بخش سوم

Close Your Eyes

About 20 years ago I attended a seminar by Stuart Wilde, author of The Trick to Money Is Having Some and many other books. I had interviewed Stuart over breakfast, found him fascinating, and he invited me to his event. One exercise in it stood out and is relevant to this second step in the Attractor Factor formula.

Stuart led us through a remarkable imagery experience. We were asked to outline our own bodies in a ray of white light. “Use a finger or a beam,” Wilde suggested. “Trace your body with the white light.” I found myself centering remarkably fast. I felt myself relax into the here and now. All tensions slipped out of my body. I let go. I felt present like never before.

“Now make a beam of light from the top of your head to the floor in front of your feet.”

I did. I could see it like a walkway for ants. For some reason, I thought of the joke about two mental patients who want to escape their prison. One says he’ll turn on the flash light and the other can escape by walking on the ray of light. The other said, “You think I’m crazy? I’ll get half way out, and you’ll turn the light off!” Wilde now urged us to create a mental image of ourselves and shrink it down.

“Now have that image walk down the ray of light, from the top of your head to the floor,” Wilde instructed.

I did what I was told. “Little Joe” walked down my mental beam and got to the floor. I watched in my mind as this midget image of me walked around my shoes and looked around the room.

“Just observe what your image does,” Wilde said.

My little guy seemed a bit confused. He decided he didn’t know where to go or what to do, so he just sat on the end of my shoe and watched Stuart Wilde with me.

After a few minutes Wilde had us bring the guy back up the light, grow to full size, and then merge with our bodies.

“What was that like for you?” Wilde asked everyone.

A tall man stood and said, “It was confusing. My miniature image didn’t know what to do.”

“Do you know what you want to do?” Wilde asked.

“Well, ah, I think so.”

“Someone else?” Wilde asked.

“My shrunken me had fun. She ran around and looked for coins on the floor!”

“Great!” Wilde said, “Anyone else?”

I stood up.

“My little one just sat on my shoes and did nothing,” I said.

“Why nothing?” Wilde asked.

“I guess he wanted to know what to do.”

“Are you caught up in right and wrong, Joe?” Wilde asked me. “If your image didn’t know what to do, maybe he was afraid to make a move unless he knew what the right move would be. Is that how you live your life?” “I dunno,” I said.

“Think about it,” Wilde said. “Anyone else?”

Turns out that this little imagery technique was revealing. Whatever the little person did at the end of the beam—or didn’t do—revealed something about how we act in our day-to-day lives. We all learned something about ourselves from this unique experience. After that moment, some 20 years ago, I started to pay more attention to my own desires.

You might use this imagery exercise to see what your little self will do. And then ask yourself if you are being honest about what you really want in your life. As you’ll see in this next section, you always know what you want. But you may not always admit it.

What does the person within you want? Write it here:

What If You Still Don’t Know?

Some people tell me, “I don’t know what I want.”

I know those people. I used to be one of them. When I asked Dr. Robert Anthony, author of many best-selling books and the great audio course, Beyond Positive Thinking,“What do you say to people who claim they have no idea what they want?” He replied: “I tell them they are lying.” And he’s right.

You know what you want. You know it right now. If you are one of the few who say you don’t know what you want, you are lying to yourself. Somewhere inside of you, right below what you are willing to admit, are your desires. You simply haven’t spoken them.

Dr. Robert Anthony told me, “Everyone knows what they want. They are simply afraid to admit it. Once they admit it, they have to own up to the fact that they don’t have it. They have to begin to take action to get what they want, or they have to make excuses for not trying. Both may be uncomfortable. To stay safe, people lie.” You have the chance to achieve your desires. This book is designed to give you a spiritual formula for success that never fails. The five steps in the Attractor Factor are already proven to work. With this information on your side, why not admit what you really want?

Isn’t it time?

What do you really want?

Think Like God

Many years ago, I gave a talk called, “How to Think Like God.” In it, I told the stories of how people have been cured of blindness, or healed of autism, or achieved great wealth where none seemed possible.

I then urged the audience to take off their blinders, remove their inner mental limits, and to think as if they had superhuman or even supergodly powers. This was a very empowering experience. People loved it. It released their restraints so that they could think bigger than they ever thought before. God wouldn’t worry, doubt, bicker, delay, stall, or think small. After all, what would you do if you had all the powers of God?

No matter how you view God, you probably admit that your concept is a being with enormous power and no limits. Well, if you thought like that God, what would you want for yourself? What would you want for the world?

Start Here

Use the space below to write what you want to be, do, or have. A study by author Brian Tracy revealed that people who simply wrote down their wants and put the list away, discovered a year later that 80 percent of what they wrote came to be. Write down your wants!

Did you write down many goals?

Sometimes, people feel greedy when they start to ask for what they want. They feel they are taking from others. The best way around that limiting belief is to be sure you also want others to have success, too.

In other words, if you want a new house but don’t want your neighbor to have one, you’re stuck in ego, and that’s greed. But if you want a new house and think everyone ought to have one, then you are in tune with the creative spirit, and you’ll pull or be led to that new house. You’ll attract it.

You see, there really isn’t any shortage in the world. The universe is bigger than our egos and can supply more than we can demand. Our job is to simply and honestly ask for what we want, without wanting to harm or control another person. Never ask for a specific person or for a specific person to do something. Allow the universe, the power in everything, to arrange the right person, place, and time. Your job is to state your intention.

The desire in you is coming to you from your inner spirit. In the space provided, honor your inner spirit by writing down what you really want to have, do, or be:

Now, what would be even better than what you selected?

In other words, you may have written down, “I want $50,000 in the bank by the holiday.” Well, what would be better than that? Wouldn’t you prefer $100,000? The idea is to stretch yourself a little while still being honest with yourself about your desires.

