The Secret Is Wags

Since my last post, My Path Costs Less But Delivers More, I’ve been thinking a lot about experts.  I believe we give too much power away to “experts.”  We think they know the “facts,” and we have to listen to them in order to get what they have that we want too.

But facts having nothing to do with what we want.  Facts are only the results of someone else’s desire and vibration.

Actress and writer Ruth Gordon said: “Never, never, never, under any circumstances, face facts.”  Good advice.

Experts have their place, of course.  They can teach us new skills.  They can provide valuable information.

But an expert’s place isn’t in the driver’s seat of our experience.  They need to be, at best, an instrument on our dash.

In the movie, Major League, one of the players on the Cleveland Indians baseball team, Pedro Cerrano, worships the voodoo god, Jobu.  He needs Jobu’s help to hit a curveball.  As Cerrano says, “Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.”

Late in the movie, in the pivotal game near the end, Cerrano comes to bat.  He’s been making offerings to Jobu for weeks, and he still can’t hit a curveball.  He decides he’s done with Jobu.  He says, “I stick up for you Jobu.  You no help me now … I say fuck you Jobu.  I do it myself!”

A couple days ago, I had my Jobu Moment, that moment when you say, uh, “To heck with you so-called expert or guru, I’ll do it myself.”  I decided to follow my own good feelings and alignment to creating the success I want.

Five Reasons To Have A Jobu Moment

When is it time for you to have a Jobu Moment and listen to your own desire and intuition instead of someone else’s facts?

1.  When the experts are draining your bank account

If you’re in a situation like I was in before I realized that my path costs less but delivers more, you may be throwing away money on books, audios, and training programs.  I don’t care how “important” an expert’s information seems to be; it’s not important enough to deplete your finances for.

2.  You’re following the experts’ advice, and you’re frustrated that it’s not working for you.

If you are doing what the expert says to do, and you’re not getting the promised results, this expert’s advice isn’t helping you.  You’re not aligned with it.  It worked for the expert, and for some of the people the expert teaches, because they are aligned with that path.  You’re not.  You’re especially not aligned with it if you’re frustrated.  When you’re frustrated, you aren’t aligned with anything you want.  Move on to the path that you are aligned with.

3.  What the expert wants you to do doesn’t feel good to you.

When I was promoting my books, I spent over $3000 on a training program that promised to get your book on Amazon’s bestseller’s list.  As I listened to the training calls, I became more and more uncomfortable.  The actions they advised taking didn’t appeal to me at all.  I knew I was going to have to force myself to do what they were teaching.  Worse, not only did I not want to do it, it struck me as borderline unethical.  Still, I’d paid good money for the program (which wasn’t refundable), so I kept at it … until I got very ill and then realized that to make the system work for me, I was going to have to spend another $2000 that I didn’t have to spend.

Truth was that I had a weird feeling about the program before I bought it, but I ignored my gut because the sales page promised such wonderful results. Never, ever, ever ignore your gut.

4.  You are about to give up or you already have given up something you want because the expert says it isn’t possible.

I recently came across an “expert’s post in a Facebook writing group.  The expert advised people to give up the idea of selling a novel to a big name publisher because “it just isn’t going to happen.”

I had to provide a different perspective.  I commented that I sold to a big publisher, unagented, which is akin to winning a huge lottery.  It CAN be done, I said.  The “expert” responded that the reason I was saying that was because I sold a novel writing e-book.  That was the farthest thing from my mind when I made my comment.  I’ve simply been on the receiving end of “you can’t do that because …” too many times, and I wanted writers to hear what they could do instead of what they couldn’t do.

Never let an expert take away your desire.  You can have anything you want. In fact, you already have it on a vibrational level.  All you have to do is line up with it.

5.  The expert’s success is based on people buying his or her advice

Many law of attraction experts who advise people how to get money have made their money selling advice to others on how to get money.  Hmm.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Why should you listen to someone who has made their money from people like you who want money?

And in fact, why should you ever listen to any expert?

Four Reasons To Listen To An Expert

1.  The expert’s advice lights you up.

The ideas the expert is teaching feel very good to you.  You’re excited about the information.  You’re enthusiastic about it.

When you feel this way, you’re vibrationally aligned, and when you’re vibrationally aligned, you’re attracting what you desire.  Of course, you can get vibrationally aligned without listening to an expert, but if one feels good to you, go ahead and listen.

2.  The expert emphasizes what you CAN do instead of what you CAN’T do.

If the expert is full of success stories and puts the emphasis on limitless possibility instead of dire warnings of doom, his or her information could be worth listening to.

