Prosperity Thinking & Personal Power
Dear Friends,
Today we have a gift from my good friend – Jerry Gillies. Some of you will remember Jerry from his podcast and interview back in August.
I first got to know of Jerry and his best selling book Moneylove (2 million copies sold) via my Dad – who credits Jerry with being his No. 1 Prosperity Thinking Mentor. Jerry has had an interesting and adventurous life to say the least, including spending time in prison (Not really as bad as it sounds and there are things that can be said in mitigation – but as with everything Jerry takes full responsibility for the outcome.)
Today’s podcast and edited Transcript below is actually a recording from a seminar presentation Jerry did some time ago – but I can tell you, the principles and the insights Jerry shares are as relevant today as they ever were. Universal and Ageless Principles of Success!
Many of us are too busy to take time for ourselves – but in this Holiday period, I encourage you take the time out to read / listen to life-enriching materials such as this. Jerry challenges my thinking – in a very positive and wholesome way. It may appear a little ‘alternative’ in places, but I do encourage you to give it a try.
Also if you did not pick up Jerry’s The Moneylove Manifesto last time you can opt-in to receive it by entering your email below, confirming our followup email (just so we know you are a real person and not some spammy bot). That is all you need to do -
Jerry also sent me a brilliant quote the other day which I would like to share:
As we begin the second decade of this historic New Millennium, we have a rare opportunity for a do over (Start Over), a fresh start–but we can’t achieve this by doing the same old things the same old way.
For so many the New Millennium was going to be a New Life, a New YOU – but it never happened. As we move towards 2010, take Jerry’s advice and “Start Over” – it is never too late to live life on your terms and to experience the life of your Dreams. Enjoy Jerry’s recording – I would love to hear your thoughts on Jerry’s Personal Power Philosophy.
Enjoy Great Company, Eat well and Love Life
Happy Holidays Everyone.
Michael
PS: Jerry could easily sell this recording for at least $47 – so thank you once again Jerry – we appreciate your generosity.
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Jerry Gillies – Personal Power
Edited Transcript – for the full presentation please listen to the Podcast
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Now personal power is not manipulating or controlling other people. A lot of us have held onto a belief, and it has been programmed into us from a lot of sources, that power is, in fact, the ability to get other people to do what you want them to do. That is not what power is about. Power is love, and power is energy. And power, the first secret about power, is that it ‘s the ability to act. It’s the ability to create. It’s the ability to do whatever you want to do. Not to get someone else to do it, but the ability to do it, to create, and to act.
And perhaps an ideal definition, or example, or analogy of that comes from my friend Michael Coleman, who is obviously a very appropriate friend for me to have, because he is not only a professor of philosophy, but he happens also to be a financial planner.
And Michael told me a story, a Zen story, and Zen stories are those stories that you can ponder on for days and you always have new insights in looking at them from every possible direction. And this is a very simple Zen story about the man who goes to a Zen master, and he says, “Oh Zen master, I would like to study with you, and I am not sure if you are the person I should study with. There is another Zen master I visited and he can perform miracles. He can set up a canvas on an easel on one side of a river and be on the other side and paint a picture on that canvas from the other side of the river. That is a miracle. What can you do?”
And the Zen master said, “Well that is indeed a miracle, and I also perform miracles. I eat when I am hungry and I sleep when I am tired.” Now that might sound like a facetious response, but that, in fact, is what personal power is about. It is about the ability to do whatever you want when you want to do it. It is about the ability to eat when you are hungry and sleep when you are tired.
Now you may think you already do that. But, in fact, there’s probably a very good chance that you eat when it is lunchtime whether you are hungry or not, or you eat when people put food in front of you whether you are hungry or not. And there is probably a good chance that you sleep because it is midnight and it is time to go to sleep.