Write down what would be even better than what you have already stated you want:

Now write down one goal or intention, something that you would really like to have, do, or be.

Focus brings power. Look over your lists and see what goal or goals jump out at you. Which goal or intention has the most energy, or charge, on it? A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.

And keep in mind that you can always combine goals. There’s nothing wrong with stating something like, “I want to weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have $50,000 in the bank, by this coming Christmas.” In the space below, write down the most powerful intention you can:

Here’s the next step:

Write your intention as if you already have it.

In other words, “I want to weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have $50,000 in the bank, by this coming Christmas,” becomes “I now weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have $50,000 in the bank!

”If you want an alternative that may feel better to you, consider the approach Dr. Robert Anthony advises in his audio-program, Beyond Positive Thinking. He says it may be more powerful to write, “I now choose to weigh 120 pounds, own a brand new Corvette, and have $50,000 in the bank!” Do that now. Just rewrite your goal into present tense, pretending that you already have what you want, and using the word “choose” if you so desire.

Before we go on, add one more line to your request. Add the phrase “this or something better.”

“This or something better” is the loophole that allows you to get out of your ego. If you insist on getting whatever you desire, you are coming from pure ego. As you’ll see in Step Five, letting go is an important element to success. The real secret to getting whatever you want is to want without need. This will become clear later. For now, add the freeing line, “This or something better” to your stated goal.

Do that here:

Divine Intentions

I spent last Saturday with a small group of wonderful people from all over the world who just completed my year long Miracles Coaching Certification Program. The day was upbeat and buzzing with energy. But at lunch one person asked me a question that may be on your mind, too.

“In the movie The Secret and in your book The Attractor Factor you said you believe in intentions, but in your book Zero Limits you say you no longer believe in them. What do you do now?”  

I can see where that could confuse people.

In my new Nightingale-Conant audio-program, The Missing Secret, I explain my approach to life in a way that clears the air. I’ll try to recap it here: Today I realize that most intentions are limitations.

Intentions come from your ego and can actually limit what is possible for you to receive. Intentions are wonderful when you are first awakening to your own power. It’s thrilling to set goals and achieve them. But there’s an easier, better, more magical, and even miraculous way to go through life. I explain this in Zero Limits, where I say there are three stages of awakening.

Stage One:

In the first stage you are a victim. We’re all born into it and most of us stay there. With coaching or the right books or the right movies, you one day break free.

Stage Two:

In the next stage you realize you have more power than you ever thought before. In this stage intentions are fun and exciting and useful. You aim your life where you want it to go. It’s exhilarating to manifest things like new cars or a new house or anything else you can imagine. But there’s a stage after that.

Stage Three:

In the third stage you realize you have choice but you don’t have control. You realize you don’t have all power. This is where you surrender. This is where you can receive inspiration from something greater than your ego awareness.

I was filmed for two more movies last week. One of them is all about letting go to inspiration. For me, I want inspiration. When it comes, that becomes my new intention. But the intention comes from inspiration not from limitation. The intention comes from the Divine not my pipsqueak ego.

In short, when I receive an inspiration to do something, it becomes my intention.

So I still believe in intentions, not those of the ego but those of the Divine.

Intentions Are for Wimps

When I set an intention to do something like, say, write a book, I use my conscious will and my energy and get it done. But when I allow an inspiration to become my new intention, and combine my energy with it, than I often create something astonishingly unexpected like, say, my own television show.

Inspiration might also direct me to write another book, of course, but the point is, inspiration will often surprise me with something bigger and bolder than I ever imagined before.

As P.T. Barnum said, “Not my will, but thine, be done.”

When you follow inspiration, you get to say (like the Blues Brothers), “I’m on a mission from God.”

How do you know an intention from an inspiration?

Usually by how it feels.

When I was on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC television show The Big Idea November 19, 2007, I told him and his audience that the directive to do anything needs to come from your heart, or your gut, not your mind. When you follow that, you follow your divine path.

It’s different for each person, of course. You may be inspired to enroll in Miracles Coaching or Executive Mentoring to better understand my marketing and metaphysical methods; somebody else may not. I still use coaches today, and think everyone needs to. We all have beliefs and limitations to release.

For example, inspiration nudged me into creating my own TV show, called Expect Miracles. But my ego was resisting it. It was stretching my self-image limits. For that reason, I needed Miracles Coaching to help me get and stay clear. As long as I stay clear, miracles happen.

I’m now clear and ready for this TV show to be a megasuccess. And now the investors, actors, directors, editors, and writers are coming to me. Why? How? Because I cleared the blocks within me, with the help of my coaches, to allow it all to happen.

So let’s go deeper. You have a goal or intention that is coming from deep within you. It may scare you. It may excite you. It may confuse you. But trust that the goal is a desire from the Divine. Whatever it is, even if you aren’t sure how to attract it, write it here:

Now, before you complete this process, let’s be sure this goal or intention is right for you. There is a way to test your intention. I’ll explain that procedure next.

You’ll love this one!

Let Your Body Speak Its Mind

Most people who do muscle testing do it wrong. I’ll explain what it is and then teach you the right way to do it.

Muscle testing, or behavioral kinesiology, is a way to ask your body questions. In short, if your body goes weak when you ask something, that something isn’t good for you. If your body stays strong, that something is right for you.

You may have seen this done before. Usually, one person stands, arm stretched out from their side, as another person stands in front of them. The testing person puts one hand on the other’s shoulder and the other hand on the outstretched arm. While the person with the arm stretched out thinks of something, the other pushes down on the arm. If the arm goes down, the subject was thinking of something that weakened him. If the arm stays strong, the person was thinking of something that was positive for him.

