by Marc Allen
YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO IT ALL
Each of us is obviously different and unique. Find what works for you, and take it and freely adapt it as much as you choose. If there are parts of this Course you simply can’t relate to, just skip over them and go on to the next thing, or go back and review in greater depth something you worked on previously.
This Course is a vast buffet of different choices and widely varied possibilities, and you certainly don’t have to do everything recommended in this entire book. Nothing is required; everything is optional. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve-Step programs, “Take what you need and leave the rest.”
If you are even just a tiny bit open-minded — even if there is just a small crack in the hard shell of your current set of beliefs — there will be a moment when you suddenly see different and brighter possibilities in front of you, and you’ll discover something of great value that will improve the quality of your life in a meaningful way.
You don’t have to complete the whole Course before this happens. You don’t have to accept everything in the Course, either. If you don’t relate to the “spiritual” content, for example, just go on to something else. I have included it because I have included everything that has affected me deeply enough to change my life, and many of those things are spiritual. I have learned about the power of prayer, and have seen its effects in my life. I have found that prayer, when done consistently, is a highly efficient, effective tool for growth and success. If because of your own particular background and vocabulary you don’t choose to pray, or can’t even relate to the concept of prayer, that’s fine. Discover the power of affirmations instead, or self-suggestion, or creative visualization, or self-hypnosis, or reprogramming, or simply writing your goals repeatedly, or whatever else appeals to you. All these techniques work.
I do believe that if you’re a spiritual person who has discovered prayer (to someone or something), it is far easier to create the kind of life you want, because it’s such a direct, simple path: You pray, you let go — and prepare yourself to receive. Then the magic happens.
Pray, let go, and be ready to receive — this should be centered in bold, because it too is a powerful key, but I don’t want to introduce too much spiritual material too fast. You don’t need to be a “spiritual” person at all to make this Course work wonders for you.
In fact, you don’t need to be anyone other than exactly who you are, for this Course makes it clear that you already have the tools you need to succeed in life — it’s just a matter of using what you have more effectively.
You have everything you need:
a miraculous body, a phenomenal brain,
and a vast and powerful subconscious mind.
Now it’s just a matter of focusing them
in the right direction.
THE KEYS TO SUCCESS ARE IN YOUR HANDS
Many of these keys are just simple, common sense. Many have the effect of reprogramming your conscious mind, creating new synapses in your brain, and deleting old programs that are not serving you or the world.
Many of these keys give you tools to deal with the doubts and fears that inevitably come up when you want to change and grow, expand into new levels of enjoyment and success, and live the life you’ve only fantasized about before.
There isn’t just one key or secret to success. There are a great number of them, and I have tried to include in these pages every one that has had a major impact on my life.
These keys are often called secrets, and they remain secrets to most people, yet they are secrets not because anyone is trying to keep them from anyone else — in fact, successful people love spouting them. But they are “self-secret,” because their meaning is obscure until you discover it within your own mind, and apply it in your own experience.
A great many of these keys are well-known parts of the perennial philosophy that is as old as humankind. The ancient classic from India, the Bhagavad Gita, put it this way:
I use the word secrets
not because these things are hidden,
but because so few people are prepared
to hear them today.
— The Bhagavad Gita
That was written five thousand years ago — perhaps there are more people prepared to hear them today. Perhaps you’re one of them. Find any phrase in this book, any key or secret that appeals to you at the moment, and think about it, repeatedly. Reflect on it, see how it can apply in your life. Have fun with it, too — the experience can be deeply satisfying as well as highly rewarding.
Many of these keys are set large on their own pages. Take a key that speaks to you and make a copy of it and put it on your wall where you see it often. Or write it on a business card or slip of paper and carry it around with you. Or put it on your mirror, on your refrigerator — anywhere you will keep being reminded of it — until what it has to teach you becomes part of your life.
Then you’ll have a sudden moment of understanding, a bit of illumination, and you’ll come to understand that “secret” to success in a new, fresh way — and you’ll find a key to a whole new world, one with far greater possibilities.
Eventually you will come to fully understand:
You are a powerful, creative person,
able to do, be, and have what you want in life;
able to do what you love,
and to do it in your own way.
This is the promise of this Course. It is a course in creating the life of your dreams. It is a course in wealth creation — if that is part of your dream — and, more important, in your fulfillment as a human being, whatever that means to you.
What else is wealth for, other than supporting ourselves and others in realizing our dreams, our greatest potential? If wealth is not used for our good and for the good of others, it is empty, stagnant, and meaningless.