My good friend Leo Buscaglia tells a story about a country he visited in Asia where everybody was gathered around having a wonderful time. And we’ve all been in gatherings like that. You are all having a wonderful time, and everybody’s excited, and everybody’s up, and everybody’s energized. And what happens in this country, it may be 12:30 or one o’clock and someone will turn to their mate and say, “Oh, it is one o’clock! Better go home and go to bed!” No matter what else is going on. No matter how excited they are, how alive they are.
And Leo says that in this country that he visited, they don’t do that. When they’re having a good time, they just continue the good time. They all climb into bed together!
[laughter]
So, we don’t always sleep when we are tired, and we don’t always eat just when we are hungry. And personal power is the ability to start creating, in your life, the awareness that you are totally in charge of your life. You are totally in charge of your time.
Part of the secret of personal power is realizing that anything that is going on in your life, can enrich your life.
Any moment that is happening can be a power moment for you, a moment of realization, a moment of understanding, a moment of connection.
One of the strategies that I would like to suggest to you is that you make a list of 100 of the most powerful moments in your life. What have they been throughout your life? If you look back and start to catalogue powerful moments, those instances in which you had realization, in which someone said something to you that totally transformed your life or your perception of some aspect of your life.
For example, a friend of mine, Ilana Rubenfeld, who’s a world famous psychotherapist and body worker, and one of the wisest people I know in New York. We were talking several years ago, and she said something to me, one sentence to me, that forever changed my perception of relationships between men and women. She said that the biggest problem in relationships is that people keep falling in love with potential. Does that ring any bells? And that when you fall in love with potential, it means you are not yet ready to receive. That you are ready, instead, to be a teacher, or a therapist, or a parent, but you are not ready to receive when you are falling in love with potential.
Because the truth is, when you fall in love with potential, the potential may very well be there, but there is a good chance, when it is realized, you won’t be. There is a good chance that when that person reaches their full potential, they will want to hang out with new people at this new level of potential and not with the person who supported them as they were struggling to get there.
And you have seen this in patterns time and time again in relationships. One of the most notorious, of course, is the doctor whose wife worked to send him through school, and then, when he finally reaches his pinnacle of success, he tosses her aside for some cute nurse who has something in common with him because they are sharing their work.
So falling in love with potential was a whole new idea for me. In that instant, that powerful moment, it transformed the way I looked at my relationships. And we will see if we can create some power moments together over the next few minutes.
Now, the first secret of personal power, being the fact that power is the ability to act, is something that we can all accept intellectually. But, I will let you on a sub-secret about all of that, and that is that if you are holding onto a belief that power is the ability to manipulate or control or to influence other people, then you’re going to be preventing yourself from reaching your full level of personal power.
And one way to check this out is to think about who you picture when I say, “Picture some very powerful people.” Are you picturing, in fact, people who are political figures, or industrialists, or people who have made a mark in the world by being in charge of some large enterprise? What do you picture when people say, “That is a powerful person”? Do you picture artists and musicians as powerful?
Because no matter what you tell yourself about power being the ability to act, if at a deep level in your subconscious awareness you are picturing powerful people as being people who manipulate or control then it is going to be impossible for you to realize your full level of personal power in the ability to act, the ability to create.
And it’s going to be impossible for you to do something that’s absolutely essential if you are to realize your full level of personal power and that’s to really love being powerful. To love it. To honor it. To trust it. It is part of your divine essence. Personal power at a very deep level is part of your divine essence.
And the second secret about personal power is that you already have all that you will ever need to do whatever you want. No one can give you personal power and no one can take it away. No one can give you personal power and no one can take it away. You can choose to give some of it up, temporarily, to others.
And in fact to some extent you are doing that right now by listening to me temporarily. Some people give up their personal power longer than temporarily, sometimes to a guru or a master where they are doing what that person tells them to do. And that is leaving your own divine essence for whatever period of time you do that.
It is not realizing the full majesty of your personal power. Anytime you temporarily give up your personal power it’s very important that you make an inner commitment to get it back, and get it back soon.
Personal power is exciting. And excitement is part of the secret of personal power.
