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Matt Gill, co-owner of Nitro Marketing and the man who runs my Hypnotic Gold www.HypnoticGold.com membership program, just asked me for a list of my top ten books for 2005.

I found it tough to create. I buy so many books, and even read enough of them, that creating a list of only ten seems impossible. But I did come up with a list of fifteen books. Here they are (in no particular order):

The Next Millionaires by Paul Zane Pilzer. I loved this one. Talk about a relentless optimist. I ended up interviewing Pilzer for my Hypnotic Gold program and found the man sharp and fascinating. He told me he’s not an optimist but a scientist. He sees a profitable future for you and me. Get this book.

Fantastic! The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Laurence Leamer. Arnold is simply fascinating. He’ll be back.

The Irresistible Offer by Mark Joyner. The best book on marketing in 50 years. It’s causing me to rethink all my sales letters and offers.

177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class by Steve Siebold. A masterpiece. You can’t read this in one sitting. Take a bite a day, chew on it, and change your life. Genius.

Empowerment by Gene Landrum. Gene’s research proves that you don’t need good genes to excel in business or sports. You need the right mindset for success. I interviewed him for my Hypnotic Gold program and found him a sheer delight. Brilliant and inspiring.

The Autobiography of Dan Kennedy. I love Dan but think he’s a gloomy, grumpy guy. His life story is riveting, though I left the end of it feeling down. His outlook on life is not sunny, and mine is. (He needs to read the Pilzer book mentioned above.)

Extreme Muscle Enhancement: BodyBuilding’s Most Powerful Techniques by Carlton Colker. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of information out there on muscle building. This one seems to speak to me. Since I’ve lost 80 pounds and transformed my life through fitness and mental toughness, I love hard hitting, clear books like this. It’s muscular.

500 Ways to Change the World edited by Nick Temple. Inspiring. These ideas are from people just like you and me. I’m refreshed and renewed when I see the cleverness of the human mind.

No Such Thing as Over-Exposure: Inside the Life and Celebrity of Donald Trump by Robert Slater. Trump is a publicity machine and this book gives you a peek inside his window.

The New Handbook of Cognitive Therapy Techniques by Rian McMullin. I’m fascinated with how beliefs create reality. This intense but freeing book reveals ways to help yourself see through and change your own mental programming.

Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero’s Epic Saga of Torment, Survival and Forgiveness by Louis Zamperini. Whew! What a read! As hypnotic as any novel, yet it’s all true. Read it.

The Power of Impossible Thinking by Yoram Wind and Colin Crook. A mind-expanding book about how your view of the world creates your world.

The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey Schwartz. Sounds tough but it’s easy to read. The message, as I remember it, is that your own decision can over-ride any mental problems. Again, intention rules the earth.

How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence that Anything Is Possible by Dr. Larry Farwell. Just read it.

Motigraphics: The Analysis and Measurement of Human Motivation in Marketing by Richard Maddock. A noble attempt to graph human emotions so we can control them. I read and re-read this one and I’m not sure I get it, but I love the attempt. Well worth wrestling with.

I’m probably going to think of 15 other books that should be on this list, but for now the above will do.

Wait! I just remembered another hypnotic read from this year:

The Spiritual Journey of Joseph l. Greenstein by Ed Spielman. The life story of this old time strongman was, well, hypnotic. It would make a great movie. It was written by the creator of the Kung Fu TV series.

Happy Reading.

Ao Akua,

joe
www.mrfire.com

PS — You may have to get Pilzer’s new book from http://www.paulzanepilzer.com, but I’m pretty sure the other books are available at www.Amazon.com or from your favorite bookseller. While book shopping, be sure to pick up a few copies of my books. (I’ve written several, you know.) They make great gifts. And they slide into Christmas stockings just fine.

It’s been a traumatic weekend.

On Saturday night we were coming home from a Christmas gathering, driving down the country roads in the dark, when we hit a deer.

The deer was instantly killed. My car — my brand new $90,000 BMW 645ci — was instantly damaged.

We were fine, though shaken up.

I know it could have been worse. A friend knows a couple who hit a deer one night while driving, and the wife was killed.

We survived … but the drama continues.