That’s a simplistic explanation of an involved process. But you get the idea. People like Dr. David Hawkins have written numerous popular books, such as Power vs. Force, about their work testing a long list of everything from people to theories to time periods in history. All of it is fascinating reading. It has caused a movement in which best-selling authors such as Wayne Dyer tout the benefits of the muscle test.

But again, testing is often done wrong. People can smile and throw off a test. They test products by holding them, when they have to hold them over their solar plexus to get an accurate answer. They push too hard, or with their whole hand, and any number of other things. If you do muscle testing right, you can find out if your goals are right for you. If you don’t, you’ll deceive yourself and pursue a path that is not for you.

So, how do you do muscle testing right?

The Right Way to Test

First, both people have to be clear.

That is, both people involved have to be centered, calm, and open. You can see right here that this is a potential trouble spot. Few people are centered, calm, and clear. Anyone testing you better be, or they will unconsciously influence the test. The way to get clear is easy: • You can drink a large glass of water.

• You can tap your chest, over your thymus (upper heart area) a few times.

• You can tap the underside of your left hand (the karate chop area) as you say, “I deeply love, accept, and forgive myself.”  

All of these methods clear you so that you will be able to get an accurate answer. Both people involved in a muscle test need to do this.

Second, you need to do a control test. In other words, if you are being tested, the person about to press down on your arm needs to ask you a neutral question; something like, “Is your name Joe?” (if your name is Joe) is a valid test. Obviously, you should test strong. If you don’t, go back and do some clearing.

Third, the person doing the pressing down needs to use only two fingers, and gently but firmly give one quick push down. This is not a test of strength. This is not a contest.

The Solo Testing Method

There is also a way to test yourself by yourself. I wrote about this method in my e-book, Hypnotic Marketing. Here’s how you do it: The best one-person testing method I discovered works like this:

Hold out your left hand, with your fingers spread apart, as if you were going to hold a softball or large grapefruit.

Now, take the thumb and index finger of your right hand and touch the thumb and pinkie of your left hand.

Are you with me? You should have your left hand wide open and your right thumb on your left thumb and your right index finger on your left pinkie. Got it?

Now all you do is try to squeeze the left thumb and left pinkie together as you try to resist.

Go ahead and do that now.

You should have found it easy to resist.

Now think of something negative (Hitler works every time) and try to resist as you also try to squeeze.

Your thumb and pinkie should have weakened.

Now think of something loving (your favorite pet should work) as you resist your own squeezing.

Your thumb and pinkie should remain strong and apart.

See how this works?

I know all of this must seem wild to you. But hey, no one is looking, and I won’t tell. So let’s keep going.

Test Your Goal

You now have the basics for doing a muscle test. What you will do next is test your written goal. It should make you strong. If it doesn’t, consider rewriting it and testing it again. You want it to be right for you. A muscle test is one way to find out if it is a match for you. If it is, it will be easier to attract.

Write your goal here, and then muscle test it:

If you need to rewrite your goal, do so here:

Carry Your Intention

You might now write the above goal on a card and put it in your pocket or purse. By doing so, you will be unconsciously reminding yourself of your intention. Your own mind will then help nudge you in the direction of making your goal a reality.

So relax. You have just planted a seed in your mind. The rest of this book will tell you how to water it, give it sunshine, clear out any weeds, and let it grow.

Prepare to attract your miracles!

CHAPTER 14: Step Three: The Missing Secret

I was on a teleseminar with a marketing friend of mine. We were telling our listeners how important it was to watch out for self-sabotage in their lives. We were pretty impressed with ourselves as we told them that their unconscious beliefs would create their reality, that if they didn’t get clear, they could manifest failure.

Halfway through the call we introduced our surprise guest for the evening. He was a famous self-help guru from another country. The guru came on and began by dismissing what my partner and I had just covered.

“Can I take this to a new level?” he asked.

“Well, of course,” we told him. “You’re the guru.”

“You don’t need to unearth your past or change your unconscious,” he began. “All you have to do is focus on what you want and stay focused on it in each moment.” I totally agreed with him, but also wondered how he expected people to stay in the moment—the greatest spiritual challenge of all time. But I kept quiet and let our guest tout his beliefs.

“I used to be a therapist and quickly saw that it was a waste of time to go into someone’s past looking for the cause of whatever they were getting,” he explained. “All you have to do is pay attention to your feelings. If it feels good, go in that direction. If it doesn’t feel good, stop.” I agreed with all of what our guru guest was saying, but I had to wonder if he was only seeing part of the big picture. I began to feel that he was making the same mistake every other goal-setting, self-help, self-improvement, new-age, guru type was making. So I had to ask a few questions.

“What if a person sets a goal, watches his feelings in each moment, and still doesn’t get the result he wanted?”

“Then that individual has a conflict with his subconscious mind,” he answered. “He needs to back off from his goal and go for something more believable.” “Then we’re right back to needing to unearth beliefs and get clear,” I said.

“Well, you don’t really need to do that. Just know your intention, follow your feelings, and adjust in each moment.”

Our guru friend missed the point. And from what I can see, so have virtually all of the current spokespeople when it comes to how to manifest whatever you want.

What is that point?

Let me explain with a story . . .

Watch Spot

Spot was a stray dog I claimed as my own when I was in college. But he used to run off and tear up the neighbor’s garden, run across the street and make drivers slam on their brakes, and just make a nuisance of himself. So I put him on a short leash. But I felt guilty for keeping this wonderful friend on a three-foot leash. I bought a longer leash, six feet of freedom, and put it on Spot. I then walked six feet away and called Spot to me. He ran—three feet. He wouldn’t go an inch beyond the length of the old leash. I had to walk over to Spot, put my arm around him, and walk him out the full six feet of new leash. From then on, he used all of that leash.

