138-May 18

“Our Accounting Department is the office that has the little red box on the wall saying ‘In case of emergency break glass.’ And inside are two tickets to Brazil.”—Robert Orben

As I work with people to help them reduce their financial stress, I look at the choices they’ve made that put them in a financial position that isn’t viable. One of the problems that seems endemic is the mental habit of considering only two options before making a decision. When I question people’s choices in spending, they always have an answer of the other choice they considered that was worse: “I have to do X because the only other choice is to do Y, and Y is unacceptable.” This polarity keeps people from continuing to search for a better choice.

For example, a recent client and I were trying to solve her cash flow problems. She was spending more than she was making, so we were looking for ways to cut her expenses. She was in business for herself in the medical profession and dedicated to building her practice. I suggested we needed to cut to a minimum all personal expenses while she built her business and she agreed. When I asked about her housing costs, she admitted she was paying a lot of money for her house, but it was either that “or live in a tiny $400 per month cracker box apartment.”

“No, that isn’t the only choice!” I said…

Today’s Affirmation: “I always find exactly what I want at exactly the right price!”

Thinking creatively, asking for what you want, and being persistent – these three things will get you a lot of what you want. It was demonstrated for me again when I headed off for a long weekend to Pechanga Indian Casino in Temecula with my friends, Shelley and Debby.

I didn’t realize it had been over a year since I had been there, and so my free offers had expired – no free room, no coupons for $30 off the price of dinner, etc. I love my freebies so I was a little miffed that I had missed out by a mere two weeks. I called the casino marketing VIP department to see if I could wheedle my way in anyway, but no dice.

Since there were three of us and we needed three beds, we had to either get two rooms, or spring for a suite. Shelley and I had stayed in a suite once before (for free!) and it was really nice, so we booked that (it was actually $40 less than two rooms would have cost.)

The day we were leaving, we checked the room charges on the TV, and it was $650 for the two-night stay. At breakfast, Debby convinced me to try negotiating with VIP services again, since we’d been there for 2 days and had played a lot of poker and slots. I was a little reluctant because I had tried already, but it didn’t hurt to ask in person either, so we stopped by.

The gal at the desk checked with the casino hosts, and they decided to give us one free night and one night at half-price! So instead of paying $650 the bill was only $275. Yay! We felt like winners!

Create, ask, persist…and win! I know I wouldn’t have made the request on my own – I still notice my reluctance to ask for things for myself. I can make repeated calls to potential clients, because I truly believe I am calling to help them, but when it is asking for someone to give to me, I have not exercised that muscle enough. (For more information on the topic “Women Don’t Ask” see my free recording available at www.chellie.com.) Cheers to Debby for not giving up!

137-May 17

“It is surprising how many improvements can come out of things that go wrong.”—Anonymous

In the end, financial stress reduction is simply this:

1.    Earn more
2.    Spend less
3.    Find another way to have what you want

When we’re doing all we can to satisfy the first two requirements and yet when we see things we want that cost money, what can we do to stay within our budgets and still get what we want?

This is where you earn your graduate degree from M.S.U. (Make Stuff Up).

In the habit of spending a lot of money on clothes? Learn to sew, or trade services with a friend who sews. Buy too many books? Go to the library or create a circle of like-minded friends with whom you can trade books. Is enjoying nature your priority? Instead of feeling bad that you can’t afford to buy a house with acres of land, live somewhere that is close to a park or wildlife refuge and take a walk there every day. Or rent the guesthouse from someone whose main house is on lots of land.

In my financial darkest days, I lost my home to foreclosure. I had bought when the real estate market (and my business) was high. When the recession hit and the market and my business plummeted, I found I couldn’t sell it and I couldn’t meet the monthly payments of $1,650. Eventually, I had to give it back to the bank. It was a humiliating personal disaster.

One Friday night, I was playing cards with some girlfriends. They knew I was going through hard times, and one of the girls turned to me and said, “So where are you going to live now?” I said, “I don’t know.” She said, “Why don’t you move in here with Shelley?” And Shelley looked up from her cards and said, “Sure. You can move in with me.”

