MoneyHappy–A New MoneyLove Companion-Concept

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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To Toot Or Not To Toot, That Is The Question

It’s Okay To Toot Your Own Horn As Long As You Don’t

Think You’re The Only Instrument In The Orchestra!

So this line of thought started for me when I read a Facebook post by my friend, Michael Dunlop, the brilliant entrepreneur son of my brilliant entrepreneur friend and mentor, Barry Dunlop. Michael was venting a bit about seeing so many people bragging on themselves on Facebook, talking about how amazing they were. And I posted the following comment:

I know exactly what you mean, but it is sometimes true that people will have to toot their own horn because no one else will do it. You and I and your dad are so fortunate to have others who sing our praises and appreciate what we are putting out into the world. I think we need to be super sensitive to those who are not so fortunate, who are maybe just starting out, who may be insecure, or may just be untalented or uninteresting. And I think what separates us from some of these others is the fact that while we may think we’re amazing, we are very willing to acknowledge how amazing other people also are. If you toot your own horn, don’t act like you’re the only instrument in the orchestra!

And I was reminded of some long ago conversations with Jack Canfield on the subject of self-esteem. This was Jack’s passion before Chicken Soup For The Soul or The Secret, and the subject of his first book, way back in 1978. I’ll date myself, too, by mentioning that he featured one of my original exercises in the book.

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.

It can be a fine line between coming across as confident and self-assured, or appearing arrogant and self-aggrandizing. This latter terms refers to enhancing or exaggerating your attributes. Politicians do this all the time. It’s tooting one’s own horn out of tune and much too loudly. But if you’re someone with some authentic skills and talents, someone who lives by what is becoming my main mantra–Saying what you can and will do, then doing it–no one will be upset or offended when you toot your horn a bit. A friend of mine is about to enter into an online partnership with a very successful entrepreneur who she describes as a “blowhard.” Every time she engages him in a conversation about their mutual goals, he spends most of the time telling her how wonderful he is and listing all his many accomplishments. Because it can be a big breakthrough for her business, she is still planning to go ahead with the partnership, but trying to figure out how to put buffer zones between her and this major horn tooter. In this situation, no matter how successful their partnership is, it will be less than it could have been if he weren’t a horn tooting blowhard. And perhaps the saddest thing of all is that he doesn’t have to be. Whatever his deep-rooted insecurity at the foundation of this need to impress, he has actually accomplished a lot and would receive much more in the form of other people tooting his horn if he only allowed the room for it to happen and be heard. He drowns out almost every other sound with his noise.

I’ll bet you know of a few people like this, talented people who give the impression they aren’t by how loudly they toot their horns right in your ear. I could mention a couple of my own quite famous and successful friends who are guilty of this, and all I could ever think of when it happened, often, was how sad that they have so little faith and belief in themselves that they have to keep trying to fill the space around them with loud self-accolades.

So by all means, toot your own horn once in a while, but keep it somewhat muted, and in tune with what is going on around you. And it always makes good sense to sing your own praises a little more softly than the world arounds you sings them.

Jerry

Beyond Abundance To Meaningful Living

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.

Are You Getting Enough For Your Stuff?

Chances Are You’re Undervaluing Yourself

I rarely get a direct rapid response when I ask the question, “Are you undercharging and over-delivering for what you offer out in the world?” Not coming to terms with that issue may be the single largest factor in some people’s limited financial success. It all has to go back to one’s core self-esteem. “Am I worth it?” “Is what I produce worth it?”

A Useful Bit of Market Research

So here’s a question to ask some of your clients and customers. And ask it in this way: “Your rate for my stuff is going to remain constant, no matter what I do with the price in the future. But I would like you to think about it and come up with your honest assessment of what you would charge for it if you were the one producing and marketing it.”  Now if everyone you ask says they would charge two or three times as much, you’ve gotten a clear signal it’s time to consider a price increase. On the other hand, if the majority says they would charge exactly what you do, then you’re probably in the right ballpark. And if they say they would charge less than you are now charging, it’s time to examine what you’re delivering to people, and probably hire a coach for help in upgrading your material.

One of The Core Ego Issues In Life

We cannot underestimate the importance of this issue in determining your level of success in the world. Your ability to produce valuable stuff, and to value the stuff you produce, is paramount. And a lot of it starts with your belief in yourself and your ability to produce, to create, to deliver something of value to the world.

