Working with Money.
NLP approach to financial success.
NLP is one of the best tools to change people's behaviour. Can we use it to become more successfull with money? As always, the solution is not where we expected it to be...
Introduction to Working with Money
Once upon a time there was a man who had a donkey. And as the donkey was old, the man had brought it to the local rich man.
Would you like to buy this donkey? The price is very low...
"Sure", the rich man said. But the moment after he gave his money to the owner of a donkey, the donkey "died of old age". Too bad, as the deal is a deal.
Few months later the former owner of a donkey accidentally met the rich man.
"I hope you are not mad at me", he said.
"Mad? Why?"
The donkey was dead...
"So what?" - the rich man smiled. "I played a lottery. One dollar for the donkey. One thousand people participated."
But the donkey was dead...
Yes... But only one man found it - the winner. He was upset, that's true. So what? I have simply returned his money!
Inviting money in your life can be easy and fun. And yet TEACHING how to get rich and successful is a multi-million, if not multi-billion industry. Do you see a problem here? If anyone can (as they wrote in the three identical E-mails that I got today) make $5,000 a week with $25 initial investment, why didn't they spend $0 (it is free in the Internet) to get a spell checker? Not that my English shines... but at least I don't want you to BELIEVE me as they want. I am trying to CONVINCE, before you pay your last $7.95...
So - you cannot get rich. Not now, not ever. Go work.
Just kidding ;)
You can. However it is not about a scheme you are supposed to implement, or merchandize you are supposed to sell. It is about you and how you think about money. And about your life. And everything else, for that matter.
I mean, after all - this is the NLP site. And as always in NLP, we care about HOW you do things (structure) much more than about WHAT is it you are doing (content). Believe it or not, but if you want to improve your health, or be successful with the opposite sex, or become rich - you will have to do the same things - just take this tutorial, and replace "money" with whatever you are after.
Technically, it is a correct statement. But if you do the replacement as I suggested and try to "earn health on the stock market", you will probably realize, that I was speaking metaphorically. And still...
How do we bring money into our life and have fun (as opposed to the raccoon eyes) while doing so? This is what this book is about. It will tell you:
- How to behave in order to attract money (or money making situations).
- How to be ready to recognize these situations.
- What are the differences between rich and poor people and how to change yourself.
- How to do what you like, and how to like what you do.
- And tons of technical stuff, both on NLP and money making.
Why make money?
In the Introduction to Working with the Future I was talking about goals, and how to set and achieve them, and how to make them unavoidable almost as if you are pulled towards your goal AND being pushed from behind, too. Any goal including the goal of making money.
So why should we talk about it again?
Because it is an example. You want to practice setting and achieving goals - here is something MEASURABLE. And "small" and "neutral", too. You know, they say it a lot in NLP classes. "Now pick some small and neutral problem that you would like to solve". How about making a million dollars? Small. Modest. And neutral, even boring, right?
Just kidding... You will find, by the way, that I am often making jokes about some "serious" matters. I do it on purpose. Because when I say "million dollars" to you, it is almost like this million dollars is stronger than you are.
It is not.
Yes, it takes cutting a tree to print all these funny green papers, but so does printing the "Yellow pages" - are you afraid of the phone book? No. Should you be afraid of the million dollars? No. Use the technique suggested in the Working with the Future - change the fear into the anticipation. These two emotions are very close and yet - the difference between them makes all the difference in the world. Become stronger than your fear.
Some day I will probably write another eBook and I will call it "Extreme NLP" or something like that. I will put there examples of using NLP for things that we normally are afraid to do. For now, consider the fire eating. You have a stick with some cotton on it. You soak it in gasoline, you set it on fire - and you are supposed to put it into your mouse! Frankly, from the point of view of physics - there is nothing special about this trick. If you do it right, you will have nothing to worry about except for the gasoline aftertaste. And still - people are afraid.
So we need to become stronger than this fear. To challenge it. Look at the fire and say "ha!" Not the "ha" of the dying horse, no. A challenge. Now lick your lips - we need them to become wet, so that when you put them around the stick, they cut off the air. And in the same time the "lip licking" is a physiology of an anticipation. We want this fire.
And then take a deep breath and hold it. And look up. When you put the stick into your mouse, it should be strictly vertical.
And put it into your mouse. Close the lips above the fire, on the stick. And after three seconds (one-two-three) open your mouse. You just did it!