So I did. I moved into a gorgeous two-story, three-bedroom, three-bath, 3,000 square foot home in a beautiful hillside setting in a gorgeous neighborhood. The furniture was exquisite, the art to my taste and the Autumn color scheme looked made for me. It was the most beautiful—and most expensive—home I had ever lived in. Shelley and I got along great and it was fun having a roommate after years of living alone.

The rent? $200 per month. The value of the house does not appear on my balance sheet. But when I’m walking around in it, I can’t tell I don’t own it.

This particular scenario might not fit your lifestyle. Find one that does. Manage an apartment building in exchange for free rent. Be a professional house sitter. Don’t follow the “American Dream” of home ownership if it’s not your dream. If it is, and you do own a home, in an economic downturn you could find a roommate or two to share expenses. What else could you do? Think outside the box. Make something up.

You don’t have to be rich to live rich.

Today’s Affirmation: “I am a money magnet!”

Wonderful things happen if you just open up your mind to new opportunities and other ways of being. We get so wrapped up in what’s “normal” that we think there’s something wrong with us if we want to do things differently. But that just may be your Higher Self calling, whispering in the night that you might like life better if you lived it a little broader or deeper or more laughingly.

My fortunes rose again better than ever after the 199os housing debacle, but I still live in this house with Shelley. It’s been 19 years now. We’re great friends and companions and we both think it’s wonderful to share space.

A networking friend of mine saw me at a meeting and said, “You’re doing so well now you can buy your own house!”

I looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would I want to do that?” I asked. “I go buy another house and then Shelley and I both have to live alone or go search for another congenial roommate?”

“But it’s a good investment,” she insisted. (Obviously, this was before the latest financial fiasco.)

“There are plenty of other good investments,” I said, “but a great roommate is hard to find!”

A couple of women friends who took my class together decided they loved our idea. They bought a duplex together – one lives upstairs and the other downstairs. Terrific!

Some people are unhappy because they aren’t living the American Dream. A lot more are unhappy because they’re living it and it doesn’t suit them. I’m living my own version of the American Dream, outside the usual box.

How do you create your version of the Dream? Just put everything in it that makes you happy, and leave everything out that makes you nuts. What does your dream look like?

136-May 16

“If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.”—Unknown

I know what it’s like to be unable to pay your bills. In fact, things once got so bad for me that I filed bankruptcy.

I had been on top of the world. My bookkeeping service had doubled every year and was now generating approximately $450,000 per year. I had twelve employees and a beautiful new office suite. But I had one major client who accounted for 75 percent of my income, and when they left with a mere two weeks notice, disaster loomed. Since I was absolutely strapped for cash, having been left with many financial obligations and no current means of paying for them, I borrowed $50,000 on credit cards.

Five years later, I had faithfully paid the minimum balances every month, but by then I had the habit of using credit cards whenever cash flow dipped. Compound interest ate me alive. By this time, I owed $80,000. Then my chief bookkeeper quit and decided to go into business for herself. A lot of my clients went with her. My ex-business partners asked when I was going to pay them for the purchase of the company. I tried to sell the condominium I purchased at the top of the real estate market in 1987, but its value had plummeted and I owed approximately $30,000 more than it was worth. It didn’t matter; I couldn’t find a buyer at any price. I could no longer pay my current bills, let alone my debts. The barrage of telephone calls from creditors was non-stop. So were my stress, anxiety, and tears.

A dear friend sent me to a bankruptcy specialist who exclaimed, “The bankruptcy laws were written for people like you!” He showed me that there was a way out, a path to forgiveness of my debts under the law, a new beginning for me after this failure. He pointed out that business involved risk, and that sometimes when you risk, you lose. The average millionaire files bankruptcy 3.5 times, he told me, and I was in some good company, with people such as Walt Disney, Donald Trump, Wayne Newton, Mark Victor Hansen, and R.H. Macy, founder of Macy’s department stores, who filed bankruptcy seven times before he was successful.

