CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART 1:
HOW YOU GOT THIS WAY
CHAPTER 1: My Subconscious Made
Me Do It
CHAPTER 2: The G-Word
CHAPTER 3: Present as a Pigeon
CHAPTER 4: The Big Snooze
CHAPTER 5: Self-Perception Is a Zoo
PART 2:
HOW TO EMBRACE
YOUR INNER BADASS
CHAPTER 6: Love the One You Is
CHAPTER 7: I Know You Are But What
Am I?
CHAPTER 8: What Are You Doing
Here?
CHAPTER 9: Loincloth Man
PART 3:
HOW TO TAP INTO THE
MOTHERLODE
CHAPTER 10: Meditation 101
CHAPTER 11: Your Brain Is Your Bitch
CHAPTER 12: Lead with Your Crotch
CHAPTER 13: Give and Let Give
CHAPTER 14: Gratitude: The Gateway
Drug to Awesomeness
CHAPTER 15: Forgive or Fester
CHAPTER 16: Loosen Your Bone,
Wilma
PART 4:
HOW TO GET OVER
YOUR B.S. ALREADY
CHAPTER 17: It’s So Easy Once You
Figure Out It Isn’t Hard
CHAPTER 18: Procrastination,
Perfection, and a Polish
Beer Garden
CHAPTER 19: The Drama of
Overwhelm
CHAPTER 20: Fear Is for Suckers
CHAPTER 21: Millions of Mirrors
CHAPTER 22: The Sweet Life
PART 5:
HOW TO KICK SOME ASS
CHAPTER 23: The Almighty Decision
CHAPTER 24: Money, Your New Best
Friend
CHAPTER 25: Remember to Surrender
CHAPTER 26: Doing vs. Spewing
CHAPTER 27: Beam Me Up, Scotty
RESOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
You can start out with nothing, and
out of nothing, and out of no way,
a way will be made.
—Reverend Michael Bernard
Beckwith; former drug
enthusiast turned spiritual
enthusiast turned inspirational
badass
I used to think quotes like this were a
bunch of crap. I also didn’t understand
what the hell they were talking about. I
mean, not that I cared. I was too cool.
What little I knew about the selfhelp/
spiritual world I found to be
unforgivably cheesy: it reeked of
desperation, rah-rah churchiness and
unwanted hugs from unappealing
strangers. And don’t even get me started
on how grouchy I used to be about God.
At the same time, there was all this
stuff about my life that I desperately
wanted to change and, had I been able to
bulldoze through my holier-than-thouism,
I could have really used some help
around here. I mean, overall I was doing
pretty well—I’d published a couple of
books, had lots of great friends, a close
family, an apartment, a car that ran, food,
teeth, clothes, clean drinking water—
compared to the majority of the planet,
my life was a total cream puff. But
compared to what I knew I was capable
of, I was, shall we say, unimpressed.
I always felt like, Come ON, this is
the best I can do? Really? I’m going to
make just enough to pay my rent this
month? Again? And I’m going to spend
another year dating a bunch of
weirdoes so I can be in all these
wobbly, noncommittal relationships
and create even more drama? Really?
And am I seriously going to question
what my deeper purpose is and wallow
in the misery of that quagmire for the
millionth time?
It. Was. A. Snore.
I felt like I was going through the
motions of living my lukewarm life with
the occasional flare-ups of awesomeness
here and there. And the most painful part
was that deep down I KNEW I was a
total rock star, that I had the power to
give and receive and love with the best
of ‘em, that I could leap tall buildings
in
a single bound and could create anything
I put my mind to and . . . What’s that?
I
just got a parking ticket? You have got
to be kidding me, let me see that. I can’t
afford to pay this, it’s like my third one
this month! I’m going down there to
talk to them right now . . . then, doop de
do, off I’d go, consumed once again by
low-level minutiae, only to find myself,
a few weeks later, wondering where
those few weeks went and how it could
possibly be that I was still stuck in my
rickety-ass apartment, eating dollar
tacos by myself every night.
I’m assuming if you’re reading this
that there are some areas of your life that
aren’t looking so good either. And that
you know could be looking a whole lot
better. Maybe you’re living with your
soul mate and are joyfully sharing your
gifts with the world, but are so broke
that your dog is on his own if he wants to
get fed. Maybe you’re doing great
financially and you have a deep
connection to your higher purpose, but
you can’t remember the last time you wet
your pants laughing. Or maybe you suck
equally at all of the above and spend
your free time crying. Or drinking. Or
getting pissed off at all the meter maids
who have precision timing and no sense
of humor who, in your mind, are partly
responsible for your personal financial
crisis. Or maybe you have everything
you’ve ever wanted but for some reason
you still feel unfulfilled.
This isn’t necessarily about making
millions of dollars or helping solve the
world’s problems or getting your own
TV show, unless that’s your thing. Your
calling could simply be to take care of
your family or to grow the perfect tulip.
This is about getting mighty clear
about what makes you happy and what
makes you feel the most alive, and then
creating it instead of pretending you
can’t have it. Or that you don’t deserve
it. Or that you’re a greedy egomaniacal
fathead for wanting more than you
already have. Or listening to what Dad
and Aunt Mary think you should be
doing.
It’s about having the cojones to show
up as the brightest, happiest, badassiest
version of yourself, whatever that looks
like to you.
The good news is that in order to do
this, all you need to do is make one
simple shift:
You need to go from wanting to
change your life to deciding to change
your life.
Wanting can be done
sitting on the couch
with a bong in your
hand and a travel
magazine in your lap.
Deciding means
jumping in all the way,
doing whatever it takes,
and going after your
dreams with the
tenacity of a dateless
cheerleader a week
before prom night.
You’ll probably have to do things you
never imagined you’d do because if any
of your friends saw you doing it, or
spending money on it, you’d never live it
down. Or they’d be concerned about
you. Or they’d stop being friends with
you because now you’re all weird and
different. You’ll have to believe in
things you can’t see as well as some
things that you have full-on proof are
impossible. You’re gonna have to push
past your fears, fail over and over again
and make a habit of doing things you’re
not so comfy doing. You’re going to have
to let go of old, limiting beliefs and cling
to your decision to create the life you
desire like your life depends on it.
Because guess what? Your life does
depend on it.
As challenging as this may sound, it’s
nowhere near as brutal as waking up in
the middle of the night feeling like
someone parked a car on your chest,
crushed under the realization that your
life is zooming by and you have yet to
start living it in a way that has any real
meaning to you.
You may have heard stories about
people who had these major
breakthroughs when the shit really hit the
fan—they found a lump or got their
electricity turned off or were moments
away from having sex with strangers to
buy drugs when suddenly they woke up,
transformed. But you don’t have wait
until you hit rock bottom to start
crawling out of your hole. All you have
to do is make the decision. And you can
make it right now.
There’s a great line from the poet
Anaïs Nin that reads: “And the day came
when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to
blossom.” This is how it was for me,
and how I think it is for most people. My
journey was a process (and still is) that
started with my decision to make some
serious changes, regardless of what I
had to do to make them. None of the
things I’d already tried were working:
mulling it over and over with my equally
broke friends and my therapist, working
my ass off, going out for a beer and
hoping it would take care of itself . . . I
was at the point where I would try
anything to get my act together, and
Lawdy Lawd Lawd Lawd, it’s like the
Universe was testing me to see just how
serious I was.
I went to motivational seminars
where they made me wear a name tag
and high-five the person next to me
while shouting, “You’re awesome and so
am I!” I beat a pillow with a baseball
bat and shrieked like I was on fire, I
bonded with my spirit guide,
participated in a group ceremony where
I married myself, wrote a love letter to
my uterus, read every self-help book
under the sun, and spent blood-curdling
amounts of money I did not have hiring
private coaches.
Basically, I took one for the team.
If you’re new to the self-help world,
I’m hoping this book will ease you into
some of the basic concepts that totally
changed my life so you can have a
breakthrough, too, without making you
want to run off screaming in the process.
If you’ve already dipped your toe in the
self-help pond, I hope it will say
something in a new way that turns a light
on so you can make some major shifts,
create some tangible results, and
someday wake up crying tears of giddy
disbelief that you get to be you.
And if I can save one person from
ever having to take their inner child on a
play date, I have done my job.
My main focus when I started
working on myself was how to make
money. I had no idea how to make it on a
consistent basis, and was totally
weirded out by admitting that I even
wanted to in the first place. I was a
writer and a musician; I felt it was
sufficient—and quite noble thank you
very much—to focus on my art and let
the money part work itself out. THAT
went real well! But I saw so many
people doing such sleazy and
heartbreaking things to make money, not
to mention those people who were
working jobs that were death-of-athousand-
wounds boring, that I wanted
no part of it. Add to that my slew of
other crippling beliefs about the unholy
dollar and it’s a wonder I wasn’t eating
out of a dumpster.
I finally realized that I needed not
only to focus on making money, but that I
also needed to get over my fear and
loathing of it if I wanted to start pulling
it in. This is when the self-help books
started infiltrating my house, and the
name tags assumed their mandatory and
humiliating post above my left boob.
Eventually I took my credit card debt to
unthinkable heights by forking over more
money than I’d paid for all my janky cars
put together and hired my first coach.
Within the first six months, I tripled my
income with an online business that I
created around coaching writers. And
now I’ve grown it to a place where it
affords me the means and the luxury to
travel the world freely, while I write,
speak, play music, and coach people in
all areas of their lives, using many of the
concepts I used to so enjoy rolling my
eyes at and with which I am now
obsessed.
In an attempt to help you get to where
you want to go too, I’m going to ask you
to roll with some pretty out-there things
throughout this book, and I want to
encourage you to have an open mind.
No, on second thought, I want to yell in
your face about it: STAY OPEN OR
ELSE YOU ARE SCREWED. I mean it.
This is really important. You’ve gotten
to where you are right now by doing
whatever it is you’re doing, so if you’re
less than impressed with your current
situation, you clearly need to change
things up.
If you want to live a life
you’ve never lived, you
have to do things
you’ve never done.
I don’t care how big a loser you may
or may not perceive yourself to be right
now, the fact that you’re literate, have
the luxury of time to read this book and
the money to buy it puts you way ahead
of the game.
This isn’t something to feel guilty or
whiney or superior about. But it is
something to appreciate, and should you
make the decision to really go for it,
know that you are extremely well-poised
to knock it out of the park and share your
awesomeness with the world. Because
that’s really what this is all about.
We need smart people with huge
hearts and creative minds to manifest all
the wealth, resources, and support they
need to make their difference in the
world.
We need people to feel happy and
fulfilled and loved so they don’t take
their shit out on themselves and other
people and the planet and our animal
friends.
We need to be surrounded by people
who radiate self-love and abundance so
we don’t program future generations
with gnarly beliefs like money is bad
and I’m not good-enough and I can’t
live the way I want to live.
We need kickass people to be out of
struggle and living large and on purpose
so they can be an inspiration to others
who want to rise up, too.
The first thing I’m going to ask you to
do is to believe that we live in a world
of limitless possibilities. I don’t care
if
you have a lifetime of proof that you
can’t stop shoving food in your face or
that people are intrinsically evil or that
you couldn’t keep a man if you were
handcuffed to his ankles—believe that
anything is possible anyway.
See what happens—what do you
have to lose? If you try getting through
this book and decide it’s a bunch of
crap, you can go back to your sucky life.
But maybe, if you put your disbelief
aside, roll up your sleeves, take some
risks, and totally go for it, you’ll wake
up one day and realize you’re living the
kind of life you used to be jealous of.
PART
1:
HOW
YOU
GOT
THIS
WAY
CHAPTER 1:
MY SUBCONSCIOUS MADE
ME DO IT
You are a victim of the rules you
live by.
—Jenny Holzer; artist,
thinker, blurter of brilliance
Many years ago I was in a terrible
bowling accident. My friends and I were
at the tail end of a heated tiebreaker, and
I was so focused on making a great show
of my final shot—leaping into action,
loudly declaring my impending victory,
dancing and twirling my way through my
approach—that I didn’t realize where
my feet were when I let go of the ball.
This was the moment I was to learn
how serious the bowling community is
about penalizing those who roll with one
toe over the line. They pour oil or wax
or lube or something unimaginably
slippery all over the alley, and should
someone accidentally slide out of
bounds while attempting the perfect hook
shot, she will find her feet flying out
from under her and her ass crashing
down onto a surface that even an
airborne bowling ball can’t crack.
A few weeks later whilst lolling
about in bed with this guy I met at
Macy’s, I explained that ever since my
accident, I’m now woken up in the
middle of the night with excruciating
pain in my feet. According to my
acupuncturist, this is from the nerves in
my back getting slammed when I fell,
and in order to sleep through the night
I’d need a new, firmer mattress.
“I have pains in my feet when I sleep
too!” He said, raising himself up for an
unreciprocated high five.
It’s not just because I’m not into the
whole high-five thing that I left him
hanging, but also because I was annoyed
with him. I already find mattress
shopping to be totally bizarre and
embarrassing—lying on your side with a
pillow between your thighs for all to see
like it’s anyone’s business—but the
fact
that I had to do it with my salesman lying
next to me, begging for a high-fiver, was
more than I could handle.
I couldn’t help but notice that all the
other salesmen simply stood at the end
of the bed, rattling off mattress facts
while their clients tested out a myriad of
positions, but not mine. He’d lower
down next to me on his back, arms
crossed over his chest, and thoughtfully
chat away, staring at the ceiling like we
were at summer camp. I mean, he was
nice enough and incredibly
knowledgeable about coils and latex and
memory foam, but I was scared to roll
over for fear he’d start spooning me.
Was I too friendly? Should I not have
asked him where he was from? Did he
think I meant something else when I
patted the empty space next to me to test
the pillow top?
I obviously should have asked Freak
Show Bob to get off the damn bed, or
found someone else to help me, instead
of sneaking out the door and blowing my
only opportunity that week to go mattress
shopping, but I didn’t want to embarrass
him.
I didn’t want to embarrass him!
This is pretty much how my family
was trained to deal with any sort of
potentially uncomfortable interaction.
Along with the fail-safe method of
running in the opposite direction, other
tools in our confrontation toolbox also
included: freeze, talk about the weather,
go blank, and burst into tears the moment
you’re out of earshot.
Our lack of confrontationmanagement
skills was no great surprise
considering the fact that my mother
comes from a long lineage of WASPs.
Her parents were the types who
believed that children were to be seen
and not heard, and who looked upon any
sort of emotional display with the same,
horrified disdain usually reserved for
cheap scotch and non–Ivy League
educations.
And even though my mother went on
to create a household for us that was as
warm, loving, and laughter-filled as they
come, it took years for me to finally
learn how to form a sentence when
presented with the blood-chilling
phrase, “We need to talk.”
All this is to say that it’s not your
fault that you’re fucked up. It’s your
fault
if you stay fucked up, but the foundation
of your fuckedupedness is something
that’s been passed down through
generations of your family, like a coat of
arms or a killer cornbread recipe, or in
my case, equating confrontation with
heart failure.
When you came screaming onto this
planet you were truly a bundle of joy, a
wide-eyed creature incapable of doing
anything but being in the moment. You
had no idea that you had a body, let
alone that you should be ashamed of it.
When you looked around, everything just
was. There was nothing about your
world that was scary or too expensive or
so last year as far as you were
concerned. If something came near your
mouth, you stuck it in, if it came near
your hand, you grabbed it. You were
simply a human . . . being.
While you explored and expanded
into your new world, you also received
messages from the people around you
about the way things are. From the
moment you could take it in, they started
filling you up with a lifetime’s worth of
beliefs, many of which have nothing to
do with who you actually are or what is
necessarily true (e.g. the world is a
dangerous place, you’re too fat,
homosexuality is a curse, size matters,
hair shouldn’t grow there, going to
college is important, being a musician or
an artist isn’t a real career, etc.).
The main source of this information
was, of course, your parents, assisted by
society at large. When they were raising
you, your parents, in a genuine effort to
protect you and educate you and love
you with all their hearts (hopefully),
passed on the beliefs they learned from
their parents, who learned them from
their parents, who learned them from
their parents. . . .
The trouble is, many of these beliefs
have nothing to do with who they
actually are/were or what is actually
true.
I realize I’m making it sound like
we’re all crazy, but that’s because we
kind of are.
Most people are living
in an illusion based on
someone else’s beliefs.
Until they wake up. Which is what
this book will hopefully help you do.
Here’s how it works: We as humans
have a conscious mind and a
subconscious mind. Most of us are only
aware of our conscious minds, however,
because that’s where we process all our
information. It’s where we figure things
out, judge, obsess, analyze, criticize,
worry that our ears are too big, decide
once and for all to stop eating fried food,
grasp that 2 + 2 = 4, try to remember
where the hell we left the car keys, etc.
The conscious mind is like a
relentless overachiever, incessantly
spinning around from thought to thought,
stopping only when we sleep, and then
starting up again the second we open our
eyes. Our conscious mind, otherwise
known as our frontal lobe, doesn’t fully
develop until sometime around puberty.
Our subconscious mind, on the other
hand, is the non-analytical part of our
brain that’s fully developed the moment
we arrive here on earth. It’s all about
feelings and instincts and erupting into
ear-piercing temper tantrums in the
middle of supermarkets. It’s also where
we store all the early, outside
information we get.
The subconscious mind believes
everything because it has no filter, it
doesn’t know the difference between
what’s true and what’s not true. If our
parents tell us that nobody in our family
knows how to make money, we believe
them. If they show us that marriage
means punching each other in the face,
we believe them. We believe them when
they tell us that some fat guy in a red suit
is going to climb down the chimney and
bring us presents—why wouldn’t we
believe any of the other garbage they
feed us?
Our subconscious mind is like a little
kid who doesn’t know any better and,
not coincidentally, receives most of its
information when we’re little kids and
don’t know any better (because our
frontal lobes, the conscious part of our
brains, hasn’t fully formed yet). We take
in information via the words, smiles,
frowns, heavy sighs, raised eyebrows,
tears, laughter, etc., of the people
surrounding us with zero ability to filter
any of it, and it all gets lodged in our
squishy little subconscious minds as the
“truth” (otherwise known as our
“beliefs”) where it lives, undisturbed
and unanalyzed, until we’re on the
therapy couch decades later or checking
ourselves into rehab, again.
I can pretty much guarantee that every
time you tearfully ask yourself the
question, “WTF is my problem?!” the
answer lies in some lame, limiting, and
false subconscious belief that you’ve
been dragging around without even
realizing it. Which means that
understanding this is majorly important.
So let’s review, shall we?
1) Our subconscious mind contains
the blueprint for our lives. It’s
running the show based on the
unfiltered information it gathered
when we were kids, otherwise
known as our “beliefs.”
2) We are, for the most part,
completely oblivious to these
subconscious beliefs that run our
lives.
3) When our conscious minds finally
develop and show up for work, no
matter how big and smart and
highfalutin they grow to be, they’re
still being controlled by the beliefs
we’re carrying around in our
subconscious minds.
Our conscious mind
thinks it’s in control,
but it isn’t.
Our subconscious mind
doesn’t think about
anything, but is in
control.
This is why so many of us stumble
through life doing everything we know in
our conscious minds to do, yet remain
mystified by what’s keeping us from
creating the excellent lives we want.
For example, let’s say you were
raised by a father who was constantly
struggling financially, who walked
around kicking the furniture and
grumbling about how money doesn’t
grow on trees, and who neglected you
because he was always off trying, and
for the most part failing, to make a
living. Your subconscious took this in at
face value and might have developed
beliefs such as:
• Money = struggle
• Money is unavailable.
• It’s money’s fault that I was
abandoned by my father.
• Money sucks and causes pain.
Cut to you as an adult who, in your
conscious mind, would love nothing
more than to be raking in the dough, but
who is subconsciously mistrusting of
money, believes it’s unavailable to you
and who worries that if you make it,
you’ll be abandoned by someone you
love. You may then manifest these
subconscious beliefs by staying broke no
matter how hard you consciously try to
make money, or by repeatedly making
tons of money and then losing it in order
to avoid being abandoned, or in a
plethora of other, frustrating ways.
No matter what you
say you want, if you’ve
got an underlying
subconscious belief that
it’s going to cause you
pain or isn’t available to
you, you either A)
Won’t let yourself have
it, or B) You will let
yourself have it, but
you’ll be rill fucked up
about it. And then
you’ll go off and lose it
anyway.
We don’t realize that by eating that
fourth doughnut or by ignoring our
intuition and marrying that guy who’s an
awful lot like our low-down, cheatin’
daddy, that we’re being driven by our
subconscious minds, not our conscious
minds. And that when our subconscious
beliefs are out of alignment with the
things and experiences we want in our
conscious minds (and hearts), it creates
confusing conflicts between what we’re
trying to create and what we’re actually
creating. It’s like we’re driving with
one
foot on the gas and one foot on the brake.
(Obviously we all have awesome
subconscious beliefs as well, but we’re
not talking about those right now.)
Here are some other scenarios that
may or may not ring a bell:
Conscious Mind: I long to find and
marry my soul mate.
Subconscious Mind: Intimacy leads
to pain and suffering.
Finger: Ringless
Conscious Mind: I want to lose 25
pounds.
Subconscious Mind: People aren’t
safe; I must build a shield to protect
myself.
Body: A fortress of flab
Conscious Mind: I’m hot and sexy
and want to get it on.
Subconscious Mind: Physical
pleasure is shameful.
Sex Life: Yawn
Conscious Mind: I want to travel the
world.
Subconscious Mind: Fun =
irresponsible = I won’t be loved
Passport: Blank
It’s sort of like not being able to
enjoy sitting on your front porch
anymore because it totally reeks of
something foul out there. You can come
up with all these brilliant ways to deal
with the problem—light incense, set up
fans, blame it on the dog—but until you
realize that something has crawled under
your house and died, your problems will
linger on, stinking up your life.
The first key to ridding yourself of
limiting subconscious beliefs is to
become aware of them. Because until
you’re aware of what’s really going on,
you’ll keep working with your conscious
mind (think you need to paint the porch)
to solve a problem that’s buried far
beneath it (dead skunk removal) in your
subconscious, which is an exercise in
futility.
Take a minute to look at some of the
less-than-impressive areas of your life
and think about the underlying beliefs
that could have created them. Let’s take
the old crowd-pleaser, lack of money,
for example. Are you making far less
money than you know you’re capable of
earning? Have you reached a certain
income level that, no matter what you
do, you can’t seem to go above? Does
generating an abundance of money
consistently seem like something you’re
not even physically capable of? If so,
write down the first five things that come
to your mind when you think about
money. Is your list full of hope and
bravado or fear and loathing? What are
your parents’ beliefs about money? What
are the beliefs of the other people you
grew up around? What was their
relationship with money like? Do you
see any connection between their money
beliefs and yours?
Later on in this book I’m going to
give you tools to go much deeper with
your subconscious beliefs and fix
whatever’s blocking you from living the
kind of life you’d love to live, but for
now, practice stepping aside, notice
what’s happening in the dysfunctional
areas of your life and strengthen your
almighty awareness muscle. Start
waking up to the stories you’re working
with in your subconscious (I’ll have to
do things I hate in order to make money,
I’ll feel trapped if I get into an intimate
relationship, if I go on a diet I’ll never
get to eat anything fun again, if I enjoy
sex I’ll burn in Hell with the rest of the
dirty sinners, etc.). Because once you
see what’s really going on, you can start
to drag out the stinky carcasses of your
limiting subconscious beliefs and give
them the heave-ho, thereby opening up
the space to invite the fresh, new,
awesome beliefs and experiences that
you’d love to have, into your life.
CHAPTER 2:
THE G WORD
If you want to find the secrets of the
universe, think in terms of energy,
frequency and vibration.
—Nokola Tesla; inventor,
physicist, supergenius
When I lived in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, my friends and I used to hang
out at this western bar called Midnight
Rodeo. It was the kind of place that had
curling irons and hair spray in the
women’s bathroom, Bud Light on
permanent special for two bucks a can,
and a solid oak dance floor the size of a
cornfield.
We were all from the East Coast and
were way too cool for country music, so
at first we’d go just to snootily make fun
of it all, taking great pride in being the
first to spot a particularly gigantic belt
buckle or a cowboy sporting one of them
handlebar mustaches big enough to cover
five upper lips. But our favorite part
was the line dancing. We’d stare
mesmerized by the giant, choreographed
mass of Garth Brooks fans, stomping
around in synchronized woo-hooery with
their thumbs purposefully tucked into the
front pockets of their jeans.
It was so hilarious that we started
joining in ourselves, waving from the
middle of the sea of cowboy hats to our
friends—watch this! Then, uh, we’d stay
on the floor for the next song, just to try
and get that part down where you click
your heels right before the spin. Then we
found ourselves sneaking off every
weekend to merrily line dance our little
achy breaky hearts out.
This is sort of the same way the God
thing happened for me. It started out with
much snarkiness and eye rolling, but I
was so broke and clueless and sick of
being such a weenie about really going
for it in my life, that I was open for
suggestions. Which is why, when I
started reading books on finding your
calling and making money and getting
over yourself already, and they all had
this spiritual side to them, I didn’t toss
them in the Goodwill pile with my usual
this God/spirituality crap is for suckers
attitude. Instead I decided to give good
old God a chance because I had nothing
to lose. Literally. And lo and behold,
some of it wasn’t totally idiotic. So I
started reading more about it. Then I
started studying it. Then I started putting
it into practice. Then I noticed how much
better it made me feel. Then I started
believing it. Then I noticed all these
awesome shifts starting to happen in my
life. Then I became obsessed with it.
Then I started loving it. Then I started
radically changing my life with it. Then I
started teaching it. Now I’m basically
riding the mechanical bull about it,
punching my fist in the air and hollering
to the guy manning the controls, “Hit it,
Wayne!”
Wherever you happen to stand on the
God issue, let me just say that that this
whole improving your life thing is going
to be a lot easier if you have an open
mind about it. Call it whatever you want
— God, Goddess, The Big Guy, The
Universe, Source Energy, Higher Power,
The Grand Poobah, gut, intuition, Spirit,
The Force, The Zone, The Lord, The
Vortex, The Mother Lode—it doesn’t
matter. Personally, I find the God word
to be a tad too loaded, I prefer Source
Energy, The Universe, The Vortex,
Spirit, The Mother Lode (all of which I
will use interchangeably throughout this
book, FYI). Whatever you choose to call
it isn’t important, what is important is
that you start to develop an awareness
of, and a relationship with, the Source
Energy that’s surrounding you and within
you (which is all the same energy), and
which will be your best pal ever if you
give it a chance. Because here’s the
thing:
All of us are connected
to this limitless power
and most of us aren’t
using but a fraction of
it.
Our energy is taking a joy ride in
these bodies of ours; learning, growing,
and evolving along the way (one would
hope, anyway—I suppose, numbing,
shrinking and moving back in with our
parents is also an option), until our
corporal journey comes to an end and
we move on . . . thanks for the lift! This
realization, that we’re made up of, and
connected to, Source Energy, made me
want to have a deeper understanding of
spirituality so I could make my physical
experience as awesome as possible.
And let me tell you, ever since I got into
it, it has been awesomeness maximus.
When I’m connected with Source
Energy and in the flow, I am so much
more powerful, so much more in tune to
my physical world and the world
beyond, and just so much happier in
general. And the more I meditate and the
more attention I give to this relationship
with my invisible superpower, the more
effortlessly I can manifest the things I
want into my life, and do it with such
specificity and at such a rapid rate that
it
makes my hair stand up. It’s like I’ve
finally figured out how to make my
magic wand work.
If loving Spirit is wrong, I don’t
wanna be right.
HERE IS THE FOUNDATION FOR
ALL THE WORK WE’RE ABOUT TO
DO TOGETHER ON YOUR LIFE:
• The Universe is made up of Source
Energy.
• All energy vibrates at a certain
frequency. Which means you’re
vibrating at a certain frequency, and
everything you desire, and don’t
desire, is also vibrating at a certain
frequency.
• Vibration attracts like vibration.
Otherwise known as The Law of
Attraction, the basic idea is: Focus on
that which makes you feel good and ye
shall find (attract) that which makes you
feel good.
We’re all attracting energy to
ourselves all the time whether we
realize it or not. And when we’re
vibrating at a low frequency (feeling
pessimistic, needy, victimized, jealous,
shameful, worried, convinced we are
ugly) yet expect high frequency,
awesome things and experiences to
come into our lives, we are often
disappointed.
You need to raise your frequency
to match the vibration of the one
you want to tune into.
It’s like trying to listen to a certain
radio station but tuning in at the wrong
frequency. If you have a hot and sexy
date and want to listen to 105.9FM Slow
Jamz, but set your dial to 89.9FM
National Public Radio, you’re not only
going to be Slow Jamless, but you’re
more likely to attract a discussion about
immigration laws in the U.S. instead of
attracting a relaxed and candlelit body
that’s in the mood for love.
The Universe will
match whatever
vibration you put out.
And you can’t fool The
Universe.
Which is why when you’re vibrating
at a high frequency, awesome things
seem to flow to you effortlessly and you
seem to stumble over the perfect people
and opportunities all the time (and vice
versa). As Albert Einstein observed,
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining
anonymous.”
When you learn to consciously
master the energetic realm,
believe in the not yet seen, and
stay in your highest frequency,
you harness your innate power to
create the reality you desire.
So once again, good ole awareness is
your key to freedom. Once you realize
that you can dramatically improve your
situation by connecting with Source
Energy and raising your frequency, you
can freakin’ do it already (I’ll show
you
exactly how later) instead of opting to
stay in the suckhole and feeling like a
victim of pathetic circumstances such as
microwaving ramen in its Styrofoam cup
for dinner or working for someone who
makes your flesh crawl.
In order to truly raise
your vibration, you’ve
got to believe that
everything you want is
available to you. And
the best way to keep
this belief strong is by
staying connected to
Source Energy.
It’s like we’re surrounded by this big,
all-you-can-eat buffet of incredible
experiences and insights and feelings
and opportunities and things and people
and ways to share our gifts with the
world, and all we have to do is align our
energy with what we want and take
decisive action to allow this good into
our lives. And this decisive action part
is key. Sadly, we can’t just float around
our neighbor’s pool on a raft with cupholders,
sipping cocktails and being all
high frequency while waiting for
unicorns to fly down from the sky. We
have to take action—hell-bent-for-glory
kind of action.
The trick is to have both parts—
energy and action—working in unison:
unless your energy is lined up properly
with that which you desire, really desire,
any action you take is going to require
way more effort to get you where you
want to go, if it gets you there at all.
Once in a while you may get lucky doing
one without the other, but if you get very
clear on what you truly want (rather than
what you think you should want), believe
that it’s available to you regardless of
your present circumstances by staying
connected to Source Energy and keeping
your frequency high, and take decisive
action, you will eventually succeed.
Have you ever had a dream where
you’re flying and you’re having such a
blast but then you realize, hey, wait a
minute, I’m flying—I can’t fly, and
then
you come crashing back down to the
ground and you can’t get yourself back
up again? No matter what you try? This
is the way beliefs work. Even if it seems
impossible, you have to have faith
anyway, and the second you stop
believing, you pop the bubble and stop
attracting the magic in your life.
The Force is with you.
This isn’t just about believing and
being all high-vibe when the sun is out
and the bunnies are hopping around,
either. This is about believing, even
when things are at their most uncertain
or absolute crappiest, that there is a
bright shiny flipside within your reach.
As French author and fearless truthseeker,
André Gide, so aptly put it, “One
does not discover new lands without
consenting to lose sight of the shore for
a
very long time.” This is about believing
that we live in a loving, kind and
abundant Universe instead of one that’s
petty, mean, and likes other people more
than it likes you.
This is about your faith being greater
than your fear.
CHAPTER 3:
PRESENT AS A PIGEON
If you are depressed, you are living
in the past. If you are anxious, you
are living in the future. If you are
at peace, you are living in the
present.
—Lao Tzu; ancient Chinese
philosopher, founder of
Taoism, could have been one
guy or a mythical compilation
of many, nobody really knows
for sure
I was in yoga class one day and the
instructor told us all to get into Pigeon
Pose, which is this pose where you
stretch one leg out behind you, fold the
other one out sideways in front of you
and then bend forward and lie down on
top of the whole thing. It’s fine if you’re
a pigeon, but it’s one of the poses I
dread most because my hips don’t move
that way, it hurts and I’m always scared
I’m gonna get stuck.
But even though my body has
requested otherwise, I’m in class and
going for it, and am determined to “relax
into it” even though I’m really just
silently begging the dude to tell us to
change into a different pose, which he
doesn’t do because he’s too busy talking.
He’s blabbing on and on and on about
our connection to The Universe and our
breath and the path to true enlightenment
and holy fucking shit dude will you
hurry up I think I’m going to rip
something I really do oh my God I think
I’m actually stuck how am I going to
get out of this pose he’s gonna have to
come over here and lift me out of it
because I really truly am stuck and then
whoosh . . .
I breathe into it. I shut off the
relentless yammering in my brain, get
quiet, and surrender. I feel my body shift
and go deeper into the pose than it’s ever
gone before. The pain is gone. The panic
is gone. I am one with The Universe. But
then I realize that I really do think I’m
stuck and seriously what the hell dude
are you going to talk all night we’ve
been in this freakin’ pose for five
minutes for real and by the way my
knee just got all hot and you really are
not going to shut up even though I keep
thinking you finally are but then you
keep going and then, whoosh . . .
I reconnect. I’m back in The Zone. I
melt deeply into this pose and feel such
bliss and true connection to something
much larger than myself.
This flip-flopping between freaking
out in our heads and “breathing into the
Now” is basically how most of us go
through life. Instead of worrying about
the possibility of dislocating a hip (the
future) or about how bad I was at this
pose (the past), I could have luxuriated
in the magnificence available to me in
the moment.
It never ceases to amaze me the
precious time we spend chasing the
squirrels around our brains, playing out
our dramas, worrying about unwanted
facial hair, seeking adoration, justifying
our actions, complaining about slow
Internet connections, dissecting the lives
of idiots, when we are sitting in the
middle of a full-blown miracle that is
happening right here, right now.
We’re on a planet that somehow
knows how to rotate on its axis and
follow a defined path while it hurtles
through space! Our hearts beat! We can
see! We have love, laughter, language,
living rooms, computers, compassion,
cars, fire, fingernails, flowers, music,
medicine, mountains, muffins! We live in
a limitless Universe overflowing with
miracles! The fact that we aren’t
stumbling around in an inconsolable
state of sobbing awe is appalling. The
Universe must be like, what more do I
have to do to wake these bitches up?
Make water, their most precious
resource, rain down from the sky?
The Universe loves us so much, and
wants us to partake in the miraculous so
badly, that sometimes she delivers little
wake-up calls. Like in the movies when
someone narrowly escapes death and is
so overjoyed and grateful that they take
to the streets, skipping and laughing and
madly hugging everyone in sight.
Suddenly all their “problems” fall away
and the miracle of being alive, today, in
this moment takes over the screen. I
know someone who got sucked through a
dam and almost died who now speaks
about it as one of his most profound and
life-changing experiences. Not that I’d
wish that on anyone, but take heart in the
fact that should you require some sort of
catastrophe for your transformation, it
can be cosmically arranged.
The Universe has also surrounded us
with the perfect teachers. Animals, for
example. Animals are in the present all
the time, and their secret power is to
pull us in with them. My friend’s dog is
so happy to see her every single time she
walks in the door it’s like she’s about
to
free him from forty years of
imprisonment. Even if she’s only been
gone for an hour. You’re here. I’m here.
I
love you. I’m gonna pee all over the
floor about it.
Little kids are also excellent guides.
Kids get so wrapped up in the joy of
drawing or pretending or discovering
that they’d rarely eat or bathe or sleep
if
we didn’t make them. They are
constantly creating in a state of freeflowing,
concentrated bliss, they haven’t
yet learned to worry about what other
people think of them or that perhaps
they’re not as talented at finger painting
as Lucy next door is. They are in the
moment. There is fun in the moment. End
of story.
We would be wise to
take more of our cues
from the beasts and
babies.
All the stuff we’re so worried about
creating and fixated on becoming is
already right here, right now. The money
you want already exists; the person you
want to meet is already alive; the
experience you want to have is
available, now; the idea for that brilliant
song you want to write is here, now,
waiting for you to download the
information. The knowledge and insight
and joy and connection and love are all
wagging their hands in your face, trying
to get your attention. The life you want is
right here, right now.
What the hell am I talking about? If
it’s all here, where is it?
Think of it like electricity. Before the
invention of the light bulb, most people
weren’t aware of electricity’s existence.
It was still here, exactly the same way it
is right now, but we hadn’t yet woken up
to it. It took the invention of the light
bulb to bring it to our attention. We had
to understand how to manifest it into our
reality.
