Habits of the Super Rich (2015)
Chapter 4: The Universal Laws of Success
As Jim learned more about changing his habits, Zach began telling him more about the unseen laws of the universe that work in conjunction with the subconscious mind. Jim, however, was hesitate to accept the reality of these laws. “Look, Zach,” he said, looking his friend in the eye, “we’ve been friends too long for you to start giving me a load of nonsense. Don’t you think if all these laws were real, we would have learned about them somewhere in our education?”
Our friend, Jim, brought up an excellent point. We don’t learn about these as part of our education. We’re allowed to grow up and enter the real world ignorant of the one thing that may make a gigantic difference in the way we not only view life, but live it as well. And this is where many individuals step in remaining skeptical even after they’ve been introduced to all the laws - or even the major ones.
Another reason many prefer to ignore these laws is that you can’t see them at work as easily as you can see the Newton’s laws of physics at work. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist though.
Depending on who you’re talking with, you may notice that they have a different count of how many universal laws exist to work with your subconscious mind. In reality, there is one - and every other law is really a merely a corollary to that. What is the overriding, supreme law which guides every other mental law? It’s the Law of Attraction. If you’re not that familiar with this rule, here’s a quick overview of it.
The Law of Attraction
Just about everyone has heard about the law of attraction these days. In a nutshell. It says that you attract into your life what you think about all day long. You …
You’re already interrupting the words and you haven’t even read the entire explanation yet. But, it’s not hard to guess what you’re thinking. You’re going to say you think about wealth, money and success all day long and the universe has yet to deliver any of that to you in a sufficient amount.
Consider what your thoughts were really telling the universe. Let’s use an example of what happens in your mind throughout the day. Imagine you had a gnome-like creature following you every day, recording all of your thoughts. According to some experts we average approximately 64,000 thoughts daily. If this gnome were to read your thoughts back to you at the end of each day. How many of these thoughts would be positive? How many would be affirming and re-affirming your desire to be wealthy and successful?
If you’re much like any of us, you’ll say you’re affirming your wealth and financial success. But if you scratch under the skin, you’ll discover that you’re really not giving much attention to wealth, but to your lack of wealth. Oh sure, you’re probably paying homage to your affirmations through reciting them and even writing them several times daily. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, your spending two hours a day doing this.
While many individuals believe they’re using their “power of positive thought” in this process and should be, any minute, attracting what they’ve been thinking about for that hour or so a day. But the rest of the day, as the transcription gnome testifies, whose been by your day all day says otherwise. You’ve been spending the other 20 hours to negative thinking. You’re still filling your mind with ideas with negativity and the “craziness” of you even thinking you could be wealthy or successful by any standards.
What do you expect you’ll manifest in your life? Wealth and success? Or more lack? Bingo! You’re right! You’ll attract more lack because overall those are your thoughts. Unfortunately, in this case, the law of attraction is busy at work providing you with exactly what you don’t want: lack.
The law of attraction, as well as every other universal law works through your subconscious mind. What is the first law of the subconscious? It doesn’t judge any thought you give it. This aspect of your mind gives you exactly what you’ve been thinking about.
When you complain that the law of attraction isn’t working in your life, dig deeper to try to decide what you’ve been feeding it. Instead of blaming the law of attraction try to impartially analyze what you’ve been thinking. That is probably where the snag is. The mind is providing you with exactly what you’ve been pondering all day long.
But the bottom line continues to be one of doubting the flow of wealth into your life. Just ask that gnome that’s following you around keeping score of your thoughts.
One way to work around this problem is to visualize yourself successful as wealthy . . or whatever goal you’d like to see manifested. But you’ll do a bit more than just that. As you see yourself in your mind’s eye as successful, imagine what kind of feelings go with that kind of success.
Think what you would feel like the moment you look at your bank account and you realize you really are wealthy. How would you feel? If you’re like me, you’d probably be bouncing off the walls. Conjure up the emotions that go with this event in your life.
Now you’re giving something the universe it can work positively with. You subconscious mind doesn’t work just with your thoughts. It can pick up on your feelings as well.