I filed. The credit card debt went up in smoke as though it had never been. The tension eked out of my body as I started to relax and breathe again. Of course, my credit was now a black smudge of ashes. But, after all, what did I need credit for? Only to borrow money, and that was what got me in trouble in the first place. I needed to learn to live without borrowing, just as I learned to live without drinking.

If you have ever stood in bankruptcy court and admitted your powerlessness over debt, forgive yourself and learn from the experience. If you have never had to do this, have compassion for those who have.

Today’s Affirmation: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

135-May 15

“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”—Gaylord Nelson

Some of your goals may not be accomplished in your lifetime. But they are worth your effort, nonetheless. They are your gift to those that follow you. Likewise, it is important that we honor those who came before us, and gave us gifts through great sacrifices of their own. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked tirelessly, all their lives, for women to have the right to vote, but died before the amendment was added to our Constitution. Were it not for them, half the citizens of the United States would have no say in our government.

But without the early patriots, we wouldn’t have a government. I visited Philadelphia and wandered around the city, looking at all the memorials and monuments. I stood in the room where the Declaration of Independence was written and tried to imagine the warm breath of the patriots there, who created a new nation out of their best ethics and beliefs. In sweat and blood they heaved forth a tiny, mewling infant country, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

A price was paid for this child of dreams, for this “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The signers of the birth certificate of our nation faced loss of friends, family, homes, money, businesses, and lives. The debts were collected. They paid them all.

Of all the monuments in Philadelphia, the one that touched me most, that had me in helpless tears in the middle of a bright, sunny day, was an unprepossessing bronze plaque in the center of a small park. There were no crowds gathered around it, there were no tour guides, no music; it stood alone, a silent sentinel under the limbs of a shady tree. It marked a battlefield where soldiers laid down their lives in blood and muck so that this infant country might grow and prosper. So that I might have freedom. Remember us the plaque seemed to say; we perished so that you could be free; we died so that you could vote.

And countless thousands upon thousands lie down in their wake and spend their last breaths dying hopelessly, helplessly, courageously for me. Some do not die in their body, but die in their minds or in their souls, lose their way, lose their families, lose their faith. Others die in their memories of the horrors of war. The price for freedom continues to be paid. May God bless them all, who died and died and die again. For me.

And for you. Honor those who came before you, who paid for your freedom. Vote. Pay your taxes. Honor those who come after you; what will you pay for them? Expand your vision. Run for office. Save the environment. Get involved.

Today’s Affirmation: “I honor and cherish my freedom, and those who provided it for me.”

Last year, I was invited to the Los Angeles premier of a new movie “The People v. The State of Illusion” www.thestateofillusion.com. I highly recommend it! Written and directed by Austin Vickers, with commentary by many well-respected scientists and thought leaders, it illustrates, through the story of a man imprisoned for manslaughter, how our perceptions are conditioned by habits of mind and behavior. When we open ourselves to see beyond our limited conditioned perspective, our reality shifts to meet our new awareness. As the story progresses, you can see how the prison of his mind created his physical prison, with the scientific explanation for exactly how that occurs.

Yes, I was already aware that what we focus on is what we create, but I had new realizations as I listened to the evidence presented in this film. I had been thinking about my Financial Stress Reduction® workshops lately, and wondering exactly why they produced the extraordinary results for people that they do. A friend of mine who had taken the class years ago was at the screening and introduced me to a friend of hers, saying, “I made $30,000 the first month I took her class!” Again I wondered, how does that happen? What it is specifically about the class that works?

I found the answer watching the film. Every step of the way during the 8-week course, people are encouraged, through reflection, visualization, and action, to shift their perception of their financial and personal reality. As they open themselves to new ideas and take new actions, they produce different results. Their focus changes from looking at the problem and blaming themselves for what’s wrong, to looking at the solution and congratulating themselves for all that’s right. When that is reinforced every week, and they get another new perspective, and take another new action, it produces another better result. More money, better relationships, more time off, more fun.

