How to Prosper with a Disbelieving Partner

One of the most common questions I get is on how to achieve goals when your partner in business or your spouse does not think the same way as you about these principles. I’ll continue to address this issue occasionally, because there are so many angles to consider, and maybe this is the one that will make a difference for you.

I'll be quick to get to the point. In order for you and your spouse to have the synergy you'd like to have on your way to achieving your prosperity goals, you need to have a COMMON GOAL.

I don't mean to sound too simplistic here, but that's what it boils down to. If you can't understand why you aren't getting the support you'd like to have, then ask yourself when was the last time you sat down together and talked about what you'd like your future together to look like? Where do you see the two of you in ten years?

Maybe your spouse has lost his/her dream, and is too discouraged to think beyond the here and now. If your dreams are too grandiose for him/her to believe, then take some time to dream with him/her about the things that you can both be excited about, even if they aren't much of a stretch. For example, daydream together about being grandparents or great grandparents. Talk about a movie you both enjoyed. Talk about the beliefs you share in common.

The more you share with each other, the more you will be "on the same page" in general. If you dream of traveling the world, and your spouse only gets more depressed when s/he hears you talk about it, because it feels impossible to him/her, then keep those dreams to yourself while they take root. Discuss them if you're encouraged and supported when you do, but if that isn't what happens, then talk about the common goals to strengthen your relationship and wait for a better season to talk about the bigger things.

Getting it together – in essence, if you are arguing about stuff, it means you're simply on different frequencies. You need to build a dream together if you want to have harmonic thoughts. See, if you spend time with the same mental images, you'll end up with the same kinds of emotions. That's "getting it together" and it can begin with taking in images of a more ideal life, together.

Together, watch movies of people who have exemplary lives and enjoy prosperity. Read books about remarkable people, together, so you can talk about them with each other. Get the images in sync that you both are putting into your minds, and eventually your frequencies will more closely match. A small step in this direction makes a big difference. It doesn't even have to be self-help material... it just needs to be representations of lives that are on a higher plane than where you may be now. Sometimes it's easier to find this sort of thing in old movies, like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

One final point: A journal is a wonderful place to express and put detail to your dreams when you don't have someone to talk about them with. It's more than that, though. It's the first step to effectively preparing yourself for inspiration on how to achieve it. To understand why, watch the 4-minute movie.

Making Daddy Proud - With / Without Prosperity

I just had another epiphany this week. May not be a new thought to you, but here it is:

What do you want for your children? What kind of a life do you hope they’ll enjoy? How do you envision their future… do you see them with a beautiful family of their own? Do you see them doing well in their chosen occupation? At least, is that what you would hope for them?

Above all, wouldn’t you hope that they find joy in a life of wonderful accomplishments? That they would feel the thrill of overcoming challenges and realizing the potential you know they have?

How would you feel, in your old age, to have your child visit you, announcing, “I’ve done you proud, Dad… I’m just what you hoped I would be: a beggar on the street.”

It would be an absurdity.

So, then suppose you talk with him for a while and eventually realize that all these years he thought you’d be the most pleased with him if he remained poor. He thought you’d look upon him with disapproval if he moved out of the slums. Perhaps he thought you’d be angry if he ended up with more money than his bills required.

Of course you wouldn’t want him to remain a beggar. Nor would you be angry with him if he was successful at building a beautiful life for his wife and children. As a father, isn’t that what you’d hope for him? Wouldn’t you hope that he was successful at providing for his family, with more than enough to also bring relief to others in need? Wouldn't YOU hope your children would grow up to enjoy true prosperity?

If God the Father is the kind of father I imagine Him to be, then I suspect He would feel the same way about us, His children. I don’t think we please Him with our poverty. That’s not to say we disappoint Him with it either. I believe we invoke His compassion, and then He invites us to receive more of the blessings He has available.

Our job is to align our will to His and then learn how to receive. Learning how to receive does not always come naturally. If we don't have the life we want, there may be some lessons for us to learn in how to receive that could make all the difference.