Remember, too, that your subconscious can’t tell the real from the imagined. Think about it and use this fact to your advantage. If you’re rich, even if you’re not quite there yet, the universe will without a doubt pick on this, not even asking if it’s an uplifting emotion from a real event or from your imagination.
That’s one way of making a path for the law of attraction into your life. There are several other ways as well. One of the methods is by putting the many corollaries of the law of attraction into work.
The Law of Allowing
Yes, in many ways the law of allowing is much what it sounds like. Many individuals, especially those just starting out using these universal methods find it difficult that they actually work. That, along with the fact, that you may be trying to change ten, twenty years or more of your habit toward believing that you’ll never attract the good in your life can remain a barrier to true success.
That’s when we have to take a good long look at ourselves and study why we’re not “allowing” ourselves to not only pass on some of the greatest moments of your lives, but what we can do to change that around.
When many individuals are faced with making this turnaround in their lives, their first reaction is that they must do something immediately to change their thinking, to change their focus. Tell them, though, when they accept the presence of this law, they need to do little else, they’re incredulous.
“You get absolutely nothing in life unless you work for it,” people are prone to respond in these cases. The law of allowing though is actually the easiest way to manifest your needs and desires into reality.
Once you’re visualizing your success and feeling it down to the core of your being, you’ve practically completed your end of the bargain. Of course, you’re going to take action based on these feelings, but even here, the universe will be more than happy to deliver what you need and want.
We’ve been taught (in some instances it’s been pounded into our heads) that we have to work hard for everything we receive in this world. That’s fair enough, but have you ever had “good fortune” just fall into your lap? This is what it feels like to work with the law of allowing.
What you’ll usually find happens during this process is that you’ll take a few initial steps and then - viola! - the universe matches you step for step. Let’s say you’re trying to start a business, but what you need first is an investor. You ask around --- taking that initial step - the next thing you know, your friend suddenly remembers that a friend of his used a venture capitalist to help fund his project. Not only that, he’d be more than happy to have you two meet.
The next thing you know, you’re signing a deal. You’re on your way to having your business - your dream - funded. That’s usually how the law of allowing works. If you find yourself working too hard at searching for a funding agent or any other component that you need, take a step back and ask if you’re really “allowing” the powers that be, as it were, to work.
You’ve probably been taught you have to work hard for everything you receive in life. So when something like the above scenario occurs, it’s almost too good to believe. But believe it anyway - and get used to it. Because when you add the law of attraction to the law of allowing - this is exactly what you receive.
Just because you’ve been told you have control over your destiny doesn’t mean it requires you to bang your head against the wall in order to experience it. Just allow it to happen. Think about a sailing boat. Once you’ve lifted the anchor (taken the first step) you don’t go telling the universe which way the wind should blow (or do you?). Instead, you step back and allow the wind to blow you and your vessel in one direction for a while. If you find you need to make some adjustments, you take the rudder and fine tune your ship.
To be completely honest it really is a difficult concept to accept. The human ego wants to take credit for all of our accomplishments and so it wants to be busy “micromanaging” everything we do.
Practicing this law will eventually bring you face to face with the next law of universal good: the law of resistance. You can make an educated guess what this implies. Let’s explore this topic in more detail in the next couple of paragraphs.
The Law of Resistance
So far, the names of these universal laws (which by the way, every successful person knows about) are aptly named for the results they bring into your life. In a nutshell (and in no way to sound flippant about it) what you resist is what persists.
Many individuals don’t understand why that should be. While probably no one really knows for sure, it’s a good bet that if you’re resisting about it, you’re placing a great deal of energy around it. When you do this, you’re working with the law of attraction. And the universe and your subconscious mind with work together to give you exactly what you’re thinking about. Which is precisely what you don’t want.
For some individuals, especially for those who haven’t quite adapted at using the law of attraction, this becomes a sign that they aren’t met to have this. Others, who have encountered this probably before will consider the obstacle a bump in the road and take the initial steps to work around it.
And we all know what happens when we take action - even a little bit of action - the universe will help us out. Guaranteed. So, when you meet this resistance you shouldn’t dwell on it.
