For the past year or so I have been enjoying learning about and practicing centering prayer. My church hosts a centering prayer gathering once a week, and I have been augmenting that discipline with near-daily sessions at home.
If you wish, you can click on the following link and read Wikipedia’s definition of centering prayer. My practice involves sitting in silent meditation for twenty minutes. To keep the mind from wandering, many people choose a mantra that is meaningful for them. My mantra started out simply being:
Breathe ~ Breathe ~ Breathe
Breathe ~ Breathe ~ Breathe
More recently I have been using some combination of Abundance and Prosperity, invoking the law of attraction to bring more abundance and prosperity into my life.
Just yesterday morning a third word entered the mix—Service—and specifically in this order:
Abundance ~ Service ~ Prosperity
Abundance ~ Service ~ Prosperity
I pondered this sequence of words, and then it hit me. Prosperity requires two preconditions before it will appear in one’s life.
Abundance
The first precondition is a mindset of abundance. Let’s face it, our modern society screams scarcity, scarcity, scarcity all the time, especially in our current economic climate of contraction. As long as we buy into this mindset of scarcity, we are sure to keep prosperity at bay.
So how do we cultivate a mindset of abundance in today’s world? Actually, it needn’t be all that difficult. The first thing we have to do is to recognize that abundance and prosperity still exist in our world. Some of the largest fortunes were made during the Great Depression and during other economic downturns. The simple adage, “Buy low, sell high,” still pertains. As an example, for real estate investors, now is an ideal time to buy depressed properties.
I’ve always loved the expression, “Buy low, sell high,” but for a reason that may not be immediately apparent. It is the classic mantra of a contrarian. If prices are low, that means most people are selling; it must be time to buy. If prices are high, then most people are buying; that means it’s time to sell. To cultivate a mindset of abundance in the face of economic chaos, one must truly be a contrarian.
So if abundance is possible in any economic climate, I may as well choose to think thoughts of abundance and to banish thoughts of scarcity as soon as they arise. This sets up the proper vibration to attract prosperity.
Service
It’s this second precondition that eluded me for the longest time: Service. Like many who have watched or read The Secret, I fell into the temptation that all I needed to do to attract prosperity into my life was to resonate with vibrations of abundance. Needless to say, this had little effect. Yes, it’s an important first step, but the second step is to offer something of value to the marketplace—to be of genuine service.
Moreover, one must strive to give away something of value. I am currently in the process of updating my various websites to offer valuable freebies to my visitors in exchange for providing me with their contact information. No doubt, I am opening myself up to being taken advantage of by people who subscribe one day, grab their free gift, and then immediately unsubscribe. So be it. That is a chance I am willing to take. (How’s that for an abundance mindset!)
This is also lighting a fire under me to ramp up the progress on my book, Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing. I can begin to use content-rich excerpts from it as valuable giveaways, instead of (or in addition to) someone else’s products.
One of my goals is to be a successful platform speaker. In order to do so, I must offer a product or service of value to my audience. I’m sure I’ll ultimately be speaking on Demystifying Prosperity™, but for now, my presentations may have something to do with my other love: Demystifying Technology®. Therefore, I am also ramping up production on my technical videos. So far I’ve been offering them mostly to the people who join one of my network marketing businesses, but why not open them up to everyone?
So you see, Service has opened up whole new horizons for me. Such a simple lesson—I’m amazed that it eluded me for so long. Watch out world: Carl Eric Johnson is preparing great new things.
Prosperity
Only by first nurturing an abundance mindset and then offering a valuable service to the world can one attract true prosperity. The good news is that now it is likely to rush into your life much faster than you could have imagined it.
In my one-on-one coaching sessions, I help people identify their strengths and weaknesses and ultimately their long-lost dreams. This reveals areas where they can offer unique services to the world. It provides direction and a target to aim for. A life well lived is one where the world has been made a better place for you having been in it. Let’s all strive to find our unique gifts to offer the world. This is sure to open the floodgates of prosperity.
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