Of course not?

There's a Zen story that illustates this point.

An old man and his grandson are walking down road with a mule loaded with their possessions.

As time goes by young boy can't keep pace. So old man puts him on mule with possessions.

A stranger mocks two saying if youmg boy had any respect, he'd let old man ride.

They exchange places and come upon another stranger who says it' a shame how they're treating their mule.

Hearing this old man takes a long pole and instructs young man to help him carry mule.

They reach a bridge and as they begin to cross mule becomes agitated and everyone falls into water.

What's moral?

Once you've set your course, put on blinders and ear plugs and stay course.

You can't please everyone!

Wishing You Success

At this point I had been thinking about writing a sequel to my best-selling e-book, "Hypnotic Writing." But I didn't want to write it and hope it would sell. I wanted *paid* to write it.

So I created yet another e-class. This one would be on "Advanced Hypnotic Writing." It would be three weeks long, rather than five, because I wanted to take it easy this time around. (I was getting lazy.) I still charged $1,500 and I still went after 15 people. I then announced class to my email list.

Here's where something wild happened:

Almost 18 people immediately signed-up for class. But when I asked them to pay $1,500 fee, every single one of them said they thought class was free! I was stunned.

I re-read my invite. It clearly said there was a hefty fee. All I can figure is that people skimmed letter, got excited, and just shot back emails to enroll in class. Or maybe they read word "fee" as "free." Go figure.

But that's not only odd thing that happened with this class: I had trouble filling it from my own elist. So I went and asked a person with a giant email list if he would promote my class to his people. He would---for fifty percent of pie. Yowsa! That was a lot, but I wanted to get paid to write my sequel to "Hypnotic Writing," and I'd still end up with good money, anyway. So I agreed.

Well, twenty people signed up. And really oddly wonderful thing is that no one---no one!---did their assignments. So I got their money (half of it, anyway: $15,000), I got paid to write my "Advanced Hypnotic Writing" ebook, and I had no homework to review or grade. What a cool business!

Most recently, I announced yet another e-class. I was about to buy a large country estate and wanted more money fast. This new class is on my new proprietary marketing formula, called "Guaranteed Outcome Marketing." I raised price on this 5-week e-class to signal its value. I asked for $2,500 a person. Since I normally charge $25,000 to create a Guaranteed Outcome Marketing strategy for someone, asking for only $2,500 to teach someone how to do it seemed very fair.

I lowered class size because I wanted to be sure to give each student personal attention. I promoted this class to only my own email list. I got five students. Which meant I raised $12,500. Not bad for a month's "work."

And yes, I bought country estate. I'm writing this article from it.

The moral here? There are several:

1. Intention rules: You can float with circumstances life brings you or you can create you own direction and your own circumstances. It begins with a decision. What do you want? Decide. Choose. Declare.

2. Break model: Just because others are selling their services for a song doesn't mean you have to, as well. Respect yourself. What are you worth?

3. Go for something other than money: Wanting my Z3 caused my mind to stretch in new ways to raise money needed to get car. If I were just going after money for money's sake, I might not think so boldly in my ideas or my pricing. What do you REALLY want?

4. You can do this, too. Just look at what you know that others would pay you to learn. Then turn it into an e-class, complete with lessons and assignments. After class is over, you might even compile material into a book. Or a tapeset. Or--? Think big! What would you teach if you had no fears?

5. The spiritual is not separate from material. Since I've focused on money in this article, it may be easy to declare my focus was only on dollar. Not so. I used spiritual principles---as outlined in my new book---to create wealth. Once you realize that spiritual and material are two sides of same coin, you are free to have happiness as well as cash. As it says on dollar bill in your pocket, "In God we trust." Do you trust?

Finally, yes, I got my Z3. It's a 1999 Montreal Blue stunning piece of rolling beauty. I've never had so much fun in my life driving. In fact, I think I'll aim it up and down some Texas country roads right now...