Paying the price and enjoying it ~ by Bill Harris (Part Five)

The people you see who are getting what they want in life are almost always those who have figured out how to enjoy paying the price, which of course makes it easy to pay. As I said earlier, this is the essence of the Law of Attraction—the price is just whatever you need to give in order to attract or create what you want. That's why just sitting there hoping and wishing doesn't work. When you do that, the only thing you're putting out is an intention, which, while it's a good start, is of no value to anyone - unless you act on it.

The resources you begin to notice when you focus on what you want might also include people who could help you. And when you begin to spot such people, you have to keep in mind that if you want their help you have to make it worth their while to help you. This might mean paying them, but you could compensate them in many other ways. You could make them a partner. You could give them a feeling of being a good person who helps others. Or anything in between. And, quite often, if people who have the ability to help you see that what you have has real merit, some of them will help you just to help you, because they understand the Law of Attraction and they know if they help you it will come back to them in some other way. Often the people who have really mastered the Law of Attraction have so much, and they create what they want so effortlessly, that they just want to give back by helping others.

It never hurts to ask

It never hurts to ask for help, even if you're not sure how to compensate the other person. But always start with the willingness to compensate them in some way, even if you don't yet know how. In fact, if you aren't sure, you could begin by saying, "I'm not sure how at this point to make it worth your while, but I sure could use your help." Ask, and see what happens, and always be open to compensating the other person in some way, even if you haven't yet figured out what it might be. In fact, be eager to compensate them. So, you focus on what you want, and you ask yourself questions such as "How can I make $100,000 a year?" Because of that, you get ideas, you notice resources, you attract or notice people who might be able to help.

Focusing on what you want and imagining how good it will feel to get it causes you to feel motivated to act, and so you take action. Then, after you act, notice what happened. Evaluate your action. Your action was either successful or not, or something in between. Whatever happens, you'll get feedback. If your action worked, you might want to do more of it. If it didn't work, learn whatever you can from it, and then take another action based on what you learned. Keep acting, evaluating, and then acting again, until you create or attract whatever it is you're trying to get. Even if you have to refine your actions many times, you're still benefiting because you're gaining wisdom. This is why successful people are so successful. They've acted, and received feedback, and acted again, and received more feedback, and have done this so many times that they've become wise. They've become experts. So be willing to pay the price to become an expert. All these little so-called failures are really tuition in the school of life, and the learning they bring is very valuable.

All the while you're doing this, of course, you're remaining focused on where you want to go and what you want to create, and you've already decided, in advance, that nothing is going to keep you from getting there. If you slip up, if what you're doing isn't working, if you fall on your face, you learn everything you can from what happened, and continue to focus on how to get where you want to go.

This constant focus on the end result, along with taking action, and always trying to think of how to create value for others, always, eventually, gets you there. The only way you can fail is if you're mistaken about the value of what you provide, or you quit before you get there. You might change your approach for getting there a number of times, based on what you learn, but you otherwise just keep focusing your attention on what you want and acting to get it.

[Text courtesy of Bill Harris]

Who wants $100,000? ~ by Bill Harris (Part Four)

Okay, let's take an example to see how you could use these three principles to get what you want. Let's say that you do want more money, and you realize right away that you don't yet have a way to provide additional value to others, which is what would qualify you to receive more money. For that reason, no one is giving you money. What do you do? The first thing to do is to use the first principle, the principle of focusing your attention on what you want.

"I want more money," you say. You ask yourself, "How can I get more money?" Notice that I'm using that "How can I?" question again. It's always a great question to ask because it focuses you on what you want.

It would be even better, though, if you were more specific. I might say, then, "I want to make $100,000 a year. How can I do that?" Or, I might say to myself, "Okay, how can I make $100,000 a year? Many other people do it, so I know it's doable. How could I do it?" I would keep asking myself this question, and I would focus my attention on discovering a way to do it. Knowing the other two principles, I'd know that when I get an idea, I'm going to have to take action, and the action will have to benefit someone, so I'm keeping that in the back of my mind.

