Step Four:
Feel how exciting it would be to have, do, or be what you want.
Marketing specialists know that people don’t act for logical reasons, but for emotional ones. Emotion has power. Emotion also has the power to create what you want. Find within yourself what it will feel like to have, be, or do the thing you want and you will begin to manifest the thing you want. The energy in the emotion will work to pull you toward the thing you want while also pulling the thing you want toward you.
I know, I know. I’m getting philosophical again. But I’m writing about spiritual concepts, which few people can relate to. It’s easy to see why. We are taught from the crib to pay attention to reality, to obey the laws of man, to worship books and leaders. While that can help our society run smoother (actually, it hasn’t worked, but that’s another book), it limits you. Belief in leaders, rules, and outside authorities limits you from creating the life you want. I once told a friend that a belief in a guru can limit her own power to manifest what she wanted. When you give your power away to anyone, you are spending your own energy in their direction.
One of the most powerful energies you can ever experience is gratitude. Feel gratefulness for anything and you shift the way you feel. Feel thankful for your life, your lungs, your home, this book; it doesn’t matter. Once you feel grateful, you are in an energy that can create miracles.
Jonathan taught me this. I remember going to see him when I was broke and depressed. One of the first things he did was guide me into realizing that I had plenty in my life. When you compare your own life to that of people living in third world countries, you quickly see that you are living like a King or Queen. You probably have food, water, and shelter, as well as a refrigerator, a television, a radio, and probably a computer. Millions of people don’t. Realize you are blessed with enormous abundance right now, feel grateful for it, and you will attract even more abundance.
My friend Jonathan Morningstar once cured himself of a terrible illness with a simple one line statement of gratitude.
Jonathan got double pneumonia. Nothing seemed to help him. Then he felt inspired to write down one simple but potent sentence that he repeated every hour, recorded on audiotape and played back to himself, and wrote on signs which he hung around his home. He made this one liner part of his very being.
And within twenty-four hours, Jonathan was healed. What was the one line he used?
“Thank you God for all the blessings I have and for all the blessings I am receiving.”
I’m not a scientist so I won’t pretend to explain how this works. Somehow your energy sends off signals that attract more of what you are sending off. Like the child who unconsciously says he’s a victim, you send off signals that attract what you are getting. Change your signals and you will change your results. Change your energy and you will change what you experience. “The energy you give out is the results you get.”
Again, gratitude can shift everything. Just start feeling sincerely grateful for what you have. Look at your hands, or this book, or your pet, anything you feel love and gratitude for. Dwell on that feeling.
That’s the energy that can help you manifest whatever you want.
Another energy you want to experience is the energy that comes from imagining what it will feel like to have, be, or do the thing you want. This can be fun.
Imagine how good it will be to have what you want, to be what you are wanting, to do what you dream. Feel the electrifying feelings that come with the images. These feelings can create the life you want. They can manifest it for you. Somehow those feelings lead you, guide you, direct you to do the things that will make the events.
The great German thinker Goethe may have said it best when he wrote the following inspiring message:
Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and endless plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor all manner of
unforeseen incidents and meetings and
material assistance which no man
could have dreamed would come his way.
Whatever you can do or
dream you can, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power,
and magic in it.
I was in Seattle once to see friends. One night I turned on the television and caught the ending of a fascinating Larry King interview with the famous actor and singer, Andy Griffith. Andy was talking about one of his first motion pictures. He said something unknowingly metaphysical when he talked about a director who told him: “The camera is just a machine. It picks up what you give it. All you have to do is think something, and feel it, and the camera will record it.”
They then cut to a scene from the movie Griffith was referring to, when he was to look at a woman with a heart full of lust. You could tell from the actor’s eyes that he was projecting thoughts that were pretty hot. Larry King later said, “It was one of the most X-rated looks in movie history.”
The universe is like the movie camera. Think something and feel something and the universe will pick it up and project it. The advice Andy Griffith was given as a young actor is advice I want to give to us: When you know what you want, all you really have to do is think it and feel it. That’s it. The universe---the spirit of all that exists---will pick up your signal and project it.