Norman Cousins is a man who has a lot of personal power. A very powerful being on this planet. And when I interviewed Norman for a book I did called “Psychological Immortality” about using your mind to extend your life, I asked him a question.
And it was an obvious question for somebody who has supped with kings and the great scientists and the great spiritual leaders on the planet.
I said, “What, for you, designates a successful human being? What sets apart someone who is very successful from someone who may not be? What is the one thing that you noticed that successful people have in common?”
And he said,
“There is one overriding factor, there is one thing I’ve noticed, that every successful person I’ve ever interviewed or visited with seems to have and that is that they wake up every morning with robust expectations.”
And I have adopted that term as one of my own personal favorites – as something that indicates for me personal power. Robust expectations.
To wake up in the morning and say,
“What exciting and new and wonderful is going to happen to me today? Who exciting and new and wonderful is going to happen to me today?”
One of my basic affirmations is,
“Something or someone new and exciting will happen to me today.” And as long as I remember to say that to myself it always happens.
Today is just more proof of that with all of you gathered here. Many new and exciting someones happening to me today and for you also.
So personal power is the ability to ask for what you want. To give yourself power messages that then will manifest themselves.
In fact, one of my power messages that I give to myself and I invite you to adopt is that anything worth having is worth having fun getting. Anything worth having is worth having fun getting. Whatever it may be.
You deserve more prosperity and more love and more recognition for your creative efforts and more of everything wonderful in your life, that’s part of what personal power is all about. And you’ve already created it in your life.
Now everybody has a lot of personal power and not everybody feels comfortable using it.
The third secret of personal power, power is the ability to act; First secret. You already have all the power you need; the second secret. And the third secret I want to share with you is that each of us has an inner saboteur that will get in the way of you using your personal power. A little voice inside that says “Neh-neh-neh-neh, you can’t do that.”
My voice is called Stanley. Stanley is small and rotund and has a very big mouth. And Stanley gets activated quite often when I’m involved in new and exciting things on the leading edge of discovery. And Stanley will say, “That won’t work. You can’t do that. You don’t deserve this. Your life is too easy. You’re not working hard enough. You’re a lazy bum.”
Whatever Stanley says to tear away at my personal power. And we all have that little voice, whatever you want to name it.
And I’ll tell you a secret, you will never get rid of it entirely. Too many years of programming. Too many years of messages telling you that this wasn’t possible and that wasn’t possible and you don’t deserve this and you don’t deserve that.
You never get perfect where Stanley totally disappears.
And the secret of dealing with Stanley is what I call my “Lose Stanley in the Crowd” theory. You lose that inner voice in a sea, in a crowd of positive voices so that he drowns.
And I literally picture Stanley being inundated by all the positive messages I feed into my subconscious mind. By all the positive people I surround myself with. By all the positive energy that’s around me. By the positive music I listen to. By the positive way in which I live my life.
And I listen to positive tapes and CD’s. And I listen to positive messages. And I read positive books. And I am aware that I never lose the need to feed the positive energy in to lose Stanley in the crowd. Because, he’ll bubble up to the surface when I let go of that.
To give you an example: there was a period in my life, 1982, one of those periods in all of our lives that everything seems to be working in exactly the opposite way that you would like it to work.
I was traveling cross country in my motor home. I had recently met a beautiful woman who was a mystery writer and I had these fantasies of us writing mystery novels together. And perhaps spending the rest of our lives together. And she had the same fantasies and we shared them. And I was driving cross country and our relationship had just started, and she had a realization that she really was in love with the man she had just left. And so, I got a “Dear Jerry” letter.
[laughter]
And at that moment, when I got the “Dear Jerry” letter, my motor home fell apart.
[laughter]
In a little town in New Jersey, I turned my motor home over to Guido, a mechanic.
[laughter]
And I gave my power up to Guido, who said that he could absolutely put a brand new engine in that motor home. And I literally lived in the parking lot of his garage for 10 days while he fumbled around with that engine.
Several projects I was working on did not turn out the way I expected them to. I drove down to Florida a week and a half late, so the people I was attempting to visit in Florida had left town.
