Boom and Bloom versus Doom and Gloom

COCKEYED OPTIMISM IS A WINNING STRATEGY

I recently posted the following statement on Facebook:

As a confirmed and certified optimist, I am absolutely certain that all pessimists will get what they deserve and expect.

Pessimism is not a winning strategy and is contrary to the principles on which the United States was founded. This is probably why the most optimistic candidate always wins presidential elections, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton being the most recent examples, though the value of Barack Obama’s 2008 slogan, Hope and Change, cannot be overestimated. FDR perhaps set the standard, being the first president to use mass media in his radio Fireside Chats, and with perhaps the most authentically American phrase ever uttered by a commander-in-chief, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” from his first inaugural address.

But it is not just about politics, which after all is a reflection of the national psyche. A Harvard study just released shows that people who optimistic and upbeat about life are less likely to have heart attacks. I have talked extensively about the importance of having “robust expectations.”  And sixty-three years ago, Rodgers and Hammerstein encapsulated this hallmark of the American spirit in that great song from South Pacific, A Cockeyed Optimist.  You can Google the lyrics, but here are a few of the most essential ones:

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead,
But I’m only a cockeyed optimist
And I can’t get it into my head.

Just recently I coined the word, “neopessimism” to describe those people who are whining about the economic catastrophes facing us, and the lack of opportunity today. In other words, focusing on the doom and gloom rather than the boom and bloom.  One definition of bloom is a condition of vigor and freshness. This is what really is going on now as Americans have broken all records on productivity, foreign exports are at all-time highs, and we have survived an economic challenge that, when history looks back on it, may actually have been more threatening than the Great Depression. There are certainly problems, and lots of hard decisions to be made, but, as was true in the 1930s with FDR, the best decisions need to be made in an aura of hopefulness and genuine optmism that we can do it. FDR tried some things that just didn’t work, but he never gave up, and many of his experimental solutions are still around today, like Social Security. The challenges facing us now are nowhere near as daunting as those we have faced and triumphed over in the past.

Those who count the nation and themselves out, who see current challenges and obstacles as insurmountable are sadly ignorant of our own history, and how time and again that indomitable American spirit has kept our heads above water. The basic definition of “indomitable” is “impossible to subdue or defeat.” Someone recently pointed out how many potential catastrophes we survived in the 20th Century–the great flu pandemic, AIDS, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and countless others. A part of our national psyche that is not emphasized enough, I believe, is our resilience.

In other words, we are very, very good at bouncing back.

Jerry

The Happy Truth About The Economy

Some Simple and Perhaps Unpalatable Truths

Since Rick Santorum’s dropping out today makes it certain it will be a Romney-Obama choice election, with the economy playing a major role in the campaign, it may be time to take our collective heads out of the sand when it comes to what is really going on with the economy.

For over thirty years now, I have been talking about basic structural changes in our economic structure as we move from a manufacturing economy to an information/high tech economy. I have not been alone in discussing this, but the politicians and a majority of the population have not been listening, which is exactly why we seem to be in an economic mess right now. I say “seem to be” because the mess is largely illusory, fostered by politicians in the opposition, whichever party that happens to be.

In Moneylove Seminars in the 1980s, I talked about the best opportunity for prosperity being one that involves leaving the job market. I stressed that in order for a company to pay an employee a certain salary, they had to be able to make five times that salary as the result of the employees work production. This constituted, I suggested, a lot of wasted energy on the part of the employee, and was not a very fair arrangement. It has gotten even less so as technological breakthroughs have made companies more efficient and workers even more productive, so that many firms lighten their load by getting rid of employees, thus contributing to the joblessness problem. But it’s not really a problem of joblessness, it’s a problem of no one figuring out how to effectively use the increased productivity of workers to the advantage of those workers.

In 2007, according to a report just yesterday by The Wall St. Journal, the revenue per employee at Standard and Poor’s 500 companies was $378,000–and in 2011 it had increased to $420,000 per employee. For an employee making $42,000 a year, this means the company is making ten times what they are paying that person on that individual’s work output.

