Curious about Attraction - How Powerful Is It in Your Life? Have You Made Use of the Law of Attraction?

I wonder what attracts you. I also wonder what you attract and if you have made use of the Law of Attraction.

As I have mentioned before, I have been involved for a couple of months in a program called the Happy, Healthy and Wealthy Game. Even though I have always been a positive optimist and involved with the self-improvement field since the 80s, I have benefited and changed a great deal since I started this “game of life.” How and what does this have to do with Attraction?

On our last conference phone call, everyone in the group was raving about the film, “The Secret.” I was the only one who hadn’t seen it, mainly because I don’t have a TV or DVD player. Another player sent me the link to the film and I have now watched it twice. WOW! It is powerful and I am suggesting to my family and readers that they watch it and use the information.

We are living magnets. We attract into our lives what we think about - good and/or bad. If we focus on what we don’t want, we will get more of it. But if we focus on what we do want, we will get more of it.

For years, I have known this and used it, but not in all areas of my life. Brian Tracy, one of my favorite gurus, suggested using this Law for getting parking spaces. Since then, anytime I am driving to a shopping center or a building with limited parking, I start visualizing a parking space opening up for me close to where I am going. It may sound trivial, but it is a great way to test the Law.

The Law of Attraction - what ancient mystics have known for thousands of years, that everything is energy in vibration, has now been scientifically "proven" by quantum physicists. And because your thoughts are energy you attract into your life everything that vibrates in alignment with your thoughts. Think of what you want and you attract it into your life. Think of what you don’t want and you attract that too.

What has surprised me is that there are quite a few people - I received several e-mails after sharing my enthusiasm for “The Secret” in a recent e-newsletter I sent to readers - who question the validity of its power and won’t even try it.

I did look up quotations about “Attraction” for this blog, but they were mainly about what others were attracted to. That is a whole different story.

I know that I am now using the Law of Attraction, revising some of my thoughts and goals, and working on a “dream board.” I have also ordered a couple of new books about the Law of Attraction. My gift to you for the New Year is the link to “The Secret.” If you watch it - or have even been using the Law already - let me know how it worked or is working for you.

Here’s to 2007! Our best year yet!

Curious about Principles: What Are the Ones that You Live By?

Definitions of a Principle: (1) A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
(2) A settled rule of action; a governing law of conduct; an opinion or belief which exercises a directing influence on the life and behavior; a rule (usually, a right rule) of conduct consistently directing one's actions; as, a person of principle.

I am presently listening to Stephen Covey presenting a live seminar on “Principle Centered Leadership.” Therefore, I have been thinking a great deal about principles and decided that this is a good time of year to write a blog about principles - how we embrace them, live by them, make use of them and understand them.

I also have been involved with a program called the “Happy, Healthy and Wealthy Game” - actually the “Game of Life.” We just had a section on the Law of Attraction. To follow up, I watched “The Secret” on my computer - WOW! Powerful! And, one of the spokespersons is James A. Ray, whose book “The Science of Success” I purchased earlier this year. I am just about finished reading it for the first time and Ray devotes it to the seven Power Principles: Understanding, Paradigms, Vision, Partnerships, Giving, Gratitude and Accountability. I am planning to put them to daily use as we enter 2007.

Being full of all of the focus on principles, I thought it would be interesting to find out what the experts have expressed:

• “Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.” - Abraham Lincoln, president
• “It's easy to have principles when you're rich. The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.” - Ray Kroc, businessman
• “General principles... are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree are to its leaves.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet
• “There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles.” - Stephen Covey, businessman
• “Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, president

Some quotations with a bit of a twist:

• “Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.” - Groucho Marx, comedian
• “We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.” - Martha Graham, dancer
• “I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.” - Leonardo da Vinci, artist
• “A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet

And, then as they relate to other fields:

• “Bottom up thinkers try to start from experience and move from experience to understanding. They don't start with certain general principles they think beforehand are likely to be true; they just hope to find out what reality is like.” - John Polkinghorne, physicist
• “And since geometry is the right foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art.” - Albrecht Durer, artist
• “I certainly feel that the time is not far distant when a knowledge of the principles of diet will be an essential part of one's education. Then mankind will eat to live, be able to do better mental and physical work and disease will be less frequent.” - Fannie Farmer, celebrity
• “In the span of my own lifetime I observed such wondrous progress in plant evolution that I look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world as soon as its children are taught the principles of simple and rational living.” - Luther Burbank, environmentalist
• “Market principles are very competitive. There are more losers than winners, and the losers are in pain and sorrow.” - Mary Douglas, scientist

As always, I will leave you with some thoughts for the upcoming week:

• “Know the difference between principles based on right or wrong vs. principles based on personal gain, and consider the basis of your own principles.” - Marilyn vos Savant, writer
• “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower, president
• “‘Think simple’ as my old master used to say - meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.” - Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

And, do have a wonderful and happy, happy Holiday Season! You are all in my heart and I am so grateful that you read and enjoy my blog.