[laughter]
And I was feeling totally deprived and depressed. Nothing seemed to be working. And I got mail forwarded from Malibu to me in Florida, a batch of mail from several weeks. And people were writing me: “Jerry, I listened to your tapes. I made $300,000 last month.”
[laughter]
“I met my soul mate. I’m in love!”
[laughter]
“My whole life has changed. I read your book or I attended your seminar.” And dozens of these letters. And it was a very humbling experience to realize that all of these people were doing my stuff better than me.
[laughter]
So I decided to read “MoneyLove”.
[laughter]
And I took out my tapes and I started playing them. And I must confess, I was impressed.
[laughter]
I heard powerful messages directly aimed at my subconscious mind that I don’t remember even recording. I was driving along listening to my tapes and saying, “That’s the most wonderful thing I have ever heard! Who is this person? I gotta go hear him!”
And there was a great truth for me in that moment, that power moment. And that truth relates to all of us; that we, in fact, have powerful messages to deliver ourselves and to listen to; that we, in fact, have a lot to teach ourselves if we only listen. And sometimes, you can go back and listen to your messages, which is why it is so important to keep a journal or some record of the ideas that come into your mind when they come in; to keep a record of your successes, because one of the other powerful things you can do for yourself is to celebrate your success at the moment it occurs.
A lot of you are familiar with one of my strategies I talk about in seminars and on my tapes called “The Joyful and Triumphant Fund”, in which I suggest that whenever you have a joyful and triumphant event in your life, that just makes you bubble over with excitement, and enthusiasm, and joy, and pleasure–you go to the bank and you get a hundred dollar bill out to celebrate that event, and you start carrying it around with you. And you had a hundred dollar bill every time you have a new joyful and triumphant event. And people have reported back to me it has transformed their awareness of how many successes they have in their lives.
Because too often, we celebrate the obstacles. We celebrate the failures. Too often, we celebrate our mistakes by remembering them and commemorating them, and playing them over and over again.
And we’re taught, at a very early age, that we learn from our mistakes; that adversity is a great teacher. And perhaps the most provocative thing I will say to you is that that’s not true. That isn’t true. It is a big lie. At the best, what you learn from a mistake is not to do that mistake again. It just gets you to ground zero.
In order to be successful, you have to study success. And the best place to start is with your own. And we’ve all had successes. So I’ll suggest that you make a list of 100 of your greatest successes. These are power lists, one hundred being a very significant number. One hundred powerful moments in your life. One hundred of your greatest successes. And it is all right if some of the items on your list overlap. You cannot pay too much attention to your successes, to the wonderful moments in your life.
And to celebrate each of those moments as they happen with a hundred dollar bill is a very majestic way to do that. And when you get up to a significant pile of hundred dollar bills, where there is an unseemly bulge on your person, then you can just do whatever you choose to do with them. You can buy something wonderful for yourself, or you can start a power vacation fund.
And the way you do this is when you get enough money to have two wonderful days somewhere, a very exotic, exciting, expensive, luxurious resort, perhaps. You get enough money to spend two days in that resort and you spend one day there, instead. And you take the other half of that money and that is your power vacation fund.
And when you get enough money in that fund to spend two weeks somewhere wonderful, you spend a week somewhere wonderful. And that money left over is the seed money for your next power vacation, which is two months somewhere wonderful.
When you have enough money to spend two months somewhere wonderful, you, instead, spend one month somewhere wonderful, and that one month’s worth of money that is left over is for the two year power vacation fund.
And when you get to that level and take one year somewhere wonderful, whatever you want to do with a year, you will be at such a level of prosperity and producing and personal power that you probably will never again have to work to produce the money you want. You will be able to play and produce whatever you want.
And part, for me, of personal power is the ability to not see clearly the difference between work and play. Now in most other aspects of life, I really stress the importance of clarity of vision. And having a clear vision of what you want is one of the essentials if you want to get somewhere.
