Have you ever resisted opening your mailbox? Fretted over the seemingly endless pile of bills? Found yourself hoping, wishing, even intending for more cash to come in.
The Diet Cookie
I was in Walgreens the other day, and I saw the Hollywood Cookie Diet. Imagine eating several cookies a day and losing all the weight you want. No need to look at what is causing your weight imbalance, or connecting with a deeper Truth about your weight, you can just choose some chocolate chips and “poof” you too can shed those unwanted pounds.
As ridiculous as a cookie diet may seem, I’ve witnessed this same style of thought being used in business prosperity. Just set your intention on what you want and like a spiritual Vegas vending machine, the cash, check, and clients will all start pouring in.
Finding Your Passion
Mary wanted to be a grief coach. She had lost her husband to suicide, done her own healing, and was ready to help others walk onto the tender path of loss and grief.
However, Mary kept spending money on seminars about changing her thoughts and visualizing what she wanted. After several high-end workshops, Mary still didn’t have clients and her finances were a mess.
Passion Alone Isn’t Enough
I’ve witnessed hundreds of business owners trying these Secret tools and techniques. It’s not that the tools are bad, it’s that visualizing and setting intentions on what you want is only one ingredient to making your business more prosperous.
My friend Kenny brought over the most wonderful chocolate cookies the other night for dinner. After eating four of these cookies and drinking a lot of water, I was full and ate a lot less food the rest of the night.
Now, I’m not clear on how the Hollywood Diet Cookie works, but I’ll take a guess that you eat some cookies, drink some water, and end up eating less calories. Not magic, just the basics of caloric intake and how metabolism and weight loss works.
Three Ingredients
There may not be a magic recipe for cookies or your financial growth; however, there are three ingredients that will help you move forward when dealing with finances.
1. Source: By connecting with a reality greater than yourself, you’re able to get a deeper sense of clarity of what is most important on your path. You begin to identify with strength and courage, where you’re headed, and what business activities are priorities.
2. Intention: It is helpful to use visualization and to set your intention. Just like an athlete visualizing movement, you too can become more confident and comfortable in your new business territory by seeing it in your mind’s eye.
3. Action: Once you’ve connected to Source and set your Intention, you now can move into action. Instead of getting lost in the myriad of choices, you know you are operating in alignment with Source, which gives you the courage you need when facing your money challenges.
Keys to Your New Relationship with Money
1. Don’t be so harsh with yourself. Take some time to bring mercy to your financial picture. By opening your mail and looking at what’s coming in and what’s going out, you can ask for strength and courage to move forward. You will be back in action, where you can begin to have some power over your financial life.
2. If it’s too overwhelming to face your bills alone, ask for some help. Set some time for prayer or meditation before each money meeting.
3. If you start to get caught in a big vision of how great things will become, be grateful for the big vision, then take some time to bring it back to the present moment and be grateful for the finances that are flowing around you right now.
Ultimately, it is about connecting to Source. Then from your highest values, it’s about setting your intentions and moving into action. With keys in hand, remember, all three ingredients are needed to change your financial outcomes.
Jason,
What I take away from this article is another piece of the, “Just slow down and be willing to be present with how things are, right now”…and from that place, facing the emotions that are coming up and over riding my witnessing of Divine Presence, which is also part of the equation.
Thanks for the reminder – its much needed, today particularly.
Jenn
As always, things come to me at the time I need them most. Absolutlely essential suggestions that I need to be using immediately. The hardest part is being grateful for what I have now. Thank you.
Well said Jason! It was as if we were having a one-on-one coaching session because this is exactly where I am, and exactly what I needed to hear! Althought the cookie diet sound delicious, I agree with you about the importance of 1st connecting with source and then after visualizing my intention, moving into action. As well I apprecicate and am grateful for your reminder to bring in Mercy, and have been expressing my gratitude daily for the finances that I have!
Thanks for the reminder Jason!
@Jenn – I once had a client who was a Tantra specialist. When I encouraged her to write a book, she said, “I’d write a book, but it would just be two words; Slow Down!” Money like sex is just appreciated more when we’re present.