I think each of us has a limit we’ve placed on our freedom. We need a “miracles coach” to help us see that in reality we have no limits. Jonathan Jacobs does that with his clients. But he does it in a way that may seem pretty strange to you. Hang on to your seat and let me see if I can explain it to you . . .

Touching the Sky

The first time I had a session with Jonathan I didn’t know what to expect. I thought the man was a little strange because he couldn’t articulate what he did. But I’d been a curious journalist for many years, so I jumped in and did a session with him.

“What’s your intention for this session?” Jonathan asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You can have anything you want. What do you want to focus on?”

I thought it over for a moment and then spoke.

“I want clarity on the book I am writing about Bruce Barton.”

“What kind of clarity?”

“I want to know what I’m supposed to do next,” I said.

“Okay. Let’s go upstairs.”

Jonathan had me lie down on his massage table. He gently guided me to breathe in different colors.

“Breathe the color red through the top of your head and imagine it going through your body and out of your feet.”

We went through numerous colors.

“What other color do you need to breathe in?” he asked.

I said gray. He then asked me to breathe in that color. After several minutes of my breathing deeply and relaxing on his massage table, Jonathan put his hand over my heart and said, “Open this up.” While I didn’t consciously do anything, I felt a rush of electricity and energy shoot through me, almost blinding me. There was a strong white light surging through my body, blasting into my head, somehow illuminating the inside of my skull.

Suddenly, I felt in the presence of angels, spirits, guides. I don’t know how to explain it. But it was real. I felt it. I sensed it. I knew they were there. And these beings somehow worked on me, altering my beliefs, helping me realize I had more “leash” than I thought.

I’m not sure how long I was in that altered state. Twenty minutes? An hour? I don’t know. When I finally sat up on the table, I noticed that Jonathan had a tear rolling down his cheek. When the energy started to blast through me, he moved aside to let it do its work. But the beauty and miracle of what he was seeing touched him. He was crying.

As my head cleared and I got my bearings, I realized I knew the next step for my book project. I was to go to Wisconsin and continue my research by looking at the private papers of Bruce Barton at the historical museum. I had gotten my intention.

And that’s not all.

Shortly after that first session with Jonathan, I began to notice other changes in my outer life. The book I had been working on began to take direction, and became The Seven Lost Secrets of Success. I found a publisher for it. I found the money to complete my research. I bought a new car. I bought a new house. My income soared.

How? Why?

I had invited the other side to help me, and it did.

The Wise Choice

As I write these words, I’m very aware that you may think I’ve lost my mind. After all, here I am—an adult, an author, a fairly well-known speaker and marketing specialist who advises business executives about their work—talking about spirits.

But I also know that you know what I mean. Even the most atheistic among us has been touched by the miraculous, the uncanny, or the unexplainable. Although no one knows what awaits on the other side of this life, we all tend to believe something intelligent is there.

Maybe it’s worth mentioning that the book that helped me the most here was What Can a Man Believe? by Bruce Barton. In it he explained that there was little proof for heaven after earth, but that it was far wiser to believe than not believe.

In other words, while I can’t prove that angels and guides are standing ready to help you, isn’t it a much more delicious and comforting and magical thought to believe in them than to not believe in them? There’s no concrete evidence to support them or deny them. But when you can use the belief in them to create miracles, wouldn’t you be wise to do so?

That Mysterious Something

Yesterday a friend of mine called and said she wanted to believe in guides and angels and teachers from the spiritual side of life, but a part of her doubted they existed.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I have my doubts, too.”

“You do?”

“Sure,” I said. “If I had to go into a court of law and prove I had spirit guides, they would laugh me out of the courthouse. There’s no proof for them, but also there’s no proof against them.” And then I remembered something I had read in a recent issue of Reader’s Digest, where Larry Dossey talked about prayer. He said praying helped people recover from illness. In many cases, they recovered from what doctors had said were incurable illnesses. What these successful patients did was pray. Even the patients admitted they didn’t know if the prayers were answered, but it was the belief in the praying and the act of praying that helped them, anyway. Again, as Barton pointed out, it is wiser to believe than not to believe. Believing helps create miracles.

Barton wrote the following passage in 1927, in What Can a Man Believe? I’ve always loved it, as it seems to stir the very something he talks about within me. See what it does for you:  

In every human being, whether emperor or cowboy, prince or pauper, philosopher or slave, there is a mysterious something which he neither understands nor controls. It may lie dormant for so long as to be almost forgotten; it may be so repressed that the man supposes it is dead. But one night he is alone in the desert under the starry sky; one day he stands with bowed head and damp eyes beside an open grave; or there comes an hour when he clings with desperate instinct to the wet rail of a storm-tossed boat, and suddenly out of the forgotten depths of his being this mysterious something leaps forth. It over-reaches habit; it pushes aside reason, and with a voice that will not be denied it cries out its questionings and its prayer.

So let’s assume you don’t have access to a healer like Jonathan (though you can reach other healers and mentors by e-mailing the people in the back of this book or by visiting www.miraclescoaching.com). What can you do?

Easy. Focus on what you want, and make one of your intentions finding someone to help you clear yourself of old beliefs so that you can create the life you want. Help exists. State your intention to the world, and allow it to come to you.

I feel it’s important to have support from a mentor. It’s too easy to fall back into the old way of thinking, to feel sorry for ourselves, and play the role of victim. The vast majority of your current friends probably won’t support your desire to create miracles. This is why I created my Miracles Coaching program. I’ve personally trained coaches to help you get clear so you can easily and quickly attract miracles.

When I first started seeing Jonathan, I would visit him once a month. He and I quickly saw that we needed to stay in touch at least once a week. Jonathan and I made a pact that said, “Whenever I’m not clear, I am to call him.” Then, whenever I let something in life throw me for a tailspin, I would call him.

