Whether you’re rich now, on your way to being rich, or just thinking about it, everyone has fantasized about what it would be like for money—or rather lack of it—not to be a problem.

Most people stay in the realm of fantasy, maybe dipping out occasionally to buy a lottery ticket. Another group, not satisfied with the 9 to 5 grind, takes a few more risks and pours their energy into business ideas, opportunities and companies. Most will fail within three to five years.

But there are those fewer people with the skill (which can be learned through modeling), willpower and creativity who are successful. There is another attribute, though, that separates them from the poor, and that is intention.

Most people say their financial goal is to make money. Yes or yes? That’s a good reason, but the issue is that’s not specific enough. If you have a wishy-washy intention, you’re going to get a wishy-washy result.

Rich Business People Have Three Financial Intentions:

1. To have a very high working income

2. To create passive income

3. Dramatically enhance the value of their company

What’s the intention that poor people have? To earn a living. To earn a decent living. That’s what they’re in business for. They don’t even consider they’re in a business as a way to create passive income and even more importantly to create wealth.

A business is not a job. A business is too much work with too many challenges to just go out there to earn a decent living.

The business is designed to be a vehicle to set you free and create nothing short of wealth! Rich people understand that business is simply two components: either buy or create something and sell it for more than it costs you. That’s it!

Most broke people have struggles, put most of their energy and attention not on the buying, creating, and selling but on the administrative and operations arena—the organizing of those two things—and that is a mistake.

Operations are very important, but it’s not the essence of the business. Go back to the cave people: ‘Here’s a piece of meat. I want your stick.’ That’s it! There’s no customer service. There’s no tech support. There’s no finance department. There’s no reporting. There’s no furniture and there’s no computers. ‘Your stick, my meat! Let’s go!’ That’s business!

Buying and creating and selling. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

This knowledge helps focus the intention of why we’re talking millionaire success strategies. The basics help, but the intention has to come from the simplest truth. When we’re going into business, we’re not going halfway. You could, but would that be much better than working a typical job?

When we’re talking about our money blueprints, these basics of why we go into business have to be drawn up into the foundation. It’s so simple and powerful yet not very well understood. Knowing this helps put you back into focus when the inevitable challenges arise, or when you face disappointments and setbacks.

You are doing this because you are going to be rich! Whatever other intentions are attached to that—for family, to buy nice things, to travel, to be an artist, whatever—don’t have to conflict with this truth.

You are doing this to be rich and to be free!

Now it’s your turn!  What are you financial intentions?  Are they wishy-washy and you need to change them now?  Are they solid and moving you forward?  Share below—I want to hear from you!

For Your Freedom,

Think back to those times in your life that proved to be pivotal moments in your growth as a person. Maybe it had to do with your finances, or your spirituality, or something you were trying to accomplish or overcome.

How did you learn how to get to where you wanted to be? Where did you learn what you needed to know? Who did you learn from, or was it all trial and error?

Lots of people start down their path toward whatever success means to them, not having any clue as to how tough that road can be. If they did have a clue in the beginning, a good number would say, “No thanks, I’ll stay ‘comfortable’ over here.” It’s almost like telling the universe you don’t want any good luck—those unexpected things that you hear about happening to other people that changes their lives in ways they couldn’t have imagined. Chance favors the prepared and courageous mind—those who are unafraid to take risks.

The outcomes of those risks partly reflect the knowledge that went into those decisions and actions, and that too reflects where that knowledge came from. When it comes down to it, few who have reached extraordinary levels of success in a given area did so because they learned everything they needed to learn on their own. Even the Buddha followed several mentors before moving beyond them to reach Nirvana.

I believe that life is always giving us turning points big and small—opportunities to change how we see things, change how we go about reaching our goals—especially when the way we’ve been going about it isn’t getting us any closer to the objective. It can be something as simple as the friend who casually mentions the name of an author who they think would be of value to you at that time in your life—or it could be the direct advice of a trusted someone when you have an important decision to make.

So take note when a good friend drops an observation about a question or issue you’re considering. There’s that little voice sometimes in the back of our head that might discredit what others see about ourselves or our situations that we’re not seeing.

