A friend listened to the recent interview where Bob Baker* asked me questions about hypnotic marketing for musicians.

During it I plugged my music support team, from Sarah Marie and Mathew Dixon to Guy Monroe and Daniel Barrett. I also plugged my favorite singer, Michelle Malone, and talked about  songwriters I love, such as Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty. And usually every time I mentioned someone, I gave out their website (just as I did in this very paragraph).

After it my friend said, “You’re a natural promoter.”

I smiled.

For the first few decades of my life, I had no idea what promotion was. I had to learn it. And then I had to make it second nature to me. So today it appears I’m a natural promoter.

But am I?

When I was in college in the early 1970s, broke and unhappy, a friend of mine said “You’re naturally pessimistic.”

Today people often comment, “Joe, you’re naturally optimistic.”

Well, which is it?

Am I naturally pessimistic or naturally optimistic?

What about you?

What are you “naturally” good at?

You have a tendency to lean one way or another in behavior right now based on your past habits. But you can also retrain yourself to lean in another direction with new habits.

• If you’re not happy, you can train yourself to be happy.
• If you’re not a promoter, you can train yourself to be a promoter.
• If you’re not skilled at a talent, you can train yourself to be skilled at it.

With enough training, people will look at you and say, “You’re naturally good at that.”

But we’ll both know the secret.

The secret to being naturally good at anything is focused practice.

Lots of it. I’m practicing the guitar every day. I’m writing songs almost daily. I’m reading books on singing, songwriting, and performing. I’m taking lessons. I’ve got a support team.

At one point soon, people will say, “You’re naturally good on guitar.”

What do you want to be naturally good at?

Get yourself a coach, build a support team, read, study and practice every day, and you, too, can be “naturally” good.

Naturally.

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – * My interview with Bob Baker is at http://bob-baker-podcast.blogspot.com/2011/03/57-joe-vitale-interview-on-hypnotic.html

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When I was a kid I wanted to play the guitar. I told my parents. They listened and bought me a Roy Rogers cowboy guitar — made out of cardboard.

Being a smart kid, I knew the guitar was a symbol. It meant my parents didn’t believe in me. They never thought I would amount to anything as a guitar player. After all, if they had faith in me and my potential, they’d have bought me a really nice guitar.

I held that memory in my head for almost fifty years.

Fifty years!

That’s a long time to hold a grudge.

When I hooked up with Daniel Barrett, my music producer for my forthcoming album, and told him my sad Roy Rogers guitar story, he suggested I make peace with it.

1960s Roy Rogers Toy Guitar

He suggested I find an old Roy Rogers cardboard guitar and buy it. He thought there might be a lesson in it for me.

I didn’t think so.

But I trust Daniel and did what he asked. I searched, found a nice 1960s Roy Rogers toy guitar on eBay, and bought it.

When it arrived, I felt sick.

When I opened the box, I felt depressed.

There was that damn guitar again.

But I walked off my sadness, sat with the guitar, glanced at it every now and then, played it a little, and relaxed.

I started to remember all the warm fuzzies I had about Roy Rogers, the man, the singer, the actor, the legend.

Who didn’t like Roy Rogers?

Roy Rogers, the Singing Cowboy

He stood for good in the world.

He was the superman of the wild west.

It then occurred to me to get the background story on my parents giving me that guitar. After all, there might be more to what I remembered. So I called my 85-year-old father and asked him about it.

“Dad, do you remember that Roy Rogers guitar you gave me as a kid?”

“You mean that cheapee?” he quickly replied. “I drove to Pennsylvania in a blizzard to get that thing.”

“Why did you get me that particular guitar?”

“We were broke but we wanted to get you what you wanted,” he said. “We got you the best guitar we could afford at the time.”

And there it was.

The truth.

I felt tears well up in my eyes.

My father and me eating garlic and peanut butter (his idea not mine)

My parents did believe in me.

They simply struggled with money. My father was the bread winner in the family. He had an entire platoon of kids to raise. I wanted a guitar. He got me one, doing the best he could at the time.

And for almost fifty years I thought he didn’t believe in me!

My entire story was wrong.

Most likely you have stories from your childhood like this. When we’re too young to know how the world works, we make conclusions that simply aren’t true. (Actually, we do this as adults, too, but that’s a different blog post.)