Another woman recently asked me what it meant to “get clear” with my beliefs. I thought about it for a while before I could answer. The image that came to me was of a football team. If one of those players is hurting, upset, feeling neglected, angry because the coach overlooked him earlier or his girlfriend dumped him, that one player can jeopardize or sabotage the entire team’s success.

You are like the whole football team. If all parts of you, all of the beliefs inside of you, are in alignment, no problem. You’ll attract your wealth. But if any part of you, any belief in you, doesn’t support your intention, it will jeopardize or sabotage you. That’s why you may have had lousy luck at love, romance, money, or health. Some part of you doesn’t want it. We need to heal that part. When you do, you are clear.

And when you are clear, you are free to attract anything you can imagine.

The Most Important Step

As far as I’m concerned, this is the most important step in the entire Attractor Factor formula. When you are clear, there’s nothing in the way of you attracting whatever you want or something even better.

But what does “clear” mean? I wrote an entire book to offer cleaning and clearing methods in The Key. I also recorded an entire audio-program on the subject as well, called The Missing Secret. Those methods are all designed to create an alignment between your conscious and unconscious mind.

Let me explain with the following “The Universe” diagram.

What the image shows is that energy is coming to and through you from the Divine, but it hits a “filtering” system. That filter is in your unconscious. It is made up of your beliefs. If, for example, you say you want to attract wealth, but deep inside your mind you believe “money is bad” or “rich people are evil,” then you will actually stop yourself from attracting wealth.

This is true whenever you are trying to attract something but feeling frustrated by your results. The Universe/God/Divine is trying to help you, but it is limited by your own unconscious beliefs. Clear up those limiting beliefs and you can have, do, or be virtually anything you can imagine. The limits are yours.

It was in his work Project for a Scientific Psychology written in 1895 that Freud first laid down the radical (at the time) idea that thinking is intrinsically unconscious. We are effectively conscious icebergs with most of our thoughts occurring below the water line, out of conscious perception.

The fact that this idea is no longer considered radical is testament to the last few decades of research, which have shown the importance of unconscious processes. We now have abundant evidence for the unconscious in the operation of memory, affect, attitudes, and motivation.

What this means is that what you consciously think isn’t anywhere near as important as what your unconscious mind thinks. Both are tools for you to use, but one is in your awareness and the other isn’t. If the below awareness part of you doesn’t want what you want to attract, you won’t attract it, or if you do, you won’t keep it.

Getting clear means your conscious and unconscious mind are in alignment. This third step in the Attractor Factor is all about realigning your inner selves so all of you wants the same thing.

Your New Year’s Resolutions

My favorite example is when you state a resolution on New Year’s eve. You consciously say things like, “I intend to work out three times a week,” or “I intend to date more,” or “I intend to stop smoking.” But what happened the next day or the next week?

Most likely you forgot your resolutions.

But why? You stated what you wanted. You had the best of intentions. Why didn’t you follow through? Why did you stop doing what you knew would be good for you?

Basically, you had counterintentions within you. These are beliefs in your unconscious that don’t want what you say you would like to attract. For example, you might say, “I want to be slim,” but in your deeper mind you hold the belief, “If I’m thin, people will harm me,” or “If I’m slim, people will want to have sex with me.” Again, you must be clear to attract and achieve what you want.

Are You Clear Right Now?

How do you know if you are clear right now?

Think of something that you want to have, do, or be.

Why don’t you have it yet? Write your answer here:

If your answer is something negative, you aren’t clear. If you say anything except an honest, “I know it’s on the way to me,” you probably aren’t clear inside with what you want.

Another question to ask yourself is, “What does it mean that you don’t yet have what you want?” Write your answer here:

Your answer to that question will reveal your beliefs. For example, if you say, “I have to do such and such first,” then you have a belief that you have to do something before you can have what you want.

If you say, “My soul doesn’t want me to have this,” then you are stating your own beliefs about what you think your soul wants for you.

If you say, “I don’t know how to get what I want,” then you are revealing a belief that says you have to know how to get what you want before you can have it.

The truth is, nothing means anything in and of itself. You and I apply meaning to events and call it truth. But our meaning reveals our beliefs. Sometimes those beliefs serve us, and sometimes they don’t.

I’ve also learned that the meaning you give an event is the belief that caused it. This is huge. When you declare, “This always happens to me,” you actually just found the belief that caused the event. The belief came first.

How to Locate Your Beliefs

Your beliefs aren’t that hard to find.

First, understand what a belief is. According to Bruce Di Marsico, creator of The Option Method, a brilliant tool for exploring beliefs, “A belief is assuming something to be true, to be a fact. A belief is not caused, it is created by choice. A belief about a thing’s existence is not the same as its existence.” In other words, a shirt is not a belief. It’s a fact. It’s an existence. But saying a shirt is good for you personally, or not, is a belief.

Self-help author Mandy Evans, an Option Method practitioner, says certain beliefs can lead to a very bad day. Beliefs cause stress, not your business or life situations. It’s your perception of events that cause how you feel.

“There’s what happened to you in your life, and then there’s what you decide it meant,” Mandy told me over lunch one day. She’s the author of Travelling Free: How to Recover from the Past by Changing Your Beliefs.

“Change your conclusions or your beliefs about the events in your past,” she explained, “and you can change the way you live your life today. Certain beliefs can really trip us up.” Beliefs shape the way we feel, think, and act, Mandy says. She’s an expert in personal belief systems. But you often can’t change those inner systems until you know what they are. She offers a list of “The Top 20 Self-Defeating Beliefs” in Travelling Free, her second book, as a way to begin exploring them.

“As you look at each belief, ask yourself if you believe it,” she suggests. “If you do, then ask yourself why you believe it. Gently explore your own reasons for buying into any self-limiting belief.” Here are 10 of her top 20 limiting beliefs.

