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4 Ways Retired? Out of work? Now’s the time to Reinvent Yourself

4 Ways Retired? Out of work? Now’s the time to Reinvent Yourself

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Sick of the daily grind?
Sick of the daily grind?

Baby Boomers and others, sometimes find themselves faced with situations that are life changing.  Maybe you got laid off, forced to retire early or you’re just sick of all the hassles, politics, daily commuting and daily grind.

What to do?  Now’s the perfect time to Reinvent Yourself!  Do what you’ve always want to do!  Be a teacher, made wooden furniture, teach music, travel guide, become a voice over artist, a researcher, or become and author and speaker.  Do what makes you happy.  As they say, it’s now or never.

Below, is the story of an athlete that was forced to change careers, and how he did it.  There’s lots of good information in his article.  Additionally, there is great information online.  Go for your Dreams!  Create a new life for yourself.  You can begin today!

(original article can be found at http://www.success.com/article/4-tips-to-reinvent-yourself-lewis-howes-style) or click here.

4 Tips to Reinvent Yourself, Lewis Howes Style

How to go from a nobody to a wildly successful somebody
Amanda Enayati
November 24, 2015

It all began, as many things do, with devastation and a door closing, permanently.

All-American football player and decathlete Lewis Howes sustained a wrist injury in 2007. The resulting surgery landed him in a cast for six months and out of the game forever.

As he recovered on his sister’s sofa, Howes pondered his future and didn’t like what he saw: no career, no college degree, no money.

Christmas came and he was still living on that sofa. He got one gift that year, from his brother who drew his Secret Santa. It was a book. “As a dyslexic who struggles with reading, I remember thinking it was one of the worst gifts you could give anyone like me,” he recalls. “Plus, it wasn’t even wrapped.”

The book was The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss—and Howes read it in three days, cover to cover. “Which, for me, was really fast,” he says. “I couldn’t put it down.” On the fourth day, he closed the book and said out loud: “One day I’m going to become really good friends with the author, Tim Ferriss.”

He had no idea how it was going to happen. Ferriss was already a big deal and “I was a nobody,” Howes shrugs. But on that day, eight years ago, he drew his line in the sand. Howes decided someday he would write a book. He would inspire and open up possibilities for millions of people around the world, the way Ferriss’ book had just opened up his.

And so he has. A few weeks ago, Lewis Howes found out that his book, The School of Greatness—based on his wildly successful podcast—is a New York Times best-seller. In eight years, the journey had come full circle.

In our culture, you hear many near-mythical tales of prodigies, golden men and women, and instant success. And, should this be your perception of Lewis Howes’ success, he deprives you of it immediately. It was a long, hard road of twists and turns, missteps, and trial and error.

So, maybe you’re broken and broke, too, not sure what’s next, either. His story can help you reinvent yourself and who knows, maybe, just maybe, build your own multi-million dollar business:

1. Find a mentor or three.

The first thing Howes did was find mentors. “I had been an athlete. I knew that the better the coach, the better I got. And so I very consciously looked for people to help coach me.”

He had three mentors during the long stretch on his sister’s couch—let’s just call them the Sofa Years.

It so happened that Howes despised the cast he was stuck in for six months. “It kept scratching my face, plus it smelled and was ugly.” And so he created an arm sleeve to cover the cast. It occurred to Howes that there might be a market for his creation. His girlfriend made an introduction to an inventor she knew.

Their first meeting was in a bar. “I was this talky jock walking into the bar with a backward cap on. I got up the nerve to ask him to mentor me.” And the inventor did. He taught Howes everything about taking a product to market: creating, branding, marketing, packaging, licensing, even how to name things.

That product went nowhere, but it served as a catalyst for Howes learning how to market and brand.

Another mentor had mentioned that Howes should check out LinkedIn, which he did, so much so that in 2009 he went on to self-publish a book about it. A third mentor helped Howes figure out how to leverage that book.

2. Put yourself out there and learn from everyone you meet.

Remember Neo from The Matrix? Howes did his best to channel him during the Sofa Years. “I said as long as I’m here, I want to be like Neo and download as much information and build as many skills as I can and really I put myself out there.”

One of those skills was salsa dancing. And it was during salsa that Howes met a guy who traveled around the world and gave speeches for a living. Howes was terrified of public speaking and asked his new friend for advice on how to be a better public speaker. The man urged Howes to join Toastmasters.

The following week, Howes found a Toastmasters meeting nearby. He attended every single week for a year. By the end of the year he had overcome his fear of public speaking. It was another piece of the puzzle: “an incredible journey of becoming more influential and more impactful in my message,” he says.

3. Hone your instincts and honor them.

Howes’ sister was amazingly supportive through all the troubles and experiments of the Sofa Years. Eighteen months in, she asked him, in the gentlest way possible, if he could begin pitching in by getting a job. “I said yes, of course. I was putting myself out there so much, but nothing was happening for me,” he recalls. He began searching Craigslist for sports marketing jobs in Columbus, Ohio. He sent out a slew of résumés and eventually got called in for an interview.

