Smart, savvy women jazz me. I include pioneering women like Mary Baker Eddy, Myrtle Fillmore, Johnnie Colemon and H. Emilie Cady in this category. And, then there are  a select few women whose accomplishments compel me to take action. I count Louise Hay among the elite group. These women operate like forces of nature. Nothing can stop them.

Louise Hay - Science of Mind's 2009 Spiritual Hero of the Year

Beyond Ms. Hay’s personal accomplishments, which include being the 6th all-time best-selling female author ever, healing herself of cervical cancer without medical intervention, working with AIDS patients at a time when they were considered untouchable and much, much more, Louise has almost singlehandedly moved New Thought from the fringe into the mainstream.

Doesn’t that just turn you on? I’d get to work now but I have to finish this article first.

Now, imagine my excitement when I found not one, but two in-depth articles written about Ms. Hay. I found the first article, entitled “The Queen of the New Age” by Mark Oppenheimer, through an archival search on the New York Times website. And, the second article came to me courtesy of a dear Facebook friend. This article, entitled “The Ambassador of New Thought” by Claudia Abbott, appears in the January 2010 issue of “Science of Mind.”

As expected, each interviewer approaches Ms. Hay from a different point of view. Abbott’s story in “Science of Mind” proclaims Ms. Hay the “Spiritual Hero of the Year.” But, while it touches on Ms. Hay’s tremendous accomplishments, it fails to give the full weight of what Hay House means for New Thought now and to future generations. Quite frankly, I was surprised to find that Abbott did not offer a proper context in which to consider Hay House and its achievements.

New Thought has always had a literary tradition. Our principles have chiefly been communicated through the written word. It’s why the inspirational quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie and others touch us so deeply. Check the Facebook fan page of any person talking about the Law of Attraction (which is what mainstream media has reduced New Thought to) and you’ll find it chock full of inspirational quotations from these thinkers and others.

Consider this: in an industry run amok with consolidation, where the big eat the little, Hay House has not only survived, but it has also thrived. According to Oppenheimer’s profile, Hay House has the cash reserves to pay advances that rival those of larger publishing houses (upwards of $1,000,000). Moreover, they’ve pioneered a model wherein their writers’ fortunes do not turn on book sales or critical reviews alone. Instead, the writers earn royalties on their books as well as ancillary products inspired by their books, i.e. greeting cards, inspirational keepsakes, etc. No other publishing house can make this claim. And, Hay House has consistently fended off larger corporations that have sniffed around, attempting to purchase them.

Ms. Hay (and her business partner Reid Tracy) has built a company that can survive long after she’s gone. And, this is significant because it is the first time that a sustainable business like Hay House has been produced from within the New Thought community. We have lots of wonderful New Thought books. And, we’ve had strong businessmen like Robert Collier (“The Secret of the Ages”) and Napoleon Hill (“Think and Grow Rich”) and many more. But, those men came from the business world and latched on to New Thought principles. They made use of New Thought teachings, but they laid no business apprenticeship pathways for others to follow.

Conversely, Ms. Hay has built a media empire that creates pathways to wealth for other New Thought adherents. That’s major!

I expected Oppenheimer to miss the true value of Hay House and he doesn’t disappoint. But, I expected a publication like “Science of Mind” to zero in on an important perspective like this. Here is a woman who has taken New Thought out of relative obscurity and made it mainstream. Moreover, she didn’t just build a company that benefits herself; she has instead created a lasting platform from which New Thought writers can be launched for years to come.

Before there was a Rhonda Byrne, there was a Louise Hay tearing down walls and barriers so that a video like “The Secret” could have a platform.

The mainstream media is going to color our stories in a shade of weird. Consider the backlash in the review column on www.amazon.com for “The Secret.” Few people want to accept FULL responsibility for their experience – the good and the bad. Even though what we teach – that you can have the life you want, just choose it – has the ring of truth for them, it always comes back to the question of why bad things happen to good people. “So, are you saying that the people who died in the 9/11 attacks brought that on themselves?” they will ask.

As the next generation of New Thought thinkers, we cannot look at ourselves through the lens of the mainstream media. Just as we choose the lives we lead, we must also choose the lens through which we see ourselves. Louise Hay has done something that is utterly remarkable and should be recognized appropriately for it. She is way more than just a spiritual hero. Let us give Hay House and Louise Hay her full and proper due.

When Rhonda Byrne started researching the Law of Attraction for her movie (and subsequent book) The Secret, she started by tracing it back to some of the greatest minds the world has ever known.