It’s not that the things
and opportunities that
we want in life don’t
exist yet.
It’s that we’re not yet
aware of their existence
(or the fact that we can
really have them).
The more practiced you become at
being present and connected to Source
Energy, the more available you are to
download ideas and seize opportunities
that you might miss out on if you’re all
wrapped up in the endless chatter in
your head.
There’s a great Hindu story about a
lady who wanted to meet the god
Krishna. So she went into the forest,
closed her eyes, and prayed and
meditated on making the god appear and
lo and behold, Krishna came wandering
down the forest path toward her. But
when Krishna tapped the lady on the
shoulder, she, without opening her eyes,
told him to get lost because she was
busy meditating on a very important
goal.
When we get so wrapped up in our
heads, we miss out on what’s available
to us right now in the moment. Stop and
notice how you feel right now. Feel your
breath moving in and out of your body.
Feel the air on your skin. Feel your heart
beating. Your eyes seeing. Your ears
hearing. Notice the energy inside and
outside of you buzzing. Shut off your
thoughts and feel your connection to
Source. B-r-e-a-t-h-e. Even if you’ve got
bone-chilling credit card debts or you
haven’t spoken to your mother in six
years, right now, in this moment, you can
find peace and joy in that which simply
is.
As adults with responsibilities like
bodies to care for and mortgages to pay,
there’s some value in taking a side trip
away from the present moment every
once in a while; sometimes we need to
think about and plan for the future, as
well as study the past in order to learn
from it or laugh about it or to bury it out
back and let it go forever. And if we just
stopped by for the occasional visits to
the future and past, that would be one
thing, but the amount of time we spend
chewing on junk-food thoughts about
what-ifs and how-comes—Lawd help
us!
The more time you spend in the
moment, the richer your life will be.
Being present gets you out of your head
and connects you to Source Energy,
which raises your frequency, which
attracts things of like frequency to you.
And all of those high-frequency things
and experiences are already here, just
waiting for you to join the party, all you
have to do is shut up, show up, and usher
them in.
CHAPTER 4:
THE BIG SNOOZE
Wanting to be someone else is a
waste of the person you are.
—Kurt Cobain; you know
who this one is, right?
When I first started getting into selfhelpery,
there was lots of talk about
something called the “Ego” that confused
the hell out of me. I always thought that
Ego was about being conceited and
braggy and all, “I’m gonna talk on and
on and on about how great I am and then
I’m gonna show you my muscles.”
Meanwhile, even though arrogance and
conceit (which are different from selflove
and confidence, BTW) are part of
the Ego, they’re not, as I later learned,
the whole dealio.
In the self-help/spiritual community,
“Ego” is used to refer to the shadow
self, or the false self, or the self that’s
acting like a weenie. It’s the part of us
that’s driving the bus when we do things
like sabotage our happiness by cheating
on our husbands or wives because deep
down we don’t feel worthy of being
loved, or that refuses to follow our
hearts and pursue an acting career
because we’re terrified to be seen for
who we really are or that goes on and on
and on and on about how great we are
and shows off our muscles because
we’re insecure and need lots of outside
validation that we’re good enough.
In other words, there’s more than one
way to go on an ego trip.
From here on out, I’m going to refer
to the Ego as the Big Snooze. Or BS for
short. I think it’ll be less confusing.
Plus
I think it’s more appropriate, since the
leading cause of sucking (staying broke,
dating morons, uncontrollably crying in
public because we hate our lives) is that
we haven’t yet woken up to how truly
powerful we are or to how massively
abundant our Universe is.
Alrighty, so, moving forward.
The Big Snooze operates according
to your limiting false beliefs. This is the
garbage that was stuffed into your
subconscious as a kid that doesn’t ring
true for you, as well as the decisions
you’ve made about yourself that are
less-than flattering or empowering. It
gets validation from outside sources
(I’m doing this to win your love, your
opinion of me is more important than my
opinion of me), it’s reactive (My
circumstances control my life, I am a
victim), fear-based, and extremely
committed to keeping you safely
confined within the reality you’ve
created based on these limiting false
beliefs (otherwise known as your
comfort zone). The Big Snooze lives in
the past and in the future and believes
you are separate from everything around
you.
Your true self or your higher self or
your superhero self (your non-BS self),
on the other hand, is the part of you that
operates according to your connection to
Source Energy. It gets validation from
within (I love and trust myself, this feels
right to me, I have a purpose, I am
loved), it’s proactive (I’m in control
of
my life, I think I’ll head on out and kick
me some ass), love-based, and is
committed to creating a reality based on
your limitless potential—as soon as you
wake up from the Big Snooze. Your true
self lives in the present (not stuck in
your head), totally believes in miracles
and is one with the Universe.
We all experience life in varying
degrees from both perspectives, and
while I seriously doubt there’s anyone
who’s totally Snooze-free, most people
are so wrapped up in the BS that they’re
settling for realities that are waaaaaaaay
beneath what’s available to them.
Very few people are even aware of
what’s available, however, because we
live in a fear-based society that loves to
get all uppity toward people who wake
up from the Big Snooze, blast out of their
comfort zones, and follow their hearts
into the great unknown. Oftentimes,
taking great leaps of faith is labeled as
irresponsible or selfish or insane (until
you succeed of course, then you’re
brilliant). This is because:
Watching someone else
totally go for it can be
incredibly upsetting to
the person who’s spent
a lifetime building a
solid case for why they
themselves can’t.
I’m obviously generalizing, and there
are plenty of people out there cheering
us on, but one of the first things you
might have to deal with when you decide
to wake up from the Big Snooze and
make massive positive changes in your
life is disapproval from other people
who are snoring away. Especially the
people closest to you, lame as this may
sound.
They may express their discomfort in
all sorts of ways: anger, hurt, bafflement,
criticism, snorting every time you talk
about your new business or your new
friends, constant remarks about how
you’re not the way you used to be, brow
furrowing, worrying, teasing, blocking
you from all social media outlets, etc.
Shirley, are you really going to quit
your secure, corporate job to open a
nail salon when you’ve got two
children, a mortgage, and high blood
pressure? So few new businesses
succeed, especially in this economy—
aren’t you worried about what will
happen to your family if you fail?
Of course Shirley is worried about
what will happen to her family if she
fails! She wakes up every night seized
by panic about it, but she’s moving past
her fear to create something she’s really
psyched about, rather than dying a slow
painful death hanging around the
watercooler with you, whining about
how dry the cake was at the birthday
party your boss threw for you in the
conference room last week.
Even though they’re often doing it out
of love and concern, having others smear
their fear and worry all over you is the
last thing you need when you’re
strengthening your superhero muscles to
step out and take some risks, so I highly
recommend keeping your mouth shut
around people who are gonna bring you
down. Instead, seek out those who are
already totally kicking butt (or who are
lifting up their foot to do so), or people
who you know will be supportive, and
confide in them. Because you’ll have
your own internal freak show to deal
with as you try to overcome the
objections from your own BS.
The Big Snooze is like an
overprotective Italian mother who not
only doesn’t want you to ever go
outside, but who wants you to live with
her forever. Her intentions are good, but
fully fear-based. As long as you stay
inside the familiar, risk-free zone of your
present reality, the Big Snooze is
content, but should you try and sneak
past her to attend the rockin’ party
outside, your overprotective, controlling
mother is going to claw, scratch, scream,
bite, hurl her body in front of your
rapidly approaching new life—basically
she’s going to do whatever she can to
stop you. And it ain’t gonna be pretty.
It’s like when you quit smoking or
doing drugs and go into withdrawal.
Finally, you’ve taken a leap and done
something that’s going to massively
improve your life, and for days,
sometimes weeks, you feel worse than
you did when you were a wild child.
You’re hacking up all this nasty crap,
ridding your body of toxins, shaking,
sweating, puking, wondering why on
Earth you thought this was a good idea.
It’s really fun.
Same goes for when we rid ourselves
of limiting subconscious beliefs that
have been holding us back and take a
giant leap outside our comfort zone. It’s
a detox of such staggering proportions
that sometimes it can feel like The
Universe is conspiring against us—trees
fall on our cars, our computers crash, we
find our significant others in bed with
our best friends, we get our identities
stolen, we get the flu, our roofs cave in,
we sit in gum—when in reality, The Big
Snooze is creating chaos in an attempt to
self-sabotage and keep everything as is,
instead of moving forward into
unknown, yet desperately wanted, new
territory. Every successful person knows
this and has been through this.
When taking great leaps
forward, life often turns
to shit before it turns to
Shinola.
I realize this might seem a bit farfetched,
but remember, you create your
reality. And you’ve spent a lifetime
creating the one you presently have
largely based on your limiting beliefs.
When you decide to re-wire these
beliefs, go for what’s truly in your heart
and do a massive overhaul on yourself
and your world, you’re basically
murdering the Big Snooze. And she is
going to come at you, rolling pin raised
high over her head, to beat you back into
your old life. We are very powerful
creatures who create our realities
through focused energy, and should our
subconscious mind decide to focus that
energy at stopping ourselves from taking
a risk because it’s freaking out and
terrified, things can get a little crazy
around here.
The Big Snooze will do
everything it can to stop you from
changing and growing, especially
since you’re attempting to
obliterate the very identity that
you and everyone else has come
to know as “you.”
Never underestimate the power of the
Big Snooze scorned.
Sometimes the Big Snooze sets up
emotional blocks to try and stop us,
other times she gets physical. I have a
client who decided to quit his ho-hum
yet high-paying job to start his dream
company from scratch. He had no idea
where to start, what he wanted to do or
how he was going to pull it off, and
regardless of the fact that he had a family
that was counting on him, no guarantees
and even fewer leads, he quit his secure
job and went for it because he was
determined to create a life he loved.
That’s when the BS hit the fan—he got
not one, but two flat tires after leaving
a
coaching session with me, his babysitter
ran into his wife’s car while driving his
car, the water main under his kitchen
exploded, and right before his first big
deal went through, he got hit by a freakin
bus (I’m pleased to report he’s fine).
But
even with all those extremely convincing
excuses to say Ok, fine, screw it, you
win, he never gave up. Today he finds
himself being his own boss, doing what
he loves, traveling the world, negotiating
multi-million dollar deals, making a
huge difference in his clients’ lives,
being creative and setting an excellent
example for his kids about living life on
purpose.
A record producer I worked with
decided to build her own recording
studio. She put all her money and effort
into buying all the recording equipment,
instruments, amps, soundproofing, etc.,
only to have the entire thing burn to the
ground almost immediately after it was
completed. Instead of closing the shades,
getting into bed and sucking her thumb
for the next two years, she raised the
money she needed to rebuild an even
better studio and is now rocking so hard
that she gets to hand pick the musicians
she works with and basically live out
her fantasy life.
So if you finally decide to quit your
soul-crushing job and start the pastry
shop of your dreams, be not upset if a
truck drives through your front window
into your scones. Instead of taking this as
a sign that you shouldn’t have opened
your shop, take it to mean that you’re
ridding yourself of your BS and moving
in the right direction.
Growth ain’t for weenies, but it’s no
where near as painful as living the life
you’re living right now if you’re not
really going for it. If you want to take
control of your life and turn it into
something as spectacularly “you” as
have the people I described above, stop
at nothing. Have faith. Trust that your
new life is already here and is far better
than the old. Hang tight if the Big Snooze
pitches a fit. Whatever happens, stay the
course, because there’s nothing cooler
than watching your entire reality shift
into one that is the perfect expression of
you.
CHAPTER 5:
SELF-PERCEPTION IS A
ZOO
I’m okay, I’m not okay.
—The title of my friend
Cynthia’s yet-to-be-written
autobiography
I have a friend who’s a professional
speaker. She’s the kind of person who is
so articulate, so powerful and bright and
naturally captivating, that she could be
standing at the counter, ordering a
burrito and I’d get all teary-eyed:
”That’s right! No refried beans! You
heard the woman!” So imagine my
surprise when, after one of her talks, she
plunked herself down next to me and
demanded to know how boring it was. I
also have gorgeous friends who think
they’re hideous looking, brilliant clients
who one moment think they’re God’s gift
to mankind and the next need to be talked
off the ledge of self-proclaimed
ineptitude, and an entrepreneurial
neighbor who can’t decide if she’s a
financial powerhouse or if she’s about to
cause her family to start living
underneath a bridge.
Self-perception is a zoo.
We spend our lives drifting between
glimpses of our own, infinite glory and
the fear that not only are we totally
incapable/unworthy/lazy/horrible, but
that it’s only a matter of time before
someone blows the whistle on us. We
torture ourselves incessantly, and for
what purpose? If we can glimpse the
glory (and I know you can), why do we
waste our precious time giving any
energy to the other options? Wouldn’t
life be so much more fun, productive,
and sexy if we fully embraced our
magnificently delightful selves?
It’s just as easy to
believe we’re awesome
as it is to believe we’re
giant sucking things.
Takes the same amount of energy. The
same amount of focus. So why do we
choose all the drama?
Have you ever noticed how when
someone you admire goes out and does
something phenomenal, you’re happy for
her or him, but you’re not surprised—of
course they did something phenomenal,
they’re a phenomenal person! But to get
yourself to see how amazing you are is
like pushing a giant marshmallow up a
hill. Yes, there we go, we are up, we are
awesome! Ooop! We’re sagging—we
are sagging on the left! Push it up.
There we go. We are all good! Wait,
now we’re sagging on the right . . . We
run around, taking one step forward and
fourteen steps back when it’s so
unnecessary.
Instead, try seeing yourself through
the eyes of someone who admires you.
They get it. They believe in you leaps
and bounds. They aren’t connected to
your insecurities and negative beliefs
about yourself. All they see is your true
glory and potential. Become one of your
own die-hard fans, look at yourself from
the outside, where all your self doubts
can’t crawl all over you, and behold
what shines through.
You get to choose how you perceive
your reality. So why, when it comes to
perceiving yourself, would you choose
to see anything other than a super huge
rock star of a creature?
You are a badass. You were one
when you came screaming onto this
planet and you are one now. The
Universe wouldn’t have bothered with
you otherwise. You can’t screw up so
majorly that your badassery disappears.
It is who you are. It’s who you always
will be. It’s not up for negotiation.
You are loved. Massively.
Ferociously. Unconditionally. The
Universe is totally freaking out about
how awesome you are. It’s got you
wrapped in a warm gorilla hug of
adoration. It wants to give you
everything you desire. It wants you to be
happy. It wants you to see what it sees in
you.
You are perfect. To think anything
less is as pointless as a river thinking
that it’s got too many curves or that it
moves too slowly or that its rapids are
too rapid. Says who? You’re on a
journey with no defined beginning,
middle or end. There are no wrong
twists and turns. There is just being. And
your job is to be as you as you can be.
This is why you’re here. To shy away
from who you truly are would leave the
world you-less. You are the only you
there is and ever will be. I repeat, you
are the only you there is and ever will
be. Do not deny the world its one and
only chance to bask in your brilliance.
We are all perfect in our own,
magnificent, fucked-up ways. Laugh at
yourself. Love yourself and others.
Rejoice in the cosmic ridiculousness.
PART
2:
HOW
TO
EMBRACE
YOUR
INNER
BADASS
CHAPTER 6:
LOVE THE ONE YOU IS
If we really love ourselves,
everything in our life works.
—Louise Hay; author,
publisher, the Godmother of
Self-Help who was doing it
way back when it still wasn’t
cool
I was hanging out at my brother Bobby’s
house one day, lying on the couch,
watching his then-two-year-old son
waddle around. At one point, someone
knocked something off the coffee table,
and my little nephew bent down to pick
it up. Bobby turned to me and said, “Did
you see that? The guy knows exactly
how it’s done. He bends at the knees,
keeps his back straight, hips squared,
stomach tight—flawless!”
Thrilled to have such a willing and
skilled Exhibit A, Bobby then proceeded
to spend the next couple of minutes
dropping more things on the floor—a
spoon, a TV remote, an empty can of
beer—and my nephew, in perfect form,
continued to pick it all up as my brother
kept up a running commentary on his
posture, muscle usage, seriousness of
manner, and the fact that my nephew was
pulling it all off with great dignity even
though his diaper was sagging.
“It’s incredible. The kid could flip
over a car without straining his back. I
can barely pull up my pants without
having to be rushed to the hospital.”
When we’re born, we have an
instinctual understanding of some of the
most important basics of life that
includes, and goes way beyond, bending
at our knees, instead of our lower backs,
to pick a beer can up off the floor. We’re
born knowing how to trust our instincts,
how to breathe deeply, how to eat only
when we’re hungry, how to not care
about what anyone thinks of our singing
voices, dance moves, or hairdos, we
know how to play, create, and love
without holding back. Then, as we grow
and learn from the people around us, we
replace many of these primal
understandings with negative false
beliefs, fear, shame, and self-doubt.
Then we wind up in emotional and
physical pain. Then we either numb our
pain with drugs, sex, booze, TV,
Cheetos, etc. Or we settle for
mediocrity. OR we rise to the occasion,
remember how truly mighty we are, and
set out to relearn everything we knew at
the beginning all over again.
It’s like we’re born with a big bag of
money, more than enough to fund any
dream of ours, and instead of following
our instincts and our hearts, we invest in
what other people believe we should
invest in. Some people invest in
believing they’re too old to go out
clubbing when they love nothing more
than the boogie, some invest in being
tough and too-cool-for-school when all
they want is love and connection, some
invest in being ashamed of their
sexuality instead of being their
gloriously gay selves. As we continue to
buy into these things that aren’t even true
for us, our inner fortunes dwindle away,
and it isn’t until we reconnect with who
we truly are and start investing in what’s
true for us that we start to live rich, full,
authentic lives.
And while there are countless ways
that we rip ourselves off, there’s one
way in particular that is, without a
doubt, the most rampant and the most
devastating of all: we invest everything
we’ve got in believing that we’re not
good enough.
We arrive here as perfect little
bundles of joy and then set about the task
of learning to un-love ourselves! How
unbelievably ridiculous is that?! Selflove,
the simplest yet most powerful
thing ever, flies right out the window
when we start taking in outside
information.
I’m not talking about conceit or
narcissism, because those things also
come from fear and a lack of self-love.
I’m talking about a deep connection with
our highest selves, and an unshakable
ability to forgive our lowest. I’m talking
about loving ourselves enough to let go
of guilt, resentment, and criticism and
embrace compassion, joy, and gratitude.
When we’re happy and
all in love with
ourselves, we can’t be
bothered with the
bullshit (our own or
other people’s).
Imagine what our world would be
like if everyone loved themselves so
much that they weren’t threatened by
other people’s opinions or skin colors or
sexual preferences or talents or
education or possessions or lack of
possessions or religious beliefs or
customs or their general tendency to just
be whoever the hell they are. Imagine
how different your reality would be (and
the reality of everyone surrounding you)
if you woke up every morning certain of
your own lovability and your critically
important role on this planet. And if you
poo-pooed shame, guilt, self-doubt, and
self-loathing and allowed yourself to
be, do, and have everything your little
heart desired.
THAT’S the kind of world I want to
live in.
In the interest of perpetuating such
radical, reality-altering self-love, here
are some of the best ways to win
yourself over again:
1. APPRECIATE HOW
SPECIAL YOU ARE
There will never be anyone exactly like
you. You were given special gifts and
talents to share with the world, and even
though everybody has special gifts and
talents, nobody will use theirs quite the
same way you do. You have a way of
being in the world and a perspective
that’s unique to you. You are the only one
who thinks your thoughts the way you
think them. You have created your own
unique reality and are living your life
according to your own unique path. You
are the only you that will ever be. You
are kind of a big deal.
2. DROWN YOURSELF IN
AFFIRMATIONS
Trust me, I wouldn’t do this to you
unless I had to, but affirmations work.
You don’t have to say them in the mirror,
you don’t have to hug yourself or buy a
special rainbow journal with a lock on it
to write them down in, but if you want to
turn the ship around, you need to rewire
your brain and train it to think
differently. And this is what affirmations
can do for you.
Figure out which affirmations you
need to hear the most and repeat them all
day long in your head, in the car, while
you’re walking down the street
pretending to be on the phone, under
your breathe in line at the DMV. Write
them on Post-it notes and stick them
around your house, on your mirrors, in
your refrigerator, in your car. Write
down your favorite affirmations ten
times every morning and ten times every
night before you go to bed and say them
out loud.
Here are some affirmations specific
to self-love. Pick one or two that work
for you and pummel yourself with them:
• I deserve and receive massive
amounts of love every moment of
every day.
• I am one with The Universe. The
Universe is awesome and so am I.
• My heart is open. Love pours in
and out.
• I receive all the good that life has
to offer me.
• I am brilliant, bright, and beautiful.
• I love how tall I am and I love the
size of my ass.
Or whatever. If none of these work,
come up with some that don’t make you
gag but that strike a nerve with you. The
more emotion you feel around what
you’re saying, the more power it will
have to bring about positive change.
And yes, at the beginning it may feel like
you’re lying to yourself, but the truth
is,
you’re living the lie, so the affirmations
get you back to truth.
This can’t be just rattling off
nonsense—you have to feel it and
want it and get worked up by it in
order for it to work.
3. DO THINGS YOU LOVE
When you constantly deny yourself the
people, food, things, and experiences
that make you feel the most alive, that
sends a pretty lousy message home.
Look at your life and see where
you’re letting yourself down. If you hear
yourself saying things like “I love going
out to see live music! I can’t remember
the last time I did it,” make time.
We’re all busy, but it’s the people
who make enjoying their lives a priority
who, um, enjoy their lives. Right now,
there are thousands of people all over
the world at yoga retreats overlooking
the ocean, dancing their asses off at
outdoor music festivals or whooping it
up on the Disney Cruise of their dreams.
Really listen to how you speak and pay
attention to what you do, and make a
conscious effort to increase your joy in
whatever capacity you can. It can be
anything from spending a weekday
afternoon with a great friend to quitting
your hateful job to buying a pair of
completely impractical but completely
awesome new shoes to going on a surf
vacation in Costa Rica. It’s about being
proactive about creating a life you love
instead of meekly living the one you
think you’re stuck with. Give yourself
the gift of a joyous life while you’re still
among the living.
Also, if you’re the kind of person
who puts everyone else’s needs first,
start putting yours up front. Those who
are used to you being their personal
assistant will still love you, even though
they’ll be somewhat grouchy about you
not waiting on them hand and foot
anymore. Buy a new pair of jeans, open
a savings account, hire someone to do
your dishes, make your kids clean out the
cat box—you aren’t a selfish person for
taking care of yourself, just a happier
one. Take care of yourself as if you’re
the most awesome person you’ve ever
met.
4. FIND A REPLACEMENT
We’ve gotten so used to our negative
knee-jerk reactions to ourselves that we
never think to question them—we simply
take them as the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. But once we
become aware of our thought patterns
and behaviors, we can consciously
change them. So start paying attention:
What runs through your mind when
you look in the mirror?
What happens inside you when you
see someone totally succeeding at
something you’d love to do but have
never let yourself try?
What do you think and feel when you
walk up to a group of really goodlooking,
successful people?
Or when you try your best to pull
something off and you fail?
Or when you get dumped by someone
who is totally awesome? And hot?
Or when you walk around all day
with your fly open?
Or when you leave your coffee on the
roof of your car and drive off?
Or when you let a friend down?
Or when you stub your toe on the
kitchen table for the tenth time?
Or when you forget your dad’s
birthday?
Or when you snap at someone who
didn’t quite deserve it as harshly as
you gave it to them?
Notice the verbiage that runs through
your mind when you’re being the most
heinous to yourself and come up with a
new-and-improved response.
For example, if every time you look
in the mirror, your first thought is yikes,
make a conscious effort to change it to
hi, gorgeous!
If you have a complicated
relationship with your father and beat
yourself up every time you say
something awful to him, replace I’m a
monster with I’m just a little bunny,
working through my issues. And then, of
course, apologize to him.
If your standard response to screwing
something up is ugh, Her Royal
Clumsiness strikes again, replace it
with what can I learn from this?
The most important thing is to free
yourself from the drama and the
conviction that your current version of
yourself is the truth. I don’t care if
you’re all, “that’s easy for you to
say;
you don’t have a nose that makes it look
like someone parked a yacht on your
face.” Because one day you could see
some fancy and famous fashion model
with a nose far bigger than yours is who
decided she was gorgeous anyway, and
suddenly you’ll feel beautiful and
confident and all proud of your nose
when, just the day before, you were
considering getting it sawed off.
This is how ridiculous we are.
Do not spend your life clinging to the
insulting decisions you’ve made about
yourself. Instead, make the conscious
choice to replace them with new and
improved ones.
5. DITCH THE SELFDEPRECATING
HUMOR
Incessant self-deprecating humor is for
losers. I get it—it can be hilariously
funny and I’m totally guilty of it from
time to time and there’s nobody I’d more
enjoy backing over with my car than the
guy who can’t laugh at himself, but I’m
talking about the nonstop, selfflagellating,
I Suckfest. Ripping on
yourself gets old. Fast. Especially if it’s
your shtick. So if you’re one of those
people who falls back on making fun of
yourself, every hour on the hour, not only
are you basically begging people to think
you’re a loser, but you’re begging
yourself to think you’re a loser. It’s
like
hitting yourself over and over with a
crowbar. Why on earth would you do
that to your awesome self?
What you tell yourself on a daily
basis is more powerful than you know.
Seemingly harmless jokes, over time,
turn into seriously destructive beliefs.
Our thoughts become our words, our
words become our beliefs, our beliefs
become our actions, our actions become
our habits, and our habits become our
realities. So if your favorite joke is that
you couldn’t get a date if you demanded
one at gunpoint, and you spend every
Saturday night alone, perhaps you should
come up with a new one-liner.
And most importantly, constantly
making fun of yourself is such a cheap
way to be funny. Anyone can do it. So
push yourself to come up with a new
script. Your confidence, and we humor
snobs, will thank you.
6. LET THE LOVE IN
Receive compliments gracefully instead
of countering with a disclaimer such as,
“Oh, this ratty old thing?” Try this
instead: “Thank you.” Period.
Take care of your body, too. We, if
you’re anything like me, run around
doing all our busy work with our poor
bodies flapping behind us like old wind
socks. When we’re pressed for time, it’s
often the first thing to get overlooked.
“I’ve got five meetings today, I’ll
do my
yoga tomorrow and have a power bar
for lunch.” Meanwhile, during our little
sojourn here on earth, we need our
bodies more than they need us. Say nice
things about your body, dress it up, and
take it out. Give it hot sex, luxurious
baths, and massages. Move it, stretch it,
nourish it, hydrate it, pay attention to it
—The better our bodies feel, the happier
and more productive we are.
7. DON’T COMPARE
YOURSELF TO OTHERS
Have you ever done something that
you’re so proud of and feel all on top of
the world about until you see that
someone else has done something
similar that, in your mind, is better, and
all of a sudden you feel sad?
Comparison is the
fastest way to take all
the fun out of life.
It’s none of your business what other
people are doing. All that matters is that
you’re enjoying yourself and pleased
with what you’re creating. It’s precisely
your uniqueness that makes you
awesome— deciding that someone
else’s uniqueness is better than your own
isn’t exactly being your own best buddy
about things.
Can you imagine what our world
would be like if our biggest heroes
succumbed to the perils of comparison?
If Marilyn Monroe compared herself to
Kate Moss and decided she needed to
lose her curves? Or if the guys in Led
Zeppelin compared themselves to
Mozart? Dude. That guy’s huge. Way
huger than we’ll ever be and he doesn’t
even have a drummer. I think we should
get rid of ours and maybe add some
harps while we’re at it.
You are more than enough. Avoid
comparison like the plague.
8. FORGIVE YOURSELF
(LISTEN UP! THIS
ONE’S EXTREMELY
IMPORTANT.)
You have screwed up in the past. You
will screw up again. Every human is
born with the ability to make spectacular
mistakes. You are not alone, screwing up
is not your special skill. Get over it.
Dragging around guilt and self-criticism
is beyond unhealthy and is utterly
pointless, not to mention boring. You
aren’t a better person for feeling guilty
or bad about yourself, just a sadder one.
Get clear on this one truth: guilt,
shame, and self-criticism are some of the
most destructive forces in your life,
which is why forgiving yourself is one
of the most powerful. Here’s an
excellent way to do it:
Think of a specific thing that you did
that you feel badly about. Call it up in
your mind and feel it in your body.
Repeat the following over and over
while thinking of it and really feel what
you’re saying to yourself:
Holding on to my bad feelings about
this is doing nothing but harming me,
and everyone else, and preventing me
from enjoying my life fully. I am an
awesome person. I choose to enjoy my
life. I choose to let this go.
Repeat this until you feel a sense of
freedom and lightness around your issue.
It may take a day or a week or several
months or it could happen right away.
But however long it takes, do it, because
if you want to be free, you have to put in
the time. (See Chapter 15 for more tips
on forgiveness and letting go.) And if
you need to apologize to someone, pick
up the phone.
9. LOVE YOURSELF
Because it’s the Holy Grail of
happiness.
CHAPTER 7
I KNOW YOU ARE BUT
WHAT AM I?
I’m not offended by all the dumb
blonde jokes because I know I’m
not dumb.
I also know I’m not blonde.
—Dolly Parton; singer,
songwriter, actress, altruist,
businesswoman, bright shiny
light
A friend of mine—a brilliant writer—
once called me in a panic when she
suddenly became frozen with fear over
the subject matter of the book she was
working on and could no longer bring
herself to write it.
Her book was, among many other
splendid things, very personal, dark, and
twisted, and my friend was concerned
that it was too much. That it was
crossing the line.
That she was exposing herself as a
giant weirdo pervert freak.
This brings up something that’s SO
important to have a firm grasp on if
you’re going to get anywhere near
reaching your full potential in this life
as
a writer, an artist, a businessperson, a
parent, a butcher, a baker, a candlestickmaker
or as a fully realized and evolved
human being in general:
DO NOT WASTE YOUR PRECIOUS
TIME GIVING ONE SINGLE CRAP
ABOUT WHAT ANYBODY ELSE
THINKS OF YOU.
Imagine how liberating that would
be!
Other people’s opinions motivate
every move we make in our teens and
our twenties. And, as we age, if we’re
moving in the right direction, our
obsession with how we’re perceived by
others begins to trickle away, but very
few of us are able to escape its pointless
grasp completely.
Meanwhile, the truth is, the only
questions you ever need to consider
when making decisions about your life
are:
1. Is this something I want to be, do,
or have?
2. Is this going to take me in the
direction I want to go (not should
go)?
3. Is this going to screw over*
anybody else in the process?
We throw a wet blanket
of ho-hummery over
our lives when we live
in fear of what others
might think, instead of
in celebration of who
we are.
Yes, it’s part of our survival instinct
to care—get booted from the tribe and
you’ll freeze to death or starve or be
eaten by wolves. But because we have
big brains and the ability to manifest
anything we set our minds to, there is
another version that’s equally plausible:
Get booted from the tribe and start, or
find, another tribe that’s more your style.
You could not only wind up doing what
you love surrounded by people you
adore who you actually relate to, but you
might one day realize you can no longer
remember the names of the people
whose approval you so desperately
thought you would die without.
Nobody who ever accomplished
anything big or new or worth raising a
celebratory fist in the air did it from
their comfort zone. They risked ridicule
and failure and sometimes even death.
Think of the Wright brothers. Can you
imagine how that whole thing went
down?
Margaret: Did you hear about poor
Susan?
Ruth: Susan Wright?
Helen: Such a disgrace. Poor thing.
Ruth: What happened?
Margaret: Well, her sons . . .
Helen: As if she hasn’t suffered enough.
Birthing two boys as big as buffaloes,
and now this . . .
Margaret: Seems her two sons . . .
Helen: You gonna eat the rest of your
tapioca pudding? Mind if I help myself?
Ruth: Tell me already, Margaret!
Margaret: Well, this is going to sound
as crazy as it is but they . . .
Helen: And now her sons think they can
fly. Such a shame.
Margaret: . . . Her sons think—they
think they can fly.
Ruth: Think they can fly?
Margaret: Yes, they think they can fly.
They talk of nothing else.
Helen: She just had the house painted,
too. They’ll probably have to move out
of town now. . . .
Once you step away from the herd
and let your true self shine, you’ll
probably find yourself in front of the
opinion firing squad (especially if what
you want to do is extraordinary and
outside of everyone’s comfort zones),
which is why so many people run
screaming from the lives they’d so love
to live. Merely allowing yourself to be
seen is a risk. I mean, look at how we
treat celebrities—their every move is
picked apart and passed around and
discussed and judged and photographed
without makeup on. It’s a wonder that
only half of them spend time in rehab.
You are responsible for
what you say and do.
You are not responsible
for whether or not
people freak out about
it.
Two people can walk out of the same
movie, one person clinging to the walls,
bloodshot and devastated, leaving a trail
of tissues, more moved by this film than
any other film in the history of cinema
while the other person goes marching up
to the ticket counter and demands her
money back because she thought it was
the worst piece of garbage to ever be
projected onto a screen.
One movie, two very different
experiences. Why?
Because it’s not about the movie, it’s
about the moviegoers.
What other people
think about you has
nothing to do with you
and everything to do
with them.
The trick is to not only deny the
criticism any power over you, but, even
more challenging, to not get caught up in
the praise. There’s nothing wrong with
blushingly accepting a compliment, but if
you find yourself always seeking outside
approval that you’re good enough or
cool enough or talented enough or
worthy enough, you’re screwed.
Because if you base your self-worth on
what everyone else thinks of you, you
hand all your power over to other
people and become dependent on a
source outside of yourself for validation.
Then you wind up chasing after
something you have no control over, and
should that something suddenly place its
focus somewhere else, or change its
mind and decide you’re no longer very
interesting, you end up with a full-blown
identity crisis.
All that matters is
what’s true for you, and
if you can stay
connected to that
without straying, you
will be a mighty
superhero.
Everything else is just other people’s
perception of reality, and that is none of
your business.
So how can you truly not care what
other people think and be your most
powerful Self?
1. ASK YOURSELF WHY
Why are you about to say or do
something? Is it to be liked? To put
someone down because you feel
insecure? To get someone back because
they made a fat joke about your mother?
Or is it coming from a place of strength
and truth? Are you doing it because it’ll
be fun? Because you feel called to do it?
Because it’ll change someone else’s life
in a positive, martyr-free way? Pay
attention to your motivations (be honest).
Practice coming from a place of integrity
and you will be victorious.
2. ALWAYS DO YOUR
BEST
There’s no faster way to fall prey to
outside input than when you’re feeling
insecure. And there’s no better way to
feel insecure than knowing you halfassed
something or don’t really believe
in what you’re doing. No matter what it
is—raising your prices or raising your
children—if you do the absolute best
you possibly can, and come from a place
of integrity, then you can be proud of
yourself and not give a damn what
anyone else thinks.
3. TRUST YOUR
INTUITION
Birds use their intuition to navigate their
way to breeding grounds halfway around
the world. Deer and rabbits and other
prey type beasts use their intuition to
avoid running into predators. The
average human, on the other hand, will
take the advice of their drunk-beforenoon
neighbor across the street instead
of doing what deep down we know is
best. How many times have you thought
in hindsight, I knew I should have
listened to my gut!?
You have an incredible, inner
guidance tool that you can use whenever
you need it. Tell everyone to shut up and
go away, get quiet, give yourself room to
feel and think. You have all the answers
inside of you. Practice sharpening your
intuition, take the time to strengthen your
connection to Source Energy, and trust
that you know what’s best for you. The
more centered and tuned-in you are, the
mightier you will be (look for more tips
on how to do this later in this book).
4. FIND A TEMPORARY
ROLE MODEL
Find a mentor or a hero or a role model.
Get clear on why this person is
impressive and inspiring to you, and
when faced with a challenge that leaves
you guessing how to react, ask yourself,
What would my hero do?
Not caring what others think is a
muscle that can take some time to build
up, so use this trick while you’re still
getting strong, and before you know it,
you’ll be able to ditch your hero and
start asking yourself, What would I do?
5. LOVE YOURSELF
No matter what anyone else thinks.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT
OUTSIDE OPINIONS: While you are
unauthorized to base your self-worth on
what other people think, it doesn’t mean
you should miss out on the opportunity to
benefit from outside input altogether.
Especially input from those who know
you well.
There is such a thing as constructive
criticism, and constructive
complimenting. But whether or not they
are constructive depends on you.
For example, if people have been
telling you for years that you’re a
hothead, that they feel like they can’t
be
open with you because the second you
disagree with them you blow up in their
faces, ask yourself Is this true (be
honest)? Can I use this information to
better myself and the lives of others? If
the answer is yes, commit to making the
necessary changes; if the answer is no,
let it go.