You might think you don’t need to hear it, but we all know about our own thoughts sometimes, yes? They’re not always supportive. Just because you think, “I have this under control—I don’t need to hear anybody else’s perspective” does not make it true. It’s quite often the opposite.

So it’s up to you to choose a perspective of where you are today, not where you were yesterday. You don’t know where you are today until you show up. Come from the present moment, be in the present moment, and then choose to see how you can utilize the guidance that I believe life is giving us all the time. Ask the universe for guidance, and you will receive it. You never know which “today” could provide your life’s next turning point.

What do you think? How have seemingly inconsequential encounters changed your life, or your perspective? For better or worse? Was the presence of a mentor involved? What did you learn from this? Share your thoughts and opinions with our community, you never know whose life you may be changing!

For Your Freedom,

There are internal principles we use to create whatever we want to create. You’ve got to be congruent with who you are; an honest statement to yourself and to the world. You can’t get wealthy if you’re not congruent with that.

We have this desire to be financially free, but there’s this other part that says, ‘It’ll make my life more complicated,’ or ‘I don’t deserve to be.’

‘God doesn’t want me to.’

‘Mommy doesn’t want me to.’

‘The government doesn’t want me to.’

That never ends until you change the tune. You need to decide on something you’re going to do. Get congruent about it and go get it done. Take action on it.

There’s a saying I think is one of the most profound sayings I’ve ever heard by Émile Coué: “When the will comes into conflict with the imagination, the imagination always wins.”

It means you may want to do something, you may will it, you may write it down as a goal, you may say to yourself ‘That’s what I want to do’, but if your imagination is not congruent with that desire, you will conform to your imagination about it—even if you’re imagining the worst.

The deepest parts of you know what is right for you. That’s what intuition is. The problem is following your intuition can sometimes be a very fearful thing because you’re usually going against everything that everybody else is telling you. They’re usually saying, “Don’t do it.” You have to know and affirm that it’s right for you. It’s your thing. You’ve got to do this.

You would worry a lot less about what people think of you if you realized how little they do. But we have this façade we put up around ourselves, yes or yes? We try to play a role. And this façade takes half of our energy.

Fear is the most expensive habit we have. How much does your fear cost you? Go back five years and change your life, take all the fear away. No more fear of rejection. Live five years forward up to today without that fear. Where would you be today?

If you move and act in a different way, in a more congruent way, in a less fearful way, what happens? If we could take all of that and put it into money and relationships, time and physical health?

The question isn’t meant to draw thoughts of the past into the realm of regret. We learn what we learn when we learn it, and we get it into our bodies when it happens. Sometimes the Universe makes those turning points obvious, sometimes it takes us awhile to get there. Better late than never.

The point is to get it into our systems now; our desires deserve an imagination that will allow intuition, integrity, knowledge, and humility to go after what we want guilt free—free from the echoes of past that are no longer suited for your real ambitions.

What do you think? Has fear literally cost you money, or time, or something else important? Even for those who have found some level of financial success, do you ever still hear negative whispers from that old money blueprint? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

For Your Freedom,

 

Most people in our culture are pretty far removed from the realities of what we generally think of as “warriors.” In a pop-culture kind of way, the idea evokes images of swords, shields and ancient wars.

I think it’s important to seriously embrace the concepts behind what it means to be a warrior, and not the part about swords and shields. I’m talking about mental preparation—focus and awareness of mind, body and spirit so the warrior can be optimal to do what needs to be done when the moment calls.

We don’t experience quite the same intensity in our daily lives, but on some levels we do. The point isn’t about what the “warrior” is going to do; it’s who the warrior will be that will direct the action.

The definition we use of warrior is “One who conquers oneself.” The path of the spiritual warrior is not about power over others but power over yourself; being your true self. Only then can correct action follow, and the warrior’s way is the way of action.

It’s not just big actions in big moments. It’s about developing a habit; a bias toward action in your everyday life, and being able to reach your dreams because of this. Fear is what holds people back—fear of failing, or some perceived ridicule or pain for failing.

