How to Make Money Doing What You Love, Part II

As I mentioned (a long time ago) in a previous post, here I’m going to list (boy, don’t I love lists? And the thing is, I never make lists of anything in real life!) the 3 simple steps that I’ve discovered can help you to transition into making money doing what you love to do.

Now that I’ve found a job that I really enjoy, and I’m not worried about paying the bills or feeding myself and my family anymore, I’ve decided that I don’t really want to waste any more time doing things that I don’t enjoy doing, that I don’t love doing and that just simply don’t reflect WHO I WANT TO BE, such as working on a business.

So I’ve put together this LIST OF 3 BASIC THINGS that you need to do (or, er, rather, that I’ve found works, since I’m not going to presume to tell anyone what they need to do) if you want to EARN MONEY DOING WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO:

1. Earn a living first!

The first thing to do is to do whatever it takes to pay the bills and put food on the table.

If you’re starving, that’s not the moment to wonder how you’re gonna make the money that you need to stay alive, doing only things that you love to do.

Maybe what you love to do isn’t in immediate demand. Or maybe what you love to do is something that needs time to build up, to the point where you’re actually good enough, or well known enough, to make money from it.

And in the meantime, well, what are you going to do? How are you going to eat?

So at this stage, the only thing you need to concentrate on, is feeding yourself.

To do whatever it takes to stay alive.

Walk dogs. Sit for the neighbours’ kids. Clean the houses for all the rich guys who have jobs in your town. Wash dishes.

Don’t be “above” any job that is out there. Think that, thanks to that job, even if you hate it, you’re alive.

And being alive means you are alive to have the opportunity in the future to do what you love to do.

2. Do what you love to do.

You can’t do what you love to do if you’ve got no electricity and you don’t have the strength to get out of bed because you haven’t eaten anything for a week. That’s why it’s so important just to survive first.

But now that you’ve got the tranquillity and peace of mind that comes from being able to pay all your bills and have a full belly, you can concentrate on doing what you love to do.

Not for money, at least not at the beginning. Unless the only way to do what you love to do is through a job. Which would not be the case if what you love to do is to run your own business or work freelance. But in most other situations, maybe you do need a job in order to do what you love.

If what you love to do comes automatically with a job, I actually think you are very, very lucky! You get to earn money doing what you love to do, right from the outset!

(I can understand that if being an accountant is the only thing that rocks your world, well, obviously, you’d need to have a job as an accountant.)

But if you want to run your own business, or work for yourself or wing it in some artistic field, selling the fruits of your efforts to the highest bidder (or, rather, to anyone who is actually willing to pay you for your art, lol), it might take some time before you get to see that first penny (or nickel, or dime or even dollar – if you’re lucky hehe).

So most people would probably find that at first, they can’t earn any money, or at least not a living, doing what they love to do.

They have to go back to school to learn to do what they love to do first.

Or you have to work more at it to learn to be good enough at it, before you can ask people for money for this activity.

Or you have to work more at it to become better known, before you can ask people for money.

So go and take part in that amateur theatre production.

Take a painting class. Sign up for pottery lessons, or sculpting.

Get a membership at a yoga club. If you want to become a yoga teacher, first you have to be a yoga student.

Work at your day job and film your début feature film on the weekends.

That’s how Juanma Bajo Ulloa, a well-known and now successful Spanish film director, became a well-known and successful film director.

Remember, money’s not your primary goal at this stage. (After all you do have your j.o.b. that I wrote about in Step 1, right?) What you want to accomplish right now is just to get started doing what you love to do.

3. Find ways to make money doing what you love to do.

It really is that simple, I think. I think it really does come down to just these 3 steps.

(Combined with the 5 steps I’ve listed in a previous post, 5 Steps to Achieve Your Goals and Manifest Your Dreams. Although that post is mostly directed towards what to do to achieve anything in general, in any area of life. It doesn’t have to refer specifically to earning your living doing what you love to do.)

So, think up some ways that you can do what you love to do for money.

Once again, you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to earn your living from that. You’ve got your job to help you take care of that, right?

First you have to be good enough at it, of course.

But let’s assume that you have already taken the courses and studies that you need in order to become good enough at it, and to know how to do what you love to do.

Now all you have to do is start to brainstorm ways that you might be able to do what you love for money.

It doesn’t have to be a lot of money. And, of course, if you get an opportunity to do what you love to do, but you have to do it for free, but it offers you the possibility of getting future gigs for money, then of course, by all means, take it!

And just build it up from there.

Scenes from a life:

Colourful flowers on a street in January.

Related posts:

You Have the Power

Going Back to School – Hiding Under a Table

The Right Activity

There Is Nothing Like Experiencing FOR REAL What You Want to Experience

My Story and Why I Started This Blog

I started up this blog because I was just totally sick and FRUSTRATED because we were so poor I couldn’t even feed my kids. And no matter where I turned for help, advice or information on how to get out of poverty, EVERYWHERE, EVERYONE would tell me that they would only help me if I PAID THEM. I had to buy their programmes, or get their ecourses, or sign up for coaching sessions, before people would help me.

No matter where I looked, I couldn’t find a single site that would help poor people get out of poverty – FOR FREE!

So this is the reason why I started up this site.

Now, I’m not going to promise that I will always maintain this site as a non-lucrative and non-profit site. One day I might decide to sell something here.

But regardless, no matter what I do, I PROMISE that I will ALWAYS continue to offer valuable advice and information for people seeking a way out of poverty, and I will continue to offer this advice FOR FREE.

So now, you might be wondering, who am I to be telling you all this?

Well, you can read the short version of my story, starting from the moment I decided to start up this blog, in this article here: The First Real Post.

In this and succeeding posts, I describe the journey from unemployed and starving single mother who had to take my kids to a charity soup kitchen so we could eat (they didn’t serve soup there though, only sandwiches, one large sandwich or two small ones per adult), to what I did to snare a great new job, to the next steps that I took, and am still continuing to take, from that point on.