1. I’m not good enough to be loved.

2. No matter what I do, I should be doing something else.

3. If it hasn’t happened yet, it never will.

4. If you knew what I’m really like, you wouldn’t want me.

5. I don’t know what I want.

6. I upset people.

7. Sex is dirty and nasty; save it for the one you love.

8. Better stop wanting; if you get your hopes up, you’ll get hurt.

9. If I fail, I should feel bad for a long time and be really scared to try again.

10. I should have worked this out by now.

Those are all beliefs. Sometimes you need another person to point out your beliefs. When my friend Linda and I had breakfast one day, and I hired her to help me with some promotion, she said, “I’m afraid some of my friends will be jealous of me.” “That’s a belief,” I said.

Linda’s eyes widened and her face lit up.

“It is?” she asked.

It had never occurred to her that her fear was a belief—a belief she could let go of. She needed another person to shine a light on the belief.

Here’s another example of what I mean.

How to Get a New Car

The following happened many years ago, but I remember it well . . .

I needed a car bad. The one I was driving was an old clunker that could only move if you pushed it. Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But whenever the car broke down, I broke down. Paying the repair bills was killing me.

And never knowing if the car would get me where I was going was stressing me out. I needed help. I called Jonathan because of my fear of car salespeople. (I had been one once and knew of their tactics.) I told Jonathan what I wanted.

He said, “What you really want is often under what you say you want . . . What would having this new car do for you?”

Huh?

Jonathan went on to explain that what we want may be a feeling rather than a product. Focus on the feeling, and it will help me get what I really want. What would I feel if I had a new car?

What a mind stopper! I developed a brain squeezing headache just thinking about it. I got off the phone, and my head began to throb as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer. Although I almost never take medicine, I ate a handful of aspirin like it was popcorn. It didn’t help.

I went to see Jonathan in person. Sitting in the presence of his accepting energy, letting my pain “speak” to me, I suddenly saw the ache between my eyes as a huge black ball of tightly woven thread. Mentally, a thread would loosen, and I’d hear a belief: “You can’t afford a new car.”

I let it go and another belief would unravel:

“What would your dad say about this car?”

And then another thread/belief would slide out: “How will you afford it?”

And then another . . . and another . . . and another . . .

As these beliefs slowly came apart and left, the black ball of pain got smaller. And smaller. Within 20 minutes, the headache was completely gone! I was healed. I was clear. I was happy.

Now get this:

Although I didn’t think it was really possible, I followed my intuition and immediately went to the car dealership I felt led to visit. Consciously, I knew there was no way I could get a new car. (I had never had a new car in my entire life, and my credit was lousy.) But I let go. I trusted.

I went to the car dealership, and the gentleman there let me look around. I told him what I wanted, and he said he had one car that fit the description. We walked out back, and he was right. It was perfect. It was gold and beautiful and new. I said, “Does it have a cassette player?” He looked and nodded. “Well,” I said, “let’s do the hard part. Let’s see if I can buy it.” We filled out forms, and he asked me to place a deposit. I didn’t. I wasn’t confident enough to think I would get the car, so I put nothing down on it. I then left. I drove to a friend’s outside of the city, and we played music all day, him strumming his guitar and me blowing on my harmonica. Later in the afternoon, I decided to call the dealership.

“You qualify,” said the salesperson.

I was stunned.

“I do? Are you looking at my paperwork?” I asked. “I’m Joe Vitale.”

He laughed and assured me he was. He then asked me when I wanted to pick up my car. I went and picked up the car, in delighted shock that it was mine. Although I had no idea how I would make the payments, I did. In fact, I mailed my checks in early.

And that’s not all.

As soon as I decided to get the new car, my life went into an upward spiral of magical coincidences.

Suddenly, the money I needed appeared. Clients began to call. Classes sold out. I was invited to speak to groups I had never heard of. And two publishers gave me book offers on the very same day.

In some real way, my allowing the car in my life sent a message to the universe that I was trusting. Instead of worrying and wondering how I’d pay the bills, I leaped off the mountaintop of fear and—to my surprise—I didn’t fall.

I soared.

But I had to get clear inside before any of this could happen. Had I gone to buy a new car when I was still carrying limiting beliefs about what I could have afforded, my beliefs would have sabotaged my purchase. I would have attracted not paying for the car to support the beliefs I had at the time. The first thing that had to happen was clearing the beliefs.

And for the record, I went on to buy four new cars from that same dealership over the next decade, and today I drive even fancier cars.

Clearing beliefs can really pay off!

Money beyond Belief

What do you tell yourself when you look at your business and see it isn’t yet where you want it to be?

Do you blame it on the economy? Your salespeople? Your marketing? On your own ability to accomplish anything?

Whatever your answer, that is a belief. Common ones include:

• “I must work hard for the money I earn.”

• “I need more money than I can generate.”

• “I feel helpless in changing my financial picture.”

• “I think my salespeople are loafing.”

• “I don’t handle money and wealth well.”

What you want to do is replace negative beliefs with positive ones, such as:

• “Money is a natural manifestation of the universe.”

• “It’s good to be rich.”

• “I don’t have to work hard for my money.”

• “I am destined for great wealth.”

• “My staff earns money for me.”

• “I handle money and wealth well.”

You see, most of the beliefs you have were given to you when you were a child. You simply absorbed them. Now, you are becoming awakened. You have a choice. You can choose to let go of the beliefs you don’t want, and you can choose to replace the beliefs with ones that better serve you.

Other beliefs come from our culture itself. I was sitting in a movie theatre just today, explaining to a friend how we can consciously choose new beliefs, when over the speakers came the song, “It Ain’t Easy.” It kept repeating the same words, “It ain’t easy. It ain’t easy. It ain’t easy.” That song was followed by the Rolling Stones classic, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” My friend and I started laughing, realizing the cultural brainwashing at work. Unfortunately, no one else in the theatre seemed to realize they were being programmed with limiting beliefs.