One of the most basic principles of the warrior is to be willing to make mistakes. The most successful people are willing to mess things up every now and then! They don’t take mistakes personally as an affront to their self-worth. They use mistakes as their primary form of learning.

You’ll get feedback based on action, and then you can make corrections. You go back to more action, maybe more mistakes, and make more corrections until you get it right.

But what happens in the feedback loop for a lot of people? We make mistakes and beat ourselves up unmercifully. In our society we have such a stigma on “failure” that we’re not willing to do anything, especially anything big we really want.

Take action! Successful people trust themselves. They’re willing to take the chance.

Break out of the prison of the conditioned mind and come from true choice in the present moment. That’s power. Power is when you don’t have to be who you were yesterday, or two years ago, or whenever.

You have to be present in the moment and come from true choice. If you don’t come from the moment and can’t trust yourself, then you’re coming from your programs of the past.

Be whatever you have to be at the time. Being unattached to thoughts and beliefs means you can be free to be whatever you need to be right now. That’s the way of the spiritual warrior.

Now it’s your turn! What do you want to do in your life that you are waiting for the right situation?  What would happen if you actually went for it right now? Do you have any experiences in embracing your “spiritual warrior”?

Your feedback is very valuable so make sure to leave a comment and start a conversation with the other T. Harv Eker community members!

For your freedom,

Be grateful!

We hear it all the time, at least in a community of fellow seekers who want to grow their financial success building as much as their spiritual peace. Life has its highs and lows, but the one thing that’s the same no matter where we are on the wheel is that there are always many things to be grateful for.

It’s easy to be grateful when it doesn’t really require a ton of effort, like saying “please” or “thank you.” It’s easy to be grateful when things are going great. But what about when things aren’t going quite as planned?

Everyone’s been there. The mind starts going into “what’s wrong,” or what’s not enough, what’s too much to deal with, too much to do in order to overcome an obstacle and reach a goal. In some ways it’s natural, but when it becomes a habit then the pity party is simply a safer choice.

The truth is it takes much more courage to appreciate what we’ve got—no matter how little it may seem—than it is to surrender to the scarcity model and let ourselves off the hook for taking action because something isn’t enough.

Our egos will tell us that if we spend too much time being grateful for what we have, we won’t try to get more, and we’ll become stuck with being “content” instead of happy.

Wanting what we currently have has nothing to do with somehow tricking ourselves into “settling.” Just because you’re buying an economy car now that’s practical but not so hot-looking doesn’t mean you won’t want a Ferrari three years from now when you’re rich. It’s not hard to be grateful for that fact that you have four wheels to drive that gets you where you need to go. There are plenty of people in this world that don’t have that, with consequences we couldn’t imagine.

It’s the lack-based protective mind that continuously hungers for more, like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. The scarcity model, constantly looking around, overlooks and discounts what’s right in front of us. We have to consistently remind ourselves to look for “what's right” in our lives instead of “what's wrong.”

Then we’ll be less likely not to forget to show our appreciation to the people who are closest to us; our family, friends, loved ones, co-workers, employees. Then there are teachers, postal workers—all the people that make our daily lives more convenient and enrich our larger communities. And let’s not forget to say “thank you” to the Universe for our many blessings.

Gratitude particularly holds true when it comes to finances. To have abundance, be grateful for and properly manage whatever wealth you have now, even if you don’t think it’s much. Why? If you’re not appreciating what you already have, that means you’re not maximizing what’s available right now. If you can’t do that, why should the Universe believe you can handle more?

Now it’s your turn! Who and what have you not fully appreciated?  What are some of the things that you think we tend to take for granted? Below list the people and things in your life for which you are grateful. Show your appreciation to the people who mean the most to you for all that you have.

For your freedom,

Many of you know I embrace Buddhist wisdom as part of spiritual knowledge and growth. These kinds of things are choices we make for ourselves hopefully because we find this knowledge relevant and helpful to our lives. Many spiritual philosophies share similar teachings that could be just as true for people from completely different cultures.

That’s the beauty of the Oneness that most of them point toward, whatever different words one wants to use to describe it. We’re all together, all energy; all one thing.  We just think we’re separate.