Intuitively, I constructed this class 23 years ago according to this model. I was consciously aware of some of it; some was learned, some was impressed upon me subconsciously by my own upbringing. But I can only facilitate the process during the course – attendees have to embrace it. Those that are ready to live a more abundant life take the risk to enroll in the class to begin with. In a positive review of the film, Scientific American said, “One we open our eyes, we should also be willing to take risks. To achieve success, people need to say yes to the unknown, and embrace the discomfort of unsafe territory.”

If you try, you have a 50-50 shot at success. If you don’t try, you have a 0 chance of success. Which would you rather have?

134-May 14

 “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions. He had money as well.”—Margaret Thatcher

When I started thinking about become a prosperous person, I hit a stumbling block. There was a quote from the Bible that worried me for a long time: “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.” (I thought for a while it didn’t say rich woman, but somehow I knew that qualification wasn’t going to fly.) I wanted to be a rich person, but I wanted to be a good person and hopefully go to heaven, too. How was I going to do both? I knew that, as a spiritual person, if I felt that money was going to corrupt me, I wasn’t going to allow it into my life. And for years, I didn’t.

Then, one evening, I happened across a television program that featured several religious scholars examining some Biblical statements, taking into account the geography, culture and the era in which it was written. I heard one scholar mention the above quotation and comment that most people misunderstood it. He said that people thought that the needle mentioned was a common sewing needle and therefore, of course, it was impossible for a camel to get through it’s eye. But this scholar laughed and said that “The Eye of the Needle” was the name of a gate in the wall of Jerusalem. And a camel could easily get through it—a moderately laden camel, that is, not a heavily laden camel. This changes the entire message. To me, this suggests that the lesson was only an admonishment to be balanced about wealth, and not overdo it to the point of overburdening your camel!

Leo J. Fishbeck, in his book Sing Your Song For All You’re Worth states “A careful study of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, reveals that the people who were considered to be the most spiritual, those who were the great contributors to enlightened thinking, the most highly regarded, were usually very wealthy people—millionaires by our standards. As we read about their many accomplishments we find that, usually, the account ends with the statement, ‘And he was favored by God.’ According to the ancient authors of the Scriptures, there must be a connection between prosperity and Spirituality.”

Money is a neutral. It will not corrupt you—only your use of it will. The choice to use money for good is always available to you. It is the wealthy who set up charitable foundations, endow hospitals, establish scholarships, promote art, literature, theater, etc. Ted Turner donated one billion dollars to the United Nations. Bill and Melinda Gates funded a charitable foundation with more than twenty billion dollars. You can’t do things like that if you’re broke.

Examine your old beliefs. Are they facts—or just opinions? Are they refutable? Investigate. If they aren’t producing good things in your life, replace them with better thoughts.

Today’s Affirmation: “The perfect order of the Universe is abundance for everyone—including me!”

133-May 13

“I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”—Sophie Tucker

Your wildest dreams come true: You pick the winning numbers in the lottery and suddenly you are a millionaire!

Now what? What do you do first?

There was a study several years ago that determined the top three things that most winners did—and nearly 90 percent did all of these three things. I will list them for you in reverse order, a la David Letterman:

#3. They buy a new car.

#2. They take a trip. If they were married with children, they go to Walt Disney World in Florida. If they are married without children or single, they go to Hawaii.

#1. The very first thing they all do is say, “This isn’t going to change me.”

That one fearful statement, “This isn’t going to change me,” rang in my consciousness like a clarion call. To me, this is stark evidence that most people have a negative picture of what having money will do to them. Many people in our society grow up with the idea that “dirty money” or “filthy lucre” will somehow corrupt them—that they will become arrogant or miserly and lose all their friends. A nationwide study conducted by the AARP in 2000 showed that the majority of people believed that “lots of money makes people greedy and insensitive.” How are you going to let money in your life if you think having it will make you a bad person? Doesn’t it make sense that if you thought money was a powerful force for good and that having an abundance of money would mean you could make large contributions to worthy causes, that a lottery winner would say instead, “This is really going to change me for the better”?

If you think that having a lot of money will make you a bad person, your internal sense of integrity is probably not going to allow it into your life. You need to change your attitude about having money and being rich if you want more abundance in your life. Make a list of positive things you would do with money if you were wealthy. Why not decide that money will make you a better person?

