able to visualize great wealth. But I want you to know, this is
the very kind of reasoning which perpetuates poverty and
keeps poor people impoverished!
You must begin to understand that the present state of
your bank account, your sales, your health, your social life,
your position at work, etc., is nothing more than the physical
manifestation of your previous thinking. If you sincerely wish
to change or improve your results in your physical world, you
must change your thoughts and you must change them
immediately.
If you take the time to really think through the
information which is being presented, you will conclude that
what has just been said makes perfect sense. In fact, anyone
who truly understands the "creative process," will tell you
what I have just said is not only right, but it is a natural law of
your being- it is the way God works with and through the
individual. This is also called prayer in some "circles" ("prayer"
being the movement that takes place between spirit and form,
with and through the individual). God has given you the ability
to build any idea which you desire. You were "Born Rich" and
your abundance is contained in thought. So be good to
yourself, choose magnificent ideas, and cease permitting your
physical world to control your thinking.
You can readily understand, by now, how everyone
makes the "great mistake." In Emerson's essay on Self-
Reliance he said, "Envy is ignorance." In other words, to look
at another person's "Accomplishments," or "Results," and then
to envy them, is truly unwise. For those people first chose
their thoughts, in order to build the picture in their mind of
the good that is now manifest in their life; and they chose
those thoughts from the infinite source of supply which is
available to all of us-you as well!
That is what the great artist, Vincent Van Gogh, meant
when he was asked how he did such beautiful work. He said,
"I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream." In other
words, he saw the picture in his mind first and then he made
a replica on canvas-in oil, of the original in his mind. In truth,
there has never been an "original" "Van Gogh" sold! As I am
writing this I can see you reading it, and can almost hear you
thinking, "That makes a lot of sense-now I see."
A few years ago Mary Snyder from California sat in one of
my seminars with her husband Oscar. She gave me a quote by
Lincoln which I truly love and which I have shared with
thousands of people. Lincoln said, "To believe in the things
you can see and touch is no belief at all; but to believe in the
unseen is a triumph and a blessing." Isn't that beautiful?
Thanks again, Mary.
Hopefully by now you understand the wisdom of some of
these mental exercises I have been suggesting. So keep
repeating: "I am prosperous, I am wealthy, money is good." See
yourself in your mind's eye, doing what you will do when you
have the manifestation of your new attitude or consciousness.
Visualize this great wealth and feel yourself already in
possession of it. Remember though, money is the servant; you
are the master-you love people and you use money.
Before you continue on to the next chapter, re-read this
chapter, "Me And Money," because re-reading it will help you
release that old idea about money, which causes an
uncomfortable feeling whenever the subject of money is raised.
Repeat to yourself, several times each day, "Me And Money,"
until you become totally aware of how good you feel thinking
about wealth.
Refrain from talking to a lot of people about this new idea
concerning money, until you have a firm grip on it yourself
and feel confident about explaining what you have learned to
others. Remember, hearing negative comments from people
who do not understand the truth will not do you any good-if it
does anything, it will only cause you to doubt yourself. You
must not permit this to happen, because when you think
about "Me And Money," you want a beautiful picture to fly
onto the screen of your mind!
"The good life is expensive.
There is another way to live
that doesn't cost as much
but it isn't any good".
- Spanish Distillers
How Much is Enough?
"Most people think they want more money
than they really do,
and they settle for a lot less
than they could get."
- Earl Nightingale
For you to get this prosperity concept into highgear, you must be specific-exactly how much money doyou want? Remember, you are working with yoursubconscious mind and the subconscious does notthink. It merely accepts images and then moves theminto form. So for you to say, I want "lotsa money" isn'tgood enough, because no one, least of all thesubconscious mind, knows how much "lotsa" is.
I strongly recommend that you get very seriousabout this chapter, because the idea it contains couldliterally change your life. But understand that thinking,
by itself, is not enough-you must move into action. Thereare certain things you must do and the first one is todecide how much money you want.
For you to answer this question, it would probablybe a good idea for you to decide what you want themoney for. But to simply say, "I want the money to liveon," is not good enough. You should realize our society isstructured in such a way that the government will "keepyou." In fact, in most places, they will even mail a checkto you-you can sit at home and still receive a "livingwage."
At this point you are probably saying to yourself,
"Oh yes, I know that, but I want to live better than that."
Well, let's get specific-how much better? Bearing in mindthat this kind of an exercise is going to require someserious planning on your part, get out a sheet of paperand draw up a list of all the "things," or "activities," that
you plan to spend money on over the course of the nextyear. To assist you in getting started with your list, Ihave outlined several sample categories below:
Food, Rent/Mortgage, Clothes, Automobile,
Utilities, Education, Vacations, Recreation, Insurance,
Savings.
Understandably, these are just a few of the manypossibilities; so keep working on your own list until it iscomplete! And remember, you do not fill in the amountsyou are now spending. Rather, you take each item on thelist, visualize how you want to live and then fill in theamount of money it will cost you to do so. For example,
you might only go out to a nice restaurant to dine onvery special occasions, but you might visualize yourselfspending a very enjoyable evening out for dinner once aweek, where the service is excellent, the food is evenbetter, and the environment is fit for royalty. How muchwould that cost? - that is the figure you're looking for.
You could be driving a car that is getting old and isshowing signs of rust, but you might visualize yourselfdriving a brand new car of your choice, that you tradeevery year or two. How much would that cost?
Remember, you do not have a contract to live forever, noris this a practice run-this is your life and you should beenjoying it to the fullest extent humanly possible!
