A FEW THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR YOU

Good day and I hope you are having a great week.  This week I have some practical strategies for you that may help you save anywhere from few hundreds to thousands of dollars.  What does this advice have to do with The Law of Attraction? Well how you do anything is how you do everything, I heard it said.  If you pay attention, learn, and practice skills in one discipline you most likely will do the same in any discipline. 

When it comes to money, there are probably as many emotions as there are people.  No matter what your relationship with money, it cannot be argued that it is a tool that can make things easier or make things harder depending on how you employ it.  The thing about wealthy people is that they are always learning and staying on top of strategies to make money work for them. The thing with people who struggle financially, is that they allow money to take over their life and make them work for it. I do not really care what you think about money, I just want to give you a single tool to help you have more of it. Just like any skill or tool, it is at the discretion of the student how and if they are going to make use of it. 

If you happen to live in the United States, you have to pay property taxes twice per year on real-estate you own. These taxes help pay for our schools, emergency services, roads, transportation etc. I am not familiar with other countries, so I will limit my discussion to the United States and will leave my international audience to do their due diligence about the regulations in their country as I am sure something similar will exist in many countries.

When it comes to property taxes, we usually pay anywhere from 1 to 2 percent of the value of the home twice annually in taxes.  If you happen to be in California that could be thousands to tens of thousands of dollars every year.  Although paying taxes are not optional, knowing more about the laws can help you pay your “fair” share and not more than you need to. The savings can then be applied to thing that matter to you, or better yet be invested for delayed gratification than can mean exponentially more to you and your family. 

There is a form (Pictured here) that is available through the City Hall office of every city, that literally challenges the value of your home as estimated by the government for the purpose of calculation of your property taxes. Let’s be honest the government is not exactly anxious to bring information to your attention that decreases the amount of taxes you are going to pay to them, and if you do not challenge the status quo you may be paying allot more than your share.   In fact you may have received junk mail about the services that will do this for you for a fee. But it is so simple that you really do not need any of these services.  For a couple of hours in  a week, you can accomplish the same thing. For example when in 2008 the real-estate market in California tanked and my property was devalued by about 60% the value indicated on my property taxes was the same as the previous year.  Hence I make it a habit to challenge that value every 2 years or so and see what happens. There is no cost to the process. It just takes a bit of action to go to the city hall of your city and ask for the form that challenges the stated value of your home as it applies to property taxes.  Just as an example the savings in 2008 for me was over $3,000.  That was a nice start to my kid’s educational investment fund. 

The information needed on the forms are very basic. You obviously need to know the parcel id of the property and depending on the state you may or may not need to contact a realtor and ask them to provide you with the MLS number of some comps or comparable in your neighborhood.  Again here taking the time to talk to the realtor and explaining the reason you are doing this is important as most realtors will want to inflate the value of the home where your purpose for this is to find the lowest comparable you can get your hands on. This process can take at most a couple of hours during your week, and in the end may save you some nice chunk of change. 

I am curious to see if any of my readers were aware of this option, and if you were, did you ever actually take the time to fill out this form?  What was the results? Are you going to try this this coming year? Please make a comment on the questions about this post I will post on my Facebook page.

I hope you enjoyed and benefited from this post.  As always please feel free to share this with anyone who may benefit from this, and please comment on my Facebook page and Twitter feed about this post.  As always I wishyou much success till next week.

CAN YOU SEE YOUR EYELASHES?

Good day and I hope you are having a great week.  I want you to concentrate on this quote: “We ordinary people can see neither our own eyelashes, which are so close, nor the heavens in the distance…” This quote by Nichirin Daishonin a Buddhist monk is trying to reassure a friend’s wife in a letter explaining that the causes of happiness and suffering does not lie outside of us but within us.  This blog is far from being a religious forum, I do however find supporting material for each weeks post in many different places and this week it happened to be present in a Buddhist Monk’s writings.  Nichirin is believed by one of the Buddhist sects in Japan to be the “Buddha of latter day of the law”.  He is credited with emphasizing and teaching The Buddha’s latter message written in the Lotus Sutra that all people are able to achieve enlightenment in their lifetime.  This was a major bifurcation from the traditional religions of feudal Japan and even within Buddhism prior to the Lotus Sutra, the belief was that enlightenment took many lifetimes to attain. 

What I find fascinating in this quote is the fact that many practitioners of The Law of Attraction (LOA), seem to fall prey to the same error. I know I have personally.  The Law of Attraction (LOA) teaches us that we control our reality.  ALL OF IT. We are, and have the same quality as the SOURCE of this Universe.  This is said in different ways in many religious beliefs, but as LOA practitioners having faith is an advantage, yet it does not change the fact if you happen to rely on Science, or logic.  LOA is proven with Quantum Physics.  There is no doubt to its accuracy, and yet we keep on selling ourselves short.

