Attracting Wealth and Abundance

Act as if you have already achieved your goal and it is yours. ~Dr. Robert Anthony

Many, many years ago, I used to believe money was scarce.  I didn’t have much of it, growing up as an impoverished, undocumented resident for over ten years while living in San Jose, CA.  And as much as things in my life have changed, for example, becoming financially literate (a millionaire in assets at 38) and having control of my own destiny, I still have a hard time not falling back to the way I used to deal with cash shortfalls: with more tightening.

As I have come to learn, there are three ways to react when, excuse my French, shit happens, and you are placed in a position of having to make a monetary decision.  I’ll get to this soon but first let me tell you how things have been the past month at Chez Carlos.

Sometime in early April, I was walking down my home’s hallway, heading into the kitchen after a long, hard day of work, dying for a cold one when I noticed a little mound of dirt along a baseboard.  Darn kids! I thought.  This dirt initially looked very much like the sandy soil stuff we have in our backyard.  I figured either Rehani or Ajani must have taken off their shoes and emptied them right at that spot.  I slowly poured my beer into a mug, triumphantly avoiding foam at the top.  Right when I put the cup to my mouth, feeling the cool liquid touching my top lip, it hit me.  That was not dirt!

I put the beer down, went back to suspicious mound, got on all fours and inspected it.  Sure enough, termite feces!  I bought my home brand new in 2005, and never once had it inspected for these ubiquitous So Cal pests.  How long had they’d been there?  Where else were they?  These were questions I immediately thought of, as well as how much cash I’d be out of once an inspection had been completed.  I wouldn’t get answers until a week later.

I had two different companies come out.  One guy did a poor job, only checking the spot in question, telling me I had the “bad” termites, i.e., the kind that live in the ground and thrive in moisture.  The baseboard was close to the refrigerator and many times water had spilled onto the tile so…  He said the job would be $500 to gas ‘em up.  The next inspector did a more thorough job, going upstairs and climbing his 6-foot ladder to get into our attic.  He found more termites, the “flyers.”  He told me I had two options, spray some Borate in the attic and inject gas in the baseboard, OR, tent the whole house.  I could also let the infestation continue, of course.  Jessica, my wife, and I, did not want the inconvenience of being in a hotel with our two toddlers, so we went with the localized treatments at a cost of $1,250.  What are ya gonna do, right?

About a week later, I was driving to the school I work at, reaching a red light at a top of a hill.  I was first at the light on the left and an old work truck was first at the light on my right.  I like to merge well in advance of my exit so after the light turned green, I accelerated to pass the slower truck and merged right.  That initial acceleration, plus the downhill momentum, caused me to speed past the 45 mph limit and sure enough, a motorcycle cop was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill.  I didn’t see him.  He was stationed at the edge of a shopping center driveway, aiming his radar gun at cars coming down.  I’d slowed down below the speed limit after I’d finished merging, but what did he care?  Worst part is he waited until I’d gone past another green light to pull me over.  He got behind me on red, did nothing…don’t you just hate that?—and then hit the switch to his siren after I’d started again.  What a…nice gentleman.  He said I was doing 57 (mph) and smiled.  I haven’t yet got the ticket fee in the mail, but I know it will cost me $300 easy AND eight hours of my life being tortured at traffic school.  Do you know what I can do with eight hours?  Dang!

Last week, Jessica and I started noticing that our upstairs television, a three-year-old, 32-inch LCD Insignia brand from Best Buy started sounding like Rice Krispies, all crackle and pop.  It was weird.  The HD image was coming in fine enough, but the sound was horrible.  Then it’d go mute and no sound would come out.  I called A T & T and went through a battery of tests to no avail.  “A technician will have to come out, sir,” is what the person on the other line stated to me.  A day later, the tech concluded it was not the cable, but rather my television.  Drat!  I’m not buying another 32-inch, no way; you know I gotta go bigger than that!  I’ll probably…probably…end-up purchasing a 40-inch HD TV.  How much?  $300-$425 tops.

Termites, a speeding ticket, a broken television…what’s next?  I’m thinking my water heater has to be on its last leg.  No doubt it will need to be replaced sometime this year.  But the moral of this blog post is just about to begin.

An Attitude of Abundance Sparks Action

You can do like many people and decide to tighten your belt for as long as it takes to make up for the losses in shitty things happening to you.  You can decide to do nothing, and leave things in disrepair or do without something you had before.  Or, you can use life’s negatives to spark positive, wealth-building action.  If you adopt the attitude of there being infinite wealth in the universe just waiting for you, versus an attitude of scarcity, you will be richly rewarded.

Look, money has to flow somewhere, right?  I mean, there’s plenty of it traveling all over the world every single day.  Why can’t it come your way?

When your only response is to restrict and tighten your budget when things temporarily fall apart, then that’s how you’ll live, as a grumpy tightwad.  But when you ramp up your activity, deciding instead to combat monetary losses with work output, you’re choosing abundance over scarcity.  Let me give you some examples.

Instead of focusing all of my energy and attention these past couple of weeks to scaling back on normal monthly expenses, I’ve taken to:

1. Work harder on this blog.  I’ve focused on improving my social media reach, writing better blog posts, getting great guest authors, and making more connections with people.
2. I finished an eBook: The Ultimate Teacher’s Guide to Supplemental Income.  I will publish it to coincide with the end of this school year.  Below is the book cover and I’m just waiting now on the design of the title and author name.
   
   

   

   Downloaded for free at Gratisography.com

   
   
3. I submitted three poems to a poetry contest that could earn me $250 if I win.
4. I finished chapter one of my first novel, La Buena Hija (The Good Daughter).      

The money isn’t just going to fall on your lap, people.  You have to work smartly and creatively to get it.  There are so many things you can do cheaply and later automate.  (Being an authority or expert is not a requisite.  And yes, you are good at something.)  For example, you can:

1. Do network marketing and leverage your time and passive income potential.  My wife, Jessica, is always looking for energetic and enthusiastic people “who get it” to do Arbonne with her.
2. Create a low-entry, front-end product to sell and get leads.  An eBook or guide, e.g.
3. Create continuity products like newsletters you mail to people or email deliver for a small fee.  See:  Continuity Products
4. Create a video course and sell it on Udemy.com.  Or record valuable information on CD and sell a set.  These top-tier online products can be very lucrative.  Lots of work goes into them at the start but once done, they sell ongoing without you doing much additional work.  These are also known as information products.  See:  Information Products     

I could go on but my point is that sitting around waiting for things to happen is not the solution.  Settling for additional frugality when the unexpected happens is also not the solution.  Don’t resort to letting the credit card bail you out.  Don’t dig a hole in the emergency fund only to have to refill it again and again.  Not when you can start something that could take you who knows where…greatness!  I don’t know where exactly I’m going myself, but I keep pushing forward nonetheless.  And if I can do it with a full-time job, and two toddlers, so can you!

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