This is not economic catastrophe, it is unfair distribution of wealth–and confirms many of the complaints of the Occupy Movements. As David Brooks wrote yesterday in the New York Times,  two years ago President Obama promised to double U.S. exports in five years. It now looks like we will reach that goal even sooner. America’s export revenues are expected to surge for the foreseeable future.

Another positive factor in my optimistic economic outlook is one that means outsourcing will slow down and we will be much more competitive in the global economy. We lead the world in the development, design, and production of robots and super smart software. This means factories with workers on very low wages crowded together will not longer be able to compete with our manufacturing companies, operating with fewer, more productive, and a lot better paid workers.

Of course, the more efficiently American companies are run, the more workers need to get away from the old paradigms, need better education and training to be available to the many higher tech jobs that are now screaming for applicants, and will continue to do so for years to come. And need to have more support, encouragement, and training programs that will allow them to follow the true American Dream: being in business for one’s self.

The export boom alone guarantees America is not in economic decline, but more productive companies needing less actual bodies to do the producing has created a major challenge. It is the candidate who talks about education, training programs, green energy, infrastructure and programs to develop more entrepreneurs who will be in synch with what we actually need. Not the candidate who talks about lowering corporate tax rates for companies already making record high profits, and lowering taxes on millionaires and billionaires. They’re doing just fine–they’re not the Americans needing retraining for the new economy. I will leave it up to you to decide which candidate and political party has the best policies for our changing economic reality.

Jerry

3 Secrets of Imaginary Success

Using Your Mind To Move Your Life Forward

Let me make this clear, I don’t believe in magic or mumbo jumbo, airy fairy prescriptions for success. Some of the programs that suggest you can become wealthy just by thinking about wealth or just by declaring your intention to be rich are plain silly.

What I have been saying for over thirty years as a prosperity teacher, however, is that it all starts with thought, it all starts by understanding what you want, having a clear vision of that desire, and taking positive action to make it happen. And it is true that sometimes the results this produces seem magical and even miraculous. But it isn’t really magic, it’s a testimony to the awesome power of the human mind to create intention and manifest positive outcomes in the physical world. It’s about energy, it’s not so much about attracting what you want, but rather about making yourself attractive enough so that others will want to support you and give you what you want.

Over and over again, I have seen people who produce the kind of energy that wins other people over. And those other people will be happy to support, participate in, and even buy whatever the person creating that kind of energy is offering in the world. My three secrets:

1. Your Wake-Up Call. I strongly believe that the attitude with which you face the beginning of your day has a lot to do with the quality of your attraction, your personal power, and what you manifest on any given day. I have talked a lot about the phrase I got from Norman Cousins, “robust expectations.” Norman told me this was the single thing rich and famous and powerful people he encountered in his amazing life all had in common. They woke up every day expecting good things to happen, no matter what was going on in the world or in their immediate environment. When you bounce out of bed with a smile on your face, looking forward to your day, whomever you encounter during the rest of the day will find you pretty irresistable.

2. Daydream. Great thinkers and producers of magical-seeming manifestation, people like Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs–all of them made a practice of daydreaming on a daily basis. Wikipedia defines it as:

A daydream is a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake.

If you are not now a daydreamer, take some time to become one. At least twice a day, taking at least ten to fifteen minutes, just imagine something you want actually coming to you. You might even start a daydream journal.

3.  Celebrate the positive result in a flamboyant way in your mind. A still further way to stimulate the imagination into alignment with your fondest aspirations is to picture exactly what your success will look like and how you will celebrate its achievement. I have pictured myself receiving a standing ovation at a Broadway theatre for my one man show, and then taking all my friends who attended opening night to an elegant restaurant for a wonderful meal afterwards. Or standing on the deck of a luxurious cruise ship with the people I love most to celebrate my reaching the top of the best seller list. Or starting a foundation to foster real prison reform with the millions I earn from my prison memoir. Or flying friends in from all over the world to stay in luxury hotel suites and attend my stand-up comedy act in Las Vegas.

