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OUR PERSONAL
JOURNEYS
This book is intended
to be about you and your journey. I have included a portion of my journey in the
hope that it will assist you by seeing how I came to this point in my
life.
Our journeys usually
end up with other very influential members along the way and mine is no
exception. I have included (with Steve’s permission) the story of one such
unexpected but welcome member of my expedition.
I’ll start with
me.
Linda
The minute I looked
into my first baby's eyes, I knew I could never hand him over to be raised by
someone else while I went to work to provide for our family.
This presented a
dilemma as I did not have the luxury of a husband who was willing or capable of
bringing in the income we needed. Thanks to an overly optimistic father who
taught me I could do or have anything I set my mind on, I began the search for
ways I could support and be home to raise my family.
I did everything
from:
-
piece work for a
wedding catalog, working until 2am after babies were asleep.
-
vacuum sales, (I
desperately needed a bathroom put in so I sold 16 vacuums my first month
breaking all their records…. that gave me the $3,000 I needed… then I
quit)
Anything I could to be
a “stay at home” mom.
In the late 80’s, I
opened a lollipop factory and it was amazing how quickly that business boomed.
In a short time I had numerous employees, (which is always a huge pain), had
paid off the $80,000 FDA kitchen and had maxed out the operation. I was living
the supposed "American Dream", owning my own business.
Trouble was nobody
prepared me for the huge cost with overhead, wages, employee taxes, workman’s
comp and so on and so on. Not to mention the commitment to be there 24/7. I had
very little time away from the factory. But it did provide a living and a way
for me to have the children with me. It became a family affair.
I had been taught that
the way to make more money was to work harder. Like many in my situation, I was
burning the candle at both ends, hardly taking time to breathe. I had opened an
Antique Boutique and Scrap Booking store. I was very involved with my church,
working 2 days a week with the youth and by now I had five very talented
children involved in dance, piano and sports.
I was the ultimate human-“doing” and
very
little human-“being”
I had been taught
pretty good coping skills, (my ultra optimistic father) i.e. “just take one day
at a time” or “pull yourself up by the bootstraps and keep on going” or “just
give thanks and it will all work out”.
I understand now that
as humans we deal with stress and emotions in 3 different ways.
1. Suppress or
Hide, the most harmful to the mind and the body, causing a build-up and
usually explosion.
2. Express or
Vent. I was much too nice a person to vent, that would show lack of control.
This does not eliminate the feeling, it only relieves the pressure ….for a time.
3. Escape or
Cope. We turn on the TV, play music, have a drink or go running, (literally
running away from something). This doesn’t work either. The feeling is still
there, it just goes underground.
From the outside
looking in, it appeared I was dealing with the stress remarkably well. In
reality, “coping” and pushing through each day is not “dealing” with. It is
hiding from or pushing it to the back of the mind so as not to look at it.
I learned that you can
get away with that only for so long. At some point the stress and anxiety, if
not released from the body, will manifest in some other way. For me it came in
the form a brain tumor.
I was diagnosed in the
midst of training for a marathon. I thought I was in the best physical shape of
my life, yet emotionally I was “running” from everything that was amiss in my
life….an abusive husband….my lack of self-esteem…my fear.
I was put on
medications that completely disabled me, of which I was told I would have to
remain on the rest of my life. Life as I knew it was gone. And for someone who’s
self-image was tied to how much I could get done in a day, this was devastating.
As quickly as my business had grown, it fell apart. When you don’t supply your
distributors, you don’t make money. The income was gone and the bills were
pouring in.
It was at that time
that I was introduced to Network Marketing. YUCK, something I swore I would
never do. I was in a very hopeless and desperate place. My gut told me I needed
that company’s product. I could not ignore that nagging feeling. So I followed
my intuition and humbly borrowed the money to get involved from a friends credit
card. I only wanted to make enough money to pay back my friend and stay on the
product. So I set to work, the only thing I knew to do. That business took off
and within 8 weeks I was making $1,000/week and by the end of my first year I
had made over $100,000.
