Interview with Joe Vitale

1 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
BILL HARRIS: Hello. This is Bill Harris, and I want to
welcome you to the Masters of the Secret Series. Tonight’s
guest is my good friend Dr. Joe Vitale. In addition to being
one of the stars of the hit DVD movie, The Secret, Joe is an
author, marketer, seminar leader, and overall renaissance
man. Dr. Vitale, Joe, is the author of far too many books
to mention here. Here are just a few of them: he wrote the
recent number one best-seller The Attractor Factor: Five
Easy Steps For Creating Wealth Or Anything Else From The
Inside Out. This became a number one best seller twice and
even beat the latest Harry Potter book. His latest book which
came out this week is The E-Code: 33 Internet Superstars
Reveal 43 Ways To Make Money Online Almost Instantly
With Only Email and it too is a best seller. Joe also wrote
a fantastic book, the only book on P.T. Barnum’s business
secrets called There Is A Customer Born Every Minute.
Besides all these books, Joe also recorded the number one
best selling Nightingale Conant audio program The Power
Of Outrageous Marketing. Joe is also considered to be
an internet pioneer. His marketing methods have made
people millionaires. He has been involved in every aspect
of marketing from traditional direct mail to publicity to
infomercials. He is the president of Hypnotic Marketing
Inc. and the world’s first hypnotic writer. He recently
created a home study course called Hypnotic Selling
Secrets and made $450,000 in three days selling it online.
Joe knows how to use words. He can say three words to
you and get you to give him all of your money. I hope you
won’t do that because some of you might want to keep your
money. He says he can say eight words and get you to never
have money worries and, he said them to me and I’ve never
had any money worries since. And I don’t know about you
but I am ready to hear this guy, so please welcome Joe “Mr.
Fire” Vitale. Hi Joe, how are you doing?
JOE VITALE: I’m doing fine. We’ve got a rainy day in
Texas here and actually it’s good because we’ve been
through a drought. So I’m doin’ fine. I’m looking out the
window. I’m safe, I’m sound, I’m dry, and I’m watching
the ground get wet so all is well in the world.
BILL HARRIS: Well, that’s good. A lot of people know you
because you really are a master marketer and, we can
maybe touch on some of that but what I really wanted
to talk to you about today was more the spiritual side of
things, the meaning of life, your take on life and success.
I think, if I was to make a general statement about the
people listening to this, I would say in fact, you could say
this I suppose about any people, but people want to be
happy, they want to be peaceful inside and they want to
be successful in the world in some way. And, knowing
you as I do I know that you have some thoughts about
this and I know that like me, you have been searching
in your own life for how to create these things and as
I happen to know that you have done a very good job
of doing this. You know, the $450,000 in three days
and those kinds of things are all great but if you’re not
happy and peaceful and fulfilled in what you are doing,
you know, what does it, what does it mean? So, can
you start off and just sort of talk to me a little bit about
your philosophy of life and anything that comes to mind
about those three things that I mentioned?
JOE VITALE: Wow, I didn’t know that we would go
right into the deep end here and go with these giant
philosophical life-changing, life-quest type questions.
BILL HARRIS: Well we can be practical too.
JOE VITALE: (Laughter). I’ll tell ya, I love what you just
painted here about how everybody wants to be happy and
we want to be successful and we want to be at peace. I
A CONVERSATION WITH JOE VITALE
2 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
think that is ultimately what we are all after, whatever it is
we say we want, whether it’s the new house, the new car,
better health, more wealth, I mean, another relationship,
whatever it happens to be, we want it because we believe
it will help us to be at peace. It will help us to be happy
or happier and what I have discovered for myself and
you know, a lot of other people have discovered it but
discovering it for yourself is always the life-turning
event. What I learned from myself is that you don’t need
any of it to be happy right now and that is probably the
million dollar insight of the day if not of a lifetime, to
realize that right now in this very moment as we live and
breath, as this conversation is taking place, as you are
sitting up in Oregon I believe and I am here in Texas,
we are totally fine. We don’t need anything else to take
place for us to be happy. Happiness, at peace, and so
forth is fundamentally a choice.
BILL HARRIS: Well I totally agree with you and this is
exactly what I have been teaching for years, but you
know, people whose happiness and inner peace are
dependent on what goes on around them have to wait
for perfect circumstances in order to feel good and good
grief, how often does that happen? You know, not very
darned often. And so, I agree with you. It comes from
inside and so the question people often have is, well, so
how do I do that then?
JOE VITALE: Well, you brought up a couple of things
here. First of all I want to agree that most of us, myself
included... I don’t want to act like I am enlightened or
anything here, I have my moments where I recognize
that all is well but I often lose it because I’ll start looking
to outside reality and I will want to change things on
the outside so I feel better on the inside. And I have to
continuously remind myself that no, this is the moment.
It is this moment, the point of power is right now. That
doesn’t mean that I’m not going to go for things on the
outside, it doesn’t mean I’m not going to write another
book or do another promotion or try to make a book a
best-seller, or try to lose more weight, or try to this or
try to do that. I will do all of that but I will do it from
a place of peace and safety and security, and I think
this is the real lesson when you asked, “how do we go
about this?” It’s a matter of realizing you’re totally fine
right now where you are at but you are probably living
like a king or a queen compared to people in 3rd world
countries or people in our past history. You are probably
living this lifestyle that other people if they saw would
be totally envious of, and we don’t pause and appreciate
it because we want more, more, more, and more. So I
think the first step is to realize you’re totally fine where
you’re at. If peace is there available to you, happiness is
in this moment, you can choose to see it, choose to accept
it. And then the second step is to choose what you would
like to have to experience next, and this just sounds like
I’m making it a kindergarten level type of process and in
many ways it is. Be happy now, choose what you’d like to
experience next, start working towards it. There you go.
Three steps, we’re done.
BILL HARRIS: Now just to play devil’s advocate, what do
you say to someone who says, “well, that sounds great
in theory but I just had to declare bankruptcy and my
spouse left me and my dog was killed and everything isn’t
all right, it doesn’t seem like everything is all right for
me now?”
JOE VITALE: I love that you brought that up Bill, I
mean you’re really going for the throat here with these
questions, but they’re the important questions. In my
book, one of the most recent ones, The Attractor Factor,
in the back I have this quote that reminds people to put
things into perspective and I’m not going to be able to give
you the exact quote but the idea behind it is whatever is
going on right now, if it looks absolutely horrible in your
life, one year from now or certainly five years from now,
or certainly 10 years from now, you will look back at this
moment in time and you will find a good way of looking
at it. You will often say—there’s so many cancer victims
for example who will say “cancer was the best thing that
ever happened to me,” but when they were diagnosed
with it, that was a very bad day. I mean a very bad day.
But a year later, five years later, whatever it happened to
be, they will look back and say it was the most beautiful
thing that ever happened and for a variety of reasons.
3 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
It may have helped them build strength, it may have
helped them learn discipline, it may have helped them
believe in magic and miracles, it may have helped them
believe in realizing the beauty of each moment. I don’t
know what that is but what I am suggesting here is that
this moment, if the wife did leave or the husband and the
dog died and whatever else happens to have been there,
five years perspective will give you a different view of
this moment in reality. So if that five year’s perspective
is available to you five years from now, it’s available to
you right now.
BILL HARRIS: Well you know, one of the things that I
teach is that the entire key to life is what you focus on.
JOE VITALE: Yes, yes.
BILL HARRIS: And, so if something that you would prefer
not to happen happens and good lord, that happens to
everyone. If you go a week where something happens or
even a whole day that something that you didn’t want to
happen to you happens, then I think that would be pretty
extraordinary. You know Napoleon Hill always said,
“Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent
or greater benefit.”
JOE VITALE: Yes, absolutely.
BILL HARRIS: And that you have to look for that benefit.
So when something happens, if you focus on, “what could
the potential benefits of this be?” it takes your mind in a
whole new direction that creates a completely different
reality for you, than if you start instead focusing on what
you don’t like about what has happened.
JOE VITALE: Absolutely. It’s a fundamental law in
psychology that you get more of whatever you focus on,
and again, in The Attractor Factor, I say that’s what you
end up attracting into your life. So, if you end up focusing
on whatever it is that you are perceiving to be bad, then
you will get more of those kinds of feelings because
you are in that energy place which you are acting like a
magnet for it, you’ve got to pull more of it to you, you’re
gonna see it because you have the eyes of misery and you
will look for more misery. However, if you look at this
moment and say, “well, that’s an enforcement that took
place, I wonder what the good is in it,” or even better, “I
wonder how I can turn it into something good.” From
a marketing standpoint, I’m always telling people I see
opportunities everywhere because whenever somebody
states a complaint, I hear it as an opportunity. If
somebody complains that a product doesn’t work or
something in their life isn’t going the way they want, I
am thinking in the back of my mind, “I wonder how I
can create a product that will give them what they want,
I wonder how I can create an ebook or an audio or some
sort of product that will help them achieve what they
want.” I hear the complaints as opportunities. That
causes my perception to be completely different. I don’t
get stuck in the mind set of, “I don’t want this,” I get
into the mind set of “how can I turn this into something
positive and of course in my case I want to profit from it
while helping others.” So it is a whole perceptual thing
and it is in our control. The vast majority of people out
there, not the people listening to this call because I’m
sure they’re more elevated in their awareness and their
consciousness, but the vast majority of the people out
there are stuck on that plane of being a victim and as
they look at themselves in their lives as being a victim,
they get more of that kind of stuff. They’ve got to pull in
everything that’s gonna enable them to be a victim. The
ironic thing about all of this is that they are creating it.
They don’t know that they’re creating it because they are
totally unconscious of the process. I tell people including
myself when I look in the mirror that everything that’s
happening in my life is a creation, and I was the guy
creating it.
BILL HARRIS: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, this
whole series that I’m doing, this World’s Greatest
Teachers Series, came about because of this Oracle
database debacle we had that effected tons and tons of
people and I said the very thing we’ve been talking about.
I said, “How can I turn this disaster into something
positive?” and because of that, this series I know is
going to help a lot of people. So if this hadn’t happened
4 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
I probably, you know, I might have
gotten the idea for this series anyway
but it certainly did stimulate me to get
this idea. You know a lot of people
had already heard this story of when
Centerpointe was a year old, we had
a whopping $12,000 in sales the first
year, someone sued me for a million
dollars claiming that I had stolen their
technology and stolen this and stolen
that and it was a frivolous lawsuit but
I was, you know, I was making $3,000
a month at the time and was pretty
green, had no idea how to deal with
this, I was waking up in the middle
of the night in a cold sweat because I
thought I was going to lose my house
and the few things that I did have. And
I asked my attorney, “How much is this
gonna cost?” and he said “Well, it could
ultimately cost about $150,000 in legal
fees if it goes all the way. You’ll find
out why they say ‘Don’t make a federal
lawsuit out of it.’” And my business
partner said, “Well, Centerpointe isn’t
worth anywhere near spending that
kind of money defending.” So I said to
myself, “Well what would it look like
if it was worth spending $150,000 to
defend?” And I started mapping out in
my head, what it would look like, and
today it looks like that.
JOE VITALE: Oh, fascinating.
BILL HARRIS: And if I had never been
sued, which just like the person being
told they have cancer when it happened,
it was a huge disaster to me but when I
looked back on it, it was the best thing
that ever happened to me because I
would not have Centerpointe, I would
not be a personal growth teacher, I
wouldn’t be doing all of the things I’m
doing, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking
to you. So, you know, like you say, if
you’re going to look back on something
at some point and think, “you know, in
a strange sort of way that was a good
thing that that happened.” Why not
start thinking that way immediately and
skip all the part where you feel bad?
JOE VITALE: (Laughter) I’m laughing
because it’s such a refreshing concept.
I’m sure for a lot of people it’s a headblowing
concept, you know. We’ve never
considered it before, but this is available
to all of us, to you, to me, to everybody
listening and I guess I’m gonna go here
and give another example. It was about
a year and a half, two years ago when
I was on a flight from Denver to Las
Vegas I had an asthma attack which is
not pleasant to have anywhere because
you are basically drowning while you’re
still in the environment.
BILL HARRIS: I remember that.
JOE VITALE: And I was on a plane, you
can’t ask them to pull over, roll down
a window, there’s none of that kind of
stuff available. Well, even though that
was terrifying and I ended up going to
the emergency room which I had never
gone to before, always been healthy,
always been solid, stable, bullish, you
know, never any kind of problems,
never been to the hospital. Ended up
doing all of that and all of that looked
pretty horrible, in fact we were going
to Vegas for a week-long vacation and
it began with this experience. So that
week-long vacation was mostly one of
worry and concern and fretting about
Your brain can be directed and
you can direct it by the questions
you ask. Most people ask these
negative questions that send
them down the sewer.
“
”
5 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
my future and my health and all of that. Well, at the
same time it was that very event that was the turning
point in causing me to look at losing weight and getting
fit ultimately for the first time in my life. I am now 51
years old, I have lost over 70 pounds, I have been in
three fitness contests, I am in my 4th one right now, I
have built my own gym that has more in it than a lot of
health clubs here, I have hired a personal trainer, I have
gone out and worked out with Frank Zane, Mr. Olympia,
he’s won it something like three times, a famous legend
in the bodybuilding business and two years before all
of this, if you had said, “Joe, you gotta build your own
gym, you’re gonna become a body builder, you gotta
lose some weight, you gotta go work out with Frank
Zane,” I would have said, “What? What planet are you
from? That’s not JOE VITALE, he doesn’t do stuff like
that.” Well it’s Joe Vitale now and Joe does do stuff like
that and it’s always triggered by something that stops
other people. It was triggered by something that in the
moment looked like a horrifying, hellish experience
and in some ways it was but I was able to turn it into
something good and I can of course look back on it and
say “yeah, I can see how that was useful.” So what I’m
saying and you’re reiterating here is that we can look
at these possibly negative momentary experiences and
say, “okay, we don’t like this experience. How can it be
turned into something good? What’s the lesson in it?
What can evolve from it?” All of it is useful.
BILL HARRIS: We’ve never talked about this before
and, it’s interesting that you’re reiterating pretty
much exactly what I have found to be true about this
and now that I think about it, when I think of other
very successful people I know like Jack Canfield for
instance, everyone I know that is successful in the way
that you are and I am and Jack is, thinks this way and
that should be a big clue to people who are struggling.
But you know, in fact one of the things that I often say
is, “for any outcome you want there is a certain way
of thinking and acting that will get it for you.” Your
job is to find out what it is and we’re telling what it is
right now, so that part is handled, and then be flexible
enough to adopt it, and I find that the flexibility
part is where most people have trouble. Most all of
the “secrets of life” are not secrets anymore. There
is very little that is esoteric anymore in this age, but
where people get in trouble is that they are not flexible
enough to change the way they think and act in order
to align it with what really, what really works.
JOE VITALE: Yeah.
BILL HARRIS: Another thing that you had mentioned
in passing, I just want to reiterate and maybe get your
thoughts on is this idea of, I’m gonna put it kind of in
my own words, people think that they are not good
at manifesting things. I hear this all the time from
the students that I have. “Well I’m just no good at
manifesting things.” And I tell them, “You’re actually
an expert at manifesting things. You’re magically good
at manifesting things because whatever you focus on
manifests. Your problem isn’t that you can’t manifest
things, it’s that you don’t, you aren’t conscious about
what you focus on. Your focuser is running on auto pilot
and it’s focusing on a lot of things that you don’t want