Though not all of these scenarios will play out, they help create a certain energy momentum that will make any one of them less improbable as my life goes on. And if one or more of them do occur, or something equally wonderful, it won’t be magic, it won’t be a miracle, it won’t be due to just thinking about it–it will be a triumph of the imagination and the follow-up intention and action I put into that vision. I am not conjuring my own future, I am rehearsing it.

Jerry

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Wealth and Poverty–Some Words From the Wise

Poverty Levels Indicate Greater Gap Between The Haves and The Have-Nots

A lot has been made in the past few days about the newest poverty figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau. They show poverty has increased among just about every segment of society, but more rapidly among minorities. In fact, the only group not affected seems to be seniors. And the simple reason for this is Social Security. So all the recent attacks on that beloved institution are probably going to backfire. The truth is that it’s doing what it was designed to do, keep millions of elderly Americans out of poverty.

The Thoughts On Poverty In America from Brzezinski.

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor, appeared today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show,  which features his daughter Mika as co-host with former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough. After discussing some foreign affairs areas, Mika asked her father his take on the recently released poverty figures. He said they were distressing and added:

But I worry about the other side of that, which is the one percent of the richest, who have the benefits of tax loopholes, and of preferential arrangements, and whoop it up without any responsibility, social responsbility, for our lives here in America. This is a prescription for social conflict as well as economic paralysis.

I still nurture the conviction that the residual assets of America are still there, that this society has the capacity for self-renewal and self-reflection, but we’re going right now through a kind of lunatic phase in our politics.  Look at the comments and speeches and perspectives shared with us by putative Republican presidential candidates. It’s literally frightening. These people are living in some sort of never-never land of illusions, slogans, passions, convictions, very unrelated to reality.

We’ve been very lucky because we’ve been a democratic society in which everyone felt they had a chance of rising. Today, social advancement from the lower to upper classes is faster in Europe and China than in America. We have right now a stagnant social, highly differentiated society in which the rich are getting richer, absolutely socially indifferent, they evade taxes right and left, and we’re indifferent to it. As I’ve said, this is a prescription for social unrest and economic paralysis.

Though I haven’t always agreed with Dr. Brzezinski’s sometimes hawkish foreign policy positions, he is certainly one our deepest and most erudite thinkers on many subjects. I think he illuminates in a very succinct way some of the issues facing us in today’s economic situation. Granted, he’s pretty partisan, but he also has never been slow to attack fellow Democrats when he feels they are in the wrong. In fact, though he was an early supporter of Barack Obama, he has recently criticized the President for a lack of leadership in the Middle East (Brzezinski was largely responsible for the historic Camp David accords during the Carter administration), and for depending too much on speeches instead of action.

Brzezinski also likes Warren Buffet’s economic approach and says it should be a model for Congress. I think it’s important with all the inane opinions and historically inaccurate distortions being thrown around, for us to listen to some of the more sensible, saner thoughts from our wise elders.

Jerry

Take Your Full Dose of Inspiration/Motivation

Prosperity Teaching Can Be Like A Mental Antibiotic

I have noticed a somewhat disturbing phenomenon, which I have been guilty of myself on occasion. This is when someone notices a very positive improvement in their life or financial situation after taking a particular training or ongoing series of programs or tools–and then, feeling what they had been doing worked, stops doing it. This occurred recently with two members of my Moneylove Club. Because I attract people who are already motivated and success-oriented, I have a very low attrition rate for the motivational information industry, so I noticed when these two star members decided to end their monthly subscription. Both had reported very positive and very prosperous results after being members for a year or so. Both gave glowing testimonials about the audios, and both indicated they might want to come back sometime in the future.