But in terms of work and play, it is very advisable, if you want to have a life filled with personal power and prosperity, to not see so clearly the differences, to not say, “This is work and this is play. This is what I do to earn my daily bread and this is what I do to spend my daily bread, or to play with it, or to have fun with it.” Because that is a very poor bargain.
One of the secrets I’ve learned over the years, and you’ve learned it too, even if you haven’t articulated it, is that it is a very poor bargain to exchange current time for something in the future. To say that I am going to work 40 years so I can retire is a very poor exchange, even if you make it.
The average person in this country lives six and a half years after retirement. That is not a very long time, and you hardly get your money’s worth if you’ve been working for 40 years, no matter how wonderful retirement is. And it is not for most people. Why? Because they have struggled with that very clear distinction: “This is my work, and when I finish my work, I can relax and play in retirement.” The truly successful people on this planet wouldn’t think of retiring; they are having too much fun to retire.
And you look at the people who pass the statistical averages on longevity. When I did a book on longevity, I studied a lot of these people. Who are these people? They are the artists and the musicians. They are people who are totally involved in what they do and totally excited about it, and in love with it.
So, one of the signs of personal power is to love the work you do. And you can check out, in fact, whether you love the work you do. One way to check it out is to ask yourself a very simple question.
“If I had all the money I needed to live in whatever style I wanted to live for the rest of my life, would I, in fact, still be doing this work?”
Another question to ask yourself about work is, “If I suddenly discovered I only had five years to live, would I still want to do this work?” Another question, and perhaps one of the most searching ones to ask about work, is that very simple question: “Do I allow the petty and trivial things connected with my work to upset me?” Because, in fact, if you are even aware of the trivial and petty aspects of your work, then your work is not exciting you at the level and not engaging you at the level that truly releases your personal power. Because when you’re really involved in your work, you don’t even notice those trivial little things that might get in the way.
What are the aspects of your work that enliven and enrich you? And, in fact, one of the secrets of personal power is to see how much of yourself is present in the work you do. How much of you is visible in the work you do?
Someone watching you work, would they know how wonderful a human being you are? Would they know how loving you are, how adventurous you are, how exciting you are, how powerful you are by watching you at work? Does that part of you manifest itself in the work you do, or are you shortchanging yourself?
Are you doing work that doesn’t totally realize all the magic you possess? Are you doing work that doesn’t totally fulfill you? Now, when you have personal power, when you manifest that divine essence within you, you get to find your true vocation. You don’t have to go searching for it. You get to find it, and you get to realize, also, that life is a constant series of moving into true vocations.
Most of us, and when I talk to college audiences and to students about the careers they’re going to choose, I tell them that you may not suspect this right now, but there is a very good chance that whatever you choose, 10 years from now, you will not be it any longer.
And most of us have been in several careers. I started out as a broadcast journalist; a newsman, and commentator, and business reporter. And at the tender age of 30, I reached New York, which was supposedly the pinnacle of success in NBC, and I looked around and I said, “Well, is this all there is?”
And I looked around and I saw people who had been at NBC for 30 years and were still doing what they had done 30 years before; very successful, lots of money, a nice lifestyle. And I said, “30 years from now, is this what I want to be doing? Do I even want to know what I’ll be doing 30 years from now?” And I said, “No. Part of the excitement was getting here. Most of the excitement was getting here. So where am I going next?” I decided I wanted to write and, in some way, teach, and so that is what I chose to do. What are you going to choose when this vocation no longer is fulfilling you? It is important to know that.
Some of my most powerful moments, as I make a list out of powerful moments, one hundred of them in my life, some of those moments occurred in green rooms. Green rooms are those rooms that you sit in while you are waiting to go on a television talk show. And there are fascinating people there. All the other guests are there, and you get to meet them. And some are amazing, and some are very strange. I mean I have been in green rooms with prize winning hogs.
[laughter]
And at Christmastime once with two reindeer.