I remember that I used to have the belief, “The more I spend, the less I have.” Seems logical, doesn’t it? If you spend your money, you will have less of it. But I decided to change that belief. Instead, I accepted the new belief, “The more money I spend, the more money I receive.” Now, I know I’ll receive money whenever I write a check. Why? Because I choose to believe that.

You can do this, too. As you become aware of the beliefs you have about wealth, ask yourself if you want to continue believing them, or if you would prefer new beliefs. Then, consciously choose the belief you prefer. You may have to do this a few times at first, but the end result will be attracting the results you prefer.

Some people say you are lying to yourself when you declare an intention that isn’t true yet. My counterargument is that you are already lying to yourself. Saying, “I’m always broke!” is a lie. It’s a belief that causes your current reality. It seems like the truth but it’s just a statement infused with energy that you choose to believe is real. As long as you keep it, it will be real. You’ll continue to attract situations to prove it to you. But the belief is what is causing the attraction, and that belief is a lie.

Tell yourself a lie you prefer. Instead of saying, “I keep having problems with my tenants or my landlord!” change it to “I am at peace with my tenants or my landlord.” At first the new intention will feel uncomfortable, but only because it’s new. As you sit with it, and let it become part of you, you will begin to notice it reshaping your reality. It will soon be your reality.

Isn’t that a wonderful feeling—to know that you can now create your life the way you want it to be?

What new beliefs would you like to install? Write them here:

Remote Clearing

Clearing beliefs can be an easy process. The easiest time I ever had was when I wanted to overcome my sinus allergies.

I had suffered terrible sinus infections and sinus headaches for years while I lived in Houston. I can’t begin to describe how miserable they made me feel. I took herbs. I had acupuncture treatments. I wore air purifiers. Everything helped, but nothing worked permanently.

Then one day, I asked my dear friend Kathy Bolden, a remote healer, if she would try to help me. While having dinner, I looked her in the eyes, slammed my fist on the table, and said, “I don’t want relief. I want healing. I want this thing gone.” My intensity shook her. But she also realized how sincere I was and how much pain I had been in. She said she would try to help.

And she did. She went home, got quiet, and used her skills to clear my body. I was not present as she did this. I wasn’t even aware that she did anything. But within a few days I noticed that I could breathe again. I called her and asked what she had done.

“You had some negative energy in you, and I scared it off,” she said.

Apparently, she was able to use her remote healing skills to clear my beliefs and my energy from a distance. Talk about making things easy for me!

Releasing the Past

Here’s another example of clearing beliefs. This one still amazes me, because it happened to my late ex-wife, and I saw the dramatic change.

Marian never learned to drive a car. I was her chauffeur for more than 15 years. I’m not complaining. That’s just the way it was.

But after seeing my changes with my work with Jonathan and other healers, Marian wondered if she could get clear about driving. She booked a session with Jonathan. Within one hour, she was clear.

What happened? Marian remembered being a little girl and being in the back seat of her mom’s car as her mom learned how to drive. Her mom was naturally nervous. Marian picked up on that energy and locked onto it. While Marian went on to grow up, the little girl who sat in the back seat of her mom’s car remained alive in her. As an adult, that little girl kept Marian from driving.

Under Jonathan’s guidance, Marian was able to remember that experience and release it. She realized it was an old memory, and it no longer served her. She let it go. Her energy was now clear.

And Marian continued to drive her own cars—new ones, to boot—and she loved it. I remember one night there was a terrible storm in Houston with lots of flooding. I was worried about my wife and how she would handle the weather. When she got home late that night, I ran to the garage to greet her.

What I saw amazed me. Marian was smiling ear to ear. Her face was beaming. She rolled down her window and said, “I had an adventure!” Even being stuck in traffic is something Marian felt grateful for. She simply sat there and listened to music.

And one day we went to lunch in separate cars. After it, I was behind her at a stop light. I saw her moving her lips and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. I wondered if she were getting impatient. Then I pulled up closer and realized she was singing and tapping her fingers to the music!

Talk about a transformation!

Later, Marian was in a bad car accident. She was hit by a van, and hit hard enough to break the back axle on her car. Despite the shock of it all, Marian was fine, although her car wasn’t.

Now here’s the juicy part: Two days later, Marian was ready to rent a car and start driving again. I couldn’t believe it. I told her I was proud of her, that many people are too nervous to drive so soon after an accident.

Marian just looked at me, smiled, and said, “Why? Driving is too much fun not to do it!”

Free Your Past

Jonathan has a saying, “It’s all energy.” What he means is that we are energy systems. If we are clear, the energy moves in one direction. If we aren’t clear, the energy moves in several directions, and without full power.

Caroline Myss, a medical intuitive and author of Anatomy of the Spirit, talks about being “plugged into” the past. If there was a situation in your life where you were hurt, abused, or left anything unfinished, you are probably still carrying around that unfinished business. You are still plugged into that old event. That means a part of your energy is still back there, reliving and probably recreating the old event.

I know this is tough to understand. But let’s use another example from Myss. Think of the energy you get each day as cash. You wake up in the morning with $500 available for the day. But you are still mad because your spouse said something mean to you last night. That’s going to cost you. You are spending $50 to keep that energy alive in you.

And say you are still upset because a friend owes you money from five years ago. Now you are spending $100 to keep that memory alive.

And let’s assume you were abused as a child. You are spending another $100 to keep that memory in you. You woke up with $500 to spend, but before you get out of bed you have spent half of it on old memories.

When you try to attract something today, you won’t have all of your energy available to make it happen. When you get clear of the old events, hurts, memories and beliefs, you will have more energy to attract what you want now. And the more energy you have now, the more you will get.