Here’s my issue with that, and it is very analogous, I believe, to the situation with antibiotics, where many people want to stop taking their prescription before all the pills or capsules are gone, just because the symptoms are gone. The reason doctors strongly advise us to take the full dosage even when we feel better is backed by scientific evidence. Just because you feel better, doesn’t mean all of the bacteria that caused the problem are gone. A few always survive and have a very short reproduction cycle, and the ones that survive may be the strongest of the strong, the kind of bacteria we are increasingly seeing with built-in defenses against antibiotics. So by stopping short of taking all your antibiotics, you may be guaranteeing a return of the illness that will be even worse than the first bout because it will involve antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Taking all of the recommended dosage is actually practicing preventive medicine.

And when you are taking a dosage of positive information, inspiration, motivation and it seems to be working, the worst time to stop is when you see an absence of all the former obstacles to success. This is exactly when the motivation-resistant mental molecules can rear their ugly little heads and fill your mind with negative thoughts, fears and doubts–and cause a major relapse of poverty consciousness or breakdown in self confidence. But it is human nature to stop taking your medicine when the problem appears to have disappeared. I’ve done it, we’ve all done it–and often regretted doing it.

Phasing It Out Slowly

Now there is certainly a time, to usually be self-determined, when you are well on the road to recovery, when it is time to start phasing out your medicine, whether it’s a physical or mental dosage. But “phasing out” is the key phrase here. Your body and your mind do not function as well with sudden and dramatic transformation. “Cold turkey,” is not a concept that works in these situations. This is why I always suggest that someone who is perhaps listening to one of my audios every day, sometimes more than once a day, that rather than stop altogether when they feel they’ve achieved their primary goal, they slowly diminish the dosage–maybe listen once a week or even once a month. I will have attended three workshops on prosperity consciousness myself by the end of summer. I know the principles these teachers will be focusing on, and at least one of them was originally inspired by Moneylove–but that doesn’t mean I won’t be getting valuable information, and perhaps hearing some things in new ways with fresh ears. Even if you have mastered something you’ve studied, some kind of maintenance regimen can keep your momentum going, and prevent you ending up with a mental wall that restricts your imagination.

We need to remember that poverty consciousness and negative messages have been filling our subconscious minds for decades. The immediate battle may be won, but the war lasts a lifetime. I know because they’ve told me, that those former audio subscribers still listen to some of the audios, and read this blog, and may even peruse the pages of their battered old copy of Moneylove from time to time. But some people, exercising their human nature, believe periods of low self esteem and negative results in life are permanently curable. No, these are conditions we have to manage and monitor. Due diligence in this regard will prevent relapse. I have great belief in the human spirit to triumph over any adversity, but I remember a famous psychologist once telling me that he thought the greatest mental disease was the belief that you didn’t need any help from anyone else.

Let’s all have fun getting well together!

Jerry

Prosperity-Mouthing

It’s Time For A New Prosperity Consciousness Paradigm

“Paradigm” has certainly been an overused term in recent decades, describing all sorts of patterns and models of behavior and concepts. One of the most disturbing models in recent months comes from what I like to call the “anti-prosperity pundits.” These are often media types with partisan agendas using scare tactics predicting financial doom.

Now there is no doubt we are currently facing some major economic challenges. But the way to overcome any obstacle or challenge is not to whine, “Woe is me.” Of course this form of poor-mouthing goes back to the Old Testament and one of its oldest books, The Book of Job:

Job 10:15: If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;

Poor-mouthing is a plea for sympathy, and usually refers to claiming one is less financially successful than the truth in the form of an audit would reveal. I see it a lot in coaching clients to become more prosperity conscious, and reflected in the email questions I get from Moneylove Club members.