[laughter]
And with sexual surrogates. And with a Tiddlywinks champion. I mean as you travel the talk show circuit, you will meet amazing people. One of the amazing people I met was Wally Schirra, one of the original seven astronauts. And Wally Schirra was talking about the fact that he was in business, in Denver, Colorado this happened to be. And he said the first questions people asked him is, “How can you stand it? How can you stand just being in business after having soared above the earth? Isn’t that a comedown? Isn’t that a big letdown for you?”
And Wally Schirra said, “No. No, I always wanted to be in business. The idea of business always excited me. In fact, when I was flying, before I even knew I was going to be an astronaut, I thought that when I retired, I wanted to be in business, and I was looking forward to that, because my daddy told me something. He said that whenever you start approaching a goal, you had better have another goal or you will stall out. You will get stuck.” And we have seen this happen time and time again in many people’s lives, and perhaps in your life at some point. You stall out. You don’t know what you are going to do next when you reach that magical goal.
And there are plenty of things that each of us could choose to do when we reach that goal. We all have unrealized dreams. Now part of realizing more of your personal power is to start realizing some of those unrealized dreams.
I have an unrealized dream: to someday play the piano and sing in a little bar in New York City; a romantic little bar. I would play and sing George Gershwin and Cole Porter, Jerome Kern.
Now I don’t sing or play the piano. But I refuse to let that stand in the way of that dream. And I really believe that if I chose to, I could create that dream happening for myself. If that is a true priority of mine, I would start to take piano lessons and voice lessons, and I, in fact, could accomplish that.
A workshop I took… Living in Southern California, almost anything you are interested in, you will find a workshop addressing that subject. There was a workshop called “The Joy of Singing” and I participated in that workshop.
Now, I want you to know that I have never sung in public to that point. In fact, when I would sing…my strongest memory of singing was being in the backseat of the car, my mother and father in the front seat, and I would start singing, and my father would say something about, “Will you stop making that strange noise?” And I was told from a very early age that I could not carry a tune.
And “The Joy of Singing” was a workshop in which you got to work on a musical piece with a pianist. And at the end of the workshop, on Sunday night, you stood up in front of a hundred people and sang a song. And I did this. And despite the reaction of the audience, I would probably do it some other time.
[laughter]
It was the single scariest moment. I mean I had been in encounter groups, and I had been in workshops where you revealed the real truth about yourself. Standing up in front of a hundred people and singing was the scariest single thing I had ever done, and it was worth it.
Another secret about personal power is that you get more of it when you confront those things that frighten you. One of my power statements is, “Action diminishes fear.” We have all experienced this in our lives. How many times have we been afraid of something and we have done it, and the fear has disappeared, has dissipated?
The willingness to take action in your life, the willingness to allow that action to diminish your fear will realize more of your personal power. Personal power is also all about letting go of the old programming, and old messages, and old beliefs, and old ideas that are no longer serving you. For, if the truth be known, if you are not now financially independent, which means you do not have to work for a living, you have money rolling in in ever increasing amounts, and if you are not now totally in love with someone very special in your life, or several someones very special in your life, or if you are not now totally recognized for what you do in the world, applauded and appreciated to a large measure, by the people you want to appreciate and applaud you. If you are not totally fulfilled in your work, doing work that you really love and really believe is important, and if you are not in total wonderful health and vitality. If you are not all of these things to the utmost level of perfection then your belief system is not working for you in the ideal way that you deserve to have your belief system working for you.
One of the things you have to do to have a belief system work for you is you need to toss aside all your preconceived notions. One of my favorite statements is by Thomas Huxley, who said, “Sit down before fact as a child. Toss aside all your preconceived notions. Follow humbly wherever nature leads or you will learn nothing.”
To sit down before fact as a child means to have that sense of wonder and curiosity about the world, about life that a child has, before you were programmed that it was not permissible to have that. Before you were told, “Don’t touch”, or “Grow up and act your age.” Which meant, be serious, take life seriously. To toss aside all preconceived notions, they will get in your way. They will rigidify your belief system.