Accept that something is blocking you and turn your subconscious mind on to find ways to overcome it. You may want to focus more on your positive affirmations to visualize more, revving up your feelings and emotions. Your subconscious mind will definitely react to that.
Then there’s the one individual who stands in her bedroom, closes the door and yells at whatever powers that be (or herself): “You can’t stop me! I am going to succeed, so you might as well join me!”
The Law of Detachment
If you’ve ever studied Buddhism or read anything about it, then you’re probably familiar with this Universal Law. It’s a tenant of Buddhist thought. That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s a strictly spiritual law.
In its basic form, this law says put all of your desire into your goal, but then back away and remove yourself emotionally from the final outcome of the goal. This doesn’t mean you don’t care. It’s closer to the idea that you’re neither devastated nor overly elated depending on the outcome.
Before you begin to complain about it, you need to know that many people who never thought they could either enact this law, understand it or carry it through to its finality have found satisfaction in it.
For starters, they say, the law of detachment is liberating. You cast your goals into the ether and then simply let go of it, knowing that the Universe is taking good care if it.
Perhaps the real advantage of this law, however, is that once you let it go, you’re not second-guessing yourself and most importantly you’re not filling your emotions with negative thoughts and doubts. In other words, once you let it go, you can completely bypass that law of resistance.
You’ve already seen how even one negative thought can easily snowball into a couple more and with enough time passed you’re showering your goal with negativity and worry. You know what happens then.
Have you created a goal or two yet? Are you beginning to feel any of the following emotions?
- Desperation
- Emptiness
- Anger
- Longing
If you are, then, you’re cloaking your goal or desire with types of negativity. This makes it all the harder for your subconscious to work at manifesting your goal.
Here’s a statistic to show why strictly following this universal rule of thumb is vital. Seventy percent of people find it much easier not only to accept the possibility of a negative outcome than believe they’ll receive a positive one.
This fact really makes you wonder if as human beings, our brains are not hard-wired to think negative thoughts.
The Law of Abundance
This is one rule of the universe that many of us can’t believe. That’s because everything we’ve learned as children and taken to adulthood run counter to this concept. Even our economy is constructed based not on abundance, but scarcity. When people are introduced to this idea, they are a bit taken aback - to say the least.
The law of abundance, as its name implies dictates that there is more than enough of everything in the world to go around. Not only that, but the more of whatever it may be you share with others, the more will eventually be returned to you.
When you were growing up you probably heard the saying “Love is the only thing you can give away and always get more of.” Don’t believe it. This action, giving away what you have, sharing your possessions, money or whatever with others, is the quickest and surest way to ensure that you’ll never run out of that particular item.
If you donate money to a good cause or give it strings free to another person, you’ll eventually find that amount - plus more - return to you. It seems like an incredulous notion, but it’s, indeed, true. Many people have started out skeptical, but gave it a try anyway and have been pleasantly surprised.
One person who practiced this concept asked one day, “Why do you think we call money currency?” When the other person shrugged his shoulders, she answered, “because it’s supposed to flow through us to others. If you do this, as you look upstream you’ll see even more of the current bringing you even more money.”
Difficult as it is to believe, you really do need to test this law out for yourself. Discover the satisfaction of giving money to others and the equally delightful feeling of it returning to you in the most unexpected of ways.
You’ll only experience the law of abundance in your life when you believe - and not just give lip service to - that you have absolutely everything you need to complete your life and make you happy this very moment. You don’t need one more penny for happiness. You don’t need your dream home to be happy. You don’t need to fall madly in love with your soul mate.
The moment you know deep in your soul that you’re complete just the way you are, then the marvelous effects of the law of abundance will cascade upon you.
In fact, according to this rule, you have more than enough to supply all of your needs and wants. Brian Tracy, a well-known motivational speaker puts it simply, “You can have virtually all you need and want.” You merely have to take the first step of deciding that this is what you want.
More often than not people make a certain amount of money in life and then suddenly put a limit on that. They believe for whatever reason, that’s all they should be making. Some individuals believe they’re not worth any more than what they’ve established in their minds.
