The Law of Attraction: A Reality Check for the Self Employment Dream

Law of Attraction Magic Want

One of the themes that runs through Believe: A Guide to Practical Attraction is the distinction between the creative power of thought and the resource-depleting practice of wishful thinking. In other words, how does the Law of Attraction work, really?

And how can we use it to manage for happiness?

There’s a paradox at the heart of the Law of Attraction. On the one hand, thought has the power to bridge current reality and a dreamed-for outcome. 100% of our experience of the world is created by our thinking in the moment. Where things get screwy is when we imagine that we can and should control our thoughts.

Hopeless.

Worse, the Law of Attraction can be an invitation to ungrounded wishful thinking. By definition wishful thinking keeps us and what we wish for separate. The wish is always a distant dream.

The risk is that we will reject or even resent current reality in favor of what we think would make us happier in the future. In that moment we forget that it’s thinking itself that produces our experience of happiness or unhappiness, not something in the outside world.

With this in mind, here is a quick reality check. After all, your possible dream begins here and now, not there and then.

You will make mistakes

Hello! Mistakes happen. If you position yourself as a know-it-all, mistakes can be fatal. Position yourself instead as a human being, a learner, an adventurer, and your mistakes become platforms for next steps.

Not everyone wants or needs what you have

That’s good news, because odds are that you can’t serve everyone anyway. Cultivate the courage, integrity, and clarity to listen deeply to prospective clients. That way you will tune yourself and your offers to the people you are meant to serve. You can concentrate your efforts on refining your offers and selling to people who do want what you have, and you can let go of the rest.

Obstacles are essential to creating

Opposition is an essential shaper of the creative process, closing off some choices and pointing in new, sometimes completely unfamiliar and unexplored, directions. Think of it as putting banks on a river. Without those banks, a river’s flow loses force. Add banks, and you focus and direct a powerful flow.

Humbly welcome opportunities to profit

Remember the Marianne Williamson quote, “We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?”

Who are you to not profit from your work? It’s simply wasteful not to harvest, use, and recycle the gifts we’ve been given. Let’s get a clue and stop starving ourselves and our businesses of the oxygen they need to thrive.

Clients have bad days, too

Some times they’re going to take it out on you. That doesn’t mean you have to slink home licking your wounds, nor does it mean you get to strike back. It certainly doesn’t mean you have to accept abuse.

When you feel unfairly used, take a few deep breaths, notice what you wish were different, and remember that we’re all human. Maybe it’s time to do some boundary maintenance. Are you pretending that you need to please everyone or that everyone needs to like you in order for you to thrive? Look to yourself, not because you are to blame, but because you are the only one whose behavior you can manage.

Sometimes whole systems go wrong

Or you find out too late that a new project was not quite ready for prime time. (Tell me about it.) At times like this you get to practice being available and responsive to client needs while also taking care of yourself.

Sometimes you won’t (yet) know how to solve or resolve the problem, and you may resent the time you’re using to reassure clients instead of getting things on track. Breathe. Learn to say, “I don’t know, and I do care, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.” Practice saying it with dignity, conviction, and patience. Take some time to wonder what you would need to believe in order for all of this to feel right and true.

It takes a village to succeed at self-employment

Self-employment doesn’t mean we don’t need or want support, though we may be the last to realize it. Spend some time wondering how other people might want you to thrive. Let your imagination run free as you speculate on what kinds of collaboration could work for you. Turn your complaints about networking into dreams of your ideal support system. What would your business look and feel like if you knew you did not have to have it all together because there was lots of help at hand?

Manage for happiness

In any given moment 1oo% of what we experience is the product of our thinking. That means that happiness and success are functions of our thinking in the moment.

But that doesn’t mean we have to wrestle with negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. Our default setting as human beings is innate wellbeing. That’s why I say manage for happiness. Tune into the experience of wellbeing whenever it occurs. Allow it to expand. Whenever possible make your decisions from there.