without you intending that, necessarily, and because of
that it’s creating a lot of what you don’t want in your life.
So if you want something in life, you’ve got to consciously
and intentionally get control of your focusing and focus
on it.“
JOE VITALE: Absolutely and well said. In fact that’s
what’s been the turning point for me to lose weight
is I could unconsciously go through life and put on
weight and look out into the world and say that it’s
because of my genes, it’s because of how I brought
was up, it’s because of DNA, a habit, psychological
upbringing, I kept pointing the finger elsewhere. It
wasn’t until I really took control of the unconscious
process that was going on, made it conscious and then
took new steps to make a new habit out of this and to
take on the mind set if you will or the beliefs or the
programming of somebody who is fit and trim and
slim that I began to make those changes and I want
people to realize that, when they listen to somebody
like you or they listen to somebody like me they might
6 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
say to themselves “yeah, it’s working for you guys, you
guys mastered the process.” The first thing I want to
say is I have not mastered the process, I feel like I have
woken up in first grade and I’m just learning how to
use this process and the second thing I want to say is
I was homeless at one point thirty some years ago in
Dallas. I slept on the steps of the post office waiting
for checks that I hoped would arrive so I can eat. Then
when I moved to, migrated to Houston when it was a
boom town back in the late 70’s I took all kind of jobs
and lived in poverty. I was a reporter, a truck driver,
a taxi cab driver, a laborer. I was in this poverty mind
set, this low self esteem. I was really, in my opinion,
working at making a difference in my life. I did want to
be an author. I did want to pursue writing. I did have
that as a calling that was coming from my heart but I
was bouncing against this unconscious belief system
that was not allowing me to get the results I wanted.
So I had to get into reading all of the books, you know,
Think and Grow Rich and The Magic of Believing by
Claude Bristol and doing a lot of seminars and working
with a coach and slowly making all of that that was
unconscious conscious so I could make new decisions.
I had to let go of all the programming and I’m trying to
say this in a way so that people who are listening who
may be struggling, not that anybody may be homeless
though somebody listening might be, and I want them
to realize that wow, Joe came from there. Joe came
from the streets and now I live a luxurious lifestyle,
I mean I just sold my second house, I have a country
estate out here which you’ve flown down to and stayed
at, I just bought another car which was a luxury item, I
just bought a luxury sports car, a BMW 645 CI that was
made for me in Germany. And when I stop and realize,
“Joe, you were the guy who was sleeping on the steps
of Dallas starving, hoping to get some work, hoping to
get some money, hoping to make a difference and now
today 30 some years later, BMW, one of the finest car
artists in the world just made a car for you in Germany
that was shipped to you,” it fries my brain because
I am so different. How did I become different? It’s
changing from the inside out. It’s all the stuff you’ve
been talking about.
BILL HARRIS: I think you’re making the same point that
I often make which is that literally anyone can do this.
Very often I know people look at me and they think,
“well yeah, it’s okay for you Bill. I mean you’ve got a
lot of money and you’ve got a big company,” and so on
and so forth. I’ve never been homeless but I could tell
a pretty grim story of being in my early 30’s, my wife
left me, she took my last $3,000 when she left, I had
no job, no job prospects. I was the golden boy when I
was in high school. Everybody thought I was going to
grow up and be a heart surgeon or something like that
or a big lawyer or whatever, and I got into drugs when
I was in my 20’s and just sort of had this tail spin and
I was approaching 40 and I had no money, no career,
no relationships, was depressed, was angry and all of
that, and it was really finding this same idea of focusing
your mind on what you want, taking action, looking at
other people who were creating whatever it was that I
wanted to create and, modeling what they were doing,
modeling their way of thinking and acting. And boy, I
stumbled many times, many times where I made a little
progress and then I stumbled and then thought oh, this
is a pipe dream, I can’t do this, but I guess I was just at
the point where I thought well, there is nothing else to
do but keep going. I don’t know, it’s either keep going or
kill myself and I really didn’t feel like killing myself so I
kept going and eventually through a lot of wrong turns
and stumbles I figured out how to do this and like you, I
don’t feel like I’ve mastered this completely. I don’t feel
like in every moment I’m totally in control of my mind
but I certainly notice the times when I’m not in control
of it and sometimes I sit there and wallow in feeling
lousy for a little while before I say, “Okay, okay, enough
of this,” but as soon as I decide that I’m gonna change
it, I know how to change it and I do change it and when
I change it, it works.
JOE VITALE: Beautiful, beautiful. I didn’t even know all
about your background there so thanks for sharing that
personal story and I’m glad you did because it’s again a
reminder that all of this is available to everybody. We’re
not born knowing all of this material, we learn it and for
the first part of our lives for the vast majority of people
7 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
that go through their entire lives totally unconscious, live
to the age of 90 and die totally unconscious, just living
out whatever their programming was in the beginning.
And those of us who are on the call, just listening to this
right now, my best bet is that they are far more alert and
far more conscious and we’re just kind of raising the bar
here and as I listen to you Bill, you are even raising it for
me and helping me realize yes, I want to be more aware in
each moment, I am not quite there yet, but I am going in
that direction and I feel good about that kind of process.
BILL HARRIS: You know, thinking about the people
that have trouble adopting this, there’s a question I’ve
thought about a lot over the years because I deal with so
many people and some of them just take this information
and just run with it and within a very short time their
life really is substantially different and then there are
other people that just have the hardest time and I kept
thinking, “what is it about these people that have such a
hard time and how can I help them?” and finally what I
concluded was that the people that have a really hard time
with this are unwilling to adopt one particular principle
that I think is probably the core principle behind all of
this stuff and we’ve sort of touched on it already, and
that is the idea that no matter how it looks, in some way
or other you’re creating how you feel in every moment
and you’re creating all the situations and people that
you attract or are attracted to and because a lot of people
cannot see how they are doing that because that process
to them so far is unconscious, out of their awareness,
they conclude that the triggers outside of them, that the
stuff they’re taking into their senses is the cause of how
they feel, whereas it’s really what they’re doing with it.
So anyway, I just found that the people that just will not
buy into this idea that somehow even if they can’t figure
it out, they’re creating all this stuff, those people really
stay stuck. Once somebody adopts that point of view
then they can start figuring out the “how-to” part of it.
JOE VITALE: Beautiful, beautiful. Well I think what you’re
saying is the statement that I make in The Attractor Factor
where I say that you have to take 100% responsibility
for everything that occurs in your life in order for you
to change these things and that is the hardest thing for
everybody to accept. And I have to admit, to myself too.
I’ll give you a story that I’ve never told anybody, it just
happened within the past few weeks. Of course my exwife
who I was married to for twenty-some years, best
friend and everything died last year and it was a major
event for me because it was my best friend and we were
married for twenty-some years and even though when
we were separated we were still best friends and we still
stayed in contact and you know, every day talked or
emailed or saw each other. She died last October. So
I would put her house on the market to sell and it took
forever to sell and I was wondering why isn’t this selling,
what is going on? Of course I never looked within myself,
I always looked at the outside circumstances and I would
find people to validate. Oh, the markets a little bit tough
right now, they are building new homes in the area so
the older homes don’t sell as well, all of that kind of stuff
was there. When I finally found a buyer it took forever
for this house to close partly because the original owner
of the house, this is fairly complicated, but when I first
bought the house it was owner financed. The original
owner of the house did not want to sign any papers to
release the house even though he was going to get paid
off if he signed. And I would look at that and go now,
why is he being a stubborn you know what? Why is he
being this guy? Always again, looking outside, looking
outside. And I had to stop and ask myself, Joe, you’re the
guy who says everything in your life is being attracted to
you because of you. You have to take 100% responsibility
for everything that is happening instead of looking out
there and blaming the previous owner, blaming the
realtor, blaming the economy, blaming the housing
market. Look at yourself, take responsibility and say,
“Okay, why don’t you want to sell the house?” I paused,
looked within myself and it’s like, this is the last concrete
reminder of my wife and I didn’t want to let it go. When I
finally came to grips with that and said, “Okay, I’m never
going to forget her, you know, that’s still gonna be in my
heart, it’s gonna be okay.” I was able to sell the house 24
hours later.
BILL HARRIS: Wow, that’s a great story.
8 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
JOE VITALE: But taking responsibility even for myself,
and I’m the guy standing up there as this you know, this
evangelist for the whole idea of The Attractor Factor and
taking responsibility for your life and creating your own
reality and I’m admitting that it is incredibly difficult for
us to take 100% responsibility for our lives because it
is so incredibly easy to point outside and say, “No, it’s
the president’s fault, it’s the economy’s fault, it’s the
terrorists’ fault, it’s my spouse’s fault, it’s my dog’s fault.
It’s you know, whoever’s fault.” That’s easy to do and
that’s not reality. That’s the illusion.
BILL HARRIS: Right, exactly. It’s what you do with all of
that stuff inside that really makes the difference. Well I
noticed when you were telling that story at a certain point
you asked yourself a question and I sort of generalized this
question that you asked and call it the magic question, and
it starts with, “how can I...?” And you started to add, and I
don’t remember exactly what you said but something about
how can I figure out how, you know, why this house, why
I’m not able to sell this house or something? And when
you said that it just reminded me of the fact that a lot of
people get stumped when they’re trying to do this. They’re
trying to figure out how did I create this mess and they
don’t start asking themselves those kinds of questions, and
because people don’t realize that when you ask yourself
those kinds of questions, whether it’s how can I figure this
out, or how can I make 20 sales before next Friday or how
can I write a book, or how can I...whatever it is, when you
ask yourself those questions and really get curious about
the answers, I mean really ask them. This is not just like
parroting the words, it’s really thinking, “Okay, how can I
do this? There is a way to do this, I haven’t figured it out
yet. How can this, how can I do this?” When you ask that,
it does something inside your head that generates all kinds
of ideas coming from inside of you. It may be attracting
things psychically to you for all I know, it certainly causes
you to notice things that you overhear or you walk to
a bookstore and the book jumps off the shelf into your
hands, or you know, something. So I know that you think
this way too, so give me your views on this idea.
JOE VITALE: I’m glad you brought that up because this is
another fundamentally, well it’s a phenomenal technique
and it’s the idea that your brain can be directed and you
can direct it by the questions you ask. Now most people
ask these negative questions that send them down the
sewer.
BILL HARRIS: Right, “What’s wrong with me”?
JOE VITALE: You know, the favorite question of the mind
is something like, “What if? What if things go bad? What
if I can’t pay my bills? What if I don’t lose weight? What
if I have a health problem? What if she leaves me?” You
know, they ask the negative questions. But, that causes
your brain, and the brain is neutral, the brain’s just gonna
go after the solution that you gave the question there for.
So if you ask something that is negatively leading it’s just
gonna go and obey you. So if you say “What if I don’t get
better by next week?” Or, “What if I don’t raise the money
by Friday?” the brain is gonna say, “Okay, let’s come up
with all the ways that you can’t raise it by Friday.”
BILL HARRIS: Right, and my favorite is the question,
“what’s wrong with me?” If you ask yourself, “what’s
wrong with me?” your brain will always come up with
a list of plausible things that are wrong with you even if
objectively there isn’t anything wrong with you.
JOE VITALE: Exactly. Well the beauty of this is that
you can take control of your brain if you ask different
questions, so they can be the questions like, “What are
some ways to raise the money by Friday to pay the bills
that I need to pay?” And it could be a better constructed
question, you know, “What is an easy, effortless, and
healthful way to lose the unnecessary pounds I’m
carrying by August 22nd?” I mean, you can ask these
well constructed questions that’ll cause your brain just
to be an obedient researcher. It’ll go within you first of
all looking for any answers but then it also kind of alerts
your mental radar so that when you are browsing online
or you’re getting some snail mail, or as you pointed out,
you’re walking through the bookstore, suddenly these
thousands of books are blurred but one book seems
to almost leap off the page or off the shelf and it’s the
9 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
book that’s geared toward the answer to the question
that you have given to your brain. So I treat the brain
like this, I don’t know, missile operating pad and you
tell it what you’re looking for in terms of an answer and
it will go and find it, so you want to be more positively
directed than negatively directed to give the example
that you gave earlier rather than asking, “what’s wrong
with me, what’s right with me?” List all of my positive
qualities and let it go to work for you there. It will just as
beautifully come up with answers for that question as it
will for the other question.
BILL HARRIS: Sure, another kind of pair of polar
opposites of questions is “why can’t I?” And then you fill
in the blank as opposed to “how can I?” and my whole life
changed when I stopped saying, “why can’t I?” whatever
it was and starting saying “how can I?” And at first
when I started using questions in this way sometimes
some questions it would be a month or so of me asking it
before the answer would appear but as you get better at
this and have more practice, I find that most of the time
the answer comes to me within a second or two.
JOE VITALE: Wow.
BILL HARRIS: Occasionally that’s not the case but almost
always it comes to me within a second or two and I, you
know, you’re saying wow but I bet that you do the same
thing.
JOE VITALE: Well, I’m reflecting on my wow there and
I am impressed that it comes within a second or two
but I also think it depends on the question and what
you’re looking for and as I reflect on it fairly quickly
here, spontaneously, yes, the answers do tend to come
very quickly whether they come in a second or two
would depend on the subject of what I am trying to get
an answer to, but I have found...well, let me give you an
example. When I went through that whole asthma event
and you know, came back to Texas and went through this
semi-depressed period for a week or so thinking, “okay,
I gotta do something about my health, but what?” And
then of course the emergency room bill arrives which
buckles my knees and I’m thinkin’ “okay, I don’t want to
see any more of this,” and the question becomes, “how
can I quickly, easily, safely lose weight, achieve my ideal
body, do it as quickly and as safely as possible in a way
that is going to be permanent?” And I don’t know if
that’s the exact question that I asked but you get the idea
that I was asking a positively directed question. That
very week and it might have been the next day, certainly
within three days I get an e-mail from a company I had
never heard of before. It was the Mental Toughness
Institute For Weight Control and it comes in and I’m
going what in the world is this? And you know, it’s one
of those things that you feel in your gut that this is your
answer. It’s one of those things where you put out the
question, here comes the answer and it’s resonating so
you know that unless you deny this consciously and just
dismiss it you know it’s the right thing. I explored it and
I said, “You know, this is coming at the right time. I am
the right guy, I had asked the question, this looks like
the answer,” I signed up and I swear to god Bill that was
a transformative experience. I still love those people. I
am still in contact with them and that was the awakening
process for me and their whole system is all about what
we’ve been talking about here, making what’s previously
been unconscious, all the creation that’s going on in your
life has been unconscious previously, in my case it was
unconscious to make me overweight, it was very easy to
do it because I was just operating unconsciously, had to
take all of that, make that process conscious and then go
with a new direction which has made a whole new me.
There’s how this works, right there.
BILL HARRIS: In a way this is why Holosync® works
because I can describe the benefits of it in a million
ways but really what it does is it makes you more aware
and as Ken Wilber says, “Awareness in and of itself is
transformative”. It’s really the key to all the rest of the
stuff. You know, you mentioned The Attractor Factor,
one of your books a number of times and, I read that
book. It was named, wasn’t that the Spiritual Marketing
Book before...?
JOE VITALE: My other version of it was Spiritual
10 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
Marketing.
BILL HARRIS: Yeah, and I read that. I believe I’ve read