It’s common to fear prosperity, because after all, who wants to disappoint God, or invoke His wrath? Not I. If the reason you need and want prosperity is to accomplish more of what you feel God wants you to do, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that the desire is good, right, and worthy?

Then, how do you avoid the traps warned about in the Bible (for example), regarding wealth? How do you receive what you need without asking too much? What's too much, anyway? If you own a computer, do you realize you are already more wealthy than the majority of the people on this planet?? If you are, does that mean you should hang your head in shame? Just something to think about.

For more on this topic and for some amazingly powerful answers, read Hidden Treasures: Heaven’s Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters.

Prosperity via The Road Less Traveled

Do you realize how remarkable you are? I know you're the kind of person who seeks to improve your life, and because of that, I also know you're swimming upstream, against the flow of mediocrity. That's uncommon; do you realize how uncommon you are? Don’t let yourself get discouraged, because even the minor shifts in your thinking that you make today will be reflected in your realities soon enough.

Stuff happens. When it does, the masses react. People like you stop and choose their thoughts on purpose. It isn’t easy, but it's worth it. Here’s a test to see how you really think:

Think about where your mind is most of the time. Is it thinking about what happened last week, or what you’d like to see happen today? Is it thinking about what next week will look like? Next month? Next year? What about ten years from now? All of these increments are important to consider, no doubt. But where is most of your mind energy spent?

As Keith Cameron Smith points out in his book, “The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class” he says, “Very poor people think day-to-day. Poor people think week-to-week. Middle-class people think month-to-month. Rich people think year-to-year. And very rich people think decade-to-decade.”

If you feel discouraged, it could be because you're stuck... discouraged by the pothole in the road at your feet, and could use some help seeing the reward at the end of that same road. I'm here to help you shift your thinking. Learn how to see your challenge differently today, so that you literally start yourself on a more prosperous path.

Each day, you are at a "road diverging". Which path will you take? Will you continue on, discouraged, or will you consciously make a choice to press forward with a new outlook? Choosing your thoughts according to the 7 Laws of Success is a very proactive way of taking the road less traveled. As Robert Frost points out, taking the less traveled road makes all the difference.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Discover the key to prosperity and let me help you really implement the seven God-given laws of success through the comprehensive $49 ecourse (3- month program), or simply get started with just the $20 ebook.

Prosperity Tip: "What if I Forget?"

I was driving home the other day and was pondering a really powerful “aha” moment. I thought, “Ooooh, I need to write that one down…” But by the time I could stop and commit the idea to paper, it was gone. It was one of those slippery fish that escaped before being speared by the pencil.

That really worried me, because every now and then I have a spark of inspiration that provides me with a thought, a word, a phrase, or something else that helps me see things differently and gives me a solution to a current challenge, usually a personal flaw for which I am seeking help to overcome.

So now I had a new personal flaw to worry about: the ability to remember the epiphanies that have the power to change my life, if I could only remember them when I need them the most!

Long story short, at that very moment when I sat there thinking, “There was something I was going to write down, because it was so profound… but what was it???” In only a few more moments a new thought came to my mind that helped restore my peace of mind.

If it's important for the moment, God will bring it to mind. It's already in my brain, everything I've ever thought, heard, said, saw, etc... is stored perfectly in my brain. Bob Proctor says in essence, "You have a perfect memory... you just may struggle with recall."

My grand new ideas that lead to true prosperity show up for a purpose, and if God wants me to utilize them, then I'll trust that the thoughts will return to me when I need them the most. Of course, I try to write them down as they happen, but when that's just not possible, I must relax, and trust.

The fact is, I don’t have to remember everything I learn, 100% of the time. I have all I need right now, to do and be what I need to be... right now.

I do the best I can with what I have at the moment. I make the best choices I know how with the information and understanding I have at the time. What more could be expected of a person anyway? All we have is now.

We don't have yesterday and we don't have tomorrow... we can only take action in the moment, and only with the understanding that accompanies that moment. Let's eliminate the drama of fretting over trying to do any better than that. Let's be at peace and trust God to handle the rest; at least that's what I'm committing to do.