You will end up like the supermodel who once said, “I don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.”

Your Results

Another saying Jonathan has is, “The energy you give out is the results you get.”

Yes, he’s great at coming up with mind benders like that. But I think he means that the beliefs you have create the results you get. If you are unconsciously sending out vibes that attract lousy conditions, you will experience lousy conditions.

If you find yourself recreating similar events—like my friend who has been married seven times so far—you know you are stuck in an energy pattern that will continue to create those events until it gets dissolved.

My dear friend Karol Truman, author of the great book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die . . ., put it this way:

“It’s the continual suppression of unresolved feelings and emotions that cause the problems we experience in our lives.” I can hear you now: “How can I get out of this pattern?”

One of the fundamental principles of Jonathan Jacobs’ work is that everything is energy. It’s not a new idea. Stuart Wilde writes about it in his books. Joseph Murphy refers to it in his works. Bob Proctor talks about it in his seminars. Scientists are discovering it, as well. Nothing exists but energy formed into things we then name, like tables, chairs, houses, cars, people.

The thing is, you and I are different from tables, chairs, houses, and cars because we are spiritual. That’s the miracle of our lives!

As Bob Proctor once told me, “Although everything is energy, the difference between people and objects is that we are spiritual. That means we have the means to alter and influence other energies. We can change the energy of a table, chair, house, car, or even other people.” Taken a step further, it means we are all connected. If we’re nothing but energy and we’re all one, then what you do affects me, and what I do affects you, even if we’re miles or even continents apart.

Got it?

Oh.

Well, neither did I, at first.

So let’s look at a couple of stories that may help.

How to Change People

One day, a client of mine hired me to be his marketing wizard. He gave me a lot of money, and I hired some folks to help me. All went well. Months passed. Then one day, the bomb dropped.

My client suddenly sent me a letter saying I had lied to him. It was two pages of pain for me to read. It got pretty confusing, and it made me dizzy, confused, and shocked. I had meetings with my staff, and I even called my client. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening. I sent the client a two-page letter explaining my position. The next day I got another two-page letter from him, almost as shocking. Finally, I went to Jonathan.

“The key word is trust,” Jonathan pointed out. “You keep saying he didn’t trust you. Let’s look at how that applies to you. Where in your own life aren’t you trusting?” This is typical of Jonathan. He’ll have you look at your own life to see how what you are complaining about is relevant. In a way, you use your experiences as mirrors. You use the outer to see what you are doing inside. (Stay with me on this.) I thought and said, “Well, I’ve never done marketing like this before. He’s hired me to direct his entire marketing campaign and expects me to lead his staff to victory. I guess I don’t trust that I can do it.” “And that’s what your client is picking up on an energy level. That’s the signal you are sending out.”

“What do we do?”

“Are you willing to release the fear and feel the trust?”

“Yes.”

And that’s about all it took. I felt a shift inside me, and I felt that I knew I could trust myself to do the job. I let go and breathed a sigh of relief. I feel it happened so easily because most of me was already clear with the problem. I didn’t have a lot of work to do in clearing old beliefs. Now here comes the good part.

I went home and called my client. He answered and sounded remarkably at peace. I told him I was going to do a great job for him.

“I know you are,” he said, stunning me. “I decided a little while ago to just trust the man I hired to do his job.”

“You decided a little while ago? When?”

Yes, he had decided to trust me about the time Jonathan and I looked at the trust issue in me. Once it was clear in me, my client felt it. Once I sent out a different signal, my client picked it up.

Coincidence? Then let me tell you another story . . .

Where Money Comes From

Another client of mine went on to great fame and fortune. He’s a 25-year-old stockbroker who wrote a book on wealth. I knew it would be a success before he did. I acted as his literary agent and marketing consultant and went to work to find a publisher for his book. As it worked out, he left me and went to an agent in Dallas, thereby cutting me out of the $45,000 in profits I would have earned from his $300,000 advance. But he’s a very honorable guy and said he would pay me some money when he got his big advance.

Days passed.

Weeks passed.

Months passed.

Nothing.

I wrote him a few kind notes. I sent him copies of my articles to share my own successes. I called him a few times and left messages.

Still nothing.

I asked Jonathan about it. He suggested I write a letter to the client and state my feelings, state what I want, and forgive him. I went home and did that. It felt very good.

But still nothing.

I went to Jonathan and said I did what he told me but still no reply.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means he hasn’t contacted me yet.”

“And?”

“And it means he may rip me off.”

“There it is,” Jonathan announced.

“Where what is?” I asked.

“It’s the fear of being ripped off that is blocking your energy. That’s the belief in your way.”

“How do I let go of that?”

“Feel that feeling of being ripped off.”

I closed my eyes and did so.

“Let it take you back to the other times when you may have been in experiences where you decided on beliefs about money and people.” I recalled being taken by a Dallas company for money I had nearly died to earn. I had felt cheated. I held a grudge against that company for nearly eight years. I breathed into that feeling and felt a shift inside. I opened my eyes and smiled.

“The money he owes you doesn’t have to come from him,” Jonathan explained. “The universe is prosperous and can give you money in a wide variety of ways. Release the need for him to pay you and you allow the money to come.” Accepting that concept is a biggie. It means totally letting go of any and all grudges against people. It means trusting that you will get what you want, as long as you aren’t attached to how it comes to you.

I felt like the release was there. I felt lighter and clearer. And when I got home there was a message from—my client!

After six months of nothing, suddenly a call! He was very polite, very friendly, and said he was mailing me a four-figure check. He did, too, as I received it the next day. I feel that only a fool would call that experience a coincidence. The connection is too obvious, and happens to me too often to blow over as mere chance.

As Jonathan says, it’s all energy, and we’re all connected. Clean the energy pathways, and you can have, do, or be anything you want.