On the day of the interview, he couldn’t leave the house. “I was paralyzed. I had a feeling I was going to get the job,” he says, “and my instincts told me I was about to make a big mistake.” He called and canceled.

“I was still working with my mentor, the inventor, and I remember telling him I could really use some money.” Howe will never forget what the man told him: “He said, ‘Lewis, money will come to you at the exact moment when you’re ready for it.’”

It wasn’t until much later that Howes understood exactly what that meant.

4. Stay consistent, build momentum and master the art of the leverage.

“The first time I made $1,000 off sponsorships for a three-hour LinkedIn networking event, I was floored,” he says. For the next several years, Howes hosted dozens of these events around the country. He promoted them through his ever-growing channels and they continued to build momentum. He emphasizes the importance of consistency: “People will start a project or company and will stop because it got too hard. I was consistent in doing the same thing and building momentum.”

But consistency doesn’t mean you get too comfortable. Howes mastered every opportunity and then leveraged it to move to the next level. Following one of his events, he was approached to do a free live webinar. That led to him teaching an advanced webinar. He liked it. He also found it lucrative. “At the end of that first session, I gave out my PayPal link. Within an hour there was $6,200 in my account.”

That was a game changer, he recalls. “I could teach people from all over the world information that I know from my laptop? I thought, I’ll do this every day!”

And so he began to master the webinar, both to build his game and his audience. It worked. Since 2009, he has conducted close to 1,000 webinars, with more than $10 million in sales.

Build The School of Greatness and they will come.

Howes knew it was time to move on when he began to lose his passion for the webinars. He sold the company to his partner and began to look around for his next gig. He moved from NYC to LA for a girl. She broke up with him the day he got there.

“It was so dramatic, being in a new city, and I was stuck in traffic all day.”

One day, during the hour it took him to inch forward a single mile, it occurred to him that there had to be a way to get in front of all these people, literally sitting in misery. He recalled the goal he had started out at the outset of the Sofa Years: to inspire, to open up possibilities for millions of people around the world.

The rest is history, of course. The School of Greatness book launched a few weeks ago and soon hit the New York Times best-seller list. The podcast has an audience of millions. And Howes himself is something of a phenomenon, particularly in the way he inspires people to do what they otherwise may not have had the courage to do: Start an ice cream company. Heal a relationship. Lose 100 pounds.

They come to his readings, from hundreds of miles away, to tell him their stories.

His success, he says, is all about connection, love and intimacy. He thinks people relate to him because he shares his pain. Because he’s open about his vulnerabilities. Because he shows his imperfections and fears.

This is what I believe, he tells me: “We were born to be great, to discover our unique gifts and talents and to pursue our dreams, even as they evolve. It’s our duty to go after our dreams. Because not only are we ourselves more fulfilled when we do, but we also inspire others to do the same. We give each other the courage.”

And with that, Howes bids me a quick goodbye, and school is dismissed.

– See more at: http://www.success.com/article/4-tips-to-reinvent-yourself-lewis-howes-style#sthash.1MISFB95.dpuf

19 Tips to Making a Positive Impression

19 Tips to Making a Positive Impression

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You’re at a party for work or a social occasion and you know maybe one person.  How do you get through it without hiding in the corner or embarrassing yourself or feeling awkward?  How do you network and meet new people?  This applies during any time of life, including when you’re a Baby Boomer Grandpa or retired.

There’s some great advice here, in what I call, 19 Tips to Making a Positive Impression, on how to meet people and make a positive impression, so they’ll want to talk to you or work with you in the future.  I specially like numbers 1,2,6,7 and 12.

Here it is (http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/impress-literally-everyone-you-meet?bftw=main):

Thank you Carolyn Kylstra for great advice.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet

It takes between 34 and 100 milliseconds to make a first impression. Here’s how to make it a good one!

posted on Nov. 4, 2014, at 8:50 a.m.

Carolyn Kylstra

Carolyn Kylstra

BuzzFeed Staff

1. First things first: Remember that most people you’re about to meet are just as uncomfortable as you are.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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Tons of people self-identify as shy — in fact, the numbers of shy people have grown in the past 20 years (58% in 2007, up from 40% in 1995). “According to the shyness research, most of us feel uncomfortable walking into a room where we don’t know many people,” Susan RoAne, keynote speaker and author of How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lasting Connections—In Person and Online (William Morrow, 2013), told BuzzFeed Life.

Bottom line: You’re definitely not the only one dreading this cocktail party, and that should hopefully help take the edge off. And with that in mind…

2. Shift your attitude before you walk into the room to focus on others and not on yourself.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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“A lot of the time we go into a social situation thinking, How can I make myself more comfortable?” RoAne says. “Your attitude shift should be, What can I do to make other people comfortable around me?” See that first tip again for a reminder about why this attitude adjustment matters. Bonus points: “The person you’re talking to will become more comfortable,” RoAne says, “which makes you more comfortable!”

3. Smile!

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People make snap judgments about whether or not you’re a “trustworthy” person after only 34 milliseconds of looking at your face, according to research from Princeton University. And further research found that your facial expressions can influence those judgments.