It changed my mind
about network marketing!
During that next year
the brain tumor was out of control, partly because I felt so responsible for the
success of every single one of my distributors. I was traveling all over the
country trying to help everyone, still “running” from the pain of my
loveless marriage and the fear of who would raise my children if I died. I was
in and out of the hospital; took two trips to Mexico to seek alternative
treatments not available in the United States; my 14 year old son, (the oldest
of the five), had a horse roll over on him breaking his back in three places….
and obviously I was not able to work my new business at all, yet my income,
doubled!
The doctors told me I
had to “DE-STRESS” my life or I would die. I felt like saying “Duh!” As you all
know, that is so much easier said than done! Finally I found the strength to
leave the 20 year long abusive relationship that I had been determined to save.
After my life being threatened and fear for the children’s safety, I threw what
I could in big garbage bags, took my 5 children from their beds at 4 o’clock in
the morning and ran away. I left the house, furniture, clothes and the state to
start over and heal.
I was able to do that
because of the residual income that I had created, a concept I didn’t really
understand until then. Every Friday for over a dozen years a check has been
deposited into my account. I never had to worry about finding a job or how I
would get the next gallon of milk or how I would be able to support my children
when I was not in a position of health to work. I wasn’t “all better” but
I was now free to take care of me, to get the help I needed to heal.
Looking back, I realize
why I stayed so long. First, I thought I could fix it, love it all better, keep
a positive attitude. Failure was not an option. Second, fear of a life outside
of how I had pictured it to be, the perfect American happy family. Being a
divorced, “sick”, single mom of five that everyone felt sorry for was not how I
wanted it to be. Money had also been a reason to stay. I could not possibly
support everyone by myself…especially with a brain
tumor. The residual income from that “dreaded network marketing” gave me the
freedom and the options to leave when I had to. I am forever grateful.
I would have given my
right arm to have had this new and powerful technique I am going to share with
you. It has been and continues to be a true life saver for me. To now be able to
Release the stress from my body, in just a moment and feel the peace and
security that comes with it. Releasing instead of just coping leaves me free to
be creative and productive and attract whatever I desire.
I hope that none of you
ever have a brain tumor. I pray that none of you are being abused. But I’ll bet
there are those of you that are already working two jobs and still not making
ends meet. I’ll bet there are women reading this that dread dropping their
children off at the daycare, but have no choice. You may feel trapped and
discouraged. I promise that what we can offer you is hope, less stress, more
time and financial security. Apply what you will learn in this book and let's
get started TODAY. It won't be long until we will shout for joy in celebration
of your success!
Steve
I feel blessed to have
been born to parents that loved to serve and really valued their relationships
with others. If I owe my success to anything it is witnessing and learning
that.
As a young man, I milked cows in the summers, worked with
my father in the sheet metal trade and at 15 worked at our family's new music
store.
I loved to read and
fortunately for me, my father left books lying around that were radically
different than the ones I had access to in school. Reading books with titles
like "The Magic of Thinking Big", "Psycho-Cybernetics", “How to Win Friends and
Influence People"...... my life was forever changed. I learned that giving up wasn't an option.
I think it was then
that I became "functionally unemployable". Besides being an aspiring Rock Star,
no employer could offer me the financial future I desired. Commission sales and
marketing was the only thing that made any sense to me. Not punching a clock
gave me the freedom to do my music the way I wanted.
There was only one
problem…..FEAR…..and a lot of it.
-
Fear of girls
-
Fear of rejection
-
Fear of making phone calls
-
Fear of what people thought of me
-
Fear of anyone not liking me
- Fear of making a mistake
-
Fear of failure and humiliation
-
Fear of responsibility
-
Fear of the dentist…to name a few
There I was, hell bent
on succeeding in the two fields (sales or entertainment) that guaranteed I would
have to face my fears.