every one of your books unless you haven’t sent them to
me because you sent me a big box of them at one point.
JOE VITALE: That’s right.
BILL HARRIS: And I don’t know if you’re in this situation
but I have people sending me books and other things,
every day I get stuff from people and I just, you know,
I wouldn’t have any other time to do anything else if I
didn’t read them and very often notable people send me
books too, and often I don’t have time to read them. But
I picked up, I think that was the one I picked up really
first was The Attractor Factor. I read a page and a half
and I could not put it down and once I’d read that book
I read every other book you had sent me and every one
was delightful and every one was a little different. You
know, a different perspective on things. I mean you’re a
very multi-faceted renaissance kind of guy is kind of the
way I see you. Anyway, I just...give people a little more
information about that particular book because I think
that that’s an important book and I think it would really
resonate with a lot of people who are listening.
JOE VITALE: Well there is a couple of things I want
people listening to understand about this book because
this is a teaching tale. I did not want to release the book
that was originally called Spiritual Marketing and then
when it was revised and published by a major publisher
it is now called The Attractor Factor. I never wanted
to originally release it because it was a personal book,
it had a lot of my personal struggle stories in it from
homeless to you know, whatever I am today, and I only
wrote it as a little booklet for my sister because she was
struggling, she had been on welfare, she had been in
poverty, she was trying to raise three kids, and by then I
knew these secrets to prosperity, I knew these secrets to
creating your own reality, the art of manifestation if you
will and I wrote the little booklet for her, but I didn’t
want to release it to the world because I thought I’ve
been published by the American Marketing Association,
The American Management Association, I’ve got an
audio series with Nightingale Conant. These are all very
conservative large companies, what will they think of
me? What will the world think of me if I stand up and
say, “uh, folks, one of the things that I do in my life to
achieve these results is that I work from the inside out,”
and I thought oh, they’re gonna think I’m flaky. So I
didn’t release the book for the longest time and then as I
slowly did and I would give it to my sister, I would give it
to a few friends, and I would see them get these results.
My sister got off welfare, she got a job, she bought a car.
She still struggles some with money but she is not fully
practicing the processes either. So anyway, a long story
short, I found that very often the gold in a person’s life
is in that area where they are afraid. I was afraid to
release The Attractor Factor because I thought “What
would people think of me?”, yet when I did release it, it
has become a best-seller three times, it has gone through
four printings, even Spiritual Marketing has been a bestseller
and gone through several printings, it’s published
by a major publisher who has now signed I think three
other book deals with me because they are so delighted
with the success of The Attractor Factor. The Attractor
Factor is my most beloved book. I have I don’t know,
thirty-some books between e-books and published
books and I’ve been published in any way, shape or form
you can think of, from self-published, print on demand,
traditional publishing, the whole route. The Attractor
Factor is still the one that shines the brightest yet it was
the one I was most reluctant to share. So I am trying
to express to people that if you are looking to bring in
riches in your life besides doing all of the things we’ve
been talking about on this call, also look in that area of
your life where you really have a thrill, you really have a
passion, you really have a love, but you have not shared
it with the rest of the world, not in a public way. It could
be a sign of the gold that’s waiting for you. And then the
other part of this is, well, The Attractor Factor revealed
a five-step formula for creating wealth or anything
else from the inside out. And again, it’s all about the
stuff that we’ve been touching on throughout this call,
about taking complete responsibility, about directing
our mind to go in the right direction or directing our
11 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
brain to bring us the answers we want about realizing
that we’re already master creators, we’ve just been
doing it unconsciously so we’re getting things that we
consciously say we don’t quite prefer and we want to
become aware of that process and take control of it. So
I love The Attractor Factor. I’m very proud of it. In
fact I’ll tell listeners that if they want to get a special
deal, the deal that was going on when I first promoted
the book where you can get thousands of dollars worth
of bonuses if you just went and bought a copy of the
book is still active at this secret site; it’s www.mrfire.
com/factor.
BILL HARRIS: And I’ll also say that I love your website.
Believe it or not Joe, on wet afternoons sometimes I go
to your site just to poke around and look at all of the cool
stuff you have there...
JOE VITALE: Well that’s nice to hear, thank you.
BILL HARRIS: And you’re into so many different
things that there’s just all kinds of different stuff
on your site, and so I encourage anyone listening to
this to go to www.mrfire.com and just look around
because there’s all kinds of other tools and resources
and information there that are along the same lines
of some of the things that we’ve been talking about.
Now one of the things we haven’t talked about is
marketing and I bring this up actually because a lot of
the people that are Centerpointe participants I know
have a problem with marketing. They often think that
marketing is manipulative or that somebody is trying
to get somebody to do something they don’t want to
do or buy something they don’t want to buy and so
on, and you bill yourself as a hypnotic marketer and
that sounds like “Well, you’re gonna hypnotize me and
take my money,” and all of this so I thought maybe we
could talk a little bit about this because I know your
philosophy about this is similar to mine, which is that I
think marketing is explaining to people certain benefits
that they can get if they are willing to trade their money
or whatever other payment it might be for whatever
the item is. And the whole idea is that at the end of
the transaction they have something they wanted more
than the money and you have the money since that’s
what you wanted because you’re in business in order to
sell products and everybody ends up happier and this,
the hypnosis if you want to use that word isn’t to try
to get anybody to do something they don’t want to do,
it’s really to help people overcome their own ways of
sabotaging themselves from going ahead and getting
what they want.
JOE VITALE: Yeah, I’m glad you asked the question
because this is not about manipulation or persuasion
or brow beating people or the old used car salesmen
mentality or way of being. This is all about finding the
target audience who most wants your product or service.
That’s really what marketing is. It’s finding that target
audience, that’s already got a mind set looking for your
product or service, it’s just that match is where the sale
takes place and marketing is just telling them both about
it. But I want to go ahead and say something that I found
explains marketing in a way that seems to make a lot of
sense to people that have been listening to me talk before
because I’ve heard these objections before, and I say “You
know, I don’t really care for marketing myself and I don’t
look at what I do as marketing.” I’ll give you a quick story
here. A year or so ago I’m laying on the massage table
getting a massage from my massage therapist and this is
one of those unusual times when she would not shut up.
She was just talking a mile a minute and it was all about a
movie she had seen the night before and she saw a movie
that I am sure you’re aware of your listeners should see it
if they haven’t seen it yet, and it’s What The Bleep Do We
Know? So she had seen What The Bleep Do We Know
the night before and she was just raving about this movie,
she would not be quiet. She just went on and on and on.
Now of course, I got interested, I ended going to see the
movie. I of course told her later that I saw the movie
and my question that I ask people when I tell the story is,
“was she doing marketing?” You know, everybody says
no but she was. She was marketing that movie. She was
not getting paid to do it but she was certainly marketing
that movie. It was a form of marketing. I say that
when you look at this real closely, all she was doing was
12 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
sharing her love to somebody who she felt would be very
interested in the product or service she was describing.
Well by God, that’s a great definition of marketing.
That’s kind of an elevated, noble, higher consciousness
way of looking at the word marketing. If people look at
marketing and think “Oh, that’s just you know, it’s evil,
it’s mind manipulation, it’s money grubbing.” Well,
forget marketing all together then. Just go with sharing.
If you have a product or a service that you believe in and
by god, you should believe in it if you are offering it to
the world, otherwise why are you promoting this product
or service? Get out of it and get into something that
you do believe in. So if you’ve got a product or service
you believe in, you want to share your belief in it with
the people that are most likely to want to hear about it.
That’s marketing. So I’ve just transformed this whole
conversation by saying “It’s not about the marketing,
it’s about the sharing.” You don’t walk around and just
share whatever it is at the restaurant you just ate with
everybody in the world. You share it with the people
who are your family, or your friends, maybe your clients,
because you think, “you know what? They would be
interested in this.” That’s marketing. Sharing what you
love in a passionate, enthusiastic, sincere way with the
people who would be most interested in hearing about
it.
BILL HARRIS: Well I just assume that people would want
to know about something that I know about that would
solve a problem they have or would give them a benefit
they want, and in fact, what would they think of me if I
knew about something that would solve a problem they
have and I didn’t tell them? And then the second part of
it is, then I try to make them an offer that they can’t refuse
to quote The Godfather. I try to make the description of
what I am telling them about enthusiastic and engaging
so that they stick with it and get to the end where I make
them the offer, and then I try to make them the best
possible offer that I can so that they really say, “wow, this
is really worth it, this is what I want, and it’s really worth
it.” And what I have found is that the people who have
trouble with this are almost always, if not always, people
who have problems maintaining good boundaries. For
instance, if I tell someone about something and it costs
$249, let’s say, and they’re having trouble paying their
bills and they don’t have an extra $249, they get into this
state where they really want the benefits I’ve described
but then they feel all of this anxiety about their finances
and the fact that they really can’t afford it, and instead of
saying, and this goes back to something we were talking
about earlier. Instead of saying, “Wow, I’m creating this
feeling of anxiety in myself because of my finances,” they
blame me for creating that anxiety in them or it could
be that they really want the benefits but they don’t know
me yet, and so they are not sure if they can believe me.
And so they feel anxiety about, “I want this but maybe
it’s some sort of a scam,” and they feel anxiety instead
of saying, “Wow, I am creating anxiety in myself by
what I am doing inside,” they blame me for creating the
anxiety in them and then they write me a three-page
letter complaining about the marketing which I use as a
teaching opportunity. I’ll usually spend the time to write
them a letter back and I’ll try to explain to them what I
think is going on, but...
JOE VITALE: That’s beautiful. I’m glad you said that. Well
you know what, I put up one of many websites recently.
This one is at www.attractanewcar.com and I’m saying
that for a couple of reasons. One is, I’m marketing right
now because I am very excited about this and I think the
people listening to this on this call would want to hear
about it. But the second reason here is there is a case
history going on. If you read the sales letter at www.
attractanewcar.com, towards the bottom of it where I’m
starting to get to the kill here, what I mean by that is that
I’m starting to go for the close and I am asking you to
buy, I also get to the point where I say, “I know that you
are probably wondering if you should believe me or not,”
and I list a couple of things that are obviously on people’s
minds like, “is this process really gonna work and really
attract a new car using Joe’s system?” And second of all
I say something like, “And you’re probably wondering
if you can trust me or not.” So this is where hypnosis
comes in where I’m starting to create rapport by paying
attention to what I believe what people’s mind set is
but I am also doing this process of highlighting the very
13 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
beliefs on their brain, and then going to the next step to
say, “Look, it’s this very quality of doubt that is keeping
you from attracting a new car and getting a lot of the
results in your life.” What I am saying here Bill is that
I’ve used the very thing people have ended up writing to
you and me with complaints about. I have woven it into
the sales letter and said, “Look, if you’re gonna let doubt
stop you from buying this, you’re probably letting doubt
stop you from doing the very things you want to achieve
in your life. Are you going to stop it or are you going to
go forward?” So I am using it within the sales letter to
increase sales.
BILL HARRIS: I just went to the site and it’s as all of
your... I love reading your sales letters anyway because
you’re such a great writer and I’d love to steal your ideas
because you’re a great copywriter and people can see you
kissing your lovely wife in front of your custom made
car.
JOE VITALE: Brand new car, right.
BILL HARRIS: Yes, and what is this other car below it?
Batman’s golf cart?
JOE VITALE: Yeah, one of the guys...This is a great story.
Pat O’Bryan of www.instantchange.com who is one of my
partners on some products, this is a guy who’s driving
a beat-up pick-up truck who had 250,000 miles on it.
He was a struggling musician really wrestling with self
esteem, with poverty, with accepting money into his life.
He had to really come to grips with the idea that he could
have a new car. Now, for him to allow a new car into his
life he chose a Scion, which is what there is the picture
of there, and of course when he got it, he absolutely
loved it and he called it Batman’s Golf Cart, a cute way of
describing the darn thing. But you’ve got to realize for
him to allow that car into his life was like somebody else
allowing a jet into their lives, to own a jet for example. I
mean this was huge. It caused a deep transformation and
he had to change a lot of beliefs to allow it. So that’s just
one example. Somebody else wanted a sail boat. There
was somebody else who wanted $50,000 in cash and got
it, and you know, the list goes on and on. I’m not trying
to sell something, and people go to www.attractanewcar.
com and buy it, that’s wonderful of course. I’m trying
to use this to illustrate the process of marketing. I love
everything that I am selling on that website, I believe
that people who end up going there are a match for it so
of course, this is my sharing again. I believe they should
buy it because it’s gonna make a difference in their lives
and all the principles in the web site and in that course
are the very things you and I have been touching on
throughout this hour or so conversation.
BILL HARRIS: So www.attractanewcar.com is really a
practical demonstration of how people can direct their
mind in a way that attracts whatever they want.
JOE VITALE: That’s the point because a lot of people will
say, “Yeah, I’m learning the process of manifestation
or I’ve done a few books or whatever,” but they are
still broke and so I am saying, “Okay, lets’s do this
on something really concrete. If you can look in your
driveway and see a brand new car there next week or in
30 days, then you can nod and say, “Yeah, I manifested
that. I used the www.attractanewcar.com.” And if you
can’t do it then you haven’t mastered the system. So I’m
just using manifesting a new car or attracting a new car
as a personal development exercise. It’s not about the
car. It’s not about the car. It’s about you and becoming
conscious of your own inner power.
BILL HARRIS: Well it’s interesting that you are doing
this Joe because the very first thing that I consciously
decided to attract was a new car. I was 27 years old.
I was selling real estate. I had been selling real estate
for maybe a year and my real estate broker gave me the
book Think and Grow Rich to read and after I read it, I
got very excited about it because in that book Napoleon
Hill gives a pretty easy to follow step by step way of
creating whatever you want, and so I went to my real
estate broker and said, “Well, what kind of a goal do
you think I should set?” And I thought he was gonna
say, “Sell x houses in x time or something like that or
a certain amount of money,” but he was smarter than I
14 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
thought he was because he did the same thing that you’re
doing which is very smart. He made it very tangible. He
said, “Why don’t you get a nice car?” And at the time I
thought, “Well that sounds very materialistic. It sounds
like I should get some two tone shoes and plaid pants
to go with the rest of my real estate salesman outfit or
something.” I mean that’s what I thought of real estate
salesmen at the time and I suppose that there are some
that way, but at any rate, that was the year 1977 that the
Cadillac Seville first came out which was a smaller, more
compact, sportier Cadillac, and so I decided I would get
one of those in 6 months. And then I thought, “Okay,
now what do I do?” after I wrote down this goal. Because
I had no idea how to go about doing it. So the only thing
I could think of doing was to go to the dealership and
look at them. And I thought what a lame first step but it
was the only thing that I could think of. So I went to the
dealership and I started looking at them and to make a
long story short, I had the car not in 6 months but in 6
days.
JOE VITALE: Oh wow.
BILL HARRIS: And I found out that when I got there that
I could lease the car and that the payment wasn’t very
high at all and that I was making plenty of money already,
and it caused me to feel so much different about myself
at the time that my income really went up quite a lot then