Same goes for compliments. If
people constantly tell you you’re a good
listener, ask yourself, Is this compliment
true for me? Can I use this information
to better myself and the lives of others?
Again, if the answer is yes, figure out
how you can capitalize on it; if the
answer is no, let it go.
Sometimes it’s easier for other
people to see what we can’t see
ourselves, so if they can help us connect
with our truths and live happier, more
authentic lives, then it’s worth taking
the
time to listen.
It still ultimately comes down to
what’s true for you, however, so the
more connected to your inner truth you
are, the easier it will be to use outside
opinions to your advantage, rather than
let them rule your life.
*The definition of screwing someone
over is taking their money and doing a
lousy job or destroying their water
source or enslaving populations, things
like that—your mother being
disappointed or your father disapproving
or your friends being outraged does not
qualify as screwing someone over.
CHAPTER 8:
WHAT ARE YOU DOING
HERE?
The big question is whether you are
going to be able to say a hearty
yes to your adventure.
—Joseph Campbell;
American mythologist, author
whose books/ideas influenced
the making of Star Wars
Getting clear about what your unique
purpose is can be the difference between
living a happy, fulfilled life of
abundance, choice, and expansiveness or
living in the restrictive veal pen of your
own indecision and tired old excuses.
A gift, of course, is meant to be
given, which is why it’s so brutal when
we can’t figure out what ours is, or when
we know what it is, but we’re too lame
to act on it: here we have the perfect gift
to share with the world, just bursting to
be opened, and we keep it sitting there,
wrapped tightly in a box, growing old
and gathering dust. Oh the waste! The
agony!
Meanwhile, the joy of giving
someone the perfect gift is unparalleled.
We all know how it feels, hopping back
and forth from foot to foot, wringing our
hands, practically peeing in our pants,
begging them to open it. OPEN IT
ALREADY! Jesus H. Christ . . . here let
me freakin’ do it! The power of giving is
so strong that the excitement and the
good feelings are often greater for the
giver than for the receiver.
Which is why, when you find your
calling and you design your life in such a
way that you can share your gifts with
the world on a consistent basis, you feel
like a rock star.
When we share what
we were brought here
to give, we are in
alignment with our
highest, most powerful
selves.
Most people, however, wander
through their lives giving the tasteful
candle version of their gifts. You know
—they don’t show up to the party emptyhanded
or anything; they present their
somewhat flaccid gift to the world,
receive a warm hug, and an, “Oh, you
shouldn’t have,” in return, but they don’t
knock it out of the park. For example,
they get a job doing something that they
either hate or that’s a bit of a yawn but
is, you know, okay. It affords them a life
that covers the basics as long as they
don’t go too crazy. They do fun stuff but
not as much as they’d like because they
don’t have the money. Or the time. Or the
belief that they deserve to. They have
little victories here and there, they meet
their sales quota and win the six-day
cruise to the Bahamas or rack up enough
miles to go stay with their aunt and see
the Olympics or finally sit down and
write an entire song that they may or may
not ever record or perform, but they
never truly go for it and create a life that
really lights them up. They basically Big
Snooze their lives away.
Every single person is born with
unique and valuable gifts to share with
the world. Once we figure out what ours
are, and decide to live our lives putting
them to use, that’s when, and only when,
the real party begins. Living a life on
purpose is available to everyone. So if
you’re struggling or settling or
completely confused about what you’re
supposed to do with your life, know that
the answer is already here. It exists and
so does the life you can’t wait to create.
You just need to get some clarity first.
There are entire books written on
finding your calling (some of the best of
which I share in the Resources section in
the back of this book and on my
website), but the following are a few of
my favorite tips.
Keep in mind there’s no right way to
go about this. Everyone’s journey is
unique, but we’re all trying to get to the
same place—the place where we feel
happiest, the most alive, and the most
like ourselves.
Even if you’ve nailed the perfect
career for yourself, read on, because
these tips can help you in all areas of
your life.
How to get clear on who you are and
what your calling is:
1. BE THE ALIEN
Imagine that you’re an alien floating
around in outer space and you suddenly
swoop down to Earth and inhabit your
own body. As the alien, everything about
this life is new to you. You look around
—what do you see? What is this person
who you’ve inhabited so obviously
awesome at? What do they have the most
fun doing? What connections do they
have? What resources and opportunities
are available to them?
As the alien, to whom everything is
new and exciting and there’s nothing at
risk and no past to lug around, what are
you going to do with this incredible new
life you’ve stepped into? How are you
going to use this new body and this
existence to create something fabulous
and awesome starting right now?
This exercise is hugely helpful for
getting a new perspective and stepping
outside our boring-ass ruts of tired old
excuses and lame habits. It can also be
very useful in making you aware of all
the staggering possibilities and
resources that you have at your fingertips
and take for granted or do not see.
Sometimes it’s as simple as looking at
things with new eyes to see how
astoundingly fortunate we are. Be the
alien for twenty-four hours and see what
you come up with.
2. TAKE THE FIRST
RIGHT STEP
Instead of wasting hours and days and
years trying to figure out your perfect
next move, just DO something already.
Oh the time we waste rolling ideas
around in our heads, imagining what-ifs,
coming up with perfect reasons why and
then perfect reasons why not, tearing at
our cuticles, making our friends and
family carefully screen their calls in
case it’s us again, wanting to go over
some ideas. Get out of your head and
take action. You don’t have to know
exactly where it’s going to take you, you
just need to start with one thing that feels
right and keep following right-feeling
things and see where they lead.
Most answers reveal
themselves through
doing, not thinking.
When I discovered my calling as a coach
I was, ironically, in the midst of a
lifelong obsession with figuring out what
the hell my purpose was. While I always
knew writing was part of it, I also knew
I wasn’t meant to spend my life locked
away in a silent room alone and halfcrazed,
wrestling words into
submission. I wanted something that A)
Involved interacting with other people
B) Helped people in some sort of direct
way C) Was really fun and D) Forced
me to bathe, dress and leave my house.
That’s about all I had to go on, that and
my intense desire to figure it out, so
when a friend told me I should check out
a women’s entrepreneurial think-tank
group that had just started up, I figured
I’d go.
We were all supposed to bring a
project to work on, but I had nothing,
just the hope that I’d get some ideas from
something someone else brought to the
table. After sitting there for four weeks
watching this roomful of women figure
out what they love to do and turn their
brilliant ideas into businesses, or grow
the businesses they already had, I still
had no project of my own. But I did
know what I wanted to do. I went up and
asked the facilitator if she needed any
help, which she did. She hired me, and I
started leading these groups, which, after
a few years, led to me starting my own
coaching practice, which led to me
working with clients all over the world
which led to me sitting at the kitchen
counter writing this book.
No matter how clueless you may feel
right now, pay attention to suggestions
and opportunities that suddenly present
themselves. And notice how you feel—
is there something for you that, for
whatever reason, feels like it might be
good to check out? What have you been
saying forever that you’d love to do?
Has somebody mentioned a course or a
teacher or a book that keeps sticking in
your mind? Take the first step in the
direction toward something that feels
right and see where it leads you. And do
it NOW.
3. DO YOUR BEST
WHEREVER YOU’RE
AT
Once you take this first step, it’s
possible that you won’t land in your
dream situation right away. You might
land on a stepping-stone. It could be an
awesome stepping-stone, or it could be
kind of an unpleasant stepping-stone. But
no matter where your first step lands
you, if you want to keep moving
forward, appreciate wherever you’re at
instead of feeling ashamed or grouchy or
impatient about it.
Everything you do along your
journey contributes to where
you’re going.
Let’s say you’ve decided that you’re
going to go after your fantasy of being a
rock star, and you take a job waiting
tables so you have the flexibility to
travel and play gigs and go in the studio.
Clearly, your calling is playing music,
not being concerned that some whiney
customer’s French onion soup is
allegedly too cold, but it’s essential that
you care anyway. Having a good attitude
and being grateful for all the things that
are helping you live the life of your
dreams will not only make your life a
more pleasant place to be, and get you
bigger tips, but it will also raise your
frequency and attract the people and
opportunities to you that will take you in
the direction you want to go.
This is where really being present in
the moment comes in handy. Granted,
you may not be onstage in front of
thousands doing a split in the air, but
remember that you are going for it, you
are bravely moving toward your dream,
you are surrounded by unthinkable
miracles and opportunities. Lean back,
relax, and be grateful that you’re living
on purpose, that you’re hanging out in a
high frequency, and that everything you
need is zooming toward you.
4. DON’T REINVENT THE
WHEEL
Look around and see what other people
out there are doing. Whose life makes
you totally jealous? What things are
people doing that you would love to do
too? Who do you think is the coolest
person ever? You don’t need to invent
your ideal life from scratch, you just
need to figure out what makes you feel
alive. So if what someone else is doing
sparks your interest, take notice. It could
mean that your calling has something in
common with theirs.
Get specific about the things in their
lives that turn you on. Is it because they
get to travel the world? Is it that they
have a solid routine? Is it that they have
no routine? Is it that they work alone?
That they work in the nude? That they get
to be outside all day? That they work
with their hands? Their eyes? Their
ears? Their animals? Their spouse? The
more specific you get, the easier it will
be to create a picture of what you want.
Read magazines that interest you, talk
to as many people as you can, hang out
in places where people who share your
interests hang out. Put yourself out there
and you never know what you might
learn that will inform your next move, or
whom you might meet that will present
you with your next opportunity.
5. DON’T GET CAUGHT
UP IN THE
THUNDERBOLT HYPE
I think one of the most paralyzing
misconceptions is that we’re all
supposed to have one true calling that
comes to us in a mighty flash of souldefining
insight. While there are those
people who’ve always known exactly
what they want to do, there are a hell of
a lot more of us out there who spend
most of our lives, if not all of our lives,
wandering around looking under rocks
and behind trees for who we are.
Let yourself off the hook if you don’t
have that one, big, perfect thing that you
know you came here to do (same goes
for finding the one, big, perfect soul
mate, BTW), and feel good about the
fact that you’ll probably fulfill several
callings throughout your life (and
possibly relationships).
If you think about it, it makes more
sense to evolve as you age anyway.
When I think about who I was in my
twenties compared to who I am now, I
can’t imagine anything more unappealing
than going after some of the things that
resonated with me back then.
Follow what feels good in the
moment, every moment, and it will lead
you through a most excellent life.
6. LISTEN TO YOUR
INTUITION
If you really want to get in touch with
who you are and what you love to do,
and who you love to do it with, dedicate
some time to tuning in to your intuition.
One of the best ways to do this is to
spend five minutes of quiet, by yourself,
every day. We spend the vast majority of
our time moving at full speed ahead,
both physically and mentally, and we
literally bulldoze over the very answers
we’re seeking because they can’t be
heard above the din. When you sit
quietly and ask, you get an answer.
Eventually. Stick with it, be patient and
wait to hear from your inner guidance.
You have all the answers you need, you
just need to give them the chance to get
through to you.
7. FOLLOW YOUR
FANTASIES
Now that I’ve given you all the kinder,
gentler ways to figure yourself out, I’m
going to suggest something you’re
probably not going to like so much:
Jump in the deep end and follow your
fantasies. What do you fantasize about
when you’re staring out the window of a
train, or before you go to sleep at night,
or when you’re pretending to listen to
someone really boring talk your ear off?
Are you onstage doing stand-up comedy
in front of thousands of hysterical fans?
Are you surrounded by your beautiful
children in the coziest, happiest home
ever? Are you being celebrated for
building orphanages around the world?
Do this exercise as if money were not an
issue. Tap into what brings you great joy
instead of what you think you need to do
to survive. If you had an unlimited
supply of cash, what would you spend
your life doing?
Our fantasies are the most revealing
peepholes into who we are and what we
think is awesome. No matter how outthere
and ridiculous they may seem, they
mean something to us, and usually
represent our biggest and best versions
of ourselves.
Our fantasies are our
realities in an excusefree
world.
Meanwhile we’d all be mortified if
anyone could read our minds and catch
us in the act—“I know, it’s totally
stupid,
I want to sing on Broadway.” Well, is it
really stupid? Someone’s out there doing
it, so why couldn’t you?
Much of the time we pretend we
aren’t clear on what our calling is when
what’s really going on is that we’re
horrified to face it because it seems too
big or too impossible to make a living at
or completely out of the question for us.
But what if you had the audacity to
leave your excuses and your shame
about wanting to be huge and fabulous
behind and really went for it full-on
anyway? What if you decided to do the
most outrageous, most exciting thing you
ever dared fantasize about, regardless of
what anyone, including your terrified
self, thought?
THAT would be living.
8. LOVE YOURSELF
Like you’re the only you there is.
CHAPTER 9:
LOINCLOTH MAN
It is better to be hated for what you
are than to be loved for what you
are not.
—André Gide; French author,
Nobel Prize winner, fearless
self-explorer
Every May I go backpacking through the
desert wilderness areas of southeast
Utah with two longtime friends of mine.
It’s one of the most magnificent and
bizarre places I’ve ever been: giant,
jagged, obscenely pink ridges of rock jut
out of the ground like huge slabs of raw
meat; white, yellow, and purple towers
of sandstone stretch and twist into
sculptures made of taffy; deep cracks in
the earth’s surface form cathedral-like
slot canyons whose walls, smoothed
over from flash floods and sandstorms,
change colors from moment to moment
as the sun’s rays shift through the narrow
opening high above.
It’s like the moon. Only cooler.
We merrily trip through this alternate
universe, picking up colorful rocks,
climbing around on boulders and arguing
over which eagle or snake or mountain
goat should be awarded Creature of the
Day. Because my friends are such
excellent navigators, we go deep into the
wilderness areas, where there are no
trails and even fewer people. In the
sixteen years we’ve been hiking out
there, we could practically count the
people we’ve bumped into while
backpacking on one hand. Which was
why I was so surprised, and dubious,
when my friend Tom, who’d gone ahead
to find us a place to set up camp for the
night, reported that he’d seen someone.
“I just met this really wild guy,” he
said
when I caught up with him. “He was
wearing nothing but a loincloth and a
headband. He was holding a spear, too.
Said he’d been living in the canyon for
thirteen years.”
“Was he riding a magic dragon?”
“I’m serious.”
“So where is he?”
“He went off to check his squirrel
trap. But he could come back.”
“Mmmm hmmmm.”
Tom is a lousy liar, and wherever he
was taking this joke, he wasn’t getting
to
the punch line fast enough, so I put down
my pack and started assembling my tent,
only half listening to him. A few minutes
into it, as I was bending over to hammer
in one of my stakes, I looked through my
legs and saw a pair of tanned feet in
homemade sandals, strong, naked legs,
and a dead squirrel dangling by its tail
from a fist. I stood up, spun around, and
there he was, Loincloth Man.
What Tom did not mention was that
Loincloth Man was totally hot—he was
somewhere in his late thirties, had a
ripped, lean, savagely tan bod and
shaggy brown hair with a matching
beard. He fit the part perfectly—Modern
Day Tarzan, Slayer of Buffalo and
Ladies Alike. Which, stunning as he
was, instantly made him a little bit
suspect in my mind. That and the fact that
his loincloth was impeccably tailored
and appeared to be made out of soft
Italian leather, not some ratty canyon
rabbit. Would you mind handing that to
me so I can have a closer look at it,
please? His whole deal was just a little
too cliché. Couldn’t he have just worn
shorts? And was he really gonna eat that
squirrel? Still, we gathered around him
like a baby pig at the state fair,
awestruck by our luck. This time there
was no argument; we had clearly found
our Creature of the Day.
He was real friendly and answered
all of our questions at a slow, deliberate
pace, explaining that this and several of
the neighboring canyon systems were
where he made his home. He told us
very matter-of-factly that he found
modern society unnecessarily
complicated and misguided, so much so
that he preferred to live on only what
nature provided him, storing his grain in
the winter and sleeping in a cave. The
thing that struck me more than the fact
that he cut his hair with a sharp rock and
probably wasn’t wearing any undies,
was that he was totally unapologetic.
There we all were, shifting around,
feeling suddenly ridiculous in our
expensive hiking boots and UVprotective
clothing, while he described
how it took him weeks to whittle the
bow and arrow he used to kill the deer
whose hides now serve as his
bedspread.
“Good for him,” I thought as I
watched him walk away, swinging his
squirrel like a purse. He wasn’t
worrying about what he should be doing
or what he was missing out on or what
some chick from L.A. thought of his
fancy crotch pelt. He was just happy
being true to himself, in the moment, in
the middle of nowhere.
I wanna be like loincloth man.
LOVE YOURSELF
No matter who you really are.
PART
3:
HOW
TO
TAP
INTO
THE
MOTHERLODE
CHAPTER 10:
MEDITATION 101
You are never alone or helpless. The
force that guides the stars guides
you too.
—Shrii Shrii Anandamurti;
Indian philosopher, social
revolutionary, author,
composer
Meditation, otherwise known as sitting
still and thinking about nothing, is one of
those things that can be just as stupidly
simple as it is surprisingly hard. It
reminds me of those contests where a
bunch of people stand around a brandnew
car or truck, and whoever leaves
their hands on it the longest gets to take
it home. The winner winds up on the
front page of her local paper, victorious
and sleepy, smiling from behind the
wheel of her newly-won ride with a
thumbs up for the camera: “Tarrytown’s
very own Jill Boender was the proud
winner of the 2012 Chevy Stand Off,
held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, this past
weekend. Jill beat out 68 other
contestants from around the country by
standing for 173 hours and 9 minutes in
the Home Depot parking lot with her
hands placed with unyielding
determination on the hood of what would
soon be her new Chevy Silverado. ‘I’m
so excited I won,’ she said. ‘There was
some stiff competition, some folks who I
thought would never back down, but I
really brought my A-game.’”
With meditation, the simplicity is
equally misleading. That’s all I have to
do to connect with Source Energy? Sit
there and do nothing? It can’t be that
easy.
Well . . . it is.
And it’s not.
Which is why it’s called a meditation
practice.
When you shut up and meditate for
even five minutes and start to really
notice the thoughts that are squirreling
around in your brain, it’s rather . . .
illuminating. If you’re like most people,
the majority of your thoughts are about
as valuable and interesting as a bunch of
two-year olds fighting over a sippy cup.
The goal is to quiet your mind of the
chatter so you can connect to Source
Energy and instead listen to your inner
guidance.
I’m going to give you the breakdown
on how to meditate, but first I want to
recommend that you start small and work
your way up. Try meditating for five to
ten minutes each day at first and add on
time as you get less squirmy.
There’s no right way or wrong way
to do this, no set amount of time, no
correct things to feel, no rules about how
you have to sit or where you have to do
it. All that matters is that you do it if
you
want to massively improve your life. It’s
like drinking lots of water or exercising
regularly or not badmouthing other
people—you don’t have to do it, and the
temptation to blow it off is extremely
large, but if you make a habit of it, not
only will you start to crave it, but your
entire life will change. Because when
we meditate, we practice getting into
The Vortex and connecting to Source
Energy, which automatically:
• Brings us into the present moment
• Raises our frequency
• Opens us up to receive unlimited
information and ideas
• Relaxes us
• Relieves stress
• Strengthens our intuition and ability
to focus
• Allows us to hear our inner voice
more clearly
• Fills us with light and love
• Puts us in a good mood
• Helps us love ourselves
Meditating, and being
in The Vortex, is like
riding the airstream of
awesomeness.
Here are the extremely short and
simple steps of some different ways to
meditate:
BASIC MEDITATION
• Sit in a comfortable, cross-legged
position on the floor, or in a chair,
with your hands on your knees or in
your lap.
• Sit up straight and relax your entire
face, especially your jaw and your
forehead.
• Close your eyes, or, if it helps you
focus and not fall asleep, keep them
open and gaze softly at a spot on the
ground a couple feet in front of you.
• Focus on your breathing. Notice it
moving in and out of your body; you
don’t have to breathe in any special
way. Just focus on it.
• Gently release any thoughts that
come into your brain and refocus on
your breathing. Keep your mind as
clear and empty as possible and
listen for intuitive hits that may or
may not come through.
Tah-dah! That’s it.
OPTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
1. Set a timer. You’ve got enough
distracting thoughts without checking
the clock to see how long you’ve
been at it every thirty seconds.
2. Light a candle and focus on it.
Sometimes having a place to rest
your eyes can help you get centered
and in the Zone. Sit and face a candle
that you place on the floor in front of
you while you meditate and see if that
works for you.
3. Imagine a bright beam of light
shooting down from the sky, shining
in through the top of your head,
running through your entire body, out
your bottom and up to the sky again
so that it makes a complete circle. I
sometimes find this easier to focus on
than the ever-popular breath method,
plus it fills me up with energy and
light and makes me feel more deeply
connected to Source Energy.
4. Use a mantra. Sometimes when the
squirrels in my head are particularly
active, I bring in a mantra to chase
them out. I repeat a word or phrase in
my mind like “love” or “thank you”
or “yes, please” or “om”—something
that makes me feel good and is fairly
neutral, but you could use a mantra
like “meatloaf” I guess if that’s your
thing.
5. Try and do it first thing in the
morning so you’re not distracted by
whatever the day brings. You’ll also
be more connected having just woken
up from sleeping.
6. If there’s something in your life
that you’re working on or through,
you can set an intention/ask for help
during your meditation practice.
Meditating is about receiving
information from The Universe;
setting intentions and praying are
about sending information out to The
Universe. There are two ways you
can do this: A) Start with a question,
something like, How do I deal with
my pain-in-the-ass teenage son?
And see what, if any, answers
download while you meditate, or B)
Meditate first, open up the channel,
clear out the chatter, and then ask
your question in a space of clarity
and connection and see what, if
anything, comes to you.
GUIDED MEDITATION
There are countless CDs and DVDs that
various hippies and guru types have
made over the years to walk you through
meditations. I suggest taking the guided
route when you’re first starting out if
you’re having trouble wrangling your
mind into submission. They make great
training wheels and I still use them
occasionally, especially if I want to
focus on something specific.
There are also guided meditation
centers all over the place, and it’s really
nice every once in a while to meditate in
a group— you can really feed off that
energy and get the discipline to sit there
for an extended period of time. Do a
search for meditation centers and
ashrams in your area. Sometimes yoga
studios hold guided meditations, too.
CHANTING
Chanting is also a great way to get into a
meditative state. You can repeat a mantra
over and over out loud on your own or,
if you prefer to avoid getting busted and
very possibly ridiculed, you can do it in
a group by attending a Kirtan meditation
class. Kirtan meditation involves calland-
response chanting of Sanskrit
mantras or devotional songs, and you
can attend classes at a yoga studio or
meditation center. Also check out
Transcendental Meditation instruction, a
form that involves repeating mantras and
sitting twice a day for around twenty
minutes at a time.
I’ve had some pretty profound
experiences while meditating; I’ve seen
the walls melt around me, felt like I was
levitating, and have experienced such a
state of euphoria that it almost hurt. I’ve
also had extremely un-profound
experiences; I’ve fallen asleep, spent the
entire time squirming and thinking about
what to make for lunch, and have been
totally in The Zone, and then realized I
was in The Zone, and thought Awesome,
I’m in The Zone! Thereby pulling myself
out of The Zone.
The important thing is that you keep
showing up. Even if you’re only in The
Zone for one collective minute out of the
thirty minutes you’ve been sitting there,
it will eventually start making a notable
difference in your life.
I think meditation is even more
essential now that we have all this
technology at our fingertips and
distraction has become a way of life.
While I truly believe that we, as a
species, are becoming more and more
conscious, I’m amazed by how, at the
same time, our attention spans are
rapidly shrinking. I was playing tennis
the other day with someone who got a
text, pulled out his phone, and checked it
in the middle of a point. It’s astonishing
that we can still speak in full sentences.
Aside from being one of the most
powerful tools in our consciousnessraising
toolbox, meditation is a muchneeded
respite from the madness, and
will help us from becoming a bunch of
scatterbrained ding-dongs as we zoom
around our brave, and extremely
exciting, new world.
CHAPTER 11:
YOUR BRAIN IS YOUR
BITCH
Mind is the master power that
molds and makes
And man is Mind and evermore he
takes
The tool of Thought and, shaping
what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys, a
thousand ills.
He thinks in secret, and it comes
to pass:
Environment is but his looking
glass.
—James Allen; old-timey
author, self-help pontificator
How often do you stop and notice how
genius our Universe is? With all its
moving parts and mathematical
perfection and chemical reactions and
food chains and gravity and all the
magnificent efficiency and complexity
that makes it up? This display of
astonishing brilliance didn’t just splat
down into being-ness by random, dumb
luck, it was thought up. Nature is a
smoothly running machine, created by a
Universal intelligence, where nothing
goes to waste; it all has a place and a
purpose, and it all works together in its
intricately interwoven and compatible
way to create the flabbergasting is-ness
of it all.
In other words, Source Energy is a
smartypants.
As British philosophical writer and
self-help pioneer, James Allen, states in
the quote that opens this chapter, “Mind
is the master power that moulds and
makes, -and Man is Mind. . . .”—we are
the very thinking substance that was used
to create us. Hello?! How major is that?!
This is why positive thinking is all
the rage and negative subconscious
beliefs are so gnarly and why
meditation, and learning to guide your
thoughts and love yourself, can change
your life.
Our thoughts are the most
powerful tools we’ve got.
I think, therefore, I can create
awesomeness. Or horrendousness. But
the bottom line is that it’s through our
thoughts that we create our realities.
It’s also why buying into whatever
illusion you’re living in in the present
moment is selling yourself so short if it’s
anything less than what you truly desire.
You created the reality you now exist in
with your thoughts, which means you can
use the very same power of thought to
change it. As Wallace Wattles, author of
The Science of Getting Rich, so
brilliantly states:
To think what you want to think
is to think the truth, regardless of
appearances.
“To think what you want to think is to
think truth”—is that not the best news
ever? It doesn’t matter what your reality
looks like at the moment, because where
you desire to be is the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, and if you
fixate your mind on this truth, believe
that it is real and already here, and take
decisive action, it will manifest itself.
This is where most people dig in
their heels and say something like, “I am
sitting in my ghetto-ass kitchen eating
tuna out of a can with a plastic spoon
and you’re telling me this isn’t the truth?
You’re saying that the truth is that I’m
hanging poolside with the president of
the United States of America?” If you
truly desire to hang poolside with the
president of the United States of
America, and are hell-bent in your mind
and your actions to create it, it’s the
truth.
Have you ever noticed how a bunch
of people can go through the same
course, let’s say a class on how to start
your own coaching business, and they all
get the exact same information and tools,
but some will come out of there and
totally rock it and others will fall flat
on
their faces? Even if they all have the
same desire to succeed, create beautiful
marketing materials and do similar
things, it’s the ones with the proper
mindsets who will succeed. The ones
who kick ass are the ones who can see
themselves kicking ass, who truly
believe in themselves and what they’re
selling, who remind themselves how
much they want to better people’s lives
with their coaching, who are excited to
get compensated for selling it and have
no limiting, subconscious beliefs holding
them back. The ones who feel weird or
who worry that they’re being pushy and
annoying or who subconsciously believe
that they don’t deserve to or can’t
succeed—they’re not gonna do so good.
Your thoughts and beliefs dictate your
reality, so if you want to change your
reality, you have to change your beliefs.
The problem is that most people are rill
protective of their beliefs and are
usually fairly crotchety should you
suggest that perhaps there’s another
version of the truth. I’m bad at sales;
I
have terrible luck; I’m scared of flying;
marriages don’t last, I have ugly feet,
I’m broke . . . ”Are you calling me a
liar? Do you see a hot boyfriend on my
arm? No you don’t, you see a cat on my
lap next to my needlepoint project
because I stink at relationships—that is
the truth and that always has been the
truth.” And that will be your truth as long
as you choose to think it. As long as you
feed the beast, it shall live.
The moment you have
the audacity to start
believing in the not-yet
seen, your reality will
begin to shift.
THE FOLLOWING IS
HUGELY
IMPORTANT SO
PLEASE PAY VERY
CLOSE ATTENTION:
You have to change
your thinking first, and
then the evidence
appears. Our big
mistake is that we do it
the other way around.
We demand to see the
evidence before we
believe it to be true.
Remember, everything you desire is
right here, right now. You just have to
shift your perception in order to see it
made manifest.
“Okay, fine. I believe that I’m
hanging poolside with the President of
the United States of America. Now
what? Do I just call? Or show up at the
White House in my flip-flops with a
towel around my neck?” When you take
the leap and believe in the not-yet seen,
you aren’t supposed to know how to
make it happen, because if you knew
how, you probably would have done it
already. This is about radically changing
your reality, so the way to go about it is
also most likely outside of your present
awareness.
Your job isn’t to know
the how, it’s to know
the what and to be open
to discovering, and
receiving, the how.
Keep your thoughts directed at your
goal, do everything that you DO know
how to do to make it happen, decide
with unwavering determination that it
will happen, and be on the lookout for
the opportunity.
I had a client who went to Tuscany
and looked at a house that was for sale
while she was there. At the time, she
was a bartender and a poet and could
barely scrape together the money to buy
a plane ticket to Italy, let alone to buy
a
Tuscan villa, but she checked it out
anyway and completely fell in love with
the place. While she instantly knew in
her soul that it was her house, she also
knew that her bank account had
tumbleweeds blowing through it, but she
asked the owners to take it off the market
anyway because she was going to figure
out a way to buy it.
So she flies home, in a stupor,
thinking that perhaps she has gone
completely insane, but she sticks to her
guns and starts asking around for ideas.
She is almost immediately buried
beneath a pile of warnings from
everyone around her: It’s a huge
responsibility not to mention all the
complications that come with being in
another country and last time I checked
you don’t speak Italian nor are you a
citizen nor do you know a single thing
about home ownership and considering
you can’t even afford to get your teeth
cleaned how are you planning on
paying a mortgage and yadda, yadda,
yadda. Yet she keeps on going, because
in spite of all the evidence otherwise,
she believes this is her house. This is
her truth.
Finally someone mentions the idea of
pre-renting blocks of time in the house to
raise the money to buy it. People could
pay for their time a year in advance, she
would just need to sell enough blocks of
time to pay for the house, and voila! Cut
to her discovering this sort of thing is
illegal, going back to the drawing board,
trying a million other things, discovering
that it’s actually not illegal, then preselling
enough rental slots and
borrowing some money and to make a
very long and ups-and-downs-y story
short, she’s owned the villa for several
years and is thinking about buying
another.
You have got to get a handle on your
thoughts if you want to change your life.
As Albert Einstein so aptly noted, “The
world as we have created it is a process
of our thinking. It cannot be changed
without changing our thinking.”
Here are some tried-and-true ways to
show your brain who’s driving the bus:
1. ASK AND IT IS GIVEN
Get quiet, get in The Zone, and get in
touch with Source Energy. Clear out the
chatter in your brain and create a clean,
uncluttered space to impress the thoughts
of what you want into the giant thinking
substance that is Source Energy. Ask for
what you want, send out a nice, clear
message in a nice, clear space and begin
the manifestation process.
2. ACT AS IF
If you want something badly, even if you
don’t have any evidence that it’s
possible for you to attain, believe it is
anyway. Fake it until you make it. Do it
in spite of yourself. Act as if. If you have
an intense, undying desire to hang
poolside with the president of the United
States of America, think about the things
that a person hanging poolside with the
leader of the free world would do. Go
pick out the bathing suit you’re going to
wear. Think of what you’re going to talk
about. Get your photos of your trip to the
Grand Canyon together to show the
commander in chief. Get ready for the
event. Tell yourself it’s happening. Act
like it’s happening. Put yourself in
situations where you will meet people
who can make this happen. Stay wide
open to opportunities that can lead you
to your goal. Live, eat, sleep, and
breathe your vision. You may feel like a
crazy person, but you won’t when you’re
playing Marco Polo with the prez.
3. UPGRADE YOUR
ENVIRONMENT
If you aspire to have a more upleveled
and inspiring lifestyle than you
presently have, and you’re actively
visualizing this for yourself, it’s going
to
be quite a struggle to keep your thoughts
large and in charge if every time you
pull up to your rickety-ass home you
hear the Sanford and Son theme song
start up in your head. So even though
you’re going to be thinking and
imagining the change before it happens,
do what you can to make some upgrades
to where you’re at now. Give the place a
paint job and clean it up. Get new
furniture or fix up what you already
have. Throw out the clutter, let some air
in, hang inspiring art on the walls. This
will not only help to keep your
frequency high, but it will alert The
Universe that you’re not screwing
around, that you’re doing everything you
can and are waiting for further
instruction on the how.
4. MAKE A VISION
BOARD
Our minds think in images: If someone
says, a horse wearing red lipstick, you
instantly create a picture in your mind of
a horse wearing red lipstick. Feeding
your mind full of images of the things
and experiences that you want to
manifest—your dream house with the
infinity pool in Mexico, rolling around
on the beach with your red hot lovah,
volunteering to help little kids learn how
to read at your local library, laughing
your face off surrounded by dear friends
—is hugely powerful because your mind
sends that image out to Source Energy
which begins the process of pulling it in.
Cut out pictures of places, people,
things, and experiences that you want in
your life, paste them onto a board and
hang it somewhere where you’ll see it
all day long. I’ve seen people have
completely insane results with this.
They’ve manifested, down to the tiniest
details, the exact home or piece of
furniture or place of employment that
they put on their board. It’s freakydeaky.
And super easy. It’s like having a
craft day with God. Give it a shot.
5. SURROUND YOURSELF
WITH PEOPLE WHO
THINK THE WAY YOU
WANT TO THINK
When you hang out with whiners,
pessimists, tweakers, bleakers, freakersouters
and life-is-so-unfairers, it’s an
uphill climb to keep yourself in a
positive headspace. Stay away from
people with tiny minds and tiny thoughts
and start hanging out with people who
see limitless possibility as the reality.
Surround yourself with people who act
on their big ideas, who take action on
making positive change in the world and
who see nothing as out of their reach.
Make a conscious choice to do this.
And if you don’t know anyone who’s got
a big fat mind, go out and make some
new friends. If you stop at, “there’s
no
one like that around here,” that will be
the truth and will set the wimpy tone for
how you go about trying to manifest
everything else into your life. How you
do one thing is how you do everything.
Get out there and find some people who
make you feel like you can leap tall
buildings in a single bound. Be clear on
whom you want to meet and make a
concerted effort to go meet them.
Demand of The Universe to connect you
with them, think of places where they
might hang out or things they would do
and insert yourself there. Being around
inspired, visionary, enthusiastic people
who are living their truths is one of the
fastest ways to massively transform your
life.
6. LOVE YOURSELF
Unless you have a better idea.
CHAPTER 12:
LEAD WITH YOUR
CROTCH
In the beginner’s mind there are
many possibilities, but in the
expert’s there are few.
—Shunryu Suzuki; Japanese
Zen monk, author, teacher
also lovingly known as the
“Crooked Cucumber”
I know the big saying is “youth is wasted
on the young,” but I think, in certain
respects anyway, we’ve really got it
going on in our late teens and early
twenties. Aside from all the angst and
drama and escorts home from the police,
we’ve still got our little kid-like ability
to create “just because” still firmly
intact, but we’ve also got this newlyhatched
adult ability to make big things
happen in our lives. Add to this the fact
that we’re not yet jaded by a long list
of
failures, and are still under the vague
impression that death is something that
happens to other people, we, if you’re
anything like me, leap into our lives
when we’re young with an idiotic, yet
awesome, disregard for “what-if’s.”
Admittedly, I remember doing things
in the danger department that still have
me sleeping with my light on when I
think about them now: hanging out in
sketchy parts of town with even
sketchier people, stowing away on
trains, taking enough LSD in one sitting
to keep an entire village staring at their
hands for hours, hiking off into the desert
with no water, no map, and a canteen full
of gin and tonics—my first priority being
fun, with thoughts of the consequences
trailing somewhere, if at all, far off in
the distance.
But I also remember diving into my
creative pursuits with the same reckless
obliviousness and, as a result, getting
utterly spectacular and thrilling results.
Which is why I find it so odd to hear
people say, “If I knew then what I know
now, I’m not sure I would have done it.”
Well thank God you didn’t know if that’s
yer lame-o attitude. You’d be sitting next
to a pile of empty beer cans, whining
about how you missed out on going for
your dreams if you did!
The problem is that once we’re older
and “wiser,” many people trade in living
fully in their purpose for more “grownup”
versions of life that range from the
merely passable to the full-on sucking.
They’ve bought into this idea that being
responsible = not having fun anymore,
that waking up feeling excited about life
is for the young, and once we’re older,
we need to trade that in, settle down and
be more “realistic.”
Yawn.
I’m not talking about being an
irresponsible jerk or doing the same
things we did when we were younger,
but I am talking about continuously
living our dreams, no matter what stage
of life we’re in, instead of settling for
mediocrity because we don’t believe
anything else is available or
appropriate.