So, what happens? First, you start getting ideas. Right now, off the top of my head, I'm just going to share with you the ideas that come to me, as if I was the person wanting to make $100,000 a year. The first idea that comes to me is to see if I can find out who else is making $100,000 a year. What professions make that much? Well, certainly a lot of people who have their own business make that much. A guy who owns a McDonald's makes more than that much for each store he owns. Someone who owns a couple of dry cleaning stores probably makes that much. I could probably go online and find through Google a whole list of types of jobs that make $100,000 a year.

People who sell certain products online, or through the mail, probably make that much. Certain professional speakers, or authors, make that much. Someone who sells real estate can make that much, or more, and so can insurance agents. So one idea that came to me was to check out who's actually making this kind of money, because that might give me ideas for how I could do it. By finding this out, I could at least save myself from doing something that I think will make me a lot of money when in actual fact few if any people actually make that kind of money doing it.

For instance, I see a lot of people in certain MLM-type businesses, but rarely do I see anyone who even makes $1000 a month, let alone significant money. I'm not trying to bash MLMs in general, because some of them are great, and I'm not saying it isn't possible to make good money in MLM, but if you're looking for a way to make a lot of money, wouldn't it make sense to avoid something where nearly everyone who does it fails? If you want to start a business, do a little checking before you act and find out what other people in that business are making.

Daydreaming, or acting?

Here's something else to keep in mind. If you sit around and focus your attention on something you want, but you're daydreaming, you aren't going to get it. Why? Because daydreaming is a kind of thinking that already has lack of action built into it. There's a huge difference between thinking about something when you're in wishing mode, and thinking about the same thing when you're in acting mode. If you want to create something, always do your thinking while in acting mode.

But let's get back to creating that $100,000 a year. I've already mentioned that focusing on how to do this gives you ideas. But it also causes you to notice resources you might use. You might, for instance, notice books about how to make more money. Or you might notice that someone has a seminar about how to make more money. It occurs to me as I'm thinking about this right now that my friend Harv Eker, for instance, has a great seminar, and a book, about making money. If you Google "Harv Eker", you'll see all kinds of offerings he has. I know they're good, and if you follow his advice you'll learn how to make more money. Jack Canfield has some great stuff, too, and his book, The Success Principles, is a very complete guide to how people create what they want in the world. I have a very powerful online course that will teach you, in-depth, exactly how to create whatever you want, which I'll tell you more about later.

"What's New, Pussycat? Click and see!"

There are almost unlimited resources available about how to make money. You usually don't notice them because you haven't focused your attention on finding them. Then, of course, when you find them, you have to take action and use them. This is where most people fall down. There's a price to pay to get what you want in this world, and most people would rather not pay it.

Will the Wish Fairy give you a raise? ~ by Bill Harris (Part Three)

If you work in an office, and your boss approaches you and offers you a better job in the company, with more pay, why does he do this? Is it magic? Is it because you've been sitting in your cubicle putting it out to the universe that you want a better job with more money? I doubt it. If your boss offers you such a promotion, I'll bet you anything it's because of past actions you've taken that have convinced your boss that you're worth the raise, and because he's pretty sure that your future actions will make it worth his while to give you new responsibilities and more money.

Now, let's look at the third principle, the idea that the action you take has to benefit someone, that your action has to create value. Think of it this way. From time to time you give money to other people, right? You pay your electric bill, you pay your car payment, you give money to the supermarket, you give money to the clothing store, or the gas station. Why do you do this? Is it just because you like these people? Is it because they put it out to the universe that you would stop by and give them money?

Well, you might like them, and they probably did sit down and focus on how to get you and other customers to give them some of your money, but when it comes right down to it, you gave them money because they have something you want more than you want the money. Like everyone else, unless it's just because you love them, you give money to others if you get something valuable in return. What's more, you're the sole judge of whether what they have is valuable. It doesn't matter who else thinks it's valuable - if you don't think it is, you don't give up your money for it.

The only reason people will give you money


Other than money you might give to someone just because you love them, this is the only reason why money changes hands. This means that if you want money, someone else is going to have to give it to you, and they're going to use the same criteria you use. If giving you money gets them something they want more than the money, they'll give you the money. In order to get more money, then, you have to figure out a way to create more benefit, more value. This is really the essence of the Law of Attraction. The amount of money you attract is equal to the value you provide. This applies to more than money, of course. As the Beatles said in one of their songs, "the love you take is equal to the love you make."

