Think Prosperity and Still Live Within Your Means

Dear Leslie:

We have a quick question for you. We have been intrigued and energized by the Bob Proctor Success Puzzle tapes we recently purchased from you. In combination with your Jackrabbit Factor and Hidden Treasures books, they have really helped us to understand the laws of financial success. However, we have an unresolved question that has arisen. On one of the tapes, Bob Proctor suggests that if someone would like to afford and buy a house of their liking, they should just go buy it, then the means will come for them to afford it. We may misunderstand what he is saying, but this is the message we have taken from his statement.

Currently, we find ourselves in this very situation. We feel a need to move to a new location and a larger home, but we frankly can’t afford it. We have shopped around and have found a home that is an excellent buy, but it is still beyond our reach. We are working on additional sources of income (our rabbits), but they are taking some time to develop. We feel that to be financially prudent, we should be able to afford the house payments on our current base income and let any additional income be used for some of the other good things in life.

Here is the question. The leaders of our Church have explicitly stated that we should only purchase a modest home that we can afford and that we should live within our means. They haven't said that we shouldn't increase our means, but they have stated that at any given time, we should live within our current means.

Based on your experience and philosophy, would you recommend that a family first develop the means, then buy the home of their liking, or buy the home of their liking first, which is beyond their current means, then allow additional means to present themselves? The latter seems to contradict the leaders of the Church, but you may have an insight that we have overlooked.

Thank you so much for the excellent resources you have provided and thank you for any insights you can provide regarding our question.

Sincerely, T and J

My response:

There is a time and a season for everything, and in my personal experience there was a time for us to slow down and lay a better financial foundation, (even while people all around us were getting all the things we desperately wanted for ourselves), and there was a time for us to reap the benefits and enjoy an increased measure of prosperity. These seasons are cyclical.

The philosophies helped me believe that one day the prosperity would happen for us, and give me the courage to believe it was actually okay to reap a few benefits when the season for the harvest finally came. Without the principles, I would have been too afraid to receive more.

This is why it's so important to rely on personal inspiration to get the timing right. There are different times to put money to different purposes.

At a time when we were solidly bent on putting all the money we had into the purchase of our home so that it would have no mortgage, we were stopped at every turn until we finally considered the possibility that there was something else we were supposed to do with that money.

Once we finally started to listen again, we felt directed (against our comfort level) to get a larger home (so that we could finally settle down and set up a permanent residence - we had moved far too often for our children's stability) and only put half of our money into it, leaving us with a healthy mortgage. It was within our means, but much less comfortable when compared to having no mortgage.

To "do it big" like that was counter to every principle we clung to, and couldn't understand the reason, until about 6 months to a year later, we realized that the money needed to be liquid so that we could publish the book ourselves... something that has benefitted us in ways we never could have understood before.

I can't counsel someone to do half the stuff we've done, because timing, purpose, and direction will be different for everyone on each person's path to prosperity. The only real security lies in relying on personal revelation.

Some of the things we've done would appear completely irresponsible and foolish on the outside looking in, and we would never publish half of it. The main key is to look inward and trust your own instincts, with a good understanding of general guidelines so that if you do something completely outrageous, you are consciously aware of what you're doing and why, and can move forward with an assurance that God is guiding you.

(I think about an ancient story of a man named Nephi and how he was directed by the divine inner voice to kill his enemy in order to preserve his family, even though it ran counter to everything he had ever been taught. If ever we break a "rule", we just need to be sure we're listening to the right voice. We're all entitled to that nudging, "inner voice" - and following it will always lead to a feeling of peace and assurance that you're on the right track... even if your subconscious programming screams otherwise.)

The prosperity principles I teach are there to help a person overcome the fear of following the right inner voice. They are not there to help a person overcome the fear of doing something stupid!

Thinking Prosperity In Spite of Appearances

How can you look at troubling things as they are and actually feel good about them?

Through awareness. Now, I'm about to throw some heavy philosophical stuff at you. Ready for this? Read these next lines really carefully, one at a time...

Courage does not eliminate fear... but knowledge does.

Awareness of truth in spite of appearances is the power behind faith, and faith can move mountains.

Lack of awareness is like darkness. Darkness is merely the absence of Light. A dark room can be illuminated with just a tiny light... it doesn't take much to make a significant difference in a dark room.

Knowledge has the same effect. Smothered in the darkness of fear and uncertainty? Add new knowledge and awareness to your mind, and the fear shrinks away like darkness in an illuminated room.

If you can change how you feel, the nature of your surroundings will begin to shift ever so slightly as well. People will begin to respond to you differently. Someone who may not have had two words for you before may suddenly feel compelled to talk with you and perhaps be the connection you need to help you reach your goal. Or, maybe your altered mood will cause you to go somewhere you didn't feel like going before... and what you need to reach your goal may be found there.

How it will all come together for you will likely be a mystery until after it's all said and done. All you can control is how you allow yourself to feel about what's going on, and based on how you feel, you'll either make choices that take you closer to your goal, or choices that keep you from reaching it.