It begins with what is, in this moment

The secrets to creating the possible dream are all related to accepting what is, which includes accepting the support that is everywhere around you and accepting your own desire to build a business that adds real value in the world and allows you to thrive. Some days it will be easier than others to believe that reality and your dream can co-exist. But if you persist with humility, passion, and trust, your dream itself will teach you how to make it real.

Tap into the source of Wealth Wisdom

In June 2013 you’re invited to experience the free Wealth Wisdom Series. During the series you will have an opportunity to reconnect with your human-beingness. You’ll reconnect with the truth that all wealth, all generosity, all connection exists only in this moment and that the great chain of being needs you to be exactly the way you are in order for the marvelous dance to continue. You’ll experience yourself as a wealth creator.

The Wealth Wisdom Series schedule

June 6: Download the “Let’s End the Tug-of-War About Money” mini workbook. In it you’ll find a foundational exercise from the full-length Authentic Wealth Virtual Retreat.

June 12: Video, “The Three Questions You Must Answer to Be Wealthy.” I’ll give you a transcript, too, but I urge you to watch the video. I chose this medium deliberately so that you can better engage with the questions and tap into a greater Source of intelligence for the sake of creating and sharing wealth and wellbeing in all dimensions.

June 18: A transformational webinar: “How to Make the Shift from Money Victim to Wealth Creator.”

If you haven’t already signed up, you can do it in just a minute just click here.

How to create wealthIf you want to shift your relationship with money even more powerfully

The Wealth Wisdom Series is a taste of the shifts that are available when you experience the full Authentic Wealth virtual retreat. If you’re wanting radical change in your money story, if you’re ready to powerfully shift your relationship with money, then please consider Authentic Wealth.

Authentic Wealth takes you step-by-step through the radical re-visioning of your relationship with money and wealth. The seven modules have been lovingly designed and tested to challenge and support you in rewriting your money story. Accompanying each module is an open coaching and Q&A call so you can integrate and apply the insights and shifts you experience during the retreat.

What the Authentic Wealth retreat is like

“I worked with Molly several years ago in her Authentic Wealth teleretreat. For me, it was pretty much ‘love at first sound’ with Molly. I have a keen ear for the real thing, and Molly is it. She took me through an experience in that retreat where I got, deep in my bones, that my relationship with money is an intimate relationship that affects every aspect of my life. And I can change it by becoming more and more conscious. That’s the only way.

“Molly is profoundly non-violent in the way she works, and at the same time, not afraid to challenge deep patterns and beliefs. She did that with me, and it was actually life-changing. I never had someone come in so close to my deepest beliefs about money, and stand there, without budging, as she asked me, ‘Shayla, is that really true?’ What a gift.

“And it isn’t over. What I received from working with Molly keeps evolving, growing, and emerging into my life and work. That’s the way deep learning works. It’s a living thing that I discovered with Molly, not some kind of information she fed me from a book.” Shayla Wright, Teacher, coach, writer

Click here to learn more about Authentic Wealth.

Photo of magic wand by photophilde via Flickr

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Molly
Posted in Ambition, Creativity, Emotional intelligence, Goal Setting, Spirit, Success, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

The Innocent Origins of Scarcity Thinking

3littlepigs_6-2013

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. When they turned 18, the little pigs left home and seek their fortune.

Their first priority was finding shelter. The first pig built a house out of straw that he found scattered on the ground. The second pig built a house out of sticks that he scavenged from the woods.

The third little pig discovered an abandoned cache of bricks. At first he was ecstatic. “These would be perfect for a house!” he thought. But then he got anxious.

Who owned the bricks?

What if they wouldn’t give him permission to use them?

What if they gave him permission but wanted him to pay more than he could afford?

What if he did build a house of bricks and his brothers thought that he was stuck up and a show off?

It was all too much for the third little pig. In the end he decided to live out in the open, taking shelter wherever he could find it.

Enter the big bad wolf

One night the big bad wolf, which loved to eat little piggies, attacked the first pig’s house. Though the door was tightly latched, all the wolf needed to do was take a gigantic breath. He huffed and he puffed and lo! He blew the house down.