Coming back from my own financial oblivion, which I describe in the appendix of the Moneylove Manifesto, available in a free download on this page, and which is still a work in progress, I am even more aware of the need to switch from poor-mouthing to prosperity-mouthing. I notice that many people seem to relish declaring they are poorer than they really are. Time after time, someone complains to me about how badly they are doing, and then I find out they own substantial property, or have a house worth more than any money owed on it, or have major credit available. If you can go out and borrow $10,000 or more right now, you are in better financial shape than most people in the world–by far. Credit is an asset, and should come with bragging rights: “Wow! I can borrow whatever I need because financial institutions find me trustworthy and believe in my financial future.”

If you listen to politicians and much of the “glass-is-half-empty” media, it would be pretty hard to have an optimistic view of your own prosperity potential. Unless you counter this by starting your own program of Prosperity-Mouthing.

“Cash Talk” Instead of Trash Talk and Crash Talk

As we approach the July 4th holiday, here’s my personal Declaration of Independence from any bad economic news, speculations, and doom scenarios:

I just had my best income producing month in 15 years!

Now, I am hardly all the way back in my comeback, but I am doing better this month than last, and better this year than last–and it doesn’t matter how small or large that improvement is. Like the U.S. economy, it is trending in the right direction. You can find all sorts of negative stories and headlines out there today, a veritable cornucopia of poor-mouthing. But with the slightest of efforts in the right direction, you can also find a treasure trove of positive news. I just checked this out by going online, and right away I found one of the most encouraging stories I could imagine on the U.S. economy, involving the city I considered my home for ten years, Miami, Florida.

The huge, cash rich Malaysia-based Genting Berhad. one of the world’s largest casino operators, has just placed a bet on the future of Miami as a global economic center with a $3 billion investment in resort/casino projects. And casino gambling outside of Seminole Indian operations isn’t even legal in Florida at this moment! All over the world, people with lots of cash are placing large amounts of it in U.S. investments. Sadly, they have more faith in our economy than we often seem to. If I had surplus cash right now, I would be exploring some Miami possibilities, as I happen to agree with this Asian corporate giant’s optimistic outlook for that city.  I guarantee you Miami’s movers and shakers aren’t gong around moaning, “Woe is me.”

Back during the Great Depression of the 1930s, our culture was filled with positive music and movies and books that helped people cope with all the negative news. And all comparisons with today’s difficulties are ludicrous. With all the built-in safety nets, and much, much lower unemployment rates, and much, much higher universal standards of living, we are living in amazing abundance today. But because so many people seem to take great joy in poor-mouthing, perhaps it’s time to have more of those rags-to-riches movies, and songs like “We’re In The Money.” In fact, the next Moneylove Club audio is going to focus on that song’s lyrics and three other positive songs that can affect our prosperity consciousness and set us on a path to prosperity-mouthing on a regular basis.

And if you’ll excuse my getting biblical on you again, let’s replace that “Woe is me,” energy with some “Blessed am I,” instead.

Jerry

Prosperity Time! Time Prosperity!

It’s All About The Exchange of Time

What kind of life you have is often predicated on how well you’ve exchanged time. One of the key components of prosperity consciousness, I have always believed, is valuing your time even more than money. Many of us have made too many poor bargains in this exchange.

Poor Bargains

What do I consider a poor bargain? Well, certainly working forty years at a job you despise for a few years of financial comfort in retirement is one of the poorest bargains of them all. But even an hour spent in doing something you don’t like, that devalues and depresses you, that doesn’t speak to your highest purpose and highest good, is far from worth any amount of money you are paid for that hour.

Another aspect of this is illustrated by a Facebook post I just wrote:

Every minute you listen to a pessimistic, negative friend

 or politician or pundit, requires at least ten minutes of beauty,

 truth, and wisdom to replenish your inner peace and higher consciousness.

In recent blog posts, and on my latest Moneylove Club audio, I’ve discussed The Law of Subtraction, and the importance of being very selective in what  you choose from the overwhelming onslaught of information and data now available to us. What you choose to let in, what you choose to eliminate. And this all has to do with time. Prosperity Time can be declared as a designation for your life right now, but you have to first declare in your own mind that you are willing to practice Time Prosperity–the treasuring of time as your most precious commodity.