I'm only talking in terms of money because that's what most people think of when they think of The Secret and the Law of Attraction. But whatever you want - love, respect, friends, or anything else - you'll receive it to the extent that you put out, through your actions, something of equivalent value. Be a good friend, and you'll have friends. Act in a way that invites respect, and you'll be respected. And so on. The main point, though, is that for you to get something in this world, you have to give. As Emerson said, the universe's books are always balanced - which, by the way, also means that you can't fail to receive when you give, and if you have to wait, you build up interest, you might say, while you wait.

Now, some people struggle, at least partially, because they haven't found a way to offer very much value, so they don't make much money. If you're flipping burgers, it's probably because you don't have the skills that make you more valuable to someone else, which means others aren't willing to trade very much money for whatever you provide. The burger-flipper needs to be reliable enough to show up, smart enough to follow directions, and be able to get along with the other employees, but not much else is required. It's also possible that you have something that would be of value to others, but you haven't found a way to let others know about it. In that case, you have a sales and marketing problem, and you need to find a way to convincingly let others know about the value you could provide for them.

The more valuable you are, the more money you make

But there's a solution to this, and it isn't wishing and hoping. If you don't have a way to create very much value for others, you can always get more knowledge or more skills. I have people who work for me who know how to take orders over the phone and enter them into the computer, and they do it well. However, a lot of people can do such a job, so it isn't a very lucrative job compared, for instance, to someone who knows how to manage people, or who knows how to run a computer network, or who knows how to create an advertisement that creates a lot of sales. Such people end up getting more money because they provide more value. And, they can provide more value because they've paid the price to have those skills and that knowledge. So if you aren't making as much money as you want, you need to figure out a way to create more value, and you need to figure out a way to make sure people know you have this value. The value could be your ideas, it could be your labor, it could be a product you create or sell, or it could be a service you provide. If it has value, and if you can find a way to make sure people know about it, you'll make money equivalent to the value you provide.

And, of course, none of this will happen unless you take action, and you won't take action - or know what action to take - unless you begin by focusing your mind on what you want and asking yourself how you can get it. But please don't think that you can just wish for something or "put it out to the universe," and then, without taking action or providing any value, expect to get it. In fact, let me clue you into another aspect of the Law of Attraction. If a random event brings you something, for which you haven't provided value - something you haven't paid the price to have - I hate to tell you this, but you still have to pay in some way. If you win the lottery, you've received a bunch of money without having provided value in exchange. You know what happens to nearly all people who win millions in the lottery, don't you? That's right. They almost always lose all the money within a few years. Unless that person does something with the money that provides value to others, they'll find a way to lose it.

And, by the way, this is the way debt works, too. If you go into debt in order to have something before you've earned the money, you end up paying more for it. There is a price for everything, and when you pay in advance the price is lower, and when you pay in arrears the price is higher. One of the big secrets to success is to find out what the price is for what you want and pay it, in full, as fast as possible. The price might be money, but it also could be time, experience, learning, work, or something else. Sometimes the price is a series of events that look like failures, but are really preparation for success. But whatever the price is, the faster you pay it, the better. This is what the second two principles are about.

Take the plunge!



[Text courtesy of Bill Harris]

Turning wishes into lemonade ~ by Bill Harris (Part Two)

You can probably see that sitting there visualizing lemonade without doing something about it is a belief in magic, and if that's all you do you're not going to get lemonade. Even if someone walks into the room just as you think of lemonade, and you ask them to get you some, you've still taken action. And, if by some coincidence you thought of lemonade and right then someone walked into the room and said, "I was wondering if you'd like some lemonade?" this is not happening because you thought about lemonade. A lot of magic-believers would like to think so, but you could sit there every day and think about lemonade, and it would be a long time before that method would work again.

Scientists have a name for this. It's called a coincidence.