Or you can read on to get my full story in the following pages. As you can clearly see, I’m still very much a Work In Progress. I haven’t made it yet. I’m not a millionaire. I’m not making 6 figures yet. I don’t take holidays, paid for in cash, to exotic locations around the globe. I don’t drive a BMW or a Porsche – in fact I don’t drive anything at all, since I don’t even own a car, yet.

Over and over and over again, I see one site after another on the internet, and the internet guru’s story is always the same: “I used to have a grinding, nine to five job in a cubicle, earning barely enough to make ends meet. But then I discovered THE SECRET. And now I travel the world three times a year, own five yachts, three mansions and a Picasso masterpiece. And now I am ready to reveal my SECRET to YOU – for a price!”

I was so SICK AND TIRED of that!!! So I thought I would start up a blog BEFORE I became a millionaire. So I could chronicle my progress, and describe the things I was doing to try and make more money. And explain which techniques and methods were working for me, and which were not.

And people could read the blog and follow along with me on this thrilling journey from rags-to-riches.

I started receiving a few queries. People were asking where did I come from before this blog? What kind of life was I living beforehand, to reach the situation described in The First Real Post? they wondered.

What had happened to me? What had I done in order to arrive at such a dire point in life? they asked.

So in the following pages, I thought I would describe where I come from in greater detail. But I would like you to know, your story would probably be veeery different from mine. And even if it is, that wouldn’t make any difference.

Because the things that work for me, would probably work for you too.

Because we are all human beings, and human beings pretty much function the same way.

We all have dreams. We all have limiting beliefs. We all have everything in between. And we all respond more or less the same way to similar situations.

* * *

I didn’t come from a poor or working class background. My family was actually quite well-off. My mother was a housewife and my father was a university professor in Québec, Canada. 

However, things started getting twisted and perverted when my father declared that he would only continue to support me if I did what HE ordered. If I refused, then, in his own words, “You’re on your own, my dear.”

And what my parents wanted me to do was to follow in their footsteps.

I was supposed to go to university, get a Ph.D. and become a scientist or a university professor like my father, who taught sciences at a prestigious university.

But I didn’t want that for myself.

I didn’t want to be a scientist.

I didn’t want to get a Ph.D.

And I didn’t want to become a university professor.

In fact, I hated university.

So I refused to follow in my father’s footsteps.

And, as often happens in dramatic soap operas, my father then decided to “cut me off”.

But uneducated and without a profession (not because I didn’t want to study, but because I couldn’t study what I really wanted, which wasn’t a university career at all), there were scant few jobs available to me.

So I worked for several years on a farm, saving up money. It gave me a whole new appreciation for where food comes from, and for all the hard work that goes into feeding the world.

It’s my personal opinion that ALL young people would really benefit from a stint working on a farm. None of us, not a single person on this planet, would be able to survive if it weren’t for farmers and their tireless, unfaltering labour and dedication.

But as I was saying, I worked for a few years on a farm, then I took the money I had saved up and literally ran away to Europe.

I ran to get away from my parents’ endless orders. During all these years, they never stopped trying to pressure me to stop working and go back to university.

Now, as an aside, I’m not saying that I have anything against a university education. On the contrary, I’m all for it and I hope my kids go to university.

But only if they want to.

It’s just simply that in my case, what I wanted to study isn’t taught in universities. There are schools where you can study the profession I wanted. But I wasn’t allowed to go there.

The reason I chose Europe was because all my life I had dreamt of living in Europe. Originally, I thought I would go to Paris to live. But after travelling around the continent, it was Spain that called to me instead.

I still love France, and Paris. And I’d probably still go crazy if I got the chance to spend a couple of years in Paris.

But now I just couldn’t live without the hot southern Spanish sun. They say that the sun of southern Spain isn’t like the sun anywhere else. It isn’t like the cold, pale, watery disk that you have in the north, that shines quite brightly but doesn’t provide you with any heat or warmth.

So that, basically, is my story. I settled down in Spain, and struggled to make ends meet. Without a profession or career, without any studies, life became one long, continuous, never-ending vicious circle.

I couldn’t study if I didn’t have money to study, and if I didn’t have the time. Because when you work for minimum wage, you have to work more hours in order to earn the money that you need to pay the rent and the utilities.

But if I didn’t study, I could never get a better job, either.

So it was a fish that kept biting its own tail.

Every little bit of money that I managed to save up, I spent it on travelling. I was very fortunate, and got the chance to visit many countries before I married and had kids.

Then I went through the typical, happy times that many women experience: the years of having babies and small children to take care of.

I was a stay-at-home mother, and I was happy with that role. But the marriages didn’t work out, so I ended up as a single mother without a job.

And from that point onwards, I went back to repeating the same pattern I had been living during all the years before marriage: working at menial, minimum-wage jobs doing unskilled labour, alternating with long periods of unemployment.

And that takes us back to where this blog begins: at The First Real Post.

Yes, like all people, I do still have dreams, things I dream of doing, long to do. But I’m one of those people who prefer not to chatter about works in progress.

So you’ll just have to stay tuned to this blog if you wish to know more, to discover what it is that I dream of doing and to find out if I ever achieve these dreams.

As I said before, I’m just a project still in the making……

Scenes from a life:

Luscious January flowers in the warmth of the Spanish sun.

Related posts:

What’s WRONG With Ya???

Letter From a Dead Mother to Her Long-Lost Baby

About Guilt and Shame

Tell Me How You Would Finish This Sentence……

How to Make Money Doing What You Love

I know I haven’t been hanging around this blog too much lately. The reason is mainly because, I’ve been trying to put my own advice into practice and do the very same things I believe in and blog about here!

And I guess the heart of what this blog is about, is how to make (lots of!) money doing what you want.