The first pig fled to his brother’s stick house. Again the wolf came calling. Again he huffed and he puffed and lo! He blew that house down as well.

The two homeless little pigs ran frantically into the night hoping to find shelter with their brother. Eventually they found their equally homeless brother holed up inside a sewer pipe. The three pigs squeezed into the pipe and working desperately, they managed to block the opening with a large boulder. For the time being, they were safe from the wolf.

“What a wise little piggy I am,” reflected the brother from his damp, dark hiding place. As long as I keep moving, that old wolf will never get me.

Of course it wasn’t very long before running and hiding and scavenging exhausted the three little piggies and the wolf had himself a lovely feast.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ask any five year old, and they’ll tell you there is something wrong with this story. We know intuitively that the pigs were supposed to have learned a lesson and lived to profit by it. Instead, we see the very pig that could have built a sturdy house of bricks turned his back on opportunity and settled for a life on the run.

But is this really such a surprising choice? How often in our own lives do we make similar choices leading to chronic feelings of scarcity?

I’ll go into that in a moment, but first an interlude to invite you to a special free series about wealth.

INTERLUDE: You’re invited to a no-cost Wealth Wisdom Series

Fighting about money–with yourself or anyone else–is painful. It’s also embarrassing, especially when money is the last thing you want at the center of your life.

I’ve worked on this with hundreds of clients. Shoot, more to the point, I’ve worked on it with myself for decades. And while I don’t claim to have all the answers, I do claim to have attained some wisdom on the subject.

I’d like to share some of that wisdom with you this month in the no-cost Wealth Wisdom Series.

You can sign up click here.

Here’s what the series consists of. Each piece builds on the previous one to facilitate profound shifts through direct experience. It won’t overwhelm you with content.

June 6: Workbook: Let’s End the Tug-of-War About Money.

June 12: Video with transcript: The Three Questions You Must Answer to Be Wealthy.

June 18: Transformational webinar: How to Make the Shift from Money Victim to Wealth Creator.

The Wealth Wisdom Series is unlike anything I have offered before. Even if you’ve signed up for my previous wealth trainings, you’ll gain new insights and shifts from this one.

Back to our story.

Scarcity as rationalization and protection

For years I believed that my own anxieties around money were the result of being the oldest of eight kids. I would explain my scarcity thinking with a laugh, saying that I had an accountant who lived in the back of my brain and multiplied everything by ten before deciding if it was affordable. Somehow I kept a straight face while I said this, even with evidence of past and present prosperity everywhere around me.

One particular memory seemed to support my scarcity thinking. I was about five years old, and I was on the phone with my best friend, Mary. It was early evening in the fall of my first grade year.

“Can you go roller-skating?” Mary asked.

“I’ll ask,” I said, pretending to put down the phone. A moment later I got back on without asking my Mom. “My Mom won’t let me.” I said.

For forty years I believed that the reason I didn’t actually ask my Mom was that I didn’t think we had the money, and I didn’t want to embarrass her. Then one day I saw that something was wrong with that picture.

Scarcity as a dodge

First, my friend Mary’s family didn’t have any more money than mine did. In fact I once sent her money, believing it to be an act of charity, but provoking an embarrassing scene between our parents.

Second, when I thought about it, I found it odd that this particular memory would pop up whenever I thought about money and my childhood. Odd because there weren’t eight kids in the family at that time, so my back brain accountant wouldn’t have been multiplying by ten, if indeed she were multiplying by anything at all.

If the story isn’t as I remember it, I wondered, why would I have pretended that we couldn’t afford for me to go skating? What were the real origins of my scarcity thinking?

I only had to ask the question in order to see the obvious answer: I had been more afraid of roller-skating than of asking for money. In other words I created a scarcity script to cover up my awkwardness, both the anticipated awkwardness of skating and the additional awkwardness of not knowing how to just say “No, thank you.”