People who believe in magic turn coincidences into evidence, but that doesn't make it so, and you can easily prove this to yourself by thinking of lemonade the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and finding out what happens. What will happen is that no lemonade will manifest the next day, or the next, or the next, unless you get up out of your chair and take action to find some.

How to find all the resources you need.


So the first thing that happens when you focus on getting something is that your mind generates ideas about how to get it, ideas about what actions you could take to get it. The second thing that happens is that you begin to notice resources you could use in getting what you want. You might notice people who could help you that you weren't noticing before. You might suddenly become aware of information, books, seminars, TV shows, or whatever, that previously you had not noticed. Perhaps you've had the experience of wanting to learn about something and going to a bookstore. Suddenly you see all
kinds books about the subject that you never noticed before, and would have just walked right by if you hadn't told your mind to notice them. Let's say you're driving down the street and you decide you want an Italian meal. If there are any Italian restaurants on that street, will you notice them? Of course. Would you have noticed them if you hadn't focused your attention on Italian food? Probably not.

When you focus your attention on something, your mind develops a kind of radar that causes resources to wave little red flags at you, and to almost jump into your arms, or at least into your awareness. But again, you can see how this relates to taking action, because these resources you notice are useful only if you use them. Okay, so far, by focusing on what you want, you've begun to develop some ideas about how to get it, and you've started noticing resources you could use. Next, focusing on what you want causes you to become motivated to act. Because you're thinking about what you want, and about how you'll feel when you get it - good, probably - you become motivated to do something, to take action.

You can be a high-quality person.

And, finally, focusing on what you want causes you to tap into or develop certain internal qualities that help you to get it, such things as courage, or persistence, or focus. Because you're focused on what you want, and are thinking about the benefits of having what you want and imagining how good it will feel, you're more likely to be persistent, to focus your attention, to be disciplined, to be self reliant, to take personal initiative, to use your imagination, and to be enthusiastic. Those who focus on what they want develop all of these personal qualities, and, depending on what qualities are needed in order to create what you want, possibly others. And, the more and the longer you focus on what you want, and the more positive emotion you add, the more these qualities become part of your personality.

So focusing your mind in the way described in The Secret causes you to have ideas, to notice people and resources that could help you, to become motivated to act, and to develop internal qualities that will help you act to get what you want. You can see, then, how incredibly valuable focusing your attention on what you want can be. If you've ever wondered why some people seem to have so many ideas, how they seem to always find the resources they need or the people who can help them, how they stay motivated, and how they seem to have all these amazing personal qualities, now you know. They did it by continually focusing their attention on what they want and then taking valuable action.

Ask the Magic Question.

Now here's a really easy way to focus your attention on what you want. I call it the Magic Question, but again, it really isn't magic. To focus your attention on something you want to create or attract, ask yourself, "How can I create X?" whatever X is, or "How can I get X?" Sometimes, if you're in what seems to be a particularly bad situation, you might say, "Given that I'm in this situation, what can I do to get X?" For instance, if you just lost your job and you have a lot of debts, you might ask yourself, "Okay, given that I'm in this situation, what can I do right now to create a new job and create enough money to pay all these debts?"

When you ask this type of How Can I? question, it focuses your attention on what you want, and in doing so you enlist your mind in finding an answer - in other words, to figure out what you could actually DO to begin creating or attracting what you want. Then, as you get ideas, you have to act on them. Sitting there wishing and hoping for a miracle, or hoping that a coincidence will slam into you is what NOT to do. Dr. Phil, if he were here, would be asking such a person, "How's that workin' for ya?" I know a lot of very successful people, including nearly every teacher who appears in The Secret, and believe me, none of them sit around waiting for a miracle to land on them.

Even the few of them who actually, and in my opinion mistakenly, teach that focusing on what you want is magic, when you watch what they're actually doing, they are taking action. How they can miss the fact that they are is beyond me, but a few of them - who shall remain nameless - do teach people to just "put it out to the universe" and that no action is necessary. They too, though, take action, but I guess they somehow fail to see the connection between the action they take and the results they get. If you look around at successful, make-it-happen people, you won't see any of them who don't take action.

It only looks like they're not taking action.