Simply put: “People judge smiling faces as trustworthy, and angry-looking faces as untrustworthy,” Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the psychology department at NYU, told BuzzFeed Life. Mende-Siedlecki is also one of the co-creators of a TED lesson called “Should You Trust Your First Impression?”

4. Before you go somewhere new, know what you’re getting yourself into.

Before you go somewhere new, know what you're getting yourself into.

Flicker: benjamin sTone / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: benchilada

Before you go do something where you know you’ll meet new people — whether that’s a job interview or your partner’s office holiday party — do your research. “Figure out who’s going to be there, what the theme of the event will be,” RoAne said. “That helps you customize your approach, dress for the occasion, and prepare for potential conversation starters.”

Mende-Siedlecki agrees: “It’s a matter of knowing the context that you’re walking into, and knowing the norms for the environment.” Mental preparation can put you on the right wavelength before you even walk in the door — and will minimize how much spur-of-the-moment thinking you have to do. And dressing as formally or informally as other people are will make you feel more comfortable and less self-conscious. This allows you to focus more on the conversations you’re having, rather than wonder if people are judging you for wearing a T-shirt to a formal event.

5. Prepare a seven- to nine-second introduction about yourself.

Prepare a seven- to nine-second introduction about yourself.

Getty Images/iStockphoto Carosch

“This is NOT the 15- to 30-second networking thing,” RoAne says. Rather, it’s a warm introduction, followed by one or two statements about yourself. The idea is to give the other person something that they can comment on to get the conversation going. RoAne suggests explaining your relationship to the host, and making an observation that the other person can ask questions about or add their own observations to.

For instance, something I could have said at my brother’s recent graduation: “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you! I’m Carolyn, Jimmy’s sister. I’m from New York, and it’s been great to explore Chicago this weekend.”

6. Find a more interesting way to talk about what you do.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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The standard go-to when meeting people is to introduce yourself by saying your name and your job. The problem with that is unless you do something utterly fascinating, it’s not going to drive conversation forward. You need to give the person you’re talking to more to work with.

RoAne suggests that instead of stating your job title and company, give a more general and even mysterious statement about what you do — like by stating the benefit of your job. “When you give them the benefit of what you do, you give them the opportunity to ask questions,” she says. For example: If you’re a realtor you can say you help put a roof over peoples’ heads. If you’re a textbook salesperson you can say you give kids the tools they need to learn.

And if this sounds too cheesy or embarrassing, you can always stick with your job title and company as long as you add an extra line in there describing some unusual element of your day-to-day. For example: “I’m a health editor at BuzzFeed, and I spend as much time talking to doctors as I do hunting for the perfect GIF.”

7. Learn these four little magic words: “And how about you?”

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
Emily Fleischaker / BuzzFeed

So you’ve just explained the benefit of your job, and that elicited some good chit-chat for a minute or so. Instead of turning to the person and saying, “And what do you do?” RoAne suggests leaving it a lot more open-ended. “The four magic words are: And how about you? That invites them to tell you about themselves, and to go in the direction they’re most excited to go in,” she says.

The beauty of this language is that it helps you avoid potential awkwardness — like if you’re talking to someone who’s unemployed, or who hates their job but would love to talk about their hobbies, or who works in an unpaid capacity as a stay-at-home-parent or caregiver. Asking them to talk about themselves is much kinder than pigeonholing them into a conversation about how they currently make money (or don’t).

8. Wear something that makes you feel awesome — it’ll make you more approachable.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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“Wear clothes that make you feel good, because you’ll have more confidence,” RoAne says. Along those lines, comfort is key! “If I’m wearing shoes that hurt my feet, I’ll be wincing — that’s unapproachable.”

9. Give compliments that encourage conversation.

Give compliments that encourage conversation.

Vadmary / The Wire

Don’t just tell someone you love her shoes. Instead, say that you love them, they’re fantastic, and you’ve been looking for a pair just like them — where’d she get them? “When you’re making an observation, accompany your observation with a question or a statement that invites them to give you a bit more,” RoAne says.

10. Read more. Read everything!

Read more. Read everything!

Flickr: Patrick Gage Kelley / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: patrickgage

“In order to be a good conversationalist, you have to be well-read,” RoAne says. And that doesn’t mean you should stick to the high-brow stuff, either. “I know a couple people who run associations, and they have their staff read People magazine before they go to an event with their members,” RoAne says. “That guarantees they know what’s going on and can talk about it!”

So maybe you don’t care at all about the fact that Taylor Swift just released the most perfect album of all time. But you should at least know that it happened, because chances are someone else will care about it and will be interested in chatting about it.

11. When in doubt, talk about food.

When in doubt, talk about food.

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After all, everyone eats. And most people like talking about it, RoAne says. “They talk about recipes, they talk about diets, they talk about restaurants.” An easy way to talk about food? Strike up conversations with people at the buffet table. Nom nom nom.

Along those lines, may I recommend the BuzzFeed Food newsletter? Food for thought, straight in your inbox.

12. Don’t wait for people to approach you.

Don't wait for people to approach you.

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“A major roadblock that people have is that we’ve all learned to wait to be approached,” RoAne says. “But good things come to those who initiate.” When you approach anyone, smile warmly, stand up straight, and make good eye contact — “People who do those three things make the other person feel immediately at ease,” she says.