Faith is a feeling of "hope" and "expectation", and both are neccessary for success.

Hidden Treasures answers the question: how can I have faith and feel good about all the bad stuff I have to deal with?

Although my personal story will naturally come through the lens of my own religious background, it speaks to people of all faiths. It's wonderfully unifying to recieve positive feedback from Mormons like me as well as other mainstream Christian, Jewish, Buddhist readers and more. Even my non-religious but spiritually minded readers tell me it has made a huge difference in helping them achieve their goals.

After all, in one way or another, I think all of us are trying to believe in something that can't be seen. Prosperity depends on it. Hidden Treasures gives you 7 powerful "tools" to do that more effectively than ever. It provides the awareness you need to eradicate fear and uncertanty, and also shows you exactly why you can be grateful and excited about your hardships. Can you imagine that??

However, if you don't believe in God at all, it's not for you. Don't buy it... I don't want your wrath if you get offended when I mention God.

By the way, one thing you should know about me is that I am horribly offended by people who get offended. In fact, I have dug in my heels about calling the Stickman Concept "The Stickperson Concept" even at the advice of some of my mentors. I think it's rediculous to be offended by the term "Stickman". Where does it end? Does that mean we should start calling people hupersons instead of humans? Personkind instead of mankind? Someone should call Geico and tell them that "caveman' is offensive. Rather, they should be calling the poor targeted souls "cavepeople". Or better yet, maybe we need to eliminate the term "woman" and start saying "woperson".

(How's that for going off on a tangent? I've probably offended someone by doing that. Sigh... well, if I can't be myself in my own blog, then what's a blog for, right?)

How the Stickman Concept Helps you Prosper

You've probably heard by now that one of the most powerful ideas I've ever encountered is The Stickman Concept. It is a visual representation of how our mind works, and it succinctly demonstrates how it's true that "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." If you want to enjoy prosperity, it's something you really need to see.

Best of all, it gives you a visual image of some of the most abstract but fundamental principles of success... something you can see... something that helps you change your life.

It changed mine.

How does it work so well?

Let me explain it this way...

Suppose I give you a simple math problem, and I verbally say:

"What is the sum of sixty one million, seven hundred fifty-five and ten thousand twenty-three?"

Maybe you'd think, "I know that's an easy problem, but I can't really do anything with it until I simplify it with symbols and see it on paper."

So you get a pencil and put this on your paper:

61,000,755
+      10,023
__________


Same problem, but we just feel differently about it when it looks simple.

And how we feel about things has a whole lot to do with how well we do.

How long have you been studying success principles? How many seminars have you been to? How many books have you read, and how many audios have you listened to?

You know that the concepts are supposedly simple, and they make sense, but just like reading or listening to a long, drawn-out arithmetic problem, our minds tend to go into overload to the point that we are unable to get the job done.

The principles of success are simple, but there's a lot of verbage going on, isn't there? For me, prosperity was elusive so long as I couldn't simultaneously wrap my brain around ALL of the countless tidbits of advice I received.

What if I could show you a visual, symbolic representation of how to succeed, so that implementing everything you've been learning becomes dramatically more simple than ever?

The Stickman Concept makes success simple. It makes prosperity reachable. It gives you something to "see" in your head when you are trying to change old thought habits, and gives you a visual tool to understand what's happening when you're facing challenges, setbacks, frustrations, and fears. Furthermore, it helps you know just what to do when that happens.

Watch our Stickman Video and see what I mean! It's time to prosper!

Prosperity tip: How many goals at a time?

One of our readers recently wrote: "I have a question. I noticed when I watched Oprah and the "Reaction Show" to The Secret that one lady stood up and asked if it was possible for you to have more than one goal that you want to achieve at once. Well the men sitting by Oprah didn't really answer her question. So I thought I'd ask you. Can you have more than one goal at one time? Or is it too overwhelming for you and your mind?" Allison Brown

That's a really good question. Here are my ramblings on that:

(Now that I'm done composing my answer and I'm just putting it on the blog page, the size of this post reminds me of something my husband heard once... someone asked another person, "Why did you write a five-page letter?" The reply was, "Because I didn't have time to write a one-page letter." That's also how this post ended up so long. I don't have time to make it any shorter, sorry. Anyway, here it goes: )

You can have as many goals as you want, but there should be an ultimate overall goal that steers the ship, and helps you determine all the other goals that you should set along the way. Before I talk about focusing on one versus juggling several, there are three things to consider:

~ What is my overall goal in life? How do I define prosperity?
~ Do each of the smaller goals contribute to my overall prosperity goal?
~ Which goals must wait until the urgent, priority goals are accomplished?

Other goals may help you reach the main prosperity goal, or if you're not careful, they can distract you away from it. Contradictory goals will cause you to spin your wheels.

Every one of your goals may be important and good, but timing is important. When I was first married, it was my goal to stay home from work when we began our family. So without knowing how we'd do it, and expecting a windfall miracle to make it financially possible, I quit work and stayed home with my baby for that first year.

