The few days became a month...

Now, if you don't know Craigslist the way I know Craigslist, here are a few interesting facts: people that post (for themselves or others) on that site are very competitive and live in a scarcity mentality.

Craigslist does not police its boards, it is left to the visitors to "flag" inappropriate content, or spam. And flagging they do.

For one, that site is a spammers' paradise. The spam ads, thinly disguised as regular ads, some days, take up as many as 80% of the ads.

But guess what? those are NOT the ads that get removed, oh no, what gets removed are the competitors' ads. Boggles the mind.

Some advertisers have even smartened up, and they copy the format of the spam, so that they don't get removed.

In the first week I got sucked in, big time. I am not telling you this because I am proud of it, I am telling you because I'll need this for the punchline of this letter :-)

At the beginning of this week, my friend's ads were all flagged, all the way back 45 days earlier. I only wonder how long it took for someone to go back and seek out her ads that far back.

My first reaction was to go and flag THEIR ads... whoever THEY were... and then it occurred to me: If and when I do that, I become just like them.

Instead I prepared a post with the title: "The Boomerang Principle"

Here are the first two paragraphs:

Hi Guys! Whoever is removing ALL my ads,
even taking the time to go back to the
beginning of November to find them all...

The Boomerang Principle says that what
goes around comes around.

And then I just continue with her ad copy, as if nothing happened.
This was 4 days ago... the ad is still there.

But the real lesson to learn is what happened to me:

First off, since I first posted for this friend, my income had dropped about 40%... not good.

Since I posted The Boomerang Principle, I have recouped my losses. In 4 days...

There is truth in The Boomerang Principle.

PS: If you haven't figured: The Boomerang Principle is just one name of the famous Law of Attraction.

...And the Law of Cause and Effect... the law underlying Karma. The law supremely important in Kabbalah. And as we see, the law extremely important to my finances and my well being.

They are a great way for me to track how the methodologies and principles I use in my teaching work. I mean, how effective I am, how effective the methods are. They track my ability to make a difference in the world. (Someone please remind me to write about how I view my making a difference... OK?)

This note reads

Today was a huge success. I did not even recognize myself. I was attempting to have a conversation with my sister when she became extremely aggressive upon trying to control me and failing. She was in my face yelling and pacing around in circles. I remained calm and did not attempt to defend myself as the lies flew at me. I was able to stick to the subject and not accuse. At this point her husband jumped in and tried to intimidate me, pointing his finger in my face and yelling. They both looked like mad men ganging up on me. I did not raise my voice or get emotional. This is the first time in my life I had no fear in a confrontational situation and it felt GREAT! To be honest I think it frightened my sister & her husband. They did not know what to think of me, I have had many weaknesses in the past but now I am strong.

This person, let's call her Josephine (not her real name) was given up for adoption at an early age. A loving couple with two children over 10, adopted her.

The birth children never accepted her as a sibling.

In her mind, in her thinking, in her words, she was abandoned by her mother. She put together a strategy of being meek, never speaking up for herself, always seeking approval, taking care of everyone, etc. to prevent the "inevitable", being put out, cast out, not wanted...

She is a bright and sprightly 50 year old today, with children that disapprove of her, with a nasty divorce behind her, where the ex never paid a dime child support, etc.

She could have continued living this movie, except the soul has been banging, nudging her, so she decided to become her own person.

She got "thought shifted" by Pam Ragland and started to work with me.

We started with the automatic statement of "being abandoned by the mother" and changed it to "her mother loved her so much she wanted her a better life she herself could provide her".

We did not stop there (most methodologies do!) and started to build "legs" to this (this is the way I express that instead of something being just an idea, like possibility in Landmark, etc. we create actions and behaviors and attitudes consistent with that new being, so that it can become a sequel to one's movie, unlike the original script).

We went, and created new ways of being, new attitudes and new behaviors in different, specific to her, situations. Ways of being, attitudes, and behaviors that are "informed by" and based upon this new story, that she had a loving mother who wanted the best for her, and she was indeed lucky, her new parents loved her dearly.