13. Talk to the person who isn’t talking to anyone.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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“The one person that’s very easy to talk to is the person standing alone,” RoAne says. “They might be shyer than you. And they’re most likely going to be so relieved that someone’s found them. When you approach someone to talk to, what you’re inherently saying is, ‘You look interesting, you look smart.’” And that’ll make them feel great and appreciate your kindness.

14. Join groups of three or more, especially if they look like they’re having fun.

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“A group of three or more people is typically more open to a new person than just two people having a conversation,” RoAne says. When it’s three or more people, they’re not necessarily talking about something personal. When it’s just two people, an unexpected third can feel like a crowd.

15. Find an equal balance between making observations, asking questions, and revealing things about yourself.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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This balance is the key to being a great conversationalist, RoAne says. “If you’re always observing, you’re probably pontificating,” she says. “If you’re always asking questions, you can come across as a busybody, or nosy. And if you’re always revealing things about yourself, you’re going to share TMI. The magic’s in the mix.”

Here are examples of each type of statement, in case it helps:
Observation: Wow, this hotel has recently been renovated and it looks gorgeous!
Question: Do you remember what this place used to look like?
Revelation: I was last here a year ago, before they fixed it up.

16. When you’re standing in a circle of people, notice if someone is trying to join in — take a half-step backward to open the circle up.

When you’re standing in a circle of people, notice if someone is trying to join in — take a half-step backward to open the circle up.

Flickr: Ari Helminen / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: picsoflife

“If you include someone that’s in on the periphery, it’s a smart thing to do, it’s savvy, and it’s nice,” RoAne says. “You’ll make a great impression on that person, and on the other people in the circle.”

17. Be nice to everyone.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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Let’s say you’re at a work or networking event, and a lot of people brought their spouses or children or guests. Your ultimate motive might be to rub shoulders with people who could be good connections at work, but it’s important to pay attention to everyone. “Be nice to the guests, the spouses, and the children of the people who might be in the room with you,” RoAne says. Think about it: “If I work with this woman and her spouse is standing there and I’m ignoring that person, that’s not smart, that’s not nice, and that doesn’t make a good first impression.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

18. When you’re talking to someone, give them your full attention.

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“The key to making a great impression is really listening when you’re talking to someone,” RoAne says. That means don’t zone out, check your phone, or look over their shoulder or past their head to see if you can find someone else in the room who you might prefer talking to.

Paying attention and being fully involved in the conversation has benefits beyond not being a jerk. For starters, it might help make the conversation flow more easily. “People tell you what they want to talk about, if you listen,” RoAne says. “But if you’re planning your grocery list in your head, you’re going to miss picking up on small cues that they’re excited, or bored.”

19. Learn to make a graceful exit from a conversation.

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RoAne offers this game plan for when you’re ready to mingle elsewhere:

1. Interrupt yourself, not them.

2. Smile warmly, tell them what a pleasure it’s been to talk to them about [fill in the blank… whatever it was you were talking about], and that you could just monopolize their time all night.

3. Say, “But if you’ll excuse me, I need to…” And then offer an excuse. Try: Catch up with my friend from college over there. Grab a bite to eat; those cookies are calling my name. Go help my husband take care of the kid. Go thank the hostess.

You may also want to offer your hand for a handshake, which most people understand to mean, “It was nice meeting you, good-bye.”

“The point is to leave a conversation knowing that you made someone feel better because they’ve talked to you,” RoAne says. Making it clear that you were paying attention, enjoyed the conversation, and are leaving for a reason (rather than because the person is boring) all help.

Elders, Wisedom of The Ages

Elders, Wisedom of The Ages

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We, the Boomers, have lived full lives.  We’ve “seen it all”.  It’s been a great ride.  But, be assured, it’s not over yet.  We are now continuing our life’s journey and learning every more everyday, and enjoying it.

Being the “Elders” and blessed with this vast knowledge, we have a responsibility to share it with our children and grandchildren.

Author Jack Canfield has helped a lot of people, I enjoy reading his encouraging words.  You might know him from Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Let’s share our wealth of wisdom with others.  This article is a great start.  Share Your Wisdom With Others!

Enjoy, John

7 Steps for Creating the Life YOU Want

January 16, 2013 by 28 Comments

7 Steps to creating the life you wantWe all aspire to do, be and have great things. Yet most of us simply aren’t creating the results we want. We complain that we don’t have enough money, romance, success or joy in our lives.

We point fingers and blame outside problems that “happen” to us and make life more difficult. But what we need to understand and keep at the forefront of our minds is that greatness exists in all of us. It is simply up to us to pull it out of ourselves. Regardless of personal circumstances, economic climates, and access to resources, it helps to maintain faith in the fact we each are more powerful than we think.

We all have the ability to create the life we want. We just need to learn how to do it. Is there an exact “formula”? No, but there are certain common features that successful people exhibit and that anyone can practice. They are what can jumpstart your success and attract what you want in life. You’d be hard pressed to find any high achiever who doesn’t live by the following 7 tips:

1. Take No Less than 100% Responsibility for Your Life

One of the greatest myths that is pervasive in our culture today is that you are entitled to a great life and that somehow, somewhere, someone is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time and blissful personal relationships simply because we exist. But the real truth is that there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live. That person is you.