after that, and it made a pittance to afford it and so then I
said, “Gosh, this is amazing, this really works,” which is of
course what you want people to say when they go to www.
attractanewcar.com and do what you say. So then I set
another goal that I would make, I don’t even remember
what it was. I think it was $7,500 in 30 days which was
a lot of money at the time. This was 1977 when, that was
probably $20,000 or so in today’s money, maybe even a
little more. But at any rate, I made exactly $20,000 in
exactly the next 30 days to the penny which of course
caused me to say, “What’s wrong with you, why did you
only say $7,500?” You can tell me if this ever happened
to you Joe. At a certain point this was working so well
that I began to think “I don’t need to do anything to
make this work. It just seems so effortless that all this
stuff was coming to me,” so I stopped all the stuff I was
doing every day, writing down goals, thinking about
them, asking myself how am I going to do this, and so
on and then stuff stopped happening. And then I had to
say, okay, this really reinforced me that there really was
a strong connection between what I was doing inside my
head and what was happening. And I would sometimes
be thinking of things in my head, you know, visualizing
things and setting goals and focusing on them and so on,
and what I wanted would not come from the area where
I was doing the acting. It would come from somewhere
else. I was going out like I was going out knocking on
doors or something to try to get real estate listings and
I was getting lots of listings but not from the knocking
on doors. So I stopped knocking on doors and stopped
thinking about it and I stopped getting listings from
other places. So I also realized that it may not happen
in the way you think it will happen. And to be open to it
happening in whatever way it happened. So...
JOE VITALE: That was one of the big learning experiences
for me is to be open to be surprised. For the longest time,
because initially when I was working back in Houston
and I had a job and so forth, I would expect the extra
income I wanted to come because somebody was gonna
give me overtime. And I had to learn to let go of my
expectations because that was coming from my ego. My
ego knew what my past was, it knew what my perceived
capabilities were. It knew what the avenues of income
based on the past were supposed to be and I had to let
go of my ego and allow the universe which of course has
the global perspective to say, “You know what, we can
surprise you and bring money to you in any number of
ways that you’ve never even imagined before, you just
have to let go of being concerned about it.” And that
was a tough one because I had to trust which is another
big issue for most people. It’s like the step five in The
Attractor Factor is about trusting, is about letting go, it’s
about going with this whole process. And what I have
found is that this stage of my life I am amazed at where
the money comes from, how much comes in and the level
of wealth that is there. There does not seem to be a sky
is the limit type of thing because even the sky is a limit.
15 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
We have seen people go far beyond it and I have no idea
what the limits are, as long as we take the limits off of our
own brain, our own belief system, it could come to us in
any number of ways that we’ve never imagined before.
Certainly it could come from the old routes that they
came into our lives before but as long as we’re open it
could come in surprising ways, and that was one that
I had to wrestle with and then the other part that you
had mentioned a little bit earlier was about when you
stopped that a lot of this stopped. And I have found
that yes, when I stopped focusing on what I wanted
and stopped declaring goals and stopped spending
time visualizing or nebulizing, or thinking I would have
liked to have the things I wanted, it seemed to slow
down to a kind of automatic pilot level. So in other
words, if I’ve already raised my prosperity IQ, if you will,
then I will continue to bring in that amount of money for
that level. But if I wanted to raise the level, then I had to
consciously do something and that’s when I wrote down
a vision or I had to write my goal or I had to do some of
the things you were talking about. So I found that I have
to keep doing it and it’s not a “have to” in a negative way,
it’s a “have to” in a fun way. It’s almost like writing out
a Christmas list, you know, saying, “Wow, universe, I’d
really like to have this and this and this. I’d really like to
experience this and this and this, and it would be really
cool if you could bring it by this and this and this.” Then
it’s just fun, it’s placing my order with the universe, kind
of depositing it in through the mental bank so to speak
and then acting on my hunches and paying attention to
the opportunity and then acting on them when they show
up and being dazzled and surprised as it all unfolds. It’s
a wonderful process.
BILL HARRIS: You know, and I want to insert something
here that we sort of talked about right at the very
beginning and I find that this is, at least appears to be
ironic. I don’t think it really is ironic but it appears to
be ironic especially to someone who isn’t really creating
much success in their life and that is that the more
successful you get, the more you are able to manifest
whatever you want, the more money you can make
and all that sort of a thing. The more you realize that
it doesn’t matter whether you have money or whether
you have things or whether you have stuff, and it kind
of becomes, it’s sort of a game and it’s fun to play the
game of “let’s manifest some stuff.” But the more that
I have the less I realize or the less I need it, the more I
realize that my happiness and my inner peace and my
fulfillment in life is not tied to this stuff. A lot of people
that don’t have this stuff, they really think that, “if only I
had this stuff,” you know, “if only I could pay my bills, if
only I had a partner, if only something.” And it’s great to
have those things. It’s the old, “I’ve been rich, I’ve been
poor and I like rich better.” A lot of people have said
that but really, you almost have to get a lot of stuff before
you realize that getting a lot of stuff does not make you
happy. It’s almost a cliché that people with a lot of stuff,
some of them are miserable still.
JOE VITALE: Yeah, absolutely. I’m glad you brought it
up. It kind of brings us full circled in a lot of ways and
I guess I would like to leave you with a thought here,
leave everybody listening with a thought. One of the
things that I heard decades ago that I did not grasp
right away and it really jammed my brain when I first
heard it and I had to wrestle with it before I began to
understand it. There was this one line that said, “You
can have whatever you want in life as long as you don’t
want it,” and I wrestled with that for the longest time.
It was like how can I want it and not want it? How can
I want money or a car and not want it? I changed the
wording a little bit because I am a word guy so it made a
little bit more sense to me but the concept is still strong
and that is, “You can have whatever you want in life as
long as you don’t need it.”
BILL HARRIS: Well, it’s kind of the difference between
preferring an outcome and being attached to an
outcome.
JOE VITALE: That’s exactly it. Because when you’re
attached, when you’re dependent, when you’re desperate,
that’s the energy that you send out that ends up
attracting more desperation, more neediness. You don’t
get the thing you want, you end up getting this feeling
16 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
of desperation which you think is driving you. It’s the
whole Attractor Factor in a nutshell really, but it’s really a
thought I guess, there’s so many thing’s we’ve covered on
this amazing call, I’m just blown away by this. I am going
to have to listen to it myself to just grasp everything we’ve
touched on. But this idea that you can have whatever you
want as long as you don’t need it, meaning that you can
have it as long as you’re not attached to it. You can have
it as long as you’re not going to live or die if you don’t
get it. You can have it as long as you’re not desperate
for it, you know, needing it, addicted to it. You can have
whatever you want as long as you don’t want it.
BILL HARRIS: Yeah, and I think part of what I was
saying was the more you realize how easy it actually is to
manifest whatever you want, the more secure you’ll feel,
that that can’t be taken away from you and therefore this
clinging and grasping for things kind of goes away and
that’s when it becomes really easy. You know, Napoleon
Hill was very wealthy in 1929 and he lost everything in
the stock market crash and he has a book that he wrote
when he was in his 80’s called Grow Rich With Peace
of Mind which is really different than his other books.
It’s a much more thoughtful book in a way because he
was very old and he knew he wasn’t going to live that
much longer and he, in that book he says that when that
happened he spent a few minutes being miserable and
then he realized that though he had lost all this riches,
the real riches he had were inside his head and all the
principles he knew about how to create things in the
world and of course some other principles too, spiritual
principles, and that no one could take that away from
him. And after that he made way more money than he
had made before except this time he didn’t spend it on
having six Rolls-Royces and a lot of other stuff that he
had spent it on the first time, that he realized that he was
you know, he was just kind of doing for his ego at the
time. So, there’s a couple of other things I jotted down
while we were talking that I’d like to get your thoughts
on before we wrap this up. One of them is, I’d love to
ask you a question that I’m asked a lot. In fact, I wish I
could find an e-mail here but I’d have to scramble around
while we’re talking, because someone asked me this very
recently in one of my online courses. I’m telling people
to do the things that we’ve been talking about on this call
and some people say, “Well you know, I start focusing
on what I want and then I actually feel really good. And
then I come back to reality and I realize that I am poor
and I don’t have this,” and they go back into what they
consider to be their grim reality and then they say, “You
know, this whole idea of doing this just seems phony to
me. I just can’t fake it. The reality is that I am poor and
miserable and I am uneducated and I don’t know what to
do.” So, I know how I answer that question but how do
you answer it?
JOE VITALE: Well, in The Attractor Factor I say there is
a missing step and there is Step 3, I call it the missing
secret and that’s the idea of getting clear. Getting clear
means that you want to get clear of all of the negative
beliefs within you, the programming and so forth, that
are in the way of you achieving whatever it is you happen
to be. When somebody says that they can’t do it because
they feel like a phony, that’s a belief. They are giving it
power when they keep repeating it. “I feel like a phony, I
can’t do this.” Well, repeat it enough, it’s your reality. It
goes back to some of the things we talked about earlier.
And then there’s this whole perception thing that we
talked about earlier too that they may feel poor, and I
don’t know where they’re living, but I imagine if they are
in a one room efficiency and they have a refrigerator and
maybe not even a t.v., they’re living better than people in
true poor countries and third world countries or living
better than people lived in castles in the 1500’s. They are
in the highest level of riches in comparison to somebody
else. So when they say that “I’m really poor” and
whatever, they’ve made a judgement about themselves.
They want to get clear of that. So for me, it’s all going
back to getting clear, they’re accepting their illusion as
their reality and they’re not taking any steps to change
it.
BILL HARRIS: Here, I found one e-mail that’s kind of
like this. It’s very short, I’ll just read it. It says, “I’ve
spent the last several days trying to notice any negative
feelings, what I don’t want, and immediately refocus on
17 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
what I want. However, in most cases I find that after a
few seconds I am back focusing on what I don’t want.
This is very frustrating as I keep noticing what I don’t
want and then fear that I am going to create it. It feels
like a never-ending process. I don’t see how I can keep
this up indefinitely. Any suggestions that would make
this process easier would be appreciated.” And you
know, it is a tedious process at first to keep pulling your
mind back to what you want and I think that I have
uncovered really what’s behind all of this, why there is
this pull to focus on what you do not want even though
it’s very un-resourceful to do so and that is that when
people are growing up, if they are traumatized in some
way they reach a certain conclusion about the world and
life which is that the world is a dangerous place, or it’s
a potentially dangerous place and in order to avoid that
danger they’ve got to watch out for it. Well, to avoid
danger you’ve got to focus on it and then your brain says,
“Oh, he’s focusing on danger, he must want,” you know,
whatever the danger is. The danger could be being poor,
it could be being alone, it could be being abandoned,
it could be, whatever. So, ultimately you can exercise
will power to keep your mind focused on what you want,
despite the fact that the negative emotional charge from
past traumatic events is pulling you toward that. But
eventually you’ve got to get clear as you say. You’ve got
to heal the root cause of that trauma in some way and the
two tools that I use are Holosync which is very powerful
in doing that, and then in my online courses we do a
lot of time line therapy which takes people back to the
root cause event and it’s a very elegant way of people
eliminating the emotional charge on it so that it feels
totally flat emotionally, totally emotionally neutral and
it no longer pulls their attention.
JOE VITALE: Let me offer a third idea here that has
worked for me and I alluded to it when I talked about
going into the Mental Toughness Institute For Weight
Control. That’s the idea of being in a supportive group
and of course Napoleon Hill called it a mastermind
and I have been in, I am currently in two different
masterminds and I have found being in a supportive
group to be an incredibly powerful way to elevate me
from what I used to be tugged back into. Now whether
that meant the old lifestyle of wanting to go back into
a habit of overeating, if he had been doing it for fifty
some years, there’s a very strong tug to go back to
the habit, and making up your mind to change that is
part of it and making that perfect decision and being
diligent about watching it is part of it, but I have found
that if you have support from other people, either going
through the same thing or they’ve already been through
it, who are rooting you on, who are available for a
weekly call or a meeting or an e-mail. That is incredibly
powerful in keeping you above what has pulled you
down before. So I want to offer that as a third tool, not
a replacement for anything but saying that the whole
idea of a mastermind or a support group has been in
my experience, anyway, phenomenal in transforming
the old into where I wanted to be into this new.
BILL HARRIS: Absolutely, I totally agree with you and
this is part of the reason why we offer support coaches in
the Holosync Solution Program and in case somebody is
listening to this and they are saying, “Well I don’t know
anybody I can do that with, all the people I know are all
losers and idiots and they wouldn’t be supportive of me,”
in case somebody is saying something like that, this is
the time to ask that magic question, “how can I find a
group of like-minded people that will help support me?”
And if you really ask that question and really get curious
about it and keep asking it and keep pondering it, you
will magically somehow find a way to create that group
of people.
JOE VITALE: Well, we live in the age of the internet.
The groups are all over the place online and if you can’t
find an existing one you can probably create one either
online virtually or in your own neighborhood. But my
whole point is, yes, I love what you just said. Direct
your brain to find the answer for you but don’t be
afraid to ask for help. That’s one of the success parts
of the AA program, is you know, get support. So, this
does work, all of these things.
BILL HARRIS: Well, Joe, we did not really talk about
18 THE MASTERS OF THE SECRET JOE VITALE
what we were going to talk about before we did this
and I had a few ideas, but 90% of what I brought up I
thought of off the top of my head and sometimes that’s
the best way. I really want to thank you for sharing
your brilliant knowledge and wisdom with everyone
and it’s always a lot of fun to talk to you and to share
ideas with you. So thanks so much. Again, Joe gave
two websites that you might go to again if you want
to find out more about Joe and what he does and I
endorse Joe very highly and what he does is gonna be
very useful to you I am sure, and that would be www.
mrfire.com and then I want to make sure I get the one
about the car right.
JOE VITALE: www.attractanewcar.com
BILL HARRIS: www.attractanewcar.com
JOE VITALE: Yes.
BILL HARRIS: Is that linked to from www.mrfire.com?
JOE VITALE: I don’t believe it is because it is brand new
so it’s not linked just yet.
BILL HARRIS: Okay, so that’s a somewhat secret site that
uh...
JOE VITALE: Yeah, we just made it public right now.
BILL HARRIS: Okay, great.
JOE VITALE: Oh, this has been exhilarating Bill. Thank
you. We’ve worked together to bring up some wonderful
stuff. I feel stimulated and enlightened and I’ve learned
just as well as I hope I’ve taught, so this has been fantastic.
Thank you.
BILL HARRIS: Well, it was a pleasure for me too. So
thanks a lot Joe. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for listening to this conversation
with another of the Masters of the Secret. I know this
information will help you to master The Secret yourself—
the fact that what you focus on is created in reality. To
thank you for listening, I have a very special free gift for
you. As I’ve worked to master The Secret and implement
it in my life, one of the most powerful tools I’ve used
is Holosync audio technology, which, when listened
to using stereo headphones places the listener in deep
states of meditation, literally at the touch of a button.
In addition to many mental, emotional, and spiritual
benefits, Holosync creates an ability to focus your mind
so powerfully that manifesting what you want becomes
easy. I’d like to send you a free Holosync CD so you can
try it yourself, along with a free Special Report explaining
how it works and all the amazing benefits it has created
for the nearly 300,000 people who have used it in 173
countries. To get your free Holosync CD, just go to:
http://www.centerpointe.com/freecd
Thanks again for listening, and I look forward to being
with you again next time.