To paraphrase Marianne Williamson another motivational and spiritual speaker, too many of us ask “Who am I to be successful? The real question should be “Who am I not be?”
The first step is to decide what you truly want. People become wealthy, so the saying goes, because they decide to become wealthy.” It’s that simple. Having made the decision to become wealthy, they then act in a manner that will produce that outcome - which includes adopting the good habits that propel them to success.
There’s flip side to this concept and that is that those without wealthy are poor because they haven’t made the decision to become wealthy yet. Think about it. This type of thinking strips bear any excuses you may have been hiding behind for your present state. Not wealthy? Always blamed it on not getting that “break” that others seem to get? No, you can’t do that anymore.
Always blamed your inability to make more money than what you’re making right now on the economy or lack of resources or … stop it. Because right now, you know you’re not wealthy simply because you haven’t truly made the decision.
Stop reading this book for one moment and ask yourself this question, “Why aren’t you rich yet?” Now get a pen and paper and write down every reason you believe you’re not wealthy. Check them over carefully. Ask yourself one more question, “Are these legitimate reasons or are they merely excuses.” Maybe up until the moment you began reading this book you believed they were reasons. It may be now you see them as excuses.
Using the Law of Abundance to Your Advantage Right Now
There’s no time like the present! Realizing that, you also need to know that you can start right here and now to implement some of the most effective habits this very moment that will propel you on the road of success using the law of abundance. And believe it or not, it’s much easier than you would ever guess.
Your first step is to imagine that every interaction you’ve ever had with money in some way came your way in order to teach you a special lesson about wealth. That being so, ask yourself what was the most important lesson you believed you’ve learned.
Your second step is to ask yourself what is your largest block in obtaining wealth. Answer this question and then act as if this block doesn’t exist anymore. Eliminate this self-limiting action and the belief from which it stems and you’ll discover how quickly you’ll begin to propel yourself towards the road of wealth.
The Law of Action
You undoubtedly knew that we’d end up talking about action in some form. After all, what are habits but actions you take practically subconsciously. Habits are actions that you do without thinking. So, it only makes sense that a corollary to the Law of Attraction would be one dealing with action.
Unfortunately, many people, have a difficult time grasping the law of attraction and therefore tend to ignore its corollary. “It all seems too easy,” many say, “What are you telling me? I wish upon a star and all my dreams come true?”
The way the law of attraction has been explained by misinformed people themselves, but the steps you need you take after you invoke have never been clearly delineated. One of the most important steps you can take in manifesting your goals is through action.
That’s why the more good habits of the successful you can adopt the more successful you’ll be. In its simplest terms the law of action says that nothing happens until you take that first step toward your goal. Action, in effect, kick starts the entire process.
Very often the law of attraction is compared to planting a seed. You plant a seed and it grows. If you plant a bean seed for example, you’ll get - you guessed it - a bean. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, does it?
Imagine a farmer sitting on in a rocking chair on his back porch, just staring out at the field, rocking away. Soon, his wife comes outside to visit him. “What are you doing?” she asks him.
“Waiting for my field of corn to grow,” he answered, not taking his eyes off the field.
“I don’t recall you planting corn in that field,” his wife said. “In fact, I don’t recall you planting anything in that field.”
“Nope,” he said, “I didn’t plant anything there.”
“If you didn’t take the initial step of planting, nothing will grow,” his wife said, adding, “isn’t that one of those fundamental rules of farming?”
“I’m visualizing,” he snapped back. “I heard in one of those self-help books that all you need to do is think about what you want out of life and write down your goals.”
His wife got up from her chair and walked inside shaking her head. “It’s going to be a long growing season,” she mumbled to herself.
Ironically, no one asks why corn isn’t growing in that field. No seed. No crop. It’s just that simple.
Yet many individuals sit in that chair (or on the couch watching television) waiting for a business to grow. Imagine someone visits the person on the couch, asking him what he’s doing. “Waiting for my business to grow,” he says, not taking his eyes off the television.