So I’ve come to the realization that, well, if you want to make lots of money doing what you want, you have to…… well…… do what you want. Right?

I’m subscribed to about 50 million newsletters on how to make it online, and how to run a successful online business and be a successful internet entrepreneur and all that. Many of them talk about how to run a “soul-based” business. One where you get to show up as WHO YOU REALLY ARE, and be yourself. Businesses that you are supposed to “run from your heart”.

People who run their businesses from their heart, and are true to themselves, and defend what they really believe in, tend to have successful businesses.

Now, I’m not saying that you can just sit down and write a blog (like I’m doing!) and if you write from the heart all the time, then all of a sudden you will have an amazing online business. You do still have to learn about all those boring aspects (well, what I consider boring aspects) such as copywriting and marketing and writing sales pages and strategies and setting up funnels (whatever that is) and all that.

But then again, on the other hand, supposedly, if what you want is to be an entrepreneur and have your own business, well, then, supposedly, you’re supposed to enjoy doing these things anyways. Right?

But I don’t enjoy these things.

Another thing that is apparently super-important if you want to build a successful business, of any sort, be it online or off, is, you MUST HAVE PRODUCTS to sell, of course!

And once again, that is where I get stalled. Because I just can’t STAND the idea of sitting around trying to dream up some sort of ecourse, or training programme, or workbook or PDF.

And that, once again, is supposed to be something you are actually supposed to enjoy doing, if you want to have your own business.

Well, I guess it makes sense, right? Usually if you want to have your own business, it’s because you have something inside of you, that you want to bring out of you and sell.

Anyways, the thing is, the more I read about “soul-based” businesses, and how you are supposed to run your biz from your soul and from what you really want, the more I realize that – I just can’t do it.

Because it’s not what my soul wants. It’s not what I want.

Okay, let’s be frank. Right from the start, I already knew that what I really wanted wasn’t to have an online business or be an entrepreneur. I’d always had the idea of running a business “on the side”, to make a living, so I could pay the bills and feed the kids.

I figured, if I had to choose between working at any j.o.b. that I hated for a living, or running an online business from home, I definitely preferred the online business.

But as time went on, I realized that, when I’m at home, I don’t want to be working at a “second job”!

When I’m at home, I want to be doing what I want to be doing. And enjoy doing. And love doing. Things that relax me. Because being at home is all about relaxing, and being at ease, and doing what you want to do, in your own home. And working on a business that I didn’t enjoy, was exactly the same as if I were working at a “second job” while I was at home.

And that’s not cool!

I realized that you can’t run a business “on the side”.

I’d always read about “college kids who run their own business on the side” while they go to their classes at university, and study their careers and do their homework. And how they were able to juggle it all: university studies, online business on the side and also a bit of social life thrown in as well.

And I thought, well, if they can do it, if they can run a business on the side while still focusing on getting top marks at school, then why can’t I do it too?

Why can’t I run a business just on the side while I focus on what I REALLY love to do (but currently isn’t bringing in any money yet)?

But I realized that I can’t do it. Because, when I’m at home, I can’t do things that I hate.

When I’m out in the world, I can do whatever I have to do to survive.

But when I’m at home, I just can’t bring myself to do things that I hate.

So I can’t seem to bring myself to “work on my biz” when I’m at home.

And I also discovered that for some reason, right from the start (maybe all my life!) I’ve always just taken it for granted that: I can’t do what I love to do and make money from it as well!

And I started questioning myself: And why the h*ll can’t I??

Why do I assume that I can’t do what I love to do, and make money from it as well?

Because if I were able to make money doing what I love to do, you can be sure, I wouldn’t be trying to run an online business.

I wouldn’t be doing anything except…… well…… what I love to do!

Maybe it’s just because of this idea that our society has, that “being creative doesn’t pay the bills”, and that artists should be starving. You know, the old “oh so you’re a starving artist” stereotype.

But, as so many people in LOA circles have been saying for so long, these are just NEGATIVE BELIEFS that people in our society have bought into for a long, long time. For millennia and millennia.

And we all know that our reality will always be created on the basis of our BELIEFS.

So if we BELIEVE that we can’t make a living from an artistic activity, then we never will.

If we BELIEVE in the “starving artist” syndrome, then we will always be starving artists.

If we BELIEVE that “being creative doesn’t pay the bills”, then we never will be able to pay the bills with creative activities.

But what would happen if we BELIEVED that we CAN pay the bills with creative activities, and we filled our minds with thoughts of “profitable artists” instead of “starving artists”? If we believed that we CAN make a living doing what we love to do. Then what would happen?

What we believe in is what will become our reality. So, I understand, whatever we believe in, this is precisely what would happen to us.

So why DON’T we create a world in which we DO believe that it’s possible to be a “profitable artist”?

Why don’t we create a world in which we DO believe that it’s possible to pay the bills with creative activities?

Why don’t we create a new reality for ourselves, where it IS possible to make a living doing what we love to do?

Because, as you know, reality always follows our beliefs.

So that is mainly the reason why I haven’t been hanging around much lately.

I once had the idea that I would like to found a business that would teach poor people how to become rich, and do it for free.

Because I KNOW the frustration of trying to “make it”, and get enough money to pay the bills and eat. And all the people you turn to for help, only agree to help you if you would pay them a large sum of money and buy their programmes or courses.

Money which if you already had, you wouldn’t need all those programmes and courses to begin with!

I KNOW the frustration of not having enough money to eat, and everyone you turn to for help only tries to sell you their latest course or training programme, and promises you that if you would only buy their course or programme, you will soon start earning enough money – not only to eat, but also to go on a dream holiday to Hawaii or the Seychelles, or wherever.

So I wanted to help the very poorest learn how to start making money, so they could buy food to feed themselves. And I wanted to do that FOR FREE.

That is why I started up this blog to begin with. So I could offer tips and suggestions to help people who are struggling with poverty, to learn techniques to get out of poverty. And so that they wouldn’t have to starve for a week in order to be able to buy a course or sign up for a programme to learn these techniques.