Therefore, you should have the amount of money youneed, to provide the things you want, to live the way youchoose to live.
Let me caution you-it would not be unusual foryour mind to be playing tricks on you at this point. Youcould be thinking, "This is really crazy. I'm never going tohave the money to live the way this book suggests." Iwant to remind you, however, that there are many peoplewho do have enough money to live the way this booksuggests-and they weren't born with it-and no one left it
to them. They were "Born Rich" in the sense of havingthe God-given potential to succeed (everyone is), but likemost people, they were at one time short of money.
Understand that you too can succeed, and you will, ifyou will only do as this book suggests.
As I am writing this, I feel compelled to digress for afew lines, to remind you that you have great resources oftalent and ability locked up, within you, just waiting tobe expressed. In this vein, I can vividly recall listening toa tape a number of years ago, that Earl Nightingale madeon "Attitude." I must have listened to that tape literallyhundreds of times and there was a part on it where hesaid, "Now, right here we come to a rather strange fact.
We tend to minimize the things we can do, the goals wecan reach, and yet, for some equally strange reason, wethink others can do things that we cannot." Earl went onto say, "I want you to know that that is not true. You dohave deep reservoirs of talent and ability within you, andyou can have the things you want."
I wouldn't even want to speculate on how manytimes I heard that section, without really understandingwhat he meant; and then one day I heard it, and everycell in my brain seemed to resonate with the truth ofwhat he said. I suddenly realized what he was "drivingat" and I knew deep down inside of me, if they can do it,
so can I, if I am willing to pay the price. Pleaseunderstand you too can do it, because what Earl had tosay is as true of you as it was of me. But part of the pricefor you, is to figure out ...
How Much Is Enough?
Don't just pull a figure out of the sky. Do it right-
because when you're finished you will be glad you did.
Moreover, this exercise will also help you to develop amore disciplined mind. At this point you might bethinking this section doesn't even concern you, because
you are already too deeply in debt to start accumulatinga sizeable amount of money. But you will be happy toknow, we have a great idea which will help you deal withthat problem as well. Furthermore, you will be delightedto know that in many situations-and yours may be one ofthem-a person can become wealthy, even if he or shenever earns any more money than they are earningcurrently. That thought alone should give you theencouragement you need to continue reading.
By now you should have completed your list andarrived at a figure; so take pen to paper and write thatnumber down in big bold figures. Now, clear your mindof that idea and move on with me to another veryimportant idea. Realize that although this idea might notapply specifically to you-at least at the present time-itcertainly will apply to many readers. Moreover, even if itdoes not apply to your particular situation, it is worththinking through anyway, because you certainly havemany friends and associates it does apply to and you willbe able to share it with them.
I am going to explain this idea to you as if you werea married person with a family to support and you areeither the sole breadwinner or an important contributor.
Now one of the principal reasons for wanting theamount of money you desire is to provide for your family,
and not just in an adequate manner. After all, you wantthem to live life to its fullest. Realize, therefore, that aslong as you live and are able to follow the plan outlinedin this book, you will be able to do as you want withrespect to your family. However, if you really stop andthink about it, you will very likely agree that you wouldwant your family to live "the good life," even if you weresuddenly removed from the picture-wouldn't you?
Jokingly you might say, "No, who cares if I'm gone." Butthis is not a joking matter. This is a very serious matter.
Of course you care-I know it and so do you!
Now, if you're alive and healthy, you will create thiswealth for your estate. But what if you die or arepermanently disabled? Well, our society has taken careof that situation as well; we have "Life Insurance" and wehave "Disability Insurance."
But, let's get back to your thinking again-you mightbe saying to yourself, "Life insurance, what a rip-off. Thisguy Bob Proctor really doesn't know where he is comingfrom." Well, let me tell you, that when it comes to lifeinsurance, I believe I can claim to be an authority ofsorts-for I have conducted seminars for the insuranceindustry for almost ten years, and I have had close to50,000 people from that industry "go through" myseminars. Therefore, I can assure you, that when I sayapproximately 95% of the people whom you talk to arealmost completely ignorant when it comes to the subjectof insurance, I am not "talking through my hat."
Granted, many of these people hold important positionsin business and industry, in government, or in theprofessions, and because of their positions, it would bevery easy to just assume they know "of whence theyspeak." But the sad fact of the matter is, many of themare either badly misinformed or completely uninformedwhen it comes to the important subject of life insurance.
Understand this - there is no way to replace yourincome and create a certain and instant estate otherthan life insurance; and statistics indicate that althoughmost people are insured, the vast majority of people (atleast 90%), are dangerously under-insured. That is tosay, when they die, most people leave behind onlyenough money to pay for their funeral and possiblyenough money to cover their family's living expenses forone year! The unfortunate part is, that for a relativelysmall sum of money, these people could have had theirfinancial affairs set up in such a way that if something
did happen to them, their financial goals would bereached by their families automatically.
Since this book is designed to help you reach asubstantial, financial goal, I felt duty-bound to includethe information on life insurance. The book could not becomplete without it.
(Keep in mind there are only two ways to earnmoney: people at work, or money at work.)
You will be happy to know the remainder of thisbook is designed for the person who is going to LIVE.
Bloom Where You Are Planted-Start Now!
When do you start to live this good life? Is that thequestion you are beginning to ask yourself? You startnow.
Start by answering the following questions:
How often do you pay your phone bill?
How often do you pay your rent or mortgage?
How often do you pay your grocery store?
How often do you pay for gas for your car?