The reason for being able to secure a parking space or a cup of coffee is that we think we can. From the stand point of LOA, there is no difference between a parking space and a Porsche 911 or a million dollars. None.  We set those limitations.  We cannot see that we are, connected and a part of the source of this entire Universe.  Why can we do this and no other specie on this world can? Because we have free reign over our thoughts, and yet because it is so close, We cannot see our own eyelashes. The second part of the quote is also equally frustrating.  We tend not to be able to see that which we want. We get so worked up and stuck in the details of how, that we just keep on attracting more and more opportunities to get worked up and wrapped up in the how when we should be concentrating on the absolute, and specific END RESULTS that we want to manifest. We cannot see the “heavens in the distance”. 

Is it any wonder that the majority of people have struggled with using The LOA, all these years? Most people cannot get over the fact that first they have ALL THE POWER, and then they cannot even use the simple steps required to work the power.  The system is perfect.  The Universe has been revolving on the same system for billions of years. We want to fix the system instead of just use the system.  It is our nature and perhaps a riddle or a cosmic joke.  Most of us do not know what we don’t know, and when someone tries to tell us, we cannot possibly believe them because all our lives we have been told something contrary.  We think we have to rely on something else. It is always the “others” that can. We have been told that it is “hard” or “out of our league”.  Who are we to dream so big? How dare we imagine?

WELL IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP.  Dude, this writing was written 3000 years ago!!  You see the same theme in many of the world’s “accepted” religions.   Why would all these smart scholars preach a lie? Why would our science point us to a lie? How could our cosmos be running on a lie? The answer is IT CAN NOT.  It is a Universal LAW.  It is precise. It is true, and whether you like it, believe it, or not matters not. You are bound by the same law. Yet because of this law you will find evidence to convince yourself that it is not true if you so desire. Crazy isn’t it? You get what you concentrate on. It is like the Universe is saying to you, I have given you all this power but if you don’t want it I will not force you to use it. It matters not weather you choose a life of abundance or scarcity. The Universe is not going to come and hold your hand or beg you to have abundance. It is your will to take or not to take action.    So you might as well enjoy the ride because you are part of the whole thing, and just did not know it. How cool is that?

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope you will share it with as many people as you can. This message needs to be understood, if we are to have a world filled with joy and abundance. Comment on my Facebook page and tweet me your thoughts on my twitter feed. Until next week, to your continued success.

TUNER FOR YOUR LIFE!

Good day and I hope you are having a great day.  My daughter is taking her first introductory lesson in guitar.  My wife and I are not musical, so I am learning as she is.  We had a guitar that I had bought many years ago and since this was her first attempt at music I thought before spending any money on a new guitar let’s see if she actually liked it.  Having said that, since the guitar has been sitting in the garage for longer than my daughter has been alive, it desperately needed tuning. Being the practical father that I am, I asked my daughter to ask her teacher to tune it for her.  To my surprise the teacher introduced us to an app that did that.  I should have guessed right? In this age, there is an app for everything.  Thank God for that because I could not tell a musical note from a howl of an owl to save my life.  The app is called “Guitar Tuna” (pictured here),  and you turn it on, put it close to the guitar and strum each string one by one. The measurement on the app will tell you if you need to tighten or loosen the strings by giving you a visual of how far off to the left or to the right of the cord you are.  It was so easy and it worked every time. 

We also need to tune our vibration, mind, and body from time to time, just like a musical instrument.  Over time as you play an instrument it will get out of tune.  Well as you go through your day to day life, being surrounded by all the negativity of mainstream media you need to tune yourself as well.  That is where a set of affirmations, a little time to meditate, or situation reversers (pictures, music, notes that will remind you of good times) , will come handy. 

For a quick tune up through, one of the easiest tools is a few well-chosen and well written affirmation statement that really resonates with you.  You can choose to make up your own or use any saying that you like, and  I will share with you two of my favorites. One is from the book The Master Key System which many think is the bases of the movie and the book The Secret.  It goes this way “I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy”.  The other is one I came up with and it goes “I am healthy, wealthy, happy, and at peace”.  Saying this over and over for about 5, 10, or 15 minutes will have the same effect as tuning a guitar.  Try it when you are traveling in a car, or walking around.  Say it out loud for the best effect.  You have heard me say this over and over in this blog, there is a magic in saying an affirmation out loud. There is just something that triggers in your brain when you hear yourself speak. It is healing and it is powerful. 