A miracle showed up, but it wasn't the one we were looking for. It showed up as hardships, debt, and my husband eventually losing his job. It would be another decade before I'd look back with gratitude for the struggles we endured. The "miracle" was that God believed we could, and would, handle the mess we got ourselves into, and that eventually we'd rise above it and share with others what we had learned.

The goal to stay home with the children never changed. To me, that was one important representation of what prosperity meant to me. But our order of priorities had to change for a while before we could earn the privelege of having a mother in the home.

My ultimate goal had more to do with how I wanted my LIFE to turn out when all was said and done. Part of that vision included how I'd like my children to turn out. A family rich in relationships and fulfilment better defines prosperity to me than a fat checkbook. But watch how this all fits together:

As I'd picture how I wanted my children to turn out, it made me want to be the one to have the most influence on them as they grew up, which (for me) translated into wanting to be home with them.

In order for me to be home with them (and not be thinking about money stresses all the time), I desperately wanted to develop a passive income which would be there whether or not something happened to my husband, or if I became physically unable to work.

We set dates for our lifestyle goals based on what we wanted in place by the time they were teenagers. Instead of waiting until they were teenagers for me to make a contribution, I worked at odd hours with piles of laundry all around, learning real estate strategies, stock market strategies, book writing and site development skills, typing one handed with a baby on my lap and preschoolers on the floor with cut-up paper and coloring books strewn around, so that I'd be free by the time they were adolescents to finally give them all the focus they'd need me to give.

Did I ever feel guilty about doing more than Beverly Cleaver tried to do? Yeah, sometimes. Until a certain Bible passage helped me feel a little better about it. It is the definition of a "virtuous woman" from Proverbs 31 and goes like this:

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar. She ariseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard… She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle… She maketh herself coverings of tapestry… She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant… She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her...”
A virtuous woman sounds busy doing many, many things, including working for financial gain. This verse helped me feel better about burning the midnight oil now and then to make my own contribution to our family.

Still, even now, every monetary goal I set is always for the primary purpose of being free to focus on raising my children the way I want, which is for the purpose of helping them enjoy fulfilling, happy lives as adults, which is for the purpose of me coming to the end of my life pleased with the contribution I made while I was here.

Every goal I set will fit into the big picture of true prosperity somehow. If it doesn't, then I know that I will NOT be passionate enough about it to make it happen.

Setting a goal to own a Rolls Royce will have no power for me, because it makes no contribution to the driving purpose for my life. Is a Rolls bad? No, it's beautiful! But I know myself well enough to know that it isn't something I'd go throught the refiner's fire for.

Even if I pictured myself in a Rolls, feeling grateful and so forth, I'd never take the "action" I'd need to "receive" it. I just wouldn't care enough to make the effort. And all the visualization and feeling in the world wouldn't cause it to appear in my driveway without MY firm INTENTION to make it happen.

So, set as many goals as you'd like, and know that you will not focus on all of them at the same time with the same intensity. You must put them in priority order and tackle them with laser focus one at a time. You'll create a goal statement for each one of them (as described in The Jackrabbit Factor). And then you'll pick the one that is most important and urgent, and you'll spend your energy (mental and otherwise) on making daily progress toward its accomplishment.

The other goals will be written and posted where you'll see them now and again, but your main focus is on the ONE. Sometimes stuff shows up out of nowhere to take you closer to one of your non-priority goals while you spend all your energy in another area. It's really cool when that happens. You are rewarded for your determination one way or another.

To focus only on one goal is not to say that in any given day you will not work on more than one. But no matter which goal you're working on, at that time be 100% focused on it...like a laserbeam.

A lightbulb will brighten a room, but a laserbeam will cut through steel like a hot knife in butter. Both are good, but only laser focus has the power to accomplish the tough stuff.

Personally, I'm not so good at keeping to routines where I give a certain part of my day to different goals like that. It's hard for me to shift gears at the drop of a hat and switch my focus. For me, I trust that my "temporary seasons of imbalance" are just that: temporary.

If you have a lot of wonderful goals in mind but you are not truly focused on any one of them, you are like a gently shining lightbulb. Plants will grow, and you'll keep people from stubbing their toe, but no steel will bend for you.

What if there are too many things that are urgent? What if your mind is in a fog because there are too many demands bombarding you?

That's when you really need to put it all on paper to get it OUT of your head, so you can look at all of it objectively, without emotion. Relax, and you'll instinctively know which one needs your attention first. Pay attention to your gut feeling and go for it. Trust that things will all work out if you just keep doing your best. If something falls through the cracks, be at peace knowing you're doing your best, and that it's all perfect just as it is. There is good that will come from even the failings.

By putting your task list on paper, you'll find that the "problem" and the "overload" is really just in your head. You'll see that the list is just ink on paper. There really is no problem there. It's just data. It is what it is, and no amount of worry or panic will make it any better. The solution will only be able to reach your consciousness when your mind is relaxed, at peace, hopeful and expectant about finding the solution. Prosper on!