We only get to be in our bodies
for a limited time, why not
celebrate the journey instead of
merely riding it out until it’s
over?
We’re still allowed to dream, and our
dreams are still available to us, but as
we move through life, we must make the
conscious effort to overcome whatever
judgments we have, as well as kick all
our fears from past experiences in the
head, and participate in our own
badassery. Whatever that looks like for
us. We must focus on the positive instead
of the list of negatives we’ve collected
over time, and keep that focus regardless
of what flies in our faces. And one of the
best ways to do this is by reconnecting
with our inner kids. I know how
unacceptably dorky this may sound, but
just stay with me here.
Even though you’re now most likely
turned on by different things than you
were as a youngster, you can still learn a
lot from how you went about life in the
old days. So think back: Was there ever
a time where you felt totally in your
groove? Where you created and did stuff
just because it was fun without worrying
about the outcome? Where you couldn’t
wait to wake up in the morning and go
do your thing? This could mean anything
from when you were a little kid running
around with a maxi pad stuck to your eye
pretending to be a pirate to your senior
year in high school when you got voted
Class Clown for repeatedly charming
your way past the ladies in the front
office to make fake announcements over
the loud speaker to that summer you
learned to play the guitar without
looking at your hands. When were you
most turned on by life (and if you have
yet to feel this way, stay tuned . . . ) and
what can you learn from those
experiences?
For me, one of the most exciting and
on-purpose times in my life was when I
was the singer-guitarist in a band called
Crotch. I use the terms “singer,”
“guitarist,” and “band,” all very
loosely
because we in Crotch weren’t concerned
with things like learning to play our
instruments or practicing or any of that
snooty musicianship crap. We had bigger
fish to fry, like talking in loud voices
about our band and checking ourselves
out in plate glass windows as we
walked by with guitars strapped to our
backs.
Electric ones.
I started Crotch with this chick from
work named Paula who’d never picked
up a guitar in her life either, and who
was as incapable of embracing her
feminine side as I was. Paula and I were
the kind of young ladies who prided
ourselves on the wattage of our stereo
equipment, our firm handshakes, and our
ability to drink anyone in the room under
the table.
The testosterone-fueled chip on my
shoulder came from a high school career
spent futilely awaiting a timely puberty
while standing a good foot taller than
everyone on earth, all the boys at my
high school included. None of them ever
asked me out, but I could make them
laugh and kick their asses at basketball,
so rather than fail at seducing them, I
simply became one of them.
Paula’s issues were more homicidal
in nature. She was the kind of angry
found in highly intelligent women who
develop the body of a Playboy bunny by
the age of thirteen and are forced to
grow up in the deep, redneck South.
Within the first few months of starting
the band, she traded in her long, raven
locks for a fire-engine red buzz cut and
covered her arms and back with tattoos
of flames and dragons.
We decided that as the tough one, she
should play bass while I, the desperatefor-
attention one, would be on guitar,
and that my little brother, Stephen, the
malleable one, would play drums. “Only
until we find another drummer,” I
promised him, as I attempted to plug my
guitar into the wrong part of my amp.
Stephen has played the drums since he
was five, and is the kind of younger
brother every bossy older sister dreams
of: talented and endlessly enthusiastic
with a very high threshold for pain.
The great tragedy of Crotch was that
underneath our sneers and our bravado,
we were two sweet girls who
desperately wanted boyfriends. But we
had issues—issues that we decided
were best worked out while drunk, and
sometimes naked, on stage. Paula and I,
baffled by our lack of gentlemen callers,
chose to express our disappointment by
writing and singing songs like Sew Me
Up I’ve Had Enough and by yelling
things into the microphone between
songs that one evening would inspire an
audience member to rush the stage
holding a chair over his head with intent
to beat us with it.
In spite of ourselves, we quickly
acquired quite the following. In less than
a year’s time we also wrote, produced,
directed, and starred in a film about the
record industry; wrote, directed, and
starred in a music video that got on
national television; recorded an EP, got
a demo deal with Columbia Records,
and even learned a couple more chords.
And we did it with full-time corporate
jobs and no idea what we were doing. It
was fun with a capital “F.”
There’s nothing as
unstoppable as a freight
train full of fuck-yeah.
If you’ve ever known what it’s like to
be
in your groove, and are having trouble
finding your way right now, think back to
your attitude and what your priorities
were when you were totally lit up about
life, and use them to help give you the
clarity and the kick in the rear end you
need now.
Here are some nuggets of wisdom I
gleaned from the Crotch days that I still
find useful:
1. JUST SEE WHAT YOU
CAN GET AWAY WITH
Life is r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s. It so seriously
is—we have no freakin’ idea what we’re
even doing here spinning around on this
globe in the middle of this solar system
with who-the-hell-knows-what out there
beyond it. Making a big fat deal out of
anything is absurd. It makes much more
sense to go after life with a sense of,
“Why not?” instead of a furrowed brow.
One of the best things I ever did was
make my motto “I just wanna see what I
can get away with.” It takes all the
pressure off, puts the punk rock attitude
in, and reminds me that life is but a
game.
Yes, we have bigger responsibilities
and more pressure as adults, but come
on folks, I guarantee you there are
countless people with waaaaaaaay more
to whine about out there than you who
are totally kicking ass because they
decided to go for it instead of sitting
around in the wet pantload of their own
excuses. Take a new approach to what
you’re doing and try this on: I just
wanna see if I can start my own
successful business; I just wanna see if
I can get myself out of debt and make
one hundred thousand dollars more this
year; I just wanna see if I can lose a
hundred pounds; I just wanna see if I
can sell one of my paintings for fifty
grand; I just wanna see if I can meet
my soul mate.
Take the pressure off and get back in
on the adventure.
2. LOSE TRACK OF TIME
Have you ever been doing something and
suddenly realized that hours have gone
by without you noticing? What does that
for you? And how often during your day
does this happen? When you’re so lost in
what you’re doing that you lose all sense
of time, you have officially entered the
Vortex. You want to get your ass in there
as much as possible, so look at your life
and figure out how you can make that
happen.
First, figure out the things you get lost
in in your business and your personal
life. Then figure out how you can be
doing more of those things more of the
time. Hire someone (no excuses) and
delegate the tasks you hate doing.
Partner up with someone who’s good at,
and enjoys doing the things you’re not
that into, so you can be freed up to do
more of what you want. If you have to,
make massive changes in your business
and your personal life to include more
time doing what you love. Figure it out.
Don’t just hand your life over to your
circumstances like a little wuss. You can
take your life wherever you want it to
go, so grab it by its nether regions and
make doing the things you love a
priority.
3. KEEP BEING THE
BEGINNER
One of the best things about starting a
band when you have no idea how to play
your instrument is that you don’t care if
you stink because you already know you
do. Then once you learn how to play,
you get all serious, you become overly
critical and hard on yourself and don’t
let yourself have nearly as much fun
anymore. The trick is to let the Beginner
live alongside the Expert, instead of
pretending you don’t know who she is
when she tries to sit with you and your
new, cooler, more experienced friends in
the cafeteria. The Beginner may be an
idiot, but she knows how to party, and if
you don’t let her play with you anymore,
things risk getting rather droll around
here. So hone your skills; take your craft
seriously; learn what you need to learn;
invest in yourself; practice your ass off;
fall down; get up; keep going; get really
really really really good at what you do,
but don’t lose the fun in the process.
Because, like, what’s the point of doing
all that work then? The only thing you
need to do is do the very best you can.
Once you’ve done that, the only other
thing that matters is that you enjoy
yourself.
4. LOVE YOURSELF
And the bluebirds of happiness will be
your permanent backup singers.
CHAPTER 13:
GIVE AND LET GIVE
It is one of the beautiful
compensations in this life that no
one can sincerely try to help
another without helping himself.
—RalphWaldo Emerson;
American poet, essayist,
visionary, giver
One day while driving somewhere with
my family, we stopped off at a store
along the way and told my niece, then
five years old, that she could get herself
a little sumthin’. She came up to the
register with a six-pack of orange Tic
Tacs and charmed her way into getting
the whole thing, instead of being told to
put it back and just buy one.
So we get back in the car and I ask
her if I can have a pack, my only intent to
teach the greedy little piglet a thing or
two about sharing. “Of course,” she says
and hands it over. She then asks, in her
itty-bitty five-year-old voice, if my
brother and my mom want one too, and
hands them over. My niece then takes her
remaining three packs and places them
on the seat next to her in a pile saying,
“And when we get home, this one’s for
my brother, this one’s for my sister, this
one’s for my mom.” Then she sits there,
with none left for herself, and smiles,
more excited to give them away than she
was when she was told she could buy
them for herself.
I shot a confused look at my brother,
Stephen, her father, and he mouthed back
“freak.” When Stephen and I were her
age, we cherished nothing more than the
tortured cries of the other. He set my
gerbils free in the backyard. I stole his
Halloween candy and ate it, piece by
piece, sitting on his chest while he
screamed. Who was this saintly creature
in the backseat and where did she learn
that?
As my niece so clearly understood,
giving is one of our greatest joys. It’s
also one of the most fearless and
powerful gestures there is. When we
trust that we live in an abundant universe
and allow ourselves to give freely, we
raise our frequency, strengthen our faith,
and feel awesome, thereby putting
ourselves in flow and the position to
receive abundant amounts in return.
When we’re in fear, we hold on to
what we’ve got because we don’t trust
that there’s more. We pinch off the
energy, we’re scared to share, and we
focus on, and create more of, the very
thing we’re hoping to avoid, which is
lack.
We live in a universe of give and
receive, breathe and exhale, live and
die, suck and awesome. Each side
depends on the other, and each is
relative to the other—every action has
an equal and opposite reaction—so the
more you give, the more you receive.
And vice versa.
You may be thinking, that’s so not
true, I know some bitches who do
nothing but take and haven’t given a
damn thing to anybody, ever, but
receiving has a different energy than
selfishly taking, just as smothering has a
different energy than giving. Smothering
and taking are fear-based and needy,
giving and receiving are full of gratitude
and surrendering to the flow.
I know someone who has multiple
sclerosis who was told by a mentor to
give away twenty-nine things for twentynine
days as part of her cure. She blew it
off for a while, but as her condition
worsened, she finally decided to give it
a try. First, she gave a phone call to a
sick friend to see how she was doing.
Then she steadily gave away something
every day and she almost instantly found
herself more joyful and excited. By the
fourteenth day she was significantly
better physically, her business started
booming, and she went on to create a
blog that started a movement with tens of
thousands of followers who were also
giving things away daily. Her blog
ultimately led to a New York Times bestselling
book called 29 Gifts.
If you want to attract good things and
feelings into your life, send
awesomeness out to everyone around
you. Here are some good ways to get in
the give-and-take flow, yo:
1. If you haven’t already, pick one or
two causes that have real meaning to
you and give to them every month.
Give however much time or money
you can, but do it consistently so it
becomes a habit, so it becomes part
of who you are. Even five dollars a
month counts.
2. Give one of your favorite things in
the world away to someone who
would totally love it. And if you can,
do it without them knowing where it
came from.
3. Leave a dollar more than you
normally would every time you tip.
Or ten.
4. If someone is being snarky, instead
of sinking to their level and being
snarky back, raise them up by giving
them the love.
5. Smile, compliment, and crack
people up as often as possible.
6. Say yes to invitations that you
wouldn’t normally say yes to because
you hate to inconvenience the person
offering. Take them up on it. Give
them the opportunity to give to you.
7. Stop and feel in your body how
great it feels when you give and
receive; raise your frequency and
expect more good things to come
your way.
8. LOVE YOURSELF
And everybody benefits.
CHAPTER 14:
GRATITUDE: THE
GATEWAY DRUG TO
AWESOMENESS
When you are grateful, fear
disappears and abundance
appears.
—Anthony Robbins; author,
speaker, motivator, lifechanger
When I was a little kid, my parents made
my brothers and sister and I answer the
phone in this very formal way, “Jennifer
Sincero speaking,” as if, between
fighting over who got to play with the
Big Wheel and stuffing balloons down
our pants, we were all running our own
private concierge businesses. Their
friends would gush on the other end of
the phone about what a polite bunch the
Sincero kids were, and I thought nothing
of it until the day I made my very first
phone call to a friend, and, upon hearing
her answer, gripped the phone in wideeyed
disbelief. You get to say “Hello?”
Do your parents know?! It was as
unthinkable to me at the time as saying
the F-word or sitting down to join my
parents for a glass of scotch.
My amazement quickly turned to
horror when I realized it wasn’t just that
one renegade friend who could answer
the phone in such a carefree manner, but
everyone, and that my parents were
clearly playing some big practical joke
on us. Our objections were met with the
standard, “When you pay your own
phone bill you can answer it any way
you like.” So the years passed, our
indignation slowly getting watered down
by habit.
I don’t remember exactly when the
mutiny happened, but eventually we all
started answering the phone like normal
human beings. I’m going to assume it
was around the time of their divorce,
when Mom had all four of us mostly to
herself, either in, or hovering around,
high school, and phone rules got
bulldozed in her switch to combat mode.
The demand for manners in general,
however, was left firmly standing, and
no matter how wild and wasted we got,
we always remained those polite
Sincero kids: “Can I help you Officer?
Thank you, Officer. Yes, sir, that is my
marijuana.” Not only are the words
“please” and “thank you” ingrained
in
me like the recipe for my Italian father’s
red sauce or the knowledge that it’s not
cool to kill people, but being polite just
always seemed to be such a no-brainer.
Aside from the fact that it makes you feel
like a good person, people will usually
do what you ask them to do if you’re
nice about it, and if you’re not, they
won’t. Hello? Which is why it
completely baffles me when anyone over
the age of five is rude, and especially
when they refrain from the thank-you
part of the conversation when a gesture
is made on their behalf, either by me or
other people or The Universe in general.
I don’t know about you, but when
someone doesn’t say thank you after I’ve
hooked them up, it’s as glaring an
omission to me as if they’ve shown up
without their pants on. And The
Universe feels the same way.
You cut yourself off
from the supply of
awesomeness when
you are not in a state of
gratitude.
Having gratitude goes way beyond
just having good manners, however.
Manners are a form of custom, gratitude
is a state of being. Anyone can whip out
their P’s and Q’s whether they’re feeling
it or not, but truly being in a state of
gratitude is about having an awareness
of, and a deep appreciation for, the many
miracles in your life.
Think about how it feels when you
get to really thank someone for doing
something for you. You feel great for
receiving whatever it is you received
and for sending thanks out to them, and
they feel great for giving you whatever
they gave and for being appreciated.
Which makes you feel great again.
Which makes them feel great again—you
could basically spend the rest of your
lives passing thank-you notes back and
forth. And because it makes you feel
good to be in such a state of gratitude, it
puts you at a very high frequency and
connects you to Source Energy, which
puts you in a more powerful state to
manifest more good feeling things and
experiences into your life.
Conversely, when you show up
disappointed or angry or guilty or
oblivious instead of being grateful,
you’re at a lower frequency and thereby
less connected to Source Energy and in a
less powerful state to manifest good
feeling things and experiences into your
life.
So that’s all fabulous and great, but
here’s where the whole gratitude thing
gets really cool. There are lots of ways
to feel good and raise your frequency
and get closer to Source Energy, but with
gratitude, you’re actually expending
positive energy by sending out thanks,
which makes positive energy reflect
back to you—every action has an equal
and opposite reaction. This makes the
manifesting process even more
powerful.
It’s like the difference between
seeing someone fall apart laughing and
seeing them fall apart laughing at
something you said. The first usually
makes you feel as good and laugh as
hard as they do, which raises your
frequency, but with the second situation,
you’re not just meeting them at a high
frequency, you’re exchanging energy at
a high frequency. Their laughter is like
their way of thanking you for saying
something hilarious, and it gives off an
even more powerful zing and stronger
connection.
As Wallace Wattles explains in The
Science of Getting Rich: “You cannot
exercise much power without gratitude;
for it is gratitude that keeps you
connected with Power.”
You are practically powerless
without gratitude—thems is some pretty
big words, Wattles! When you actively
send this grateful energy out, you receive
it back, bringing you closer and closer to
Source Energy and raising your
frequency higher and higher with each
exchange until you come to the visceral
understanding that you are the same stuff
as Source Energy and that you
consciously or unconsciously manifested
your reality yourself out of the infinite
nothingness and everythingness.
Gratitude connects you to the truth that
you not only have the power to manifest
that which you seek, but you are the
power. Which means, in essence, when
you are being grateful to Source Energy
you are being grateful to yourself. Which
brings it back to the most powerful thing
of all: Self- love. Tah dah!
The more consistently you stay in
gratitude and focused on that
which is good, the stronger your
connection to Source Energy is,
and the more quickly and
effortlessly you’ll be able to
manifest that which is unseen into
your reality.
This is the almighty power of
gratitude. But wait, there’s more!
Gratitude also strengthens your faith.
Faith is having the
audacity to believe in
the not-yet seen.
Faith is the muscle you use when you
decide to blast outside of your comfort
zone and transform your life into
something that’s practically
unrecognizable to you in your present
reality. Faith smothers your fear of the
unknown. Faith allows you to take risks.
Faith is the stuff of “leap and the net
will
appear.”
Faith is your best buddy
when you’re scared
shitless.
When you are consistently in a state
of gratitude, and aware of all the
awesomeness that already exists, it,
among many other things, makes it much
easier for you to believe that there’s
more awesomeness where that came
from, and that this yet-to-be-manifested
awesomeness is also available to you.
You’ve received awesomeness before,
so of course, you can receive
awesomeness again. This is how
gratitude strengthens your faith. And
having strong faith is a major key in
transforming your life.
Which brings me to the grand
gratitude finale—if you want to be a real
rock star in the manifestation
department, get to the point where you
have both unwavering faith and
unwavering gratitude for that which you
desire. This is when the real magic
happens because mixing faith with
gratitude is the High Holy Moly of
Manifesting.
This takes some Jedi mastery,
however, because basically what it
entails is not only believing in the not yet
manifested (having faith), but being
grateful for it.
In other words, you must be grateful
for your imaginary friends and your
imaginary life. Yep.
As ridiculous as this sounds, I’m sure
you’re already doing it consciously or
unconsciously in some capacity in your
life. One simple example from my life
would be with finding parking spaces.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve
always gotten stellar parking spots, right
out front of wherever I’m going. I don’t
care if I’m trying to park in front of the
Pope’s house on Easter Sunday, if you
don’t want to walk, you’ll be wantin’
to
ride with me.
I always approach the hunt for a
parking space with the same attitude; a
knowing and relaxed certainty that it’s
a
done deal. The perfect spot is mine, it
already exists and I’m genuinely so
happy and grateful for it. I really truly
believe this. Then, as always, someone
pulls out and in I go. Yet as consistently
as this happens, I’m still always so
excited when it does. I never take it for
granted, and I am a gratitude machine
before, during, and after my guaranteed
excellent parking adventure.
Being in gratitude for
the not-yet manifested
informs The Universe
that you know that
what you desire already
exists, and puts you at
the right frequency to
receive it.
If you want to radically change your
life, strengthen your faith that we live in
an abundant, benevolent Universe by
being grateful for everything you’ve
already manifested and all the good
that’s hurtling toward you. Be grateful
that you have the power to manifest any
reality you desire and then leap into the
void to go get it.
Trade in your drama about how you
can’t have what you want for the grateful
expectation that miracles will walk into
your life, and the more commonplace
those miracles will become.
Here are some ways you can
practice:
1. THIS IS GOOD
BECAUSE . . .
Whenever anything excellent or
mediocre or lame or annoying happens
to you, meet it with the statement, “This
is good because . . . ” and fill in the
blank. Once you make this a regular
practice, you’ll see how much easier it
is to be in gratitude for much more than
you realized.
“This is good that I got a flat tire on
my way home from picking my kids up.
I’ve shown them how to deal in an
unexpected situation. Plus I got to spend
some quality time hanging out in the car
with them playing Twenty Questions
while waiting for Triple A to show up.
Which is how I found out that my
daughter was getting picked on in
school.”
It’s important to look for ways to be
grateful for all that you’ve manifested,
even things that you might label under
“No, thanks.” If you focus on the
negative aspects of the more challenging
things in your life, it will just lower your
frequency, keep you in pain and
resentment, attract more negativity to
you, very possibly make you sick, and
very definitely make you crabby. If you
instead look for ways to be grateful for
everything in your life, it not only raises
your frequency, but it allows you to
grow by opening you up to the lesson.
Yes, sometimes this is a tall order,
and there are absolutely situations in life
that just full on blow and leaves us
standing there wondering what the hell
that was all about. Sometimes it takes
years (if ever) before we can look back
and say, “You know what? I really
needed to get my heart broken into a
thousand pieces by that jackass. I’m so
much happier with the man I ended up
marrying.”
Finding the good and the lessons in
things allows us to move through them
and on to new experiences. If you wanna
stay stuck in the same place and keep
getting spanked with the same lessons
over and over, be negative, resentful,
and victimized. If you want to get over
your issues and rock your life, be
grateful, look for the good and learn.
2. WRITE YOUR THANKYOU
NOTES
Every night before you go to bed, review
your day and either write down or
mentally note ten things you can be
grateful for in your life. These can be
everything from the beautiful flowers in
your garden to the fact that your heart is
beating to the hour-long visit from your
persnickety neighbor that taught you to
be happy that you don’t have her life.
Stopping and noticing throughout the
day all the things that you can be grateful
for is a great way to keep your frequency
high at all times. So try and remember to
do it all day long, but at the very least,
make it part of your evening routine.
3. LOVE YOURSELF
Be grateful for all you are and all that
you’re becoming.
CHAPTER 15:
FORGIVE OR FESTER
Forgiveness means giving up all
hope for a better past.
—Lily Tomlin; actress, writer,
comedienne, absurdist
When is the last time you physically hurt
yourself? What did you do to get the pain
to stop? And how long did you wait to
do something about it? When we’re in
physical pain, we’re usually extremely
proactive about figuring out how to make
it go away immediately because, you
know, it hurts. Even if we have to go
through more pain from pouring a
disinfectant that stings on an open wound
or suffering through getting stitches, we
do it, right away, because we’re very
focused on our ultimate goal: relief.
When it comes to our emotional pain,
however, we’re apparently way more
game for seeing just how much torture
we can endure, wallowing in our guilt,
shame, resentment, and self-loathing,
sometimes for entire lifetimes. We
prolong our misery by holding on to our
ill feelings by badmouthing our mother
in-laws, fantasizing about pantsing our
loudmouth, incompetent bosses in front
of a the whole office, unloading fault on
other people, and rolling around in our
minds the many reasons why our
enemies are wrong and the many reasons
why we’re right.
We relive our worst moments over
and over and over instead of letting them
go, we pick at the emotional scabs and
refuse to let the healing happen and the
pain subside. We won’t rest until we’ve
made sure someone else feels as badly
as they’ve just made us feel. If I have
to
suffer my entire life I will make sure
you see how you’ve wronged me! We
cling to the resentments that take up our
brain space, waste our time, spin us out,
keep us angry and depressed and very
often make us physically sick and
sometimes even kill us because . . . um,
why?
Lugging around guilt, shame,
resentment and self-loathing is The Big
Snooze running the show, pitching a fit,
demanding to be right and to be seen.
Your higher self, on the other hand,
could give a crap about what anybody
else thinks or does because your higher
self is madly in love with you and that’s
all that matters. Whatever happened,
happened. Holding on will not change
this fact, it will just keep the negative
feelings from the past alive, keep you a
prisoner to your pain and lower your
frequency.
The moment you decide to
forgive and let your negative
feelings melt away, you are on
the road to freedom.
Forgiveness is all about taking care
of you, not the person you need to
forgive. It’s about putting your desire
to
feel good before your desire to be right.
It’s about taking responsibility for your
own happiness instead of pretending it’s
in somebody else’s hands. It’s about
owning your power by giving all your
anger, resentment, and hurt the heave-ho.
Holding on to resentment is like
taking poison and waiting for
your enemies to die.
If you’re having issues with someone
you care about, explain how you feel
without putting the blame on them and
regardless of the outcome, forgive them.
Your talk may bring you closer together
or you may discover that you don’t want
to hang out with them as much or at all,
but either way, if you want to be free,
you have to let it go.
If you’re feeling hurt or resentful
toward some A-hole you don’t care
about, free yourself and let it go instead
of stewing on it or getting revenge by
sending them a box of rats in the mail.
Why do you care if they understand how
lame they are or not—what good does
that do you? And don’t pretend it’s
because you want them to become a
better person. You could care less. You
want retribution or an apology or to be
acknowledged as right. Get over it. Let it
go. The longer you stay attached to being
vindicated, the longer they hang around
in your consciousness, stinking up your
life. Do not fall prey to the false belief
that by forgiving someone you’re letting
them off the hook. Because when you
forgive someone you let yourself off the
hook.
Forgiving isn’t about
being nice to them, it’s
about being nice to
yourself.
Okay, so great, yes, we get it. Now
how do you actually let it all go? How
do you forgive the stupid bastard?
1. FIND COMPASSION
Finding compassion for yourself or
someone else who did something so so
so so awful is like pulling a bullet out of
your arm: You may kick and scream and
hate it at first, but, in the long run, it’s
the
only way to start the real healing.
One of the best tricks for doing this is
to imagine the person you’re resentful of
as a little kid. Think of this little person
acting out of fear, doing the best they can
to protect themselves and attempting to
deal with their own suffering in the only
way they know how. People act poorly
because they are in pain or confused or
both. Understanding this, and imagining
the person who you want to behead as a
sweet little innocent child with big
puppy dog eyes, will help you find
compassion for them, which is the key to
forgiveness. And same goes for anything
you feel you need to forgive yourself
about. You too are just a little bunny
trying to work it all out. Find
compassion for your sweet little, sippy
cup self and let it all go.
2. ERASE THE OTHER
PERSON FROM THE
EQUATION
Imagine you’ve got two employees who
don’t show up for work on the same day,
leaving you to handle everything
yourself the morning before a huge
presentation. One of them blows you off
because she’s hung over and just
couldn’t deal, but the other found out that
her beloved mother suddenly died and
had to run off to the airport, forgetting
to
call you in her emotional haze.
Same exact result—you’re ditched
and left to do all the work your-self—
two totally different ways to react.
Which means . . . . . you have a choice!
One choice puts you at risk of busting an
artery out of rage, the other opens your
heart.
Another option is to picture yourself
hanging out in your brand new boat and
an empty boat floats up and bangs into
you, leaving a scratch. If there’s nobody
in the boat, there’s nobody to get mad at
and you deal with the situation in a much
calmer, inquisitive way. If there’s some
moron driving that other boat who bangs
into you because they’re checking a text,
however, you deal with it by going crazy
and calling them a bunch of names
related to genitalia. Again, same exact
situation—you get a scratch on your boat
—two different ways to react.
When someone does something awful
to you, take that person out of the
equation so you can open yourself up to
have a more pleasant, and productive,
reaction (and life). It’s not about them
anyway, it’s about you. If you have
nobody to be angry at, it’s hard to be
angry. Instead, it opens the incident up
for questioning. Why did this happen?
How was I involved? Why did I attract
this to myself? How can I grow from
this? How can I find compassion for
everyone involved? When you’re
consumed by resentment, the lesson can’t
get through all your inner, and outer,
screaming and yelling. Do yourself a
favor and use irritating situations and
people as opportunities for growth, not
pain.
3. DECIDE YOU’D
RATHER BE HAPPY
THAN RIGHT
Sometimes the road to freedom lies in
deciding you’d rather be happy than
right. Yes, your idiot friend should have
paid the parking ticket she got when she
borrowed your car or your brother
shouldn’t have shaved your dog while he
was house sitting for you, but if they
don’t see it that way, instead of spinning
out on it for days, wouldn’t it feel so
much better to just let it go? Is it really
worth lugging around all those foul
feelings just so you can be right? Think
to yourself, “What do I have to do or not
do, or think or not think, right now, to be
happy?” And if the answer is “let the
jackass think he’s right,” then so be
it.
4. LOOK AT IT FROM ALL
ANGLES
It’s important to remember that everyone
is living in their own self-created
illusion, and that you have no idea what
they’re acting out or where they’re
coming from, so just because you think
something is totally not okay, in their
illusion, it could be fine and your way
could be totally not okay. Look at it from
another perspective, loosen your
stranglehold on it being my way or the
highway, let some air in, and you may be
surprised how quickly resentment flies
out the window.
For example, you send your good
friend a text about a dinner party you’re
having and invite them to come. She
sends you a text back saying she can’t
make it because it’s her birthday. You
text her back an apology and sad face.
You hear nothing back. So you text her
“happy birthday!” You still hear nothing
back so you proceed to spin out. You go
from feeling awful for hurting her
feelings to wondering what kind of idiot
adult still cares that much about her
stupid birthday to thinking how much
you’ll have to spend on a present to
relieve your guilt. Meanwhile, she
accidentally dropped her phone in the
toilet bowl after her last text to you.
By being inquisitive about, instead of
a slave to, your reactions to other
people, you get the double whammy
bonus of not only setting yourself up to
forgive them much more easily (because
you realize that it’s really about you,
not
them), but you receive the great gift of
being enlightened to some of your own
not-so-special traits so you can grow
and learn from them (much more on all
this in Chapter 21: Millions of Mirrors).
In her brilliant book (I mean it, go get
it), Loving What Is: Four Questions
That Can Change Your Life, Byron
Katie says, “We don’t attach to people
or things, we attach to uninvestigated
concepts that we believe to be true in the
moment.” For example, in the scenario
above, instead of attaching to the “truth”
that this person isn’t answering your
texts because they’re upset, all you need
to do is ask yourself, “Why am I freaking
out over something that I have no proof
is even true?” or “How would I feel if
I
didn’t just assume that my friend is mad
at me?” You could literally be one
question away from being happy in any
otherwise upsetting situation.
5. HAVE A TOTAL SHITFIT
Go somewhere alone and far away from
other people and beat the hell out of a
pillow or a mattress or some other soft,
inanimate object that won’t hurt your fist
or punch you back. Scream and yell
about what a selfish little pig this other
person is and go for it 100 percent until
you’re exhausted or someone calls the
cops on you. Get it out of your system,
totally and completely, and then let it go.
6. REMEMBER THAT YOU
WON’T EVEN
REMEMBER THIS
Try and think about someone who had
you totally freaking out and all pissed off
three years ago. Can you even come up
with someone? If you can, can you get
all worked up about them now?
Whatever or whomever you’re needing
to forgive in this moment will most
likely be a mere blip not very long from
now (depending on the severity of the
situation, of course). So why make a
huge drama out of it if you’re only going
to forget all about it one day? See it as
the future non-event that it is and start
forgiving and forgetting right away.
When it comes to forgiveness, what
you actually have to DO is not hard. It’s
like quitting smoking—you actually do
less than you do when you smoke. You
don’t have to go to the store to buy
cigarettes, you don’t have to open the
pack, light one up, find an ashtray, etc.
All you have to do is stop. All the work
is in letting go of your self-created
attachment to cigarettes.
Same with forgiveness. All you have
to do is let go of your self-created
attachment to this other person or belief.
7. FUGGETABOUTIT
Once you’ve truly forgiven someone,
wipe the slate clean. So often we form
judgments about people and then, no
matter what they do, we see them
through the lens of that judgment. Which
means we’re just waiting for them to
piss us off again. Which means we’re
still in the Forvginess-lite stage; we’re
pretending we’re cool but we’re really
still holding on to some resentment.
Release all expectations, let everyone
off the hook, treat people as a blank slate
over and over again, expect only the best
from them regardless of what they’ve
done in the past and you may be
surprised. What you focus on, you create
more of, and if you keep expecting
people to annoy you they will not let you
down. Focus on their finer points and
encourage their good behavior if you
want to create more of it.
8. LOVE YOURSELF
You deserve it.
CHAPTER 16:
LOOSEN YOUR BONE,
WILMA
You don’t paddle against the
current, you paddle with it.
And if you get good at it, you throw
away the oars.
—Kris Kristofferson; singer,
songwriter, actor, Rhodes
scholar, still super hot for an
old guy
Several years ago I went on a lifechanging
trip to India. In case you
haven’t witnessed it yourself, India is
heaving with life, a swarming blur of
vibrant colors, honking cars, wandering
cows, packed trains, endless slums,
elaborate palaces, ancient temples, and
sweet smelling incense. It’s literally full
to the brim with humanity, chatting and
chanting, and sitting on top of you while
you struggle for space on an overbooked
train. Your only options are 1.) Go with
the flow and get to know your neighbor
or 2.) Grow a big, fat stress-related
tumor. The thing that made perhaps the
biggest impression on me there was how
nearly everyone I met went for option
number one.
In India, some people will spoon you
on a bus if you fall asleep next to them,
roll down their windows to chat with
you in a traffic jam, stare unblinkingly at
your non-Indian-ness, help you if you’re
lost, insist you get in their family photos
at historical monuments, invite you in for
tea, burp, fart, and laugh in your face—
it’s totally annoying. And sweet. And
makes me think they clearly know
something important that I’ve long
forgotten (and that I suspect most of the
world has forgotten, too). I didn’t have
to darken the doorway of an ashram or
stick a red dot on my forehead or partake
in any of the other thousands of spiritual
options the country is famous for
offering—who needs them? As far as
I’m concerned, you can learn pretty
much everything you need to know about
spirituality and life by taking a twelvehour
bus ride through India during
wedding season.
When I bought my ticket on the Super
Deluxe Express bus to Delhi from Agra,
home of the Taj Mahal, I was told I was
paying a wise four hundred rupees extra
for the luxury of a five-hour nonstop
ride, as opposed to the ten hours and
countless stops of the local bus. I was so
extremely exhausted from the three
sleepless days I’d spent whooping it up
at a camel festival in the desert that the
thought of hunkering down on the Super
Deluxe and sleeping all the way to Delhi
sounded good to me. But what I got
instead was a seat next to Mr. Friendly, a
middle-aged man who spoke three
words of English, and who insisted on
chatting me up even though I was doing
what I thought was a very convincing job
of fake sleeping, and a very real job of
having no freakin’ idea what he was
saying.
The bus left an hour late due to
massive confusion and overbooking and
took almost two hours to get out of town
thanks to the fact that it was November,
peak wedding season. Weddings in India
traditionally involve a ceremony that
lasts for days, stretches for miles,
welcomes anyone caught in the crossfire
and includes a parade through the streets
complete with horses, marching band,
explosives, a car with a loudspeaker
blaring Indian music and important
wedding announcements, and a bunch of
guys carrying what look like table lamps
on their heads. My bus ended up getting
trapped in wedding festivities pretty
much every ten minutes, which meant
that everyone on the bus, every time we
stopped, skipped off to join the party.
When we finally did get out of town,
we kept pulling over to let random
people on and off (in the middle of
nowhere), have some tea, a smoke, a
chat, maybe light a fire in the brush in a
ditch or strap giant burlap sacks full of
something large and bulbous to the roof.
At some point this guy got on who was
standing by the side of the road in the
darkness. We scooped him up without
coming to a full stop and he took his
place at the front of the bus, standing
right next to my seat, and immediately
began hollering at everyone in Hindi.
My bus mates responded by cheering,
chanting, and sitting in silence, while I
responded by seeing if I couldn’t find
another seat farther away from his
mouth. I got up and joined the group of
people sitting on rickety benches around
the bus driver who was in this “room”
behind a wall of glass. The people
huddling around him made room for me
and suddenly I felt like I was watching
an action movie on a screen the size of a
giant bus windshield. We were
careening through the narrow dirt streets
of tiny villages, Bollywood music
crackling over the radio, while people,
goats, and monkeys leaped out of the
way, slowing down only for the
almighty, holy cow. Then all of a sudden,
in some tiny nowhere village, he pulls
over yet again. More chai perhaps?
Maybe he’s going to go visit a friend?
Has to pee? Wants to take a walk for an
hour while we all sit there? The driver
waves for me to follow and gets off, as
does everyone on the bus. It turns out
that Mr. Yell in My Ear was some sort of
holy man who was just warming up the
crowd for a tour of the temples in this
small, gorgeous village called
Vrindavan. It is, I learned, the place
where Krishna met his wife Radha and
where they built hundreds of temples in
their honor.
So, for the next two hours I found
myself wandering through countless
temples, gaily tossing flowers onto
shrines, holding hands and skipping in a
circle around a statue of Krishna,
solemnly chanting, praying and clapping,
and all I could think was how homicidal
a bus of New Yorkers on the express bus
from New York to DC would be in a
similar situation. Meanwhile, not one
person on the bus was expecting this,
and not one person complained, even
though when we finally got back on the
bus it was well past the time we were
supposed to be arriving in Delhi and we
were still a good five hours away.