But now I realize that, I only wanted to offer this because, well, when you have a business, you are supposed to offer something. Right?

But now we’ve all resolved that running a business is not what I want.

So I’ve decided, instead, to spend most of my time pursuing what I DO want. So I suppose I will probably not be dropping by this blog too very often anymore.

However, since I still want to help people who are living in poverty to GET OUT OF POVERTY, and to offer this help for free, I will still continue to maintain this blog, where everyone can read any suggestions or ideas I might have to offer to the world.

In the next post I will present a short list of some new suggestions that I’ve come up with to help you earn money doing what you love to do, so…… (twirling of a baton)…… stay tuned…… (bowing out through a curtain hehe……)

Scenes from a life:

From a photographic post I did on The English Cemetery of Malaga.

Related posts:

Sexual Abuse

Why Law of Attraction Doesn’t Seem to Work

3 Things Ya Haveta Know (Bout Business and Life)

Your Purpose In Life

You Have the Power

My father spent his whole life working at a job that he hated. He didn’t believe he had any power to change his circumstances.

All his life, my father maintained insistently that he was a nobody and that he wasn’t capable of doing anything. He was thoroughly convinced that he had no power, and that nothing that he did would ever make any difference in anyone’s lives.

But in fact, my father was actually an EXTREMELY POWERFUL person.

As the sole breadwinner, he controlled all the money in the household, and made all the decisions as to how this money would be spent.

If he didn’t agree to something or approve of it, no one in the family could get it.

Everyone in the family depended on him. He made the decisions. He controlled what we could or couldn’t have, what we could or couldn’t do.

As you can see, he held an enormous amount of power in the family.

Yet, all his life, he always affirmed that he was a nobody, and that he had no power, and that it wouldn’t make any difference what he said or did, because no one would ever listen to him anyways.

All his life he held this much power, and yet all his life, he ignored completely and utterly just how much power he actually wielded.

Well, the thing is that: WE ARE ALL JUST AS POWERFUL!

Yet most of us do what my father did, and DENY that we have any power.

Most of us believe like my father did, and think that we are powerless, and that nothing that we do would make any difference.

We think that no matter what, we wouldn’t make any difference in anyone’s lives anyways.

Well, you can see how wrong my father was.

Are there any ways in which YOU are denying your power, the way my father did?

Please feel free to leave your comments below! I LOVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments!

Scenes from a life:

Related posts:

The Right Activity

What’s WRONG With Ya??

Be A Brazen, Shameless Hussy

Tell Me How You Would Finish This Sentence

Sexual Abuse

When I was a little girl I loved to go to the bookshop. My parents would take me there and leave me there while they did their shopping. Then they would come and pick me up.

They knew that I would be safe there. I was a good little girl, after all, hehe! They knew I wouldn’t run off somewhere else.

One day, though, a creepy creep, of the sort you would probably refer to as a “pedophile” in our contemporary, enlightened days, came up to me as I was happily reading in the children’s corner.

Now, the children’s corner of this particular bookshop was just that: a corner. A faraway corner hidden from the rest of the store where all the grown-ups browsed.

This “creepy pedophile” made sure that I was alone, and he was alone with me, in the children’s corner. Then he opened his coat. He was wearing his britches lowered down, with the parts that people usually keep discreetly covered, out in the open.

Fortunately he wasn’t the “rapist” type. He just wanted me to caress his “privates”, and stroke them and play with them and do some other totally yucky, totally gross-out things with them.

He wasn’t a very nice fella though. He was, on the contrary, quite menacing. As in: “Don’t you dare scream. I’ll hurt you if you scream.”

That sort of thing. You know.

This creepy pedophile was always around. It wasn’t like he just meandered in one day, and then I never saw him again.

Every time I went to the bookshop he was there.

I told my parents about him, but they were very disempowered people.

They didn’t have the faintest idea what to do.

“Maybe you can run away from him,” they said. “Go to another section of the bookstore.”

But I didn’t want to go to a different section. I didn’t want to go to read boring adult books! I wanted to stay in my favourite children’s corner and read literature appropriate for children my age!

I had a right to do that, didn’t I? After all, that’s what the children’s corner was for.

Why did I have to leave? I wasn’t the person who was doing anything wrong!

I know that my parents did what they did because they didn’t know any better. As I said before, they were totally disempowered people. They didn’t believe they had the power or the capacity to do anything about the things that they didn’t like in their lives.

Today, fortunately, we live in a different, much more conscious and aware world, and we know just how much power even we, as ordinary citizens, can wield.

I don’t have any daughters, but I think that if I had had a daughter, and she were to come to me and tell me about some sick pervert that was molesting her, I wouldn’t just sit there and turn my back on the problem.

Although this has never happened to me, because as I said, I don’t have any daughters, I think I would stay in the bookshop, in a different section out of sight of the children’s corner, and I would observe my daughter. I would watch to see if the creep came up to her.

From a discreet distance I would take photos of this creep, doing the things that he was habitually doing with my daughter.

Then I would go to the store clerk and ask to speak to the security personnel.

It was a fairly large bookstore, and large shops have security personnel, don’t you think?

I would show the store clerk the photos of the creep, and tell him that I wanted to report the creep to the police. I wouldn’t let the creep get away with it. I would want him to be prosecuted with the full weight of the law.

Not only so he would leave my daughter alone, and “get his” for his wanton behaviour towards my daughter. But also, so that he would be removed from society, and never be able to do this to any other little girl again.

If you are a parent, and you find yourself in a similar situation, I’d like you to know that YOU HAVE THE POWER to stop it.

YOU HAVE THE POWER to do something about it.

You DON’T have to just put up with it, or run away, like my parents did.