I started thinking about this when I recently announced a price increase for the Moneylove Club monthly audio subscription. I did this on the advice of my Internet marketing mentors–tho I’ll admit I didn’t raise the price as much as was suggested by some experts in the field. You may know I’ve been charging $27 a month for this service. All along, I have mentioned to subscribers that they are grandfathered in at that rate no matter what it eventually goes to. And this feels right in the context of my prosperity consciousness, even though I know a lot of them would be happy to pay double or triple the price just based on some of the results they’ve been reporting back to me. (I’ll confess here that there are times I feel I should be paying them for the great testimonials they are providing, not to mention some case histories I can used in the revised, annotated new edition of Moneylove I am planning to publish next year.).

And right here, I would love your comments and opinions on why so many Internet marketing masters seem to have an almost obsessive attachment to the price of $97. This was the figure most often mentioned as the ideal one for me to charge for my monthly membership fee. Instead, risking the wrath of the Internet gods, I went for $47, which seemed a reasonable fee, and one that would allow me to share the profits with some affiliates as my market and audience experience a great surge in numbers over the coming months, with some major media exposure. It also will make it very easy for me to stick to my commitment to deliver to my subscribers “more than their money’s worth.”

Raising my price, even though I knew I would have to eventually do it, brought up some of my issues in this area. The comments and compliments I keep getting about this audio series, as well as my old Nightingale-Conant Moneylove tapes, help me immensely in this area. I don’t have to just rely on my own belief system about the value of my stuff, but I have many other people telling me this, and often letting me know that they think my stuff is even more valuable than I think it is. So I know I still have some work to do on this issue. How about you?

Time And Money Intertwined Forever

As I explore new horizons in the area of prosperity thinking, I come more and more to the conclusion that it has not only to do with our attitudes about money, but our attitudes about time. The person who values every minute as something precious and immensely worthwhile, will tend to strive for impeccable excellence in what he or she puts out into the world. I’ll probably do several blog posts on this specific subject in the coming months, but for now I think it is useful to look at your basic way of seeing the relationship between time and money.

If you are undervaluing your stuff–undercharging and over-delivering, chances are it has to do with the time you spend producing what you deliver. If you’re a consultant and you charge $300 for an hour, and you see five clients each day, $1500 seems like a good return for a day’s work. But is it really?  Not if it took you years of study and education and practice to get to the point where you can get $300 for your hour. And not if that hour enables your client to go out and make a lot more than that amount. People often base their fees on the “going rate,” but I would like to suggest this archaic system can be very limiting to both parties in any such exchange.

I would suggest you see what you charge for products or services as the “going further rate”. In other words, what you are offering, should your client or customer put it into use in his or her life, will allow them to expand their lives and their income further than current levels. I had a client recently,  after a $197. coaching session with me, get an unexpected $50,000 consulting contract. Of course, neither of us had any idea this would happen. But what would I have charged and what would that client have paid if either or both of us knew that would be one of the results? I might ask you to take a leap of faith and consider charging what you would charge if you knew everyone you charged that amount had a result equal to the most amazing results anyone ever achieved using your stuff–your ideas, your products, your services.

And, by the way, I have no present intentions to raise my coaching fee. Which may mean I believe in delivering a valuable service at a reasonable price–or it may mean I have some serious work to do on my own prosperity consciousness and core belief system. What do you think?

Jerry

The Best Prosperity Thinker You’ve Never Heard Of

His Name Is Kevin Delaney–And Here’s Why You Should Listen

We first connected when I got an email in early 2009. Here’s some of it:

Hi, Jerry:

A few years back, I discovered a paperback copy of Moneylove in a used bookstore — a place with a “bargain room,” where you could walk out with an armload of 15 books for just $2. Moneylove is, without question, the very best 13.3 cents I have ever spent!  I could go on at length about the many benefits I’ve gained from your work. (I later bought your Nightingale-Conant tape set, and your voice has been a frequent companion in my car and on morning walks.)

We exchanged many emails and became friends. When he visited San Francisco, Kevin even introduced me to some of his favorite Vegan restaurants, not my usual gastronomic haunts, but delicious food nonetheless. And I realized very quickly that Kevin really paid attention to the Moneylove principles and lived by them as a highly successful voiceover actor in Hollywood. Not only was he one of my best students ever, but he processed a lot of the ideas in with his own unique experiences and perceptions and came up with his own perspective on prosperity. I encouraged him to teach some of his prosperity ideas, and he started doing some podcasts on the subject. Where Kevin is different from many prosperity teachers is he is currently earning a good living doing voiceover and coaching other aspiring voiceover actors. So far, all of his prosperity material has been offered free. I strongly suggest you check it out at his blog: http://www.wealthybohemian.com. When he created this site, he stated his basic philosophy:

“Most of the trappings typically associated with ‘wealth’ leave me cold. Keep your tacky art, forget the the gaudy furniture. Give me instead the freedom to move about as I please, and an abundance of time to be able to do what I want. That, in a nutshell, is my concept of success.”

