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Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
Are You Setting Limits On Your Prosperity?
Welcome back!
Years ago, I had a teaching colleague who was slightly taller than six feet six inches. (The fact that he was slightly taller than six feet six was especially important to him because that tiny fraction of an inch meant he was too tall to be drafted.)
While we were working together, he bought a new car with a built-in problem. He was too tall to sit upright behind the wheel. I still can picture him driving along with his head tilted to one side. What was especially interesting to me is that he could sit in my Volvo without having his head bump the roof.
He looked so uncomfortable driving that that I wondered why he bought that particular car. My friend brought up the topic himself. He said he tried other cars that fit him better but he got a good deal on his car. He said he was willing to put up with the discomfort to save money.
A Scarcity Choice
This is a prime example of someone operating from a scarcity model of money. He settled for a car that actually forced him to contort his body to drive, because he told himself he couldn’t afford to have a car that was big enough for his tall body. He made money his master rather than his tool.
The Obvious Question
The obvious question after such a story is, “When have you forced yourself to undergo some sort of contortion in your life because of money?” I’m sure you can come up with some examples. I certainly can. Rather than dwell on that question, I want to make the less obvious distinction between acceptance and toleration.
Acceptance Means Telling the Truth
The second step of the creative process is the acceptance of current reality. In other words, you tell the truth about your current situation. This allows you to know where you are. The more accurate you are, the better, because you can decide what you need to do to create your desired result.
Toleration Means Putting Up With What You Don’t Want
Toleration is a different matter. Toleration means putting up with something undesired without making any effort to change it. You know you are tolerating something when you talk about “putting up” with something. Tolerating is “making do with what you have.” Tolerating is buying a car that forces you to drive with your head cocked to one side, because you tell yourself you don’t have enough money to buy a car that fits you.
The Power of Acceptance
Acceptance of current reality is powerful. Toleration of current reality with no intention to change what you don’t like in your life is debilitating. Creating an Abundantly Alive Now life means that you accept “What Is.” And if “What Is” constricts you and forces you to contort yourself into a structure that does not serve you, you don’t tolerate this situation. You accept it and decide to create a more liberating structure.
This article was originally published October 19, 2004.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2004-10-19.htm
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Why Not Bless Your Creditors?
Blessing Increases Abundance
In my ebook, Debt or Alive: How To Get Out of Debt And Feel Abundantly Alive, I suggest that people bless their creditors.
I must admit I felt a bit uncertain about putting that idea into print, because it seems such an idealistic and naïve suggestion.
In this article, I intend to go beyond what I wrote in the book, and suggest several reasons why blessing your creditors is a powerful practice for creating your “Abundantly Alive Now!” life.
1. What Is Blessing?
The root idea behind blessing is that you desire unconditional, total, and unrestricted good for another person. When you bless, you are recognizing the deepest value of that person. You are expressing in words and actions that you truly desire that the other person prosper, be healthy, be happy, and feel vitally alive.
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”Eric Hoffer
2. Why Bless Your Creditors?
Blessing your creditors might strike you as a ridiculous notion. Why would you want your creditors to prosper?
Here are two thoughts for you to consider. The first is that quantum physics and spirituality claim that you get back what you put into the world. If you pay what you owe to others, others will pay what they owe to you. If you think thoughts of prosperity for others, you will be much more likely to experience prosperity.
If these claims represent reality, sheer self-interest is reason enough to bless those you owe.
3. What Your Creditors Have Done For You
Beyond self interest, blessing your creditors is an act of gratitude for what other people have done for you.
If you owe money to someone, it is because you bought something using borrowed money. It could have been something you really desired to have. It could have been something you bought because of a sudden emergency.
Whatever the reason, you were able to buy something without putting your own money on the line at the time of the purchase.
Whatever you charged, you got something for your money. And even more significantly, behind every loan and every bill you owe charge, there is a person or group of people who did something for your benefit.
You can make a case that the banks are taking advantage of you. Fees and interest rates can be excessively high. Our economic system has allowed people to borrow who are not strong credit risks. People get in trouble because they are overextended.
However, it is also true that no credit card company has ever forced me to buy anything. If I owe money, it is because I made a decision to buy something.
4. The Benefits of OPM
Consider also the concept of OPM, which stands for Other People’s Money. Most of us would not be able to buy houses or cars without an economic system in place which lets us borrow Other People’s Money.
Entrepreneurs are able to use OPM to establish all kinds of businesses, which they would not be able to start unless other people have loaned them money.
Consider also that your ability to get a loan or buy on credit says something about you. The creditor thinks you are trustworthy. You can use credit foolishly or you can take credit and turn that borrowed money into the foundation of your own financial independence. This is especially true in real estate investing where you can buy property with no money of your own.
My point is that your ability to get credit is itself a source of blessing
5. Pay With Gratitude
Once you acknowledge the connection between your debts and what other people have done for you, gratitude is an appropriate response. One way to express gratitude is by blessing those you owe. Whether you pay by check or some other means, you can send positive thoughts that your creditors will prosper. Be grateful for what they did for you. Send them the money you owe gladly and willingly. You are paying them for doing something for you.