What do YOU think? Did you ever have to face a similar situation? What did you do about it? Please feel free to leave your comments below. I LOVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments! 🙂

Scenes from a life:

Related posts:

It’s All in the Way YOU SHOW UP

Letter From a Dead Mother to Her Long-Lost Baby

BE EXTRAORDINARY

Your Purpose in Life

The Right Activity

One thing I’ve become more and more aware of as time goes by, is how important it is to CHOOSE THE RIGHT ACTIVITY for you, in order to earn money.

Just because your next-door neighbour earns six figures a year working as an architect, that doesn’t mean that you would also earn six figures if you started studying architecture, if you also hate drawing.

That might sound obvious, but really, it had never been clear to me before.

I was raised in an era and in a milieu where young kids were taught that we had to work in whatever anyone was willing to pay us for.

So if we hated computers, but all the jobs were in computer programming, then we all **had to** become computer programmers.

If we couldn’t stand studying laws, but all the lawyers were snatching up the good money, then we all **had to** become lawyers.

When I was a child, no one ever asked me: What would you like to BE when you grow up?

People – teachers, guidance counsellors, even my classmates, all said to me: Where are all the jobs? Wherever the jobs are, that’s what you have to study!

What you were interested in, what you desired to do and become, were not factors that were ever taken into account. On the other hand, they were always pooh-poohed:

“Oh, so you want to be an athlete? But athletes don’t earn money unless they’re Olympic champions. So you’d better study something else.”

“Oh, so you want to be a ballet dancer? Ballet dancers are always starving. Why don’t you just hang up your ballet slippers, screw your head on right, put your feet on the ground and study to be a kindergarten teacher? There’s no demand for ballet dancers. But kindergarten teachers will always be necessary, because there will always be children to be taught.”

But I have found that, just because Jane Smith makes six figures a year because she runs her own online business selling a product that she really loves and believes in, that doesn’t mean that I will make six figures running an online business, if I hate business.

And just because Joe Blow is a starving trumpet player, that doesn’t mean that I would have to starve, if I wanted to become a trumpet player.

Maybe Joe Blow is a starving trumpet player because he hasn’t really tried to find a way to earn money playing the trumpet.

Or maybe Joe Blow has bought into the “starving artist” model, and really believes that if you are an artist, then you must starve.

I’ve tried doing everything I was SUPPOSED TO DO, because they were all things that were SUPPOSED TO make money. There was SUPPOSED TO be no way I could fail if I did these things.

And doing all these things that were SUPPOSED TO make money, and that you were SUPPOSED TO do if you wanted to find a job, was precisely what brought me to the dire situation described in this first post.

So I studied a bunch of things I HATED just because everyone was SUPPOSED TO make money from these things, and they were jobs that were SUPPOSED TO always be in demand.

I studied how to use a great variety of computer programmes, because “if you know computers, you will always have a job”.

I studied to become a secretary, because there are always SUPPOSED TO be secretarial jobs no matter what the economy.

I studied accounting, because since all companies need accountants, there were SUPPOSED TO always be positions available in that trade.

I HATED all of these things.

But they were SUPPOSED TO be fool-proof ways of making money.

I never made a cent from any of these activities.

Because they were all the wrong activities for me.

Because I hated all these activities, I always, unconsciously, went forth with an “I hate this” energy. So somehow opportunities for me to work as a secretary or accountant simply never showed up in my life.

I very rarely saw any job offers for these positions. And if I ever did see an offer and applied for it, I never got called for an interview.

NEVER.

On the other hand, people have succeeded doing the most unlikely things, things that they love to do, even though no one else was ever able to clench those jobs, because the others simply didn’t love those jobs enough.

How come, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Magic Johnson was able to become a legendary basketball player and make a fortune from it too, when others have to give up basketball and take up an office job?

How come successful spider wranglers exist, when, supposedly, it’s supposed to be impossible to earn a living working with spiders?

How come a guy I know personally, who is crazy about and obsessed with mushrooms, is able to secure one grant and scholarship after another, and get paid to go on field trips all over the world studying mushrooms, when other people have to drop out of science careers because they just can’t seem to come up with the funding to fund their scientific research?

How come these people can do all these things that are supposed to be “impossible”, and I can’t even get a *&%@ job as a secretary???

I think the answer lies in that, THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY LOVE TO DO, AND THEY LOVE WHAT THEY DO.

And the reason why they love what they do is because: they are doing what they already loved to do. What they have always loved doing.

Scenes from a life:

Related posts:

5 Steps to Achieve Your Goals and Manifest Your Dreams

What I Learnt From a Free Discovery Session With an Unnamed Coach

Conversations With Spirit About Fame and Greatness

Get Your Butt Moving and Get Some Money In Baby!

As I wrote in the First Post, I’ve always been very poor. And when you are poor, most of your friends are going to be poor too.

So, needless to say, most of my friends are poor and usually unemployed too.

So I think I can say I’ve got quite a lot of experience with poverty, poor people and the way they think and act, and what they believe in.

Unlike most of my friends, however, I’ve now succeeded in MOVING OUT of that dynamic!

I’m no longer poor!!

It’s not like I’m a millionaire (yet), or swimming in so much abundance (yet) that I don’t know what to do with it!

But I’m now not only paying all the bills and bringing tasty and nutritious food to my kids, I even have money left over at the end of the month! So now I’ve got SAVINGS too!

This is such a FAR CRY from the way we were living even a month ago.

A month ago, we had to go to the charity soup kitchens just to survive. (Although why they call them soup kitchens, I have no idea! There’s no sign of any soup around, at least not here. Here they give you sandwiches.)

Well, even though they only give you sandwiches, and not nutritious, filling soup, still, we are alive thanks to these charity soup kitchens and their sandwiches. So I’m certainly not complaining!

But I guess these un-nutritious, tasteless sandwiches that I was using to help my sons grow were just one more reason why I wanted to get OUT OF POVERTY – and FAST!