This is powerful stuff. When Jonathan and I practiced this, our energy levels shot skyward. We had so much energy surging through us that the very electrical outlets in our homes burst into flames. This is the truth! When I lived in the dump I could barely afford to pay rent for, the electrical system there fried. It cost the landlord over $7,000 to repair it.
When Jonathan was first experimenting with energy, the fuse box in his garage caught on fire. While this isn’t why they call me “Mr. Fire!”, it does demonstrate that when you make changes internally, you’ll see changes externally. Jonathan had to have a new fuse box put in. My landlord replaced the entire electrical system in the house. But as my energy increased, I also had to move into a bigger home with better wiring.
Again, what you embrace in your inner world creates what you experience in your outer reality.
Jonathan and I were having lunch at a favorite Chinese restaurant one day when I noticed there was hardly anyone in the place. The owners looked worried. They were huddled around their cash register and talking. Usually they come over to us, smile, talk, and treat us like royalty. It was clear something was wrong. I mentioned this to Jonathan, saying, “They seem concerned about money.”
Jonathan replied, “That’s why they’re concerned.”
At first my mind screeched to a halt. But then I started laughing. Jonathan asked me what was so funny. I explained as best I could:
“Were you a Zen master in a past life or something?” I began. “What you just said was one of those unanswerable mind stretchers that Zen masters come up with.”
“What do you mean?”
“I said those people look worried about money and you said that’s why they’re worried about money. To the outside world, that makes no sense.”
“But it’s the truth,” Jonathan explained. “Their concern for money was something already in them that got manifested. Now they notice it in the outer world. They manifested their belief.”
He then went on to tell me about a man he had worked with who ran an Indian restaurant and was failing at it. Business was lousy. He did a session with Jonathan and realized he didn’t want to run a restaurant at all. Once he was clear, he let go of the restaurant and sold it. As a result, people started going to it under its new owner.
“Once you take care of the inner, it will show results in the outer,” says Jonathan.
Another time he told me, “When you get the lessons, you don’t need the experiences.”
As bizarre as all of that dialogue might seem to you, it’s been the truth in my experience as well.
One time a company hired me to help promote one of their Dallas seminars. I advised them on what to do and then I got angry when I saw that they did the opposite. They were, in essence, screwing up their own success.
I talked to Jonathan about it. He asked me what I got out of this. In other words, what was the benefit to me? Assuming a part of me did create the company doing everything wrong, how would it serve me? I thought about it and had the answer.
“Their screw-up takes the pressure to succeed off of me,” I said. “They hired me to help them make the seminar a success. I wasn’t sure I could do it. By their not listening to me, they have almost guaranteed that the seminar will fail. When it does, I can point my fingers at THEM and say, ‘You did it, not me.’”
It keeps coming back to what we are doing and feeling inside plays a giant hand in what we end up experiencing.
No matter what the situation you are in, some part of you helped create it.
Get in touch with it, release the old beliefs and energy, and you can move toward creating what would serve you better and bring you more joy. One of the best ways to do just that is to focus on what you want, on how it would feel to have it, be it, do it.
One wonderful technique to help you in this area is called scripting.
I first heard of this method from Jerry and Esther Hicks. The concept is deceptively simple:
Just imagine that you already have what you want and write out a scene that describes it. Describe in such detail that you can feel it. Pretend you are a movie director and write a script for what you want to experience. Really get into it as you write it. Feel it. Sense it. Experience it.
I have a notebook full of scripts. Every one I have written has come into reality. Again, when you think it and feel it, it comes to be.
It’s worth mentioning right here that your business cards, letterhead, flyers, sales letters, and ads---everything you produce or hire someone to produce to market your business---all carry your energy in them.
Think back to some flyer or letter you received in your mail. As soon as you glanced at it, you felt one way or another about the service. You may have had an instant feeling that said “This looks interesting” or an instant one that told you “Trash this.”