“I couldn’t believe all the people who knew this,” she writes. “They were the greatest people in history: Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Hugo, Beethoven, Lincoln, Emerson, Edison, Einstein.” And that’s why Rhonda found it equally hard to believe how few people seem to know and intentionally practice the Law of Attraction today. So she started seeking out those who follow the Law of Attraction, and who do so masterfully.

“One by one they began to emerge,” writes Rhonda of the Law of Attraction thought leaders featured in The Secret. “I became a magnet: as I began to search, one great living master after another was drawn to me.”

“When I discovered one teacher, that one would link to the next, in a perfect chain.”

You too can use the same magnetism inherent in the Law of Attraction to build your social media network. Simply seek out leaders in your area of interest. Read their blog. Follow them on Twitter. Join or fan their Facebook page. Subscribe to their YouTube Channel. Then, most importantly, engage. Not about any product or service you offer, but about the common interest you share.

Comment on their blog or YouTube page. Retweet and reply to them. Post to their Facebook page. And most importantly, do all of these things not just once, but regularly. You may get direct responses from these mentors of yours, and how great would that be?! But what’s more certain is that you are laying the path for a “perfect chain” of connections that will be revealed to you.

All of this regular engagement through your mentors’ social media sites will inevitably lead you to the blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and YouTube channels of others who share the same interest or passion. And the more committed you are to engaging on a regular basis, the more visible you are going to be, thus increasing the magnetism to you.

With gratitude,

Meredith Simonds

Social Media Blogger, Consultant and Author of the forthcoming book, Social Media Intention: How to Grow Your Network (and Yourself) through the Law of Attraction

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Be grateful for what you have now. As you begin to think about all the things in your life you are grateful for, you will be amazed at the never ending thoughts that come back to you of more things to be grateful for. You have to make a start, and then the law of attraction will receive those grateful thoughts and give you more just like them.
Rhonda Byrne - Thinking - Mind - Life - Attraction - Gratitude - Encouragement

Lagunatic greets Jimmy at the door last night as he returns from a long hard day at work:

“Thank you for my Christmas present, Jimmy! I love it!!”

“Oh, no problem….uh, I forget, what did I get you?”

*I shove an ear mere millimeters from his eyeballs *

“Oh, uh, earrings!…Where did I buy them, again?”

“Well, that place at the mall is going out of business so you bought them today for 50% off.”

“Ok, great! That’s good.”

“Yeah, you should be proud of yourself that you’re already done with my birthday AND Christmas shopping.”

“I am, I am tired from shopping so much! So, uh, what did I get you for your birthday?”

“Two cashmere sweaters that were 45% off so you only paid $100. You got an incredible deal.”

“Wow, I really am a great shopper.”

“Yes, honey. you are.”

Rhonda Byrne can suck it.

(Momma didn’t raise no dummy)

As Napoleon Hill writes in Think and Grow Rich,

“Our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts which we hold in our minds, and, by means with which no man is familiar, these “magnets” attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.”

Just like what The Secret by Rhonda Byrne has taught or in the words of Jack Canfield and many others, “Since “like” attracts “like,” you attract the things you like or want.”

So basically, we have to be in a “Money Consciousness” – Napoleon Hill

We have to think about money in order to attain money. Easier said than done, I’ve known this for a while yet I still have trouble keeping my money consciousness…  (practice makes perfect) All of us have to build an obsessive desire to Money.  (note:  this is honest money, not dishonest money.  The money we think about is money coming from the good products and good services we provide.

A big part of LifeStyle Living is having the kind of lifestyle we truly want to live.  Such as having a big house, a nice car, a great spouse, great kids and most of all true happiness.  In the 21st Century, freedom to do anything we want is bought by money.  Money gives us freedom, especially time freedom and this is a good thing!!!  So we must be in a money conciousness to be a money magnet!

The English papers are full of lists today. Both The Times and The Telegraph have put out their top/defining books of the decade. President Obama makes both “best” lists, while Dan Brown makes both “best” and “worst” and Cormac McCarthy and JK Rowling share top spots on the “best” lists.

The Times’ Top 5:

5. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky (2006)
Its astonishing rediscovery more than 40 years after Nemirovsky’s death in Auschwitz should not overshadow that the two novellas here are miniature masterpieces. In the first the veneer of civilisation is stripped from a group of Parisians fleeing the advancing Germans, while the second is a moving tale of forbidden love across the divide of war.

4. Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers trans Robert Bringhurst (2002) One hundred years ago Ghandl and Skaay, two great native poets of the northwest coast of Canada, spoke their stories aloud; Bringhurst’s translations and analysis bring a lost world brilliantly to life.

3. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (2004)
The book that revealed Barack Obama as not just an ambitious politician, but also as an eloquent writer and deep thinker. The fascinating story of his early life, first published in 1995, was reissued in 2004 and became a worldwide bestseller as momentum for the presidency built.

2. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)
With its feisty, irresistible heroine and shapely, naive style, Satrapi’s comic-book account of her childhood during the Islamic Revolution in Iran is hugely enjoyable — and an essential, humanising eye-opener on a little-understood country. From an interview with Oprah Winfrey, 2007

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Cormac McCarthy’s gripping, shattering novel walks in a long line of tradition. Mary Shelley tried her hand at the literature of post-apocalypse with The Last Man, published in 1826; Russell Hoban’s 1980 novel, Riddley Walker, sets the aftermath of doom in Canterbury. The Road’s wilderness — coming to the cinema in January — is an American one: blasted, ruined, destroyed by an unnamed calamity that has scorched the Earth with biblical fury and lit McCarthy’s prose with holy fire. In this awful landscape walk a father and his young son, treading towards a future where it would seem there could be none.

McCarthy has always been a poet of extremity; his earlier novels stripped romance from the myth of the frontier. The Road is stripped back even farther, its father and son the near-sole survivors of what might be called humanity; the book’s narrative is simply that of their survival. There are respites from their suffering —- a cache or two of unspoilted tinned food —- but more often there is horror; this is existence pared to the bone. For this reason, it is McCarthy’s language that must carry the book, and so it does, triumphantly, its Hemingway-like concision shot through with cadences that sometimes recall the sprung rhythms of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The Telegraph’s Top 5 of Books That Defined The Decade:

5. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins Bantam, 2006
Belief in God is not only totally irrational, but actively harmful to society, says Richard Dawkins. Whether you agree with him or not, his book was a popular demolition job of the world’s great faiths.

4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers Picador, 2000
One of the first of the “creative” memoirs, this chronicled Eggers’s life with his younger siblings after the death of their parents from cancer. Bold, dazzling and fantastical, it launched a new style of writing.

3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown Corgi, 2003
Dan Brown may not be able to write, but he sure can pull in the punters. A mad mishmash of conspiracy theories about Jesus built around the most basic elements of a thriller, this has sold almost as many copies as the Bible and has made the world’s pulse beat faster.

2. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama Canongate, 2007
Originally published in 1995 in the US, this was launched in Britain to enormous acclaim before the first black president took to the world stage. Candid and sensitively written, the memoir is a search for his father (who left when Obama was two) and his racial identity. A touchstone for future politicians.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling Bloomsbury, 2007
If you don’t know what a Muggle is by now, you’re either Rip van Winkle or enormously stubborn. This is the seventh and final instalment in Rowling’s record-breaking series about Harry Potter, the world’s most famous lightning-scarred boy wizard and his tribulations with Lord Voldemort. We’ve seen Harry grow from a spindly, messy-haired 11-year-old into a heroic young adult. Children have grown up with him, finding in his battles metaphors for their own. This volume alone sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours after it was published. Whether wickedly skewering suburbia, or bringing Harry, Ron and Hermione into mortal danger, Rowling is never less than absorbing. Some may sneer at her books, but they are triumphant sagas about the defeat of evil that tap into our basic hunger for stories. Most importantly, she makes reading a 700-page book seem easy. This one even has a quotation from Aeschylus as its epigraph. It stands as a cornerstone of the decade, a melding of high and low culture that appeals to all ages and nations.

And, The Times’ worst books of the ’00s:

5. Dylan’s Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks (2003)
It’s not that Dylan’s lyrics aren’t worth studying, or that Ricks lacks the intellect for the job. It’s just that this “love letter to Dylan” is as embarrassing to read as any adolescent epistle if you’re not in the relationship yourself.

4. Vernon God Little by D. B. C. Pierre (2003)
This ugly, lazy debut about a school massacre in Texas won the Man Booker Prize in 2003: the judges said that it was a “coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with America”; we beg to differ.

3. Being Jordan by Katie Price (2004)
The book that made possible not only her “literary” career, but also those of such figures as Jade Goody and Kerry Katona. Highly influential, but not in a good way.

2. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (2006)
Telling us that we need to think positive thoughts, we could accept. But to dress up the advice with inadequately assimilated quantum theories, along with references to Jesus, Newton, Beethoven and Einstein: this was unbearable.

1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003)
“Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere . . .” not the intro to a tabloid news story, but to the bestselling adult novel of the decade. The irrelevance of prose quality to sales has surely never been so starkly revealed.