My destitute, unemployed friends always ask me, how come I always manage to come up with jobs, in a poor country, in a jobless economy where 60% of the working population is unemployed? Am I just lucky or what??

And our conversations usually go something like this:

Me: Have you tried sending out CV’s?

Friend: Of course. I’ve sent out hundreds. But no one has called me for an interview.

Me: Okay, that sounds good. Maybe someone will still call you up one day. Have you tried putting up ads?

Friend: What for? It’s not like anyone would call me anyways.

Me: Have you tried offering yourself to do anything at all?

Friend: Like what? Like walking dogs or babysitting? What?? ME? Walk dogs or babysit? But that’s not a DECENT job!

Me: Have you tried offering yourself to do something that you can and are willing to do? Like cleaning houses? Or working as a cashier?

Friend: What’s the point? No one would call me. There are too many cleaning ladies around already. And no one would hire me as a cashier because I’m too old / don’t have any experience / don’t have the right contacts.

Me: Well, you know, I’ve written a book and it’s helping me bring in some extra income. You don’t need contacts or any experience to write a book, and your age wouldn’t matter either. Why don’t you do that?

Friend: What?? ME? Write a book? Are you kidding? I’m too stupid to write a book!

Me: Well, I notice you’ve got a computer and internet. Have you thought about starting up an online business?

Friend: What?? ME? Start up an online business? Whatever for? No one would ever buy anything from me anyways!

Well I could go on, but I guess you get the gist of it. At this point I usually throw up my hands in exasperation and tell my friend to forget about it. That with this attitude, she’ll NEVER get out of poverty or earn any DECENT money.

And my friend is usually quick to agree with me. At least about the “you’ll never get out of poverty” part anyways.

The “with this attitude” part, however, somehow always seems to elude my friends.

So I’ve discovered, through experiences like this, that THERE IS ONLY ONE THING THAT YOU NEED MORE THAN ANYTHING IN ORDER TO GET OUT OF POVERTY, and that one thing is:

C.O.M.M.I.T.M.E.N.T!!!

You have to be willing to do ANYTHING in order to earn money and get out of poverty.

Or at least, anything decent and legal, of course, hehe.

You have to be willing to……

• wash dishes in a sleazy restaurant
• walk yappy dogs at daybreak
• look after throw-uppy babies
• clean houses until your hands drop off
• drag heavy publicity flyers about to distribute in the street
• wait tables to rude tourists

You can’t be “above” anything. You can’t think that any job is “below you”. You can’t think that you’re too good to do this or that job.

Now, I’m not saying that you have to do this menial, less-than-minimum-wage labour for the rest of your life.

I’m just saying that you get these jobs, and once you are actually paying the bills and feeding yourself and your family, then you can, casually and leisurely and at your own pace, look for something better.

But at least you’re not in the streets while waiting for something better to show up. At least you’re not starving to death.

That is why I say that the one thing that sets people who get OUT of poverty apart from people who remain poor all their lives, is – COMMITMENT.

A COMMITMENT to do whatever it takes to get out of poverty and start bringing in some money.

A COMMITMENT to move hell and all the mountains on earth if that’s what it takes to start bringing in some money.

A COMMITMENT to NEVER STOP, NEVER GIVE UP, until you see those little dollar bills (or euro bills, if like me you are in Europe) start showing up in your fists or in your bank account.

It means, NO MORE WHINING or COMPLAINING.

No more excuses.

No more procrastination.

Just get your butt moving, baby! And wash dishes. Mow lawns. Put up those ads. Walk those snarly dogs.

And bring some money in!

Scenes from a life:

Related posts:

The First Real Post

Going Back to School

Your Purpose In Life

It’s All in the Way YOU SHOW UP

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m extremely shy and introverted. You can see this, for example, in the way I went back to school, as I describe in this blog post where I explained how I was sooo shy about going back to school, I hid under the table, like a little girl!

So if I am so painfully shy, pathologically even, how come I am so successful at my new job? And how come I’ve aced every job interview I’ve been to in the past 3 years, and been offered every job I interviewed for during this time period?

(If you’re wondering how come I still suffer long periods of unemployment, if I ace every interview, the main reason is because I only get temp jobs, because ever since the crisis began, companies have stopped offering permanent positions here in Spain. And in between temp jobs, even though I might send out literally hundreds of CV’s, people don’t call me for an interview.

But when I DO get an interview – I ALWAYS get the job, hehe!)

At work, people don’t think I’m shy or introverted. On the contrary, they describe me as a friendly and outgoing person who is easy to work with.

At job interviews, although, of course, my bosses have never actually told me what impression I have caused them, clearly, I must have produced a favourable one, because they always offered me the jobs.

So I started questioning myself: what gives? How can I be sooo painfully shy I hide under a table when I go to school, but at work, I’m “outgoing” and “friendly”?

How come I am so introverted and insecure at school that my teachers quite despair over me, and think I will probably spend my life hiding in my house, and never get anywhere?

When I go to parties, I am your typical wallpaper or wilting violet. Always hanging about against the wall, in a corner, never joining in in the festivities. Too shy to go up to anyone unknown and start up a conversation with them. Too shy to dance.

And even if someone does talk to me, they usually get bored with our conversation in a very short time and find an excuse to leave me.

So how come, when I’m at work, I’m different? How come, when I’m at work, I inspire confidence, and people believe in me, and that I will produce great work and do an excellent job?

They say that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So how come, that doesn’t seem true for ME? How come I don’t appear the same at work as I do at school or in social situations?

I really pondered away at this. Then I realized: it’s all in the way YOU SHOW UP.

When I go to work or to a job interview, I “pretend” not to be myself.

I know what interviewers are looking for. I know that they want someone who knows that they are good, and that they will be good at the job. Who is sure of themselves and their abilities.

So when I go to an interview, I PRETEND that I really believe in myself. I pretend that I think I’m really good.

And I get the job!