When you say the affirmation of your choosing, think of what you want to feel like. Maybe visualize a goal.  Say it with conviction and with emphasis. What you don’t want this exercise to be like is just mumbling your affirmation over and over with no feeling.  The Law of Attraction (LOA) works on your feeling and not the words.  If you are saying you are wealthy but are feeling “oh man this is so bull $%#&^, this does not really work” then that is what you are attracting”.  The words are a trigger, and the feeling you are feeling is the fuel for what you will manifest and how you will re-tune yourself.  You can be feeling like you have a problem at work, and will start to visualize the end outcome you want. To have it perfectly resolved to your best interest at the perfect time, and then go about chanting your affirmation for 5 minutes. Get into it.  Get louder if it will pump you up. Get calmer and rhythmic if you are pissed and need to calm down. Use the information I gave you in the past blog to adjust your volume to what you want to accomplish.  Try this for a few weeks, and see how awesome you will feel. How refreshed you can become.

At least one day a week, I will go and chant for 1 hour with like-minded friends. I feel so energized and whole after such session. I hope this is helpful and as always  please feel free to share it with anyone who can benefit from it. Leave me feedback on my Facebook page and / or tweet me on my twitter feed to let me know how this works.  As always I hope this was helpful and I wish you success till next week. 

HOW TO CONTROL ANGER OR ANY UNWANTED EMOTION

Good day and I hope you are having a great week. This is going to be a very important blog post, because as you may know I have struggled with my temper all my life.  Recently in my study of Buddhism, I have come to a conclusion that should have been  obvious, and yet beyond my perception at the time.  Let me set this up by referring to what Anthony Robbins teaches in his seminars.  He said “that your state, your body’s state, dictates your emotion”.  We also see this decades ago in the works of W. Clement stone where we read that in his classes for his sales people when he wanted them to be excited he would bring them in front of the class and have them repeat the mantra “if you want to be excited, act excited”.   We know that we can send out emotions with our bodies, our voices and our emotions.  In this particular post I will use anger as an example, but you can use it for any negative  habit. I have noticed that right before I get upset,  my voice starts to get louder and as I start to get more and more worked up, or face more resistance, I start to yell. In fact I actually sometimes work myself up by increasing the volume of my voice or tensing my muscles and this is usually a precursor to getting angry.  All of these, I want you to realize however, are tools that we can use if we know how to control them. 

I have been doing a little experiment.  Whenever I start to get angry or upset with someone, I actually decrease the volume of my voice.  If I have the presence of mind I will try to relax my body, but that is a rarity.  I can however, decrease the volume and cadence of my speech more easily.  At first it may not stop me from getting angry but it shortens the duration of my temper significantly.  It helps me get back from that amygdala hijack, where my animal brain has taken over and completely bypassed my thinking brain, to the cerebral way of thinking and actually realizing that what I am doing is not productive. This way I can bring myself back to the present and start to do some productive techniques like segment intending, and visualizing to remedy the situation. 

Being a public speaker I naturally relay on the power of my voice to get my message across. I change the tone and inflection of my voice when I try to get attention or make a point.  Unfortunately that has back fired for me when I get angry, since I am usually projecting my voice.  That is more in line with getting excited, and in my case getting upset and angry when the stimuli presents itself, prolonging the negative emotion.  I have to work harder in keeping my volume down.  You should try it. When you start talking in a lower volume of voice, the excitement goes away and you start to calm down.  You don’t see anybody meditating by screaming out loud.  Even when there are chanting a mantra, it is usually a calm and soft chant like “ohm”.  So all these physical vibrations that you send out can affect your emotions, and being the deliberate manifestors that we are, we can control our emotions with the control over our physical tools like our voices, and our muscles. 

I want you to try to this experiment for the next 20 days.  Whenever you are getting upset or angry try to decrease the volume of your voice. If you notice that you are tensing your facial muscles, specially your jaw, consciously relax it.  We have allot of muscles in our face and during stress those muscles tense up and contribute to the loss of control.  But the most important and easiest thing to do is to decrease your volume.  Try to whisper while angry.  It is funny when you think about it.  It will significantly aid you in coming back and gaining the control of your thoughts and eventually subdue the anger.  Eventually you will be making this a habit and you will be more in tune with your emotions and can divert it even before it starts. 

If you are dealing with depression or some other sadness by contrast, you want to increase the volume of your voice and the pace of your talking.  Getting yourself excited to come out of the negative emotions.  Essentially what you want to do is to use your tools to go the opposite way of what the emotion is causing your body to do.  In anger we are excited and are charged so we want to bring ourselves down a level. When we are sad, we are in the low vibration and we want to get ourselves high on the vibrational level.  The voice is a really easy and simple tool we can control to achieve control over the less obvious tools like our emotions and feelings.  Try it one step at a time and leave messages on my Facebook page and my twitter on how you used this technique and how it turned out.  As always feel free to share this blog with anyone who may need it and I wish you success until next week.