When I called my insurance company, I was jolted to learn my insurance had lapsed. Apparently the bill fell through the cracks. Even though I’ve been with them for three decades, they let me go. I didn’t pay the last bill, so Allstate assumed I just went to another carrier.

From a marketing standpoint, that’s a mistake on their part. Had they made a call or two, they could have kept what they perceived as a lost customer, and my life would be easier today.

Here I am, a brand new luxury car sitting in my garage, badly damaged; no insurance on it or my BMW Z3; and me suffering the trauma of being in an accident and killing an animal.

What do I do?

What would you do?

One thing I did today was visit the site that everyone else seems to be visiting, too: http://www.cuteoverload.com/

The above picture is from it. One look and I smiled.

I looked at the other photos on the site and started grinning, almost laughing. This site has helped me get through today with a bit of happiness and laughter.

But I didn’t stop there.

The pictures are in some ways a distraction.

I needed to face the real issues here.

Whenever I’m not clear — a term I use in my book The Attractor Factor — I know it’s time to get help. Today I called one of the healers I know, a miracle worker I’ve turned to for five years now: Ann Taylor at http://www.innerhealing.com

I was lucky. Ann was home and took my call. She was very generous with her time. We explored the accident, the insurance mishap, and my feelings. Within minutes I was feeling better, I was moving forward, and even Allstate called back.

While they are denying my claim (which means I’m stuck with the repair bill), and they want me to sign up with them as a new driver with a new policy (which means I’ll look for a new carrier), I feel much clearer about the event.

I believe everyone attracts experiences for lessons. Get the lesson and you don’t need the experience. Don’t get the lesson and the experiences will get more intense, to get your attention.

I’ve learned from this one. I’d tell you what I learned but each person has their own insights. Mine may not be the same as yours.

To prove to you that my insight may not make sense to you, here’s the big lesson I got today:

“Orders from the Divine trump all other commitments.”

Doesn’t make sense all by itself (or does it?).

Here’s the short story behind it:

I went on a cruise last October. My intuition told me not to go, but I ignored it. As a result, the cruise wasn’t the greatest. More than that, the bill for the auto insurance arrived while we were away on that cruise. Had we been at home, we would have seen it and paid it. Instead, it got lost in a mountain of mail.

I never said no to the cruise because I wanted to keep my word. I said I would attend as a speaker and so I went, despite my uncomfortable feelings. But a higher authority was trying to tell me don’t go.

I didn’t listen.

Last Saturday I attracted a deer to warn me that I had no insurance. I could have been in a terrible accident, where not having insurance could have ruined me. As it turned out, hitting a deer, and surviving to tell you about it, was actually good news.

Now look at the lesson:

Had I paid attention to the divine voice within telling me to not go on the cruise — meaning had I paid attention to the higher authority telling me to ignore my previous commitment — we would have seen the insurance bill, paid it, and perhaps never met the deer.

Again, my lesson is this: “Orders from the Divine trump all other commitments.”

When you feel stuck or unclear, do something that lightens and clears your life — like call Ann Taylor. Find a way to learn from what happened (so it doesn’t happen again) and move forward.

I’ll talk more about this concept in my next book, which hits the stores on March 7th. Meanwhile, check your car insurance policy — and pay attention to your divine intuition.

Onwards.

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS — Because Allstate was so unkind to me, I went elsewhere. Since the most memorable insurance advertiser out there seems to be Geico, I went to www.Geico.com They were a joy to work with. Their online form was a breeze to use. I also used their online chat feature, which helped me with questions and assured me I was doing well with my answers. Later, when I spoke to someone on the phone to close the deal, they were quick, professional, and friendly. I signed with them. And yes, I saved a lot of money on my car insurance.

People have been sending me gifts, either for Christmas or my upcoming birthday (12-29), all week. Some gift-ers are known and some are unknown. I find this curious.

Two days ago the UPS driver had me sign for a package. The small package contained a brand new Ipod Nano. I’ve wanted one so I’m glad “The Attractor Factor” continues to work.

But there wasn’t a clue who sent the gift to me. I still don’t know who this mysterious, generous Santa is.

But he or she isn’t the only one playing gift-giver.

