Giving Up the Old for the New!

The crucial element of the vacuum law of prosperity is that I must let go of the old, before I can ever make room for the new. ~From the book Born Rich

I’ve often thought about why it is so difficult for people to change, to turn their life around, even when it’s not going in the direction that they’d like? We all know people like this. It’s one disappointment after another. One catastrophe after another. One failure after another.

Because I am an expert on fear I’m going to submit that it is fear that prevents people from changing. But fear of what? Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Is it fear of failure? But this individual has already failed at things in their life. Is it fear of rejection? I’m sure they’ve already been rejected and not just once. Is it fear of embarrassment and humiliation? Perhaps, but everyone feels embarrassed and even humiliated at times, even those with high self-esteem and self-confidence. No, I’m going to suggest that it’s the fear of the unknown.

We, as modern day human beings, live in comfort zones. They make us feel safe and secure. But, it is our inborn fears that prevent us from venturing outside the limits of these zones. Even when, in our imagination we can clearly see the perfect person we long to be; one who is happy, secure, successful, self-confident and a winner, we are still afraid to take a risk and make changes to our lives.

I can understand why people would choose to live with the same old, same old. It’s known and it’s safe. To us the unknown is a very scary place. We believe in that old axiom, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” And so we don’t give up the bird in our hand, even though it may be sickly and dying (think of your job or relationship), to risk going after the two plumper birds in the bush.

There is a universal law that says that nature abhors a vacuum. What that means is that as soon as you give up one thing, another comes in to fill the void. And most often the new thing is better than the old thing you gave up.

The above quote is out of the book Born Rich and is a positive affirmation. As long as you hold to the fear that by giving up the old nothing new will come to you, you won’t risk making the changes that will bring you your perfect life. As you take the first steps on your journey the first old thing to give up is this old belief. And you do it by repeating the positive affirmation above. At first, your mind won’t believe it is true. But repeat it over and over to yourself daily and in time it will become the truth. At that point you will now be comfortable enough to give up the old you, for the new you. This new magnificent perfect you.

Love,

Michael

It’s Never Too Late!

It is never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot

George Eliot, was the pen name used by Mary Anne Evans, a Victorian novelist.

The reason I enjoy the above quote so much is that it is a message of hope. That as long as we are alive we still have the power to change our life and become the person we have always wanted to be.

How often do we hear people say, “You made your bed now sleep in it.” It is a condemnation of the person they are addressing, that they have screwed up so badly that there is nothing left for that person to do but accept the consequences. To just live with it no matter the hurt and pain.

I don’t believe that. I believe that we are the sum total of all the choices we have made in our lives, both the good and the bad. Often, because of fear or expediency, we make wrong choices. And, each wrong choice moves us further away from the perfect path our creator wanted us to follow. Until our perfect path is just a distant memory.

But, in this one sentence, Ms. Evans tells us that there is hope for all of us. That there is nothing that we have done or said that cannot be corrected. That no matter how much time has passed and no matter what our journey, we can still become the person we have always wanted to be.

I believe it. I hope you can too.

Love,

Michael

From Failure to Success!

Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success. ~Napoleon Hill

It is my belief that each of us is born for greatness and that each of us deserves to have everything that we desire. But how many of us actually achieve this, our destiny? Not many I’m afraid.

In my lifetime I’ve known people who seemed to have all the attributes for success; intelligence, charisma, charm, personality, and a host of other qualities. Yet, no matter the industry or other career path they’ve chosen, they have always struggled. And I’ve known people who lacked most of what my first example possessed, yet they have risen to the top, almost effortlessly. If you managed a sales force or owned your own company you know what I mean.

Up until about a dozen years ago I was like most people, baffled why some succeeded while others of greater talent floundered. I had an inkling that it might be because of fear and the individuals inability to fight through and overpower their fears. Hey, all I had to do was look at myself, a fear based person since birth.

In studying fear I came to realize that all of us feel fear, very often the very same fears as others, but some have the ability to feel the fear, yet do what is necessary to succeed. While others allow fear to stop them in their tracks.

I came to realize that one of the greatest of all fears is the fear of failure. Most of us acquired this fear when we were quite young, probably after our egos got bruised when our classmates laughed at us for a wrong answer. As we got older this fear actually grew and we began to avoid taking risks in our lives. Risk is nothing more than giving up the known for the unknown. But the unknown almost always includes failure.

When you were just an infant you learned how to crawl, then you learned how to pull yourself up to a wobbly standing position, albeit holding on to something for support. Then you let go of that support and took your first step. Did you then race across the room doing back flips? No, you probably plopped back down to the floor. So, you crawled back to that table or chair for support and started all over again. Did you think of yourself as a failure? Of course not. This is how we all learn.

Was there a seed of success in failing and failing, and then finally learning how to walk? Of course there was; you learned to run, to jump, and to dance.  