Now I'll admit that sometimes the results can look as if they are coming to a very successful person awfully darned easy and awfully darned quickly, but these results are still coming from action, preceded by focusing on what that person wanted. My friend Gay Hendricks, along with his wife Katie, have been bestselling authors of books about relationships for over twenty years. Another friend, Jack Canfield, is also a bestselling author. Either one of them can pick up the phone, call a book publisher, tell them an idea for a book, and get a book deal instantly. If some other person wanted a book deal, it could take them years to make it happen. If their idea didn't have value, based on what the publisher wanted, they might never make it happen.



To someone who did not understand the principle of taking action and the principle of creating value, it might look like Gay or Jack made something happen as if by magic, without taking action. However, in this case the book deal happened quickly because of actions they'd previously taken. In fact, Jack visited scores of publishers with the original Chicken Soup for the Soul book, and was almost ready to give up, when he finally found a publisher willing to print his book. But now, after selling well over 100 million books, he's already proven that he can create a bestselling book. He's already taken the action necessary to get a book publisher to send him a contract and a check. The same goes for Gay Hendricks.

I can create a new course or a new product, and Centerpointe program participants will buy it tomorrow, in droves. This isn't magic, though. It's the residual of thousands of actions I've already taken which have convinced my customers that when I create something, it's going to be worth it for them to buy it in order to get the benefits. I've already taken the required action, and sometimes that makes it look as if little or no action is being taken in order to get a certain outcome.



[Text courtesy of Bill Harris]

Two Parts of "The Secret" No One Talks About - and Why The Secret Won't Work Without Them (Part One)

By Bill Harris

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've heard of the hit DVD movie, The Secret, which I was fortunate enough to have participated in. The Secret has developed into quite a phenomenon. Many of the teachers who appeared in it have appeared on Oprah! and Larry King Live, and several other national television programs. Hundreds of thousands of people have watched the DVD, and those who have are hungry for information on how to implement what many people call the Law of Attraction. I want to share my take on The Secret and the Law of Attraction, and talk about what you can do to put these principles into action in your own life.

As powerful as The Secret is, there are a few things—a few very important things—it either leaves out, or de-emphasizes. I want to discuss these things, because once you understand them you'll have the maximum ability to use these important principles to take change of your life. Without them, The Secret won't benefit you at all. My belief is that there is a way, no matter who you are, and regardless of your past or present circumstances, to master your life, to master your mind, and to create anything you want in life. The Secret describes a part of how to do that. It's a very important part, but it's still just a part.

I want to tell you about the other parts, and share some of the practical details, the "how-to," of what I and the other teachers talked about in The Secret, because there's more to The Secret and the Law of Attraction than just putting something out to the universe and hoping to get something back. As the people who made The Secret have said, it's true that for thousands of years a certain small segment of the population has known about and used this secret, and that those who've known it and have used it have prospered in extraordinary ways, and have influenced the world in ways that have seemed almost magical to those who don't understand this secret. But you need to know more than generalizations about this secret in order to fully implement it,
and I want to share some of that with you.

Before I get into some of the nuts and bolts, I want to tell you about two aspects of this secret that were not emphasized in The Secret DVD and book. I'm sharing this with you because these two additional aspects of The Secret are crucial, and if you leave them out, The Secret doesn't work. What you focus on creates your life—but it ain't magic!

Let's start out, then, by acknowledging that it's true that you create in reality, in one way or another, whatever you focus your attention on. Your life is going to be an outcome of where you predominantly place your attention. There are, of course, as I said, some things you need to know about the how-to of this in order to get all the benefits, and I'll talk about that in a moment. What is unfortunate, in my opinion, is that all too often people think that all you have to do is focus your attention on what you want, and then, in some magic way, you'll get it. I will say that the way this law works does seem like magic, especially when you first use it and see your results suddenly change from dismal to successful, but there is no magic involved, and without the second two principles I'm going to share, you'll end up being nothing but a wishful thinker, wondering how long this "Secret" stuff is going to take. I know, because I get many letters from people asking me how long it's going to take, and I have to truthfully tell them that if all they do is focus their attention on what they want, it's going to take forever. So let's look at these other two principles I mentioned, and then we'll get into some of the nuts and bolts of how to focus your mind in a way that really works.