Everything about you is a result of your doing or not doing. Income. Debt. Relationships. Health. Fitness level. Attitudes and behaviors. That person who reflects back at you in the mirror is the chief conductor in your life. Say hello!

I think everyone knows this in their hearts, but the mind can play games, tricking plenty of people into thinking external factors are the source of failure, disappointment, and unhappiness. But the truth of the matter is that external factors don’t determine how you live. You are in complete control of the quality of your life.

Successful people take full responsibility for the thoughts they think, the images they visualize, and the actions they take. They don’t waste their time and energy blaming and complaining. They evaluate their experiences and decide if they need to change them or not. They face the uncomfortable and take risks in order to create the life they want to live.

2. Be Clear Why You’re Here

I believe each of us is born with a life purpose. Identifying, acknowledging and honoring this purpose is perhaps the most important action successful people take. They take the time to understand what they’re here to do, and then they pursue that with passion and enthusiasm.

If you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, then just tune in to the signals around you. Looking toward others for help and guidance is helpful, but don’t forget to stay tuned in to yourself—your behavior, attitude, likes and dislikes, and life experiences. Identify what’s working and what isn’t. If you need to, write it all down. You might be surprised by what you discover.

3. Decide What You Want

It sounds so simple, but here’s the problem: I see plenty of people who are overly-busy yet who feel unsatisfied and unfulfilled. They are physically tired, spiritually drained, and far from where they’d like to be—as if they’ve been running on a treadmill going nowhere fast. Why? Because they haven’t clearly mapped out what they want and then taken the steps to get there. Rather than identifying specific goals, milestones, and dreams (and I’m talking BIG dreams and goals here), they go through the motions day in and day out tackling unimportant tasks. They end up…you guessed it…going in circles and wasting lots of energy. In the meanwhile, they grow increasingly uninspired and out of touch with their authentic selves. This, of course, sets anyone up to living a life out of balance.

One of the main reasons why most people don’t get what they want is they haven’t decided what they want. They haven’t defined their desires in clear and compelling detail. What does success look like to you? Not everybody’s definition of success is the same, nor should it be.

Don’t let your inner devil’s advocate (or that incessant but unimportant To Do list) inhibit you from dreaming big. As soon as you commit to a big dream and really go after it, your subconscious creative mind will come up with big ideas to make it happen. You’ll start attracting the people, resources, and opportunities you need into your life to make your dream come true. Big dreams not only inspire you, but they also compel others to want to play big, too.

4. Believe It Is Possible

Scientists used to believe that humans responded to information flowing into the brain from the outside world. But today, they’re learning that instead we respond to what the brain, based on previous experience, expects to happen next. In fact, the mind is such a powerful instrument; it can deliver literally everything you want. But you have to believe that what you want is possible.

As you commit to believing in yourself, also make a commitment to toning down the complaint department. Look at what you are complaining about. I’m fat. I’m tired. I can’t get out of debt. I won’t ever get a better job. I can’t stand the relationship I have with my father. I’ll never find a soulmate in life. Really examine your complaints. More than likely you can do something about them. They are not about other people, other things, or other events. They are about YOU.

5. Believe in Yourself

If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen. Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence or self-assurance, it is a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes; the abilities, inner resources, talents and skills to create your desired results.

Have unwavering faith in yourself, for good and bad. Make the decision to believe that you create all your experiences. You will experience successes thanks to you, and you will experience pain, struggle, and strife thanks to you. Sounds a little strange, but accepting this level of responsibility is uniquely empowering. It means you can do, change, and be anything. Stumbling blocks become just that—little hills to hop over.

6. Become an Inverse Paranoid

This one is straightforward: Imagine how much easier it would be to succeed in life if you were constantly expecting the world to support you and bring you opportunity. Successful people do just that.

7. Unleash the Power of Goal Setting

Experts on the science of success know the brain is a goal-seeking organism. Whatever goal you give to your subconscious mind, it will work day and night to achieve. To engage you subconscious mind, a goal has to be measurable. When there aren’t any criteria for measurement, it is simply something you want, a wish, a preference, or a good idea.

Sometimes we need to make just one initial goal to get started, and that’s okay. At least it comes with a few actions to achieve. A first step simply can be making an immediate change in a single area in your life. Are you unhappy about something that is happening right now? Make requests that will make it more desirable to you, or take the steps to change it yourself. Making a change might be uncomfortable and overwhelming for you. It might mean you have to put in more time, money, and effort. It might mean that someone gets upset about it, or makes you feel bad about your decision. It might be difficult to change or leave a situation, but staying put is your choice so why continue to complain? You can either do something about it or not. It is your choice and you have responsibility for your choices.

Bear in mind that you have to be willing to change your behavior if you want a different outcome. You have to be willing to take the risks necessary to get what you want. If you’ve already taken an initial step in the right direction, now’s the time to plan more steps to keep moving you forward faster.