And when I go to work, I know my bosses and co-workers are looking for two thirds of the same as well. They want someone who will do the job well, and who they KNOW will do the job well. So that is the image you must project, when you are at work.

Now, as you can imagine, in reality, deep inside, I am, of course, feeling very insecure, uncertain. I have NO IDEA whether I will do a good job, or if I am any good.

I know I will TRY to do the best job I can. But I don’t know if that will be enough.

But I know what my bosses and co-workers are looking for. They want someone they can count on.

So I pretend to be that someone.

And it works. They have NO IDEA how insecure, shy, withdrawn and uncertain I REALLY feel, inside.

It’s all in the way you show up.

When I go to school, on the other hand, I have no pretense. I act the way I feel. I feel shy, and uncertain, and insecure, and like I am NO GOOD. And I act that way.

And the result is that, my teachers find it hard to believe in me.

The other night was Halloween. And I noticed how, some people might be dressed up in the same costumes, and yet, the reactions they received from the people around them would be different.

Some people were dressed up as monsters or ghouls, and when they went around scaring people, screaming, moaning, groaning, everyone cracked up observing their antics. Even complete strangers.

Other guys were also dressed up as monsters or ghouls. But they hung around shyly in the background. They chewed on their fingernails. They stared at the ground. And no one noticed them.

They say that your appearance, the way you dress, put on makeup, comb your hair, is what causes the first impression, and makes people either feel favourable, or unfavourable, towards you.

But in fact, I observed, it really has nothing to do with how you are dressed. You can be dressed like a ghoul or monster, and still impress people.

Or you can be all spiffed up, and people still turn their backs on you.

No. It’s not the way you dress. It has EVERYTHING to do with THE WAY YOU SHOW UP.

If you ACT confident, people will feel confidence towards you, and believe in you.

Act shy, and people won’t give you the time of day. They will consider you a loser within the first five seconds of meeting you. They wouldn’t bet a dime on your success.

If you act confident, people will give you the job. They will trust in you, and confide the job, task, responsibility, opportunity, that you are looking for, to you.

Act shy, and they won’t even remember you.

Scenes from a life:

Boo!

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Conversations With Spirit About Fame and Greatness

Tell Me How You Would Finish This Sentence

5 Steps to Achieve Your Goals and Manifest Your Dreams

At my new job I have a co-worker who is down and depressed. The reason is because he hates his job, but he can’t see a way to get out of it.

He’s got a wife (who also works full-time) and kids to support and a ton of bills to pay. Just like the majority of us, I suppose.

I tried to cheer him up. Ask him what kind of job he’d prefer to have. Encourage him to take up a hobby or something that he enjoys doing outside of work.

But all he had to give me in reply was excuses, excuses and more excuses:

“After work I’m too tired to do anything.”

“My wife and kids need me.”

“I’m too busy taking care of the kids to do anything else.”

And I thought, if I’m a single mother with no one to help me with the kids and I earn a lot less money than you, because I only have a part-time job and I don’t have a partner who works, and I’m still able to chase my dreams and do other things outside of work – then why can’t you do it, too?

So then I realized. It’s not enough to JUST have the necessary resources available to you, in order for you to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish.

You actually have to USE THE RESOURCES that you have at your disposal!

That means: throwing away all the GARBAGE and JUNK that you don’t need. Like EXCUSES, and PROCRASTINATION, and SELF-DOUBT and negative and limiting beliefs.

In Law of Attraction circles, they are always saying that manifesting what you want is sooo easy. All you have to do is: Ask. Believe. Receive.

I find that such baloney, myself, personally. (Sorry if I offend other unconditional Law of Attraction proponents.) Maybe it works for other people, though.

For me, it smacks of you just sitting on a sofa and screaming, “Hey, Universe! I want that brand new telly with the 50 inch plasma LCD HD screen and I want it NOW! And I’m ready to receive it NOW! So send it to me NOW!”

Tellies (and money) don’t just fall out of the sky onto your head. At least not in MY experience.

So I’ve identified FIVE STEPS that are absolutely ESSENTIAL if you want to achieve your goals and fulfil your dreams in life.

1. Take time to BE ALONE and dedicate that time to MINDSET WORK.

This is super, super, super IMPORTANT!

I can’t emphasize enough how important this first step is.

When I don’t take the time to BE ALONE and do mindset work, I get very muddle-headed and I can’t think with clarity.

I don’t understand the things that are happening or that are going on around me.

I can’t make the right choices or do the right things or take the right actions, because I get so muddle-headed and I can’t think with clarity, and because I don’t understand what is happening around me.

I also get into a very foul mood, let’s admit it, when I don’t get that essential ME-TIME ALONE. And if I’m in a foul mood, no one enjoys working with me. And things don’t work out well.

Now, when I say that you should take the time to spend some time all alone by yourself, I don’t mean that you should occupy that time with meaningless stuff, like watching TV or watching movies or playing video games or, even worse, CLEANING THE HOUSE! The way so many obsessive women do, especially here in Spain where people tend to judge a woman’s worth based on how clean and tidy her house is and how good her cooking is.

No. When I say that you should take the time to spend some time all alone by yourself, I mean that you should really BE ALONE WITH YOURSELF.

Take this time to get CLARITY in your life. To have talks with yourself. To get clear on WHAT YOU REALLY WANT in life, and to make plans about what you have to do to get there.

Use this time as well to do MINDSET WORK.

Mindset work can mean different things for different people.

For some people that means positive self-talk. Or it could be meditation. Or repeating some affirmations to yourself, or working on your vision board.

Probably everyone has different tools for working on their mindset. I’ve tried out all different kinds, and I’ve found some of them more effective, for me personally, than others.

One of these days I’ll try and sit down and write out a list of the “mindset tools” that I’ve found work best for me. But I know that everyone is different and that what works for me doesn’t necessarily have to work for everyone else.