There are a number of statements that you could make for yourself and to yourself if you are really living to the highest level of personal power and expressing that in your life. I would like to share some of these statements with you, and have you identify whether they are, in fact, true right now.
The first statement, “I feel successful in my life.” At a very feeling level of awareness is this true for you? “I feel successful in my life.” When you walk into a room do you feel that you have arrived? And do you sense that other people know you have arrived? Or do you sometimes get the feeling that when you walk into a room everybody else thinks somebody just left? Do you feel successful?
Another statement, “I can easily produce all the money I want.” Is this a belief system you are holding right now? “I can easily produce all the money I want.” When I teach prosperity consciousness what I am trying to teach is not that you accumulate large amounts of money and have them sit in vaults somewhere.
But that you in fact have an awareness and a belief, supported by your action, that you can easily produce all the money you want, for whatever you want. That you use money well. You can easily produce it, you use it well, you enjoy it and you can produce more whenever you want it. This is personal power. This is what being a prosperous person is about.
Now, sometimes you’ll read an article and it will say, “This famous person earned 18 million dollars in their life and they died broke.” And people say, “Isn’t that a shame? Isn’t that terrible? Isn’t that a sign that they were a failure?” And I say, “That’s ridiculous.” As far as I am concerned that is an indication of perfect timing.
[laughter]
To take it a step further, to be able to die owing American Express three million dollars might really exemplify prosperity consciousness.
[laughter]
Another statement for you, and see whether it is true, “There is a lot of love in my life. There is a lot of love in my life.” Is this something you can feel? Is this something you can identify with?
“I am in charge of my time and can use it however I choose. I am in charge of my time and can use it however I choose.” Is this a belief you have about yourself? Or, in fact, are you a slave to your time? So that if someone came up to you and said, “Something wonderful is happening, I know you are going to be excited about it, it is happening tomorrow.” And you look at your schedule and say, “No way, I’m already scheduled. I’m booked solid.”
A lot of people go through life thinking that the secret of success is to be booked solid. To have a large book to schedule yourself in and have it filled up from cover to cover with appointments and meetings, and even your vacation scheduled to the minute detail. That is not, as far as I am concerned, a sign of being in charge of your time.
Being in charge of your time is being able, if someone came up to you and said, “Tomorrow, I want to invite you on a wonderful trip to Tahiti for one month, can you come?” And you being so in charge of your time and saying, “Absolutely, everything else can get taken care of. I can go. I’ll be there.” That’s being in charge of your time.
I remember talking to a fellow speaker when I was first going to do a seminar in England, the first of several I did over there. I had arranged, because the person calling me up had asked me something that no one else had ever asked me before, and what she asked was, “What do you want? We want to make your trip over as exciting and wonderful as possible. Anything you want, just ask for it.” And I had to really scratch my head because no one had ever really asked me that before.
And I said, finally, “I want to go over on the Queen Elizabeth II. I want to travel and arrive in style.” She said, “No problem.” And I said, “I want a check in advance for a large amount of money, up front.” I had never asked for that before. She said, “No problem.”
I said, “I would like to, every day of my seminar, get a total body massage. She said, “No problem.” Of course, I must admit, while this was going on I was saying to myself, “You fool, why didn’t you ever ask for this stuff before?”
[laughter]
And also I was scratching my head, internally, and trying to come up with new things to ask for, because she was saying no problem to everything. It is sometimes a very scary thing when someone will say to you, “You can have whatever you want.”
You start to say, “What in the world can I ask for?” I mentioned this to a fellow speaker. And I said, “Have you ever gone over on the Queen Elizabeth II?” He is very successful; he makes more money than I do speaking because he speaks more than I do. His schedule is very full. He speaks perhaps 200 dates a year.
I knew he had been over in England, and I said, “Did you take the Queen Elizabeth II, either to England or back?” And he said, “I can’t afford five days. I can’t afford five days out of my schedule to be on a boat.” Now, in the world, he might appear to be very successful. But in terms of personal power, I do not see this as someone who is in charge of his time.
