“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires; and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.” ~James Allen, As A Man Thinketh.
Thoughts create feelings, and your feelings shape your circumstances.
Fear is natural, but conquerable. The feeling of fear can be dismissed. Do you fear bills? If you put too much emotional energy into that fear, you will attract more bills. They might come in the form of car repairs, medical bills, or increased debt… but no matter what the form, they will be drawn to you.
Do you love peaceful family time? Do you love that more than you fear stress? Which of the two circumstances do you experience more?
As we learn the laws and live by them, we come to realize how much God’s hand is in everything around us. He is a God of order; this is an orderly universe. All that seems so random is not random at all. Learn the laws, live by them, and watch your life take dramatic turns towards greater prosperity.
“The Young and the Thoughtless!” …It Wasn’t the Dream
If you missed the first two parts to this new series, start here.
So now, I present you with Part 3 of the ongoing series, “The Young and the Thoughtless.”
(From our last segment you read: “…We came home with a lighter attitude toward our struggles, and a firm resolve to never miss another opportunity like that for personal growth. The facts had not changed, and our income didn’t change either, but our outlook definitely did. And that was only the beginning. Be sure to read [on]… to see how quickly we could regress.”)
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Brief disclaimer: I should explain something here… we had joined a network marketing program because we saw that if we could do what the leaders had done, we could enjoy the lifestyle they lived. We looked forward to enjoying a passive income. We looked forward to early retirement and lots of family time.
Please understand as I share our story that we are not discouraging NOR promoting any particular network marketing program.
We gained so much through the training we received, learning some life principles and people skills, and we count it as a positive experience. We are no longer actively involved in that program… but it indirectly led us to the information I share through my website.
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We came home from that seminar weekend all charged up to build our business fast. We were working days at a home for the mentally handicapped and going to school part time, and each night we were out talking with people, promoting our business. Right up until the day I went into labor; in fact my first contractions were during a presentation with a new prospect.
Each month we attended a seminar for more tips and motivation. Each month we came away re-committed to succeeding.
After my first son was born I quit work. After all, we had long before decided I would stay home with the children once they were born. Never mind that we were strapped even before I quit… it just felt like the right thing to do. After a year of that, and going deeper and deeper into debt but hanging on tight to our business leaders and monthly seminars, my husband was laid off. All at once I had to put my son into day care and go to work through a temp agency. I remember dropping him off while it was dark in the morning and picking him up in the evening, again in the dark. It was a natural symbolic representation of how I felt inside. Trevan found work at a garage and then was finally re-hired at the gun-safe company. I found permanent part-time work at a junior high school, teaching math.
Through all of this we continued to work our business in the little spare time we had. We had been told that we should be able to create an income of $2000/month if we would give 15 presentations a month consistently. We felt awfully busy, but our productivity was very low. For some reason we just didn’t maintain that kind of pace. We were giving 4 or 5 presentations each month and blamed our lack of success on our inability to show enough presentations.
We determined that if we were just excited enough, we’d be out doing presentations all the time! We remembered other things we had been excited about and accomplished in the past, and remembered that we hadn’t needed to psyche ourselves out to get the job done. We didn’t have to force ourselves to do anything, when we were in love with a dream we naturally did everything it took to make it happen!
Take courting your spouse for example… if you were like me, you didn’t have to attend a monthly seminar on how to keep him (or her, if you are male) in your thoughts, and how to make time for him. You thought about him constantly, you slept less if it meant you could spend time with him, you were constantly thinking of things you could do to grow your relationship with him. You were happy and excited about being with him and the prospect that it might become permanent!
Well, how on earth do you develop that kind of passion for a business idea or lifestyle if you don’t already have it? That was our dilemma. After three years of business (busy-ness, more accurately), I wrote in my journal the following:
June 14, 1995 I know that all it would take is for us both to get excited -naturally- the way we have been about other things. That’s why we’ve been told to get a dream -a vivid one- else all the work is in vain. But it’s been 3 years and we still haven’t found whatever it would be to affect us the way our dreams of the past have. I’m sick and tired of trying to force a dream! Can we please be given a dream strong enough to make us effective? Something that will make us excited anytime we think about it. Something we can believe in consistently. Something right for us. Something that inspires us to go with little sleep and motivates us to become better people. We’ve tried to fake it and force it for so long.
I prayed for a dream, and by the end of another weekend seminar I had a vivid dream to make a bunch of money and contribute it to the Primary Children’s Medical Center where my second son had recently undergone heart surgery at 4 days old. The thought burned within me and I knew that here was a dream with some power. One month later I wrote:
July 23, 1995 Why am I so weak. I don’t know why it’s so difficult for me to stay committed to a principle. I still believe in that goal but I’ve lost some belief in my ability to change my habits permanently. I’m happy in my soul when I set goals and accomplish them but I’m so fallible. I do good for a short time and then fall deeper and harder. I’m discouraged – I don’t let myself think about my job in the fall, it’s too easy to get depressed when I do. I want to excel…
As for the basic schedule I outlined a few pages ago? Well that lasted a week. Near the end of the week I had already forgotten why I thought it would be such a good idea. As for my dream to give the hospital a bunch of money, where is that dream’s power now? Why don’t I feel as strong about it now? The motivation has to be bigger than the obstacle, why do my puny obstacles seem so big? I used to take challenges and stay so focused on them until they were conquered. What drove me? Why do I feel so average now?
If only I knew then what I know now about the seven laws. I had an idea of what I needed but didn’t know how to get it… the vision, the dream, the motivation. All I lacked was knowledge, but it took another five years before I gained that knowledge. I learned that for me, at least, I needed to know better how the universe operates. So that when I lost faith in myself, I could depend on universal laws. I am not constant, but the laws are. I needed something outside of myself to rely on. Yes I relied on God, but what does that mean if I don’t understand the laws by which He operates? If I don’t understand all of His laws, then I might find myself saying, “oh well, I guess God didn’t want me to prosper anyway.”
Once I decided that I was at the bottom with discouragement and had nowhere else to go but up, things began to change to lead us toward eventual relief. But the changes were in disguise. They seemed to get worse, but were actually the beginning of our deliverance. Stay tuned for our next segment of “The Young and The Thoughtless” to find out how something worse could actually be the best thing that could have happened to us.
The lessons minus the story, which took us 8 years to learn, is available in the book Hidden Treasures: Heaven’s Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters. I hope you can appreciate how inexpensive this information is. It cost us 8 years and somewhere around $40,000 in debt, not to mention income lost during that time that we might have enjoyed, had we learned it sooner. Save yourself some time and money by learning it now!
“THERE IS A SCIENCE OF GETTING RICH, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty.” ~Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich.
If you are ready for a landmark, life-changing program… if you are empowered by all that you have read so far and are ready for your own pivotal experience… if you have already spent tens of thousands of dollars on education and are willing to spend just a little more for some real applicable wisdom, then I highly recommend that you check out the Family Time & Money Freedom program that I put together. For more information, visit ProsperTheFamily.com.
Click the navigation link below to enjoy the next Episode of “The Young and The Thoughtless”…
- Rare Faith – What happens when you’re grateful for everything - November 28, 2023
- Rare Faith – Holiday Sale up to 80% off! - November 20, 2023
- Are you excited about the Give Gratitude Giveaway? - November 13, 2023