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain

Maybe it’s time to reexamine some of the childhood stories you still carry.

Maybe it’s time to revisit, understand or reinterpret, and forgive.

Maybe it’s time to dig out that Roy Rogers guitar and play a tune.

Pull up a chair…

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – Now that I’ve decoded my childhood, the first song I wrote is a tribute to Roy Rogers. He was a cool guy. And if you’re a guitar collector like me, you might like to know that Roy’s own Martin OM-45 guitar sold for $460,000. You read it right. Almost half a million dollars. Roy bought it for $30 used in 1933 and never knew it was a rare guitar to begin with. It sold for more than Roy’s 1964 Bonneville convertible or his stuffed legendary horse, Trigger. You just never know the value of a guitar —  emotionally or otherwise — even if it’s made out of cardboard.

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During my first trip to Warsaw several years ago, a mainstream reporter for a Polish magazine set up an interview with me. I give interviews night and day, in every country I visit, so I was eager to do this one, as well. Especially since I love Poland and its people.

But I wasn’t prepared for how the interview actually went.

The reporter was cute but stern. Her side-kick journalistic photographer was just as serious. In the reporter’s moderate English she asked me hard-nosed questions about the Law of Attraction, Polish people, my books and teachings, and more. No matter what I said, she didn’t like it.

At one point she asked, “Why are you teaching people to become rich?”

It was an interesting question. Under different circumstances it would seem like a silly question. Why not teach people to be rich? What’s wrong with being rich, anyway?

But it was obvious she was coming from a scarcity paradigm. Her mindset was set. My answers didn’t sit well with her. They couldn’t. From her perspective, my paradigm made no sense.

So instead of trying to teach her what an abundance paradigm is in a soundbite, I instead said something like, “I’m not teaching people to get rich, I’m teaching them to be happy.”

The reporter almost reeled back, her body posture suggesting she had just caught me in a grand lie, and she flipped through her notes.

When she found what she wanted, she looked at me and smugly said, “Didn’t you write a book called The Greatest Money-Making Secret in History?”

2003 Book on Giving

Now I had her.

“Apparently you haven’t read it,” I said. “When you read that book, you’ll discover that it is about giving away money.”

She stared at me. My answer didn’t compute.

I tried to explain to her about the power of giving; that if you want to attract money now, start giving away money now.

That didn’t sit well with her, either.

Give money when people are broke or jobless?

Give something, I countered. Start somewhere.

She looked confused, even angry.

The entire interview went like that. The resulting article was published as a feature in her Time-like Polish magazine. I have no idea what she actually wrote, as I don’t read Polish. (A Polish friend said, “You don’t want to know.”) It doesn’t really matter. I’m sharing it with you here because of a bigger lesson on giving.

Giving is one of the most powerful principles of all time.  You’ve heard about it, from me or others. It’s not new.

But do you actually do it?

If you do give, do you do it in a big way, in a loving and trusting way, and every day?

Be honest.

I used to resist giving, too. If I gave at all, it was a tiny amount. It took me a long time to realize that my not giving, or not giving freely, was sending messages to my mind such as “There isn’t enough,” “I won’t get any more,” “I might need this for an emergency,” “I feel safer with this in my pocket,” and so it goes.

All fear based thoughts.

All self-reinforcing and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Guess what?

Great book on Giving

The more you hold on to that old limited thinking paradigm, the harder it really is to attract money (or anything else). Your scarcity mindset simply won’t let it in.

What can you do about that?

No B.S. marketer Dan Kennedy once told me the window you receive through is made bigger by the window you give through. Want to receive more? Then give more. It’s that simple.

But beware.

There’s a lot of self-sabotage in this area.

I’ve heard people say, “I joined a multilevel company and they send some of their profits to charities, so I am giving through them.”

No, you’re not.

Giving is when you give direct; when it comes out of your pocket.

I’ve also heard people say, “I can’t afford to give money, so I give time and services gratis.”

That’s a type of giving, but you’re fudging; you have to give money to receive money.

I’ve also heard people say, “I’d give if I knew where to give.”

Baloney. Give wherever you receive spiritual nourishment or inspiration. You know who inspired you today. You can be on the alert for who inspires you tomorrow. Give there.