Instead, they all thanked, and tipped, the
holy man and spent the rest of the ride
merrily chatting away with one another.
After that we stopped at a roadside
restaurant for dinner, then another pee
break, then I was waking up the family I
was staying with in Delhi at 3 a.m. They,
of course, acted like it was the middle of
the afternoon and insisted I share a cup
of tea.
Here’s what India taught me about
tapping into the Mother Lode:
• Talk to strangers, we’re all family
on this planet.
• Expect, and enjoy, the unexpected.
• Find the humor.
• Join the party.
• Live in the moment.
• Time spent enjoying yourself is
never time wasted.
• Share your space.
• Loosen your bone, Wilma.
LOVE YOURSELF
And life becomes a party.
PART
4:
HOW
TO
GET
OVER
YOUR
B.S.
ALREADY
CHAPTER 17:
IT’S SO EASY ONCE YOU
FIGURE OUT IT ISN’T
HARD
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit
a very persistent one.
—Albert Einstein; scientist,
awesomist
I was hanging out in my sunny California
home one morning, reading the
newspaper with the doors flung open
and the stereo blasting, when all of a
sudden a bird came tearing into my
living room. He was flapping around
like a maniac, flying into lamps and
plants, spreading leaves, feathers, poop,
and panic all over the place.
In an attempt to escape, he kept
slamming himself into the window while
I feebly chased him around with a flipflop,
trying to guide him back toward the
open door. It was awful to watch—the
poor guy was all panting and wild-eyed,
his little birdy heart no doubt about to
explode with fear while he threw
himself over and over again into the
glass at full speed.
I finally managed to escort him
outside to freedom, and then spent a very
bothered few minutes calming my own
little-birdy heart while I revisited the
scene of the accident. I imagined his
confusion and frustration: “I can see the
sky! It’s right there! If I fly hard and
fast
enough I know I can reach it!”
It made me think of the way so many
of us live our lives. We can see what we
want, and nearly kill ourselves trying to
get it in a way that’s not working.
Meanwhile, if we just stopped, got quiet
for a minute or two, and looked at things
a little differently, we’d notice the door
to what we want being held open for us
by the nice lady in the bathrobe across
the room. Then all we’d have to do is fly
through it.
Oh, the drama we create for
ourselves!
We’re so deeply wrapped up in our
stories—I don’t have the money, I’m
not good enough, I can’t quit my job,
I’m lazy, I have bad hair—trudging
through life with our heads down,
clinging to our false beliefs like
lifeboats full of doo-doo, that we
prevent ourselves from seeing the
literally infinite sea of possibilities and
opportunities surrounding us at every
single moment.
Have you ever walked down a street
that you’ve walked down a million times
and suddenly noticed a house or a tree or
a mailbox or something else totally
obvious and in-your-face that you’ve
never noticed before? Or have you ever
suddenly become aware of the eye color
of someone you’ve known for years? Or
have you ever looked at your mother and
thought, I was inside of that woman
once!? All this stuff didn’t suddenly
appear and then you noticed it, it was
there all along, you just weren’t
experiencing it because your focus was
directed somewhere else.
Here’s a cool exercise: Right now,
look around wherever you are and count
the number of things you see that are red.
Take about a minute and count them all.
Now stop, look back at this page without
taking your eyes off of it, and try to think
of everything around you that’s yellow.
There’s probably a ton of yellow, but
you didn’t see it because you were
looking for red.
What you choose to
focus on becomes your
reality.
And that’s just an example of what
we’re not noticing that we can see.
There’s also an infinite amount of
emotions and thoughts and beliefs and
interpretations and sounds and dreams
and opportunities and smells and points
of view and ways to feel good and
responses and nonresponses and things
to say and ways to help. YET, because
we’re so set in our ways and committed
to our stories about who we are and
what our reality looks like, we only
scratch the very surface of all that’s
available to us every single moment.
Meanwhile, we’re totally surrounded by
countless awesome versions of reality,
and they’re all just hanging around like
a
bunch of shy teenage girls at the prom,
leaning against the walls, waiting for us
to ask them to dance.
As the poet William Blake so
eloquently stated: “If the doors of
perception were cleansed, everything
would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
So . . . why would you create
anything that’s not totally awesome? I
mean, we’re only talking about your life
here. If you chose to get over all your
reasons why the money you so desire is
evil or your identity as someone who’s
scared of intimacy or your attachment to
a plethora of other excuses that you
perceive to be very serious and real
when they’re really probably kind of
cute and ridiculous—you could literally
create any reality you want.
Whenever I become impressed by a
particularly creative array of new
excuses I’ve come up with, or start to
organize an elaborate pity party for
myself, I turn to Ray Charles. I don’t
often listen to his music, but I always
think about Ray when I need a kick in the
buttinski. He was a broke, blind,
minority who was orphaned by the age
of fifteen and raised in the “colored part
of town” in a time when slavery wasn’t
all that distant of a memory, and he went
on to become one of the most influential
and successful American musicians of
all time. Basically, he wasted no time on
excuses.
Any little woe-is-me-ism that I try to
hold up against Ray instantly wilts into
the sniveling little “nice try” that it
is,
and I’m forced to look upon my life, and
my excuses, with a new perspective.
Really? You’re really going to let that
stop you?
All you have to do is make the choice
to let go of everything you’re so attached
to that’s not serving you and manifest the
reality that you want. Life is an illusion
created by your perception, and it can be
changed the moment you choose to
change it.
Our entire experience
on this planet is
determined by how we
choose to perceive our
reality.
I know. As if. It can’t be that easy. If
it was that simple, how could I possibly
have spent all this time banging my head
against the glass wall of my own selfcreated
ho-hummery?
But before you get into a bad mood
about it, remember: All this stumbling
around in the realities we pretend to be
stuck in is very valuable because it
allows us to grow and learn and evolve
—rough seas make better sailors—but
you get to choose how long you want to
stay in school and work on the same
issues over and over and over. Your
graduation cap and gown are cleaned
and pressed and waiting for you
whenever you want to put them on, all
you have to do is let go of your present
story and rewrite a new one that fits who
you truly are.
If you want to join the party and shift
your perspective, do what I say in this
book (and really DO it, don’t just halfass
it. And while you’re at it, believe it
too). Study the Resources I suggest in the
back of this book and on my website.
Commit to releasing your attachment to
low-frequency thoughts and experiences,
trust that the Universe loves the crap out
of you, kick fear in the face, and head
bravely into the unknown.
Also, do the following:
1. BECOME AWARE OF
WHAT YOUR STORIES
ARE
We call these “stories” because they are
just that. They are not the truth. And they
can be rewritten. You’re the author of
your own life— not your parents, not
society, not your partner, not your
friends, not the bullies who called you
Fatzilla in junior high—and the sooner
you decide to write yourself a better
script, the sooner you get to live a more
awesome life.
Before you can let go of your stories,
get clear on what they are. Listen to what
you say and what you think about and
start busting yourself in your own lies.
We get so used to, and so identify with,
our broken records that we don’t even
notice they exist or that they’re not even
real. And yet we’ll fight to the death to
uphold their nontruths!
Listen specifically for sentences that
begin with:
I always . . .
I never . . .
I can’t . . .
I should . . .
I suck at . . .
I wish . . .
I want (as opposed to I will and I
am) . . .
I don’t have . . .
One day . . .
I’m trying to . . .
Sad-sack Jane, the lawyer, says she
should keep her miserable job at the
prestigious firm because she’ll never
find one that she likes that pays as well.
Really? Is that why nobody on earth,
anywhere, is doing a job that they love
and making even more money than you
make, Jane?
Lonely-hearted Sally always says she
can’t find a good, single man because
there aren’t any left out there. Really
Sally? All the good, single men were
hunted down and killed so no matter
how many dates you go on or how many
times you put on sexy high heels and
hang around at Home Depot, you’ll
never bump into one? Was the awesome
guy your friend Deb just met the lone
survivor of the good guy genocide?
Broke-ass Joe, the personal trainer,
always talks about how he can’t make
any money and how there are no highpaying
clients out there. Really Joe? Not
any? Anywhere? Then how is it that
other personal trainers have more
high-paying clients than they can
handle? And that some even created
energy drinks and work-out products
with their pictures on them and are
raking it in on QVC?
Another good place to catch yourself
in a story is by looking at the areas in
your life that are sagging. If you’re
constantly angry, maybe your story is,
“Nobody understands me.” If you’re
always overweight, maybe your story is,
“I have no self-discipline.” If you’re
uninvited from Thanksgiving dinner
because you wouldn’t let anyone else
talk at the last three family gatherings,
maybe your story is, “Nobody pays any
attention to me.”
Remember, as Wallace Wattles said:
To think what you want to think is to
think the truth, regardless of
appearances. Instead of pretending to be
stuck in these lame-o realities, use your
power of thought to change your attitude
and change your life.
Start paying attention: What are your
favorite, self-sabotaging stories? What
do you hear yourself think and say over
and over again that has become who you
are (or rather who you think you are)?
Bust yourself in your own tired old
broken records right now so you can set
about rewriting your stories and create
the kind of life you love.
2. BECOME AWARE OF
WHAT YOU’RE
GAINING FROM YOUR
STORIES
We pretty much don’t ever do anything
that we don’t benefit from in some way,
be it in a healthy way or an unhealthy
way. If you’re perpetuating something
dismal in your life because of some
dopey story, there’s definitely something
about it that you’re getting off on.
Let’s say, for example, that your story
is that you’re depressed. Chances are
pretty good that even though it feels
awful, when you feel awful you don’t
have to work hard or do the laundry or
go to the gym. It also feels very familiar
and cozy and comfortable. It gets you
attention. People come in and check on
you and sometimes bring food. It gives
you something to talk about. It allows
you to not try too hard or move forward
and face possible failure. It lets you
drink beer for breakfast.
Let’s say your story is that you can’t
make money. By staying broke, you get
to be right. You get to be a victim, which
makes you dependent on other people
and gets you attention. Other people will
offer to pay. You don’t have to take
responsibility. You get to give up before
you start and avoid possible failure. If
things in your life fall far below the
mediocre scale, you get to blame other
people and circumstances instead of
taking risks to change it because you
can’t afford to take risks.
Let’s say your story is that you stink
at relationships. You get your freedom.
You don’t have to commit and can keep
looking for the greener grass on the other
side. You don’t have to risk getting hurt
by being vulnerable. You get to complain
about always being single and get
sympathy. You get the whole bed to
yourself, never have to compromise, and
don’t have to shave unless it’s summer.
We don’t realize it, but we’re making
the perks we get from perpetuating our
stories more important than getting the
things we really want because it’s
familiar territory, it’s what we’re comfy
with and we’re scared to let it go. If
we’ve been depressed or victimized or
whatever since childhood, we trick
ourselves into believing that it’s really
who we are as adults in order to
continue reaping “the rewards.” It’s
how
we survived as kids, but it doesn’t serve
us anymore so we need to get rid of it or
we’ll just keep creating more of it.
For example, let’s say you grew up
with a violent alcoholic father, and your
way to protect yourself from being the
target of his rage was to never speak up,
to never let yourself or your wants and
wishes be visible. Cut to you as an adult
who never speaks your truth or who
never stands up for yourself. You’re still
reaping the false rewards, you’re
playing it safe, not risking getting hurt
or
yelled at, but this behavior is backfiring
on you because by hiding and not taking
a stand for yourself, you’re living a life
that totally makes you want to roll over
and go back to sleep every morning
instead of getting up and facing your day.
Once you identify the false benefits
you’re reaping from holding onto your
stories, you can start the process of
letting them go and replace them with
new empowered ones that serve the
adult you.
3. GET RID OF YOUR
STORIES
Once you know what the beast looks
like, you can slay it. Take your list of
“can’ts” and “shoulds” and “I
nevers,”
etc., and write stream of consciousness
in a journal (see example below), and
really feel in your body what you’re
getting from these old limiting beliefs
such as: “I feel special, I feel safe, I
get
to live with my parents and never get a
job,” etc. Make a list of these false
rewards. Really push yourself to get
them all on to the page. Then feel the
attention the specialness or the comfort
or the safety or whatever your trip is and
really become clear on it. Catch yourself
fully in the act and feel it all the way
through.
Now look at your list of false
rewards for what they really are: scared
little parts of yourself acting out. Thank
them for trying to protect you and for
keeping you company, but tell them it’s
time to run along now.
Then, replace the feelings you got
from these false rewards with the
feelings of joy and power and
excitement that stepping into who you
truly are and who you’re now becoming
will bring.
Imagine that childish version of
yourself leaving your body and the
powerful adult stepping in. Breathe in
the adult; breathe out the kid and the old
story. It’s like finally taking the keys
to
the Ferrari back from the seven-year-old
version of yourself who’s been driving it
all this time, nearly getting you killed.
See yourself as the adult stepping in to
take your place behind the wheel.
Keep envisioning (or writing down)
what it looks and feels like to have the
real, adult you replace your old
childhood story. Feel it. Get excited by
it. Then make the decision that you’re
ready to change and take positive action
in the direction you want to go.
For example, let’s say that lonelyhearted
Sally finally got fed up enough to
get mighty real with herself and face her
issues around relationships. She’d start
by getting clear on what her stories are:
I can’t meet a man because there
aren’t any good ones left.
I suck at flirting.
I never know what to say to men.
I’m not attractive to men. Not the
good ones anyway.
I scare men away.
I don’t trust men.
I don’t believe there really is anyone
out there for me.
Once she’s got her list (which could
easily go on for pages, BTW, but for the
sake of example, and because I’d like to
leave the house today, we’ll stick with
these), Sally can stream of
consciousness journal about the false
rewards she’s getting. And by stream of
consciousness I mean just let it flow,
don’t edit or overthink it too much, just
write. In Sally’s case, her journaling
could look like:
By saying there aren’t any good men
out there I don’t have to take
responsibility for why I’m not meeting
any. I get to feel victimized and right
for staying single. I get to prove how
lame men are by never being with a
good one. My pain of feeling unworthy
and my mistrust of men get proven right
when I stay single. I feel like I know
what I’m doing and in control by not
letting anyone get close to me. I feel
free. I feel safe. I feel special because
I
get attention for breaking the rules.
Again, this could go on for pages but
you get the idea.
Once she’s gotten all her false
rewards on the page, Sally can then
focus on them, feel them all the way
through, thank them for trying to protect
her (we don’t want to turn this into a
self-loathing exercise please) and
release them by replacing them with
new, powerful stories. She can literally
take each one and replace it with a new
truth. For example:
By saying there aren’t any good men
out there I don’t have to take
responsibility for why I’m not meeting
any.
Then becomes:
The world is filled with awesome,
loving men, and I am fully capable of,
and so excited to find me a good one.
I get to feel victimized and right for
staying single.
Then becomes:
I am powerful and in control of my life.
I choose to love and be loved.
I get to prove how lame men are by
never being with a good one.
Then becomes:
I love and trust men and am so thrilled
to be with an awesome guy who makes
me giddy with happiness.
These new stories become her new truth,
and in order to make them stick, she
focuses on them, breathes them in and
feels how happy they make her feel.
These stories are her new affirmations
(remember those?) that she will not only
write down and repeat and bombard
herself with over and over and over, but
that she will instantly replace her old
stories with if they should fly out of her
mouth or into her mind out of habit.
Let’s review, shall we?
1. List off your old stories that
you’ve gotten into the habit of
thinking and saying.
2. Journal about the false rewards
you get from them.
3. Feel into these false rewards,
thank them for their help, and decide
to let them go.
4. Take each false reward and write a
new, powerful story to replace it
with.
5. Repeat this new story, or
affirmation, over and over and over
until it becomes your truth.
6. Behold your awesome new life.
Nothing in this world is permanent,
including our stories. Yet we try to hold
on to them for false security, which
ultimately leads to sorrow and loss. Be
willing to let go. Keep reinventing your
story as you continue to grow.
4. GET A MOVE ON
Once you’ve gotten clear on your story
and have done the energy work above,
take action. If you were once depressed
but have decided to let it go, stop
listening to melancholy music, stop
talking about how lousy you feel, stop
pretending that putting on your bathrobe
counts as getting dressed, etc. Instead,
focus on the good and do the things you
love to do— make an effort instead of
collapsing into the familiar feeling of
being depressed.
Realize that you’ve gotten into habits
with these things and switch them
around. Behave the way a person who
isn’t depressed behaves. Dress how they
dress, hang out with the kinds of people
they hang out with, speak the way they
speak, do the things they do. Really sink
into the understanding that you can have
what you want. This won’t work if you
just pretend. You can’t be like, “Okay,
I’m going out on a date, I’m telling
myself I am going to have a great time
but I know it’s going to be hideous
because it’s always hideous but I’m
having a good attitude about it.”
Going out into the
world and trying, yet
still deep-down
believing that you’re
ruled by your past
circumstances, is like
forgiving someone but
still hoping they sit in
something wet.
5. GET OUT OF YOUR
ROUTINE
Talk to strangers, wear something
different, go to a new grocery store,
make dinner for someone who you want
to get to know better, change toothpastes,
go to a movie at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday,
learn three new jokes, walk taller, notice
five awesome things you’ve never
noticed about your home, your beliefs,
your mother, your face. Do things that
pull you out of your routine and you’ll
be
amazed by the new realities that were
there all along that suddenly presents
themselves.
6. SIDESTEP THE SPIRAL
There’s also the ever-popular Spiral Into
Darkness where you begin by being sad
that your dog died then realize that not
only are you now dogless, but you’re
still single and you will always be
single because everyone, including your
dog, leaves you, which probably
wouldn’t be the case if you didn’t have
such fat thighs or weren’t so
overshadowed by your gorgeous sister
who is pretty much the main reason
you’ve had no self-confidence your
entire life and wah wah wah.
Feel sad, but don’t blow it up into
some huge drama. If something negative
happens in your life, feel it, learn from
it, let it go and get back to focusing on
the life you’re excited to live.
7. LOVE YOURSELF
More than you love your drama.
CHAPTER 18:
PROCRASTINATION,
PERFECTION, AND A
POLISH BEER GARDEN
In order to kick ass you must first
lift up your foot.
—Jen Sincero; author, coach,
self-quoter
One of my first jobs out of college was
production coordinator for the Ethnic
Folk Arts Festival, which was put on by
a little nonprofit group in New York
City. I heard about the position opening
up from a friend, and decided I had to
have the job even though I’d never
produced a thing in my life and find folk
art to be fairly yawnable. It looked like
fun anyway—they worked out of a funky
loft in Tribeca, knew a lot about music,
brought their dogs to work, and the
festival I’d be working on gathered
musicians, dancers, and artists from
around the globe and brought them
together in a Polish beer garden in
Queens for a big fat party. Which meant
men in skirts and free sausage and beer.
So I put together a résumé that listed
such achievements as: produced plays in
college (demanded my friends show up
to watch my boyfriend act); started
several organizations in high school
(started a sledding team that had no
competition and only one meeting where
we spent most of our time figuring out
how to score some beer); worked at my
college radio station (hung around while
my friend DJed). Then I got all dressed
up in some business casuals that I
borrowed from my mom that didn’t fit
and marched off to my interview. A
couple of hours later, me and my big
mouth had a new job.
That night I laid awake in wide-eyed
horror. My God, what have I done? I’m a
monster! These sweet, big-hearted,
sandal-wearing people just handed me a
coffee can full of money that they spent
an entire year collecting for this festival,
and I’m the lying fathead who’s gonna
blow it.
I thought about turning myself in, but,
unwilling to turn down a good party,
went for it instead and wound up
working harder for them than I had ever
worked in my life. I decided that I’d rise
to the occasion, that I would do
whatever it took to make this the best
damn festival that that Polish beer
garden had ever seen, and I pulled if off
with flying colors if I do say so myself.
I got all twenty-seven of my
unemployed friends to hand out fliers
and take tickets in exchange for the
aforementioned free sausage and beer,
herded the unruly polka dancers into
their places on time, got the latke
vendors set up, and saw to it that the
bagpipe parade went off without a hitch.
If there’s something you really want,
I’m not (necessarily) saying you should
lie to get it, but I am saying you’re
probably lying to yourself if you’re not
going after it.
Because so often when
we say we’re
unqualified for
something, what we’re
really saying is that
we’re too scared to try
it, not that we can’t do
it.
Most of the time it’s not lack of
experience that’s holding us back, but
rather the lack of determination to do
what we need to do to be successful.
We put so much energy into coming
up with excuses why we can’t be, do, or
have the things we want, and designing
the perfect distractions to keep us from
our dreams—imagine how far we’d get
if we just shut up and used all that
energy to go for it instead?
Here’s the good news:
1. We all know way more than we
give ourselves credit for knowing.
2. We are drawn to things we’re
naturally good at (which counts more
than having a graduate degree in the
subject, BTW).
3. There’s no better teacher than
necessity.
4. Passion trumps fear.
In hindsight, I realized that I was
more qualified for that job than I thought.
I’m a big sister, which means I’m
naturally bossy. I love throwing parties,
and I can talk to anyone, even seventysix-
year-old Russian men who don’t
speak English and are freaking out
because they can’t find their tights.
I went on to do many more things that
I was “unqualified” for, but I also
wasted plenty of time pretending I
wasn’t ready to do some other things I
really wanted to do. And, shockingly, the
times I jumped in and went for it were
way more fun than the than the times I
spent sitting around “getting ready,”
and
doing nothing, instead.
Whether it’s an online dating profile
you’re not ready to post or a trip you
want to take after you lose ten pounds or
a business you want to start as soon as
you save enough money . . . just start.
Now. Do whatever it takes. You could
get run over by the ice-cream man
tomorrow.
One time I spent an entire month
preparing my office to write a book. I
got just the right chair, put the desk in
the
perfect place by the window, organized
all the materials I needed and then
reorganized them—three times—cleaned
the place until you could perform
surgery on the floor, and then proceeded
to write the entire thing at my kitchen
table.
Procrastination is one
of the most popular
forms of self-sabotage
because it’s really easy.
There are so many fun things you can
do in order to procrastinate, and there’s
no lack of other people who are totally
psyched to procrastinate with you.
And while it can be super fun in the
moment, eventually the naughtiness buzz
wears off and you’re sitting there a few
years later, feeling like a loser,
wondering why the hell you still haven’t
gotten your act together. And why other
people you know are getting big fat
promotions at their jobs or taking trips
around the world or talking about the
latest orphanage they’ve opened in
Cambodia on NPR.
If you’re serious about
changing your life,
you’ll find a way. If
you’re not, you’ll find
an excuse.
In the interest of getting you where
you want to go in this lifetime, here are
some tried-and-true tips to help you stop
procrastinating:
1. REMEMBER THAT
DONE IS BETTER THAN
PERFECT
Just get the damn website up already or
send out the mailer or make the sales
calls or book the gig even though you’re
not totally ready yet. Nobody else cares
or will probably even notice that
everything isn’t 100 percent perfect—
and, quite honestly, nothing ever will be
100 percent perfect anyway so you might
as well start now. There’s no better way
to get things done than to already be
rolling along—momentum is a
wonderful thing, not to mention highly
underrated, so get off your ass and get
started. NOW!
2. NOTICE WHERE YOU
STOP
When you’re working on whatever
you’re working on, or whatever you’re
pretending to work on, where exactly do
you stop? Is it when you have to do the
research? Make the scary phone calls?
Figure out how to raise the money? Right
after you start? When you have to
commit? When it starts getting good?
Right before it takes off? Before you
even get out of bed?
If you can pinpoint the precise
moment that you say, “Screw it—I’m
outta here!” you can prepare yourself for
hitting the oil slick by hiring coaches or
assistants or psyching yourself up or
delegating that particular part of it out,
or removing known distractions.
For example, let’s say you discover
that every time you sit down to make
calls to try and book yourself a speaking
gig, you mysteriously find yourself
pulled into Facebook for hours, turn off
the Internet, or go someplace to make
your calls where you can’t get online.
Like a park. Or your car. Or Antarctica.
And then decide that you have to make
five calls before you can check back in
and see if anyone commented on the
picture you posted of your cat eating a
potato chip.
3. MAKE A BET WITH
SOMEONE MEAN
A good way to make yourself
accountable is to make a bet with
someone who will hold you to it. They
must have no mercy—they can’t coddle
you or “understand that you tried your
best.” You want the kind of person who
will make you feel humiliated even
before the excuses come out of your
mouth, or who will show up at your
doorstep with a burlap sack, a big rock,
and a blindfold should you attempt to
wiggle out of paying your debt. And
make sure you bet something that’s
painful to lose but not too unrealistic.
For example, you could bet someone a
thousand dollars that you’ll have the first
chapter of your book written by a certain
date. Make it a payable amount that you
really don’t want to pay, but that’s barely
within your reach. Then write the check
out to him, include the payment date, and
keep it over your desk to remind you
what’s in store if you don’t get the job
done. And if you really want to up the
stakes, tell him that if you don’t meet
your deadline, instead of giving him the
money, you’ll donate the thousand
dollars to a group or cause that makes
your flesh crawl. Personally, I find this
kind of horror works wonders for my
self-discipline.
4. OWN IT AND WORK
WITH IT
If you’re the kind of person who blows
everything off until the last minute, and
you know this about yourself, why waste
your time freaking out while you’re not
doing what you’re supposed to be
doing? Go to the damn beach, have a
cocktail, and when the pressure’s on, get
down to business. There’s nothing worse
than time wasted pretending to work or
stressing out while trying to have fun—
no work gets done and no fun is had. It’s
the worst of both worlds. Figure out how
much time you truly need to get the job
done, and go do something else until the
clock starts ticking.
5. LOVE YOURSELF
Right now, wherever you’re at.
CHAPTER 19:
THE DRAMA OF
OVERWHELM
I have lived a long life and had
many troubles, most of which
never happened.
—Mark Twain; American
author, humorist
When I set out to write a new book, I
find it very helpful to start with a
separate index card for each chapter. I
put the chapter title at the top of each
card, write my notes in the space
underneath, and then spread them all out
on a table so I can see the whole thing at
once. I just did this a few days ago and it
was so exciting. Behold! My glorious
new book! About two seconds later,
however, I was seized by panic. OMG
that is a lot of chapters how the hell am
I going to get it all done in time my
deadline is speeding around the corner
and I’m not even entirely sure what I’m
putting in each section yet what was I
thinking how come I didn’t start this
eight months ago is it too early for
wine someone help me I am sinking . . .
I closed my eyes and took a deep
breath. Just. Do. One. Chapter. At. A.
Time. So I pulled a random card off the
table, opened my eyes, and it was, of
course: The Drama of Overwhelm.
I’d like to remind you, and me, that
the majority of the pain and suffering in
our lives is caused by the unnecessary
drama that we create. If we happen to
find ourselves, for example, in a
catatonic state of overwhelm, hugging
our knees while rocking back and forth
with our mouths hanging open, just like
everything else in our lives, all it takes
is a shift in perception to create a new
reality.
Life is but a dream.
Don’t turn it into a
nightmare.
We are so unbelievably blessed to
have all the things we have, all the
opportunities and ideas and people and
tasks and interests and experiences and
responsibilities—choosing to freak out
about it all, rather than enjoying the
living of our lives, is like throwing
pearls before swine. Such a waste of
such a glorious gift.
In the interest of helping you get a
more pleasant perspective on your
massive to-do list, let’s take the three
most common complaints about
overwhelm and pretty them up:
1. THERE’S NOT ENOUGH
TIME
Thanks to the hard work of people with
big brains, we now know that time is an
illusion. While most people have no
idea what the hell that means, there is
another angle that’s a lot easier to grasp;
not having time is an illusion. For
example:
I don’t have time to find a real
parking spot so I’ll park in this loading
zone. Oh, look at that, I just spent three
hours I don’t have getting my car out of
the tow garage, another two getting
lost on the way home, and forty-five
minutes complaining about it to my
wife.
I don’t have time to clean my office.
Oh, look at that, I just spent a half an
hour that I don’t have looking for my
phone that was buried beneath a pile of
crap. Oh, and look at that, my phone is
dead, which means I’m about to waste
even more time I don’t have looking for
the damn charger which might be under
this pile of books over here please I
hope . . .
When we’re forced to do something,
suddenly the time is there. Which means
it’s there all the time, but we’ve just
chosen to limit ourselves by believing
that it isn’t. Ever notice how if you’ve
got six months to do something, it’ll take
you six months to do it, but if you have a
week, it’ll take you a week? Once you
understand that time, like the rest of your
reality, is in your mind, you can make it
work for you instead of being its slave.
Here are some things you can do right
now to start wrangling time into
submission:
SHOW SOME RESPECT
If you want more time in your life, show
time some respect. If you’re constantly
late, if you blow things off or if you’re
a
flake, you’re not sending a message to
The Universe—or others, or yourself—
that you value this precious time that you
crave and are trying to create more of
for yourself.
You can create anything you
desire, but you have to truly want
it.
If you act like time isn’t important,
that it’s fully worth wasting and
disrespecting, you’re not in alignment
with what you say you want so you’re
gonna have a hard time getting it. I mean,
think of time as a person. Would you
expect time to keep showing up for you
if you constantly treated it like it was
just some dumb thing that didn’t matter?
I should think not.
If you’re always late, start being
early. If you constantly cancel or flake or
forget your dates with people, get it
together. Write down your appointments
and keep them. Set your alarm on your
cell phone to remind you to get ready.
Early. Write things on the back of your
hands. Keep your word if you say you’re
going to do something. It’s not rocket
science—if you want to have a good
relationship with time, have a good
relationship with time. Not only will this
help you create more time in your own
life, but you’ll stop being one of those
rude people who constantly wastes
everyone else’s.
KEEP YOUR FRIENDS
CLOSE
AND YOUR ENEMIES
CLOSER
What do you find yourself doing instead
of doing what you’re supposed to be
doing? Screwing around on Facebook?
Answering e-mails? Eating even though
you’re not hungry? Once you know what
your favorite distractions are, you can
build up a good defense against them.
Turn off the Internet and phone while
you’re working. Make the kitchen offlimits
until you’re done if you constantly
find yourself standing in front of the
open refrigerator door in a stupor. We
get into such bad habits that half the time
we don’t even realize what we’re doing.
Once you become aware of what your
weak spots are, you can start to protect
yourself against them.
CHUNK IT DOWN
There’s nothing more deflating than
looking at some giant task and
wondering how you’ll ever get it all
done. So don’t try and eat the whole
elephant at once, break it down into bitesized
bits. For example, instead of
walking around your entire house, from
one catastrophically messy room to the
next, wondering how you’re ever going
to clean the whole gigantic thing (and
trying to figure out how you can justify
not doing it instead of trying to figure out
how you’re going to do it) break it down
and just focus on one room at a time. Our
brains can only handle so much
information at once without exploding,
so by looking at each task separately, the
larger task suddenly becomes more
manageable.
Brains love chunks.
Chunking it down works great for
time too. For example, if you’re working
on designing a new website, instead of
setting aside the entire day to work,
decide that you’ll work in hour-long
chunks. During this time you are
unauthorized to get up to use the
bathroom, get something to eat, check
your texts, go online, etc. Once your
sixty minutes is up, you can take a break
and do whatever you want until your
next sixty-minute chunk. We can do
anything for sixty minutes. Our brains go
into overwhelm when we try to do it all
in one big block of time.
2. THERE’S TOO MUCH
TO DO
Ever notice that whenever you ask
someone how they’re doing, about 99
percent of the time they say something
like “Good. Really busy, but good.”
“Busy” has become the new “Fine,
thanks.” I mean, where’s the fun in that?
What kind of message does that send out
to the world and ourselves? No wonder
we all feel like we’re living pinned
beneath a giant, cement slab of a to-do
list. So, yes, the first task is to:
WATCH YOUR MOUTH
Stop talking about how busy you are.
Focus on what you enjoy about what you
do and the spaces in between the doing
instead of feeling weighed down by it
all. Decide that you live an awesome,
relaxed life full of interesting projects
that you love doing and communicate
that to the world and yourself. And then
go out and merrily do it.
GET SOME HELP
If you’re feeling totally confused and
disorganized and don’t know where to
start or what to do next, get some outside
perspective. A lot of times we’re so
tangled up in our own lives that we can’t
see something that’s totally obvious to
someone else. Ever spend some quality
time searching for your glasses when
they’re sitting right on your head? It’s
sort of like that. You could spend hours
or days or months (or forever) trying to
figure out how to re-do your website or
plotting out an exercise regimen or
figuring out how to organize your office,
when someone who isn’t as buried alive
by all the moving parts as you are can
nail it right away. Get a new pair of
eyeballs on the situation.
And get someone who knows what
they’re doing please. Don’t get money
advice from someone who’s as broke as
you are or dating advice from the
terminally single or decide that
someone’s main qualification for helping
you is that they’ll do it for free or trade.
Working with a pro will save you time
and money in the long run because you
won’t have to spend time undoing, or
doing over, whatever your wimpy first
attempt was.
Hire a business coach, ask a friend
who is totally together and successful to
sit with you, hire a clutter consultant,
and if none of this makes sense for your
particular situation, read on:
GET INTO REALITY
Sometimes we take on more than we can
chew because we think we have to do it
all. Or that the world will fall apart if
we don’t do everything. Or that we are
bad, unlovable people if we don’t do the
eight million things we’re trying to do.
So get very real with yourself here—
why are you doing all the things you’re
doing? Is it absolutely necessary that you
do it all? Do you need to do it all at the
same time? Can some of it wait? Be
handed off to someone else? Dropped
altogether? And if you must do it all,
what would make it more enjoyable?
Just like chunking down your time,
chunking down your tasks takes you out
of freak-out and puts things into
manageable, bite-sized pieces. Here’s
how to break it down:
Make your to-do list. Look at it.
What needs to happen right now?
What can wait?
Put these on two separate lists. Hide
the Wait list.
What are the big important tasks on
the Now list?
What are the little piddly ones?
Give the piddly ones to someone else
or save them for off hours and spend
the day doing the most important
tasks. It’s called prioritizing people!
The shorter the list you’re working
with, the better you’ll feel.
And remember: You’re never gonna
get it all done. So stop stressing
about it.
Do what you can do in
joy, instead of trying to
do it all in misery.
DELEGATE OR DIE
One of the best ways to lighten your load
is to stop being a control freak and/or a
tightwad and hire someone to help you.
Or delegate to those around you (see
below).
You absolutely cannot grow a
business, get promoted or be a
cool parent, and you absolutely
will go gray before your time, if
you try and do every single little
thing by yourself.
Figure out which tasks you hate doing
or have always been bad at or just don’t
have time to do and find someone else to
do them. I realize the reason you may not
have done this yet is because you can’t
afford to hire someone, or because you
think you’re the best at it, or because
you’re a control freak, but, like many
other excuses, the answer is often there,
you’re just not looking at it properly.
If
you absolutely had to get some help, if it
was a matter of life or death, what
would you do? You could get an intern
from your local college. You could get a
friend or family member to help you out.
You could hire someone for just thirty
minutes a week and increase as you go.
You could sell something to bring in the
money to pay someone. Or borrow it. Or
push yourself to make it. You could hand
it over to human resources and make it
their problem. You could ask your
husband to empty the dishwasher and get
your teenager to clean out the garage so
you’d have more time. Help is all
around us, sometimes receiving it is
simply a matter of looking at it
differently, or not giving up so easily.
Deciding that you can’t have
something you need or want instantly
cuts you off from the flow of manifesting
it, as well as distances you from the part
that lit you up about it in the first place.
Once you think “I can’t,” The Universe
is like, “Alrighty then, no assistance
needed here, see you later.” Even if you
have no idea where it’s going to come
from, stay open to the possibility of
support presenting itself and you may be
surprised by what you can create and
how much help you can get. Decide you
must have it, trust that it’s available
to
you, do everything you can to figure out
a way to make it happen and trust that
how it’s going to happen will be
revealed.
REMEMBER THAT YOU
ARE #1
Put your priorities first—don’t check
emails
or voice messages or Facebook
until you’ve gotten into your day and
accomplished some of the tasks you
want to do. Don’t answer the phone or
texts while you’re busy. Other people’s
needs can occupy several lifetimes’
worth of our attention, and if you let
them, they will.
3. I’M EXHAUSTED
The belief that taking time off will cause
your entire life to collapse is not only
unhealthy, but it’s arrogant (the world
will go on if you stop working, you see).
If you don’t take time off, your body will
eventually put its foot down and make
you sick. Bodies do it all the time. Stress
is a leading cause of cancer, heart
attacks, liver failure, stupid accidents,
grouchiness, and suddenly not being able
to breathe.
Aside from the sickness factor,
making time to do the things that inspire
you should also be a priority because,
um, what’s the point of living life
without them? Where’s the fun in waking
up at eighty-five and realizing you
“couldn’t find the time” to enjoy
yourself? What were you doing that was
more important instead? This is not a
luxury reserved for people who are
richer, smarter, or less bogged down
than you are. It’s a luxury reserved for
people who take the time to figure it out
and choose to design a more fun-filled
life.