I plunged forward,
believing all the books and tapes that said I just had to want it bad enough
(have a big enough “why”) to overcome my fears.
To accomplish this, in
addition to all the sales and PMA books and tapes I could get my hands on, my
life started including:
-
Affirmations
- Vision Boards
-
Goal Cards all over the place
-
Visualizations
-
PMA Rally’s
-
Self-Improvement Seminars
I wish I could report
that I was an immediate success at sales or Rock Stardom, but I can't.
It would be well over a
dozen years later before I could report anything close to business success. 12
years that included:
-
Trying a couple dozen MLM opportunities
-
Bending tin again
-
Selling signs, advertising and insurance
-
A
car repossessed while giving a biz opp presentation
-
Touring with a band
-
A
stint at pouring synthetic marble
-
Bankruptcy
-
A
couple of years at a battery warehouse
-
Dropping the Rock Star dream to raise 4 children
Watching me over those
years you would have witnessed a person jumping from business to business,
determined to get what he wanted. I was ultra optimistic and regardless of how
tough things were, I would state that “everything was great”. Believing that I
could not afford “the luxury of a negative thought” as that was “a down payment
on an obligation to fail”. I stayed the course, unconsciously jumping around to
avoid really facing my fears.
One fateful day in 1984
I accepted the fact that what I had believed and been doing regarding money
wasn't working. I had to do something radically different. Taking my biggest
risk ever, I took $5000 I had borrowed to save our house from foreclosure and
invested it in a training program called "The Future Millionaires Home Study
Training Course on Empire Building." The training itself wasn't anything new or
earth shattering but the relationships I made as a result of the national and
local events changed my "Mindset" ever so slightly and set the stage for major
improvements in every area of my life.
Almost immediately the
insurance agency I had been struggling to maintain became profitable. We were
able to sell the house and get a nicer one. I then created lucrative
partnerships with a couple of my new mentors, sold my insurance agency, never to
work again…. except from my home.
Never again would I
have to miss any of my children's school programs, be kept from coaching their
sports teams or attending any of their activities because I was chained to an
office.
Still, all this had
little impact on reducing my fears, I had learned new ways to ignore them
(exercise and staying busy) but they eventually showed up in another form of
self-sabotage… severe joint pain, severe fatigue, weight gain.....
In my continued search
for better ways to handle my fears (with money and health issues now) my life
ventured through a multitude of new experiences, including:
-
Hundreds of health
products…vitamins, minerals, herbs, oils, tablets, capsules, juices,
homeopathics, patches, tinctures, cookies, powders, sprays, ointments, flower
remedies, electronic energy devices……
-
Several Experiential
Trainings where I pounded on chairs and screamed for hours, walked through love
tunnels, sang “The Impossible Dream” with all I could muster, was the brunt of
the foulest language I had ever heard, confronted my comfort zones with
“stretches”, played the Red – Black game, walked on hot coals and broke target
arrows with the soft part of my throat in Hawaii
Over 20 years have past
since I made that fateful $5000 decision in 1984. Years that included all the
above and more:
-
Unwise decisions,
including challenging the IRS which resulted in a 2 ½ year long, very expensive
legal battle and 10 months in federal prison for eventually pleading out to:
“aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return”. While there, my
30 year marriage ended in divorce, my children struggled and I was unable to be
there for them. I could only watch as I lost most everything I identified myself
by. As I was forced to face so many of my FEAR demons head on, this turned out
to be the best experiential training I’d ever attended.
In the process I
learned some valuable lessons:
- Relationships are far more valuable than knowledge or skills.
- Knowing better doesn't equate with doing
better.
- Making yourself or anyone else feel worse, to get them to do
better, does not work long term positive results.
- Pain is mandatory in life, suffering is
optional. (And, most pain separated by time
becomes humor.)
- All
things seem to eventually work together for good. (And, reminding someone of this when they are in the
middle of a challenge doesn't do either of you much good.)