I’m not just talking about the look of the marketing piece, though that is part of it. When you or anyone you hire creates a marketing document, they put their thoughts and feelings into what they create. People don’t have to be psychic to pick up on this vibe. If you unconsciously don’t believe in your product or service, that belief will appear in your marketing materials. And people will sense it. And you won’t get business.
Again, feeling brings on miracles. When you know what you want, are clear about having it, and can feel the energy of what you want, you will begin to pull it to you. And when you clearly feel this energy, you will create marketing pieces that convey it. Here’s an example of what I mean:
When I wrote a sales letter for a software product that I totally believed in, I got staggering results. People read the letter and sensed my sincerity and the product’s benefits. As a result, over six percent of them sent in checks. In the world of direct mail marketing, that is excellent.
But when I wrote a sales letter to offer a service I did not believe in, I got nearly no replies. Why? The same writer created both letters. But my lack of belief in the second item was conveyed to people. They picked up on my vibe and “just knew” they better not order.
Another example is the flyer I received to attend a workshop in Seattle. All I saw was a dark photocopy of the original flyer. So I wasn’t dazzled by bright colors, fancy type, clever copy or incredible graphics. But something about the flyer said “Sign up for this event.” I did. When I spoke to others at the seminar, all of them said they had the same feeling. Many added, “I don’t even know why I’m here. I saw the flyer and knew I was supposed to be here.” The people who put on the seminar were clear about what they wanted. That confidence appeared in their brochures. And the people came.
Contrast that with a company I worked for at one time who wanted to put on a seminar about Internet marketing. This company was after only profits. There was no caring in their business and no sincere desire to serve people. That attitude showed up in their brochures. When they put on their event, they expected over two hundred people to attend. Only twenty people showed up.
I’ve noticed that many people have a negative attitude toward advertising. I think that’s a limiting view. An ad can help you market your business. It can become another voice working on your behalf.
One day I was having dinner with Jerry and Esther Hicks and a friend. We were talking about marketing in general and advertising in particular. My friend said, “You don’t have to advertise.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, “but you might want to. A good ad can increase your business.”
“The last time we ran an ad in a magazine,” Jerry began, “we got so many replies we couldn’t handle them all. I dropped the ad until we hired more staff.”
“It doesn’t matter what you put in the ad,” Esther added. “People will sense who you are and what you are offering and make a decision from that feeling.”
Jerry and Esther have hired me to write their ads because they know I believe in their work. If I didn’t believe in them, the ads I create for them would show it. And if they didn’t believe in their work, the person they hired to create their ads would reveal that attitude.
My friend Sandra Zimmer, who runs the Self- Expression Center in Houston, also knows the power of spiritually based advertising.
Sandra consciously infuses her ads with her energy. She actually sits and meditates over her ad, sending her energy into the ad. As a result, her ads have a magnetic quality to them. She once told me that people hold on to her ads for as long as seven years. I know I had seen Sandra’s ads for many years, before I finally met her in person. While her ads didn’t look different, they felt different. There was just something about her ads that made them memorable. That something was Sandra’s own energy.
“Advertising is important,” Sandra once told me. “But it’s the energy you put in the ads that does the work. It’s really the law of attraction at work.”
Again, who you are inside creates the results you get outside. Even your marketing pieces carry your energy. Get clear, feel the energy of what you want to do, be or have, and you will naturally go in the direction of manifesting what you want.
When I was in Australia in May, 1999, I learned that many seeds don’t open up and grow unless they are first burned.
In the human body, you open your seeds of desires with the heat of emotion. Whenever you feel love or fear, two very strong emotions, you are turning up the heat. That heat reaches your deeper mind and opens the seed, the image, of what you want. How you do that is through feeling.
The point of this step is that you must joyfully feel the energy of the thing you want to do, be, or have. As Joseph Murphy wrote in his little book, How to Attract Money, “The feeling of wealth produces wealth.”
Feel the joy of having what you want---feel it right now---and you will begin to pull it to you and you to it.
“The whole process of mental, spiritual and material riches may be summed up in one word: Gratitude.”
-- Your Infinite Power to be Rich by Joseph Murphy, 1966