I’ve also heard, “I feel uneasy giving money. I don’t know what they’ll do with it.”

Who cares what they do with it? Bob Proctor once said, “They can burn the money as far as I care.” Once you give it, it’s no longer yours. Don’t con yourself into thinking you need to control the money once it leaves your hands. Let go. Trust.

When I first started giving money, I felt uncomfortable. I was leaving my comfort zone. I was stretching limiting beliefs until they snapped and shot away. At that point, I started to receive money almost faster than I could give it away.

I then found great joy in giving. I expanded my giving to other things. For example, in just the last few weeks –

• I gave a brand-new music keyboard to a friend.
• I gave a brand-new iPad to another friend.
• I gave away one of my prized guitars.
• I gave away one of my cars. (!)

With Polish editors of my books

Some might argue that I can give away cars and more because I’m now wealthy, but that would be overlooking the fact that I got wealthy by giving in the first place.

Think about it.

I got wealthy by giving.

Yes, yes, yes, of course, I’ve done a hundred million other things to get wealthy, from writing and speaking to creating and promoting to being on radio, television and in movies, to following the very steps I reveal in my book, Attract Money Now.

“There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.” – Kahlil Gibran

Giving to get rich is essential to attract success (and that’s why it’s one of the seven key steps in my book, Attract Money Now).

Giving is one of the most heart-expanding and exhilarating feelings.

Giving feels good.

Giving expands your heart and mind.

Giving makes a difference in the world.

Giving widens that inner window to allow you to receive more.

While my Polish reporter in Warsaw may still be writing her articles from her old school scarcity mindset and scratching her head over self-help authors like me who teach people how to “get rich,” you and I know one of the greatest money-attracting and life-enhancing secrets of all time: giving.

And yes, you can get rich giving.

But the only way to find out if this really works is to actually go do it.

Your move.

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – I wrote my little book, the one I mentioned above and told that Polish reporter about, The Greatest Money-Making Secret in History, back in 2003. You can buy it at Amazon but you can read it for free as part of a larger book on giving by Dr. Rick Barrett called Give to Live.  Go get it. Then read it. Tell others about it. And then go give something to somebody right now.

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The songwriting workshop I attended last weekend triggered a breakthrough in me regarding fear.

During the first morning, famed singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard gave a presentation on his insights from a long career in music. He talked about many things, including fear.

He paraphrased poet Rainer Maria Rilke, from the book Letters to a Young Poet, saying fear was a dragon who turned into a beautiful princess once you faced it.

Ray Wylie Hubbard and bored dog

I made mental note of that insight but didn’t do anything with it. I just liked it as a way to reframe fear: it looks scary but it’s a mirage that will turn into something beautiful once you face it.

Later that same day I had a one-on-one session with famed singer-songwriter Kevin Welch. I was telling him about my songwriting and began by saying, “The one thing I’m afraid of doing…”

Ray Wylie Hubbard and Kevin Welch

As soon as I heard myself say “I’m afraid,” I stopped in my tracks.

I flashed back to Ray Wylie’s talk earlier the same day.

“Fear is a dragon…who turns into a princess…once you face it…”

I suddenly realized that I was saying there was a dragon in front of me and I didn’t want to face it; I was also realizing the dragon would transform into something wonderful once I looked it in the eye.

Right then and there, I owned the very thing I feared.

I announced to Kevin that I was going to do exactly what I feared.

That breakthrough was so deep and undeniable that I still smile when I think of it.

I now feel free and empowered and unstoppable.

How?

Because I faced the dragon and it became a princess.

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”  – Rainer Maria Rilke

Consider: What are you afraid to do?

I’ve often said that your wealth is hiding under the very thing you are afraid to do.

I learned this when I faced my fear of ridicule and released my 2001 book, Spiritual Marketing, which in 2005 became The Attractor Factor, and in 2006 got me into the hit movie The Secret.

My career skyrocketed when I faced down that fear.

Rilke and Ray Wylie are suggesting your fear hides a princess.

Songwriting Workshop

Face your fear — and meet a princess.

How cool is that?

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – If you’re at all interested in songwriting, I highly endorse the weekend retreat held by Kevin and Ray Wylie. It takes you from wherever you are — beginner to advanced — and builds on what you bring to the table. Even Bob Dylan would dig it. I’ll be doing it again. It’s that good. It’s held outside of Austin, Texas, every month, for just a handful of people. Get details right here.