- It is not about what I do differently but
what I feel differently that makes the difference. (There are two worlds: one of Abundance and one of
Scarcity. The world I see outside is just a reflection of the world I feel
inside.)
How I wish I would have
discovered the technique Linda will share with you in this course years ago but
then I remember the lessons above and how, what I thought was the worst thing to
ever happen to me, “prison and divorce” worked for my good.
By far the best thing
to come out of all that has happened in my life is my wonderful companion and
sweetheart "Linda", our blended family of nine incredibly diverse children and
four of the greatest grandsons in the world.
Our Journey
Together
Have you watched "The
Secret"? www.TheSecret.tv
This must
see movie absolutely presents one of the best case ever for the Law of
Attraction.
"What we focus on, we
attract"....
"Our Thoughts become
Things”....
"As a man Thinketh, so is
He"….
“Likes
Attract”.....
Linda, very happy and
self-sufficient by herself, decided to play with attracting someone "beyond
amazing", not really believing anyone like that existed.
Steve, very happy alone
and content to live the non-responsible life of a traveling musician unless
"the perfect woman" was somehow delivered without any effort on his part.
Both therefore felt
released from ever worrying about getting married again. Famous last words!
The universe pulled a
fast one and POW!!!
The "perfect
woman" and the one "so beyond amazing" collided. Neither could muster
the strength to run in the opposite direction and in five short weeks Linda
moved her screaming children 1,300 miles to St George Utah. Steve left his four
adult children in Salt Lake City and the two would get married the next week,
leaving family and friends sure that they had lost their minds!
Thus began our incredible journey together.
As we came together in
such a short period of time we wondered how our unique talents and personalities
might blend.
One of our frequent
topics of discussion was:
“What was the REAL
SECRET to building successful relationships and business?”
Intense trial and error
over the years had taught us both that:
“If things go wrong in the world, something is wrong in me.
Therefore, if I am
sensible, I shall put myself
right first.”
(Which is a whole other workshop and once
mastered
will bring you intimacy beyond belief!)
We still can’t wipe the
smiles off our face as we feel so blessed to now be in a relationship with
someone that is so easy to feel love for. Keeping our relationship alive has
always felt effortless. (It is that “no with-holds” thing).
We accepted this as a
wonderful gift, knowing that our real growth would come from learning to feel
the same way about the people in our lives that are not so easy to love.
We were excited to
discover that we both shared a passion for sales, marketing, business ownership
and network marketing. We love sharing and mentoring others in experiencing the
lifestyle those industries offer.
We also discovered that
we were both at a loss in how to really improve the less than 5% success rate in
those industries. We set out to find an effective solution to this tragedy.
What was missing from
the many formulas for success that were being taught? How do you teach people
the mindset necessary to succeed?
Did we need to just
accept the fact that less than 5% of the people are “winners” and 95% plus
“losers” when it comes to business? That a few people have “what it takes" but
most of them don’t?
We were having a very
difficult time finding a realistic answer when a friend invited us over to her
home to hear how a new, revolutionary technique had changed her life in many
positive ways. We were skeptical at first. There is something about those “new
and revolutionary” words that start the little voices saying, “Here we go
again.”
Thank heaven we chose to set our egos aside;
to
be open to listening and learning that day.
A whole new world of
possibilities opened up to us. We started studying extensively and applying on
ourselves everything we could get our hands on with regards to this technique.
We used it daily and
found tremendous relief in every area we tried it with, including:
We were literally
changing our thoughts in an instant.
We found ourselves time
and time again saying: "Could this really be true?"
YES! Without
exceptions, we were able to “snap our selves out of it” so to speak. To change
our feelings and beliefs.
In the case of my
daughter, in a moment my thoughts changed from worry and concern, seeing her as
hurt, depressed and needy, to seeing her as capable, strong and amazingly
brave.
So how can this discovery help you?