Finally, The Independent has the 50 Best Winter Reads. Unfortunately, you have to click through 50 pictures.

The 100 Best Books Of The Decade
100 books that defined the noughties – Telegraph
The 5 Worst Books Of The Decade – Times Online
The 50 best winter reads – Arts & Books, IndyBest – The Independent

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Nickel and Dimed,” is not by age a GenXer, but her new book, “Bright-Sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has underminded America,” will no doubt strike a chord with many a GenXer. It did for me anyway.

As soon as I saw this book I knew I wanted to read it, because one of my pet peeves is overly-optimistic people. Now, I’m sure that there will be those who brand Ehrenreich (as well as myself) bitter or angry or “negative” as is the popular slander, but that’s not the case. The opposite of “positive,” as it is jammed down our throats today, is not despair and “negativism” it is rational and realistic. Because there is a fine line between being optimistic and being naive, and the people Ehrenreich takes to task employ “postive thinking” facsism to the point of self-delusion. I’m talking people like the creepy ever-grinning Joel Osteen and the Rhonda Byrne, author of “The Secret,” (ALERT! ALETER!: a version of The Secrete for teens is being published).

Ehrenreich traces the roots of “postive thinking” facism back to something called New Thought, which was a reaction to strict Calvinist attitudes of the time, throug  Norman Vincent Peele and his PT Manifestor, “The Power of Positive Thinking” who really popularized the movement, up to the current day PT Gurus and iconslike Depok Chopra and Oprah Winfrey (query: why do both of their names sound like a horrible-taste vegeatable?)

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being optimistic but with out a healty dose of rationality and realism and yes even pessimis it just bullshit it can lead to such things as the recent economic collapse. The cult of PT has so permiated corporate culture that within it those who would dare to point out a problem or suggest that things are anything but peachy keen may suffer ostricization or even firing, which is what happened to the guy that worked for Lehman Brothers who tried to tell the President/Ceo whatever-the-hell his title was that the realeastate market was going to be problem and that they needed to change their business model. Two year after the dude was canned Lehman Brothers went busto and former Pres/Ceo still doesn’t seem to get it.

And why should the jackasses bother to change, to be the competent, rational and thoughtful leaders that once headed up corporations, when the gov’t will bail their asses out when they fail miserably? Hell, I’d walking around smiling all the time too if I knew if that any mistake I made would not only get me canned but might actually earn me a raise. But I’m still no donning that stupid Osteen mullet; I did my time in the 80s fashion hell, thank you very much, and I’ve not intention on returning to it.

Segundo a “Lei da Atração” devemos delegar à nossa própria forma de pensar e de se relacionar com o mundo o efeito poderoso de atrair os acontecimentos. Todos guardamos dentro de nós a força motriz que faz com que nossos desejos se concretizem e que nossas idéias e projetos se tornem realidade, independente das dificuldades que ambiente externo apresente.
Para Michael Losier, autor do livro “Lei da Atração – The Secret”, todos vivemos inconscientemente sob esta lei. O que falta para muitos de nós é justamente ter a consciência para agir ativamente sobre ela, explicando através de nossos próprios pensamentos e atitudes tudo o que atraímos para nossas vidas (tudo de bom e também tudo de ruim!).
O livro “Lei da Atração” traz todas as dicas, ferramentas e exercícios que ajudarão você a influenciar diretamente tudo o que acontece em sua vida, aumentando o impacto e a força do pensamento na realização dos seus desejos.

Download – A lei da atração – O segrado colocado em prática

Fragmentos de um grande segredo foram encontrados nas tradições orais, na literatura, nas religiões e filosofias ao longo dos séculos. Pela primeira vez, todas as peças do Segredo se juntam numa revelação incrível que transformará a vida de todos que o vivenciarem. Neste livro, você aprenderá como usar o Segredo em cada aspecto da sua vida – dinheiro, saúde, relacionamentos, felicidade, e em cada interação que você tem no mundo. Você começará a entender o poder oculto e inexplarado dentro de você e esta revelação pode lhe trazer muita alegria em cada aspecto de sua vida. O Segredo contém a sabedoria de mestres contemporâneos — homens e mulheres que usaram-no para alcançar saúde, riqueza, e a felicidade. Ao aplicar o conhecimento de O Segredo, eles trazem à tona, histórias extraordinárias para curar doenças, adquirir riquezas, superar obstáculos, e alcançar o que muitos considerariam como impossível.
O sucesso de O Segredo é tão grande que superou a marca de 4 milhões de livros vendidos em dois meses, pouco depois de seu lançamento oficial e, consequentemente, foi destaque em respeitadíssimas publicações incluindo o The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times, USA Today, Newsweek e o The New York Times Sunday Style section. Também apareceu no topo de várias listas best sellers, incluindo The New York Times, USA Today e o Wall Street Journal