The first principle you heard a lot about in The Secret DVD, the fact that what you place your attention on you tend to create or attract into your life. However, if you stop there, not much happens. After you place your attention on what you want to create or manifest, you have to use the second principle, which is to then take action to get it.

Forget about the Wish Fairy

Yes, I hate to break this to you, but if you want money - or anything else, for that matter - you can't just wish for it. Whether you want great relationships, a fulfilling career, good health, or anything else, in addition to focusing your attention on what you want, you also have to take action. And the action you take also has to, in some way, be of value to the world, and to other people. You could act your ass off, but if your action has no value for anyone, you won't get anything back. This is why they call it the Law of Attraction. You get back what you put out.

To get value, you have to give value. That's the way it works. For some of the people who come to me, or the other teachers you saw in The Secret, life isn't working so well. I know what that's like, because I used to be one of them. Such people aren't making much money, usually. They very often aren't in a fulfilling career. Their relationships aren't satisfying. They don't feel happy and peaceful. Their health may not be very good. Many of them feel very lost in the world. They sometimes feel like, well, like losers in the game of life. Often such people don't have the skills that allow them to offer a lot of value. That doesn't mean that they couldn't develop those skills, or in some other way figure out how to create value in the world, but at the present time they either don't have the skills or don't know how to use them to create benefit for others.

You see, the problem is that such people - and remember, I used to be one of them, so I understand the thought process - such people would LOVE to find out that there's a magic way to become prosperous, popular, respected, happy, and loved. Then, when someone comes along and tells them to just "put it out to the universe" it almost becomes a cruel joke, because to create the kind of life I just described, you have to do more than just think about it or wish for it. I want everyone who feels lost and discouraged about creating the life they want to know that while you can't JUST focus your attention on what you want, it isn't that difficult to add these other two principles, and, having added them, you can learn how to have everything you want in life. It isn't magic, and it isn't difficult, but there is a price to pay. My career, once I found it, albeit late in life, is about showing people what that price is, and then showing them the easy way to pay it. Here's how it works...

So let's look at the first principle, what most people think of now as The Secret - the idea that what you place your attention on is manifested in reality. This is a solid, real, principle, but it isn't magic. Here's why this principle works - if, of course, you use the other two principles with it. When you focus your attention on something you want to create or attract, several things happen. Your mind is a very powerful goal seeking mechanism. You just have to give it a goal, and it gets busy figuring out how to get it. When you focus on something, your mind takes it as an instruction to figure out how to create or attract whatever you've focused on. In fact, right now, you're already using that power. The problem isn't a lack of ability to manifest what you focus on, but rather a lack of conscious and intentional control over what you focus on. In other words, most people focus their mind unconsciously and unintentionally. Their focus runs on autopilot. Your mind was pre-set to focus in a certain way during childhood, and now it just runs on automatic. Depending on what happened while you were growing up, your mind focuses a certain amount of the time on what you want, and a certain amount of the time on what you want to avoid. Either way, though, it attracts or creates it.

Here's how it works. Now remember that this first principle works in conjunction with the other two - taking action, and making sure the action is of value to someone. So when you focus on something you want to create or attract, a number of things happen. First, you get ideas about what actions you could take. If you want to attract a glass of lemonade, you think about having it, and your mind immediately suggests that you to go to the kitchen, if you have some lemonade there, or take a trip to the supermarket to buy some, if you don't. Instantly, you get ideas about what action to take in order to make your idea a reality.

[More in the next few blogposts!]

Get 7 Free Lessons from the Teachers of The Secret

The Secret Experiment: Co-Create Your Reality!

Found this on YouTube and was charmed by the enthusiasm of these feisty femmes. The one with the irresistible French accent is Lilou Mace who produces her own Chicago TV show called My Juicy Life - and, yabbayabbadooooo, is she a juicy one!!!

20-Minute Sneak Preview of 'The Secret'

For all those who haven't yet seen or heard about The Secret, here's a sneak preview of the first 20 minutes courtesy of YouTube! What happens next? CLICK HERE AND FIND OUT!