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THE BIG IDEAS Relax into Wealth

Wealth Consciousness
How to Get More By Doing Less
Time to build it. BY ALAN COHEN · TARCHER © 2006 · 240 PAGES

Invest in Yourself
Like you’re a hot stock.

Small Steps
Are very very good. “If you, like me, have been taught that the only way to get what you want is
through combat, or to trudge through life playing catch-up ball, the book you are
Pleasing Our Souls
It’s time. holding will assist you in making the crucial shift from an uphill-battle mentality to
Rejection Schmejection the deep knowing that you can have what you want without sacrificing your soul in
Rejection is part of the process. the process. Success, wealth, and harmonious relationships can be a lot easier than
Lighten Up! you have been taught, and here you will find many examples of how good it can
Now’s good. get, along with practical tools to draw such experiences into your own life.”
Go All Out ~ Alan Cohen from Relax into Wealth
Don’t be a hold-out.
Alan Cohen has quickly become one of my favorite teachers and favorite people.

As I mentioned in the Note on Why Your Life Sucks (and What You Can Do About It), I was
introduced to Alan and his work via a documentary we’re both in called Finding Joe. I was blown
away by his story-telling ability and asked the Director of the film to connect us. Since then,
Alexandra and I have gotten to know Alan and we enjoy him as much as we do his books!

This book is a great look at, as the title suggests, how to “relax into wealth.”

If you’ve been conditioned to believe that creating wealth requires high levels of stress and all
that, I think you’ll love it. It’s a great, easy-to-read and practical look at how we can flow with life
and welcome more of the good stuff into our lives. :)

For now, let’s have some fun with a few of my favorite Big Ideas!

“If you stay true to the BUILDING A WEALTH CONSCIOUSNESS

spark of enthusiasm that
makes you feel happiest and
most alive, life will reward
you in miraculous ways.”
~ Alan Cohen
“This is not a book about getting money. There are lots of books and courses that offer you
investment advice. This is a book about building consciousness. When you have a wealth
mentality, wealth follows naturally. Money gained without consciousness will quickly turn to the
place it came from. Awareness is the steering wheel of your wealth and your life.”
Alan and I are both big fans of Eric Butterworth, the great 20th century Unity minister.

Here’s how Butterworth puts it in his classic, must-read Spiritual Economics (see Notes): “The
goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through
which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.”

Alright.

So, if we want to create wealth we need to work on our consciousness. Got it.

T. Harv Eker says the same thing. In Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (see Notes), he tells us we
need to work on our subconscious financial blueprint—which will influence our thoughts which
will influence our feelings and actions which will influence our results.

Eker also likes the steering wheel metaphor. He tells us: “If you want to create wealth, it is
imperative that you believe that you are at the steering wheel of life, especially your financial

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 life.”

How do we take control of the steering wheel??

“As soon as you trust
One essential key: We need to shift from a victim perspective to a creative perspective. We
yourself, you will know
have to realize WE, ultimately, are responsible for our success in our lives and we need to quit
how to live.”
complaining about external circumstances that we think are holding us back.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
How’s YOUR consciousness?

Are you in control of your steering wheel?

What’s the #1 thing you could start doing more of that would put you more in control of shaping
your consciousness?

(Now a good time to get on that? :)

INVEST IN YOURSELF!
“Consider the money you spend as an investment in yourself: you are buying stock in a company
you believe in, you recognize your vast potential, and you want to get in on the ground floor of
your achievements. I heard a woman report, “I love my husband so much that I would do just
about anything if I knew it would make him happy.” Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love
with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you
happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper
you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong
love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out.”

I just love that image of investing in yourself—imagining that you’re buying stock in a company
you *really* believe in!

In Loving What Is, Byron Katie (see Notes) tells us: “The greatest stock market you can invest
in is yourself. Finding this truth is better than finding a gold mine.”

How do we invest in ourselves?

By doing things like meditating, exercising, journaling, reading and other soul-nourishing stuff.

By seeing every moment as another opportunity to connect to the highest within ourselves and
fully give ourselves to the world.

It’s not about having a huge amount of money. Moment to moment to moment we have an
opportunity to invest in ourselves.

And, as we do that, over the long run we’ll see that we’re creating the type of powerful
consciousness through which wealth naturally flows! :)

SMALL STEPS ARE GOOD

“Do not wait to strike until “Small steps are good—they add up to big ones. Small steps are especially helpful to
the iron is hot; but make it overachievers, who need to learn that life is less about getting somewhere, and more about being
hot by striking.” somewhere.”

~ William B. Sprague Baby steps.

As a recovering perfectionist/overachiever, this is EASILY one of the most powerful ideas I’ve
integrated into my life.