Leitura Online Somente – O Segredo

From the Christian NewsWire:

Did self-proclaimed personal-success strategist James Arthur Ray reveal a flaw in his teachings on the principles of the The Secret (Rhonda Byrne, Atria Books, 2006) during his “spiritual warrior” spiritual cleansing ceremony at a new-age sweat lodge in Sedona this month where three attendees died, another in critical care, and 19 hospitalized?

“Yes.” says San Diego megachurch pastor and best-selling author Dr. Jim Garlow, author of The Secret Revealed; Heaven and the Afterlife; and New York Times bestseller Cracking DiVinci’s Code.

“Byrne’s The Secret prominently features the teachings of James Arthur Ray, even including him in the ‘Biographies’ section at the end of the book. Many people do not realize how truly bizarre the central theme of The Secret really is,” said Garlow. “They mistakenly think it is just another self-help, positive mental attitude book. It is not!”

“Byrne claims that people can project their thoughts into the universe like some sort of a radio transmitter.” Garlow said “Then the universe is bound, according to The Secret, to give them things based on those thoughts. Succinctly said, this is totally bogus.”

Posted without comment because, well, really–what could I possibly say?

We have added a new page to our blog that shares all of the success related material that we have read up to this point. We want everyone to know exactly where we are mentally, so what better than to share how we have gotten to this point. All of these books have played an integral part in forming the mindset that we now have. Hopefully with our recommendations you will find something in them for you as well. You can view it here. Enjoy!

Did you watch the movie The Secret? Here are some scenes that you didn’t see! Enjoy.

O Segredo – O Livro da Gratidão de Rhonda Byrne não é exatamente um livro. É sim um livro, mas para ser escrito pelo próprio leitor.

O “livro” traz um manual de como usá-lo e uma página para gratidão agora e uma para o futuro. Mas o bom é que você pode usá-lo da forma que bem entender. Pode fazer de agenda para não perder de vista seus eventos marcados ou um diário para você exercitar seus dois lados – onde errei, o que posso melhorar? – ou ainda, dar asas à sua imaginação. A autora, ao longo do livro, põe frases de força e sabedoria.

Os céticos podem achar pura besteira essas coisas de livro de auto-ajuda. Mas o próprio nome diz “AUTO-ajuda”. O próprio leitor se ajuda e creio que as pessoas que tiverem esse livro terão aquele pequeno empurrão que todos nós precisamos em alguma fase de nossas vidas.

O Segredo – O Livro da Gratidão está à venda no site da Ediouro e eu recomendo.

No tengo nada en contra del libro de “El Secreto” de Rhonda Byrne, y mucho menos de la película. Creo que tiene buenas ideas y el mensaje de que tenemos responsabilidad sobre lo que nos sucede me parece muy práctico para dejar de ser tan REACTIVOS y ser más PROACTIVOS. Hay otros adornos que no me gustan tanto, y creo que simplifican en exceso y esto es peligroso. Hay mucha gente que el mensaje que reciben es: “Ten un deseo y si lo piensas mu fuerte mu fuerte, se te hace realidad. Y si no se hace realidad es culpa tuya”. La culpa de esta posible (y real) interpretación no es de la pelicula, ni del autor, ni de la persona que percibe así el mensaje. Hay que ser ya mayorcitos y pensar con la cabeza y el corazón.

Hay otros autores que lo ponen en sólo 3 minutos y de forma cristalina. De nuevo, cada cosa tiene su tela detrás, pero creo que es muy ilustrativo, y además Richard St John le da un toque muy divertido.
8 claves: PASSION (así con 2 ss, hazlo por amor , no por dinero, éste viene en todo caso) , TRABAJO (y pásalo bien), SER BUENOS (practica sé profesional), CONCENTRACION (enfoca tu energia en una cosa), EMPUJA (sobre todo ante las dificultades) , SERVIR (los lideres se ponen al servicio de su gente), IDEAS (ten ideas, dejalas fluir), PERSISTE (sobre todo ante los fracasos). Después de 7 años y más de 500 entrevistas “¿Qué te ha llevado al éxito?” a personas exitosas, Richard St John lo resume en algo más de 3 minutos.
Que lo disfrutéis, y que mañana pongais en marcha alguna de estas 8 claves.