What Makes Time Precious?

I’ve recently discussed two Triple Tests related to this. One is something I’ve discussed for many years, since writing Moneylove. That is based on my affirmation:  ”If it doesn’t bring me profit, pleasure, or knowledge, it isn’t worth doing.” Isn’t this the essence of life? Doesn’t it cover most of what is important to you? But perhaps more at the heart of things, there’s the original Triple Filter from Socrates. This is to use Truth, Goodness, and Usefulness as criteria for what you listen to and let into your consciousness.  I discuss this at greater length in the preceding post from last week. But measuring how you spend your time in terms of whether it’s true, good for you, and useful is a Prosperity Time/Time Prosperity way to go.

Many of the poor bargains people make go back to an original misconception: that money is limited, but time is not. In fact, the exact opposite is true. There is an infinite amount of money out there, but we don’t nearly have enough time to enjoy it all. Those who are truly and usefully prosperous, in every sense of that word, have grasped that time is the most important element in a life well-lived. How well we use it, or how badly we abuse it, will determine our outcome.

I wrote a cartoon gag when I was in prison that speaks to this very issue of what’s really more important, time or money. It shows one convict speaking to another in their cell, saying, “Instead of seizing the day, I seized the day’s proceeds.”

In all you do, Take Your Time! And I’m not referring to slowing down here, though that may be a factor that can enhance your life experience. I’m talking about Taking Your Time! Possessing it.  Seizing and savoring each moment. Appreciating and loving as many moments as possible. And, most of all, using time well–exchanging it for what you truly want.

Jerry

Moneylove And The Mental Room With A View

You May Need To Create An Internal Gatekeeper

So, did you answer the question I posed at the end of my previous post?

“What am I taking in that I would be better served leaving out?”

I like the word “cacophony” a lot. It means a bunch of discordant sounds coming at you, wails, hoots, whistles, etc. Too much to take in and make any sense of. I also like that it sounds, in its first two syllables, a lot like “caca,” which is a word that describes unneeded stuff flowing out of you. Today we are all being inundated by a cacophony of noise that fills our ears and minds and time so that there is no room for anything useful to easily gain entry to our consciousness.

I suggest that we all need to create a mental room with a view. In other words, we have to stop the blockage, eliminate the traffic jam, cut down on the cacophony. Emails are an excellent place to start. I have one email address I use just for blogs, newsletters, and websites that offer interesting courses and information on marketing, blogging, publishing, etc. This is not spam, but sites I have visited and found interesting enough that I wanted to keep track of what they were doing. At last count, about 30-40 emails come into that address every day. I rarely open more than one or two. I calculated that it takes three to four minutes to read one, and I’m a very fast reader. That would be at least two hours a day that I really don’t want to put to this use. So I ignore most of them. One of these days, I tell myself, I will go in a clean up this site, where 11,596 emails now reside (I do keep much better tabs on my primary email address, where friends and colleagues and clients get a quick response).

There is no doubt I am missing out on some interesting information, but there is even less doubt that I need to have an internal gatekeeper to keep stuff out that isn’t necessary or doesn’t arouse extreme passion by virtue of its essential nature or life-changing insight. It reminds me of a button I once wore when I would go to parties, “I’m available, but very picky.” We need to be very picky about what we let in, which is why I’m devoting a whole audio to my Law of Subtraction as the next edition of the Moneylove Club.

With the Internet bombarding us with more information than even a genius can process, we need to up our selectivity game in substantial and serious ways. If you have downloaded my free online book, The Moneylove Manifesto, you will see I cover this subject in a bit more depth and even offer several strategies that can create space in your mind to allow for great new things to come in once in a while. A closed mind won’t bring you all you desire. But a completely open one will quickly create that cacophony of discordant sounds, a virtual logjam, that will clog your imagination and ability to think and create. So a gate would be useful, and every gate needs a gatekeeper. In this case, some strategy or system to make the choices you need to make. And it doesn’t matter what that particular method is, as long as you use it consistently, as long as it keeps out the stuff you really don’t need or want, as long as it makes room for wonderful surprises and new passions.