My New Favorite Website

http://secretfunspot.blogspot.com/

Bizarro Land!!...Shades of weirdness!! Ripley's Believe it or Not meets Pickard!!

Has tons of photos of Gatlinburg which is my Girlfriend's favorite home away from Home. I have PERSONALLY visited some of these Haunts, Including seeing Pickard!! We also saw a DOG with a MOUSE on it's back.
It is also the town that I EVER came as close to getting a tattoo!! IF Rob had said..Hey...LETS get A TATTOO...as much AGAINST Them as I am....yep..I think I would have done it!!

Get a cup of java...sit back..and enjoy the freakery. Great Road signs, COOL stuff.

Goodbye Karl

By RICK KLEIN ABC news
Aug. 13, 2007

With Karl Rove leaving the White House, The Note's Rick Klein offers 10 lessons learned from Rove's tenure as President Bush's top strategist.
1. There's no such thing as perma-anything in politics. Rove spoke longingly about building a "permanent" Republican majority. But President Bush's two terms in office -- particularly last year's midterm congressional elections -- prove that American politics is too narrowly divided, and too cyclical, for anything to last forever. (Even the Bush-Clinton-Bush cycle can't last forever -- can it?)

2. The Bush model works. Rove and his gang revolutionized base-emphasizing "micro-targeting," handing Bush two of the narrowest electoral wins in recent history. And the streamlined message machine Rove and company oversaw is now the rule, not the exception; Hillary Clinton's campaign is but one convert.
3. The Bush model works too well. This administration will be defined by its insularity -- by cronyism, obstinacy and loyalty to the extreme -- providing the president little cushion when things start to slide. Other campaigns should take note.

4. "Turd Blossom" is not necessarily a nickname of derision. In an age of white-bread political operatives, Rove was a colorful figure who earned a stable of nicknames worthy of the Roaring '20s. Bush himself coined the "Blossom" sobriquet, and also called Rove "Boy Genius" and "the Architect." Journalists, meanwhile, called Rove "Bush's Brain." And Rove had a talent for labels himself -- will anyone in politics be able to look a flip-flop -- or a windsurfer -- again and not think of John Kerry?

5. No one can outmaneuver a national wave. On the eve of last fall's congressional elections, Rove was defiant in insisting that he had "the math" that showed the Congress would stay in Democratic hands. What followed was a GOP wipeout that devastated Rove's reputation as an electoral genius.

6. Political advisers work best in the shadows. Rove cultivated his man-behind-the-curtain image but never quite stayed in the background -- and ended up a celebrity for all the wrong reasons. He was once set to depart as the most-coveted strategist in the world, but his reputation was tarnished by the Valerie Plame affair and the mess over the attorneys general. He remains popular with Bush's (ever-shrinking) base but was too useful a lightning rod for Democrats and other critics of the Bush administration.

7. Fifty-six year-old white men named Karl should not rap in public. They should also refrain from dancing on stages whenever possible.

8. Groundbreaking political thinking comes from outside Washington. Before Rove took over national politics, he remade Texas politics, turning the state Republican. And he championed a baseball owner with a famous last name who would come to redefine the GOP well into 2008 and beyond.

9. Presidential capital does not flow down Pennsylvania Avenue. Rove and company overreached by believing they could browbeat Congress into acting on politically sensitive topics -- think Social Security, immigration and tax reform -- and ended up with a gallery of disappointments and defeats.

10. There is no successor to Karl Rove. For all his many flaws, trying to pick one is like naming the next Michael Jordan. It's unfair to Rove and unfair to the person he's being compared to.

Dance photos 2007 recital

Helena Group Dance 2007

D-I-V-O-R-C-E part deux

Wow. On a different blog the comments are Raging about marriage, the difficulty and the reality.
My one pal, partner is moving in and out , in and out. No boundaries have been set, but mostly the partner is OUT. However this doesn't preclude the return several times a week to babysit the dog, pick up or see child etc. The move out was several months ago, yet the partner...continues to have "free reign" over the house. No boundary issues, so the ones left behind..have no idea when the one that left may pop in..to stay, or pick something up, or anything. I've been trying to explain that LIMBO land is very stressful. The Child, not really "child" but still...did not move out. The stress is huge on them. The one that left..LITERALLY has come into the home to pack boxes, and removed items from the child's hand that they were using to pack away. NOT That its going anyplace but into storage. Frustrating.
I've likened it or thought about it like the Raccoon...sticks its paw in a container to get the shiny object...Closes its fist on the object, and then is STUCK as it won't let go of object EVEN to it's detriment! Its CAUGHT,NaBBED, and can't move forward.....
Boundary issues are so difficult. A former Co worker in Corrections harped on boundary issues with all of her caseload..and I guess some of it stuck on me. Part of friendship, breaking up, Divorce all that becomes boundary issues. Who gets the crock pot is lame compared to who gets the friends.
As Vanessa so wisely put it..STUFF can always be replaced!! There is always MORE cheap STUFF. SO..when STUFF becomes the issue--Box it up, get it out of your space and move one.
I'm relearning this lesson with the "SECRET"-- with various affirmations.

"XYZ flows through me". "What I need Finds me". "What I have that Others Need I am shown". "I am surrounded by loving supportive relationships".
NO STUFF is worth fighting over. Relationships --YES. I try and fight for them. Sometimes tho..the decision is completly removed from you.
Relationships YES..STUFF-- NOT.

Thank you for being a Friend

Thank You For Being A Friend
( Andrew Gold )

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down a road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant

I'm not ashamed to say
I hope it always will stay this way
My hat is off, won't you stand up and take a bow

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
Thank you for being a friend
Thank you for being a friend
Thank you for being a friend
Thank you for being a friend

If it's a car you lack
I'd surely buy you a Cadillac
Whatever you need any time of the day or night

I'm not ashamed to say
I hope it always will stay this way
My hat is off, won't you stand up and take a bow

And when we both get older
With walking canes and hair of gray
Have no fear even though it's hard to hear
I will stand real close and say
Thank you for being a friend
Thank you for being a friend
Thank you for being a friend
Thank you for being a friend

And when we die
And float away
Into the night
The milky way
You'll hear me call
As we ascend
I'll say your name
Then once again

Thank you for being a friend

Disatisfaction ...a great article

http://spiritledwoman.com/display_cms.php?id=145

Longing For Something More
By Anahid Schweikert
ARE YOU EXPERIENCING AN UNEXPLAINED FEELING OF DISSATISFACTION? THE REASON FOR IT MIGHT BE SPIRITUAL HUNGER.

My friend was sick with frustration. You could see it all over her face and hear it in her voice as she talked about unmet expectations at her church.

"You're never satisfied," remarked her husband. Unlike his wife, he was happy with their full-gospel church, and he felt fulfilled in the ways he was serving there. Everything was in place--a beautiful new building, committees ready for action, outreach efforts underway.

But for my friend and others at her church, there was still a deep sense of dissatisfaction. It wasn't a rumbling, like complaining, but more a gnawing hunger for something more--the life-changing presence of the Holy Spirit.

I identified with my friend's feelings; I had experienced them myself. Perhaps you have, too. It may not be your church that leaves your spirit wanting; it may be your job. Or perhaps your marriage is missing something. Maybe your whole life feels empty!

Deep inside you know there must be more, but your hope is drained when well-meaning friends try to offer biblical counsel, telling you to let go of your lofty expectations and learn to be content with what you've got.