Today’s Affirmation: “The more money I get, the more money I share.”

Dear Dolphins,

Yesterday morning, my wonderful father passed serenely into the next life.

He had a lovely Christmas holiday with the family and then started feeling poorly in January. We all thought it might be the flu, but he was losing weight and was abnormally tired. After many doctor visits and tests, the culprit was found.  Dad had bladder cancer, and it had rapidly progressed to stage four.  None of the standard treatments of chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery were recommended at that stage and at his age of 93.

Of course, we were all devastated — we were counting on him living to at least 100!  Dad said he didn’t want any heroic measures and decided to let nature take its course.  At home after the diagnosis, he said, “Well, let’s enjoy the sunshine!” and then quietly, “I’ll see Nell” referring to his beloved wife who had left us suddenly in May of 1989. Dad lived his final days with my sister Jane and her husband Dick in Camarillo with the caring and loving help of Vitas Hospice care.

Much sooner than we were prepared for, he left us to join with God and our loved ones on the other side. We had a wonderful day with him last Saturday, as the family gathered to celebrate his granddaughters’ Marissa and Lindsey’s birthdays. We circled his bedside and said our goodbyes, told him how much we loved and appreciated him. He said he hoped to see us all in the next life and that he loved us all very much. His last words were “I love you” spoken on Monday night. He had been diagnosed with cancer only 4 weeks before!

He slipped into a coma the next day, and Jane, Dick and the hospice nurses arranged 24-hour care. On Tuesday evening, feeling his time was near, Jane, Carole, Marissa, Lindsey, Katie, and I surrounded his bed and sang songs, told stories, laughed, hugged, and celebrated his life. We told him he was loved, he was safe, and he could let go to join his heavenly family. It was a magical evening and we all felt blessed by it.

Jane’s son Robert had been working in Texas and was the only one who had missed the family gathering. He flew in Wednesday to say goodbye to Dad. After Rob told him he loved him, Dad breathed a sigh that seemed to acknowledge Rob’s words, and we feel he was able to let go the next morning after that final goodbye had been said.

We spent yesterday making the arrangements at Rose Hills, where he will have his final resting place next to our beloved mother. When we were arranging for a minister, I told our counselor Sunny (perfect name!) that we had a wonderful minister they sent us from Unity church for mother’s services in 1989. “Do you remember his name?” Sunny asked. “Charles…um,” I said as I hesitated over his last name. “Murphy?” asked Sunny. “That’s it!” I replied, and she said that he was still one of their ministers and she would put in a request for him to be there for us at dad’s services. Isn’t that amazing? Charles is the one who told the beautiful ship story at my mother’s funeral – it’s on page 200 of “The Wealthy Spirit”.

Here is the obituary we have written for him:

Mark Ervin Campbell

11-17-19  –  5-9-13

Mark Campbell, 93, passed away peacefully in his sleep on the morning of May 9^th of cancer. He was born in Seattle, WA, but lived most of his life in Whittier, CA where he and his loving wife, Nell, raised their three daughters.

Mark was a Merchant Marine, in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and served in World War II in the Pacific Theatre. He married the love of his life, Chellie LeNell Livingston, in November of 1943. After the war, received his B.A. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from M.I.T.  Mark worked as an aerospace scientist for North American Aviation and Rockwell International from 1951 until his retirement in 1990. He worked on  missile and satellite navigation, an automatic fingerprint reader for the FBI, and hardware and software design for the navigation system of the Space Shuttle.

He played the clarinet in a Dixieland Band, loved golf, science fiction, and was becoming a dangerous poker player at family gatherings in his later years. He enjoyed membership in the Huntington Library, the Rockwell IMU group, the First Methodist Church of Whittier M&M group, and all his bridge groups.  A model father and family man, we will miss the twinkle in his eye, the laughter, the love and the joy that he brought to all who knew him.