If we’re going to strive for spiritual growth, we have to be willing to put concepts into practice in our everyday lives, in all relationships with all people. You can’t separate your “spiritual life” from your “work life.” They’re both your life!

In the same vein, you can’t separate money and happiness. You can try, but you won’t live a very happy life.

How you’re going to make your money has to reflect your spiritual truth as if you were attending a spiritual ceremony. The physical, material world is simply a printout of what’s going on inside us. To think any different is to fall into the illusion of separation.

So before you find the right job, business, or relationship, you have to find the right you! It’s about matching what you do with who you are. Then you get the right knowledge and the right way for you to become more prosperous and happier.

I realize there are some people who disagree with spiritual concepts, or maybe are just uncomfortable with the topic. That’s okay. We don’t have to go deep or New Agey with this. Finding the Right You is as simple as this: JOY. What are those things you do that give you absolute joy?

Joy is a clue from the heart, not to be confused with pleasure. When you evoke the feeling of joy, you are tapping into your higher nature, your truest self, and the source of your full power, your full creativity, your full wisdom. Then you’re generating passion.

Passion creates energy, and energy creates enthusiasm. It’s very contagious. When you are passionate about what you do, it comes through!  Will people want what you’ve got?  Yes and yes! Mostly because of the energy transfer, that’s it!

The most important thing about your business, whatever vehicle is appropriate for you, is you have to frickin’ believe in it to where you would shout it from the top of the roof to everybody, every minute of every day!  If you can’t do that, you don’t believe in what you do enough—and ultimately, you don’t believe in yourself. You’re not being your “Right You”.

When you find something that you really believe in and get it into your subconscious, the obstacles that block you seem more like minor interruptions compared to the passion of operating from your true Self.

Unless you are passionate about what you do, it is very difficult for you to be successful or happy. Right livelihood comes down to finding work that matches who you are.

Tell us your experiences with finding your “Right You.” Have you truly found your “Right You” yet in your life? What was the turning point that made you realize you weren’t being the real you? What was the transformation like? Share your thoughts and comments with our community, your feedback is very valuable!

For Your Freedom,

What kind of receiver are you? If you’re reading this, chances are you consider yourself a giver of sorts. You might even beat yourself up a little bit for thinking you don’t give enough. Then again, there are those who think they’re givers but really aren’t.

The point is we tend to focus on giving as “goodness”; of feeling good or intending good. But what kind of receiver are you? Do you take compliments bashfully? Do you say, “Aw, it was really nothing”? Do you tell them to stop teasing you, or that you weren’t fishing for a compliment?

One of the big reasons most people don’t reach their full potential, financially or otherwise, is that they are very, very poor receivers. ‘You’re not worthy’ because of the way you look, or what you do, or how much money you have, or don’t have.

You’re worthy because the Great Spirit, or Universe, or God, or whatever you want to call a higher power, has put you on the earth at this time. There’s nothing else to think about! Since you’re as worthy as the next person, you’re as deserving to receive as anyone else. Anything else that your mind says around that is made up, non-supportive crappola!

And then there’s that phrase that a lot of people heard when they were young, and we still hear it: “It’s better to give than to receive.” Of course it is, isn’t it?

I’m sorry, but let’s just call that what it is: bad math! If both have to be there for the other to exist, how on earth could one be better than the other? How is that possible? Somebody enlighten me please!

By the way, the original intention of that ‘better to give’ statement actually translates more correctly into ‘It’s better to be in a position to give than in a position where you need to receive’.

In other words it’s better to be rich! Some people will read that and get that little twinge of guilt—How can I so selfishly justify wanting to be rich? Fine, I understand, I was there too, so let’s try this from another angle.

How does it feel to give, especially when that person didn’t ask you for anything yet you knew they were in need? Most people say it feels great, yes? It’s especially the grateful receivers that make us feel even better about our giving, yes?

But if you’re not willing to receive, you’re ripping off those people from the other side of the equation who want to give. And we’re proving that both giving and receiving are great. Two birds with one stone. If you’re in a position to give, that’s wealth—whether it’s money, time or kindness.