Use the tools in this chapter to make
the time to get the rest you need and have
the fun you want so you can enjoy your
precious life while you’re still in
possession of it.
4. LOVE YOURSELF
You’re doing an awesome job.
CHAPTER 20:
FEAR IS FOR SUCKERS
We tiptoe through life hoping to
safely make it to death.
—Unknown
When I lived in New Mexico, a friend of
mine took me to this cave she’d heard
about up in the Jemez Mountains. “It’s
more like a big hole in the ground,
actually,” she said, “but I hear it’s
pretty
cool.” She didn’t do a great job of
selling it, especially when she got to the
part about how we’d have to crawl
around on all fours the whole time, but I
wasn’t really listening to her anyway.
Caves don’t interest me, no matter what
size they are; I was only going for the
road trip and the hike through the
mountains and this great burger place
that I discovered the last time I was up
there. The cave was just a necessary part
of the trip, like stopping for gas.
After a glorious drive beneath the
endless New Mexico sky and a beautiful
hike on a red dirt path through a piñon
pine forest, we got to The Cave. It was
just as she’d described: a little hole at
the base of a small hill just big enough to
crawl through. My friend tossed me a
pair of knee pads and a flashlight and
headed in. I followed her on my hands
and knees, holding my flashlight with my
teeth, and by the time we were about ten
minutes in, I felt like the entrance, and
my chances of ever seeing another
burger again, had vanished. If anything
came at us from inside the cave, like,
say, a monster, or if there was a flash
flood or an earthquake or a rattlesnake
or a mosquito, we were totally screwed.
The craggy white rock tunnel
surrounding us had closed in so tightly
that when my friend finally stopped
crawling and leaned against the wall to
sit, she had to do so with her head bent
so far forward it looked like she was
about to start chewing on her neck. What
the hell was I doing there again?
“Okay, now for the cool part—you
ready?” she asked. “Turn off your light.”
She clicked off her flashlight after
motioning for me to do the same. The
instant my light went out, I experienced
the absolute darkest darkness of beyond
pitch-black holy fucking shit deepest
darkest blackness ever. I felt the tickling
of hysteria begin to worm its way up the
back of my neck, and for the first time in
my life, I completely understood fear.
Because fear was the only thing I
could see in that hole. It sat there,
omnipresent, gigantic, all consuming,
staring me straight in the face asking,
“So, you gonna let me swallow you up
or what?”
I realized that with absolutely zero
effort, I could unravel into a
claustrophobic freak-out of such
scratching, biting, high-pitched
crazylady screaming colossal-ness, that
it would leave both me and my friend
staring at a wall, playing with our lips
for weeks after they dragged our limp
and bloodied bodies out of that cave.
Or . . . not.
The choice was mine.
To fear or not to fear,
that is the question.
I’m pleased to report that I decided
to forego the fear frenzy in favor of
calmly crawling back out of the cave to
the land of sunshine, open spaces, and
walking on two legs. I emerged with not
only an alarming amount of sand in my
ears and severe lockjaw from cracking
the flashlight with my teeth, but with a
new and profound understanding of the
choice aspect of fear.
It’s so simple; fear will always be
there, poised and ready to wreak havoc,
but we can choose whether we’re going
to engage with it or turn on the lights,
drown it out and crawl past it. I also
realized that drowning it out is actually
pretty easy, we’ve just been conditioned
to believe otherwise.
We’ve made being in fear a habit.
We’re pumped full of it as children,
like sugar, then as we grow we continue
to take in the bad news on TV and the
horror in the papers and the violence in
books and films and video games and all
this junk that fills us to the brim with
fear about our world. We’re taught to
play it safe and not take risks, and to
caution everyone around us to follow
suit.
And it’s become such an accepted
part of our social conditioning that we
don’t even realize we’re doing it.
For example, what would your
immediate response be to someone you
really loved and deeply cared about if
they said, whilst sputtering with
excitement, any of the following things to
you:
I’m taking out a gigantic loan to build
my dream business.
I’m going to travel around the world.
For a year. By myself.
I’m quitting my secure, full-time job
to become an actor.
I met the most incredible person last
week and I’m totally in love. And
we’re getting married.
I’m going skydiving.
For the most part, when we watch
someone take a leap of faith, our first
reaction is to scream, “Look out!” We’ve
not only made a habit out of smearing
our fear and worry and doubt all over
each other, but we pat ourselves on the
backs for it because we believe that it
shows how much we care.
THAT’s something worth being
scared of, if you ask me.
There’s something called the Crab
Effect. If you put a bunch of crabs in a
bowl and if, while they’re in there
crawling all over each other, one of them
tries to climb out, the rest of them will
try to pull him back down instead of
helping to push him out. No wonder
they’re called crabs.
Imagine how different our world
would be if we were less crab-like. If
we were not only taught to really truly
believe in miracles, yes, I realize how
dorky that sounds, but were rewarded
and supported, instead of cautioned and
screamed at, for taking huge leaps into
the unknown. We give a lot of lip service
to the idea that anything is possible, and
we all grow up with posters of kittens
and baby seals on our walls that say
follow your dreams on them, but should
you actually do something radical, all
the flashing lights and sirens go off.
Know what I’m sayin’?
Fear lives in the future. The feeling
of being afraid is real, but the fear itself
is all made up because it hasn’t even
happened yet—death, going bankrupt,
breaking a leg, forgetting our lines,
getting yelled at for being late, getting
rejected, etc. Most of the time we have
no guarantee that what we fear is going
to even happen and that if it does, that
it’s going to be scary! Take death for
example. For all we know we leave our
bodies and melt into a state of pure love
and light and sparkly things and unicorns
and bunnies eternal orgasmic giddiness.
We can be as sure of that as we can
about anything else in the future, so why
create all the drama?
All it takes to turn the fear factor
around is learning to be comfortable in,
instead of terrified of, the unknown. And
this is done through faith.
It basically comes down to how you
choose to go through life:
Is your fear greater
than your faith in the
unknown (and
yourself)?
Or is your faith in the
unknown (and yourself)
greater than your fear?
While you’re making your choice,
here’s a mouthful from good old Helen
Keller:
Life is either a daring adventure, or
nothing. To keep our faces toward
change and behave like free spirits in
the presence of fate is strength
undefeatable.
There’s that incredible moment when
you decide, “screw it, I’m going for it,”
and suddenly the thrill overtakes the
fear. And then you’re flying on the magic
carpet—you’re signing on the dotted line
to buy the house, confronting your father,
sliding the ring onto the finger, stepping
onto the stage in front of thousands. I
mean, talk about feeling alive!
On the other side of
your fear is your
freedom.
Here are some helpful ways to navigate
your way through the jungle of fear:
1. VIEW FEAR FROM
YOUR REAR VIEW
MIRROR
Think about some radical thing you did
in the past that literally gave you the
shakes it was so big and scary. And now
look back on it—how terrifying is it
now? Can you conjure up any scary
feelings about it? Even a weensy twinge
of fear? Keep this in mind as you face
each new challenge: No matter how
intimidating your next great leap forward
seems at the moment, it will be a
pipsqueak when you look back on it
someday. So why wait? Why not look at
it through pipsqueak colored glasses
right now? Envision your challenges
from the future, look back on them from
a place of victory, and they will lose
much of their power to paralyze you.
I always use my first trip to India as
an example when I’m being a weenie
about doing something that scares me. It
was one of my very first international
solo trips, and even though my
experience with anything Indian up to
that point pretty much consisted of a
couple Ravi Shankar CDs and some
chicken tikka masala, I thought it would
be such a cool place to see. I wanted to
go somewhere totally new and
experience a reality that was as different
from my own as possible. I thought going
to India would be like going through the
looking glass.
So I buy my ticket and then it hits me
—what the hell am I trying to prove?
Why am I doing this? I’d never gone
anywhere that far away by myself
before, where I knew no one, didn’t
speak the language, had no idea what to
expect, and I swear I built it up to
become one of the most terrifying things
I ever did in my life. Because I imagined
myself as this tiny little dot, all the way
on the other side of the globe, floating
around in space where I was utterly
anonymous, a ghost, a stranger, where I
could disappear without a trace and
nobody I loved would have any idea
what happened to me. Poof!
It got so bad that I started fantasizing
about seriously injuring myself or that
my best friend would die so I wouldn’t
have to go (for some reason, just
canceling my ticket never entered my
mind). As luck would have it, however,
nobody died, and I found myself being
driven to the airport like I was going to
my own funeral. The moment I stepped
into the international terminal at the
airport, however, I was swept up in a
sea of colors and people from all over
the world and movement and languages
and my terror was instantly bulldozed by
excitement. I’m going to freakin’ India!
When I got on the plane, I sat next to
this gorgeous Indian woman wearing a
pink sari and huge gold earrings who
turned to me, smiled, and offered me an
M&M and that’s when it really sank in;
You’re not alone you ding dong. You are
surrounded by people. And one of the
most basic common human needs is
connection. I then proceeded to spend
two months traveling around a country
that is now by far one of my favorite
places on this planet and that sparked in
me a love for travel that has completely
changed my life.
This, and other examples from my
own life, keep proving to me over and
over that:
Our greatest fears are the
greatest waste of time.
Face your fears with the truth, that
they are all in your mind, and they will
lose their power over you.
2. FLIP THE FEAR
When you find yourself letting fear push
you around, look at it from a different
perspective. Start by breaking it down,
finding what it is that you’re really
afraid of and then flipping it around to
make it work for you, not against you.
Show it who’s boss. Feed your fear a
suck-it sandwich.
For example:
I want to write a book but can’t get
myself to sit down and do it. Why not?
I’m scared that if I do it will be
terrible. What happens if it’s terrible?
If
it’s terrible I’ll look stupid. Then what?
People will make fun of me. Then what?
I’ll feel ashamed. Okay, so you’re not
writing your book in order to protect
yourself from feeling stupid and
ashamed.
Now flip it: How stupid and ashamed
will you feel if you don’t write your
book? Very. I know it’s a brilliant idea.
And it’s a big dream of mine. So will
your strategy of not writing it in order to
protect yourself from feeling stupid and
ashamed protect you from feeling stupid
and ashamed? No. And since you’re
risking feeling stupid and ashamed either
way, which version is worse—trying to
write it and having it be terrible or never
going for it and living an unlived life of
mediocrity, wimpiness; and shame?
Living an unlived life of mediocrity,
wimpiness; and shame.
Break it down so you can really look
at, and defuse, what it is about a
situation that’s scaring you. Fear is all
about how you choose to look at things,
so by changing your perspective on it
you can let the fear of NOT doing the
thing you’re scared of fuel your quest to
greatness.
3. BE IN THE MOMENT
Is anything scary happening to you right
now at this very moment? Right now,
where you’re sitting, is anything bad
actually happening or is it just the
thoughts in your head that are freaking
you out? You deplete the much-needed
energy you need to kick ass by freaking
out before something even happens.
Instead, stay in the moment and connect
to your higher self. If you’re about to
walk into the courtroom or jump out of a
plane or ask for a raise, breathe into the
moment and stay connected to Source
Energy. Keep your frequency high and
your belief in miracles strong instead of
falling prey to the fears in your mind,
and you’ll find that not only are you
much better equipped to deal with
whatever situation it is that you’re
headed for, but that, nine times out of ten,
it’s much scarier in your mind than it is
in reality.
4. CUT OFF THE STREAM
OF CRAP
Be more conscious of the information
you absorb. What blogs do you read?
What shows do you watch? What books
do you read? What stories do you read
in the paper? What movies do you go to?
Whose opinion do you ask? What do you
focus on in your day-to-day life? This
isn’t about being in denial or out of
touch with what’s going on in the world,
it’s about how much of this information
you really need. Are you staring at a car
accident or are you gathering
information that will allow you to
contribute to positive change?
Wallowing in the pain and suffering
isn’t going to help anyone, yourself
included, any more than starving
yourself will help the hungry. If you want
to help the world and yourself, keep
your frequency high and do your work
from a place of power and joy.
5. DON’T THINK OF
ANYTHING UPSETTING
IN BED AT NIGHT
Our minds turn into gigantic magnifying
glasses that make all our fears 100
percent bigger when we’re lying there as
a captive audience at 3 a.m., in bed, with
nothing to distract us. Unless you’re
going to get out of bed right then and
there and take some sort of action, don’t
waste your precious time thinking about
your problems. Every time you do this,
it’s never as bad the next morning when
you get up. You know this and yet . . .
Use your meditative powers to move
troubling thoughts out of your mind;
focus on relaxing every single muscle in
your body one by one, slowly and
intentionally, so that it takes up all the
room in your brain that you were using
to freak out with. Breathe deeply and
think about all the incredible things in
your life, listen to a guided meditation,
do whatever you can to get a good
night’s sleep and deal with whatever it
is in the morning. Because the only thing
worse than staying up all night freaking
out about something is then being too
exhausted the next day to deal with it
either.
6. LOVE YOURSELF
And you will be invincible.
CHAPTER 21:
MILLIONS OF MIRRORS
No one can make you feel inferior
without your consent.
—Eleanor Roosevelt; activist,
feminist, superhero, longestserving
First Lady of the
United States evah
One of the most staggering things about
other people is that they provide us with
valuable, and often alarmingly intimate,
information about who they are as soon
as we meet them. If we pay attention, we
can pick up on the major clues they’re
sending out through their body language,
their appearance, their lifestyle, their
actions, their interests, their words, how
they treat their dogs, the waitress,
themselves, etc. Some people let it all
hang out for everyone to see right away,
others let it seep out in little spurts: “I
love water skiing,” “I admire how
confident you are about your weight
problem,” “I just got out of prison,”
etc.
With the exception of the sociopath or
the skilled pathological liar, the majority
of humanity gives us plenty to chew on
right out of the gate.
All of this information then goes
through the filter of who we are, and
depending on our perceptions and
judgments and hang ups and number of
years spent in therapy, we decide if the
person is someone we want to get to
know better or not.
We’re all attracted to, as well as
turned off by, various things about other
people. And the things that stand out the
most to us are the things that remind us
the most of ourselves. This is because
other people are like mirrors for us: If
somebody bugs you, you’re projecting
onto them something that you don’t like
about yourself, and if you think they’re
awesome, they’re reflecting back
something that you see in yourself that
you like (even if it’s not developed in
you yet). I know this sounds like I’m
making a massive generalization, but just
stay with me here.
Your reality is created by what you
focus on and how you choose to interpret
it. This goes for everything, including the
things you focus on about the people in
your world. For example, depending on
who you are, you could react in myriad
ways to your new boyfriend or girlfriend
constantly referring to you as “The Giant
Dumbass.” You could A) See this as a
red flag and think they’re a bully B) See
this as a red flag and think they’re
nervous or insecure and have terrible
manners C) See this as a green light
because “they are in so much pain that
they need to abuse other people. They
really need someone as understanding as
I am” D) See this as a green light
because you believe that you are, in fact,
a giant dumbass or E.) Think it’s
hilarious because it doesn’t resonate
with you.
The people you
surround yourself with
are excellent mirrors
for who you are and
how much, or how
little, you love yourself.
We attract people into our lives for a
reason, just as they attract us into theirs.
We all help each other grow and figure
out our issues, if we seize the
opportunity to learn from, instead of just
react to (by getting defensive or
justifying our actions or whining about),
the highly irritating things other people
do. It’s our annoying friends or family
members or clients or neighbors or lady
on the train with the voice like a
bullhorn who help us grow and see who
we truly are even more than our beloved
BFFs do (unless they’re being
momentarily annoying, and then we can
thank them, too). Don’t miss the glorious
opportunity to learn that’s being handed
to you by the person whose mouth you’d
really love to stick your fist in.
The things that bother us about other
people bother us because they remind us
of something that we don’t like about
ourselves. Or their behavior triggers a
fear or insecurity that we have, but may
not realize we have. For the longest
time, one of my big stories was that
being feminine was weak and annoying.
Somewhere along the way I decided that
it wasn’t cool or powerful to act like (or
be) a girl, and my femininity became a
part of me that I was ashamed of. Hence,
I was much less threatened by women
who came at me with a power drill than
women who came at me with an
eyebrow pencil, which is why it’s pretty
hilarious to me still that one of my best
friends is as girly as they get. I met her
when we were working together in New
York City and was instantly drawn to her
because she’s hilariously brilliant and
sweet and did a flawless impression of
one of our coworkers walking down the
hall with his ass sticking out that always
left me doubled over, clinging to
furniture. Unlike me, however, she’s a
lover of girls’ nights out and mani-pedi
dates, an eager ogler of engagement
rings when summoned by the fluttering
hand of a soon-to-be bride, and a pro at
the girly-girl gang greeting: Arms raised
high in the air, head back, eyes squeezed
shut, high-pitched Oh-my-Gods for all to
hear. For this, we call her Pink.
A decade later, I’m living in Los
Angeles and Pink is living outside New
York City— married with a bunch of
kids, natch. When she decides to take her
first solo vacation since becoming a
mom, and heads to San Diego to see her
best friend from college, she calls and
begs me to drive down to see her. I
agree, somewhat begrudgingly. It wasn’t
the two-hour drive that bothered me, but
the best friend from college, who I’d
never met but was sure was pinker than
Pink. I imagined a full-on sorority scene,
complete with painting our toenails
while having a Meg Ryan movie fest and
talking about how fat we’d gotten. But I
love Pink, so off I went.
Meanwhile, down in San Diego,
Pink’s best friend from college is less
than thrilled at the prospect of Pink’s
best gal pal from her New York City
days driving down from L.A. Her eyes
were also rolling at the potential
estrogen bomb, so imagine our delight
when we discovered that we were both
equally as macho. Once we realized that
the playing field wasn’t as
overwhelmingly pink as we feared it
would be, however, we got the biggest
surprise of all: our inner, neglected girls
felt safe to come out hiding. All three of
us lost our voices that weekend, cackling
and screaming, “Oh my God,” for all to
hear. I wouldn’t be surprised if a toenail
or two even got painted. Don’t
remember. Was too drunk on wine
spritzers.
I’m still not the most enthused
member of a bridal shower, and I’m not
saying that you have to come around and
like everything in this world that bothers
you, but I am saying that if you actively
don’t like something, it’s because it
resonates with you on some level, it has
meaning to you.
When you find yourself dealing with
someone who irritates you (and you find
yourself getting gossipy, fingerpointy,
judgy, complainey), rising up and
confronting the situation can do a hell of
a lot more than just making your life
more pleasant in the long run; it can help
you heal and grow and get out of victim
mode. Because it forces you to deal with
the gnarlier aspects of yourself, the parts
that make you not so proud. None of us
care to admit that we’re dishonest,
conceited, insecure, unethical, mean,
bossy, stupid, lazy, etc., but that’s what
attracted you to the people you notice it
in, and them to you, in the first place.
And admitting it is the first step in letting
it go—wheeee!
If people are annoying in a way that
has nothing to do with us, we either
don’t notice it or we don’t get that hung
up on it. For example, say there’s
someone in your life who you find to be
an insufferable know-it-all. Every time
you open your mouth to talk about
something you did, she says she’s
already done it. Anything you know, she
already knows. And knows much more
about. And she has to make sure you, and
everyone within a ten mile radius,
knows how much more she knows about
it. While you find yourself entertaining
fantasies about putting her head through
the wall every time you’re around her,
someone else might be hanging on her
every word, unable to get enough of her
fascinating and brilliant conversation.
The reason she makes you crazy is
because you most likely are a know-itall
yourself, or you worry that you are
one, or you have insecurities about
people thinking that you know nothing.
Our reality is a mirror of our
thoughts, the people in our reality
included.
Same thing goes with what people
throw at us. Would you be offended if
someone kept making fun of how short
you were if you were six feet tall? It
most likely wouldn’t even register, or if
it did, you’d just think they were kind
of
strange. But if they teased you about
being bossy, and deep down you feared
you were, it would definitely get your
attention. (It would also mean they have
energy around their own bossiness if
they’re recognizing it in you, but that’s
not your problem.)
What you focus on you create more of
in your life. If you’re consciously or
subconsciously focused on certain
beliefs about who you are, or who you
want to be or who you do not want to be,
you will attract people who mirror those
traits right back at you.
This is why, when you’re dealing
with a backstabbing “friend” or some
sort of toxic person that you need to
stand up to or kick out of your life, you
get caught in this self-inflicted trap of
not wanting to hurt the other person or
latching on to their finer qualities or
fearing the worst if you don’t put up with
their crap. I don’t care how long you’ve
been friends with someone or how sorry
you feel for them or how they really
helped you those eight million times or
how hilarious, successful, hot, inspiring,
desperate, scary, connected, brilliant, or
helpless they are, because the reason
you’re having trouble standing up to
them isn’t about any of that.
What’s really going on is you’re
being faced with rewiring your limited
beliefs about yourself. And you’re using
these excuses for these other people to
avoid facing your own issues—your
own issues around sticking up for
yourself.
At the end of the day,
it’s not about them, it’s
about you believing
you’re worthy of being
loved and seen for who
you really are.
When we agree to let ourselves down
in favor of supporting the bad behavior
of others, it often stems from the same
impulse: We’re unwilling to make other
people more uncomfortable than they
just made us. Not terribly studly in the
old self-love department, is it? By
making them uncomfortable I mean
declining to participate in their drama,
by the way, not by being equally abusive
back. This isn’t about getting an eye for
an eye and sinking to a lower level, it’s
about standing up for your highest self no
matter if the person you’re dealing with
should choose to have the experience of:
• Feeling disappointed
• Feeling hurt
• Feeling inconvenienced
• Seeing you as a crazy person
It’s about respecting
yourself, instead of
catering to your
insecure need to be
liked.
This is incredibly powerful, because
when you love yourself enough to stand
in your truth no matter what the cost,
everyone benefits. You start attracting
the kinds of things, people, and
opportunities, that are in alignment with
who you truly are, which is way more
fun than hanging out with a bunch of
irritating energy suckers. And by
declining to participate in other people’s
drama, (i.e. refusing to rip people to
shreds, to complain about how unfair the
world is, etc.) you not only raise your
own frequency, but you offer the drama
queens the chance to rise up too, instead
of everyone continuing to play a low,
lame game.
Never apologize for
who you are. It lets the
whole world down.
We all know someone who does not
take shit from anyone. Ever. We look
upon these types of people with wideeyed
reverence, and would never dream
of being stupid enough to present them
with any of our BS or try to make them
wrong. Why? Because we respect them
and, um, are usually kind of terrified of
them (in a healthy way). And why do we
respect them? Because they respect
themselves.
So how can you get rid of your lameo
projections and judgments and grace
the world with your highest, most
unapologetic self?
1. OWN YOUR UGLY
Start noticing the things that drive you
nuts about other people, and, instead of
complaining or judging or getting
defensive about them, use them as a
mirror. Especially if you find yourself
getting really worked up. Get mighty
real with yourself—is this quality
something you have yourself? Or is there
a certain aspect to it that you’re loath
to
admit is just like you? Or does it remind
you of something you’re actively trying
to suppress? Or avoid? Or that you’re
actively doing just the opposite of? Or
that you’re threatened by? Become
fascinated by, instead of furious about,
the irritants surrounding you and get yer
learnin’ on.
2. QUESTION YOUR
UGLY
Once you discover what part of yourself
you’re projecting onto the person who is
presently bugging the living crap out of
you, you can start letting it go. Begin by
asking yourself some very simple
questions and defusing the limiting and
false stories you’ve been lugging around
for ages.
For example, if you’re all pissed off
that your friend who’s always late is late
again, it’s pushing your buttons because
you’re holding on to some sort of “truth”
about the way people should be with
time. Flip it around and ask yourself
things like, “In what ways am I always
late or inconsiderate or unreliable?” Or
maybe it’s “In what ways am I’m too
rigid or controlling?”
Once you have your answer, ask
yourself:
WHO DO I NEED TO BE
FOR THIS SITUATION NOT
TO BOTHER ME?
Using the above scenario, let’s say you
discover that you’re a lot more rigid than
you care to admit. This is very valuable
information because you now know that
in order to be happier, you need to
loosen your bone, Wilma. Stop insisting
that people do things exactly the way you
do them (especially the people in your
life who have proven they most
definitely won’t), notice where you’re
being ridiculously demanding simply
because it’s become your habit, and not
because it’s really necessary, and
constantly ask yourself “can I let this
one
go?” By becoming aware of what we do,
we can investigate why we do it and
then choose to keep it or drop it, instead
of blindly reacting through habit.
WHAT AM I GETTING OUT
OF BEING THIS WAY?
As discussed in Chapter 17: It’s So Easy
Once You Figure Out It Isn’t Hard, we
don’t do anything unless we’re getting
something out of it, even if what we’re
getting are false benefits. Using this
scenario, some of the positive benefits
of being rigid are that you’re always on
time, you get shit done, etc. But there are
also some negative advantages to being
rigid too; you intimidate people into
getting your way, you get to be right
whenever someone messes up (which
they’ll do often if you’ve really honed
the rigid thing well), you get to be in
control, etc. Once you bust yourself on
the false reward you’re getting from
holding on to this behavior, you can see
it for what it is—something that’s not
always in alignment with who you truly
are and aspire to be—and release it
when it’s not working.
HOW WOULD I FEEL IF I
WASN’T THIS WAY?
One of the best ways to release the
aforementioned lousy behavior is by
asking yourself how you’d feel if this
wasn’t true for you anymore. “How
would I feel if I took the pole out of my
ass about everyone doing everything
exactly how I say to do it, all the time,
in
every circumstance?” Ask the question
and then imagine yourself as this person
who has let it go. How does your body
feel? What do you use the brain space
for that used to be taken up with
poisonous thoughts about the
inconsiderate pinheads you’re
surrounded by who are not following
your instructions? Feel into the reality of
what it would be to let this go, breathe
into it, visualize it, fall in love with not
having it anymore, and then kick it to the
curb.
3. DON’T BE AN
ENABLER
In the fuzzier cases where you’re not
sure what to do, but you really do want
to help someone, recognize the
difference between helping and
enabling. When you reach out a helping
hand, do you feel like they’re pulling you
down or that you’re lifting them up
toward their potential? Are they grateful
or entitled? Do they use your help to
actively move themselves in a positive
direction or do they constantly need
more-more-more? Just this one last time.
For the fiftieth time.
Pay attention and trust how you feel.
If you’re truly helping them and they’re
rising to the occasion, it will raise
everyone’s frequencies and you’ll feel
good. If you’re enabling them, you’ll
feel
heavy, depressed, and eventually
resentful. While it’s no fun to kick
someone to the curb when they’re at
their lowest low, if you constantly bail
them out, they’ll never wake up and save
themselves. Why should they? They’ve
got you to fund their pity party. Tough
love is still love.
4. GIVE PAINFUL PEOPLE
THE HEAVE-HO
Sometimes, no matter how much work
you do on yourself and how forgiving
you are and how skilled you get at letting
it go, there’s just no way around it: Some
people are just too committed to their
own dysfunction. They’re painful to be
around. You’d rather cover yourself with
the fleas of a thousand camels than go
out for a cup of coffee with them.
This is all about learning and loving
and growing into the highest version of
yourself, not seeing just how much
torture you can endure. So along with
understanding how to grow from the notso-
savory behavior of those around you,
it’s also important to understand how to
get the hell away from them if they’re
chronically self-obsessed or violent or
blaming or negative or controlling or
jealous or high drama or manipulative or
victimized or whiney or pessimistic or
mean to animals. Here’s how:
FIRST, FEED YOUR HEAD
As discussed, lot of times the people we
need to kick to the curb happen to be
those we love, or at least like a lot, for
their decent qualities. Hence ye olde
guilt can really get in our way when
trying to do the right thing. So stay
strong. See it as being nice to yourself
instead of being mean to them.
Remembering that you are rising up to be
the highest version of yourself instead of
shrinking down to their level can give
you the strength you need to shake them
off your leg.
NEXT, HIT EJECT
Another important thing to remember
when yanking the weeds out of your
garden is not to get involved in their
drama. Cut the cord as quickly and
simply as possible, with little to no
discussion. If they’re so oblivious to
your feelings that you need to toss them
out of your life, chances are very good
they won’t see this coming, so the
discussion on why you need to end it
could go on for the rest of your lives if
you let it. Suddenly get really busy, fade
them out, wean them off you with zero
explanation. The louder they scream, the
busier you suddenly get.
If having a conversation is
unavoidable, remember: You’ve already
decided that you want out, so don’t get
sucked into working through your
decision, or their problems, with them.
Simply say that the relationship isn’t
working for you, that you don’t like how
it makes you feel, that you have to end it,
and that it’s not open for discussion.
Make it all about you, give them nothing
to work with or argue on their behalf.
5. LOVE YOURSELF
Fiercely, loyally, unapologetically.
CHAPTER 22:
THE SWEET LIFE
It’s great to be here. It’s great to be
anywhere.
—Keith Richards; Rock God,
connoisseur of life
I’ve got a cat who’s twenty-two years
old.
I’ve also got a dad who’s eightyseven.
The cat and my dad share the same
superhero power: They both have the
ability to make me pay lots of attention
to them and be nicer to them than I am to
anyone else. Anyone else not staring
down the barrel of their impending
mortality, that is.
I first realized that my cat was old
and might die soon about a year ago
when, overnight, all his body fat plunged
to his belly region, causing him to swing
it around like an udder and leaving him
with a spine that’s still in shock, jutting
out all spindly and jagged, wondering
where everybody went. This is when the
teary farewells started every time I’d
leave the house and the fancy wet food
began appearing in his bowl.
In Dad’s case, the phone calls and
flights back east have escalated
dramatically, and I now laugh
hysterically at all his jokes, no doubt
making him worry more about my well
being than I do about his.
I’m thrilled to report that even though
in the calendar’s opinion, they’re real
old, they’re both still kicking butt. Dad
plays tennis once a week and still knows
who I am, and my cat still runs when he
hears the can opener.
They are also excellent reminders:
When it comes to the creatures you love
and the things you love and the life you
love, what on earth could possibly be
more important than soaking them up
right now while you still have the
opportunity?
If it’s something you want to do,
don’t wait until you’re less busy or
richer or “ready” or twenty pounds
lighter. Start right now. You’ll never be
this young again.
If it’s the people you love, visit them
as often as possible. Act as if every time
you see them will be the last. If they bug
you sometimes, love them anyway. If
you’ve got differences, get over them.
Don’t get so tangled up in the stupid
little stuff that you miss out on enjoying
the people who have part-ownership of
your heart.
If you’re not where you want to be in
life, keep going. Treat yourself like
you’re the closest friend you’ve got.
Celebrate the magnificent creature that
you are. Don’t let anyone mess with you
and your dreams, least of all yourself.
Your life is happening right now. Do
not snooze and lose.
LOVE YOURSELF
While you’ve still got the chance.
PART
5:
HOW
TO
KICK
SOME
ASS
CHAPTER 23:
THE ALMIGHTY DECISION
Until one is committed, there is
hesitancy, the chance to draw
back, always ineffectiveness. The
moment one definitely commits
oneself, then providence moves
too.
—W.H. Murray; explorer,
mountain climber, committer
The story goes that when Henry Ford
first came up with the idea for his V-8
motor, he wanted the engine to have all
eight cylinders cast in one block. I have
no idea what that means, but apparently
it was a tall order because his team of
engineers was like, “Bitch, you crazy!”
He told them to do it anyway, and off
they grumbled to toil away at it, only to
come back and inform him that it was
impossible.
Upon hearing this news, Ford told
them to keep at it, no matter how long it
took. He was all, “I don’t want to see
your faces until you bring me what I
want,” and they were all, “We just
proved it can’t be done,” and he was all,
“It can be done and it will be done,”
and
they were all, “Can not,” and he was all,
“Can so,” and they were all, “No way,”
and he was all, “Way,” so off they went
again, this time for a whole year, and . . .
nothing.
So they go back to Ford and there’s
lots of tears and finger-pointing and hair
pulling and Ford sends them off again,
and tells them it will be done again and
then, in the lab, somewhere between
folding origami swans out of their notes
and making fart noises every time
someone mentions the word “Ford,” his
engineers do the impossible. They
discover how to make his eight-cylinder
engine block.
This is what it means to make a
decision for reals.
When you make a no-nonsense
decision, you sign up fully and keep
moving toward your goal, regardless of
what’s flung in your path. And stuff will
most definitely get flung, which is why
making the decision is so crucial—this
shit is not for sissies. The moment it gets
hard or expensive or puts you at risk of
looking like a moron, if you haven’t
made the decision, you’ll quit. If it
wasn’t uncomfortable, everyone would
be out there all in love with their
fabulous lives.
So often, we pretend
we’ve made a decision,
when what we’ve really
done is signed up to try
until it gets too
uncomfortable.
Henry Ford didn’t even make it past
the sixth grade and there he was, bossing
around a bunch of the world’s biggest
engineering smarty-pants, setting himself
up to look like a total idiot by spending
large amounts of money and time on the
proven impossible.
Ford was determined. And he trusted
his gut and his vision more than the
small thinking of others. He’d made the
decision that he would have his engine
the way he would have it and nothing
was going to stop him.
This is why the decision is so
important. If you had an idea and had to
go up against a roomful of people who
“knew better” than you did, and demand
they do what you say in spite of all the
proof they had against you, would you
stick to your guns? Or if you needed tens
of thousands of dollars to start your new
business, and the only person you could
think of to ask was your scary, rich uncle
who never remembered who you were
even though you saw him every
Christmas, would you ask him for it? Or
if you were sick of feeling fat and unsexy
and out of shape and the only time you
could make it to the gym was at 5 a.m.
on freezing winter mornings when you
were all snuggly in bed, would you go?
If you made the decision that you were
going to reach your goals, you would do
whatever it took. If you merely wanted
to, but hadn’t made the firm decision to,
you’d roll over and begin convincing
yourself that your life is fine just the way
it is.
This is where being connected to
your desire and Source Energy, and
having an unshakable belief in the notyet
seen, is so critical. There are plenty
of times when we get a brilliant idea and
it temporarily fails or it pushes us into
unfamiliar territory. If we don’t have a
strong connection to the truth—we live
in an abundant Universe, we are
awesome, glorious and tear-jerkingly
lovable, etc.—a blazing desire, and an
unflinching belief in our own vision
before it’s manifested, we’ll fall prey
to
our own fears and everyone else’s fears
that it’s not possible and give up, instead
of course-correcting or pushing on
through and bringing it to life. As
Winston Churchill so aptly explained,
“Success consists of going from failure
to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Nobody gets to the top
of the mountain without
falling on his face over
and over again.
By the way, back when Henry Ford
insisted to a roomful of annoyed
engineers that his V-8 engine could be
built the way he envisioned it, it was
after he’d already gone bankrupt in his
first attempt at creating an automobile
empire. So at that time, he already had
plenty of proof that he was capable of
failing on a massive scale, but his faith
in himself and his vision was so strong
that he stuck with it, in spite of all the
evidence around him that pointed to “big
fat loser,” and became one of the must
successful entrepreneurs of all time.
Temporary failure is all the rage. All
the cool kids have done it:
• Michael Jordan was cut from his
high school basketball team for lack
of skill.
• Steven Spielberg, a high school
dropout, was rejected from film
school three times.
• Thomas Edison, who was dubbed
too stupid to learn anything by a
teacher, tried more than nine thousand
experiments before successfully
creating the light bulb.
• Soichiro Honda, the founder of
Honda Motor Company, was turned
down by Toyota for an engineering
position so he started his own damn
company.
• Beethoven’s music teacher told him
he was talentless, and more
specifically, was hopeless at
composing. Beethoven turned a deaf
ear. (I know, so bad. Sorry.)
• Fred Smith wrote a paper while at
Yale about his big idea for an
overnight delivery service. He got a
C. He went on to create FedEx
anyway.
The only failure is
quitting. Everything else
is just gathering
information.
There’s no big mystery to this stuff: If
you want something badly enough and
decide that you will get it, you will.
You’ve done it before—you’ve lost the
weight, gotten the job, bought the house,
quit the nasty habit, gotten in shape,
asked someone out, splurged on the front
row tickets, grown out your bangs—you
just need to remember that you can do it
with anything in your life, even the
things that you presently think are out
of your reach.
There are plenty of people out there
in the world living the kind of life you
only dream about living, many of whom
are far less fabulous and talented than
you are. They key to their success is that
they decided to go for it, they stopped
listening to their tired old excuses,
changed their lousy habits, and got the
fuck on the fuck.