“I didn’t know you had a business,” his friend comments.
“I don’t right now,” he said proudly, “but I will soon. I invoked the law of attraction. Before you know it I’ll be attracting wealth through the visualization I’ve been doing. Something will surely happen and soon. I hear it’s guaranteed. Right now, in fact, I’m engaged visualizing my business.”
What do you think the odds are his method of growing a business will actually produce anything - except a greater understanding of the latest crime show.
When you’ve made your mind up to start a business, it’s so much easier to invoke the corollary of the law of action if you’ve already adopted even a few of the good habits associated with the highly successful.
Even if you haven’t adopted any habits, though, that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. But you’ll never succeed just by wishing it so. You need to take action and the sooner the better.
Create your Very Own Fantasy World …
… And watch it manifest into reality!
As you lay in bed each night, before you fall asleep, begin to visualize what your life would be like if you could spend all of your days doing whatever you want. Right now, no part of your fantasy has to be related to your goals. Just think about what you would do if you could be doing anything at all at this very minute?
Would you be writing that bestselling novel? Or would your thoughts and energy turn to a tropical beach doing yoga? Or just relaxing on that beach? Some individuals opt to wander around their dream home, seeing it in their mind’s eye as detailed as possible.
You already know from our previous conversation that you’re tapping into the power of your subconscious mind as you do this. You also know your subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination. So if you “conjure” up your imagined world, it slowly becomes more of a reality to your subconscious.
This experiment works best when you stay in your fantasy as long as you possibly can. Do this every night and you’ll discover that this place of escape will indeed become your “happy place.” You’ll not only find it comforting, you’ll look forward to visiting it. Before you know it, the creation of a fantasy world has become a habit.
Take this Habit to the Next Level
This habit - performed by many of the most successful executives around -- in and of itself in invaluable to your future. But what if you carried this out a bit farther? Once you’ve created your fantasy world, your next step is to take one item you’ve been worrying about - just one - and think about it. Now visualize the best possible outcome for this worry.
For example, I know one person who worried about a bill that she couldn’t pay at the moment. So, one night, she decided that she would use the principle behind this habit to visualize that bill being paid. She imagined not only herself paying the bill but how she would feel once this burden was lifted from her.
She continued creating this scenario for several nights in a row. Before she knew it a combination of events occurred in her life that she was able to pay off that debt. This awesomely effective habit is the best possible example of these universal laws at work. Painlessly and effortlessly.
Now, you’re going to learn the ultimate utilization of this exercise. When you turn this underused technique into a habit, you’ll be unleashing a resource known at the moment only to those who are the most successful.
Transfer this nightly habit and wake up fully intending your new-found talent for visualizing. Get yourself seating into a comfortable pose, similar to those individuals use when their meditating. In a very real sense, you’ll be meditating over your day - with an eye to giving a positive spin on it.
Once you’re seated and your eyes are closed, imagine in as much detail as you can, the events of the day ahead. Where do you start? At the very beginning, with a healthy breakfast if you want. You may want to start envisioning an anger-free commute to work.
Then go through the details of your day as you would like the events to play out. If you have a meeting with an important client, imagine the meeting being beneficial to both of you. Continue playing out your day ahead of time. Think about how wonderful your afternoon will be. Visualize yourself going through all the motions, from answering the phones to interacting with your office.
Here’s the best part of the habit though. When you get through imagining through the end of the day, feel how happy you’ll be. Feel the same emotions you’d have if your day really went that smoothly. Soak in those emotions for a while before you break your meditation.
Do this regularly. See how this improves your days. Notice if your productivity doesn’t increase. You’ll be surprised how it affects your mood as well.
Working alone on your goals is a powerful method to carrying out your dream. There is a method, however, you can use to make the power of visualization even more potent. It’s called a Mastermind group. If you’re never heard about one before you’re in for an eye-opening example of the synergistic power of a group.
If you have heard of this classic example of the power of the mind at work, but have never thought of joining one before, I certainly hope you seriously consider find one to join or start your own group.
Ready to learn more about this awesome group? The following chapter is devoted to Masterminding.