Isn’t it a great relief to know that you can make your life what you want it to be? Isn’t it wonderful that your successes do not depend on someone else?

So if you need just one thing to do different today than you did yesterday, make it this: Commit to taking 100% responsibility for every aspect of your life. Decide to make changes, one step at a time. Once you start the process you’ll discover it is much easier to get what you want by taking control of your thoughts, your visualizations, and your actions!

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You can, as long as you include this complete statement with it: Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com 

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Manifesting Tips for Money and Much More

Manifesting Tips for Money and Much More

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Boomer Grandpas and a lot of Boomers are at a time in our lives when we are assessing where we are financially, physically, socially, as well as what retirement will look like.

We wonder if we’ve done the right thing, made the right decisions and much more.  In some areas we may have come up short and need to do a little catching up.

We watch movies like The Secret and study the Law of Attraction for ways to get what we need.  Below is a good article with some “new” tips and ideas for how we can get what we want.  I hope you enjoy the read and learn something new.  Best of luck!

From:

How to Manifest Money

November 8th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/11/how-to-manifest-money/

Playfulness

The most important aspect of manifesting money is to approach it from the right heartset. Think of your heartset as the overall vibe of your relationship to the activity of attracting money. How would you describe that relationship? Is it greedy, needy, excited, hopeful, etc?

If you approach this process from a place of neediness, clinginess, scarcity, or too much seriousness, you’ll most likely fail. That’s the right vibe for attracting nothing — or for making things worse by attracting unwanted expenses — but it’s not the right vibe for attracting money.

So if you come at this from a place of saying, “I really need $1000 to pay my rent next month, so I’m going to focus hard on manifesting it via the Law of Attraction,” well… good luck with that. But I’d bet against you.

A slightly better vibe is that of hope, but this is still a pretty weak vibe. Hope won’t get you very far.

A much better vibe is to come from a place of curiosity and experimentation. Go into a state of childlike wonder. With this vibe you may begin to generate some interesting results.

An even stronger vibe is to generate feelings of playfulness and excitement. This is a great vibe for manifesting money. In the next section, I’ll share a story to illustrate how I do this with my daughter.

Knowing

When you want to manifest money, it’s important to know that it’s already there. If it’s hidden at all, it’s hiding in plain sight, waiting for you to notice it and pick it up. This applies whether we’re talking about cash found on the ground or opportunities that will generate cash.

Know that the cash and the opportunities are right in front of your face. You just have to adjust your “eyes” to see them. You do this by shifting your vibe — your frequencies of thought and emotion — to one that’s capable of detecting the money.

It’s fun to think of this vibe-shifting process as shifting dimensions, as if you’re tuning in to a different perceptual frequency spectrum. That other reality was there all along. You just couldn’t see it before because you were tuned in to incompatible perceptual frequencies, frequencies that made the money invisible and undetectable by your senses. Maybe you were stuck on the red part of the spectrum, while the money was hanging out in the blue part.

Obviously your senses pick up a lot as you go about your day, but you only notice a puny fraction of all that input. In order to manifest money, you need to tune your senses to bring to your attention useful input that you’ve been subconsciously dismissing as irrelevant background noise. This tuning process takes some time, but you can definitely do it.

Lately I’ve been teaching my daughter Emily (age 10) how to manifest coins. I do this by turning it into a game. When we’re out walking together, I challenge her to see if she can find more coins than I can.

The first time I did this, she was really bad at it. I found several coins during our walk together, often coins that she walked right past without even noticing. Instead of finding coins, she didn’t notice anything. The coins didn’t register within her perceptual reality.

Later on she began noticing things that were close to coins, but not coins. She found bottle caps, paper clips, scraps of paper, and coin-like smudges on the floor — everything but coins. I kept pointing out to her that there are coins everywhere, but you have to tune in to the “coin abundance frequency” to see them. Each time I found a coin and showed it to her, I could tell it was gradually helping her tune in to the right perceptual frequency.

One reason she was bad at this game was that she was tuning out the possible existence of coins everywhere she walked. She just didn’t think there could be that many coins hiding in plain sight. By demonstrating to her that the coins were indeed there and that she was simply failing to notice them, I helped shift her beliefs. She stopped thinking of the game as something outside her control (relying on luck or chance), and she began thinking of what she could control (her open-mindedness and attentiveness).

At first when she would walk past a coin, and I’d pick it up and say, “Look at this, Emily. There was a nickel there, and you walked right past it! Your eyes definitely saw it because you were looking in that direction, but the coin didn’t register in your mind. You still need to adjust yourself to the right vibe. Remember — the coins are everywhere! You just have to command your eyes to notice them.”

Initially this surprised her. She could dismiss it as luck… or as some kind of trick… or as a momentary lapse of her part. Then when it kept happening, it began to frustrate her. I helped her shift that frustration to amusement by pointing out that she was really good at finding bottle caps and smudges, and we had some laughs about that. She just needed to adjust her mind a little bit more to notice the coins.

Finally she began to accept that yes, there really are coins everywhere, and she only has to notice them. It seemed like she was beginning to tell her eyes and her mind to get with the program and start noticing the coins.