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In the first part of this article I asked you to think about how you created this moment. Your answer will help reveal how to speed up the Law of Attraction. If you haven’t reflected on that question yet, please do so right now.

Go ahead. I’ll wait….

How did you create this moment?

For me, the secret to how you instantly manifest anything (including this very moment) is in your unconscious mind, which is where your programming lives. It holds your life operating mental software.

As a reminder, your programming is your belief system, your mindset or paradigm, given to you from birth (even from before birth). In this post I want to explore how to clean up that programming so you can get the results you prefer.

But first things first.

You need to fully realize that your results aren’t completely coming from positive thinking or positive feeling or even positive doing.

Nope.

Your results are coming from the unconscious beliefs you were programmed with up to now. Based on those beliefs, you have thoughts, which lead to feelings, which lead to actions, which attract results.

In other words, you can think positive all you like but if you have unconscious beliefs about deservingness, for example, you won’t attract what you consciously think about.

And when you don’t, you’ll blame the Law of Attraction, the Secret, and everyone else. You’ll be frustrated, disappointed, and maybe even angry.

With Miracles Coach Janeen Detrick

I don’t blame you. I’ve been there. I’ve been broke, unhappy, depressed, despondent and hopeless. When you’re feeling defeated, it’s easy to blame the rest of the world and hard to take full responsibility.

But it’s in taking complete responsibility for where you’re at that real change begins.

Again, you can’t just poke around on the surface of your mind. Affirmations may not be enough. Visualizations may not be enough. Intentions may not be enough. You have to go deeper, into the unconscious where the command center is operating. And again, this isn’t that difficult. You just might need some guidance.

So let’s recap before we go deeper:

What you have right now is exactly what you will allow.

How do I know that?

Because it’s what you attracted based on previous thoughts, feelings and actions. Others joined in “the dance” of life with their own thoughts, feelings and actions, and you ended up co-creating this instant moment. This moment matches your comfort zone, based on your inner set-point of what you believe is possible right now.

Free DVD with purchase of book

But let’s go even deeper –

What you allow is based on your unconscious programming.

If you’re doing everything right and still not getting the results you want, unconsciously you are getting exactly what you feel is suitable for you. I know it’s hard to believe, at least at first. But your deep seated beliefs about money, love, romance, health, and everything else, is what filters out reality so you only see what is a match to those very beliefs.

Those beliefs got there from conclusions you made throughout life. You’re not to blame for any of it. We’ve all been programmed to various degrees.

This bestselling CD set contains advanced clearing methods

For example, when you watch numerous movies where the wealthy people are corrupt, you unconsciously conclude “money corrupts.”

Later, when you try to manifest some cash, you block it.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

You wouldn’t want to attract what you think corrupts. So you don’t.

To move beyond all these blocks, you need to get clear of those hidden beliefs.

I’ve written many books and recorded many audios offering guidance on how to get clear, everything from The Attractor Factor and The Key to The Secret to Attracting Money. Many people find using the methods I’ve described is enough. They do them and they make the changes. Done.

I've written way too many books to list here

But what about when you try all the methods — whether mine or someone else’s — and you remain pretty much the same?

This is deeper than a blog post can handle, but here’s the answer in short: any counter-intentions in your unconscious will veto conscious intentions.

In other words, if you say “I believe I’ll attract a new job” but underneath it believe, “I’m not worthy of a new job,” or “I don’t have the right skills,” or “The current economy sucks,” then guess what? Those counter-beliefs will attract a match to them.

Follow?

Your un-conscious beliefs will over-ride your conscious intentions.

Given that, how do you change the beliefs in the unconscious?

How the world works

Relax.

There is hope.

Here are some tips:

EFT/TFT. I’ve been a fan of “tapping” since I learned it via Roger Callahan, the creator of it, decades ago. I call it psychological acupuncture. I use it virtually every day. I believe it’s a wonderful tool for erasing and releasing all kinds of concerns. But in all honesty, I’m not sure how deep it can go. I’m sure practitioners of it will swear by it, but I’ve found deep programming in the unconscious mind hard to reach with just tapping meridians. I’m not dismissing it. Again, I love it. I’m just questioning its depth. Many EFT preachers have personal issues they still deal with. If the method worked, all the time, for everything, it would seem they’d be free by now. Maybe it just takes time. Still, it does work.