I am now going to give you permission to fail. Yes, go ahead and take a risk. It’s OK to fail. Why do I want you to fail? Because that’s how you learn. That’s how you grow. And please remember this: Failing does not make you a failure. It just moves you one step closer to success, as long as you don’t give up.

Love,

Michael

I Have Faith

I have faith that whatever must happen for me to achieve my goal, will indeed occur. ~Another Born Rich Affirmation

It is said a watched pot never boils, and there is some truth to that. When watching the pot it seems to take an extraordinarily long time for the water to boil. Much longer than you expected. And so, you become inpatient.

It’s the same thing when you deliberately attempt to manifest into your life whatever it is you want and desire. Using the Law of Attraction you ask for what you want. Then the next day when what you asked for hasn’t arrived you ask for something else. And when that doesn’t manifest you again ask for something else.

To manifest into your life exactly what you want requires patience. If you graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering one day, can you expect to get a contract to build a bridge the very next day? Probably not. You first must go to work for an engineering firm to learn how the process works. As an apprentice you start out designing a small part of a bridge and as you learn and grow in your profession more and greater opportunities present themselves, until one day you are ready to be assigned the task of designing the entire bridge.

The key to deliberate manifestation is to first ask for what you desire in your life. And then each day reinforce your thought by holding strong to your faith that indeed what you asked for will come to you. Along that path there will be some delays and detours. Accept them as part of the process and don’t lose faith.

Remember you deserve to have everything. Have faith and the Universe will give you everything you ask for.

Love,

Michael

Check Your Ego at the Door

Check your ego at the door and check your gut instead. Every right decision I have ever made has come from my gut. ~Oprah Winfrey

If you read my book Overpowering Fear – Defeating the #1 Challenge in Sales and Life you’ll know that I don’t think much of the ego, yours or mine.

Your ego is not your friend. Its sole purpose is to compare you to others. And when that happens you’re either going to win or lose. If your ego finds you superior to another or another’s possessions, you feel good about yourself. If your ego finds you lacking compared to another you feel terrible. There is no in-between.

Whenever you make a decision based upon what your ego is telling you the probability that you’ll make the wrong decision is at its highest. But when you allow intuition to guide you, you can almost never be wrong.

Intuition communicates through your gut. When you make the right decision your gut speaks to you through your heart, and makes it sing. It’s at that moment that you know you made the RIGHT decision.

Love,

Michael

Doubt is Negative Thinking

Doubt is negative thinking and your subconscious mind will take your worrisome and doubtful images and will accept them just as quickly and as willingly as it will your images of prosperity. ~Another Born Rich Affirmation

The amazing thing about the subconscious mind is that it cannot differentiate between what is real and what is not real. We have all heard stories about famous athletes who create a picture in their mind of how they want their body to perform. Then they just go ahead and do it precisely as they imagined it. It becomes like second nature to them

This gift is not exclusive to athletes or for that matter rich people. It has been given to each of us to use or not use as we see fit.

To hasten the flow of all the good things you want to enter your life, you need to use your subconscious mind to its fullest extent. And to do this, you need to provide your subconscious mind with detailed pictures of what you want to come into existence. And here lies the problem.

Our minds generate upwards of 60,000 thoughts in a day, and better than 90% of those thoughts are negative. So it stands to reason that our subconscious minds generate more negative things in our lives than positive things. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We each have the power to change this.

That’s true. We have this innate power to change our thoughts and thus change our lives. Want to hit that perfect drive right down the middle of the fairway? Create a picture in your mind of doing just that. Add all the detail necessary to create your scenario. Want to get an “A” on your next exam? See yourself taking the test effortlessly with every answer coming with the question. See the test returned to you with an “A” at the top next to your name. Want to give the perfect presentation? In your mind see yourself walking through your presentation with perfect accuracy. And when you actually do it your subconscious mind will follow the script exactly as you wrote it.

Remember, you’re the writer, producer and director of each and every scenario you create in your mind. So don’t forget, you’re creating an Academy Award production. Don’t skimp on the details and short change yourself.

All successful people use their subconscious minds to create prosperity. You can do it too.

Love,

Michael

Desire Without Expectation

Desire without expectation is nothing more than wishful thinking.  The vast majority of people wish positive but expect negative.  (Your Name) expect only positive things to flow to you. ~A Born Rich Affirmation

 

Please, let me first define what an affirmation is: According to Scott Armstrong of the Boulder Coaching Academy, “Affirmations, really, are simple. They are you being in conscious control of your thoughts. They are short, powerful statements. When you say them or think them or even hear them, they become the thoughts that create your reality. Affirmations, then, are your conscious thoughts.”

Often when I ask the Universe for what I want to manifest in my life I often use the word desire. For example: If I’m asking for a perfect day I’ll say; Infinite Spirit, my desire is for a perfect day today. A day where everything comes my way and where everything goes my way. Or, Infinite Spirit, I desire to write a magnificent blog. One that touches and inspires every person who reads it.