What has been thrilling and inspiring and very pride inducing for me is that while Kevin gives me a lot of the credit for his thinking on this subject, he comes up with his own approach in ways that I can now learn from.  Look at this other comment from his original email to me:

If I had to limit myself to just one idea that I’ve learned from you, it would have to be the utter futility of worrying about money. Fretting and getting bent out of shape over financial matters, I am convinced, is one of the most poverty-inducing things that people do.

There’s a point on one of your tapes where you say that you cannot wait until you become prosperous before you stop worrying about money — “You’ve got to stop the worrying NOW.” That sentence has served me very well over the past several years.

And look at how he simplified this idea, and the great question he came up with:

What’s the most idiotic mistake people make when it comes to money? The dumbest thing people do in the financial realm is they worry about money!

And while I talk about a “Unique Personal Differential,” Kevin puts it this way:

The only way anyone has ever discovered to experience freedom and get maximum enjoyment out of life:  tapping into (and selling) what you and you alone have to offer.

I don’t mean to suggest that Kevin merely puts a new spin on my Moneylove ideas, he has plenty of his own original concepts as well.  For example:

3 cherished values of the middle class and why you must reject them:  Hard work, formal education, and a good job.

and:

What you can buy with money is never as exciting as what you can make happen with it.

That last one alone is the seed of an entire book. As is the subject of one of his first prosperity podcasts last year, Big Money Versus Small Money, in which he states it is far easier to make big money than it is to make small money. You’ll have to listen to that one to get the whole concept.

Discovering Something Of Value Before Most Other People

I’ve often said that this is one of the great secrets of success in life. To discover, sometimes by accident, something wonderful that most people haven’t even heard about yet. I think Kevin Delaney, The Prosperity Teacher, is one of those discoveries. More at length in a future audio for The Moneylove Club, when I interview Kevin about some of the nitty gritty stuff. In the meantime, my only concern in helping to make more people aware of Kevin and his work is that someday people will start coming up to me and saying, “My goodness, he reminds me of a young Jerry Gillies!”

Jerry

Four Words That Have Ruined Countless Lives

“Money Can’t Buy Happiness” Is Stupid And Simplistic

It’s a canard–an unfounded rumor or belief–that material wealth can’t bring happiness. Of course it can. Two very expensive cats over the years have more than proved that for me. A lot of studies have come out to show that more money does not bring more happiness.  And it is true that a poor miserable person may not become less miserable with more money. But I think this perspective misses the point. Money by itself does not have the power to influence our state of mind, but the wise use of money can definitely improve life, bring a lot more pleasure and joy into one’s life, and allow one to participate in one of of the most certain ways to produce happiness:  generously giving to others.

In my research for this post, I came across this interesting article on the subject:

www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2009/03/happiness-myth-no-6-money-cant-buy-happiness.html

So Where Did It All Start?

Some say this misperception started with Adam Smith, that there is a limited ability to achieve happiness by acquiring wealth, as discussed in his 1759 book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

And of course in modern times, it has been put out there by wealthy bosses wanting to keep their workers happy with less-than-fair wages, or governments wanting to raise taxes.

Now some caveats here. I’m not saying money is the most important factor in bringing someone happiness, or even an essential one. I’ve been happy poor and I’ve been happy rich, and I can’t say rich is better in this regard, but it certainly makes it easier–and, mainly, money can buy you freedom in terms of the time to do what makes you feel good.

An interesting aside in this research is that scientists have found that people who are happy tend to make more money, especially later in life.

Celebrate The Temporary

A lot of the reports make much of the fact that receiving a sudden windfall only produces a temporary burst of pleasure, as if something is wrong with that. My contention has always been that a life well lived and well enjoyed is a series of temporary pleasures–like falling in love at first sight, or moving into a new home, or a wonderful vacation, or having a wonderful meal. All of these can bring lots of joy and happiness, but that initial burst wears off. And we need to celebrate the temporary nature of almost everything rather than decry it.

This awareness is exemplified in the old saying, “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly rent it.”

Though I think a quote that wraps my view up perfectly is from actress Bo Derek.

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.

One of my quotes on the subject:

While money certainly can’t buy you happiness, it can buy you a lot of courses on how to achieve happiness.