But is this counsel truly biblical? My understanding is that it is not. Scripture does not declare all dissatisfaction to be a product of the flesh. Although we often use the words "satisfaction" and "contentment" interchangeably, they don't mean the same thing, and confusing the two may alter the course of our lives.

SATISFACTION VS. CONTENTMENT In English, to be satisfied means to have your fill of what you desire, expect or need (Funk and Wagnall's Standard Desk Dictionary). Similarly, in the original Bible languages, numerous words translated as "satisfy" imply a completion and a filling (see the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible).

"Contentment," on the other hand, refers to a sense of gladly accepting what is offered to you, knowing that more could be had, such as politely accepting a salad when you really wanted a steak. Webster's New World Dictionary defines it as being "happy with one's lot."

Sadly, some people believe the biblical charge of contentment is a mandate to relinquish all their unmet desires. But if we abandon every expectation for increase, we may do more than smother our hopes and dreams. We may immobilize God's perfect will in our lives by settling for less than what He has ordained for us to have and do!

Interestingly, most Scriptures that refer to contentment pertain to material wealth, not spiritual fulfillment. Consider the oft-quoted passage in 1 Timothy 6:6-8: "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it" (NIV). Paul is referring here to the riches of this world and exhorting believers to value eternal things more.

Again, Paul writes: "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty" (Phil. 4:11-12). Here he is discussing the support he has received from the Philippian church, pronouncing his reliance upon God for even his essential physical needs.

"Keep your lives free from the love of money," we are told in Hebrews 13:5, "and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'"

God's word does command us to be content with our means. But when it comes to eternal matters of the heart--our walk with God, relationships with others, finding meaning in life--God wants us to be filled to overflowing! When Scripture refers to man's being satisfied, it's often in the context of hunger and thirst of the soul. "'Blessed are you who hunger now,'" says Jesus, "'for you will be satisfied'" (Luke 6:21).

One summer day, our family went to the beach. While my husband went off to study a book under the shade, I waded along the shoreline with our 2-year-old daughter, Olivia, who was reluctant to go into water beyond her knees. As a mother, I was happy to play with her in the sand, watching her waddle around in the gentle waves. I was content!

The day grew hotter and hotter, though, and after awhile the sizzling sun began to beat down on our heads. Eventually, splashing along the shore was no longer enough for me. Wading up to my knees wasn't invigorating. I felt as if I were melting, and I needed something more!

The deeper water was calling to me, and I was no longer content to do the "Mommy thing." I simply had to satisfy my body's need to cool off!

As soon as my husband joined us and took over the responsibility of watching Olivia, I dove in deeper for a real swim. How refreshing that was! How satisfying!

I might have been content to cool off in an air-conditioned building rather than in the water, but leaving the beach without going into the water would not have satisfied me. I would have felt as if I had missed something wonderful.

SATISFACTION CHECKLIST And so it is with your spirit. It's OK to be dissatisfied in your spiritual walk. That's what beckons you into the deeper waters God has for you.

"'Come, all you who are thirsty," says the Word, "come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?'" (Is. 55:1-2).

If you find yourself wanting more, don't assume there's something wrong. Stop to consider the nature of your yearning. It is possible to know whether the desires in your heart are of God or not.

How do you tell? How do you determine whether to let them go and be content or press on until your heart is truly satisfied?

Examine your motives. James warns us, "You want something but don't get it...When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (James 4:2-3). In light of biblical contentment, you must first search your heart to see if your desires have eternal significance.

Jesus, knowing that man's heart is easily enticed by earthly things, tells us to "'store up...treasures in heaven'" (Matt. 6:20), not only because earthly things will pass away but also because He wants our hearts to be given totally to Him.

"'Where your treasure is,'" He says, "'there your heart will be also'" (v. 21). Follow the trail to your treasure chest, and there you will find your heart.

Fear the Lord. "He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them" (Ps. 145:19). A healthy fear of God will make you humbly aware of your accountability to Him.

If your heart seems to be guiding you to do a new thing, first yield that desire to the Lord and see if He releases you to pursue it. Once He makes His leading clear, follow it--or satisfaction will
continue to elude you.

Be diligent. "The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied" (Prov. 13:4). You may have a godly desire in your heart, but don't expect to simply wake up one morning and find yourself living your dream. You must birth it in prayer, ask the Holy Spirit what to do and then do it, whether it requires taking a baby step or a great leap of faith.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do to achieve your desires except pray and wait on the Lord. But even then you must live in the present.

Look around you. What is your current sphere of influence? Can you find a way to serve God there with a glad heart?

If so, you will eventually hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matt. 25:21).

Continue to hope. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" (Prov. 13:12). If you are inclined to "just be content" in every area of your life, ask yourself if you have lost hope. Perhaps a renewed hope in the Lord would give you reason to press on until you can truly say your heart is satisfied.

It is His desire to give us this hope. "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart'" (Jer. 29:11-13).

In Oswald Chambers' classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, Chambers writes about vision becoming reality. "God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision," he writes. "It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint."

Chambers explains that God inspires us with vision but does not entrust us with the reality of it until we have been molded to His likeness, as clay on the potter's wheel.

"But don't lose heart in the process," he writes. "If you ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it."

My friend and the "hungry" people in her church refused to be content playing church. They pressed forth in prayer, and soon the church leadership recognized the need as well. They began to lead the congregation out to deeper waters of revival, raising the standard of their Christian experience.

Your inner craving for more, like my friend's, should be examined. If it's of God, your dissatisfaction can be used as a tool to propel you toward a more fulfilling life in the Lord. But if you ignore your pain until you've gone numb, you may be lulled into settling for a mediocre existence, even in the things that really matter.

"Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love," wrote David, "that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days" (Ps. 90:14). In the end, the secret of satisfaction is knowing that whatever longing we feel begins and ends with Jesus, for He alone truly satisfies our souls.

Anahid Schweikert is a free-lance writer who lives in Iron Mountain, Michigan. She is a frequent contributor to SpiritLed Woman.

This article appeared in the Apr/May 2000 issue.

So far so good,

working at Camp...had one group out now. Worked like Crazy!!! this was a hard core bible "grace" fundamental premellienial Baptist group. wow. I have to think about some of the things that happened.

Will share later.

JOY ism Dead Ferret

I just spent a while on a great "fresh" dinner. We went to Farmer's market today in Mt Pleasant, so dinner tonight was corn on the cob, fresh tomato sandwiches with 2 kinds of lettuce on Jalapeño bread, Made my first Fruit Bowl out of Watermelon, with peaches, grapes and strawberries.
THEN...everyone was done, and my fingernails were Nasty..so I got out the fingernail polish remover. I called Joy to computer to used web cam to take her picture as I still haven't learned how to transfer pic's from camera...
She came through the kitchen
and said....
"What stinks in the kitchen so badly??? It Smells like DEAD FERRET."

WHAT? Just exactly WHAT does a Dead Ferret smell like? and how would SHE know??? Gone are the days of Homeschooling where I knew WHAT they knew and where they learned it!! LOL!!

Joy's arm Continued

Went to surgeon today...NO SURGERY needed at this time!..>Joy got her cast reinforced and closed down, and color changed to pink! Its very hot.

My new favorite website

http://www.stuffonmycat.com

yes, Subject to change at whim, but THIS makes me Crack up every time!!!

Out of Gas

My van let me down. It's like a date with a friend and they don't show up...don't call, just nothing.
I KNOW my van! nevertheless....a new twist develops.
I picked up students for Tae Kwon Do for class in Mt. Pleasant, as well as my two that are home (broken arm and all) and dropped them off at Finch Field house. Yes...It was still in the '90's!!
Decided I'd go get some gas while they were in class. The light had come on, but that means about 30 miles yet.
WRONG.
Right in the middle of Preston, putter stutter DIE. Called my mom...she didn't answer the phone. Called my brother..he was in Saginaw. He suggested I call my sister in law...which I did.
Meanwhile..it started..and I had to get what I thought was TWO blocks to the gas station...and I made it there...across from Arby's..AWQWCK!!! It was CLOSED..Not closed as in not open for business but RIPPED apart closed.
Called my SIL back, I made it to HERBS ETC. parking lot. Cleaned out the van While I waited.
She brought a BIG CAN!! I put some in...Got it going and was able to make it to the gas station!
What a weird experience. I mean that just does NOT happen very often. I was amazed at my attitude. I wasn't freakin out, just ...calm...
Thank you Terry!

Broken Arm

"I have fallen and been injured"....was the statement my girlfriend heard at the campground as I was dishin out sloppy joes to the non-discript Park Employee.

OH..Its YOUR kid! Joy...age 6, 2 hours into our camp stay, was climbing into the upper loft. She Fell off the ladder from about the 5th rung. SMACK, onto the concrete. She came out of the cabin, and the fleeting thought crossed my mind that I wouldn't be having any Lunch.
I grabbed stuff from the BIG first aid kit I had Debated about spending all of 2 dollars on at a yard sale, Ripped open sterile 4 x 4's and tried o stop the flow of running blood gushing from under her chin. SH*T! Yes she's going to need stiches I could tell at a glance.
"my arm hurts". Oh Crap. My ass did that tingley thing when you just KNOW something is wrong..I looked down AWWCKKK!!! So..>Got a STICK (Basic first aid) for a Splint..hey have to use what you can in a pinch, wrapped it, and took off.

Decided to go to Mt P to hospital as her dad was in MT. P working, they already had our file and stuff and her pediatrician is there.ER doc was ok...but dang it was SOOO SLOW. Way too slow. Wouldn't sew up her chin after getting her all geeked up about S-T-I-C-H-E-S...explained all about them...the shot all that..then leavers her for FOUR hours to think about it????. She was pretty amazing...ended up getting like 150 mg of Demerol at various times...and Never fell asleep..the fat guy next to us (Oh yah...it was so private! NOT)was given 50 mg of the same and was OUT of it puking his guts out.
The Ortho doctor showed up..Literally as the ER doc was sewing her up...and was trying to work on her..Like WAIT FIVE minutes you Jerk!! Then he copped an attitude and left the ER.
Joy has follow up on thursday to see if she has to have surgery or not to install pins

Had a meeting at school tonight. Everyone loves Joy..so she looked VERY cute in her TAE uniform with her broken arm and sling. She wanted me to make up a tee shirt that said, "I fell off a ladder while camping and got stiches and broke my arm in three places, Yes it hurts"...cause she got tired of saying it all the time!

SO Much!

SO much has been going on,...I don't even know where to start!...I helped Helena start her blog this week. That has been a blast. She is so intelligent, smart, funny, self-starter, creative. Amazing kid.
Going Camping at School Section lake for next 3 days...will be home Friday...then I think I have to go to the Springs for the weekend or the next 10 days...LOL not sure.

Abundance

Part of this "new" way of thinking..reminds me of the old bible school song
"He owns the cattle on a thousand hills
the wealth in Every mine
He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills,
the Sun and Stars that shine,
Wonderful riches more than tongue can tell
He is my Father so they're mine as well
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills I know that'
He Will care for ME".

I was looking at a website...(will have to refind), that talked about Great men of the bible...Abraham, King David...and the WEALTH they accumulated. I'm Really NOT trying to get into this "name it and claim" it type thinking..I'm just exploring here...talking out loud...imagining Mary P. or Ness, or Char, or someone I trust across from me with a cup of Coffee. Someone who will listen to me..and yet slap the crap out of me if I get too whacked.
Maybe it's because I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER since the recent surgery. I don't know. But I'm TIRED of being down in the mouth...feeling as if I have no options. Our Money management class has had unexpected side benefits. I think of What I do for my children--basically give up MY Life so they can live theirs--run them here, deliver them there, shell out money for Dance, Tae Kwon, drive two hours for practice etc. It reminds me of that verse, 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matt. 7
9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. If I..as crappy a mom as I am..would sacrifice what I have for MY children..Is HE..so much more holy...He gives out of ABUNDANCE..that's what I desire for MY children.
Not out of sacrifice..that leads to bitterness...
My one friend Char and I are discussing slowly "The Secret". Her take is correct..I would NOT recommend this maybe to a "baby" believer. There IS a lot of "pscho babble" in it. However..I am coming at it from an entirely different perspective. Pastor Robb made HUGE impact on my life when He said.."All TRUTH is GOD's TRUTH". ...I am discerning (I think) enough to sort through stuff, and grow.
I took Helena to an antique flea market (with M & M). While buying a Italian cook book for 3$$ (our latest inquiry into SOPRANO's)..I stated to the seller, "Ok..well I guess I can't live without this, so I have to buy it". The sellers son..jumped all me..."Oh that's GREAT thing you are teaching your daughter". This is a phrase that My mom and I use a lot while garage saleing. I said..."well I think it IS a good thing to teach..there are so VERY few things I desire/want.--I can live without anything..I choose what I want to buy.." anyway...Limited thinking. Sick of it. Concentrating now on..."I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly".

Volvo 850 Turbo!!

God gives good gifts to his children.

We went and looked at this car last week in Ann Arbor. We went and Picked it up today!!
Don was squeemish about it..literally said, "I can't SEE myself driving this". I told him that day..."I can SEE you driving it". Literally. Saw him transporting the urchins to school etc..saw him happy to have a decent vehicle.
I called him earlier this week While I was away...and told him HE needed to change his attitude toward the car. To envision his hands wrapped around the steering wheel, to see himself fiddling with the controls etc.
Part of our "managing money god's way" class the last session, was to talk about how God..the loving Father, gives GOOD gifts to his children. We don't have to be Down and out...white trash Baptistic Christians who think poor is equivalent to godliness.I'm So DONE with that thinking. We are very generous..give out of abundance..not out of Sacrifice. We are not greedy..yet have a tendency to think we don't deserve nice things. This is a direct result of taking care of what WE ALREADY HAVE, and being thankful for IT!
I'm so happy to SEE him driving a better car. Its a 1996, turbo, champagne color...really nice.

The Secret...book What I'm reading

Get it...read it.
Let me know what you are thinking. Great websites on it...Wondering.

I think "the Secret" works,,,because it is based on Biblical example.

"As a man thinks, so is he"
"I have come that they might have life, and have it MORE Abundantly"
"if you say to that mountain MOVE...it shall be done"
"every good gift, and every perfect gift, comes from the Father above in whom no changing occurs"
The parable of the dad...giving a stone to his child when they requested bread.

Camp

It's just amazing to me how much easier it is to oh...say cook for 20 or so..when you have the right kitchen.
I love the Camp kitchen (in the conference center)...huge ovens, great sheet pans that I use for EVERYTHING. Food..mass quantities!
I got up to camp yesterday...just assessing stuff VERY EARLY IN THE MORNIGN TO BE DRIVING......when I find out instead of a 10:30 breakfast..OH its NINE O'clock. Yikes...that was scary at first. Martha was there to save the day and walked me through everything. Really all they needed was a warm body to cook, so the crew could go do a presentation at a church. That's really cool...when you can do something..to free someone else up to do God stuff. Both are blessed.
This was for a family reunion...What a wonderful idea! The Matriarch had died last year, and this was the first visit home for the Patriarch since the death..and they didn't have room at any ONE person's house so they came to the retreat center! Great idea---food cooked for you, room to move around...they LOVED their visit.
Martha asked.."WHere are the kids"?????...as I had left them home to recuperate...from Sat's great adventure, "Well isn't WILLIAM coming to SR high camp this week???"...OOPS..I guess since my surgery I"ve been sort of OUT OF IT..so...had to call in Heavy Kevvy to save the day, go from his place in Midland, pick my kids up, tell Wiliam (with extensive help from Helena) what to pack, Then Kev brought kids up to camp. Thank God for loving friends who help out without asking or expecting anything. Kev says.."CALM DOWN"...lol because a little panic was seeping into my voice. ,...I simply can't believe I forgot about camp...even tho is was the 2nd week etc...
GO God

Pretty much a perfect summer day

I have to get up in 5 hours to go work at camp, but THIS...was the perfect day....dropped one kid off at Grandma's, got stuff for picnic, snoozed while someone else drove, 3 older kids getting along...Museum, funny!! laughing....taking Pictures of my SHADOW!......picnic, feeding ducks, River walk, Pouring rain, summer sun, Mall...read books, good coffee, Harry Potter in 3-D, pizza at Deluca's Intro friends to the Wii.
yum yum.
great day.

Depression, Sayings, and MORE

I was writing recently to a friend, and came up with what I thought was a GREAT phrase to describe the lethargy and post surgical funk I'm in..." It's No Christmas morning in Whoville in my head" !! HA! I love that!

Reminds me of the saying My School Admin friend Kathy says,about stupid thoughts, people you can't get over or remain Ticked at etc..."Hey! You are just providing them FREE rent in your head"
"Get OVER it already"
"Bring a different bus into the depot please"...When someone keeps complaining over and over about the same thing refusing to do anything about it.
Any more to add??
....

Russia Renews Adoption Licenses

Russia renews adoption agencies' licenses
Updated 2h 18m ago | Comment | Recommend E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Subscribe to stories like this
By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
Russia has reopened its doors to Americans who want to adopt children, re-accrediting seven adoption agencies based in the USA.

Licenses granted in the past two weeks will enable the agencies to resume helping Americans adopt from among the 700,000 Russian children in orphanages, says Lee Allen, spokesman for the private National Council For Adoption.

As many as 44 American agencies had been working in Russia, he says.

"This is the first positive movement we've seen in a long time," Allen says. "We're very encouraged by it."

Russia has been a top destination for Americans seeking to adopt foreign children, ranking third behind China and Guatemala in 2006, according to the State Department.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Americans | Russia | Russian | Allen

Last year, 3,706 Russian adoptees came to the USA, a decline from a peak of 5,865 in 2004.

The number of adoptions began slowing last year as the annual licenses of American agencies started to expire.

The last two licenses expired in April, according to the website of Russia's Washington, D.C., embassy.

The agencies applied for renewal as Russia implemented tighter rules.

Most adoptions were put on hold, although some independently arranged ones proceeded.

"Many thousands of kids may have lost their opportunity" to be adopted when licenses expired, Allen says.

The new licenses have no expiration date but can be reconsidered at any time.

The Russian government did not respond to requests for comment.

"We have some people who've been waiting" to adopt, says John Bentz, president of International Assistance Group in Oakmont, Pa., one of the first seven American adoption agencies to win reapproval. "It will take some time."

"There are plenty of kids who need homes," says Joan Jaeger, spokeswoman for The Cradle in Evanston, Ill., one of the agencies re-accredited.

She says placing a child with an American family can take up to a year. She says the cost is comparable to domestic adoption: about $30,000, including two trips to Russia.

The other agencies re-accredited are Cradle of Hope in Silver Spring, Md.; The Frank Adoption Center in Raleigh, N.C.; Family and Children's Agency in Norwalk, Conn; Catholic Social Services, which is nationwide; and Children's Home Society & Family Services in St. Paul.
Posted 18h 22m ago

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Divorce sucks, or Sux in today's lingo.
I've got several friends in the midst of it, thinking about it, or trying to avoid it.

Scenario: Gees..this is going to be harder than I thought to keep it somewhat confidential...
Friend is miserable...partner an idiot. Oh--so not creative..that sums up 99% of how someone getting divorced feels. Friend feels partner is putting work in front of Sfamily. Partner has issues, somewhat depressed...workaholic tendency. Both of them are friends of mine. YAH. Sticky. Have tried to intervene...really don't know what my place is.
Can I be biblical and be supportive of change?
Can I be a True and Faithful friend while they seek greener pastures? (so to speak)..
Am I supposed to cut them off, or be a safe place for them to talk?
What would I WANT? What Would I NEED in this situation?

I've 'Been there and done that' as my profile states. Married Young to a Devote "fellow believer" dedicating ourselves and future to God's plan. Yah...that didn't work out well either time I married the same guy. Yes, for those of you seeing it here for the first time...I am one of those...who although I KNEW I was right the first time in getting divorced, let the guy snake back in his wormy way, married and divorced again within a year. Grateful for the learning curve being done quickly--and know I was right the first time. He went on to cheat on his new wifey in much the same way he left me for her.
I was Completely deserted from all my Christian friends. I swore I would never do that to a friend. The Church...the Pastor...the only time I heard from the pastor was months and months later when I started attending a different church and he was concerned about that. He NEVER once called me to see how I was doing--I had moved back in to my mom's after he assured me that God would STILL love me if I were divorced. Wow. What a wacked out way of thinking...
I have no regrets. Made it on my own..actually BETTER on my own.
I'm amazed at how that works.
Scenario: My friend in Midland, says...when his wife split, leaving him to raise his 3 sons, says.."her leaving left as much impact as pulling your finger out of a glass of water". Wow. That's really sad isn't it? For a mom to have such little influence in the running of the household, the boys didn't notice for a few weeks that she had LEFT!! He deserves a medal.
Scenario: My other friend...is is middle of process...wife has moved in and out so many times it isn't even news anymore. He's doing a great job providing stability for his teen daughter in the midst of it all. Works, parents-actively..and is just stuck.

Scenario: There always seems to be one more. I'm tired of it. I bounce ideas around in my head.
I think I am going to have to write about this some more.

I still have too many to write about.

God in Nature

I sit at my desk this morning in awe of how cool animals are. I get why zoos are so popular.
At first, there was one small fawn out at the side of the woods munching on the farmers tender shoots. He was Full profile, and I could watch as he bent his head. His slender small body intent on eating was a testament to survival. My young daughter came, and stood at the door, mesmerized by each bite. "Mommy, he is eating now. Mommy he is swallowing now" Yes Joy..all that.
Then she left, and I was amazed as his twin joined him! We know of these animals as several weeks ago, William and his buddy went out to the woods, and in came the high schooler carrying a FAWN! GO put him Back!!..."He's TOO weak" they said..he didn't MOVE!"...when, they placed fawny on the ground he Scooted back to his mom fearfully observing from the middle of the woods. A few nights later, we were happy to see not JUST mom and fawn, but Mom, Fawn + one...a twin.
cool.
Between that, the chickens + rooster, and our two new kitties, we have a lot of entertainment and "God in Nature".
Personally, I'm getting sick of God in Rooster at Daybreak. Not so glorious.

Mental Confusion....HA there's a REASON!

Complications of Acute Cholecystitis (gallbladder)

The most serious complication of acute cholecystitis is infection, which develops in about 20% of cases. It is extremely dangerous and life threatening if it spreads to other parts of the body ( septicemia ). Symptoms include fever, rapid heartbeat, fast breathing, and mental confusion. Among the conditions that can lead to septicemia are the following:

* Gangrene or Abscesses. If acute cholecystitis is untreated and becomes very severe, inflammation can cause abscesses or destroy enough tissue in the gallbladder (called necrosis ) to lead to gangrene. Studies have reported this complication in between 2 - 30% of cases. The highest risk is in men over 50 with a history of heart disease who have high levels of infection.

There's a reason

MyHotComments :: HotFreeLayouts

Don't argue with the Doctor

So last Sunday, I had called Dr. Smith to ask about going to the ER. He was on call, and according to Staff at Gratiot Community, is the only Doctor that has surgery staff on call also.
I told him I thought it was Diverticulitis..he told me Gall Bladder.
I told him..but it's the same pain as last fall...except for the twinge going up my back to my shoulder.
He told me Gall bladder. Ok..He was right.
He told me..go to ER, He'd tell the Doctor I was coming. I got a reception at ER. "Yes, Dr Smith informed us you'd be arriving". Yah..that was me.
SO...Finally admitting that I was in pain...I broke down crying driving myself to ER. "Damn this hurts", I kept saying to my imaginary passengers.
Blood pressure through the roof, as expected because of the pain.
OK..I'm going to be admitted. I don't care. Get rid of pain. Shots given..pain subsides..well...maybe the pain wasn't really all THAT much....how quickly our bodies forget.
Surgery was at 3:00. My Gall Bladder was removed...Doc said it was all Gangrene and yucky, almost grossed him out. My sites are VERY sore. One section is much larger than they usually have to make it. His office partner apologized when looking at it.

I had the funeral this morning, then went to his office as my IV site is quite infected...I think with Staph...red...puffy VERY SORE. Got some antibiotics.

I was kept an extra day because I simply couldn't PEE. Every shift I would have to be Straight Cathed...yah...not real pleasant. Finally the 3rd day, someone informs Dr. Smith who says he has to put in a real Catheter to rest the bladder, then usually it kicks in and starts working. SO...another night at the hospital. Somehow the nurses take it upon themselves that Doctor's orders are Doctor SUGGESTIONS. Instead of giving what is ORDERED...they give 1/2 or try this first etc. Look--JUST GIVE me BOTH the Pill and the IV SHOT. I'm not going to get ADDICTED..I"M GOING HOME TOMORROW. Just get me out of pain!! I eventually had to resort to bringing some medicine from home. How pathetic is that?
I had opportune visit from Pastor Bob, just before I went down for surgery. How nice to know someone is praying for you RIGHT as you go under the knife. I'm still not sure how he found out so fast. I think I knew at one time but forgot.
Wonderful flowers/plant from Ithaca Baptist church, Cool smiley mug from Ms. Paula, Great orange lilies from Marcella. Had a nice visit with Mary P.
SO...got released on the 4th of July. Took a nap..then loaded up and went to Breckenridge for the fireworks/music show. It was fabulous. Great music...Great friends. Drank some adult liquid pain killer. Ate sparingly. I so far have NOT thrown up one time since surgery.
Tons of my friends met there, Shelly and her hubby of Kincaid (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=6441371) fame (I call him Big Daddy and sit on his lap at one point) and her two sons+girlfriend, Cathy and Tim and their tribe of Foster/adopts, Mr. Mark and mom and daughter Mary (from Tae Kwon Do), Gerry & Beth-Ty and granddaughter, Doug from Church with great chocolate chip cookies, The Smith Tribe, Don, Helena William and Joy (who covers her head and falls asleep during the fireworks display). We all shared food-Pizza from my new favorite place in Merrill-Woody's, chips, pop, cheese, cookies, chicken...it was good.
My Gas passing was under control at that time..my gut was still JUST HUGE though from the surgery. It still is...
It was fun. It was Family. It was Friends. It was the Fourth. It was Tradition. I'm glad I was alive to see it, and live it.

Bill Joslyn, and Kathy

Rest In Peace

While in the hospital, I got a phone call that Bill had been Killed. I just went to the adoption 3 weeks ago of their new baby girl. Please Pray for Kathy his wife. Great family, GOOD True Christians. I'm heartbroken. He was a Real man.


Riverdale man killed after crash with coyote


By MARK RANZENBERGER
Sun Staff Writer

A Riverdale man died early Tuesday morning when his motorcycle struck a coyote and he lost control of the bike.
William Allan Joslyn, 48, was riding his Suzuki motorcycle west on Stanton Road east of Carlson Road shortly after 6 a.m. when the coyote apparently jumped out in front of the bike, according to Montcalm County Sheriff's Department Lt. Karl Kluwe.

"It probably came shooting right across the road," Kluwe said. Joslyn's cycle struck the animal and he lost control of the machine.

Investigators said Joslyn laid the bike down on its left side and slid to a stop. Montcalm County Emergency Medical Services took Joslyn to Sheridan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The coyote also died when it was struck, Kluwe said.

The lieutenant said coyotes are fairly common in the area. This animal was described as about the size of a small- to medium-sized German shepherd dog.

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, coyotes are most abundant in the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Michigan, but have been moving into southern parts of the state in recent years.

The animals, members of the dog family, are very adaptable to a variety of habitats. Kluwe described the area of Douglas Township where the accident took place as "a typical rural area" of mostly farm fields.

Coyotes are opportunistic feeders, feeding on small animals and livestock, as well as on carrion. The DNR says in areas with high deer population, carrion from road kill provides a major food source.

Coyotes usually feed at night, and are most likely to be seen at sunrise and sunset. Tuesday's accident happened at sunrise.

Kluwe said Joslyn was wearing a helmet with a full face mask, and did not appear to have been exceeding the 55 mph speed limit on Stanton Road.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Going to ER

Talked to Doc...going to ER. He's in the hospital. I can't take it anymore. he thinks based on pain..might be Gall bladder.
Like this is all I need.

Diverticulitis

I'm miserable. Totally in pain. Can't decide if I should go to the ER or not. My gut in on fire. My pain level is huge.
When I say something as "I'm in pain"...you may as well X5 for what "normal" people feel. I think I'm going to puke..I think I may pass out first. I'm miserable. I took Kadian...a morphine derivative...it hasn't touched it. I've cried...just want the pain to go AWAY. Do I take more pain meds...I shouldn't drink now...the oh my Goawd this hurts factor...yah..definitely not a smiley face--over by the 16 side on a 10 scale.

Defend ...

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
Psalm 82:3-4

Fantastic Friday

Well..I actually MADE some money this week doing "Body Work". It has been good. Today..I went to a Radio Station as a Promo for a couple employees doing a great job. One of them...I got to work on the Morning show guy. He was a stitch! Older, handsome..and just..funny. I always ask if they've had surgeries, had body work..(massage) before etc. He was definitive that yah yah...he'd had them before...but..I guess when I was done with him...he told the 'boss'..that it was the BEST he had ever had. Yah....it's so good to be number one.
I truly did out do myself. I brought a china cup and saucer...some green tea...candles--lots of them..incense and ginger air spray. I laid out the room...which was great..No windows...one door in and out, unplugged the phone...and they walked into another world. I try to appeal to every sense a person has...taste (next time..DARK CHOCOLATE), smell, touch...sight...to alter their viewpoint. Manipulate the Environment. I also worked my ass off!.

Helena....Did GREAT last night!! Mr. G...the Master, and the Master of Mr G was there...(http://claymore.engineer.gvsu.edu/tkd/tpstory.htm) TAE PARK. He came to USA in 1974. Helena got her uniform signed by him.
She was IMPECCABLE. Strength, speed, fantastic form. She was thrilled when Mr. G did not call her number one time--but her NAME. Her fighting with another student was COOL. (and she kicked his ass).
GOOD JOB HELENA...For THAT ..and for doing great in school...YOU GET....a new KITTY!! Yes...a new grey kitty!!
To go also to Helena's Dad...in honor of our (19 years together, 12th Wedding) Anniversary...is THAT new kitty's SISTER!! A Calico!! My my!! won't Don be happy to get the gift that keeps on giving!!! (he always says to give a gift you would like to get yourself). So yep...2 new baby kitties in 'da house.

Hot Hot Hot

Trying to get things more in order...HAD to start the Air in the living room..hung a sheet up to block the hallway and kitchen area. It was not even blowing COOL air. I was bummed. THEN bing bing bing!!! I realized the winter cover was still on!! Out goes DD, cuts off tape pulls off cover and Blessed COOLER air. YES. I may live.
Three loads of laundry-and hanging on the line, cleaned front room, blinds dusted, vacuumed, working now on kitchen.
DD is testing for her High blue belt in Tae on Thursday night..she has class tonight in Mt P. The Master was IMPRESSED with how hard they all worked at Camp 2 weeks ago. How cool is that. She will surpass her brother now in testing and belt. That's even cooler!! Brother is at camp this week. There is more peace in the household. But Dang..these girls are wildcats and can get into it!

Schedule's

So...with this new venture I'm doing...I ran into what I may have to consider to be a PAIN in the butt.
I had an appointment for 10 this morning...I'm on my way to drop off the urchins for babysitting...and an hour before at 9...the person calls and cancels. CRAP. I think that people who don't have kids have NO IDEA the planning that has to go in for an event to occur. Plus..its absolutely a no win situation...I can't complain to the person canceling, as it is not going to change their mind...I can't complain...(Note to readers How I am saying complain instead of bitch), to anyone that cares...its just frustrating and demeaning that my time / effort / opportunity is not appreciated. I assume this will occur more as I get more business stuff going...its still just a PAIN.

...and inconsiderate. No surprise there tho.

The SPRINGS

So I've been working at the Springs this week running the conference center. I had managed a Best Western Hotel with 150 rooms before, so I'm familiar. However...THIS is not a hotel. This is working 20 hours a day...running the kitchen, making breakfast for 100, making lunch for 100 and making dinner for 100, and then turning around and doing it all again.
I'm exhausted. Hub and I have done their fundraising dinner the last few years..and THIS is...like doing THAT three times a day. Throw in me not knowing what I'm doing..and we have a decision 45 minutes before dinner..OK SCRAP the Taco Salad...We're switching Menus..go to TOMORROW's Lunch today....AWWC KKKKK!!!! Yah...

We had two great and diverse groups staying, one a "volunteer" crew kicking butt around the campus...and the other teen group doing a retreat. they got a long well. My DD Helena is attending Camp on campside...and looking good! Her counseloris one of the O'Boyles, and is going to China with them next year to homeschool their kids for them while they attend Language school.

Son William...has stepped up to the plate, is working, doing dishes, cleaning rooms and not complaining..(too much). Little Joy Linn is kicking major butt..she has consistantly wanted to work..pours drinks, makes brownies, cookies, cleans tables vaccums..is amazing. Her Tae teacher would be so proud of her.
Ok..I hear the dinner bell. we have a Cook out tonight camp side.
Donna
WAITTT!!! I talked to my Guy in russia this week!! YES!! On for October.
I NEED FUNDS!! Pray that God will provide.
He does. and is. and IS amazing. I have 4 days of massages next week with one client, and Friday, one of the tae kwon do people called and is giving two 1 1/2 hour massages as gifts for good employees on Friday!! XSo Next week I'll make some money. Kewl huH?

Tae Park Tae Kwon Do Camp

http://www.nmtptkd.com My new favorite website.
Just got back from Tae Kwon Do camp. I wanted to 'bless' the staff, and help at camp..and I worked my ASS off to do so. I don't know how Much I contributed, but I made a HUGE effort. The kids were kept ROCKING all weekend by amazing staffers. These men and women are amazing. Dedicated. Athletes. Strong and Vulnerable. Passionate and Compelling.
Check in was Friday, and after Helena Puking her guts out all morning...I made the mom Decision to just make her go...I had to go..they needed me in the Kitchen..and the other 2 kids needed to go. SO..we went. She settled down. She kicked bags, ran, worked out with finesse. Joy had more stamina than some of the adults or older students. I say that as an observer, not a mom.

I started and don't think I ever stopped. When I wasn't in kitchen, I had brought my massage table with me (what I was THINKING?)..its SO much work giving massages...but I could think of no better way to give back to these incredible athletes. I picked up a new massage CD that worked out great...I wanted the dinners to be nicer and tried to play music for them also.
I cooked for 30+ all weekend. Spagetti, Garlic bread....Salads, desserts, Prep, set up, clean up, dishes, start all over again...I wanted continuity in the kitchen. The Students of Tae Kwon Do are assigned to work sometimes also. Some...a couple in collage were incredible Whiners. One in particular..I wanted to just slap him. It's NOT about Me...but There I was a "nobody" to the organization...busting my ass to make it better for THEM...to be support and healer...and this dude did NOTHING but insult me...tell me how HE would do it this way..and HE wants this...I can see why he doesn't have black belt..his mental toughness is not there. he was the Exception however. Some kids...Brian, my kids, others..BUSTED their butts all weekend in Sessions, and cheerfully assisted me, and anyone else.
This morning..had bouts of vomiting...across camp. Yah...I'm cleaning it up pre coffee, and pre morning pee. I love my kids instructor Paula. She...well..just couldn't handle the puke right then. I could. We both had the heaves...LOL.

My leg...my ankle is HUGE right now..easily 4-5 times its normally swollen self. I forgot my "shoes" with inserts and had Sandals all weekend. BIG mistake.

I did a couple of amazing massage sessions...very personal, in depth, and well..I think healing.
SO Rock on Northern Michigan Tae Park Tae Kwon Do. You DO rule!
Oh..One AMUSING thing ...we had some intruders one night....that were dispatched easily..and when they were in their row boat in the water..Called the Master .."a lousy guitar playing faggot". ...and other things. I had just enough wine in me that I was laughing about it for hours. The Master had his guitar...and was making up songs about the incident. They OBVIOUSLY didn't know he could remove their existence with ease. At that time..it was an intimate gathering of 3 Long time multiple black belts, and me. I Have many leadership skills, and feel I fit in just fine. I am changed because of this experience. I'm making a list of how to do it better next year.

Denise Bancrofts dad

Duane L. Rudy, Sr.

Rudy-Duane.jpg (6648 bytes)Duane L. Rudy, Sr. died
Tuesday, June 12, 2007 in St. Johns at the age of 76. Duane was born in Carp Lake, Michigan on July 20, 1930, the son of Mark and Pearl (Putnam) Rudy. He was a retired switchman for General Telephone, a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church, Knights of Columbus and I.B.E.W. Duane married Nancy Wilson in Pellston, Michigan on June 27, 1955 and she survives him.

Also surviving are his daughters, Denise (Joe) Bancroft of South Carolina, Debra (James) Lumbert and Brenda (Terry) Birdsley, all of St. Johns, sons, Mark (Ellen) Rudy of Elsie, Duane (Mary) Rudy of North Branch, MI and Scott (Heather) Rudy of Charlotte, MI, 35 grandchildren, 35 great grandchildren, brother, Robert (Betty) Rudy of Talking Rock, GA and sisters, Eilen (Kenneth) Hoover of Rushville, IN and Pearline Lawrence of Arlington Heights, IL. He was preceded in death by his parents.

Funeral services will be 2:00 P.M. Friday, June 15, 2007 at the Osgood Funeral Home in St. Johns, burial at South Bingham Cemetery with Rev. Fr. Eoin Murphy officiating. The family will receive friends 2-4 and 6-8 P.M. Thursday at the funeral home with a rosary prayed at 7 P.M. Memorial contributions may be made to a charity of the family’s choice.

these are addicting

You've Experienced 88% of Life

You have an amazing amount of life experience. In fact, you've seen and done more than most people. So congratulate yourself on what you've done so far. The future is only going to be more of the same!

How Much Life Experience Do You Have?

I KNEW IT!!

You Are 64% Tortured Genius

You are smart. Brilliant in fact. And while it's a blessing, it's also a curse. Your head is filled with everything - grand ideas, insufferable worries, and a good deal of angst.

Are You a Tortured Genius?

Slacker?

You Are 8% Slacker

You are anything but a slacker. You're truly a go getter. You never let laziness get in the way of living your life - and you can't stand to see it in others.

Are You a Slacker?

What type of learner are you....

You Are a Auditory Learner

You tend to remember what you hear, and you have a knack for speaking well. You excel at debating, foreign languages, and music. You would be an excellent diplomat - or rock star!

What's Your Learning Style?

Purpose driven money

Started a small group tonight based from Money and Crown Financial. Same DVD format with workbook.
It was like visiting an old friend when Rick Warren Laughed..(heh heh heh)....thought I should slam a shot or something. In our old group..the joke was whenever he laughed..Heh heh heh..thats what we'd do.
Great stuff really. Most of it I know. I would HIGHLY recommend it based on this evening's "stuff".
God...as I've been reading in Jeremiah..'Pray for peace and Prosperity"...(I know you can't know this..but I was distracted by a 'don" chicken salad sandwich)..God wants to use my wallet like a river to FLOW THROUGH.
Random thoughts:
whatever my ministry...it costs money...even "hospitality" costs $$
I can be MORE free to God if I'm out of debt
The group moderator said Wesley had a sermon that summed up was:
Make all you can
Save all you can
Give all you can

"Alcohol was involved".

HOWLAND, Maine (AP) -- A man who waved a chain saw over his head, threatened motorists and did some impromptu pruning of local shrubbery was arrested at gunpoint.

Lionel Dube Jr., 47, of Argyle, was charged with disorderly conduct, criminal threatening and violation of bail conditions after police responded to reports that he was waving the chain saw at passing motorists late Tuesday.

"You know how in the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' the guy raised his chain saw up and revved it? That's what he was doing," Deputy Sheriff Michael Knights said. "Alcohol was involved."

Russia trip moving forward.!

Hi, Everyone;

I wanted to let you know of an opportunity for visiting Ken and Heather in
Kursk, Russia this October. Ken has invited Donna to visit with 1-3 of her co-workers to assist them in their
work with orphans and foster-care. At this time, they anticipate going in
October of this year, but have not yet established a firm date.

Ken and Heather, along with Donna would like to have 2-3 members of GCC
accompany them on the trip. I need to hear back from you as to whether you
would be willing to be part of that team. Although you would be responsible
for paying for the cost of the trip, there may well be some support from our
budget (although I cannot promise that point).

This would be a Godly work and a great encouragement to Ken and Heather. I
anticipate the trip being 10-14 days in length with opportunity to see
first-hand their city, school and work. You will be able to meet the people
with whom they work, share with them and assist in the many projects
currently underway.