It’s always been relatively easy for me to get all geeked up about a big vision. And, I’ve never
really had a problem with working hard. But, it wasn’t until I really understood the power of
simply taking the next step (and the next...) that I found my groove and got out of the oscillating
cycles of being really inspired and then really overwhelmed.

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 How about you?

“There is one among you Do you ever find yourself all fired up one day and then all burnt out the next?
or within you who is not
Then you might dig a couple other thoughts on the subject that have deeply inspired me!
afraid. Let that fearless one
Here’s how Russell Simmons puts it in his great book, Do You! (see Notes): “I knew it was
guide, and you will remain
unrealistic to think I could build an institution overnight. But if I took baby steps, eventually it
safe and be successful.”
would happen.”
~ Alan Cohen
Amen to that.

He also tells us: “The pain that’s created by avoiding hard work is actually much worse than
any pain created from the actual work itself. Because if you don’t begin to work on those ideas
that God has blessed you with, they will become stagnant inside of you and eventually begin to
eat away at you. You might seem OK on the outside, but inside you will be ill from not getting
those ideas out of your heart and into the world. Stalling leads to sickness. But taking steps,
even baby steps, always leads to success.”

And, David Emerald, who first introduced me to the idea of “dynamic tension,” says this in his
great little book The Power of TED* (see Notes): “It is the Baby Steps you take, the everyday
things you do, that eventually lead to the manifestation of your outcome.”

Baby steps.

It’s such a Big Idea that I’ll often fill up an entire journal page writing lines and lines of this
phrase to groove it into my consciousness:

“Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.
Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.
Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.”

So, what baby steps can YOU take today?

And tomorrow?

And the next day?

And the day after that?

And... :)

TIME TO PLEASE OUR SOULS

“No one has ever succeeded in pleasing everyone, and you won’t be the first. Even Jesus,
Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, and many pure-hearted world change
agents incurred the wrath of those who did not understand them. You can be absolutely correct,
and some will scorn you. When Galileo asserted that the Earth was round, not flat, the Church
considered his proposition heresy and sentenced him to life imprisonment. (To this day there
is a society of “Flat Earth” believers who argue that all of the photos from space are contrived
and the moon program was a hoax.) Great world-movers do not turn back or compromise
their integrity for the sake of popular opinion. They are true to their inner guidance and their
relationship with their Higher Power. Rather than please people, they please their soul, which is
all that really matters.”

—> “No one has ever succeeded in pleasing everyone, and you won’t be the first.”

Good to know. :)

And, it’s not just Alan who tells us this.

How about Harry Truman? He advises us to remember: “How far would Moses have gone if

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“All that is necessary to
break the spell of inertia
and frustration is this: Act
as if it were impossible to
fail.”
~ Dorthea Brande
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he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he had taken a poll
in the land of Israel? What would have happened to the Reformation if Martin Luther had
taken a poll? It isn’t polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It’s right and wrong and
leadership.”
In his classic essay Self-Reliance (see Notes on The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson),
Emerson tells us we need to trust ourselves and offers this gem: “‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be
misunderstood.’—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and
Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure
and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Well, there ya go. We’re not going to please everyone.
So, let’s courageously trust ourselves and please our souls!
P.S. I have to share this anonymous quote Paulo Coelho shared on his blog not too long ago:
“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day,
but they’re unable to do it themselves.”
REJECTION SCMEJECTION
“Rejections, even multiple rejections, are not necessarily an indication of the lack of worth of
your project. They may simply be indications of a mismatch of the applicant and rejecter. Or lack
of good taste on the part of the person denying your request. Some of the greatest works of art
and literature were overlooked by many people. In his lifetime, Vincent van Gogh sold but one
painting, for a pittance. In recent years, one of his paintings sold for $135 million—the highest
price ever paid for an oil painting. The film Dead Poets Society was turned down by eleven
studios, twice each; the film went on to receive seven Academy Award nominations, including
Best Picture and Best Actor. The blockbuster parable Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected
by seventeen publishers before Macmillan acquired it, and went on to sell many millions of
copies. And on and on and on.”
Did you know this little story about Paulo Coelho’s great book, The Alchemist?
From Wikipedia: “Coelho wrote The Alchemist and published it through a small Brazilian
publishing house who made an initial print run of 900 copies and decided not to reprint. He
subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book Brida,
The Alchemist became a Brazilian bestseller. The Alchemist has gone on to sell more than 65
million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books in history, and has been translated into
more than 70 languages, the 71st being Maltese, winning the Guinness World Record for most
translated book by a living author.”
Not bad for a book that went out of print, eh? :)
Rejection.
The fact is that, as we push our edges and dare to follow our hearts on our hero’s journey, we’re
going to experience set backs and we’re going to get rejected.
That’s not fun.
But, we’ve got to KNOW that all the people we admire have experienced their own rejections and
that it’s not about avoiding failure, it’s about continuing to move forward—to take the next baby
step. And the next. And the next.
That virtue is called persistence.
Here’s what Napoleon Hill has to say about it (see Notes on Think and Grow Rich): “If the first
plan which you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan; if this new plan