Emily has a competitive side, so I played to that by challenging her to find more coins than me, which boosted her motivation and desire to get good at it. She knows that technically it’s a fair game, and she even gave herself an advantage by walking in front of me, so she could be the first to spot new coins. And since she’s only 4’9″ inches tall, she’s a lot closer to the ground than I am.

Gradually she got better at the game. We went out yesterday and played again. In an hour of walking around some hotels on the Vegas Strip, she found 46 cents: 1 quarter, 3 nickels, and 6 pennies. In that same time, I found only 6 cents. She won the game for the first time and was pretty excited about it. And of course I gave her lots of accolades for it, so as to encourage her to keep improving.

I dare say she’s probably better at finding coins than I am now. She now knows there are coins everywhere, but she also really gets into the playful and competitive spirit of the game, which is much more exciting for her than it is for me. I think partly she likes knowing that it’s a fair game that either of us can win, and there’s no reason she can’t be at least as skillful as I am.

When it comes to creating a vibe of playfulness and excitement, children can easily be more masterful than adults. This is the same vibe we need to recreate as adults in order to manifest whatever we desire.

It may sound silly to do this as an adult, but it’s a game worth playing. When you’re out with friends sometime, have a contest to see who can manifest the most money. You may not get too excited about finding coins, but you may generate some excitement about trying to best your friends in a silly contest. That silliness will actually help you get the right vibe, thereby improving your ability to manifest money.

Detachment

People often get confused about the relationship between desire and detachment. Aren’t they diametrically opposed? How can you have both at the same time? Isn’t desire a form of attachment?

No, these aren’t in conflict. They coexist perfectly.

Let me ‘splain.

Desire is about what you wish to create. You could describe this vibe as passion, excitement, or even lust. It’s a delicious pool of emotions you summon by focusing on a new target. The stronger your desire, the better, so amp it up!

Detachment, on the other hand, is about how those desires ultimately manifest for you. When you become too attached to when and how your desires show up, you screw up the manifesting process. Instead of holding the vibe of playfulness and abundance, you start sending out signals like concern, worry, and stress. Don’t do that!

Would you become stressed and worried if you couldn’t find enough coins on the ground? Would that vibe improve your performance? No, that would only lower your performance.

When you notice that you’re getting frustrated, pause, breathe, and go back to the desire side. Hold that vision of the creation you wish to experience, and wallow in the positive sensations of being there in your heart, mind, and spirit. Know that physical reality will soon catch up, as long as you keep holding the right vibe.

When you feel moved to take action from a place of passion and excitement, not stress, then go ahead and let those actions flow through you. It will seem to be more work to stop yourself — you’ll feel like you’re chickening out and holding back if you stay still. Follow your impulses. But don’t worry about the immediate results of those actions. There may be some twists and turns along the way.

Power

When manifesting money, it’s especially important that you don’t give your power away to money. This negates your creative ability, and the money probably won’t arrive if you do that. This is a VERY common mistake.

You can’t effectively wield the power of manifestation by believing that you can manifest something you desire (i.e. money) while simultaneously believing that something you desire has power over you (i.e. money).

If you want to manifest money, you CANNOT believe that money is a power source. Money cannot give you wealth or abundance or happiness. It really can’t give you anything. Money just sits there — all the power comes from you. If you believe that having more money will give you any additional power at all, then you’re actually holding the vibe that says, “I’m too weak to attract money.” You’ll have to get a job instead. ;)

Think of it like this. If you want to manifest money, but you believe that money is its own power source, then deep down you’re giving money the power to say no to you. If money has power, then it can refuse to show up.

Instead of this crazy wrong approach, in your mindset and heartset, you must KNOW that you’re completely 100% dominant over money and that money is completely 100% submissive to you. You’re in total command of it. If you order it to show up, it must obey you. It has no power of its own. It cannot refuse you.

When you manifest money, you are COMMANDING it to come into your reality. You’re the CREATOR. Money has no choice but to obey you, but only if you wield your true power. If you give your power away to money, then you empower money to deny your requests. Money will say, “Well, if you’re letting me decide, then no, I’m staying over here.”

If you approach money like a power source of its own, then by trying to manifest it, you’re really trying to overpower it, and in such a contest you’ll usually lose. That contest, however, is completely internal — and pretty much insane. It’s like trying to arm wrestle yourself. How can you win? It’s a false reality you’re projecting because you aren’t ready to fully wield your own power yet.

Remember that money is nothing but a number. Or it’s pieces of metal and paper. How could it possibly be more powerful than a conscious human being such as yourself?

If you think that once you have money, you will become stronger, you’re crazy. Absolutely deluded! More likely — if you actually did manifest money from that kind of vibe — you’d grow even weaker. This would be a bad outcome for you, even though it seems like what you want. You’d be a weak-minded, weak-hearted person with more money, and you’d still see the money as more powerful than you, even while it’s in your possession. You’d then become attached to it and afraid of losing it because you’d still mistakenly see it as a power source. It would become a source of security for you, a constantly vulnerable one. The more money you had, the more paranoid you’d become about losing it. This would really mess you up big time. So be very, very glad that you naturally attract less money when you think of money as a power source. If you invite money into your life from that crazy frame of giving away your power, then money will become your Master, and you will be forever its slave. Don’t even go there!

