The Joy of Abundance

One of the most amazing realities for me after coming out into the world following a twelve year prison sentence, is how many people are teaching prosperity principles around the world today. There was a time when I felt quite alone, and my book Moneylove was just about the only one around, other tha
Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Today, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of seminars, lectures, webinars, books, and coaching masters sharing their professed secrets of success.

I have no way of judging the quality of all this material, but I think in general it is a good thing that so many people are exposed to the idea I helped pioneer--that how you think and feel about money has a lot to do with how much you are capable of producing.

There does, however, seem to be a gap in some of this teaching, an area few people refer to that, in Moneylove, and on my Nightingale-Conant tape series and in my seminars, I focused a lot of attention on. And that is the importance of spending as well as earning money. If you are not a good spender, even if you manage to still earn a large amount of money, you won’t have the enjoyment of your riches. Montaigne said, in one of my favorite quotes in Moneylove:

“Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours; for you can’t spend it.”

A whole seminar could be built on this one quote from the great French Renaissance philosopher whose first book was published in 1603. I have met many people who had as their main goal accumulating a certain amount of money--and that was it. No plans for using it for personal pleasure, increased knowledge, to help others. How sad and lonely their money must have felt (I know some of you will argue that money has no emotions, but I’m not so sure, having met up with a lot of happy money as well as miserable money.)

I also see a lot of my quotes online--just do a Google search on my name and you’ll discover what I mean. This, quite frankly, flabbergasts me. After all, I was totally out of sight and out of commission for twelve long years, a period from 1996 to 2008 when the whole world changed dramatically. To still be out there is amazing. To discover how many other authors quote me and talk about my prosperity consciousness ideas is humbling and exciting. I haven’t even begun to decide how I will create something special, successful, and meaningful out of all this recognition. Right now, I’m just basking a little. And going back and learning from the teacher that I was, learning some of the concepts I wasn’t nearly as good at putting into practice as others. One of my favorite affirmations, in the series I called Prosperity Proclamations, was:

“Every dollar I bank is accumulated wealth for my personal pleasure.”

And the idea behind this is simply that by having a goal involving something that feels good to you, your subconscious mind will be much more likely to produce what it will take to bring you more abundance. In enrolling people in a healthy dark chocolate business, for example, I find it is a powerful and telling question to ask: “As you earn extra money, what fun thing would you like to do with some of it?” If the person can’t come up with an answer, I’ll admit I sort of categorize them as someone who won’t be as likely to do very well.

Fun and pleasure are not the be all and end all of a life well-lived, but they are certainly major components in enjoying success. Coming back out into the world with no money at all, I certainly have still been able to have a great many pleasures--after all, there were so many wonderful things I was deprived of for so many years: tomatoes, dark chocolate, French fries, computers, The Internet, bookstores, massages, the beach. And these most precious things don’t take much money. But I can assure you that once I am prosperous in actual assets again, let’s say no later tha
2011, I will find many new things to enjoy and new freedom to enjoy it all. I have a deep-rooted feeling that I deserve abundance pouring into my life because, simply, I will use it so well.