Oh. My. How many times have I said, “I can’t afford it,” when I meant but didn’t want to say, “No, thank you,” or “I’m scared”?

A story is just a story

If you recognize yourself and your own scarcity thinking in these stories, never fear. One of the grand things about interior barriers to prosperity is that these scary stories dissolve in the light of understanding. And when interior barriers come down, exterior barriers tend to follow.

Here are some pointers for lowering your interior barriers to prosperity.

  • Practice speaking about money and material wellbeing without defense, apology, or justification.
  • When good things happen, see if you can remain open and connected to others even when there is disparity in your circumstances.
  • Be accountable. Are you being a good steward by keeping track of what comes in and goes out, or do you hang out in a money fog?
  • Ask for what you want without anticipating yes or no. A new reality emerges when you ask for something. Another one emerges when your request is answered. You can’t know what those future realities are, but you have infinite choice in the present about what to ask for.

Finally, our experiences of scarcity or abundance are the products of our thinking in the moment. We can’t control our thoughts, but we can choose which thoughts we invest in.

Scarcity stories are the product of innocently investing in scary thoughts. When we really understand this, we can withdraw our investment. We don’t need to try to replace the scary thoughts with happy ones. New thoughts will arise spontaneously, giving us access to happier endings.

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Molly
Posted in Emotional intelligence, Mindfulness, Money, Small business, Spirit, Success, Uncategorized, Vision, Wealth | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Money: How to close the conversation gap with authentic pricing

The Work of Byron Katie supports authentic pricingIt’s one of those beautiful situations in which you’re in a great conversation about your work. Everything is going so well.

Until the talk turns to money.

Suddenly you’re out of synch and that wonderful connection you had is broken.

What happened?

Trying to appear disinterested creates a disconnect

Here’s what happens in so many conversations with prospective clients. You don’t want them to think you are in it for the money, and you really don’t want to work for free. Somehow, it seems, you have to manage the conversation so that they don’t think you’re after their money, while simultaneously persuading them that your work is worth paying for.

Do you see the irony? You want more than anything to be sincere and professional, but when you manage the conversation, you risk coming across as manipulative, or clumsy, or both.

Ack!

That’s why so many conversations in which you try to appear disinterested go wrong. When the reality is that you *do* have a vested interest, trying to repress or deny it creates a disconnect, the opposite of what you intend. To pretend otherwise gets in the way of authentic pricing.

The problem is being in their business

Byron Katie talks about three kinds of business: my business, your business, and God’s business. (If you have trouble with the G word, think of it as Reality’s business.) Being in anyone’s business but your own creates suffering.

When you focus on what prospective clients think of you, there’s nobody on your side. You feel ungrounded and unsupported because you have left your business to hang out in theirs. You’re over there in their heads, and there’s nobody home in yours!

The solution is coming home to your business

Authentic pricing means being in your own business.

Imagine for a moment that you aren’t the least bit worried about what other people in a money conversation are thinking about you.

You have the same set of intentions: to treat them as human beings (not dollar signs) and to be well compensated for your work, but you’re not preoccupied with managing the conversation to control their reactions.

It’s a whole new movie when you let go of the outcome

What they think is their business. The outcome is God’s business. Your business is to be on your own side.

Being on your own side doesn’t mean being terminally self-absorbed, greedy, and wanton. You don’t want to be those things, so why would you choose to be?

(Sure, you can have a greedy thought, but it’s just a thought. It doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t act on it. When you are on your own side you don’t need to act on it because you don’t feel desperate.)

Being on your own side is your job

In a conversation about money (as in every situation), your job is to be on your own side.

When you are on your own side, you can evaluate what’s right for you. You can turn inside when you feel uncertain and affirm your good intentions. You can run the numbers, research the market, and feel into your heart to discover what you want to charge, then ask for it gracefully. You can practice authentic pricing.

When you are on your own side, you free other people to be on their own sides, too. Your job is to tell your truth and make clear requests. Their job is to respond as they see fit.