He was preceded in death by his loving wife, Nell, and is survived by his three daughters, Chellie, Jane (Dick) Markota, Carole (Lloyd) Wiltfong, five grandchildren Marissa (Max) Alwag, Lindsey (Chris) Poveromo, Robert, Kathryn, and Nick, and three great-grandchildren Maxie, Karalyn, and Derek, all of Southern California.

The family would like to extend their sincere appreciation and thanks to Vitas Hospice, whose care-giving nurses and other helpers made his last days comfortable and eased the transition for all of the family. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Vitas Foundation Hospice, 400 W. Ventura Blvd. #145, Camarillo, CA 93010.

A memorial service will be held at Rose Hills, 3888 Workman Mill Road, Whittier, CA on Thursday, May 16th at 11:00 am at the Memorial Chapel.  Interment will be private at 10:00 am, prior to the service.

–

Thank you for all your prayers, best wishes, and condolences. I know you join with us in mourning our loss and celebrating the wonderful life of our delightful dad.

Much love,

Chellie

128-May 8

“If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

For many years I had studied acting, gotten my B.A. Degree in Dramatic Art, and made the trek to Hollywood as countless thousands before me. I got my Equity card performing in Hello, Dolly! with Martha Rae, my SAG card in The Time of Your Life with James Whitmore, and did odds and ends of dinner theaters, commercials, and Disneyland. Though even minor stardom eluded me, I enjoyed my creative pursuit of the dream.

In between acting jobs, I took secretarial jobs to pay the bills—luckily, during one summer- school session, my mother had said “Learn to type, honey!” Each time a show closed, I’d call the employment agency and they’d send me on my next temporary assignment. One fateful day in September, a play I was in closed when the backers ran out of money. The temporary secretarial assignment was supposed to last for two weeks.

I was there for four years.

(Continued on page 128 of The Wealthy Spirit)

Today’s Affirmation: “All my desires are worthy and I always get everything I desire.”

A couple of years ago, I had just started my 8-week series of Financial Stress Reduction® teleclasses Monday and Tuesday, so I took Wednesday afternoon off and went down to the Bicycle Casino to play in their small 2:00 pm Omaha High-Low tournament.

Note: Omaha is a card game played like Texas Hold’em, except each player is dealt 4 cards instead of 2, and the best high hand splits the pot with the best low hand. You have to use 3 cards on the board and 2 cards in your hand and the low hand must be 5 low cards the highest of which can be an 8.

There were about 40 players, and we started with $5,000 in tournament chips (the buy-in was $50) I won some chips early, but then had a bad patch where I lost all but $1,000. But I won the next hand I played, and then had some wonderful winning hands – like a club flush with A-2-3-4-5 lowest possible hand, too. They call this “nut-nut” – having the “nuts” is having the best possible hand and having “nut-nut” is having the best possible high and low hands.

I finished 3rd winning $285, then played a cash game of $8-16 limit holdem and won another $281. So it was a fun, relaxing, and profitable day off!

What are your hobbies? Are they relaxing? Profitable? Fun? Share your stories here with us!

127-May 7

“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”—Italian Proverb

One afternoon, I was complaining about all of my problems to a friend as we milled with a group, waiting for a meeting to begin. She listened patiently to me whining for about five minutes, and then she had had enough.

“Excuse me!” she said loudly. I froze in my tracks.

“Did you eat today?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, not understanding why she was asking this question.

“Do you have a place to sleep tonight?” she continued, looking at me coldly.

Now I was getting the picture. “Yes,” I said sheepishly.

“And do you have a car to drive you to that place you’re going to sleep tonight?” she demanded.

I was dead meat now and I knew it. “Yes,” I whined.

“And is that car a Mercedes?”

“Uhhh…” I was inarticulate with embarrassment.

“Then shut up!” she exclaimed.

We stared at each other for a moment and then we both laughed. “Thanks, Sandy,” I said. “Message received.”

(Continued on page 127 of The Wealthy Spirit)

Today’s Affirmation: “I take time to be happy—and to know that I am.”

This story is one of my favorites, and I still tell it. We all get trapped in our limited perspectives sometimes and need a friend to give us a metaphorical kick in the ass from time to time.