@Meghan As a visionary, it is so easy for me to get swept up into the book deals, world tours, etc. What I’m finding more and more is it’s okay to dream; however by reeling it back into the here and now life just flows more. Who knew the reality of what is would be more juicy than the fantasy?
.-= Jason’s lastest post: Jim Carey shares from the Heart =-.
@Joy – Oh Mercy, how it teaches me so. I was actually allergic to Mercy before all things Heart of Business. What I continue to learn is this balance of responsibility and mercy. Where can I be empowered with my mistakes and successes and where can I surrender and let the Divine cleanse my heart.
.-= Jason’s lastest post: Jim Carey shares from the Heart =-.
Jason – thank you for this. It reminds me of the video ‘The Secret’ which I expected to love and ended up feeling repelled by. Do you know it? What got me most was the story of the little boy who wants a bike and so he wishes and dreams and wishes and dreams… and then this benevolent old guy brings him one. I thought: “Hang on, the little boy should have got a paper round! Then he’d have had the satisfaction of earning that bike. It’d feel so much better”.
I love running a business because it’s the best vehicle for personal development that I can imagine. The fears we have to face! The depths we have to go to! It’s that journey which is so valuable – and when results don’t appear super-quickly and super-easily, we get to really delve into that journey and go for that ride.
Cheers,
Corrina
p.s. I’m not a fan of cookies. I’d rather cook me up a big plate of roasted veg any day.
.-= Corrina Gordon-Barnes’s lastest post: 3 Tips For Alleviating
Hey Corrina,
Yep, paper route, lemonade stand, selling baseball cards, I’m sure there’s even a few boys out there with internet businesses
I’ve watched the Secret and I think it has some valuable points both on marketing a product and on all the physics I don’t really understand.
.-= Jason’s lastest post: Jim Carey shares from the Heart =-.
Hi Jason,
Thanks for reminding me that the 3 actions need to go together – source + intention + action. I often go to source, I often focus on intention, I often compile a to-do list of actions – but rarely do I put these together.
I will start focusing on this and let you know what starts to happen
@Claire “…but rarely do I put these together.” Here is to reminding each other that any missing ingredients makes the marketing soup taste bad.
.-= Jason’s lastest post: Jim Carey shares from the Heart =-.
Very true – reminds me of what my first boss said “Spend 80% planning and internalising what you need to do, and if you do that right, you only need 20% of your time to actually do it”. Point is both are needed for success, but not necessarily in the same proportions…
@ Steve, It’s funny (or maybe not) that the 80% planning is also 80% emotional. I’m learning the key is to really connect with the emotions and needs so I can continue to get to that 20%
.-= Jason’s lastest post: Jim Carey shares from the Heart =-.
Oh absolutely Jason…absolutely. I advise investors on entrepreneurs to invest in and it is this connection, and how well the individual succeeds in this aspect, that I find separates the winners from the losers. Everytime.
This aritcle is perfect, exactly what I needed to hear!! Everywhere you turn, you’re likely to find someone, somewhere telling you “all you need to succeed is passion…”. Oftentimes, it seems those same “gurus” will fail to follow that line up with the next piece of essential advice: You also need to have Commitment and then take action.
Additionally, it’s all too easy to start beating oneself up for mistakes made while forgetting that all of us, at one time or another, will make mistakes. The key is to not beat yourself down, but to learn from what went wrong, improve upon it and try to ensure that the same outcome does not occur again. Great article Jason, thanks!!
.-= Joe’s lastest post: DogPedic memory foam dog bed- Tempurpedic for pups =-.
@ Steve – agreed it all starts with connection
@ Joe – yep Mercy is such a key to moving forward. And yet, sometimes the simplest things, like not beating ourselves up, can become the hardest to accomplish.
Here’s to guilt-free movement forward.
.-= Jason’s lastest post: Jim Carey shares from the Heart =-.
Indeed! Thanks for the reminder ~
So many programs are really all about “step 2″ and “step 3″ ~ they blithely skip over the hardest parts of taking that “first step”! (Ancient Chinese proverb: “A journey of one thousand miles begins with one step”)
Bright Blessings ~
.-= Karen J’s lastest post: 3 Brilliant Things