A LIFE-CHANGING KEY
One of the most powerful, life-changing keys I ever encountered was in a short little book written in 1904: As You Think — originally titled As a Man Thinketh — by James Allen, an English writer (who is no relation). I wrote many of the phrases in that book in big letters and put them on my wall in front of my desk. I carried some of them around with me in my pockets, and pulled them out and reflected on them occasionally during the day.
After a while, these words became imprinted in my memory and etched in my soul — and great changes began to happen in my life. This remains one of my favorite keys to ponder from As You Think:
You will become as great
as your dominant aspiration....
If you cherish a vision, a lofty ideal in your heart,
you will realize it.
— James Allen, As You Think
Think about those words for a while. An important part of understanding it, for me, is in that word dominant. Our aspiration, our dream, has to be repeated so often it becomes more dominant than all the fears and doubts that naturally arise as soon as we have that dream, for our fears and doubts can prevent the realization of our dreams.
This is a great key to success. A dream seems so ethereal, insubstantial, and can so easily be forgotten — yet when a dream is remembered often enough, it has a way of becoming more substantial than all your doubts and fears about it. At some point along the way, that ephemeral dream can become a lasting intention — and then doors open, opportunities arise, you take the next obvious step and, in its own perfect time, your dream becomes a reality.
Don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself. Don’t take any of this material lightly — I have helped countless people succeed in life, and I have helped a great many people become millionaires (including myself). We’ll meet some of them in this Course and hear their stories. We are absolutely no different from you. It’s just a matter of discovering certain simple tools and applying them in our lives. All the tools you need — in fact, far more tools than you’ll ever need — are in this Course.
CREATING YOUR OWN COURSE
The Millionaire Course
consists of twelve lessons. Each one is filled with keys to reflect on, and many of them give you something to write, something to add to your own condensed version of this Course that you’re encouraged to make for yourself, step by step, piece by piece.
I strongly recommend that you get a notebook or binder of some kind — it can just be a folder with pockets, or even a file folder — so you can do some of the exercises in writing and add those pages to your binder or folder. Eventually, you’ll create your own personalized version of this Course. I did this years ago, and feel it was probably the single most powerful step I ever took to create the success of my dreams. The same may be true for you as well.
I started with a folder with pockets in it; I wrote on the cover words that became a self-fulfilling affirmation: I am now creating the life I want.
After several years, it evolved into a simple file folder I called various names over the years: Prosperity Planner, Personal Power Kit, Tools for Transformation, Visioning Kit, even Magician’s Toolkit. Now I’m back to a folder with pockets for my pages. On the front is a picture of the world taken from space, and I have written these words on the front: I am being guided by Spirit every moment.
Put whatever images or words you want to on the front of your folder. Call it what you will, or call it nothing at all. But, somewhere, save the work you do with this book, and continue to review it on occasion.
I am certain that single folder with the collection of dreams, plans, and other assorted things that you will write throughout this Course will be a major ingredient in your success. It is magic, in its truest, most meaningful sense — creating something out of seemingly nothing, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all.
The complete Course, then, contains not only this book but a little book you build for yourself as well. In your own book, written in your own words, is where you’ll find the most effective magic.
IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST
If you are an artist — as I was, and still am — the following words may be valuable:
You’ll have difficulty succeeding as an artist — however you choose to define that success — if you ignore the world of business and refuse to be a “businessperson.” Every great artist who has succeeded doing their art has been a success in business, either by taking the reins themselves and managing their own career or by working with someone else who takes those reins and takes responsibility for the success of your work. Managing an artist is not a difficult task — it is not rocket science; in fact it is much easier than creating your art.
You don’t have to sell your soul to succeed as an artist. In fact, your success only expands the impact of your soul, the vision of your art, into the world.
Either you or someone close to you needs to take at least the initial steps in this Course: Clearly imagine what you want, make a simple plan to get there, and take the first steps. You don’t need to do everything in this book — no one needs to do that — but you need to do something.
Trust your intuition; find the things in this Course that appeal to your heart and soul, and do them.
Whether you choose to focus on art or business,
humanitarian work or anything else,
definitely write a one-page business plan.
That’s perhaps the single most powerful thing
you can do to make the changes you want in your life.
Make a plan, keep it short and simple, create a doable strategy for your success, and take some steps toward implementing your plan.
Don’t feel you have to plan too far into the future: The plan will change over time. It will take on its own energy, and lead you to the next obvious steps to take. It may head off in an entirely different direction you can’t possibly foresee at this time. That’s fine. Make the plan you can make at this moment, and keep revising it as necessary.