An even more recent quote of mine:

Money is the lubricant for a smoothly satisfying life.

Most of the happiest people I know do not have money worries or struggles. On the other hand, in 12 years of incarceration–broke and in prison–I was happy a lot of the time. Happiness is, after all, an inner experience and not dependent on externals, unless you make it so. But is also true that when my friends Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hanson and Susannah Lippman, among others, bought me lots of books and magazine subscriptions and quarterly packages of edible goodies, my happiness level definitely went up a notch or two or three. And when I would earn $100 in a month of writing captions for my magazine cartoonist clients on the outside, it felt like a fortune.

I think ultimately what brings the most happiness is being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it, and where you want to do it. And money definitely helps a lot in this regard.

And lack of money is probably more responsible for unhappiness than having money is for happiness. But saying that money can’t buy happiness is simply wrong, small-minded, and misleading. And to make it less of a hypothetical discussion, you might choose to make a list of 10 USES OF MONEY THAT MADE ME HAPPY.

I’d love to hear your comments and experiences about this subject.

Jerry

Moneylove As Philosophy

Some People “Get It”, Some People Don’t

A lot of folks think I’m just another one of those prosperity gurus talking and writing about how to get rich, how to get rich quick, how to get rich and hold onto it. They miss the point, and even Warner Books in the paperback of Moneylove, by putting Think, Get Rich on the cover, missed the point.

Believing and Feeling Are More Important Than Thinking

Okay, here’s the deal. Of course, all positive action leading to positive results starts with thought. But that is just the first spark, the real power comes from believing you will achieve your goals, which of course influences your actions–and feeling your own power and your own possibilities. Without these, you can think until your brain explodes, and you won’t be attracting anything worthwhile.

One of the reasons I am planning to revise, expand, and annotate the original book is because this is something I would love to see other authors do with classic works. I’ve mentioned before that I would love to know what Napoleon Hill would say that’s new–he certainly would have had a lot more ideas since writing Think And Grow Rich (and by the way, his book also was about a lot more than thinking–go back and read it). This project also gives me the opportunity to revisit Moneylove all these years later, and think anew about some of what it contains.

I am also looking at it for the next audio program for The Moneylove Club, which will feature ten statements or ideas from the book, and what I think and feel and believe about them now. One of these is the following quote from Frank Goble’s The Third Force, about the work of pioneering psychologist Abraham Maslow, and his studies of self-actualized people. Maslow was important because he was one of the first to say: let’s study healthy, successful people rather than focus on the sick and disturbed.

Because of their courage, their lack of fear, they are willing to make silly mistakes. The truly creative person is one who can think ‘crazy’; such a person knows full well that many of his great ideas will prove to be worthless. The creative person is flexible–he is able to change as the situation changes, to break habits, to face indecision and changes in conditions without undue stress. He is not threatened by the unexpected as rigid, inflexible people are.

A Quote That Can Change Your Life

Oh, I believe this to be absolutely true. If you studied the above paragraph and adopted and adapted it to your life, I have no doubt that your results would be very rewarding indeed.  For me, facing indecision without undue stress is a big one, and I admit I still need to work on it. I think I have flexible down pat, and certainly maintaining my optimism and robust expectations while serving a 12 year prison sentence indicates I am not threatened by unexpected changes in conditions. Self-actualization is an ideal–very few of us will achieve it to perfection, but perfection is not the goal.

What actually constitutes a successful life, I believe, is a constant forward movement toward our highest goals, so you can look back at the end of a day and say, “I’m a little bit closer today than I was yesterday.”

Jerry

MoneyLove Is About Balance

“Show Me The Money” Is A Very Narrow View

As I stated emphatically in Moneylove over thirty years ago, prosperity is about a lot more than money. And I’ve been thinking a lot about balance in life, and how some people are a lot better at creating it than others. A large part of my new coaching sessions focuses on this aspect of success, and it’s very rewarding to see how it is possible to add a lot more balance to a life that has been teetering and tottering through imbalance.

So it was another one of my continuing serendipitous events that when I received the results of today’s Google Search Alert on my name, it contained a quote of mine and a link to a speech by someone named Bryan Dyson.