We invented a new way to behave when her children chided her for her view of the world. Instead of choosing to be wrong, or making them wrong for thinking differently, she learned to say simply: "I understand you have a different point of view from mine. That does not make you wrong, or doesn't make you right. We just have a different point of view"

We invented a new way to behave with her siblings, especially her sister. Earlier this year their mother died and left a large inheritance equally distributed among the three children, natural or adopted. The natural daughter is refusing to release Josephine's inheritance. She is feverishly trying to spend the money to not have to give any money to the adopted one.

The note said it better than I could ever say: Josephine stood up to her sister and brother in law, and will do whatever she needs to do to get the money her parents left for her.

Inconsistent with the early story? You betcha! That is the point! Create a new personality and have your future be by your choosing.

Most of us interpret the Law of Attraction as a kind of "Cosmic Soup Kitchen" where you sit at a table, a waitperson comes and takes your order, and then you wait for your order to come.

Sometimes your order comes, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you get something totally different, something that you didn’t want.

Some people's order comes faster than yours, some others' slower, or never.

It all seems random, and capricious. Like the Universe is playing a game with you.

Frustrating to most, happy and great for some. It seems like there are chosen people, or lucky, and something invisible marks YOU as the one who should never get ahead, never get what you want.

You follow the instructions in The Secret, and still nothing.

You can taste the sweet success as you are playing it in your mind's eye, over and over again. Still, Nothing.

I will turn to MY major source of wisdom, the Kabbalah, or the Book of Splendor (The Zohar).
Why? Because it has an answer that I have seen working, all the time.

The answer to this above dilemma is explained in the scene where Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt, they reach the shores of the Red Sea, and the Pharaoh's army is in close pursuit, breathing down their neck.

The Israelites drop on their knees, and cry out to The Creator. A voice comes out of nowhere and says:

Why are you praying? Go into the water!

Moses and the Israelites start walking into the water, that gets deeper and deeper, until it reaches their chin. Then they walk some more, and the waters split, and they can walk across to the other side.When the Pharaoh's army gets there, the waters already seal themselves, and the Israelites are safe.

Interesting story, but it is much more than a story. It is the key to activating the Law of Attraction: after you pleace your "order" in the "Cosmic Kitchen," you need to get into action with certainty, that what you ordered is a done deal.

That act of certainty and courage is what finally activates the Law. Waiting won't.

Now, I know that the missing piece is really, really, really, courage. Or better with capitized: Courage.

I have been of the opinion, after coaching thousands, that the world suffers from courage deficiency.

Courage deficiency is much like calcium deficiency... you cannot assimilate calcium if you don't have Vitamin C, or if your stomach acid is too weak. And you will flush your calcium if you don't have some other minerals... I can't remember, maybe Magnesium?

The same is with Courage. What is taking up the space that Courage should occupy? I say: Fear. I say: mostly unidentified Fear. Because, at least some of us, idle, not acting courageously, don't know we are afraid. We seem to be reasonable, justified by the economy, by lack of time, lack of knowledge, whatever.

If we knew we are afraid, we would at least have a choice about summoning courage...

In my absolutely favorite movie, "Defending Your Life" our hero, played by Albert Brooks, accidentally activates Courage, by seeing that he will spend of the rest of his lives without Julia, played by Merryl Streep, and that is so unbearable, that his courage kicks in, maybe the first time in his life. But it changes how things go from there... he gets what he always wished for, the girl of his dreams.

Now, we could all wait for a circumstance like that, or activate Courage by being a Powerful Manager (tm) in your own life.

Let's return to the imagery I set up with Moses and the Red Sea: I had a realization today, that my MO (modus operandi) is such that I need to be thrown into the water, and THEN I "invent" swimming. Planning and then acting is not my MO.

But unfortunately, for the most part, there is no one to throw you into the water. So you need to do it... So that is my / your next step, to become brilliant at that...

Because going into the water is not an event: every day, when you wake up, you need to do it again.

I call this being a Powerful Manager(tm) in your life: put yourself into a situation where it is either swim or sink... and then start swimming. The style of swimming won't matter: only that you swim.

Your instinct will kick in, and you will swim and "take it home" whatever you were going after. The Universal Law of Attraction activates itself with that courageous act of throwing yourself into the water.

What seems to be YOUR biggest stumbling block to activating The Law Of Attraction? Use the comment form to share…