3.  The expert admits he/she doesn’t have all the answers but wants to share what worked for him or her.

This kind of expert understands that facts are relative, and that you can create your own facts.  You can take the parts of this expert’s opinion that fit with your path and leave the rest.

4.  The expert’s success had nothing to do with your buying his or her advice.

If the expert has accomplished what he or she is teaching independent of your buying his or her program, he or she has a story that could be worth hearing.  Whenever you see evidence of someone else’s success it helps develop a belief system that lines up with your own success.

It took me several years and a lack of funds to figure out when I needed a Jobu Moment.  How about you?  Do you need a Jobu Moment?

Not that I’m an expert or anything … but maybe something in this post will help you keep your power instead of giving it away to an expert who isn’t helping you align with your desires.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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I never thought I’d say this, but … I’m grateful that I have very little money.

Okay, let me clarify that.

I’m not grateful for ALL aspects of having very little money.  However, one aspect of it is serving me quite well right now.  (And I’m all about finding the positive aspects of everything these days, so I’m quite happy to find this one.)

The positive aspect of having very little money is that I can’t possibly waste it on things I don’t need.

When you’re watching every penny with an intent to spend only on things you deem absolutely necessary, you have a different perspective on money than when you have plenty and/or you have credit cards to use.  This financial constriction may seem like a limitation (and it fact, it did to me for a very long time), but I’m discovering that it also offers a powerful form of freedom.

Four years ago, when I was trying to build an online business, I was fanatical about finding as much information on internet marketing as I could.  I scoured the web for insights into website building, sales letters, getting traffic to sites.  I joined dozens of e-mail lists.  And I bought thousands of dollars worth of training systems and e-books.

It seemed like every other week or so, I stumbled upon some marketing expert’s “bootcamp” or “exclusive membership” or “A-list training” or “must have e-book” that promised to give me that missing piece of my success puzzle.  Since I had money in the bank at the time, I bought much of what I came across.

Obviously, these great and expensive resources weren’t all that great.  I never managed to achieve the success they promised.

As I said in the I’d Rather Believe In Santa Claus post, I translated my inability to create the online empire all these books and training programs promised as a belief in my failure.  I figured if all these other people were making lots of money using this information, and I wasn’t, it meant I was doing something terribly wrong.  That’s when I walked away from the internet.

Now I’m back in it again.  I have three blogs (the other two are The Joyful Springer and Dogging the Words, if you’re interested), and I’m a couple weeks away from launching my revised e-book/audio package.

I’ve been doing a little bit of networking with other bloggers and online marketers, and I’ve begun to hear the siren call of bootcamps and training programs again.

But … I can’t afford them!  At all.  Period.  No way.

Not unless I want to stop feeding Ducky or something. For the record, she’s not in favor of that option.

A month ago, when I first started seeing expert training for bloggers and networkers, I was frustrated that I couldn’t afford it.  Then, thanks to a deliberate shift in focus onto thought that felt better, the law of attraction brought me this insight:

All Those Experts Knew As Little As I Did When They Started

The other night, I read a report by a blogger who started his blog in 2008 and now has 150,000 subscribers and makes a substantial living with his blog.  I was happy to see much of what he did is what I’ve begun to do or plan to do.  At the end of his report, he pitched his “A-list Bootcamp” for serious bloggers.  I felt that longing well up again.

But it didn’t bubble up far before my intention to find good feeling thoughts brought my aha moment.  It went like this:

“Wait a second.  He admits that when he started, he knew nothing about what he was doing.  He tried a little of this and a little of that, and he kept tweaking until it fell into place.  He started with one thing—enjoyment.  He loved blogging.  That love led him to what worked for him.  So why do I care what worked for him?  Why don’t I start with my own enjoyment (and I do very much enjoy writing this blog and The Joyful Springer especially (LOVE all things dog in case you haven’t noticed))?  Why don’t I let that enjoyment put me in alignment?  And then why don’t I let the universe orchestrate how it will unfold for me?  Why don’t I just take inspired action that makes sense to me instead of working my butt off and depleting my financial resources trying to do what worked for someone else?  Why don’t I manifest my own path instead of trying to stay on someone else’s manifested path?”

If I had enough money to spend on training programs, I’d be diving down the same rabbit holes I got stuck in four years ago.  My lack of money has kept me above ground and sane (relatively).

How cool is that?

And now that I’ve learned that powerful lesson, I’m open to having more money … that Ducky thinks I should use to buy more dog treats.

Are you giving your power away to someone who claims they know the “right” way to do something?  Are you tossing away money you could use on dog treats or something better?

Sometimes having money limits us as much as not having money does.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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