Prosperity Tip: Never say "Whoa!" in a mudhole

I've had a few challenges this week... character building experiences... and there is one phrase that, for a couple days, kept coming to mind at least once an hour. A good friend and mentor of mine named Ken Pierce gave me this advice many years ago. At times when I have been in a slump, discouraged by a perceived lack of progress, or when my objectives keep meeting with obstacles, the words “never say whoa in a mudhole” continue to return to my mind.

What does it mean? Well, if I am in a horse-drawn wagon and have to go through a mud hole, I'd be a fool to stop and wallow in it. The longer I stop, the deeper I could sink, and the harder it would be to get out of it.

Ken taught me that when you're in a mud hole, you've got to accelerate instead! Get through it! Remember why you set out on the journey in the first place, and drive on, with more energy than ever!

Sometimes the mudhole is in reality a terror barrier. If you've got a dream for prosperity that you've been running toward, and suddenly everything appears to be falling apart, that's when you have to spend more time picturing the results you want and less time emotionalizing over appearances.

Maybe you've heard it this way: "Fear knocked on the door, Faith answered... and no one was there." Most of the time, the thing you fear is nothing more than an illusion in your own mind... it is imagining worst case scenarios that haven't even happened yet, nor may they ever. It's using the law of attraction against yourself.

Difficult things will happen to us on our life's journey, that's part of the experience. But we can choose to deal with them if and when they happen, rather than expending energy worrying about things that may never manifest. Why would we want to suffer through it more than once? Besides, as James Ray says, "You can't worry enough about a problem to fix it."

By the Law of Polarity you can be sure that when things look their worst, there is, in reality, the potential for an equal and opposite "good" to come out of it. For help with this prosperity principle, and to also discover what's really going on around you when you switch your mindset, read Hidden Treasures: Heaven's Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters. (If you don't want the entire $49 ecourse, just start with just the ebook for only $20.)

Want to Prosper? Nix the Scorekeeping

If you’re married and working toward common goals, sometimes living the principles of prosperity can be especially challenging because deep down you have certain expectations of what our spouse is supposed to be doing. Heck, it’s hard enough when you have certain expectations of what YOU are supposed to be doing!

This week I came to terms with the fact that I’m in another one of those “temporary seasons of imbalance” and decided to just hunker down and get through it. My husband agreed, and has been there to support me, filling in gaps wherever he can, rather than get frustrated that there are gaps to be filled. What an example that is to me.

I thought about this, and remembered all the times when I've been up and he's been down, or I've been down and he's been up. That's life. In your marriage, even if you’re both working hard to learn and understand the laws of success, you’ll learn them and apply them at different paces and in different ways.

When you’re in the groove, your spouse may struggle. When you’re spouse is on a roll, you may struggle. How, then, can you succeed financially as a couple if you can’t seem to get it right at the same time?

Count your blessings if the above description describes your relationship. The Law of Rhythm states that everything in life is cyclical. We will have up days and we’ll have down days. When you’re on an up, go ahead and get a whole bunch of stuff done! Take advantage.

When you’re down, go with it and let it serve its purpose (as described in Hidden Treasures), with an expectation that your turn for an up day is on its way.

So, now, about your relationship. Don’t allow yourself to feel frustrated when the two of you can’t seem to make quantum leaps forward together. It is GOOD that you’re on different tracks because if you both were to crash at the same time, who’d be there to pick up the pieces? Allow yourself to feel the joy that is available when you say, “it’s okay, you can have a down day, and I’ll carry the torch until you’re back.”

Imagine how that would make your partner feel. You have just turned a frustration into a benefit, which is a key skill for building prosperity. The goals you strive for will continue to move toward you as you show compassion and refuse to keep score.

Take responsibility. The minute you begin to fume and fuss over what someone else is doing or not doing, you lose power. Instead of passing judgement, be grateful for his/her companionship and the opportunity you have to grow through the experience. Move forward with faith, and when the obstacle that shows up happens to be conflict with a spouse, count it as a blessing and put forth a little extra effort to serve him/her.