“The game of success is
less about *getting* good
things to happen and more
about *letting* good things
happen.”
~ Alan Cohen
PhilosophersNotes | Relax into Wealth
fails to work, replace it in turn with still another, and so on, until you find a plan which does
work. Right here is the point at which the majority of men meet with failure, because of their
lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”
He adds: “Those who have cultivated the habit of persistence seem to enjoy insurance against
failure... The hidden Guide lets no one enjoy great achievement without passing the persistence
test. Those who can’t take it simply do not make the grade.”
Plus: “One thing we all know, if one does not possess persistence, one does not achieve
noteworthy success in any calling.”
Ah, I can’t resist. One more from Mr. Hill: “The majority of people are ready to throw their
aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few
carry on despite all opposition, until they attain their goal. There may be no heroic connotation
to the word ‘persistence,’ but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel.”
Winston Churchill is pretty direct. He tells us: “Never, never, never, never give up.”
And finally, here’s some wisdom from the great Vipassana meditation teacher, S.N. Goenka. It’s
one of my favorite thoughts that I silently repeat to myself many times a day: “Work diligently.
Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. And you’re bound to be
successful. Bound to be successful.”
Begs the question: How’s YOUR persistence?
LIGHTEN UP!
“While most people believe they are not doing enough, their real problem is that they are too
hard on themselves. In our culture, stress, overly high personal expectations, and nagging self-
criticism put unnatural and debilitating pressure on us from within. The greatest gift you can
give yourself, your wealth, and your life is to lighten up.”
So, baby steps are important. And, so is persistence.
AND so is lightening up. :)
In fact, the “lightening up” part is what makes the whole thing fun.
If we need to be hitting crazy goals in wacky time frames while never having a setback of any
kind, we’re in trouble. (Obviously.)
How do we lighten up?
Alan gives us one way: To set more reasonable goals.
He says: “While it is helpful to have goals just beyond your current reach and to strive to achieve
them, if you use the process as an excuse to beat yourself up, you sabotage your success and
undermine the joy of your journey.”
Tal Ben-Shahar also tells us about stretch goals vs. panic goals. Get out of your comfort zone and
stretch but don’t go so gonzo you’re going to snap!
How can you lighten up as you have fun relaxing into wealth?!
Are you setting unreasonable expectations? Constantly nagging yourself with self-criticism?
It’s time to let go of that.
Lighten up!
5
 “Be an all-out, not a hold-
GO ALL OUT
out.” “Because we are spiritual beings, it is the spirit of what we do that determines how much
fulfillment we derive. You can be going through all the motions and doing all the appropriate
~ Norman Vincent Peale
and expected actions, but if you are empty or absent inside, your deeds mean little. Only soul
satisfaction can fulfill you; everything else will leave you hungry. Spiritual teacher Paramahansa
Yogananda noted: “Manners without sincerity are like a beautiful but dead woman.” Essence is
more important than appearance.”

—> “Manners without sincerity are like a beautiful but dead woman.”

Yikes!

Reminds me of the Buddha’s wisdom (see Notes on The Dhammapada) who tells us: “Like a
lovely flower full of color but lacking in fragrance, are the words of those who do not practice
what they teach.”

Let’s not be a beautiful but dead woman. And, let’s not be a lovely flower lacking fragrance.

How?

By trusting ourselves enough to come fully alive and go all out.

Shall we? :)

Brian Johnson,
Chief Philosopher

If you liked this Note, About the Author of “Relax into Wealth”
you’ll probably like… ALAN COHEN

Why Your Life Sucks

Alan H. Cohen is the author of 18 popular inspirational titles, including The
A Daily Dose of Sanity Dragon Doesn’t Lives Here Anymore and Dare to be Yourself. A frequent guest
Spiritual Economics on television and radio, he conducts life mastery seminars in Hawaii and on-
line, and is an acclaimed keynote speaker for educational, health, church, and
The Millionaire Mind
corporate groups. He lives on Maui, Hawaii. Visit www.alancohen.com to learn
Happier more. (from Amazon)
The Dhammapada
About the Author of This Note
BRIAN JOHNSON

Brian Johnson is a lover of wisdom (aka a “Philosopher”) and a passionate

student of life who’s committed to inspiring and empowering millions of people
to live their greatest lives as he studies, embodies and shares the universal truths
of optimal living. He harts his job.

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