A quote I discovered recently and like a lot:

Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it. -Swami Vivekananda

So maybe it’s time to make a list for yourself on “What is really essential to me?”

Jerry

Being “In The Know” About The Law of Attraction

New Thoughts Stimulated By A Powerful New Source

That source is the very successful composer/performer/coach, David Friedman, whom I had the pleasure of meeting recently as well as attending one of his concerts and a workshop he presented on Finding Your Inner Voice. The preceding post talked about David and his work at bit, but was written before I had the opportunity to interview him at length for The Moneylove Club audio series. To get a greater sense of who he is and the major impact he is having on prosperity consciousness, check out his brand new website. And commit to reading his powerful, insightful new book, The Thought Exchange.

http://www.thethoughtexchange.com/excerpt.html

The kind of teacher and coach I most appreciate is one who stimulates my own new perspectives and new ideas on familiar territory. Just a couple of comments from my interview with David did this–see what they do for you.

I don’t have some of the money and you have some of the money–we all have all the money.

We have everything in the bank of our interior. And as soon as we forget it’s there, and think it’s something we have to attract, it’s not there.

So for me, the opposite of forgetting we have everything is being “in the know” about The Law of Attraction. We often hear that phrase, “in the know,” used to separate us from someone with superior knowledge. “Those in the know go to this restaurant.” or: “If you were in the know, you wouldn’t do it that way.”  But the truth is we are all “in the know,” but perhaps some of us just haven’t realized it yet.

David Friedman suggests the term, The Law of Noticing, might be better than The Law of Attraction. And I agree, especially as someone who has been talking about the value of paying attention for over thirty years now. If we pay attention and notice what we already have and are already capable of having, we don’t really have to do anything else.

The Law of Attraction isn’t about having to do anything to attract what we want. The Law of Attraction is a universal force, always operative, always in our lives, and the more we are open to discovering it, the more it works for us. Each of us has the same opportunities to be “in the know”.

Jerry

Moneylove Clarification Via Warren Buffet

World’s 2nd Richest Man–Prosperity Conscious?

My friend and longtime Moneylove fan and Moneylove Club member, Richard Levine, just sent me some Warren Buffet quotes.

Richie, an entrepreneur, successful business owner, and fledgling stand-up comedian, can be found telling jokes on the interesting website Old Jews Telling Jokes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTqHoHJpN74

Richie wondered whether Warren Buffet was out of synch with my Moneylove prosperity philosophy by living frugally, and saying things like “Don’t waste your money on unnecessary things.” Buffet lives in the same simple house he bought fifty years ago in Omaha, Nebraska, eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch, and definitely likes to live simply and very inexpensively. But he also is one of the most generous men in human history, giving many billions to worthy causes, and now joined with Bill Gates and others to make a major difference in the fight against poverty, ignorance, and disease.

And while I do think it can be useful to spend money on luxuries or even frivolous fun things, I also think it’s perfectly fine to just buy what you absolutely need–especially if you choose to do so, and know you can also have anything in the world you want, as Buffet does. Yes, he is not leaving his children anything in his will, but he has already provided for them–they each have millions of their own, and probably have inherited his healthy attitudes about money.

The Truth About Prosperity

Warren Buffet is living his truth, and exemplifies the concept that prosperity isn’t about money at all. I say in Moneylove, “The richest man in all the world is the one who has a good time earning his daily bread.” This is certainly true for the actual 2nd richest man in the world. Just look at the expression on Warren Buffet’s face when he talks about the joy of investing and building his companies.

And if there was ever any doubt, just ponder this Buffet quote:

The happiest people do not necessarily have the best things. They simply appreciate the things they have.

Jerry