Marriage is not a 50/50 proposition. You don’t divi up the responsibilities and then constantly critique your partner’s performance on his/her share. You do what you can do, even if it means sharing the other person's load. How you feel about doing that will determine your ultimate success. If you begrudge sharing the load, you are robbing yourself of the joy AND the prosperity that is available to you. Remember, through natural law, the universe responds to the feelings you emit. Be grateful that you are able to help. No, marriage isn’t 50/50… it’s 100/100.

Don’t keep score. Inevitably there will come a day when you are the one needing to be carried. Serve with joy, and you’ll both reap great benefits soon enough. Nag not. Be patient. Allow those you love to grow at their own pace.

And if your spouse isn’t on board at all, you can still prosper; you can still succeed. Have faith in God’s ability to help you achieve your dreams, even if you’re the only one who believes in them.

Choose Your Rock Bottom, Then Prosper

Recently it was necessary for me to write “my story” again, explaining the circumstances around how we discovered the prinicples I now teach and tripled our income in just a few months. As I wrote, I mentioned how I had personally hit an emotional “rock bottom” just before things began to turn around.

I stopped and pondered that. For us, things were pretty bad at the time, but looking back I now realize that there are other people on the planet who are much worse off than we were, when we felt it couldn’t get any worse. We weren’t homeless, we weren’t in jail, nobody was dying… No, we were just strapped financially and severely depressed. Prosperity seemed to elude us at every turn.

As I continued to ponder this, I remembered a number of other people’s success stories I’ve heard, and it seems to be a common thing to hear them mention hitting “rock bottom”. A ball won’t bounce back until it’s hit the ground. It seems to be a natural thing for human kind to begin to head upward only after hitting an ultimate low.

For some, rock bottom was jail. For others, it meant living in their car.

Do you realize what this means? Rock bottom will be different for everyone. Rock bottom is where life has become so intolerable that something inside of you finally looks heavenward and says, “I surrender. I can’t do this anymore. Show me the way.”

In my experience, there were plenty of times where I said, “I can’t do this anymore.” But the upturn only happened after I really surrendered. It’s when the words “I can’t do this anymore” came from a humble place, instead of a frustrated, angry place.

For me it was when I stopped trying to do things “my way” and was finally willing to really do what all the gurus had been trying to teach me. It means saying “I am finally ready to listen, and do.”

It’s when you realize that you’ve got to take a risk and put the principles of faith to the test, no matter what. You refuse to think about the worst case, and cling tenaciously to hope, allowing yourself in your mind to see only the results you want.

It’s when you stop resisting out of fear of failure. If you have been afraid to trust, it’s when you have no other choice BUT to trust. It’s when you say, “I will move my feet, and do all I can do with a CALM spirit, and trust that things will work out for me because of it.” There comes a point where you have no other choice. That’s your rock-bottom. You numbly decide that if it all falls apart anyway, you’ll face it when it happens, but for now you’ll put one step in front of the other and just believe, with a calm surrender.

Some people consider an empty bank account rock bottom, while others don’t hit it until they’ve also maxed out their credit cards. Some hit it when they realize for the first time that they can’t make a car payment, while others don’t hit it until the repo man shows up to take the car away. There are those who have dealt with the repo man more than once, and even that doesn’t bother them enough to really hit rock bottom. I’ve since heard of people who have, over time, upped the level of what rock bottom means to them, and in one example, it’s when their bank account gets below $8,000. So, now when the balance gets close to $8,000, that’s when they have their “awakening” and get busy doing something about it.

No matter how successful a person becomes, no matter how much prosperity s/he enjoys, there will always be new challenges. Without them, we wouldn’t grow. How well we handle them depends on how hard it must get before we finally decide to trust a higher power to carry us through. Though we may never completely avoid challenges, we can learn to embrace them and gain the blessing they always contain.

Let’s not wait for things to get any worse. The upturn can happen now. Let today be the day that you surrender, trust, and discover how much better you can thrive when you trust the inner voice that is trying to speak peace to your heart.

Take five minutes to close your eyes and picture yourself living the life you want in prosperity. Feel it now. Then, trust that things will soon begin to turn around for you because of it. You can’t see it happening, but know that tomorrow’s series of events were just altered in your favor.