Another statement to make to yourself, “I am in touch with my creative imagination and feel free to express my ideas.” Do you know how precious this is, to be able to express your ideas freely and easily? To realize that you have a forum in which people will accept your creativity. Whether it be in book form, or music, or the work you do, or in working with people as a physician, or as a psychiatrist, or psychologist, or management consultant, or time consultant. That you have a forum for your creativity.
Another aspect of your work to look at. Does your work allow you to express your creativity?
Another statement, “I receive recognition and acclaim for what I do.” Do you receive recognition and acclaim for what you do, in the world, in your work?
“My life is filled with new and exciting events and people.” Remember that statement. “I wake up every morning with robust expectations.” What are your expectations each morning?
Another statement, “I am excited about new opportunities to learn and grow. I’m excited about new opportunities to learn and grow.” We never lose the need to learn and grow. And I’ll suggest something outrageous to you, and for some of you it isn’t because you are already doing it.
But I suggest that you make what I call the 10 percent personal growth commitment. That is to devote 10 percent of your time and your money to personal growth and self-development. In the next year you will see a profound change in your life if you are willing to do this. And you will see so much more of your personal power manifested.
Another statement that will express personal power for you,
My life is filled with pleasure. My life is filled with pleasure
If you are not happy; you are not successful. You may be driving a Rolls Royce and you may live in Beverly Hills and you may have a lot of recognition and success in your work, and if you are not filling your life with pleasure and joy, you are not successful. You are not expressing your personal power.
And perhaps the key phrase of all, in terms of personal power is:
I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want
I’d like to share an experience with you, and this is a simple strategy that you can use anytime in your life. You can use this strategy before any negotiation, on anything, with anybody. Before any meeting you have with another human being, be it social or business, before any project that you begin. It is a strategy designed to increase your personal power awareness and the ability to manifest that personal power.
You can do it with your eyes open, driving along; you can do it in a very relaxed position with your eyes closed. You can do it whenever your mind is not otherwise engaged. It just takes a moment and it will build, as you continue to do it, it will get stronger.
With me, I would like for you to image now that in the very center of your body is a core of energy and power. You can visualize that anyway you want, perhaps a huge sun, fiery with energy, or some mechanical wonderful machine filled with power. Whatever you want to picture in the very core of your being, as a source of energy.
And as you breathe in, picture that energy and power increasing. It is getting more powerful with every breath you take in. “Every breath I take increases my energy and my power.” And with each exhalation, with each breath you let out you are joyfully sharing your power with others. You are joyfully sharing your power with others.
So, practice this for a moment, breathing in and feeling the power increase, and breathing out and sharing it. Breathing in and feeling your energy moving up, breathing out and sharing that loving energy with others.
As you continue to breathe I want to say several things to you that are absolutely true. You are more powerful than you have ever believed possible. You are a beautiful, wonderful, exciting, magical human being. You are prosperous beyond your wildest dreams. You easily create all the money you desire. You easily and effortlessly create all the love you want in your life.
People want to be near you. People are excited about what you are offering. People want to support and honor and love you. People love to give you money for whatever you are doing. People are attracted to you. You are a successful, exciting, powerful person. You attract everything you want into your life, easily, beautifully, successfully. You are a very special person and you deserve special things happening in your life.
Feel the energy as you breathe in increasing, the power increasing. And as you breathe out share it with others. And say the statement to yourself right now, “I am powerful and I love it. I am powerful and I love it.” Say it to yourself over and over again. “I am powerful and I love it.”
And now say it out loud, with energy and power to express that highest level of personal power that is you. “I am powerful and I love it.”
Audience: “I am powerful and I love it.”
Jerry: “I am powerful and I love it.”
Audience: “I am powerful and I love it.”
Jerry: And one final time with all the power that you possess.
Jerry & Audience:
I am powerful and I love it
[laughter]
Jerry: I have been so blessed to be with you this morning, and I just want to say in closing, more power to you.
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