Curious about Comfort: Are You Being Shackled by It or Do You Make Use of It?

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.” - Alan Alda, actor

“A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.” - Denis Waitley, writer

First of all, I want to say that being comfortable with certain areas of our lives, careers and businesses isn’t all bad. However, we are “shackled” when we never try the new and uncomfortable.

I suggest that you make a list of those areas where you do feel comfortable and why, along with a list of the goals and ideas that make you feel uncomfortable and why. If your “comfortable” list is quite long, while the “uncomfortable” list is short, I suggest that it is probably time to tackle some of the uncomfortable actions and ideas. You will quickly discover that overcoming the discomfort and making the uncomfortable, comfortable, you will grow you self esteem quotient at an incredible pace. You will also start enjoying achievements that you never imagined possible.

Several years ago, I worked in a restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights. I always looked forward to going to work, because after working there for years, I had reached a high level of comfort with the job. Yes, I still needed to work hard and think, but I did know “the ropes” so to speak.

Most new areas we try to conquer automatically come with discomfort. Even though I am what I consider to be computer-literate, I find that when I try something new - software, hardware, Internet standards and development/design - just like everyone else, I am uncomfortable and apprehensive.

As usual, I found a plethora of “comfort” quotations by the experts that we all can learn from:

• “Man loves everything that satisfies his comfort. He hates everything that wants to draw him out of his acquired and secured position and that disturbs him. Thus he loves the house and hates art.” - Adolf Loos, architect
• “Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort.” - Humphrey Davy, scientist
• “What keeps so many employers back is simple unwillingness to pay the price, to make the exertion, the effort to sacrifice their ease and comfort.” - Orison Swett Marden, writer
• “Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.” - James Herriot, writer
• “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” - C. S. Lewis, author

Here are a few with an interesting twist:

• “A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.” - Lao Tzu, philosopher
• “Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.” - Billy Graham, clergyman
• “I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.” - William Butler Yeats, poet
• “There is a certain comfort in waking up and finding that Michael Jackson is still the Big Story. At least it tells you that nothing horrible has happened in the world that would force them to move on to real news.” - Pat Sajak, entertainer
• “Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” - John F. Kennedy, president

Tell me. Is your life comfortable - or possibly too comfortable? What uncomfortable tasks could you take on to help you achieve your goals? Are their people in your life that make you uncomfortable? How much discomfort are you willing to stand to reach the next level in your life, career, relationships, and business?

And, of course, two more quotations to consider this upcoming week:

• We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we've established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile. - Earl Nightingale, entertainer
• The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. - Martin Luther King, Jr., leader

Curious about Obsession: When Is It Good? When Is It Bad? And Can It Be Ugly?

“I hire obsessive people, people who literally work 60 to 70 hours a week for months on end and who have fine-tuned detectors for what's good and what's bad. A lot of them have been there for more than a decade.” - Dick Wolf, producer

“The work is a calling. It demands that type of obsession.” - John Pomfret, poet

I chose this blog’s theme, obsession, because I just finished the powerful book by Michael Levine, Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards. It doesn’t matter whether our business is large or small, our obsession with tiny details “not only demonstrates corporate competence, but also shows that the company cares about what the consumer wants.”

Levine spurred me to thinking about having a good obsession toward personal development in my life, work and play. Yes, obsession in these areas can get out of hand and lead to disastrous outcomes. An example is anorexia or bulimia resulting from an obsession with being thin. However, an obsession with eating quantities of food while watching TV can lead to obesity with its unhealthy outcomes.

Of course, I was fascinated to read others’ thoughts in this area, so have several quotations to share with you.

Many look upon obsession and being obsessive with a positive attitude and results:

• “I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.” - John Dalton, scientist
• “I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good.” - Barbra Streisand, actress
• “The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.” - Henry Moore, sculptor
• “Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.” - Napoleon Hill, writer
• “The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.” - Lucian Freud, artist

I do feel that there are those of us - and I count myself in this group - who have an obsessive personality. We easily become obsessed with what we do, who we are and our direction. As long as we use it for good, we will succeed. However, we don’t want to go too far in the wrong direction.

Gates McFadden, actress, sums it up well, “I love a lot of things, and I'm pretty much obsessive about most things I do, whether it be gardening, or architecture, or music. I'd be an obsessive hairdresser.”

And Yoko Ono, artist, wants to avoid it, “I'm a very obsessive type. If I do get into it, I'll soon be there 12 hours a day. I just don't want to do that.”