At first I thought it might be the guy who does all the ads for the vacuum cleaner he invented, or maybe a relative of Esther Dyson’s, a woman who is a pioneering major thinker in the cyber world. But on exploration, I found Bryan Dyson spent 35 years with Coca Cola, including several CEO stints. And he had this to say in a speech on the subject of balance:

Ten Moneylove Questions to Provoke the Mind and Heart

Ten Questions To Ask Yourself About Your Prosperity
As 2010 Approaches

One of the gifts that many friends over the years have reported they were most looking forward to is my annual list of questions about the year just finishing and the new one coming up. It started as a process among a small group of friends on one bygone New Year’s Eve, and has grown since then.
You may know, if you are following this blog, or checking in with me on Facebook or Twitter, that I have just prepared for my coaching clients a list of 110 Questions For 2010 and am encouraging people to consider this coming new year a time to restart the New Millennium, since so many plans and aspirations we had back in 1999 got sidetracked by life, 9/11, the economic bubble bursts, and so forth. We humans created time and the calendar, and we should be able to change it to serve us. Anyway, just a decade into this 21st Century, we still have only taken baby steps into our own futures.

So I want to share with you ten questions to ask yourself (alone or with a friend or partner) about your money and manifestation situation, so as to clarify where you have been in 2009 and where you would like to be at this time next year.

1. What Is The Main Thing It Would Take
To Increase Your Income Tenfold?

This is to suggest that none of us have been dreaming big enough. Not to say you need or want this much money in your life, but wouldn’t it be nice to at least have an idea of how to go about creating it?

2. What Is One Unique Skill Or Talent You Have
That Has Never Made You Any Money?

I plan to expound at length in future posts about something I call Your Unique Personal Differential, what it is that may be special about you. Those people who are very successful financially have often figured out how to market what is unique about themselves.

3. If You Are Currently In A Relationship, Which Of You Is More Prosperity Conscious?

To put it more bluntly, is your relationship partner a role model and inspiration for you, or a bit of a drag?

4. What Would You Want To Do In 2010
If You Were Retired And Financially Secure?

For a lot of people, retirement is some pie-in-the-sky future aspiration. And while I personally am devoted to the concept of non-retirement, of loving what you do so much you would never even consider retiring, as artists, orchestra conductors, and even U.S. Senators never do–and therefore have longer-than-average lifespans–it is useful to imagine what you would do with yourself in a lifestyle in which you did not have to work to produce an income.

5. What Is One Way You Are Determined To Ask For
More Of What You Want In 2010?

Let’s face it, none of us have been willing to ask for everything we really want throughout our lives. And perhaps part of the evolution of our consciousness is to consistently be able improve on that limitation.

6. If You Had All The Money You Could Possibly Want,
What Would Your Biggest Worry Then Be?

I have often found that people suddenly having all their financial worries ended just come up with a new set of worries. Sometimes just the worry of losing it all. If worrying or being anxious or concerned about money is a major factor in your life, what would replace it as the next thing?

7. What Is The Main Thing You Can Do To Make 2010
A Lot More Prosperous Than 2009?

Chances are you know the answer to this question, but may have been unwilling to put it into action up to now.

8. What Was The Most Fun You Had Spending Money In 2009?

This goes along with my assertion that your subconscious mind is like a small child, it loves being pleasured and entertained. The more fun experiences you get in exchange for your money, the more it will work for you to produce more money.

9. When Was The Last Unexpected Arrival Of Money In Your Life,
And What Did You Do With It?

If we don’t differentiate between ordinary income and serendipitous abundance showing up, then we tend to diminish the pleasure and potency of such events. I always have at least one special desire to treat myself to if I get a sudden burst of unexpected cash. And it does seem to make more of those moments happen in my life. This may be fantasy on my part, but it works for me.

10. What Was The Most Fun You Had Making Money In 2009?

And if “fun” seems a bit too frivolous for you, then substitute pleasure or satisfaction. And if you had no fun whatsoever producing any money this past year, then you have a strong incentive to focus on doing so in 2010.

And I’ll leave you with one question I just came up with for this blog, one you can ponder for days.

If You Knew Absolutely, Positively, That You Would Be Wealthy Beyond Your Dreams In Exactly One Year, How Would You Change Your Behavior, Your Relationships, Your Plans?

Jerry

Moneylove, Prosperity, and The Energy of Money

Here’s A Provocative Prosperity Conscious Idea:

What if we increase the potency of our prosperous thoughts by increasing the number of different definitions we can come up with for financial success? Just a thought, mind you, but one that popped into my head as I was writing the above headline and had not even planned to mention in this post. And I’m not going to give you a list of those words, part of the process will be for you to think of as many as you can, then go to a thesaurus and find as many news ones as possible. Imagine one of your walls, perhaps in your workspace, with cards covering it, each one featuring a different abundance word.