We have learned and
witnessed that if you are not making the kind of money or living the kind of
life you want, it is generally not because you don‘t know how, it is simply
because at some level, you don't BELIEVE you can or should.
We are controlled by
FEELING, BELIEF’S and DECISIONS - Conscious or Unconscious - that keep us in our "Comfort Zones"
and thus at our current level of income and happiness.
They are the roadblocks
that keep you STUCK and your odds of thinking, affirming or beating that BLOCK
away is.... well, you know how well it's worked so far. It is the reason we
sabotage our success and so many of us are in “Group”
Does any of the
following sound familiar to you?
-
Money doesn't grow on Trees
-
Money is the Root of all Evil
-
They
were so nice until they moved up on Snob Hill
-
My
parents didn't have much and we got along fine
-
Money doesn't buy happiness
-
It's
better to Give than to Receive
-
Be
grateful for what you have
-
Blessed are the Poor.....
-
I
worked in the factory for 30 yrs and it didn't hurt me
- Make Due or Do without
-
Most
kids don't have near as much as you
-
What
about the starving kids in Africa?
-
(My
favorite) I walked to school barefoot in the snow...
-
It
won't hurt you to go without once in awhile
-
It
builds character
Until you change your
FEELINGS, BELIEFS and DECISIONS about money or love or heath and REMOVE the BLOCKS, you will struggle
with attracting what you really want into your life!
Are you getting the picture?
Have you ever noticed
when you decide once and for all to lose 10 lbs by Sept. 1, you end up gaining
5?
Or you set a goal to
get out of debt and suddenly you see every amazing, once in a lifetime, bargain
on the plasma TV you have been dieing for, with financing @ 0% for a year. Then
the furnace or air conditioner dies leaving you forced to finance a new one. And
on it goes.
There is an
explanation.
It is called
"Psychological Reversal" or Self-Sabotage. Your sub-conscious mind
immediately kicks in to keep you safe, to keep you in your "comfort
zone".
It starts by saying
something like, "Here we go again" or "How many times have you tried that?" or
"That will never work" or "Don't be Stupid!" or "You didn't fall for that
again...”
That is Psychological
Reversal taking over.
So where do we get
these so called “comfort zones”? My conscious mind has no problem saying “I want
more income, more love, more motivation and drive”. Why don’t I “just do
it”?
Why can't you just
"Pull yourself up by your boot-straps and get to work?" (another belief that
doesn't work).
Why don't you just
"snap out of it", decide what you really want and take action?
If you have done any
psychotherapy or emotional work, you may be familiar with the term “Inner
Sentence” or “Core Belief”.
These feelings, beliefs and decisons are
formed by the time you reach 6 to 8 years old and they determine many of your
decisions and choices you make in your adult life. Like whom you marry, how much
money you make, how happy you are allowed to be, if you are superior or
inferior, if you are a martyr or a victim. Depending on what you have decided,
as a small child; who you are and what you deserve, you will make decisions and
choices to support your “Core Belief” and keep you in your “Comfort Zone”.
You might call those
unconscious feelings, beliefs and decisons the “writing on our walls”. From the time of our birth,
people all around us are writing on our walls. They say things like, “Hurry up!
You are so slow.” “Don’t be stupid” etc. Then we make a decision about
ourselves, with our child mind, and we believe all that graffiti to be the truth
about us.
What we have now
discovered is a technique with which we can locate and blast through those
feelings, beliefs and decisons at mach speed. We now have a tool, an eraser to wipe the walls clean of
those hidden limiting beliefs and uncover or replace them with beliefs and
thoughts that serve us more kindly.
Again, we started
sharing it with our children, our extended family, close friends and clients
with astonishing results!
Now It's Your Turn!
The personal evaluation
in the following chapter will be a great source of possible feelings, beliefs and decisons that you may
want to consider changing if you are not presently living a life you love, free
of damaging stress and hurtful emotions.
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