So here’s your practice. No more returning compliments for a specific time! If someone gives you a compliment, you’re not allowed to give them a compliment at that time because it dishonors them (of course use your better judgment, but you get the point!).  Returning a compliment because you think you have to robs them of the full joy of giving you the compliment. And it robs you of receiving.

The key is to recognize that whether you’re “worthy” or not is a feeling, not a fact. It’s a story that you made up and now you own. Disown that! Receive with the same joy that you give.

Now it’s your turn – we want to hear your thoughts and feelings. Do you think you’re a better giver or receiver? Do you have a hard time receiving compliments? How about giving them? Your feedback is very valuable so make sure to leave a comment and start a conversation with others in our community!

For your freedom,

Whatever's coming at us in life – is it happening because we somehow deserve it? Did we ask for it?

Sometimes it’s our blueprints that limit what the Universe brings into our lives. People unconsciously punish themselves over something that happened a long time ago but they haven’t forgiven themselves. Or they feel guilty about actually getting what they want. Sometimes there’s a part of us that feels like we don’t deserve more.

Other times, things happen out of nowhere; extreme challenges hit us out of the blue, and if we’re honest with ourselves, there’s a part of us that will ask, however briefly, “What did I do to deserve this?”

How we think about what we get in life—the meanings we attach to events and circumstances—will impact the quality of our lives. So it doesn’t pay to give too much credit to the Universe when things go right, nor too much blame when things go wrong and we don’t get what we want.

Success starts with us and our attitudes—and we’re grateful when the Universe gives us a nudge in the right direction.

We have the power to ask for and get what we want. People who are successful at it are considered “smooth-talkers,” with just a hint of resentment behind that tag, as if they’re just lucky to be born with the gift of gab.

There does seem to be some people that are better at it than others, but the power of persuasion is a learnable skill. If a kid in a marketplace can do it, for heaven’s sake so can you!

Most people, though, either go into a negotiation assuming that they’re going to get raked, and either don’t bother trying to negotiate out of fear or talk themselves out of getting the deal they want by not believing they can get it or deserve it.

That’s actually a big thing for a lot of people—the belief that getting what they want must mean that they’re taking something away from someone else. Of course that’s not true—the best negations are win-win scenarios.

In business and in life, ask for what you want! What’s the worst that could happen? The other person says no? So what if they do? People are so afraid of receiving “no” into their lives they don’t even try.

The best negotiating tool is the truth. Let the other person know how you’re feeling. The idea of good negotiations is to work together so you both get what you want and you both feel good and you feel the deal is fair.

When you ask someone, “What do you want?” they’ll usually tell you what they want. When you ask, “What do you think is fair?” they’ll usually tell you what they think is fair and balance your part of the equation.

Don’t get attached to the whole thing, and it’s actually a lot of fun. There’s a feeling of success that builds confidence once you become good at it, but there’s also a sense of fulfillment when you actually get what you deserve.

And as the saying goes, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you can negotiate. Let the Universe sort the rest out for you.

Tell us your experiences with stepping outside your comfort zone to get what you want. Was it a business experience? A personal experience? We want to hear from you!

Practice makes perfect, right? Wrong!

First of all, nothing’s ever perfect. I’d even say you don’t really want anything to be “perfect.” Why not? Well, once you’ve reached it, where else is there to go but backwards or, even worse, nowhere?

No, the point of practice isn’t perfection. We want to strive for perfection, yes, but that’s only going to work if you understand that it’s not just about the destination but the journey as well. That’s why it helps to look at the process when it comes to those outcomes we’re reaching for. Because what would be the point of getting to where you always wanted to be if you’re beat up and worn out by the time you get there? Where’s the happiness in that?

Happiness is a process as much as an outcome. Don’t get me wrong – a hard-earned victory is awesome. But think about it; should happiness in life be restricted to success in finances, or business, or career, or the attainment of goals?

We have all been there at some point in our lives, saying something like, “If only I had [fill in the blank], I’d be so much happier.” Hey, sometimes we may even get whatever it is we think will make us happy, but what usually ends up happening? We’re psyched for a little while—if at all—and then we find out it wasn’t really enough to make us as happy as we thought it would. There’s always more.