If you don’t have a good partner or manager at this time, take at least an hour or so once or twice a month and assume the role of your manager. Let your artist selves express their greatest dreams, then as your manager make a simple, clear one-page plan and do something to implement that plan — make that phone call, write that letter, talk to someone.
Be your own manager, at least until the right manager for you comes along (and this may or may not happen; it may or may not be necessary). When you start to work with someone else as a manager, be sure to do it in a partnership way (something we go into in depth in Lessons 5 and 6), where you’re still a co-manager. It’s your career, after all. In your heart and in your soul you know the best career moves to make, the best way to produce and promote and distribute your work.
Above all:
Affirm that you can be successful
doing what you love to do,
in an easy and relaxed manner,
in a healthy and positive way,
in its own perfect time,
for the highest good of all.
It deserves repeating: You don’t have to sell your soul to succeed as an artist. In fact, your success only expands the expression of your heart and soul into the world.
A COURSE IN BECOMING A VISIONARY
This Course gives you the tools to create a visionary business and a visionary life.
What does being a “visionary” mean to you?
To me, “visionaries” are (obviously) those who “envision,” those who imagine, those who dream and, from those dreams, create possible scenarios in their imagination, their mind’s eye. Every one of us has the power to imagine — and so we are all visionaries, in some way, but most of us use our powers to visualize unconsciously, and visualize only enough prosperity to barely make it. Most of us don’t even dare to imagine that the quality of our lives, including our financial success and our emotional experience, could be far, far better than it is at present.
There have been many great visionaries throughout history who have led the way for us (Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, St. Francis, Mother Teresa, and Einstein come first to mind), and there are many visionaries around today. It’s good to listen to what these people have to say, and even emulate them, in some ways.
We’re visualizing all the time. When you sit and think about what you want to have for lunch, you’re visualizing various possibilities. You picture in some way or think about this or that possibility in your imagination, and then you decide on something and take steps to create it in reality. This is a marvelous, visionary process — something we do constantly throughout the day, though we’re usually not aware of it.
We’re all visionaries already, at least to some degree, so we may as well use our visionary powers to create the kind of lives we want for ourselves, and even the kind of world we want for ourselves.
This Course can show you how to be a conscious visionary: how to imagine what your possible success will look like, and take steps toward realizing it.
Your visionary life will probably include some kind of visionary business. Don’t shy away from either word: visionary or business. There are exceptions, but most of us need to create some kind of income for ourselves, which means a business, in some form. There’s no need to resist the word. After all, business can be a great force for good in the world, if used properly.
And if you think you’re not a visionary, this Course will make you one. Just doing the “ideal scene” exercise, and keeping the dream of your ideal scene in mind, makes you a visionary.
THE GREAT IMPORTANCE OF REPETITION
There is repetition throughout this Course, and there is repetition of material from many of my other books, especially Visionary Business, A Visionary Life, and The Ten Percent Solution — all books I recommend you read, if you feel at all drawn to them. The repetition is intentional, for this type of material needs repetition.
It is only through repetition that
we learn, and grow, and change.
Look how many times a child repeats something new before moving on to something else. I had to hear and reflect on most of the things in this Course repeatedly
before I absorbed them deeply enough to affect my life. Many of the keys in this Course are intentionally repeated, often with slightly different wording. Find a key that appeals to you and reflect on it repeatedly — and see what happens.
I have read and listened to As You Think by James Allen, for instance, at least fifty times, and I continue to pick it up and read it at random whenever I want a bit of inspiration. I know the two poems in the book by heart, and I quote them repeatedly to others, and often repeat them to myself as I’m walking or driving or just quietly reflecting.
Every time I repeat the words, it feels as if I have learned something new: I have deepened my understanding in some way, fused some new synapses, and awakened a bit more power from the universe, from the ever-mysterious depths of my powerful subconscious mind.
WORDS TO PONDER, REPEATEDLY
Here is one of the poems from As You Think. The other one is set in big display type at the end of this Introduction. (“Mind is the master power that molds and makes....”) See if either one of these poems speak to you. They are filled with beautifully expressed keys to success, and to a life well lived, which is true success.
The words were written over a century ago, and are timeless, though the meanings of a few words have changed over the years: He uses “content” in the second line to mean “contentment,” and uses “environment” and “circumstance” in a somewhat different way than we use them — a much broader, all-inclusive way to mean everything in our world, particularly every excuse we have ever come up with for not succeeding.