6. The Benefits of Blessing Your Creditors
Believe it or not, blessing those you owe will have two results. One is immediate. You will feel better. Try it once. You cannot be angry and afraid at the same time you are sending thoughts of blessing.
The second result might not be immediately apparent, but this simple act of blessing those you owe will sooner or later bring powerful changes in your life. When you use your money to bless others, others will use their money to bless you.
This article was originally published October 5, 2004.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2004-10-05.htm
To Sign Up For This Newsletter
Please visit http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com
Discover how to take the consumer money mindset lid off your real estate investing.
Click here: http://www.nomoneylimits.com
© 2004 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
Debt or Alive, Inc.
2248 Meridian Blvd. Suite H
Minden, NV 89423
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Awareness Is The Secret Weapon Of Abundance
The Power of Awareness
1. What Is Your Current Financial Reality?
According to Robert Fritz, the essential second step in the creative process to analyze where you are right now. Fritz says that setting your goal is the easy part of creating. The hardest part is to accurately assess current reality. He claims that this is the primary reason that people fail to create what they desire.
For example, if you set out to travel to Hawaii, it is critical to know where you are when you start. The route to Hawaii is dramatically different if you are in Tokyo rather than Topeka.
In addition to your desire to create financial abundance, you also need to have an accurate assessment of your current income, expenses, liabilities, and assets.
“The best advice about money is only three words: Get it handled!”
T. Harv Eker, Speedwealth
2. Doing What Most People Do
Successful people often claim that the secret to success is to observe what most people do and do the opposite. If we apply this criterion to awareness of our financial lives, the question is, What do most people do?
Women especially have been taught to be unaware. How many old movies include a man telling a woman, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about money?”
I was in a shop in Carmel, California once, waiting to pay for a ceramic tile of a dolphin to hang on the sofit in my kitchen.
Another customer was ahead of me. She handed over a credit card. That card was declined. She handed over a second credit card. That card was also declined. She handed over a third card. That one was approved, to the relief of everyone watching. The woman signed her name on the slip. The clerk handed her the paper, and she tossed it down on the counter, saying, “I don’t need it.”
I remember the astonished look on the clerk’s face. This is a woman who doesn’t know where she stands, and probably has a husband or sugar daddy paying the bills for her.
I also remember a good friend whose husband left her for another woman. When my friend got around to checking her bank accounts, she found out that her husband had taken all the money. She was also a woman who didn’t know where she stood, until it was too late to protect her own assets.
It is also a sad reality of life that legions of widows are left with shoe boxes full of receipts and no knowledge of what to do with money.
3. Electronic Banking and Financial Awareness.
Although I can’t prove it, I see a direct correlation between increased personal debt and growing reliance on electronic banking. The more banks make it easy for us to conduct our financial lives electronically, the less aware we become of our current economic reality while we plunge deeper and deeper into debt
4. Two Benefits of Financial Awareness.
There are two positive benefits to being aware of your own current financial reality.
The first is that knowing where you stand saves you from unwanted emotional and financial consequences. Perhaps you know what it feels like to hand over a credit card with your fingers crossed, because you don’t know how close you are to your credit limit.
Financial awareness simply costs less than unawareness. You pay fees and penalties to bounce checks and send in late payments. You end up with higher interest rates and lower credit scores, which can affect your ability to get additional credit.
A second benefit of financial awareness might not be as obvious. Knowing where you stand can be very encouraging.
Businesses create profit and loss statements to give a complete financial picture. If all you do is look your expenses and liabilities, you can be easily discouraged. You get a more complete picture by including your assets as well as your liabilities. You might find that you are closer than you think to creating financial abundance.
This article was originally published October 12, 2004.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2004-10-12.htm
To Sign Up For This Newsletter
Please visit http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com
Discover how to take the consumer money mindset lid off your real estate investing.
Click here: http://www.nomoneylimits.com
© 2004 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
Debt or Alive, Inc.
2248 Meridian Blvd. Suite H
Minden, NV 89423
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What Is The Difference Between a Real Estate Investor And A Gambler?
Gamble: To play games of chance for money or some other stake. An act which depends on games of chance.”
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary
Getting money by beating the odds is on my mind this week because I have just returned from Las Vegas. I want to tell you up front that I don’t gamble in Las Vegas. I was there to attend a real estate investment seminar.
I also want to tell you that I make no judgments about the ethical or moral aspects of gambling. I also make no judgments about gambling as a pastime. Obviously thousands of people find gambling fun. What interests me is the connection between gambling and money.
Walk through a Las Vegas casino and you will see people mechanically feeding slot machines, hoping for a payoff, motivated by a combination of greed and hope.
“Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.” Wilson Mizner
Las Vegas dangles before people the promise of winning lots of money. Money is both the price of playing and the tangible reward for winning. But the real game is much deeper.
Unless people are hopelessly na
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