Today someone sent me four quarts of Goji Juice. While I admit I love goji berries, I find it uncomfortable to accept four quarts of juice made from them. Why? Whoever sent it is probably trying to convince me to promote their product in some direct marketing business. Clue: A company flyer was in the package. That’s not wrong, it just feels a little manipulative. At some point I may be cornered and asked if I will represent the product. That doesn’t feel like a true gift. It feels like a loaded gun.

Yet another person — and this one gave his name — is sending me some of his company’s nutritional products. I know this package is coming, I know who it’s coming from, and I know what he expects.

Yes, he wants me to have the gifts. And yes, he’s hoping I’ll promote it for him to my email list. And yes, he understands I may never promote his site at www.assurednutrition.com But he’s giving the gift anyway. He’s smart.

My all-time favorite gift to receive, any time, for any reason, is an http://www.amazon.com/gift-certificates Amazon gift coupon. Over the years people have bought them for me in values of $20 to $200. (The limit on an Amazon gift coupon is $5,000, but you can buy more than one..) You can’t imagine my glee at holding a gift coupon and shopping online for my favorite product: Books!

You’d think after cleaning my office (and no, I’m not done yet), taking two months to dig through books and then get books back on shelves, that I’d be sick of them. Not so. Not even close. I still live for the next hypnotic read. And if I can’t find it, then I’ll write it.

But back to the subject of giving…

I wrote a little book called The Greatest Money-Making Secret In History. It states that giving should be done without expectation of direct return.

In other words, you expect return, but not from the person you gave to. The return will come in time, probably from some unexpected source.

And if you could give without any expectation, then you’d probably transcend all life and be instantly enlightened. But who’s there?

When we give, we want to give out of love, not out of expectation. With the former we invoke one of the keys to the kingdom of wealth; with the latter we invoke our ego, which can’t see beyond its own nose.

To whoever gave me the Ipod Nano, thank you.

Expect something wonderful to come your way soon.

Ao Akua,

joe
www.mrfire.com

PS — I always use a PS but I don’t always know what to say in one. This is one of those moments. (But notice how you read this PS, anyway?)

As I go through the exhausting process of reconstructing and reorganizing my office, I sometimes stop and flip through a book I haven’t read yet, or one I read long ago and want to revisit. Often I get lost in the reading for a few minutes in a rush of excitement. That just happened and I want to share the moment with you.

I was reading The Translucent Revolution: How People Just Like You are Waking Up and Changing the World by Arjuna Ardagh. This is a huge (almost 500 pages) and inspiring collection of true stores of people transforming the world by following their inner calling. Chapters cover everything from parenting to education to health to business to religion to art to your own self identity.

I loved reading how Odwalla Juice, a bottled health drink I used to drink when I lived in Austin, began. In 1980 Greg Steltenpohl and two friends started the business as a way to pay for college. They squeezed their first crate of fruit out of a back yard shed with a $200 juicer. They delivered fresh juice to restaurants in their Volkswagen van.

By 2000 they sold the company to Coca-Cola.

Today Steltenpohl co-founded an environmentally friendly credit card, called The Interra Card.

I’ve said it again and again: Money isn’t separate from spirit. The material and the spiritual are two sides of the same coin. In order to live your fullest and help the world at the same time, you need to come from the inside first. Money follows those who express spirit first.

That’s Beyond Marketing.

And that’s how you attract money.

Read The Translucent Revolution to get inspired.

Read The Attractor Factor to keep the fires burning bright.

Onwards.

Ao Akua,

Joe
www.mrfire.com

PS – Or see www.MoneyBeyondBelief.com to discover how to attract money by knocking on your own door. (Go see already.)

I twisted Pete Siegel’s arm (not easy) to get you a discount on all of his programs (see previous post).

Go here to learn more —http://www.incrediblechange.com/OrderPage2.htm

I’m sure he’ll change his mind at any moment, so if you want “Think and Grow Big” or his confidence course, golf course, diet course, or any of his other mind-body hypnosis programs, all at a nice discount, you better hop to it.

I’m sure this would be a nice gift to yourself, or to someone you know.

Merry Merry,

joe
www.mrfire.com