What was the components involved in our success? First, we made a decision. "I will do it even if it is the last thing I do". We changed physiology accordingly (the "ha!", the lip licking and the deep breath). And then we went into the exciting technical details.
Same with the money. No difference. And if you think you cannot do it, remember that if you do it right - you can do ANYTHING. You can even eat the fire.
What NLP has to do with Money?
When people see the title like "Working with Money" - what would they expect? Either accounting or "Get rich quick". Or something else from the same category of "do it this way". And then suddenly I am offering you a text saying "it doesn't matter what you do, the only thing that maters is what you feel". Strange?
Or, to put it more general: is NLP the right tool? Should we rather be talking about more "technical" things, like market indicators, mortgage rate or Web site conversion ratio?
Consider this. If I tell you the story about the richest man in the world - will you be able to replace him? Probably not. There are many books "out there" telling stories about Morgans, Bill Gates, oil and steel magnates and they are good and interesting books. These books would tell you how and when oil fields were found and financed, what business decisions Ford made and why Nobel selected this particular components to make dynamite (if you didn't know - he invented this explosive, and only then established the Nobel Award). Now - show me someone who read these books and became the oil magnate because of it. Something is missing.
On the other hand, imagine that you learn to look exactly like the richest man on this planet. You learn to talk like him. You learn to dress like him and to put the signature where he would. Will you be able to replace him? Yes. And as NLP is about MODELLING people, it would be THE TOOL.
And it also doesn't matter what the rich man did in the past, as past is GONE. We need to learn the way he THINKS so that NEXT TIME we behave like him. Which means - we will be successful.
Therefore it is about achieving the STATE - something (again) NLP is good at. First you feel like the rich man. Inside. Then you see an opportunity and act on it.
How many people do you think experienced the apple falling down from the apple-tree right on their head? Many... And it was only Newton who would say "hey! They are pulled towards the Earth!" Good thing - he wasn't sitting under the coco-nut tree - these things are bigger than apples ;)
Newton was ready to see the law of gravity. Others were not ready.
But being ready to recognize an opportunity is not enough. You also need to know what to do with the opportunity. You need to turn the opportunity into a goal that you need to achieve and then you need to actually achieve it. This is another area that is well-developed in NLP. Because the way part of NLP was originally created is by modeling successful people. Including modeling the way they are setting and achieving goals.
Is there something left? Like "go ten steps north and dig there for the treasure"? No. We do not need a treasure map. Using techniques described below, you will learn to recognize the "place where to dig" and to motivate yourself so much that you will not even need a shovel. You will BECOME a treasure map. And in the same time...
In the same time you will get a strong line of defense against the "get rich quick" schemes. You will be able to see right through them - sometimes it will just be a "gut feeling" and sometimes you will be able to point your finger on the "weak spots" of a strategy that someone is offering you. Like "if you know how to make millions, why are you wearing the tie from the Dollar Store?" Believe me on this one. Why? Because I don't have a tie from a dollar store. Or any tie for that matter ;)
Inviting Money (Outline)
- Money vs. the ability to make money. What will give you more confidence? A little chat about the strange attractors and rich and poor states as example of the strange attractors.
- Know your goal. What is a well-formed outcome? State vs. Dream vs. Goal. An "unbreakable decision". Power of an intent (as opposed to intention).
- Once in a lifetime opportunities that we encounter every week. How to recognize them.
- State of Power and the role of a mental conditioning. Why should we think like winners, act like winners and stick with the winners?
- Strategies for the success and for failure. Circumstances are affected by our behavior - how should we behave to attract money?
- Integrating new strategies into the time line. What's a Time Line? Two types of the Time Line. How changes propagate into the future. How changes propagate into the past (changing the past memories).
- Limiting beliefs. What are the Limiting beliefs? What can we do to change them?
- What you think is not always true. Map is not a territory. Do you have right ideas about money making opportunities that are out there? Are you sure?
- Example of a money making opportunity: the Internet and the eCommerce Experiment.
- The concept of a business that can be left unattended.
- Multiple streams of income.
- When to talk and when to keep your mouse shut.
- Focusing on one thing in a time. Value of focus.
- How do we know we are not lying to ourselves?
- Motivation. Submodalities of "state of passionate commitment". State of Power and making the experience a pleasant one. Focusing on the goal and not on obstacles.