If money has no power, then why manifest it at all? In truth, you don’t need to. But if you wish to manifest money, then do it as a game. Money is a just toy you can play with. Get excited about the experience of manifesting money, but don’t put any attention into what you’d do with the money once you have it. It’s merely a number.

If you desire something you think money will give you, then focus on that desire directly, not on the money you think you need to get it. Money may or may not be part of the manifestation process.

Only focus on manifesting money directly if you’re capable of seeing the money as a plaything, like a video game score. It’s only something to manifest for fun, not something to get all worked up and stressed about.

Once again, do NOT give your power away to money. You must know that money is completely powerless. All the power is within you, never out there.

Upgrading

When manifesting money, start small and work up to larger amounts. See it as a score you’re aiming to increase, but don’t put larger amounts on a pedestal by assuming they’re more difficult to manifest.

I started with manifesting pennies in the Summer of 2006. Then I graduated to nickels, dimes, and quarters. I focused on quarters for several weeks. Then I progressed to dollars to $100 to $1000 to $10K to $50K. Overall it took less than a year to go from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. After that point I become more interested in non-monetary manifesting and had some especially fun times with manifesting in my social life — friends, mentors, and other yumminess. In fact, I honestly feel that manifesting money is a bit boring compared to all the other cool stuff you can manifest. It’s like playing a video game and obsessing over the score. That can be fun for a while, but eventually you want to focus on more interesting aspects of the game world.

If you can get good at manifesting coins, you can manifest larger sums too. The process is the same. Only some limiting beliefs of yours may stand in the way. But as you gradually upgrade to larger sums, you can collapse those false beliefs.

Once Emily gets good at manifesting coins and feels comfortable and confident with it, I’ll start challenging her to manifest larger sums. She may not find money on the ground as often, but it will show up in other ways.

Money comes to you through the filters of your beliefs, but you don’t have to change your beliefs radically. You just have to open enough of a portal in your beliefs to allow different sums to come to you.

Coins may be found on the ground while you’re walking around. Bills will sometimes be found on the ground too. Larger sums may manifest in the form of exchanges, business deals, inheritances, inspired action, and other ways. Assume that those larger sums are right in front of your face, staring at you and screaming at you to notice them. You just have to tune your vibe to the right frequency to pick them up.

I’ve noticed that as I’ve shifted my vibe to manifest larger sums of money and to manifest new experiences in other parts of my life, I seem to fall out of resonance with manifesting smaller sums. I’m not as good at manifesting coins as I was in 2006. That’s because my vibe isn’t tuned in to the coin manifesting frequency as much. These days I’m spending more time using the LoA to manifest cool social connections and travel experiences. I’ve tuned my vibe to focus on that part of the perceptual frequency. I also feel more excited and playful about manifesting in these other areas as opposed to adding to my financial score.

Congruency

Every relationship in your life contributes to the overall vibe you’re putting out. This includes all the different ways you relate to money.

For example, if your job sucks and doesn’t pay you very well, and you try to manifest money on the side, that probably won’t work so well because each time you go to work at your job, you risk re-triggering the vibe of feeling financially under-appreciated.

This is where lots of people get stuck with the LoA. They put out conflicting vibes every day. They may visualize having more money and feeling abundant and grateful, but then they go to the grocery store, and they buy cheap, low quality food because in the back of their mind, they’re saying to themselves that they can’t afford the good stuff. And that naturally cancels out the vibe of abundance, so the result is no change.

If your current circumstances cause you to emit conflicting vibes, then even as you go through the motions of acting in accordance with a scarcer financial situation than you’d like, keep your vibe focused on that of abundance. The best way to do that is by holding the heartset of gratitude. So even if you buy cheap, low-quality food, hold the vibe that you’re grateful for it and that you appreciate it. Feel appreciative that such food exists and that it’s within your budget. And then look at the high quality stuff, and emotionally invite it into your life. If possible, find one way in which you can splurge for higher quality items, like buying a few organic apples, and feel grateful that you can do that. And when you eat those apples, really enjoy them, and intend to receive more of the same.

But do NOT beat yourself up for not being able to afford what you desire. That will only lower your vibe.

Do like I did with Emily when she kept finding bottle caps and smudges. Praise yourself for succeeding at what you’re already manifesting, and then command your senses to adjust to a more abundant part of the spectrum of reality. Be patient with yourself — you’ll get it.

Whenever you start feeling bad about your financial situation, see that as a form of feedback. Let it become an immediate trigger to refocus on your desires. Say to yourself, “Okay, obviously I don’t want this. So what do I want instead?” Then think about happier alternatives; allow your mind to go there, and let the resulting new vibe flow through you.

Manifesting money is a fun challenge. It’s definitely doable if you approach it from a place of playfulness, knowing, and power. It does involve some discipline, but the discipline is mental and emotional, not physical.

You aren’t going to let a 10-year old girl kick your ass at this game, are you?

 

Thanks for stopping by, surround yourself with awareness and a winner’s attitude, John