Here’s how you can, too:
1. WANT IT BAD
You need to have a ten-ton gorilla of
desire behind your decision or else
you’ll wimp out the second things get
hard. It’s like people who get hypnotized
to quit smoking when they really don’t
want to quit, or who try to lose weight
when they’re more excited by pizza than
being able to look down and see their
feet. It never works. A few months ago I
dragged my ass to yoga class for a solid
week even though I just so, so, so did not
feel like doing it. I paid my money, sat
on my mat, and was surprised to find my
hand raised in the air when the instructor
asked if anyone had any injuries she
should know about. I then heard myself
explaining that I’d just gotten the cast
off
my broken elbow and should really take
it easy. I am an adult. I am very busy. I
spent money on that class and then lied
so I didn’t have to participate. (I did
have a cast, but it had come off about
eight months earlier.) I spent the majority
of Yoga Week quietly napping on my mat
and conjuring up my best “wincing in
pain” face in case she was looking at me
whilst I was half-assing Down Dog. It
was ridiculous.
If you’re going to push through major
obstacles to reach your goal, you can’t
just want to want to; you need to be in a
full-on tizzy of excitement about what it
is you’re going after and hold on to it
like a pit bull. In order to do this you
need to have the audacity to be honest
about what you really want to do, not
what you should do, believe it’s
available to you regardless of any
evidence otherwise, and go for it.
2. GET GOOD AT IT
To decide means literally to cut off. No
wonder so many people are totally
freaked out by it! The terror around
making the wrong decision can be so
overwhelming to some people that they
develop the habit of A) Waffling back
and forth, paralyzed by self-doubt and
terror, finally eeking out a “decision”
that they then proceed to change over
and over and over again B) Making
decisions hastily, without thinking or
feeling into them, their main goal being
to escape the discomfort and get the
damn thing over with already or C)
Being so afraid that if they pick one
thing, they’ll miss out on another, so they
either choose to do nothing or try to do
everything, which are both excellent
ways to miss out on all of it. They
basically decide to never decide
because they don’t want to make the
wrong decision. Good times!
Deciding is freedom.
Indecision is torture.
Indecision is one of the most popular
tricks for staying stuck within the
boundaries of what’s safe and familiar.
Which is why a common trait of
successful people is that they make
decisions quickly and change them
slowly. And by quickly I don’t mean that
you must know exactly what to do the
moment a decision presents itself
(although there are those people who
do), but rather that you immediately face
the damn thing and start working through
your decision-making process, whatever
that may look like: sleeping on it, making
a list of the pros and cons, feeling into
it,
etc.
If you’re a waffler, or prefer to avoid
the process altogether, a great thing to do
is practice on the little things to build
up
your decision-making muscle. When
eating at restaurants, make yourself pick
something off the menu in under thirty
seconds. Once you choose, you are
unauthorized to change your mind or
your order. Give yourself twenty minutes
to go online and research the best garlic
press and then make the purchase. Pick
things off the shelves at the supermarket
in under ten seconds. Knock yourself out
of the habit of being a deer stuck in the
headlights by demanding you wake up
and choose something.
If you’re someone who needs to
sleep on it or mull it around a bit, give
yourself a deadline. Don’t leave it open
until you decide and risk waking up forty
years later, finally sure of what to do,
long after the opportunity has passed you
by. Pay attention to how much time you
need to decide (overnight, a week, a
month) and demand of yourself that you
figure it out by then.
If you’re wired for making instant
decisions, practice tuning into your
intuition and fully trusting what it says
(regardless of what your brain may be
screaming about). Get quiet, listen for
and feel into the answer, and practice
acting on your first, solid impulse.
And whoever you are, puhleeze, stop
saying how pathetic you are at making
decisions. Erase the phrase “I don’t
know,” from your vocabulary and
replace it with “I’ll know what to do
soon enough.” Decide to become the
person who makes quick, smart
decisions and you will.
3. ELIMINATE THE
NEGOTIATION
PROCESS
When I decided to quit smoking, if I
even toyed with thoughts like “Well,
what harm will one itty-bitty drag do?”
I
was screwed. Our decisions must be
watertight, because excuses will seep
through any little cracks in our resolve
and before we know it, we’ll be on our
asses.
Decisions are not up for
negotiation.
The old you, the one who has not yet
decided to kick ass, is in the past. Stay
present and do not, even for a second,
look backward or entertain any ideas of
straying from your decision. Think only
of the new you.
The whole point of deciding is to
stop wasting time and to move forward,
not to spend time figuring out how you
can wiggle out of your decision! It
helped me to think of it this way: I’m not
going to go home and negotiate about
whether or not I’m going to smoke a
cigarette just as I’m not going to go home
and negotiate about whether or not to
snort some horse tranquilizers. I don’t
negotiate about snorting horse
tranquilizers because I’m not a horsetranquilizer
snorter. Now that I don’t
smoke, I’m not going to negotiate about
smoking because I don’t smoke.
4. STICK LIKE GLUE
I used to write for an entrepreneurial
magazine where I got to interview all
these hugely successful business owners.
Whenever I asked them what the secret
to their success was, the overwhelming
majority answered: Tenacity. Be the last
person standing. Wear down your
obstacles and excuses and fears and
doubts until they’re finally like, “You?
Again? Jesus H. Christ, fine, here you
go, now get out of my face.”
Birthing your dreams is like. . . .
giving birth. Conceiving the idea is the
fun part (hopefully), then you go through
insane amounts of fear and excitement
and dreaming and planning and vomiting
and growing and thinking you’re crazy
and thinking you’re awesome and
stretching and shape shifting until you’re
practically unrecognizable to everyone,
even your own self. Along the way you
clean up your puke and massage your
aching back and apologize to all the
people whose heads your ripped of in a
hormonal killing spree, but you stay the
course because you know this baby of
yours is going to be the bomb. Then,
finally, just when you can see a light at
the end of the tunnel, labor starts. Your
innards twist and strangle and force you
to stumble around hunched over in the
shape of the letter “C” while you breathe
and pray and curse and just when you
think it can’t get any more out-of-yourmind
painful, a giant baby head
squeezes out of a tiny hole in your
body.
Then. A full-blown miracle appears.
In order to change your life and start
living a new one that you’ve never lived
before, your faith in miracles, and
yourself, must be greater than your fear.
However easy or rough your birth
process is, you have to be willing to fall
down, get up, look stupid, cry, laugh,
make a mess, clean it up and not stop
until you get there. No matter what.
5. LOVE YOURSELF
You can do anything.
CHAPTER 24:
MONEY, YOUR NEW BEST
FRIEND
I worked for a menial’s
hire
Only to learn, dismayed
That any wage I asked of
Life
Life would have willingly
paid.
—
Anonymous
Many years ago, Los Angeles was hit by
a relentless rainstorm the likes of which
I’d never seen in my life. It rained for
what seemed like forty days and forty
nights, nonstop and hard. Rivers
overflowed. Houses slid down hillsides.
Bad hair wreaked chaos throughout the
most image-conscious city in the world.
This was the kind of rain you didn’t
want to be driving around in in anything,
let alone a twenty-three-year-old junker
convertible with a leaky roof, no grill, a
back window that was duct-taped shut
and a front tire that went flat every three
days.
I’d been in the market for a new car
for a long time and couldn’t find
anything I really loved or thought I could
afford, but as I sat there in a puddle,
driving to the supermarket with a trash
bag under my ass and an old T-shirt
slammed in the door to keep the leaking
to a minimum, it occurred to me that
perhaps I should speed up my search.
At the time, I didn’t have a whole lot
of money, but I had my own business that
I was trying to grow. The problem was I
felt stuck in that place where even
though I wanted bigger and better things
for myself, monetarily, as well as feeling
more mighty and self-actualized in
general, I was worried that if I raised my
prices I’d lose all my clients. And my
self-respect. Or that I’d get called out
as
a money-grubbing pig. Or a fraud who
had no right to charge that much. I was
also scared that if I went big and grew
my business, I wouldn’t be able to
handle it, I’d have to hire tons of people,
I’d spend my time doing things I hated,
I’d get so busy I’d never get to travel,
I’d wither and die trapped behind my
computer, fun and freedom skidding
away in my rearview mirror never to be
seen again blah, blah, blah. I could fill
up about four more pages of reasons why
I was where I was, but suffice it to say,
I
was basically playing at the level of
someone who drives around in a car like
the one I was driving around in.
And the most painful part really was
that even though all signs pointed to
Broke, Clueless, and Stuck, deep down I
knew I could be doing SO much better.
Which is why, even though the sound of
crickets could be heard echoing
throughout my empty bank account, I
wandered into the Audi dealership, took
the brand new Q5 for a spin and let the
sales guy rattle on and on about leather
this and premium that. In my head I was
thinking, “Do you have any idea who I
am? I’m just taking a fantasy break
before heading over to Honda,” but in
my heart I knew better. Way down deep
it was about much more than just a damn
car.
It was about no longer being the
kind of person who takes what
she can get, and finally becoming
the kind of person who creates
exactly what she wants.
It was large, Marge. And because
part of me was terrified to grow and part
of me wanted to blast out and be huge,
and also because I love to drive more
than I love to eat, I tortured myself over
which car to buy for weeks.
I finally whittled it down to two
options:
The Honda CRV, a perfectly excellent
little SUV with the following attributes:
• Okay gas mileage
• A sunroof
• Room for friends
• A comfy ride
• A ho-hum stereo
• Reasonably fun to drive
• Decently priced
Or:
The Audi Q5, a stick of butter on four
wheels with the following attributes:
• Okay gas mileage
• A sunroof that takes up the entire
roof of the car
• Room for friends—big, fat, and tall
ones
• Leather seats you could have a
sexual relationship with
• A stereo designed by God Himself
• Angels sing when you open the
doors
• Sexy, flashy, expensive, pretentious,
terrifying
I came very close to buying the
Honda, but as I sat there, test-driving it
for the tenth time, trying to convince
myself that this was the One, I couldn’t
shake the nagging truth that I was in love
with someone else. Buying the Honda
would have been the sensible thing to
do, but I knew that adventure, true love,
and a whole new way of life awaited me
on the other side of my comfort zone.
Blasting through this comfort zone is
what I want to talk about here.
Purchasing the Audi should have had me
waking up screaming in the middle of the
night because it cost the kind of money I
would normally only consider spending
on something like mandatory heart
surgery, certainly not on something as
frivolous as a car. But after I bought it
I
slept like a baby. Because once I made
the decision to buy it, I also made the
decision to get over my shit and become
the kind of person who can make the
kind of money to buy that kind of car or
who can do anything else I want to do.
I almost instantly came up with a way
to pay off the Audi and am certain that if
I’d bought the Honda, I’d still be
struggling to pay for it. Because I’d still
be playing small, I’d still be in the
mindset that I can’t afford more, that I’m
the kind of person who has to struggle to
get whatever she can, that I can’t break
out of my mold and go get something
completely “out of my reach,” etc.
When you up-level
your idea of what’s
possible, and decide to
really go for it, you
open yourself up to the
means to accomplish it
as well.
I’m not talking about going out and
recklessly blowing all your money on
stupid crap. I’m talking about expanding
your beliefs about what is available to
you in all areas of your life. And for the
purposes of this chapter, I’m going to
focus on what kind of money you believe
is here for you to purchase the things and
experiences you truly desire.
Whether or not the money is currently
in your bank account is irrelevant (I
didn’t have the money either when I
bought my new car). When you’re
available to play a bigger game, i.e. quit
your ho-hum job and invest in your own
business, buy a house, send your kids to
private schools, hire a coach, hire a
housecleaner, buy a new mattress, etc.,
you either need to pay for it with the
money you have, or manifest the money
if you don’t have it already. And
manifesting it is going to be pretty damn
hard if you insist that not only is it not
there for you, but that you aren’t the kind
of person who could ever make it or pay
it off if you borrowed it.
In order to transform your life, you
may have to spend the money you do
have, get a loan, sell something, borrow
from a friend, put it on your credit card,
or manifest it in some other way. Which
is going to go against some pretty deepseated
beliefs we’ve all been raised
with about how going into debt is
irresponsible (unless it’s a student loan,
of course, because for some reason
we’ve decided in that case, and that case
only, it’s okay). This is about taking a
leap of faith into a new realm that you
strongly desire to be in, demanding of
yourself that you rise to the occasion and
start living your damn life already.
After I took my great leap into Luxury
Carland, I made multiple six-figures
with my business for the first time ever,
began traveling the world on a regular
basis, got my third book deal, made huge
donations (for me) to causes I’m really
passionate about, and helped my clients
achieve similar personal bests, too.
Here’s the thing: Making money isn’t
only about the money, just as losing
weight isn’t only about losing weight
and finding your soul mate isn’t only
about finding your soul mate. It’s about
who you become and what you believe
is possible for yourself.
Money is currency and currency
is energy.
As we’ve discussed, we live in a
Universe that is vibrating with energy.
Our Universe is abundant, and
everything you desire is here, in this
moment, waiting for you to shift your
perception and your energy and receive
it. Money included.
Money is energy like anything else,
and when you’re operating at a high
frequency with no resistance to it, and
take right action, you can manifest the
money you desire. We all know that we
have to work to make money, we’ve
been taught that all our lives, but what
we’re not taught is that we must also
align our energy with the financial
abundance we seek. In other words, act
as if you’re where you want to be, don’t
hang out with sad sacks and people who
whine about how broke they are all the
time, erase the words “I can’t” from
your vocabulary, envision what you
desire, set goals, demand of yourself that
you become who you need to become to
create the life you desire. Our
relationship to money is just as
important as the action we take to
manifest it, which is one reason why so
many people who work their asses off
their whole lives, but who have lousy
energy around money, are left wondering
why they have nothing to show for it.
Here’s a little one-sided dialogue
that may or may not sound familiar to
you:
Yay! I think you’re fun to hang out
with too! Wait, what? You think I’m the
root of all evil? How can you say that?
All you talk about is how you wish you
had more of me. Even though you’re
scared to admit you like me. And you
say I’m not there for you. And you think
people who like me are greedy pigs. Yet
you get so ecstatic whenever I show up.
And you work so hard to get me to come
over. But I keep you in a constant state
of worry. And you hate dealing with me.
And no matter what I do, it’s never
enough. One minute you act like you’ll
die without me, and the next I make you
feel like a filthy whore. You know what?
I’m done. See you later, freak.
Considering that this, or some
version of this, is the sort of relationship
most people have with money, I don’t
think the question is: “Why can’t we
make the kind of money we want?” I
think the better question is: “How the
hell do we expect to?” Most people
have such conflicted feelings around
money that they turn it into a full-on
circus, rivaled only by the equally
popular freak shows surrounding
religion and sex. All three are crammed
to the brim with issues and anxieties and
staunch, fight-to-the-death beliefs that
cause them to bring so much sadness to
the world. Meanwhile, if everyone
would just chill out, sex, money, and
religion could be the leading causes of
joy.
Silly, ain’t we?
In order to bring money joyfully into
our lives, we have to understand that
we’re having a relationship with it, and
then treat it like any other important and
meaningful relationship: we need to pay
attention to it, want it, nurture it, put
effort into it, respect it, cherish it, love
it, etc.
Ridding yourself of your fear and
loathing of money, be it conscious or
subconscious, is essential if you want to
make any. I was extremely povertyproud
for so long, I felt I was so much
nobler in my pursuit of art and fun and
altruism than those people who wasted
their lives just going after money. No
way in hell was I going to sacrifice my
awesome life just to chase the filthy
dollar! No, instead I was going to
choose between having health insurance
or a place to live. I was going to spend
precious time (that I could have spent,
uh, making money) driving an extra thirty
blocks to the gas station where I could
save three cents a gallon, sifting through
piles of clothes in search of the gems at
Goodwill, clipping coupons, hunting
down sales, researching which bars had
free food at happy hour, productive
things like that. In my quest to make
money an inconsequential part of my
life, I was basically thinking about it
more than anyone who actually had
money ever thought about it.
What I didn’t realize was that it’s not
an either/or situation. I could make great
money and keep my integrity and have
more fun and make more art and help
more people and make a bigger
difference in the world.
Oh.
I just had to get over myself. I had to
stop working with the equation that
wanting/having money = greedy
scumbag. And I had to get a freakin’
plan.
FIRST RULE OF WEALTH
CONSCIOUSNESS: COME
FROM A PLACE OF
ABUNDANCE, NOT LACK
When we say we want money for
something, we often come from a place
of “I don’t have it, it does not exist,
so I
need to create it.” This has us focusing
on, and believing in, lack, thereby
lowering our frequency and attracting
more lack.
When we say, “I am manifesting five
grand to go on a trip to Italy you just
watch me,” our faith in the yet unseen is
strong and our frequency is high. Thus,
so is our ability to attract money. This is
why buying the car worked so well for
me—it forced me to face my fears and
strengthen my faith because I bought it
before I had proof that the money was
there. I don’t see the money, but I
believe it’s there and it will be mine
dammit!
This abundance is available to
everyone, including you, regardless of
what your life looks like at this very
moment. Some people are born into
cushy lives full of trust funds and
connections and opportunities and fancy
educations; some of these people go on
to make great financial successes of their
lives and some of these people don’t.
Some people are born into extreme
poverty and live in cardboard box
houses by the side of a freeway; some of
these people go on to make great
financial successes of their lives and
some of these people don’t.
While their obstacles and initial
childhood impressions about money can
be extremely different, those who
achieve success share one key thing: the
belief that they can be, do, and have
whatever they set their minds to
accomplishing.
Your beliefs hold the
key to your financial
success.
Believe that you can have what you
desire, that it really truly already exists,
and then go out and get it. Once you
understand that we live in an abundant
Universe, you can also drop the limiting
belief that you serve the world better by
not taking too much for yourself or by
getting too big. Your playing small
simply withholds your gifts from the
people who were meant to receive them,
including you. Can you imagine if your
favorite musicians never let themselves
make enough money to buy guitars or
take lessons or hire producers or buy
purple platform boots and tight sparkly
pants or pay thousands of dollars for
studio time so they could record the
songs that saved your ass in high school?
Or if the people who build airplanes
refused to make the money they need to
pay for the research and the materials
and the factories and the engineers and
the electricity and whatever plethora of
other costly things that go into building
the miraculous flying machines that
allow us to travel the world, hang out on
tropical beaches, and visit the people
we love so dearly?
The more you have, the
more you have to
share.
There’s plenty of money to go
around; you not letting yourself make it
doesn’t save more for other people just
as you making it doesn’t take it away
from them. The only reason you should
feel gross about accepting money for a
product or service is if you’re scamming
someone (not doing or giving them what
you said you would) or if you’re causing
harm in some other way. It’s all about
contributing to the world by making life
easier, happier, safer, healthier, better,
tastier, more beautiful, more fun, more
interesting, more thoughtful, more loving
—whatever you do, bring something
good to the party. If you’re coming from
a place of integrity, any icky feelings you
have about not deserving the wealth you
desire are a waste of time. Just as any
icky feelings you have about money
itself are a waste of time. Greedy people
do greedy things for money, so don’t go
getting all up in money’s face and blame
it for their lousy behavior.
Here’s a brilliant little spanking in
this department from author/speaker,
Marianne Williamson, that I recently
heard in a talk she gave:
“Having money is like anything else;
a tool. And if you see it that way, making
it not just about you, but about a way that
you can play a part in the dynamic by
which money is used for the betterment
of all things, then having money is not
only a blessing, it’s a responsibility.”
Having money is a responsibility!
Let your inner money critic chew on that
one for a while.
SECOND RULE OF
WEALTH
CONSCIOUSNESS: GET
CLEAR ON WHERE
YOU’RE AT
Write a little ditty on how you feel about
money. Get clear on all your craziness
around it because trust me, if you don’t
have any money, you definitely have
some crazy. Write something along the
lines of:
So the truth is I don’t really trust
money. I want lots of it so I can do
whatever I want and make big changes
in the world, but I don’t believe it will
come to me. Or that if it does, it won’t
stick around. It never has. I resent
needing it. I think people who make it
are evil and have bad priorities. I
ignore it because I hate dealing with it.
I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I
made it anyway. If it’s easier, pretend
money is a person and write it as if
you’re writing a letter to someone. Just
get it on the page so you can look at it.
Then break it down, sentence by
sentence and expose your drama around
money for the award-winning
performance that it is. For example,
using the paragraph above:
I don’t believe money will come to
me. Has it ever? I guess so. Can you
imagine a specific time and a specific
amount that came to you that was really
helpful and enjoyable? Yes. I was a
graphic designer for five years. I got to
work on a lot of really cool projects
with great people making good money.
Any other times? Have you had other
jobs or monetary gifts or dividends? Yes.
Can you list off five to ten significant
times that money came to you? Okay. So
if it came to you all these many times, is
it possible that it could come to you
again? Yeah. Can you change your belief
from, “Money doesn’t come to me” to,
“Money does come to me?” Fine. Yes I
can.
Now that you see the truth, focus on
money coming to you, imagine receiving
all the money you need, visualize how
you’ll spend it and feel it in your bones.
Change your story from “Money doesn’t
come to me,” to “Money comes to me all
the time.” Make this an affirmation that
you walk around saying in your mind and
out loud, that you write down, read over
and over, and tape to your bathroom
mirror, etc. Drill it into your brain and
your bones.
Another example:
I resent needing it. How come?
Because I never have enough to do
what I want. Is this true? Have you
never had enough money to do what you
want? Well, there have been some times
where I’ve had the money. So is it true
that you never have enough money to do
what you want? No. And when you have
the money you need to do what you want,
do you resent needing it? Not really.
How does it feel when you have it and
you spend it on something you’re really
excited about buying for you or someone
else? Pretty cool actually. So is it true
you resent needing it? No.
Once you’ve caught yourself in your
big fat lie, focus on spending money
lavishly on yourself or the people you
love or a cause you’re passionate about
or whatever and feel it in your bones.
Imagine receiving it and feel yourself
filling up with gratitude for it coming to
you. Be grateful to money for the
awesome tool it is and for allowing you
to feel so good. Replace your story that
“I resent needing money” with “I’m
grateful to money for helping me live
such an awesome life.”
Start healing your relationship with
money. Sit your broke ass down and
write a letter to money and then break it
down, sentence by sentence like I just
did above (really DO this please), and
create some new money affirmations.
Repeat your new affirmations and feel
them in your bones. Walk around
thinking about how much you love, love,
love money. (Did reading that just make
you throw up in your mouth a little bit?)
You are going against some seriously
deeply-ingrained beliefs here; money is
incredibly loaded for most people, so if
you want to get over your issues and
start making money, spend time on this.
You are rewriting a story that was
written in blood, by you and generations
before you, that you’ve been buying into
in your whole life, so it’s going to take
some effort to rewrite it and start living
it.
THIRD RULE OF WEALTH
CONSCIOUSNESS: GET
CLEAR ON WHERE YOU
DESIRE TO BE
We all need money. We need it to feed
ourselves, buy clothes, get shelter,
water, medicine, etc. Once it goes
beyond basic survival, however, and we
get into the arena of how much money
we “need,” if we’ve got guilt and
judgment and terror over what it means
to have it and what people will think of
us if we do, this is where all hell is
gonna break loose.
Of course, none of us “need” more
than the basics to survive, but if we’re
talking about blossoming into the fullest
expressions of our best selves in an
abundant Universe, we do. Which is
why, I’m assuming, you’re reading this
book instead of one on how to
distinguish edible berries from
poisonous ones. You don’t want to
merely survive, you want to thrive in
every area of your life, including the
area of financial support.
Being wealthy means having the
resources to provide yourself with
everything you need, and desire, to share
your gifts with the world as your biggest,
badassiset self. This means being
wealthy psychologically, spiritually, and
energetically as well as materially. Let’s
say you’ve got your own clothing
company. You need money to have a
space to create your designs, you need to
pay for materials, manufacturing,
shipping, payroll, marketing, and all the
other expenses of running your business.
That’s obvious. But you also need to
feel healthy, happy, and good so you can
do your best work and bring the most
awesome products to your customers.
Maybe you need to live and work in a
place you love that inspires you or hire
assistants so you’re not exhausted and
spread thin or do things that fill you with
happiness like travel and buy your
friends dinner or join a gym or get a
puppy or buy clown noses for everyone
in your office. Maybe you want to give
twenty percent of your income to help
drill water wells in Africa as well as
hire more staff so you can donate some
time to doing charity work. It ALL
counts. Feeling like you don’t deserve
the things that make you the happiest and
best version of yourself, because it’s
greedy or is asking too much, ultimately
rips off the rest of the world because you
aren’t being fully supported and, as a
result, aren’t sharing your highest
frequency with the world.
Be your best, do your best, demand
the best, expect the best, receive the
best, and put your best out into the world
so everyone can receive your best, too.
Think of it this way: would you
rather hang out in a world where
everyone feels happy and well taken
care of and aspires to be the best they
can be or be, or would you rather be in a
world where people live in fear and
shame and scrimp and hold themselves
back? What would each scenario do to
your energy?
One of the best things
you can do to improve
the world is to improve
yourself.
It’s a grassroots effort. So if you need
money to improve your life, get over it
already and go get yourself some. ’Cuz
this isn’t just about you, m’kay?
In order to go get some money, get
very clear on what kind of life will make
you truly happy. And be honest. What
kind of experiences and possessions
will support you in the work you want to
do and in the kind of life you’d love to
live? If you’re truly happy living a
simple life in a yurt surrounded by
people you love, trading little trinkets
you’ve carved out of cow bones for food
and making just enough to get by, that’s
one thing, but pretending you don’t want
more than you already have because you
can’t afford it or feel guilty and
pretentious for wanting it— that’s
another. That is called being a weenie.
Determine what your, personal, truest
version of success looks like (no
comparing yourself to others please),
figure out how much it will cost, and
then set out with steadfast determination
to manifest the money you need to create
it.
FOURTH RULE OF
WEALTH
CONSCIOUSNESS: RAISE
YOUR FREQUENCY
Money on its own means nothing. A onehundred-
dollar bill sitting on a table is a
piece of paper. It’s the energy around it
that makes it relevant. That one onehundred-
dollar could have been slipped
into a birthday card from your granny or
you could have stolen it from your best
friend when she wasn’t looking or you
could have earned it by doing something
you loved or by doing something you
hated. In each situation, the energy
around the money is different.
Nothing has any value other than
the value we put on it.
Similarly, the monetary value we put
on things and services has energy.
Someone could sell a T-shirt in a store
for ten dollars. Another person could
sell the exact same T-shirt in some fancy
store for one thousand dollars. How
much is a gold watch worth? How much
is a broken watch worth that was owned
by Michael Jackson?
It’s all make-believe. Or rather, it’s
all what we make ourselves believe. If
we believe we are worth ten dollars an
hour, that’s the frequency we’ll put out
and that’s the kind of client or job we’ll
attract. If we believe we’re worth one
thousand dollars an hour, that’s the
frequency we’ll put out and that’s the
kind of client or employment
opportunities we’ll attract. They key
word is believe—you can’t be shitting
bricks and charging more than you
believe you’re worth and expect to
receive it, and you can’t charge less than
you believe you’re worth and expect to
flourish because you’ll be pissed off.
In order to create wealth, you
must bring yourself into energetic
alignment with the money you
desire to manifest.
Three people can do the same thing
for a living, let’s say they’re
chiropractors for example. One makes
fifty thousand a year, one makes one
hundred thousand a year, one makes one
million dollars a year. Is the guy who
makes a million dollars that much better
than the guy who makes fifty thousand?
And how do you put a price tag on his
betterness? Is the way he cracks
someone’s back nine hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a year times better than
the guy who makes fifty thousand
dollars? He may be more skilled or have
more experience (but then again, he may
not), but what it ultimately comes down
to is his decision of his worth. He is
operating at a one-million-dollar
frequency so that’s what he’s charging.
And getting.
Money is an exchange
of energy between
people.
When you charge your clients from a
certain frequency or demand a certain
salary, you attract clients and employers
who are already at that frequency.
You’re not putting a gun to their heads.
You are not the only person offering
these goods and services; they’re free to
work with or hire someone who’s at a
different frequency than you are, but
they’re coming to you. And part of what
you offer is the opportunity to meet at
your frequency. By lowering your
frequency out of fear leaves everyone
vibrating at a lower frequency.
If it’s important to you to offer your
services for free or rock-bottom prices
for people in serious deep doo-doo, then
you can have a charitable leg of your
business or some sort of scholarship
dealio or find a patron or get grants or
seek another means of income that
sustains you while you work for free.
But exhausting yourself because you
need to work eight million hours in
order to survive because you feel guilty
charging what you’re worth is real lowlevel
stuff. You ultimately wind up
helping fewer people because you’re
tired and crabby and less effective.
So, where are you at energetically
with what you make? And where do you
want to be?
You can figure this out by getting nice
and clear on the kind of life you desire
to live, figuring out what you need to be
making to manifest this reality and set
about matching your frequency to your
desired income. If you’re nowhere near
where you want to be, keep pushing
yourself to raise your prices or seek
higher paying jobs. Surround yourself
with higher frequency experiences and
people. Beef up your education and
know-how. Make vision boards of what
you want your life to look like. Again,
raising your frequency is like developing
a muscle—strengthening it is a process.
FIFTH RULE OF WEALTH
CONSCIOUSNESS: STAY
IN SHAPE
You must keep your frequency high and
your belief in limitless possibility strong
to manifest your dream house or your
goal of going to the Olympics or to call
in your soul mate. Otherwise you run the
risk of sliding backward into having
your father’s lame relationship with
money or your mother’s terror of being
visible or your divorced parents’
mistrust of intimacy. When it comes to
being mighty about money, one of the
best ways to do this is to read wealth
consciousness books. All the time. Over
and over. My two staples have always
been Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon
Hill and The Science of Getting Rich by
Wallace Wattles (listed in the back of
this book), but there are plenty others out
there. Find some that work for you and
read them for at least thirty minutes
every single day. Surround yourself with
inspiring people who don’t think money
is bad and those who either already have
it or are intent on making it. Watch your
thoughts and your words. Make a
conscious effort to keep your positive
financial mind-set strong and
unwavering.
GET INTO REALITY
ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU
WANT TO MAKE AND
WHY
There are countless ways to make
serious money, and depending on what
business you’re in they will obviously
vary, but there are some general rules
that apply across the board. Start by
thinking about the life you’d love to live
and why, figure out exactly how much
money you need to manifest to make it
happen. If you don’t know how much it
would cost to build your dream house,
do the research. If you want to travel,
figure out where and by when and do the
math on exactly how much it all will
cost. If you want a lifestyle where you
eat out more and wear nicer clothes,
crunch the numbers. How much money
do you now need to make per year? Per
month? Per hour? The Universe
responds to details. The Universe
responds to energy. The Universe
responds to badasses.
There is a big
difference between
walking around saying
you want to make a
million dollars a year,
and having crystal clear
intentions, fierce desire,
and hell-bent action
toward specific goals.
Make a list, be super specific about
exactly what it is, how much it will cost,
why you want it, how it will make you
feel, etc. You need to be in a full-on
lather about it and want it so badly that
it
is not negotiable: It will and it must
happen regardless of how long it takes.
Decide what it is you want and write
down the exact cost.
MAKE IT URGENT
Ever notice how when your rent is due
in a week and you have no idea how
you’re going to pay it, or if you really
need a specific amount of money for a
specific urgent purpose like getting a
throbber of a rotten tooth pulled, that you
always manage to somehow figure out
how to get the money just in time?
Usually a check that you had forgotten
about arrives in the mail or an
unexpected freelance job comes in or
you suddenly develop the nerve to ask
somebody for a loan or you sell
grandma’s jewelry or you compete with
the five-year-old selling lemonade down
the street and make a killing. You shift
from wasting your time whining and
worrying because you’re suddenly too
busy making it happen. This is the power
of:
• Clarity
• Urgency
• Not screwing around
The money is there if you really,
truly desire it. It’s just a matter of being
so serious about it that you don’t stray
from the path of manifesting it no matter
what gets thrown in it.
The trick is to treat your dreams with
this same urgency and determination. It’s
one thing to kick ass when your back is
against the wall and you’ve got to come
up with your kid’s tuition, and quite
another to create self-imposed urgency
so you stay the course until you’ve
created your dream life instead of
settling back into the Big Snooze. You
need a sense of urgency to keep from
dropping the ball when it gets difficult
and sliding down into thinking, “Ah,
screw it, I’m fine living next door to a
kennel full of barking dogs. It’s nothing
getting some earplugs and boarding up
my windows can’t fix.” Instead of being
in reaction mode, it’s about being in
action mode. It’s about no longer acting
like a victim (letting your circumstances
control your life) and instead acting like
a superhero (creating a life that has you
waking up in giddy disbelief that you get
to be you).
A great way to psyche yourself into
up-leveling is by raising your bottom
line. So often we take the massive leaps
of faith only when we have to, when we
need to put out some sort of fire aka pay
off some huge bill. Because this is about
changing you, not just about changing
your income, why not decide to be the
kind of person who always has a certain
amount of money in the bank? Be
someone who’s not in struggle and panic
and constantly behind the eight ball.
Come up with a figure and decide your
account will never go below it. Make it
non-negotiable. For example, if you
decide that you will always have two
thousand dollars in your checking
account and refuse to see your balance
go under it, it will light the fire under
your ass to generate income the second
you get close to dipping below it. Or
decide that you will always donate ten
percent of what you make to charity, no
matter what. Make a new bottom line;
get yourself out of struggle by changing
your mind-set and being conscious of
how you deal with, generate, and
receive your money.
ENVISION YOURSELF
WITH THIS MONEY AND
THE SPECIFIC THINGS
AND/OR EXPERIENCES
IT’S GOING TO PROVIDE
As I said, money on its own means
nothing. It’s what we attach to it that
gives it meaning and inspires us to have
it in our lives. It’s what this money
makes us feel like that puts us in the
proper tizzy to manifest it. Write a
mantra that you can run over and over in
your mind to help you manifest the
money you desire. I see myself making
$150,000 by December 31st by being an
accountant and serving thirty new
clients in the best way possible. I’m so
grateful for this $150,000 by December
31st that allows me to take my family on
a vacation to Bali and renovate our
kitchen and donate money to build
schools in Kenya. I see myself in the
jungle with my kids and my wife; we’re
staying at my favorite hotel in Ubud. I
feel so happy for being able to give my
children this incredible, life-changing
experience and for bringing my wife
such joy. I can also see the kitchen and
how happy it’s made my wife to finally
have it. I see the faces of the kids in
Kenya as write on the chalkboard in the
school I’ve helped pay for. I feel such
joy from being able to make a
difference in their lives. I’m so grateful
for this $150,000 that I will make by
December 31st. I see the awesome
clients I get to work with who are more
than happy to pay me $100 an hour for
my services. This money is mine, it is
on its way to me now, I see it in my
bank account and am so grateful for it.
Write one that makes you feel
invincible, read it over and over every
day, see it and feel it and become a crazy
person about it. I know, this sounds like
a pain in the ass, but do it anyway
because, trust me, it works. Lame, vague
goals are the best way to live a lame,
vague life. If you want to knock it out of
the park, you need to know exactly what
you’re shooting for. And be so excited
about it that you’re almost annoying to
yourself.
TAKE HELL-BENT-FORGLORY
ACTION
Do every single thing you can think of to
manifest this money/new lifestyle. If
you’ve got your own business, what new
programs could you offer or what new
products could you sell? Can you raise
your prices? Leverage your time? Sign
on bigger and fancier clients? Sell more
to the clients you already have? Pick up
a part-time job? If you work for
someone else, ask for a raise or look for
a new job that pays more. Listen to
everyone around you with new ears. Is
there an opportunity for a new, better
paying situation there that you may have
not noticed before? Is there a position
you can create or suggest that would get
you at your desired income level?
Continue to do everything humanly
possible to magnetize it to you, and then
surrender to The Universe and be on the
lookout for something unexpected to
come in: an inheritance, someone who
wants to pay you for your expertise, a
brilliant idea that you’d normally pass
over as too out of the question, or a
conversation between two people
looking for someone just like you to help
redesign their new offices. Look for
some opportunity or person to make an
appearance that’s not in your usual path
of income. You are leaping into a new
reality here—it’s not your job to know
the how; it’s your job to ask for what
you want and wait to discover the how,
then take action.
When the unexpected money or the
new job or the big client comes in is up
to The Universe. It can literally happen
immediately or it can take years. Your
job is to do everything you can to
manifest it and have unshakable faith that
the Universe is moving it toward you in
perfect timing.
GET MENTORING
Surround yourself with people who
know more than you do. Read about
them, study them, hang out with them and
hire them. Be on the lookout for the
perfect coach or mentor or book or
seminar, because when the student is
ready, the teacher appears. Pay attention
to who and what flies in your radar and
learn as much as you can from them.
Love Yourself
And you will have it all.
CHAPTER 25:
REMEMBER TO
SURRENDER
Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to
life and see how life suddenly
starts working for you, rather
than against you.
