed to me. Originally, when first used back in the 14th Century, the word described adherence to a code of values, especially a code of moral or artistic values. In modern times, it is often used as a simple synonym for honesty. But I have always felt it is so much more than that. For me, it’s about personal synergy–all the parts of yourself coming together in one unified whole. Someone who walks his or her talk is the epitome of integrity in this sense of the word. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says integrity is: “The quality or state of being complete or undivided.”
Wikipedia says integrity is: “A concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes.” By this definition, integrity could very well be considered the opposite of hypocrisy. And I still like my own definition:
A coherent synergy of the whole of one’s being.
I think it’s what we mean when we say of someone: “She’s really together.” or, “He’s really got it together.” And if another person notes this about you, speaks of you as someone with integrity, I think you can safely say you have just received the ultimate compliment. You are walking your talk and other people notice.
Where does “impeccable” come in? Well, it has a much more simple definition: Without fault. Flawless. Perfect. I see it as more of an ideal, an optimum achievement that is more special for its very rarity. There are times in my own creative process, whether leading a workshop, giving a talk, writing an article or chapter, recording an audio, when I feel I have given an impeccable account of myself. And the power of these two “I” words together, “Impeccable Integrity”, is profound. It means you are walking your talk flawlessly, you have gotten in touch with all your parts perfectly, you are really together.
Can You Ever Use “Impeccable Integrity” To Describe Yourself?
An aspirational ideal to be sure, but hopefully one you have gotten a taste of in your life and your work. This is where the connection to prosperity comes in. Having integrity and an impeccable sense of who you are, sends an energy out into the world. This is the true Law of Attraction, and as such is irresistible. And it’s very congruent with the concept of manifesting prosperity consciousness by saying what you are going to do and then doing it. With integrity and in an impeccable way.
Jerry
July 19th, 2010 | Posted in Abundance, Prosperity Consciousness
Epiphanies Galore
I had an epiphany today, on a Sunday, in church–but it was not a religious epiphany. Rather, it was a secular, consciousness epiphany, inspired by a quote from Reverend Sonya Milton, the minister at Unity San Francisco. It was about what Unity is about:
Practical spiritual teachings that empower abundant and meaningful living.
A nice turn of phrase, but what hit me right between the eyes was the juxtaposition of “abundant” and “meaningful”. Though this concept is certainly not new, and I even talk in Moneylove about one reason people work in addition to money is to leave a thumbprint on the world, which I guess is a pretty good definition of a meaningful life. But something about the simple placement of these two words in this short phrase made me look at this idea with a sharper focus. Abundant and meaningful. To underline that abundant is not enough, not complete.
All along I’ve been saying that prosperity is about more than a lot of money. But this underscored it for me, and made me think. It coincides with some realizations that have come up in recent coaching sessions. A lot of my clients already have money coming in doing the work they love doing, but they are looking for a higher purpose than merely exchanging their ideas or their time for money. And “A meaningful life” is really what it’s all about, isn’t it? At the end of it all, do you want that marble slab to read “Here lies someone who made a lot of money.” or: “Here lies someone who had a meaningful life, who left a thumbprint on the world?”
The Rich Ones We Remember
When someone asks you to name a very rich person past or present, the names that usually come up are people like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson. All of these led or are leading meaningful lives as well as abundant ones. So it looks like the exclamation we should all be making instead of “Show me the money!” is “Show me the money and the meaning!”
Epiphany In A Single Sentence
Many of the epiphanies I’ve had in life were triggered by a single sentence or phrase, and I find that is often true for others. And sometimes very simple statements. The Merriam-Webster definition of the non-religious type of epiphany is:
A usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an intuitive grasp of reality through something usually simple and striking; an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.
And sometimes the triggering mechanism can be an event, but it often is a sentence or phrase for me. I’ve often mentioned the simple comment from Leonard Orr back in the 1970s that got me into the whole area of prosperity consciousness, in which he just said that our attitudes about money itself dictated how much money we would produce. How simple can you get? But to my knowledge, while a lot of people talked about positive attitudes producing wealth, no one before Leonard specifically said that how you thought about actual cash affected your financial result. That was an epiphany for me, and led to a most lucrative and meaningful career.
July 7th, 2010 | Posted in Choosing Your Teacher, Jerry Gillies
You May Be Severely Limiting Yourself by not….