When you are your own side you can take no with grace

The difference between a request and an ultimatum is that when you make a request, you are willing to take no for an answer. That frees you up to practice authentic pricing.

That’s incredibly liberating. When you are willing to take no for an answer, there’s no limit to what you are free to ask for except your values and imagination. When you are willing to hear no for an answer, your creativity blossoms.

And the key, of course, to being able to take no for an answer is to stay in your business.

To be on your own side.

Being on your side closes the gap

Being on your side closes the gap between you and other people in money conversations. That’s because when you’re at home with you, you’re not trying to manage their perceptions or reactions. You are present and available.

That’s a good place from which to have a good conversation about money.

Have you signed up for the Free Wealth Wisdom Series?

The Wealth Wisdom Series is my new no-cost training and delivers core teachings from the Authentic Wealth Virtual Retreat. It runs through June, 2013. Here’s how it works:

June 6: Let’s End the Tug-of-War About Money (workbook)
June 12: The Three Questions You Must Answer to Be Wealthy (video with transcript)
June 18: How to Make the Shift from Money Victim to Wealth Creator (webinar mp3 plus PDF option for replay)

Click here for more details or sign up in the box below.

Photo by Florian SEROUSSI via Flickr

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Molly
Posted in Authenticity, Confidence, Emotional intelligence, Getting clients, Meaning, Mindfulness, Money, Pricing, Self-employment, Selling, Small business, Success, The Work, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Why I’m not sucking my thumb and other happy thoughts

ripple_child_5-2013We do not need to get over fear, anxiety, and the blues to have wonderful lives and successful businesses. If we did, I’d be sucking my thumb instead of writing this newsletter.

Honest.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s not negative thoughts and the moods they produce that trip us up, it’s believing that we shouldn’t have them and trying to change them when we do.

Trying to change thoughts and moods expands them. When we innocently focus on processing what upsets us, we invest emotional and mental energy in the story, and before long the story is a novel.

Let’s entertain the possibility that the core stories that make us who and what we are have no inherent reality? That they are the product of thought in the present moment? I mean, in this moment right now, not the accumulation of thoughts over the years, for the past is past except when we think it into the present.

I’m not talking about questioning stressful thoughts. I’m talking about seeing that what we experience is always and only produced by our thinking in the moment.

With that understanding, changes in our thoughts and moods are like ripples on the surface of a lake. Nothing essential is altered by those ripples. Even if the ripples become waves, the nature of the water is unchanged.

Over the years I’ve noticed (with more or less understanding) that this is actually how it works. Irrespective of how long a painful thought or feeling has been around, there comes a moment when it is gone. Even the longest and most involved dramas unravel in the light of insight, leaving us momentarily alive to our essential wellbeing.

When we are alive to that wellbeing, we have access to inspiration and creativity. We naturally resonate with what is good, true, and beautiful, and that includes resonating with the people that I call our just-right clients.

A potential consequence of that resonance is new business. An invariable consequence is a continued feeling of happiness and success, and out of that feeling will continue to flow new ideas and fresh energy for growing your business.
That’s so much more pleasant than self-improvement.

Photo Credit: Michelle Hofstrand via Flickr

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Molly
Posted in Authenticity, Confidence, Meaning, Mindfulness, Personal, Self care, Self-employment, Serving others, Small business, Success, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Authentic Promotion: Insight, lightness, & traction for intentional entrepreneurs

Joyful Connections: 12 Principles of Authentic Promotion

Joyful Connections: 12 Principles of Authentic Promotion

If conventional marketing and sales methods leave you feeling like you need a bath, here’s a free workbook that teaches you the essentials of Authentic Promotion.

Get your free copy of the Joyful Connections: 12 Principles of Authentic Promotion workbook by signing up in the box in the righthand column. When you do, you’ll also get a subscription to the weekly ezine, Authentic Promotion. That will bring blog posts to your inbox and let you know of both free and paid offerings including the free Wealth Wisdom Series.

 

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Molly
Posted in Authenticity, Marketing, Resources, Selling, Small business, Success, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments