Supercoach - Michael Neill [62]
$100 in Your Pocket
Here’s a question that I taught my friend the supercoach Paul McKenna, a version of which he included in his wonderful book I Can Make You Rich:
“If you woke up one morning in a place where you knew
no one, with $100 in your pocket, how long would it take
you to double your money and how would you do it?”
Once you’ve answered that question, how long would it take you to double it again, and how would you do it? And again? And again?
The more answers you can come up with, the more your financial future is secured. If you think you’ve run out of ideas, reflect on these words attributed to Thomas Edison: “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this—you haven’t.”
Remember, thinking like a creator has nothing to do with whether or not you currently have a job, or whether or not that job is considered to be “creative.” My actress client was incredibly creative, but she still thought like an employee and consequently never saw the possibilities for creation that were all around her.
Similarly, I’ve worked with a number of people who were able to begin thinking like a creator from within their job. While a few moved on to set up their own businesses, many found ways of creating additional value from within their jobs and began to be rewarded commensurately.
Here are some additional distinctions you may find useful:
Take some time this week to bring the creative-creator mind-set to life. . . .
The Creative Creator
1. Where in your life are you thinking like an employee, wondering who will finally give you a break, an opportunity, or a job?
Each time you notice yourself getting caught up in an “employee” mentality, make the shift to “creator” mode by asking yourself what you would love to create today.
Here are some questions that will assist you in getting started:
• What could you begin to work on for its own sake?
• What would bring you great joy and meaning if you could bring it into being?
• What would you love to create that people would love to give you money for?
• What is the largest contribution you can imagine making to someone’s life? How much would you be willing to be paid for making it?
2. For the next week, purposely create at least one thing each day. It can be as simple as a carefully crafted e-mail or as complex as a painting or sculpture.
3. Create at least three proposals in the next month where you invite people to give you money for something you have or will create. Prepare to be pleasantly surprised by the responses you get.
The Invisible Obstacle to Wealth
“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
— Mark Twain
One of the benefits people are often searching for when they hire me as a coach is a significant increase in their level of wealth—both the amount of income they’re able to create and the level of well-being they’re able to sustain in creating and maintaining it.
And as with any other creation, creating money is essentially a very simple process:
1. Decide what you want to create.
2. Create it!
If you really want to create money, the only thing that can stop you is a thought. And the thought that more than any other seems to separate the haves from the have-nots, or at least the “have-mores” from the “have-lesses,” is so subtle that it’s nearly invisible.
I remember when one of my coaches first pointed out that the biggest obstacle to my own wealth was my belief that I needed the money. We reviewed a number of my business dealings over the years, and one by one he pointed out how I’d settled for less than I wanted because I’d thought I had to take whatever was on offer. To my surprise, we also noticed several situations where I’d blown it because my desperate sense of need had been driving me to try to squeeze every last penny out of every deal.
After that, each time I argued that I really did need the money, he would calmly ask me some variation on the question: “What would happen if you didn’t get it?” No matter how urgent or important each financial