Other twists on obsession and obsessive behavior include:

• “You will soon find that I am a bit obsessive about my work. And that is a little sad, one often feels strangely restricted, not finding time to simmer, although one actually has many interests.” - Arne Jacobsen, architect
• “There's this obsession with the bottom being the best. So that's why, to get to the top, they want to act like they're at the bottom.” - Stanley Crouch, critic
• “The movers and shakers have always been obsessive nuts.” - Theodore Sturgeon, writer
• “Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” - Claude Monet, artist
• “You try not to be too obsessive about things. We're always conscious that people have a view of us and expect something of us.” - Brian May, musician
• “I am obsessive, also I am industrious. Besides, the time when you are most alive and most aware is in childhood and one is trying to recapture that heightened awareness.” - Edna O'Brien, novelist

And, when an obsession is working against you:

• “I had to learn how to change my thinking, because I can really get caught up in not liking my body. It can turn into obsession, and it can be really bad.” - Carmen Electra, actress
• “The fear of losing success begins when you become entrenched with it. In my case it became an obsession.” - Sammy Davis, Jr., entertainer

Tell me, do you have an obsessive personality? Has obsession worked for you in your life and/or career? Or, has it ever become ugly for you? I would love to hear from you!

Here are a couple of quotations for you to think about and possibly apply to yourself and future path:

• “I think I have an obsessive quality to my personality. What makes things scary is you can't argue with obsession.” - Brad Dourif, actor
• “I learn from thinking about the future, what hasn't been done yet. That's kind of my constant obsession.” - John Cale, musician

Curious about Transparency: What Does It Mean to You? Are You and Your Life/Business Transparent?

“It doesn't bother me to talk about my private life, it doesn't bother me to talk about anything. My life is like a glass of water, transparent.” - Shakira, musician

“My whole life I've been an advocate for open records - transparency in government - because I think it brings with it greater accountability.” - Roy Barnes, politician

And, accountability helps establish trust.

I chose “Transparency” for this week’s topic, because on Friday I started listening to Stephen M. R. Covey’s audio of his book, “Speed of Trust.” In this eye-opening program, Covey talks about the behaviors that engender trust - one of those being transparency. We need to be open and honest and walk our talk.

On the Speed of Trust website I found the following statement that is at the core of Covey’s thesis: “Our definition of TRUST is simple: It is both character (who you are) and competence (your strengths and the results you produce). Trust is the enabling power of leadership influence. It is not soft, slow, risky, or easy. It is a measurable, definable component of all leadership success. It can be both taught and learned.”

With some further searching, I discovered the Transparency website that is described as follows: “...a web site that tries to make things clear. Transparency is based on the idea that all media, politics, and popular culture - and ultimately all aspects of personality - can be opened up to our view and understanding. The site interprets and critiques movies and television, news and political rhetoric, theme parks and advertising, computer games and the Internet, and other creations of contemporary culture.”

And, because all of this made me curious about trust and transparency, I evaluated my feelings and actions. I feel that I am transparent when it comes to what I share with others about my life and business. I also list trust, honesty and integrity high in my list of values. How about you?

Have you ever met someone - it could be a presenter, trainer and or company leader - who you feel is hiding something? Is not being authentic? This is someone we would not trust.

The quotations I found - although not as plentiful as usual - are quite interesting and thought provoking:

• “Society is becoming less and less transparent. People no longer know where decisions that substantially affect their lives are taken, nor by whom, nor how.” - Georg Henrik von Wright, philosopher
• “What I'm thinking about more and more these days is simply the importance of transparency, and Jefferson's saying that he'd rather have a free press without a government than a government without a free press.” - Esther Dyson, scientist
• “I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.” - Simone de Beauvoir, writer
• “It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg. The technique is about transparency, simplicity, making an earnest attempt.” - Mikhail Baryshnikov, dancer

Of course, I found several good quotations by politicians:

• “To restore and keep the public's confidence in the integrity of their government, state government and its officials must be open, honest and transparent.” - John Lynch, politician
• “If we want to truly regain the public's trust, we can provide greater accountability and transparency with a simple step. Let's start by communicating to our constituents about the votes we take.” - Melissa Bean, politician
• “This is a time for leadership and judgment that is not compromised in any fashion. This is a time for transparency and a thorough investigation.” - Cynthia McKinney, politician
• “We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.” - Lee H. Hamilton, politician

Some quotations with a different approach and twist:

• “You don't have these perfectly transparent, simple thoughts. You have thoughts that are all cluttered up, like overused bookshelves.” - Rick Moody, novelist
• “What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency.” - George Jean Nathan, editor
• “There's no sense talking about priorities. Priorities reveal themselves. We're all transparent against the face of the clock.” - Eric Zorn, writer
• “I don't think the rules have kept up on capital markets, I don't think the rules have kept up in terms of transparency in the international scene, and I don't think the rules have kept up on trade.” - James Wolfensohn, businessman

And, a couple to consider and chew upon during the upcoming week:

• “A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., judge
• “But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.” - Anne Tyler, novelist

Isn’t Anne Tyler’s hope for a book, what we also hope for from a person and/or company - the truth and light to shine through?