You can work your butt off to get to where you want to be by practicing your delivery, your backhand swing, your investment strategies—you can practice anything until you get it down, but that doesn’t mean things are always going to turn out perfectly. Practice doesn’t make perfect.

Practice becomes habit, and habits become permanent unless we consciously change them. We’re practicing something all the time through our habits, even when we’re not really thinking about it. If you practice the thought that “I’ll be happy when [fill in the blank] happens,” then guess what? You’re always delaying your happiness until [fill in the bank] happens. Not because things will never be great, but because you’ve become a master at being unhappy. Unhappiness will be your habit!

You have to practice being happy no matter what is going on in life; whether you win or lose, succeed or experience temporary setbacks, whether everything is the way you have always dreamed or if you are still on the road to your next major destination.

Practice whatever you want to be in the future now. If you want to be more patient and less reactionary, then practice patience now. If you want to be a manager of your own personal wealth, start managing your finances now no matter how much money you earn. If you want to be successful, then practice being successful now. Start small. Engage in things that you’re already good at and challenge yourself to be better, even if it’s just in small increments.

The key is to enjoy the process and the journey. We can have moments of perfection, times where we wouldn’t want a single thing to change, but it’s unfair and unrealistic to ask that of life all the time. But it’s totally within our control to practice being whatever we want to be right now!

So now it's your turn:  What are you going to practice right now?  What's that one thing you want to achieve and are willing to enjoy the process while making it a habit?  We want to hear from you!

There’s a book out there called “Life Was Never Meant to be a Struggle” by Stuart Wilde. The title pretty much says it all, yes?

You sure wouldn’t know it by the way people work and live, though, would you?  The fact is most people suffer through their work if not their lives. They do what they do because they believe they have to, because they think they should, or because they’re good at it—even in the face of personal unhappiness or financial struggle.

In the past, the type of work we did was based more on necessity than choice. You just did what you had to do or what was available to you. Things have changed pretty dramatically. We have way more options and opportunities today than we can even handle.

And that’s exactly what a lot of peoples’ biggest struggle is when it comes to work. We don’t do what we love because we’re not clear about what we want.

The first place to look is at your natural talents. Natural talents are gifts from the Universe, gifts from spirit, or whatever you want to call your creator. These are things that you do well, that you didn’t have to learn to do. You’re basically born with this skill. It comes easy to you. It’s something that people look at you and go, “You’re natural at that.” And most importantly, you like doing it!

The most obvious reason a lot of people don’t find or create work that they love—and struggle through life because of it—is fear: fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of rejection, fear of looking foolish, fear of disapproval and even fear of success!

Sometimes people will mask this fear as obligation: to other people, to an idea, obligation to the frickin’ mortgage. If your mortgage is hampering your life, which one do you want to release?   Well, guess which one most people release? Their life! It’s a choice: your mortgage or your life.

Whatever it is that you feel obliged to do, obligation is nothing more than a fear that if you don’t do “this,” something bad will happen. You’re not going to have passion and energy to succeed if you resent doing what you’re doing rather than looking forward to doing it.

I believe life was not meant to be a struggle, while acknowledging that struggles do happen in the form of detaching yourself from all old habits that no longer serve you in your life now. Growth is hard, but once we get through and become more of who we are, the struggle lightens.

We have to unlearn what we believe in order to escape the struggles that the illusion of separation brings—mainly separation from ourselves and from our nature that wants to make things easier.

We are part of a divine source of unlimited power—creators of our own experiences. Those with a strong spiritual connection tend to find that life is easier, living an authentic life knowing who they really are rather than playing a role that society, culture, or religion has dictated.

Then all those other areas open up—work, relationships, finances, etc. Life really shouldn’t be that hard. Unlearn, discover, apply, and for goodness sake, take it easy!

Now it’s your turn- we want to hear from you! Do you utilize your natural talents in your life and more specifically, your work? Is what you do for work your passion, or are you simply working to pay the bills each month? Share your opinion and experiences with us, your feedback is valuable to our community!