To just desire this perfect day or magnificent blog is wishful thinking. For a desire to become reality requires that it be backed-up by expectation. Meaning, I must have faith that the day I ask for will indeed be the day I receive, or the blog I wrote will inspire the people I wanted it to. Expectation is that faith.

Now here is where most people trip up. They ask their higher power for what they want, but a little voice in the back of their mind whispers to them, “You can ask for it all you want but you probably won’t get it.” And when they don’t receive what they asked for they believe that the Universe has conspired against them. When in reality they really didn’t fully expect it in the first place.

Here is the formula: Ask + Faith + Expectation = Whatever You Desire

With Love,

Michael

If You Can’t Find Time to do it Right

My first job out of college was as a junior salesman for the Milton Bradley Company, the oldest board game manufacturer in the United States. I was required to travel three mid-western states calling on Woolworth stores. It was in one of those stores that I first read the above quote, or rather the full quote; If you can’t find time to do it right, how are you going to find time to do it over. I found this quotation so profound that I made it my personal credo and it has served me well over the years.

You would think that anyone who attempts any task, either large or small, would want to do the very best job they were capable of doing. But anyone over five years old knows that this is not always the case. Now why is that?

My belief is that we were never told of our greatness. Nobody ever told us of our divinity. That we were a child of God and we could be, do and have everything that we desired. Nobody convinced us that we were capable of doing great and amazing things. And so we don’t.

Instead, for many of us, we were told just the opposite – that we were in some way flawed. Not quite good enough. Not capable of doing outstanding work. And we accepted this as the truth, and thus settled for an ordinary life. It took me many years to realize that this was wrong. It is not that we can’t find the time to do it right, but that our internal belief system tells us that we are incapable of doing it right. So why even try.

But try we must. Each of us has the innate ability to be one, two or even three times more productive than we are. So the next time you attempt a new assignment or take on a new task, and before you start, ask God, your higher power or the Universe for the ability to do the very best you are capable of. And soon, you’ll be surprised at just how capable you really are.

With Love,

Michael

Fear Within the Sexes

At their core, women fear that men will kill them. At their core, men fear that women will laugh at them. ~Gavin de Becker

This will be the first time that I’ve written a blog on quotes where I’m only knowledgeable on half of the quote. Having never been a woman, nor have any desire to be, I can’t speak on the first part of the quote “women fear that men will kill them.” But I certainly can speak to the male part, AND IT IS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

From a very early age boys strive to impress girls. It’s our nature. We may even deny any interest in girls but our egos are tightly intertwined with what they think of us. We don’t possess a magnificent plume of feathers to make an impression with, but we are quite capable of doing and saying some very stupid things. What we fear is female rejection.

As we get older this fear intensifies. It begins about junior high when we begin to see the opposite sex in a whole new light, and it never ends. Not in high school, college or anytime in our lives. We carry this fear with us always.

Let me ask the women reading this article; Have you ever seen a man that you’d like to meet spend a great deal of time looking at you, but never approaches you to introduce himself? You’re probably wondering what’s wrong with him. And you may even start to think, what’s wrong with me? There is nothing wrong with you. It’s all about him. And here is the kicker, the more attractive the woman the more fear the man experiences.

Until I read this quote by Mr. de Becker I always believed that our fear was in just being rejected, but it is more than that. What we really fear is being laughed at, which to us, is the ultimate rejection. Our egos cannot tolerate being the object of a women’s laughter.

When laughed at some men will slink away to lick their wounds, but others will respond in a more negative fashion. I think it depends on how much their ego is tied in with their feelings of self-worth. It is these men that add credence to the first part of this quote.

What’s the answer? You tell me.

With love,

Michael

Educating Out Our Fears!

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out. ~Karl Augustus Menninger

I like to joke that each of us was born perfect and then our parents get a hold of us. But the more I joke about it the more I realize the truth behind the humor.

They say that babies are born fearing only two things; falling and loud noises. That means that every other fear we have was learned. But who taught us?  And here the answer is simple; we learned from those closest to us. Our parents, siblings, other family members, teachers, coaches, classmates and even religious leaders.

For most of us, these individuals taught us with love who and what to fear. They wanted to protect us. And so they taught us what to them was the “truth.” But hidden in those lessons were their own fears, doubts, insecurities, prejudices and even bigotries.

I have a nephew, a wonderful young man, who has an intense dislike for homosexuals. It’s almost as if he is two different people. On the one hand, he’s a great husband, father and businessman. On the other, he’s a bigot. One side of him I love, the other I detest.

I know where my nephew learned his hatred. Not from his parents, but from his grandfather who taught him why these people were “bad.” He loved his grandfather, and so he accepted his grandfather’s hatred as his own. After all, his grandfather wouldn’t lie to him, would he?

Just as my nephew learned to hate homosexuals he can also learn to be more accepting of the LGBT community. But only if he wants to. Like everything else it must begin with the desire to change, and as we know, change is never easy.

But think about this: What would the world be like if each of us took a hard look at our own fears and prejudices and decided to change only one; from hatred to love and acceptance?

With love,

Michael