For example, I’ve found that I get nowhere with vision boards. I guess I’m just not a very visual person, and seeing things doesn’t really do anything for me.

2. Get clear on your goals.

And write them down.

This is sooo important. And I’m sure you’ve probably heard of or read about this about a gazillion times.

Well, there’s a good reason. And that’s because it works.

At least for me.

As they say, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

It’s not enough just to say, well I want to accomplish this or that. You actually have to MAKE THE COMMITMENT to do whatever it is that you’ve made plans to do, to MAKE IT HAPPEN.

And then FOLLOW UP on your plans.

The key, I think, is the COMMITMENT.

I think when you actually MAKE THE COMMITMENT and you actually SET THE REAL INTENTION to actually GO AFTER these goals and the things that you want, is when things actually start to JUMP!

It’s also important, I think, to CHOOSE THE RIGHT GOALS.

For example, if you’ve set the goal to become a lawyer, but you HATE law, but you’ve decided that you want to become a lawyer just because it’s a lucrative profession, you can be sure you’ll be in for a big disappointment.

I won’t go into all the reasons why it won’t work out, but the main reason is because you HATE law. So if you achieve your goal you will spend all your life HATING your job and ultimately, your life.

And what is the point of living a life that you hate, until the day that you die?

If you’re going to spend your whole life living a life that you HATE, then what was the point in you living to begin with?

The best way to choose the right goal, I think, is to think: what is it that you really really really really want more than anything in the world?

Then go after THAT goal. Don’t go after any other. That will be the RIGHT goal for you.

3. Believe!

For me, this is the most difficult part. I’m still banging away at this part.

It’s just very very very very hard for me to believe in things that I’ve always been told all my life are impossible.

Things such as, that I can actually succeed at something. When all my life every single person I have ever known, probably even the neighbour’s newborn baby, has been telling me unceasingly that I was BORN TO BE A FAILURE.

That I was born to be a loser. That I am just a BORN LOSER.

So this step is really very very very very hard for me.

But I know that it is ESSENTIAL if I want to achieve the things that I want to achieve.

So I think you just have to keep banging away at this until you GET IT.

4. Take ACTION! ACTION! ACTION!

As I mentioned in this post on Law of Attraction, ACTION is the ONE THING that makes it all work. That puts it all together.

To me, personally, ACTION is the ONE THING that you absolutely NEED to achieve your goals and fulfil your dreams.

If you don’t take any ACTION, then there’s no point in anything that you are doing.

And you will never accomplish your goals.

Many LOA exponents go on and on about how mindset work is anywhere from 80%-95% of the work that you need to do in order to achieve your goals, and the actual DOING things is only about 5%-20% of the job.

Maybe, in my case, it’s because I’ve always been a wishy-washy, fanciful, doodling daydreamer who has always enjoyed just lying around in a bed or in a field underneath a tree just DREAMING, but not doing anything.

But at any rate, I find that, for me at least, spending all my time visualizing, and imagining, and daydreaming, well, it just doesn’t cut it, for me.

So, for me at least, I find that action is actually more like FIFTY PERCENT (50%) of all the things that it is necessary to do in order to achieve your goals and accomplish your dreams.

5. Be open to receive.

That’s probably the easiest part for me. Because, it doesn’t require that you actually DO anything. Just sit back and relax and let it all flow in baby!

Maybe, if there’s anything you need to do to clear the way in order to receive, perhaps it could be, to knock out and explode away things like SELF-SABOTAGE or feelings of GUILT or unworthiness.

But you’ve been doing that in Step 1, your mindset part, already. Right?

So if you have, then this step should be easy-peasy.

6. Have PATIENCE!

I said in the title that there would be five steps in this article. But I think I could (and should) add in this sixth step: HAVE PATIENCE!!!

Because, of course, we WANT what we want…… RIGHT NOW! You know……

I want it all, I want it all
I want it all
And I want it NOW!

Queen

But we live in a dense physical world so, unfortunately, there is usually a DELAY between when we start to work towards something, and it actually SHOWS UP in our life.

So there’s no other remedy for this but to…… arm ourselves with patience.

Don’t worry!

It will show up!

And it will.

Scenes from a life:

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE living in a place where flowers are blooming like in spring when branches are bare in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere!!

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Why Law of Attraction Doesn’t Seem to Work

What’s WRONG With Ya?

A Handful of Pomegranates

Your Purpose in Life

I was just thinking about Leanne Cole, of Leanne Cole Photography. She’s out there SEVEN DAYS A WEEK posting new photos on her photography blog. She never ever ever misses a day, rain or shine, come hell or high water.

No matter what is going on in her life, or whether she has to accompany her daughter somewhere or help her hubby out in something. Regardless of whether maybe one day she’s just feeling under the weather or it’s that time of the month, she’s out there battling every single day with her photos.

She might not actually go out and take photos every day. But she works on her photography every single day. Some days maybe it’s just editing. But she’s still at it every day. She never ever ever takes a break.

And I was thinking, that is suuuch single-minded devotion. That is suuuch dedication.

I’m sure Leanne Cole never rolls over in bed any morning and says to herself: I wonder what I’m going to do today.

I’m sure every morning when she wakes up, she already KNOWS what she is going to do: she’s going to work on her photography, of course!

And I was wondering, why can’t I be that way?

I was wondering, if I were that way, then what would be the thing that, every day when I woke up, I just KNOW that I’m going to work on it that day? Because I work on it every day.

I think that’s how you decide or discern what is your purpose in life. What it is that you’re meant to do. What is your calling. What it is that you are indeed supposed to be doing each day.

And if you are one of those people who does different things every day, and has no fixed routine, that’s fine too.

But I personally feel much more inspired by someone like Leanne Cole.

Scenes from a life:

A street magician who somehow managed to engage my son into his illusions! (The magician is on the right, you can see he is shuffling some cards very fast!)

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Letter From a Dead Mother to Her Long-Lost Baby