One of my dear friends still remembers the day she changed the direction of her life. She had called me to talk because she was drawn to the idea of becoming a psychotherapist. But it was going to take years of study and then internship and she was agonizing over what she was going to have to give up in order to do it.

“How can I give up my acting career after all these years?” she wailed.

As gently as I could, I said, “What career?”

There was silence on the phone, and then “Ah.”

She really hadn’t been doing any acting except in community theater or showcase productions – all things that didn’t pay. She knew that, but all the activity kept the illusion of success alive, even though there wasn’t an income to back it up.

Old dreams die hard. One thing that keeps actors going is the eternal optimism that maybe today I’ll be discovered, maybe today I’ll get that commercial that will run forever and pay the bills, maybe today my agent will call with an offer for a TV series. You dream until one day your dreams come true or one day you wake up and discover your dream has changed.

My friend enrolled in psychology courses, got her MFCC, did her internship, and has been happily running a successful private practice helping people for many years. And on the side, she still acts in community theater and has a ball.

And that’s success, too.

126-May 6

“Good morning. This is God. I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help. So, have a good day.”—Unknown

I was stamping my foot and moaning about my life when my friend, Jennifer, reminded me that there was only so much I could do to make my dreams come to pass. Then I had to relax and let God take over. A hard lesson, that. Jennifer then repeated this poem to me, which I never forgot:

As children bring their broken toys

With tears for us to mend,

I brought my broken dreams to God,

Because He was my friend.

But then instead of leaving Him

In peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help,

With ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,

“How can you be so slow?”

“My child,” He said, “What could I do?

“You never did let go!”—Unknown

So much in life is a matter of timing. The sun comes up at dawn, not before. The ship sails on the tide, not before. I have to do all that I can do, then let go and let God. As Marianne Williamson says, “His ways aren’t all that mysterious.”

God knows what time it is. You’re on His schedule. Trust.

Today’s Affirmation: “I live in buoyant assurance of my continuing abundance!”

Do you keep statistics on where your clients are coming from?

I did a free teleclass “women Don’t Ask” last year. I had 650 people registered for the call, 119 attended and 26 attended the encore presentation. That’s about 25% which is the average number of people who listen live. Others are sent the recording and listen at their leisure.

Subsequently, I started two 8-week teleclasses with 9 people in Monday nights and 6 in Tuesday afternoons. I always like to know how people first heard about me and how the enrollment process went, so here are my statistics:

First heard or read about me:

Books – 4
Guest on another Teleclass – 2
In person speech at event – 2
Twitter – 1 (my first Twitter client!)
Facebook – 1
Guest article in Newsletter – 1
Networking groups – 2 (one from early 90s and one from 2003)
Internet link – 1
Referral – 1

Enrollment process:

*Woman – 6 emails, 8 phone calls
Woman – 2 emails, 5 phone calls
*Woman – 1shoppingcart (several phone calls 3 years ago, on newsletter list)
Woman – 2 phone calls
Woman – 1shoppingcart, several phone calls over 8 months
*Woman – 2 emails, 1 phone call
*Woman – 1 email, 1 phone call
*Woman – 1 email, 1 phone call
Woman – 2 emails, 2 phone calls
*Woman – 1shoppingcart, 1 phone call
*Woman – 5 emails, 3 phone calls
Man – 3 emails, 1 phone call
Woman – 2 emails, 1 phone call
Woman – 1 phone call
Woman – 3 emails, 2 phone calls

* 7 listened to my “Women Don’t Ask” free teleclass. If you’d like to register to get a free copy of the recording, sign up here http://www.chellie.com/complimentary-teleclass-041811.html

Most of the people have been on my mailing lists for some time and the subject matter of the teleclass really resonated with them. The conference call service I use sends a call report afterward, listing the callers names and telephone numbers, so I printed out the list and started calling people. A lot of them were strongly considering enrolling in my course, but the personal call from me tipped the balance. I always say “the money is in the phone” and “it’s not cold calling, it’s gold calling”!

Ps – the “let go, let God” happens AFTER you do the work.