Reading novels! This is a bone of contention I’ve had during over thirty years’ worth of discussions with fellow self-help authors, motivational speakers, success coaches, and others who think reading self-help and personal growth and other nonfiction books is the only key to enlightenment and a life of fulfillment. Wrong! Oh, all of those books make a valuable contribution to our knowledge and awareness of the way life works, but a good novel can do this just as effectively and sometimes more so.
Learning More From Novels
This may sound strange from someone who has written six books on success and self-development, seven if you count the free ebook offered here, but I think I have learned more from the literally thousands of novels, mainly mystery novels, I have read since first encountering Sherlock Holmes at the age of eight, not to mention the wonderful OZ books, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, and even Tarzan–much more adult in novel form than in the movies. My mother, a writer herself, though she only had a couple of short stories published prior to her marriage, read mysteries and suspense thrillers. E. Phillips Oppenheim was one of her favorites. My father read nonfiction books, and Dale Carnegie and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale were among his favorites. So I luckily was exposed and attracted to both forms.
A good novelist is also a good psychologist and philosopher, understanding much about human behavior and observing it as intensely as any social scientist. I was made keenly aware of this when I did a college term paper for a psychology course on the Travis McGee detective novels of John D. MacDonald. He was a master at summing up the emotional motivations of his characters, as well as an early and masterful proponent of environmental reform. I got an A+ for that paper.
Anne Perry, Novelist and Fellow Ex-Convict
This piece was inspired by something I just read today in a mystery titled A Breach of Promise, by the bestselling mystery novelist Anne Perry, who has two series featuring mysteries set in 19th Century England. I loved these when I was in prison, as they took me far out of my real physical world into a totally different time and place. And also, I felt a certain rapport as Anne Perry was actually Juiet Marion Hulme, who served five years in prison after committing perhaps the most notorious and brutal murder ever recorded in New Zealand in 1954. She and her best friend, Pauline Parker, conspired to bludgeon Pauline’s mother to death because she wanted to leave the country and thus separate the two inseparable friends. A movie based on the case, Heavenly Creatures, was made in 1994, starring Kate Winslet as the teenaged Juliet, aka Anne Perry. It was only when the movie was released that a reporter found out what happened to Anne Perry, who was living in a remote area of England and writing bestselling mystery novels. Though her crime was much more serious than mine, and as a teenager, she served less than half the time I served in prison, I felt a certain connection to Anne Perry and sought out her books. Ironically, one of my friends who doesn’t make a practice of reading novels, ordered those from Amazon.com and had them sent to me. That was Mark Victor Hansen, who provided dozens upon dozens of books during my incarceration, both fiction and nonfiction.
And what did she write that inspired me to write this? A brilliant statement, I think, about the nature of time–a favorite subject of mine:
Time was a peculiarly elastic measurement. It was an empty space, given meaning only by what it contained, and aferwards distorted in memory.
Tell me that can’t stir your thinking juices. One of the activities I started in prison was a composition book filled with lines that particularly moved or stimulated my imagination that were contained in the novels I read. These formed a large segment of the more than one thousand books I read in those twelve years.
I’ll share a couple of those quotes from my collection:
Most of us come from the past, and we re-create the present. Those who excel come from the future, their vision, their mission, and it pulls them forward.
J. F. Freedman, House of Smoke
We wouldn’t care so much what people thought of us if we knew how seldom they did.
John Lanchester, Mr. Phillips
Of course, sometimes novelists will quote actual philosophers or other great thinkers:
Heidegger says that life is action and passion, and that a man fails to take part in the action and passion of his times at the peril of being judged not to have lived.
Jack Higgins, Day of Reckoning
And I’ll let Mark Twain have the final word on the subject:
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
Now get thee to a library or Amazon.com!
Jerry
So one of the main issues in the whole discussion about self-esteem in those days was whether it wasn’t about the annoying and destructive bragging Michael (and all the rest of us) is put off by. Fear of offending society by bragging led to a whole generation of meek kids unwilling to toot their own horns. And then studies showed that self-esteem had a lot to do with learning ability, and even more to do with future success in life. And sometimes self-esteem means you have to be the one to toot your own horn, though it’s always better if someone else volunteers to do it for you. For instance, my old friend Jack Canfield, has had some really nice things to say about me and my work, and will mention both prominently in his newsletter in a few weeks. And this is also why I decided to gather all the endorsements and testimonials you’ll find in The Moneylove Club link at the top of this page. 