Resources: 

Roger Callahan
The Tapping Solution

Ho’oponopono. I wrote the book (Zero Limits, with Dr. Hew Len) on this, so naturally I love it. I’ve been using it since around 2005. It’s saying four phrases (I love you, I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you) as a type of petition to the Divine to correct any errors of perception. I do believe this works, and goes deep. It goes to the dark corners without you even knowing it. But I’ve also wondered if a faster approach would be better. As a result, I was inspired to create advanced ho’oponopono, which I explain and demonstrate in my new audio program, The Abundance Paradigm. It rocks.

Resources:

Zero Limits
http://www.self-i-dentity-through-hooponopono.com/
https://secure.theabundanceparadigm.com/checkout/order_form.php

Reframing: I’ve spoken and written about the power of story in my books, and in both key areas of my life, the spiritual (Expect Miracles, etc) and the marketing (Hypnotic Writing, Buying Trances, etc). When you change your story about your life, you suddenly alter an entire belief system. I remember author Leo Buscaglia saying he had a happy childhood. Yet when his sibling was interviewed, he said he had no idea what Leo was talking about. Their childhood sucked. Well, which brother was correct? BOTH. They simply had a different story. You can rewrite your story today. I believe this will cause things to shift in your world. The only snag with this process is that you may write your new story from within the old one. In other words, you’ll be writing a story for a new you from within the old you, meaning the old beliefs may be tinting what you describe.

Resources:

Byron Katie’s The Work
The Lefkoe Method

Bruce DiMarsico's Trilogy

Questioning: I’ve been using variations of The Option Process since the early 1980s. I learned it direct from Barry Neil Kaufman, author of such books as To Love Is To Be Happy With. But I’ve also had many sessions with the original miracles coach, Mandy Evans. In short, it’s a way to question your beliefs with love and curiosity. I’m pleased to report that the creator of Option, the late Bruce Di Marsico, has three volumes of teachings now available, called The Myth of Unhappiness. I also feel that this is a tough process to do on your own. You can do it, but since you’re the belief owner trying to find your own beliefs, which is operating your very looking, it may be sluggish.

Resources:

Mandy Evans
http://www.choosehappiness.net/option-method-store/the-myth-of-unhappiness-the-collected-works-of-bruce-di-marsico/

Coaching: My life skyrocketed when I found a good coach. I had been doing everything right; reading the right books, listening to the right audios, attending the right lectures, and even doing the right things. I had baby step success. But when I got a coach, things exploded. Barriers melted. Why? My own view is that a coach can help you see your belief system and programming. Again, you looking at your own beliefs is a challenge as you are looking from within the very beliefs you need to see. A coach can see from the outside. Obviously, this is the way to go. Because of the power of this, I created Miracles Coaching.

Resources:

Miracles Coaching

Again, I’m not dismissing anything else. I’ve been studying hypnosis since the late 1960s, for example. It’s another powerful tool. So is cognitive therapy. And positive psychology. So are clearing audios.

If you have something working for you, keep using it and tell us about it. But if you’re not attracting what you want, it may be time for a change.

Finally, you might want to remind yourself of this —

You are a work in progress. It’s important to not judge yourself or your process. After all, when will you one day think “I’m done growing! I’ve arrived!”? You’ll be working on yourself till the end. That’s the life adventure. Enjoy it.

So maybe the best news of all is that you can accept yourself and your situation and your process right now, knowing it will transform as you do.

The more you can be happy now, the more you will relax the desperation, release the stuck energy, and slide into a new paradigm.

I’ve said it before and here it goes again: the miracle you seek is right here, right now.

The more you understand that this moment is it, and be grateful for it, the more you will move into the world of instant manifestation.

Expect Miracles.

There’s one right now.

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – I can’t stress enough that the real secret to instant manifestation with Law of Attraction is in truly appreciating this moment. Look around. There’s bound to be something you can be thankful for in this moment. Focus on it. Feel the gratitude. I mean really feel it. The more you do, the more you will morph your energy into one of well-being and happiness, and that very feeling will attract more moments even better than this one. Why not try it right now?

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