But What I Really Want To Talk About….

This past weekend, I attended the first prosperity workshop I’ve been to in fifteen years. I have been known to rant a bit about the fact that most prosperity websites, books, CDs, and DVDs today are the same old, same old–just rehashing the stuff I introduced and popularized in Moneylove thirty years ago. With a few exceptions. And I am anxious to discover as many exceptions as possible so as to include them in my revised and annotated and updated new edition of Moneylove, which will be published in the next three months. Imagine then my delight in discovering one such teacher of some new perspectives on money doing a workshop at Unity San Francisco, the nondenominational church I attend, whose motto is: One God, Many Paths. Her name is Dr. Maria Nemeth, and she is a clinical psychologist who started coaching people about their money issues after a scam artist ripped her off in a Ponzi scheme some years ago, sending her into depression and a deep analysis of how the human mind works in relationship to money. She runs an organization called: www.AcademyForCoachingExcellence.com and wrote several books, the best known, The Energy of Money. That was also the title of her workshop, which was really a coaching session for a group of about 35 of us, including the minister, my friend Sonya Milton, and her husband, also a Unity minister, Hal Milton.

The Secret Of Being A Good And Powerful And Influential Workshop Leader/Coach

In this case, it was what Maria Nemeth said, as well as the way she said it. She has a wide range of fascinating gestures and facial expressions that illustrate her words. So much so, I asked her assistant, Michele, if she had ever had acting lessons. No, this is who she is.
And the secret of success as a workshop leader? That what you say and do triggers tne creative imaginations of those attending, that you stimulate their minds, conscious and subconscious, into coming up with their own solutions. During the workshop, I did something I have never done before. I had 5x8 cards for notes, and I kept two sets of notes. One set contains the comments Dr. Nemeth made that I liked most, the other set of cards has my own ideas that popped up as my imagination was stirred, as my deepest core of creative energy was tickled into production mode. I am looking forward to interviewing this impressive woman, and am sure I will be sharing more of her thoughts on this blog as time goes on.
You can read her books or go to her website for more information.
But I’ll share a couple of things I especially liked. She talked a lot about how we spend money, and if you read Moneylove, you might remember I had a whole chapter on Prosperity Spending. We agree on the importance of getting pleasure and satisfaction as a result of one’s spending. I liked her terminology in this area, as she talked about Consciously Spending versus Leaking Money. The latter is spending money just for the sake of spending, not getting the pleasure or positive results we desire and deserve.

Maria Nemeth also said, in a slightly different way, one of the points I really emphasize in my work, and is exemplified by the quote of mine Nightingale-Conant sent around the world a couple of weeks ago, “Wealth Is Not A Material Gain, But A State Of Mind.” What Maria says is, “Being financially successful isn’t about how much money you have, but your relationship to money.” And she adds: “It’s doing what you say you’re going to do with money with Clarity, Focus, Ease and Grace.” A nice turn of phrase that can strike a responding chord in all of us. I like that clarity comes first, echoing my Moneylove admonition that you must start with a “Clear Vision Of What You Want.” But Dr. Nemeth expands on these ideas and offers some elaborate, commonsense-filled concepts that explain some of the inner workings of our consciousness. She focuses a lot of attention on what she calls our “Monkey Minds.” Those negative voices inside our heads telling us why we’ll fail and what we shouldn’t or can’t do. If you ever heard my tapes or attended one of my seminars, you might remember I gave my negative voice a name, Stanley, and talked about never being able to totally get rid of him, but that the best way to move past that negative voice is to lose it in a crowd of positive voices. Maria also talks about the fact that the Monkey Mind never goes away, but just eventually becomes irrelevant. And as she talked about this, I had the thought and wrote it down on my cards, that it’s like a child getting a toy for Christmas or Hanakuh, and it’s defective, it breaks, or won’t work to start with. That’s a terrible thing, and creates a very unhappy, upset child. But if that same child gets a lot of toys, and just one is bad, it’s a whole different story. It’s losing the bad toy in a crowd of good ones, making the bad one irrelevant. And we can consciously choose to inundate our consciousness with lots of good toys.

What She’s Not

There’s lots more, some of it very intriguing and juicy and even contrarian. Maria Nemeth, PhD is definitely not the one thing I most dislike in a prosperity teacher–she is not a copycat. A unique, charismatic, and very wise woman in the ways of the financial world and the prosperous mind. A kindred soul I hope to continue to get to know and learn from and maybe even collaborate with in some as-yet-undiscovered way.
Jerry