—Eckhart Tolle; author,
channeler, high priest of being
present
Imagine yourself sitting by a window,
looking out at a garden on a lovely
spring day. You see birds and bees and
butterflies merrily flitting about, when
all of a sudden, the most beautiful
butterfly in the world catches your eye.
Its stunning turquoise wings make your
heart explode, its joyful flight makes
your soul sing, its metamorphosis from
wet wormy thing to creature of soaring
beauty fills you with inspiration.
Suddenly you leap up, overcome and
crazed with a fierce desire; it must be
mine mine mine! You sprint to the
closet, grab your net, sneak outside and
tiptoe through the tulips, stalking your
beloved prey, all senses alert, focused,
determined, tenacious, swinging your net
over your head as you chase your
butterfly around the garden. You chase it
for hours and hours, but all you seem to
be able to do is scare it off, rather than
catch it. It’s only when you stop trying
so
desperately, relax, breathe, and
surrender your desire to The Universe
that the butterfly of your dreams calmly
comes and lands on your nose.
When we want something so, so
badly and are working tirelessly to get
it, if we don’t surrender, we end up
pushing it away instead. There comes a
point where we need to hand the job
over to The Universe. This doesn’t mean
that we give up or discontinue taking
action. This means we let go
energetically, release our kung fu grip
and create some space for what we want
to come to us. It’s about allowing instead
of forcing. It’s about releasing and
trusting that if it’s in alignment with
our
life’s purpose, it will come back to us
(or that something or someone even
more perfect will come in its place). It’s
about surrendering and letting The
Universe do its thing while holding faith
that our highest desire will come into
our lives.
Your faith in The
Universe must be
stronger than your fear
of not getting what you
want.
It’s like hiring someone to clean your
house so you can focus on the other work
you enjoy doing. You explain in detail
what they’re supposed to do, show them
where the broom is, tell them you’ll beat
them to death if they break the ceramic
mugs your niece made for you, but you
trust them with the job. If you’re
constantly hovering over them and
grabbing the sponge out of their hands
—here, let me do that!—they’ll never
get their work done and you’ll stay in
overwhelmed struggle, preventing
yourself from reaping the benefits that
inspired you to hire your cleaning crew
in the first place.
Surrendering is the part
where you hand the job
over to The Universe.
What often happens is that,
regardless of our best intentions and
hard work, we’re trying to control our
circumstances by using our limiting
beliefs and old patterns. We think that
we need to try and take charge of the
situation (fear based thinking) instead of
having faith and gratitude and allowing
The Universe to deliver (love based
thinking). In short, we think we can do a
better job of manifesting than The
Universe can.
Imagine that someone invites you to a
party. They’re all excited about their big
old rager, are fully certain that it’s going
to be awesome and are truly delighted
by the thought of having you come. They
extend the invite with much glee and
merriment and a deep desire to see you
there but with zero pressure—they know
if you come it will be awesome, they
know if you don’t come it will be
awesome. Their party is going to rock.
They believe this in their hearts. It is the
truth.
Now imagine that someone else
invites you to a different party. This
person demands that you come, acts like
their party will be a gigantic failure
unless you show up and reminds you that
they came to your last party so you have
to come to theirs. They are whiney,
manipulative, controlling, a big fat drag.
They know they can have an awesome
party, and really believe they can, but
have decided that it all depends on you
coming.
Both people can do the same exact
things to prepare: decorate their houses,
buy the cheese plates, get the booze,
order the ice sculptures, but one person
is much more likely to manifest what
they want—you showing up and actually
wanting to be there—than the other
because they have surrendered.
Surrendering isn’t about what you do,
but who you’re being as you do it.
Your life is your party. You get to
choose how you invite people and
experiences and things into it.
If you’re broke as a joke, it’s not
about working until you’re half dead to
make ends meet and whining about your
pathetic situation. It’s about showing up
everyday with an excellent attitude,
doing your best, leaning back,
celebrating what is and steadily working
with the grateful expectation and belief
that The Universe is sending you a new,
more lucrative opportunity.
If you’re single, it’s not about boohooing
the fact that you can’t find
someone good or half-heartedly forcing
yourself to go on a million dates. It’s
about keeping your desire strong and
your faith unwavering, brushing your
hair and teeth, leaving the house, flirting
your ass off, joyfully going about your
life and being grateful that not only is the
person you’re seeking also seeking you,
but that The Universe is conspiring to
bring you together.
Doubt is resistance, faith is
surrender. Worry is resistance, joy is
surrender. Control is resistance,
allowing is surrender. Ridicule is
resistance, believing is surrender.
Energy needs to flow or else it
stagnates. Surrendering puts you
in the flow.
Not only does surrendering create the
space to manifest your desires, but it
opens you up to manifest good feeling
experiences and things that are presently
outside your realm of awareness (a.k.a
miracles).
As I mentioned before, when you’re
moving into a new, awesome life that
you’ve never lived in before, you can’t
expect to know how to get there because
it’s new territory, so you can only do that
which you already know how to do and
stay open to discovering the new how.
Likewise, you need to be open to the fact
that you may not know exactly what your
new reality will look like because
you’ve never seen it before. You’re only
able to envision that which is already
known to you, so the mind-bogglingly
awesome new life may be out of your
scope of imagination, and by stubbornly
holding on to the exact vision of what
you want instead of surrendering, you set
yourself up to miss out entirely on the
very thing you’re looking for. Sometimes
your new reality will look just as you
pictured it, sometimes totally different
(and way better).
Here’s the basic breakdown on how
to surrender:
• Get crystal clear on what you desire
to manifest
• See it, feel it, taste it, fall in love
with it, believe it is already here
• Decide you will have it
• Inform The Universe of your
intention by behaving and thinking as
if you already have it
• Meditate, connect with infinite
possibility, your intuition and Source
Energy
• Take hell-bent joyful, passionfueled
action
• Be grateful that it’s yours, that it’s
already here
• Breathe, let it go, let it in
When you believe that everything
you desire already exists, you are
in a natural state of surrender.
Surrendering is the free-falling
backwards into the unknown and trusting
that The Universe will catch you. And
this can’t be done from a place of lack
or a place of mistrust—OK, I’m
releasing, you better come through
beotch!—you have to give it all you’ve
got and totally let it go for reals, you
must fall back, have faith, be grateful,
and wait. And while you’re at it . . .
Love Yourself
And the Motherlode shall bestow her
magic upon you.
CHAPTER 26:
DOING VS. SPEWING
God will not have his work made
manifest by cowards.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson;
fearless writer/poet, highlyskilled
spewer and doer
I have a friend who had the word “Duh”
tattooed on the inside of her upper arm
in homage to the fact that all of our big
ah-ha moments are no-brainers; “Fear is
a choice!” “I am lovable!” “Don’t
worry, be happy!” Every time she highfives,
or lifts her arm to see if she needs
a shave, she gets reminded of how often
the sublime lies waiting in the obvious.
You know countless of these truisms
of which I speak, you’ve heard them or
thought them a million times, but when
they finally sink in and you “get it,”
they
suddenly become earth-shattering news.
An epiphany is a
visceral understanding
of something you
already know.
Once something moves from our
brains to our bones, that’s when we can
use it to change our lives.
The million-dollar question is, will
we?
Oh, the years people spend talking
the talk, rolling out the shoulds, woulds
and coulds, attending classes, trolling
the seminar circuit, and burying
themselves in all sorts of shelf-helpery
before they finally, if ever, DO anything
with it all.
There’s a statistic that says only 5
percent of people who sign up for
something, like a course or a seminar,
actually do anything with it. And this
includes very, very, very high-priced
somethings, not just the moneymanagement
class at the community
college down the road. This is because
lots of people wish for change, really,
really want it, are willing to invest the
time and money into it, but are ultimately
not willing to get uncomfortable enough
to actually make anything happen. Which
means they don’t want it as badly as they
say they do.
“I tried” is the poor
man’s “I kicked butt.”
People who are successful are not
only willing to get uncomfortable, but
they know they have to make a habit of it
if they want to stay successful. They
keep moving through each new challenge
instead of stagnating and settling. The
muscle of kick-assery is like any other
muscle—you have to use it or lose it. If
you have one big breakthrough and feel
like, I got this, I am ON it, and then sit
back and wait for your long overdue
stream of awesomeness to keep pouring
in, you will lose your muscle mass and
fall back to the marshmallow state that
you were in before you started working
out.
Keep moving, keep growing, keep
pushing through obstacles, keep
evolving. You break through at one
level, arrive at the next, and take another
step up. Each time you grow, you get to
learn something new, which basically
means you have to get uncomfortable
again. Because when you arrive at a
level you’ve never been at before,
you’re faced with challenges you’ve
never experienced before. It’s the
willingness to keep pushing through new
challenges, not shrink from them back
into your comfort zone, that separates the
successful from the unsuccessful.
New level, new devil.
All life is either moving forward and
evolving or shrinking back and dying. If
you want to evolve in your own life, you
have to push through the obstacles
instead of running from them. Obstacles
and challenges are the agents of
growth. Nobody gets to be large and in
charge without facing challenges and
moving through them. Birth is messy,
painful, scary, uncertain, and freaky.
Birth is also a glorious miracle that
leads to new life. If you want the new
life you say you want, you have to do the
work instead of just studying and
discussing and wishing and wanting.
I recently had a real wake-up call in
this department that I’ll share with you
in
hopes that it’ll inspire you to do the
work and keep the faith no matter what.
At the moment I don’t live anywhere, or
I guess you could say I live everywhere.
I got rid of my place two years ago and
have been exploring the world
indefinitely ever since. I’ve always
loved traveling, and since all I need to
run my business is my computer, a strong
Internet connection, good cell phone
reception and a sandwich, I decided to
put all my things into storage and go for
it. I saw this as a chance to walk my talk
of living life on your own terms, to be
the priestess of high vibe, to quantum
leapfrog around the globe, to see in how
many different languages I can learn how
to say, “Would you mind watching my
stuff while I go to the bathroom?”
My main focus at the moment is
mastering Surrender. I want to have
unshakable faith in the not-yet seen. I
want to get so comfortable trusting The
Universe that it becomes second nature
and I can just leap into the void with
toes pointed and daisy petals in my
wake. Or, you know, at least do it with
more grace and ease. Especially now
that I’m traipsing around the world,
loftily preaching about Decision this and
Let it Go that.
I too would very much like to do
instead of spew.
Surrender comes into play often,
especially when it comes to figuring out
where I’m off to next and where I’m
going to stay once I get there. My modus
operandi is to go with the flow and trust
that The Universe will guide me to the
perfect place at the perfect time, which,
I’m quite pleased to report, has yet to
disappoint: After following my sudden,
and bizarre impulse to go to Tokyo (a
city I had zero interest in checking out),
I
not only totally fell in love with the
place, but the ideal furnished apartment
came up for rent, and was handed to me
on a silver platter, when I decided I
wanted to live there for a while; An
invitation to stay in a gorgeous guest
house in the Spanish countryside with
great friends came in, unsolicited and
out of the blue, when I was trying, and
failing, to figure out where to go next; I
keep finding myself repeatedly, and fully
coincidentally, crossing paths in distant
corners of the world with several of my
fellow, global nomads whom I met, and
befriended, in Bali, and who have me
drop-jawed and giddy every time I bump
into them; you’re in a tiny, remote,
fishing village wearing nothing but a
sarong and a frizzy hairdo in the
middle of nowhere Indonesia too?
Yet even though my cosmic travel
agent has more than proven that she
knows exactly what she’s doing, I was
still fairly nervous about this last freefall.
Because this time it wasn’t all, Just
send me anywhere that seems cool
where awesome things will happen to
me, m’kay? Thanks. I needed to land in
the perfect place to write this book. I
only had a month left before it was due
to the publisher and I had, um, quite a bit
left of it to write, so I was a tad uptight
about the wheres and the whats and the
hows. I was in Tokyo at the time, and my
plan was to fly to L.A. to meet with a
client, then road trip through the
American west and wind up at some
fabulous, fully-furnished luxury rental
home with a great view and lots of
sunshine where I could concentrate and
get lots of work done. I imagined being
surrounded by awe-inspiring nature, but
being close enough to a city where some
friends lived in order to avoid the
isolation best known for driving writers
to drink heavily or, in my case, to delve
into failed experiments with cutting my
own hair. If there were animals around
to keep me company, that would be the
cherry on top, but the rest was nonnegotiable.
About two weeks before leaving, I
went online and started searching for
houses to rent. I looked in every state
west of Colorado, but everything I liked
was booked. I asked everyone I knew
and everyone I didn’t know if they had
any ideas; I sent out emails, Facebooked,
Tweeted, and texted, but again, nothing.
There was always the hotel option, but I
really had my heart set on a house, and I
was starting to panic about the fact that
I’d waited until the last minute. This was
a big deal—this was my book! I needed
inspiration and high frequency! I wanted
to look up from my desk and gaze out the
window upon an awe-inspiring view of
mountains or ocean or rolling fields!
Meanwhile, if something didn’t come
through soon, I was going to be gazing
out the window of the bedroom I grew
up in upon my mother sweeping the
driveway in her slippers.
I began resigning myself to the fact
that I’d blown it. Instead of having faith
in The Universe and joyously
anticipating the manifestation of my
dream home, I started shrinking and
talking myself into taking what I could
get. What am I whining about? I’m
lucky to have my mom’s house to go to.
I love her. Plus she’ll feed me lasagna
while I’m writing. Then I realized what
I was doing. What kind of hypocrite
would I be if I got all fearful, smallminded,
and low-vibe about where to
write my book about how not to go
through life fearful, small-minded, and
low-vibe?
You have to keep the
faith, always, even
when your ass is on the
line.
So, forty-eight hours before my flight
left Tokyo for L.A., I calmly sat back,
focused on my ideal writing palace,
envisioned the wide open space it
looked out upon, luxuriated in its plush
couches and big open kitchen, soaked up
the sun pouring in through its huge
windows, felt it in my bones, believed it
was real, did the whole wickety-woo
thing, and got all excited and grateful
that it already existed and was on its
way to me. Then I sent out one more
mass e-mail asking if anyone knew of a
great place for me to write my book,
surrendered it up to The Universe, and
took myself out for a big fat sushi dinner
to celebrate the awesome writing
paradise that was about to land in my
lap. When I returned to my hotel, there
was an e-mail waiting for me from a
friend who knew some people who had
a place I could move into ASAP.
I’m pleased to report that I’m writing
this in a big, luxurious, open, sunny,
magnificent house with huge windows
and spectacular views an hour outside of
San Francisco where five of my best
friends from college live. The house is
on top of a hill overlooking seventeen
acres of rolling farmland, and I can stay
for as long as I want, as long as I take
care of their adorable horse and two
goats.
This. Shit. Works.
So, how serious are you about not
settling? You can make a quantum leap in
your life right now. You can change your
entire reality on a dime if you want to
badly enough or massively increase your
income level or drop ten pounds or
begin waking up excited to be who you
are instead of merely putting up with
your day until it’s cocktail hour.
Whatever level of upgrade you want, it’s
available to you, right now.
You just have to decide to make it
happen, to be engaged with your life and
let the Universe work for you.
Here are some ways to take what
you’ve learned in this book and seal the
deal:
1. GIVE YOUR BAD
HABITS THE HEAVEHO
Successful people have good habits;
unsuccessful people have losery habits.
Because our habits are all the things that
we do automatically, without thinking,
they help to define who we are: if you’re
in the habit of getting up and working out
every morning, you’re in shape; if you’re
in the habit of never doing what you say
you’re going to do, you’re unreliable;
and if you’re in the habit of getting
massages three times a week, you’re
really psyched.
Pay attention to the areas of your life
that you’re not so thrilled about, figure
out which bad habits helped create them
and trade those habits in for some good
ones. Form the kind of habits that
successful people have: good timemanagement
habits, good decisionmaking
habits, good thought habits, good
health habits, good relationship habits,
good work habits, etc. Think of what
behaviors would make the biggest,
positive changes in your life (maybe
even the kinds of changes you can hardly
imagine coming true) and set about
turning them into habits.
How do you form a habit? Decide to.
Make it a part of your regular, everyday
activities. Make it as non-negotiable and
thoughtless as brushing your teeth or
getting out of bed. Schedule it in. Work
on uncovering your subconscious beliefs
and rewriting your stories. And if it’s
something you’ve tried and tried to
change on your own, get some help. Hire
a coach, a mentor, a personal trainer, tell
a friend to spray paint “I am a lazy lard
ass” on the side of your house if you
don’t reach your goal of going to the gym
five days a week. Whatever you have to
do, start developing successful habits if
you want to become a successful person.
2. BREATHE AMONGST
THE PEOPLE
Your superhero power, i.e. your
connection to Source Energy, is
available to you 24/7, not only when
you’re sitting cross-legged in your robe
meditating. Once you get your brain used
to shutting up and tuning into Source
Energy, you can start doing it throughout
your day.
The whole point of everything you’ve
learned in this book is to use it to
improve your life, not to take a break, go
off and read, and then head back out to
live your life again and leave everything
you’ve learned back there, on the couch,
where you were reading. You want to
carry all the stress-relieving, lifeappreciating,
joy-delivering, moodlifting,
Source-connecting, butt-kicking
benefits with you all day long. And the
best way to do this is through your
breath.
When you’re stuck in traffic, getting
yelled at by your boss, feeling awkward
at a party, strolling through the office,
lying on the beach, trying to remember
how to get to your sister’s house, take
a
moment to breathe deeply, clear your
mind, check in with your bod, become
present in the moment and connect with
Source Energy.
The more of a habit you make this
throughout your day, the more you will
see profound, positive changes in your
life both emotionally and physically, and
the more gracefully you will be able to
deal with the next inconsiderate jerk
who decides to yell into their cell phone
while sitting next to you at a restaurant.
3. HANG HIGH
Hang out with people who are kicking
ass and who will make you feel like a
giant loser if you’re not kicking ass, too.
I (obviously) can’t stress this enough.
Who you surround yourself with greatly
affects how you see your world and how
high you set the bar for yourself. If you
hang out with people who constantly
whine about how tired, broke and
worried about the economy they are,
you’ll feel like a hero just for getting
out
of bed in the morning. Hang out with
people who are living on purpose, who
meet their challenges with a step aside,
suckers attitude, who are dating super
awesome people, making exactly the
kind of money they want to be making
(or working toward it) or taking the
kinds of vacations they, and you, want to
be taking, and you’ll not only see what’s
possible for you, too, but you’ll have
more incentive to follow suit.
4. SET HONEST GOALS
Don’t decide you’re going to run ten
miles a day when you still consider
walking to the pizza parlor around the
corner a day’s worth of exercise. Start
with running half a mile a day and add
more as you get stronger. Discipline is a
muscle; you have to build it at your own
pace. If you bite off more than you can
chew at the start, chances are excellent
you’ll get discouraged and give up
altogether. Set honest goals that are just
outside your comfort zone and build
from there.
5. READ YOUR
MANIFESTO
Write down your goals and your vision
of your ideal life in the present tense and
be as specific as possible. Where do you
live, who do you live with, what do you
do for fun, who are you surrounded by,
how much money do you make, how do
you make it, how do you give back to the
world, what are you wearing, etc. Make
it so freaking awesome that you can’t
read it without weeping and wailing and
putting it down to compose yourself
every few sentences. Read it to yourself
before you go to bed and when you wake
up every single solitary day I am so not
kidding over here. Become obsessed
with it. Think about how you’re changing
your life and who you’re becoming and
be in a state of giddy expectation about it
as often as possible. The more you focus
on who you’re becoming, and the more
emotional you can get about it, the faster
you will become it.
6. GET OUT YOUR
CREDIT CARD AND
PAY FOR SOME HELP
ALREADY
Getting some coaching or mentoring is
perhaps the fastest and best thing you can
do to make a massive change in the
shortest amount of time. I’m not, and I
kind of am, just saying this because I’m
a
coach and have watched my clients do
the impossible. I’m also saying it
because I’ve been coached within an
inch of my life and know how radically
it’s changed my world. Think about it—
professional athletes work with coaches
their entire careers. They don’t decide
all of a sudden, alrighty, I just made
eight million bucks hitting a ball
around this year. I think I’m pretty well
set to do this on my own. They continue
to get coaching so they can stay at their
peak level and keep growing. What
makes you think you think you can do it
all by yourself (especially if you’ve
spent the majority of your life basically
proving you can’t)?
7. GET YOUR BODY IN
ON IT
Your mind will follow where your body
leads. If you’re in a bad mood and
remember to stand up nice and tall and
straight, your mood will automatically
lift. And when you’re in shape and have
tons of energy, you feel like you can take
over the world. If you’re serious about
getting your act together, stop being a
lazy cow. Get the blood flowing, eat
food that excites you and nourishes you,
get your breathing deeper. Use your
mind, body, and soul together to make
this thing happen for yourself.
ADVANCED BODY OPTION: Okay,
so this is totally weird and won’t go
over well, but I’m going to give it to you
anyway because it works. If you want to
really get yourself rock solid and
determined and pumped up, pound your
chest and punch your fists in the air
while you repeat your affirmations at the
same time. Yell things like, “I am
powerful, I am confident, The Universe
has my back, and I am going to kick
ass!” Or whatever your deal is in the
affirmations department. Get your body
engaged and anchor in the words
physically and your affirmations will
have far greater power. The mind and
the body are way more powerful
together than either one is alone.
8. USE YOUR SECRET
WEAPONS
Make a playlist of songs that gets you
pumped up, listen to motivational tapes,
surround yourself with pictures of
people who think you’re awesome, wear
clothes that make you feel sexy and
smart, dance, scream, pound your chest,
go for a run while listening to the theme
from Rocky—figure out what makes you
feel like you could carry a horse over
your head and do it as often as possible.
You are going for the gold here, you
have to stay in The Zone.
9. LOVE YOURSELF
With a kung fu grip.
CHAPTER 27:
BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY
Nothing is impossible, the word
itself says “I’m possible.”
—Audrey Hepburn; actress,
icon, fabulist
My grandmother on my mother’s side
lived to be one hundred years old. Nana
was as WASPy as they make ’em: prissy,
reserved, able to avoid confrontation
with the skilled precision of an F-16
pilot. For as long as I can remember, she
always looked exactly the same. She
was eternally adorned in a cardigan,
pinned together at the top by an antique
broach, her pink lipstick and sparkly
brown eyes shining through a face-full of
wrinkles that erupted in a series of “oh
dears” every time she laughed.
In her long lifetime, Nana witnessed
the birthing of such pivotal human
achievements as the phone, the car, the
TV, human flight, the computer, the
internet and rock and roll.
The two things that blew her mind the
most, however, were putting a man on
the moon and the soda dispensers at
McDonalds. She’d stand there watching,
gripped by disbelief, as an employee
placed a cup, small, medium or large,
beneath a spout, pushed a button and
walked away, leaving the machine to fill
it up the perfect, proper amount. “How
does it know where to stop?” Nana
would shake her head, mortified, “How
does it know?!”
After we figured out how to clone a
sheep, she pretty much threw in the
towel on ever questioning anything
again.
One day my family took her out for
lunch to a restaurant on the top floor of
some giant hotel. When we got into the
elevator, someone accidentally pushed
the button for the floor we were already
on the moment the doors closed, making
them open right back up again. Thinking
we’d just gone up forty-five-flights in
a
split second, we watched my sweet little
grandmother exit the elevator, nervously
patting her hair as she wandered down
the hallway muttering to herself, “Why
not?”
I want to sign off here by encouraging
you to pursue your dreams with the same
belief that anything is possible as a little
old lady in knee-high stockings and
sensible heels who was born in 1903
and lived through the most
technologically flabbergasting century to
date.
Whatever you desire to do with your
precious life—write jokes or rock out or
start a business or learn to speak Greek
or quit your job or raise a bunch of kids
or fall in love or lose your flab or open
orphanages around the world or direct
movies or save dolphins or make
millions or live in a canyon in a
loincloth—believe that it’s possible.
And that it’s available to you. And that
you deserve to be/do/have it.
Why not?
Give yourself the permission and the
means (yes, this includes the money), to
be who you are REGARDLESS OF
WHAT ANYBODY ELSE THINKS OR
BELIEVES IS POSSIBLE. Do not deny
yourself the life you want to live
because you’re worried you’re not good
enough or that you’ll be judged or that
it’s too risky, because who does that
benefit? No one, that’s who. When you
live your life doing the things that turn
you on, that you’re good at, that bring
you joy, that make you shove stuff in
people’s faces and scream, “check this
out!!!” you walk around so lit up that you
shoot sunbeams out of yer eyeballs.
Which automatically lights up the world
around you. Which is precisely why you
are here: to shine your big-ass ball of
fire onto this world of ours. A world that
literally depends upon light to survive.
You are powerful. You are loved.
You are surrounded by miracles.
Believe, really believe that what you
desire is here and available to you. And
you can have it all.
Love Yourself
You are a badass.
RESOURCES
Below is a list of some of the books I
read and teachers I studied with while
honing my own badassery. And while
these are some of my all-time favorites
(that I strongly suggest you check out),
my list is constantly growing and
evolving, so if you’d like more allinclusive
and up-to-date suggestions,
please sign up at www.JenSincero.com
and I shall keep you abreast.
BOOKS
Ask and It is Given: Learning to
Manifest Your Desires by Esther and
Jerry Hicks
This is an excellent starter book.
Well-written and not hellishly long, it
talks all about the Law of Attraction in
depth and how to manifest what you
want into your life. The Freak Factor is
super high: co-author Esther Hicks was
your average housewife until she
suddenly started channeling this spirit
named Abraham. The book, and all her
work, contains the teachings of this dude
Abraham, whoever the hell he is/was,
but his information is good AND Esther
is pretty entertaining in her live
recordings, although the book is more
straightforward. First half is teachings;
second half is to-do’s.
The Four Agreements: A Practical
Guide to Personal Freedom by Don
Miguel Ruiz
Good, short, based on the wisdom
passed down from the author’s Toltec
ancestors. Basically, it talks about the
four things you need to do to live an
awesome life: be impeccable with your
word, don’t take anything personally,
don’t make assumptions, and always do
your best. It’s worth a read for sure as
it
lays out some very simple and profound
truths that will absolutely change your
life for the better if you live by them.
And it looks really good on your coffee
table.
The Game of Life and How to Play It
by Florence Scovel Shinn
This book constantly refers to The
Bible and Jesus, but it’s easy to love
whether or not you’re religious because
it’s crammed full of valuable spiritual
lessons and lots and lots of old-timey
stories. The writing is real pedestrian
and very grandmotherly, but I love the
simplicity and how well the stories
illustrate what she’s talking about. It’s
short, to the point, and blunt, much like
sitting down with an old lady who wants
to give you a talking to about the way
things are around here.
The Power of Now: A Guide to
Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart
Tolle
If you’re new to the whole Ego (or
Big Snooze) thing and really want to
grasp the transformative nature of being
present, this is basically The Bible. It
challenges you to see the world in a
different way and does a great job of at
helping you grasp some pretty deep
theories about reality and time and
perspective. This is another one where
the Freak Factor is very high: Eckhart
was suicidal, all ready to do himself in
and then woke up one morning all
enlightened and transformed and was in
such a state of bliss that he spent the next
two years sitting on a park bench,
playing with his lip (I’m not kidding).
Then he channeled this book.
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
This is, shockingly all about the
mighty mind and how to use it to master
your world. Considering the fact that if
you can really truly get that skill down,
you can create the most awesome life
ever, reading this book, over and over
and over until it becomes second nature
is time well spent. It’s another old-timey
one written back in ye olde day, but it’s
still extremely quotable and relevant
today.
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use
It For Life by Twyla Tharp
Written by no-nonsense, worldrenowned
dance choreographer Twyla
Tharp, this is one of the best spankings I
ever got in the old get-your-act-together
department. As the title suggests, it’s
all
about creating good habits, which, if you
do nothing else, will completely change
your life for the better. Full of stories
and tips and whip cracking, this is one of
my favorites. ‘Cuz she kind of scares
me.
Losing My Virginity: How I’ve
Survived, Had Fun and Made a
Fortune Doing Business My Way by
Richard Branson
This is an awesome read—I
devoured the whole thing in one sitting.
Richard Branson, founder of Virgin
Records and Virgin Airlines, is a maniac
and one of the most inspiring people on
two legs as far as I’m concerned. The
book details his life from when he
started his little record shop to becoming
one of the most famous and radical
entrepreneurs who went on to buy his
own island and fly hot air balloons over
the ocean in the jet stream. I would like
very much to party with this guy.
IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHY NOTE:
I’ve listed Richard Branson’s biography
because it’s one of my favorites, but
pretty much any
biography/autobiography about the
people you personally find inspiring is
totally worth reading. I could list about
seventy more here, but you may not find
the life and accomplishments of, say,
Dolly Parton or Eleanor Roosevelt, as
riveting and inspiring as I do. I strongly
suggest you actually take the time to read
books about the people who light you up,
because it’s one of the best ways to get
inspired to change your life.
Practical Intuition by Laura Day
Long hailed as a leading master of
intuition, Laura Day has worked with
everyone from high-powered business
people to hippies to celebrities to
financial analysts to housewives. She is
the queen of showing people how to
access their intuition so they can make
more informed decisions and design
more authentic lives. This book gives all
her secrets and tried and true tips on
connecting with your inner GPS via
exercises and case studies.
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success:
A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of
Your Dreams by Deepak Chopra
I’m a huge fan of not having to read
too much to get the information I want,
and of knowing how much I’m gonna
have to do ahead of time to get where I
want to go. Good old Deepak breaks
achieving success down into seven,
easy-to-follow steps based on spiritual
principles. This is one of my all-time
favorites for its small size and
profoundly potent advice. It delivers
deeply spiritual and powerful
information in bite-sized chunks and
gives clear exercises on using it in your
everyday life to achieve what you want.
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
Louise Hay is a modern day self-help
pioneer who cured herself of cancer
using her highly-lauded principles of
self-love and who now has her own
empire with a publishing company and
everything. This book is one of my
faves, even though it’s SUPER woowoo,
full of affirmations and general
gooeyness, but in the ever-critical selflove
department, it doesn’t get any better
than this. The back of the book is all
about the body and how all our injuries
and dis-eases can be traced back to
negative thought patterns. So if you
break your leg, you can look it up and
see that it’s because you’re scared of
moving forward (or something, don’t
quote me on that) and get an affirmation
from Louise on how to heal yourself. I
have a friend who completely cured
himself of something the doctors were
baffled by through reading this book and
doing what it says.
Creating Money: Keys To Abundance
by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer
The title of this book is a tad
misleading because it’s about so much
more than money, yet since most people
want to make more money, the good
news is they’ll pick it up and get way
more than they bargained for by reading
it and doing what it says. While it does
indeed teach you how to create money, it
also gives clear instruction on
meditation, clearing blocks, manifesting,
working with energy, gaining clarity, etc.
All of which contribute to manifesting
money, as well as pretty much everything
else, into your life. Easy to read and
follow with simple exercises and
deceptively deep concepts broken down,
this is an awesome starter book as well
as one to always have around to provide
important reminders and re-alignment.
The Science Of Getting Rich by
Wallace D. Wattles
The very first sentence of this book
made me slam it shut and leave it
untouched for years. It reads: “Whatever
may be said in praise of poverty, the fact
remains that it is not possible to live a
really complete or successful life unless
one is rich.” Hello? How gross is that?!
It offended me to my hippie core, until I
understood what it was really saying and
that, erm, you kind of can’t —not if you
want to fully express yourself, anyway.
“Rich” simply means that you have
everything you need to share your gifts
fully with the world and stay at the
highest vibration while you do it,
whatever that looks like for you. This is
now easily the book I recommend to
people the most, and the one I read over
and over. But you have to let a lot go
because it will absolutely go up your
nose if you’re still working on your
issues around it being okay to make
money.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon
Hill
This is the other contender for the
“Best Wealth Consciousness Book
Ever,” and another old-timey one. I
forgot to mention that Wallace Wattle’s
book is old-timey, too, but hello, look at
the guy’s name. Anyway, Napoleon Hill
interviewed the most successful
businessmen at the time to gather the
information for this incredible, how-to
guide. I read this book over and over,
too. It’s very to the point, a total asskicker,
and breaks everything down into
simple, easy-to-follow instructions. Do
what he says (and really do all of it) and
you will be large and in charge.
Finding Your Own North Star:
Claiming the Life You Were Meant to
Live by Martha Beck
I’ve seen Martha speak and have
read lots of her work and really love her
voice—so refreshing and brilliant and
hilarious. This book is awesome, really
walks you through some good steps and
asks some great questions to get you the
clarity you seek. She’s big on looking
past just what’s going on in your head
and connecting with your body to get
clarity and guidance from there as well.
She’s had a super successful coaching
institute for ages and is one of my
favorites in the field.
Getting to I Do: The Secret to Doing
Relationships Right by Dr. Patricia
Allen
I’m pretty sure I tore the cover off
this one before carrying it around, but in
spite of its totally unforgivable title,
there are some real eye-openers in here
about the nature of men and women and
how differently we go about
relationships. Written for women by
someone who has coached thousands of
happy couples into long-term
relationships, it’s full of brilliant
insights and tips on how to find and be in
the relationship of your dreams. As with
all this stuff, there will probably be
parts you don’t agree with (she’s like
a
strict Christian mother on the sex issue),
but it’s got lots of very valuable
information and is definitely worth a
read by both men and women.
Loving What Is: Four Questions That
Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie
Read this book! I demand it. It is the
Holy Grail of being happy in your
relationships. Based on what Katie calls
“The Work”—which is essentially just
asking yourself four simple, yet
profound, questions— this book spends
about ten pages walking you through the
steps of The Work and a couple hundred
on case studies. It’s basically like
watching Katie perform her magic on all
sorts of people, from those who’ve been
brutally raped to people who’ve lost
their children to those who want happier
marriages. She walks them through her
process and they suddenly find peace
and freedom. It’s so cool AND The
Work is a piece of cake. When you read
it, I recommend reading the case studies
first and then doing The Work on
yourself instead of the other way around.
Seeing her do it over and over will make
it much easier for you to get better
results when you try it on yourself.
The Way of the Superior Man: A
Spiritual Guide to Mastering the
Challenges of Women, Work and
Sexual Desire by David Deida
This book is made for a man, but the
ladies must read it, too, if they really
want to understand how men work. I
thought it was brilliant and fascinating
and explained SO much about the
opposite sex that made me respect men
even more. And the guys I’ve suggested
it to said it was massively empowering.
It speaks to, and explains, the highest
version of masculinity, reminding us
ladies why we love the fellas so much
and reminding men how truly awesome
they are/can be.
SEMINARS
PAX—Allison Armstrong
I took one of their brilliant seminars for
women called “Understanding Men,
Celebrating Women,” all about the
difference between the sexes that had me
on the floor—how did I make it this far
and not know any of this? I thought it
was so well done and not even that
cheesy. I went to just that one seminar
but I highly enjoyed their recordings as
well and have heard great things about
their other workshops.
The Hoffman Institute
Kay, so, this is the full-on, are-youfucking-
kidding-me one. This involves
beating pillows with baseball bats while
shrieking at the top of your lungs,
marrying yourself, singing lullabies to
your inner child—basically everything
that would have most people running for
their lives. It was so over the top that
you couldn’t help but give into it
because what the hell else could you do?
Luckily, it’s run by incredibly sweet and
skilled people who also have excellent
senses of humor about what they’re
asking you to do and you spend a solid
week of nonstop seminar and digging
deep into your past and your limiting
beliefs and letting them go. It’s like a
limiting-belief high-colonic. I loved it as
much as I hated it and highly, highly
recommend it. Brilliant and
transformative (and the food was
awesome).
Other good speakers to keep an eye out
for: Martha Beck, Esther Hicks,
Marianne Williamson, Byron Katie,
Wayne Dyer, David Neagle, Deepak
Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstien.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone at the funny farm,
especially Horseface McGee and Goatly
Thing One and Goatly Thing Two for
keeping me company, staring at me while
I wrote, cracking me up, and showing me
that I’m capable of unconditional love
by chewing through the door and
pooping all over the couch. I owe many
thanks to my agent, Peter Steinberg, for
all his hard work, support and
camaraderie. Gigantic, tearful, are-youkidding-
me’s go to Gina DeVee for
saving the day with her insight, humor
and ruthlessly loving red pen, and to
Alice Fiori and Bill Campbell for their
friendship, endless generosity, support
and high thread count sheets. Thanks to
Jennifer Kasius, Monica Parcell and
everyone at Running Press, Anders
Pederson, Crystalyn Hoffman, Julie
Faherty, my sweet mama, Michael
Flowers, Katharine Dever, and The
Universe, for all the endless
awesomeness.
