Moving Two New Blogs: Your Inner Expert and The Building Wealth Blog

I now have two different blogs that I attend to.  There will no longer be new posts put up here at The Wealth Manifesto blog.  The other two blogs are found at

Your Inner Expert - deals with the philosophical side of wealth and the personal mastery required to become wealthy.  I spend a lot time here helping readers to understand and identify what I have come to call Your Inner Expert, that resource each of us can bring to the party to create value and get what we want out of life (basically the same concept as Wealth Potential which I have talked about in this blog).

The Building Wealth Blog - discusses how to transform Your Inner Expert into income streams through businesses and investing.  This site in general is going to have a huge amount of resources to help with that purpos.

Your Inner Expert

Titles are something I really pay attention to.  Not ‘Vice President’ or ‘Chief Uselessness Officer’ … not those kind.  Title of books, of blogs, of Mice and Men.  I have been bouncing around with what to call this blog. Part of the reason for that it that it’s purpose is changing … moving away from specifically blogging about The Wealth Manifesto and moving on to bigger things.

Just to let you know, this blog is going to be moved as I get set up to explode into the wealth building consciousness of the Internet (LOL … yes it WILL happen .. not quite tomorrow).  It’s going over to www.markrafter.com/blog so this is a heads up to look there if this is nothing at the current URL one of these days real soon.

My expertise is gradually starting to gel as I work with more people as a coach and I find out what they need most and where they are getting the most value from working with me.  I’ve oriented my main speaking program around the same area as it is REALLY resonating with entrepreneurs and small business owners:

How to identify, maxmize and monetize your inner expert…

In short, I’m an expert on helping people becoming experts (mostly at being themselves as it turns out).  The whole point of doing this - in my way of looking at things - is to become wealthy.  So, this blog is will start to focus more on my views on the philosophy of wealth and abundance and how to get whatever you want out of life using your strenghts and passions (that’s the foundation of your Inner Expert).  Here I’ll talk mostly about the Identify and Maximize parts … that more the “people” part of the system.

The monetization part … how to build financial wealth is going to be at my new blog over on Integrated Wealth Resources.  This is where we apply your expertise to the very real world of markets and money.

That is going to turn into a WHOLE ‘nother thing … starting real soon … so stay tuned

Article 10: Money is Potential Energy

You don’t want money.  I don’t want money.  WE don’t want money.

About now, you may be asking, “Who is this clown?”  OF COURSE WE WANT MONEY.

Nope…we want what money gets us.  Whether it is the Hawaiian vacation (that I just returned from), the new leaf blower (sounds like work, eh?) or peace of mind (now we’re talking!), we want what money gets us.

Money is a useful tool, a medium of exchange, a currency (we’ll get back to that in a minute) agreed to be “legal tender for all debts, public and private.”  It keeps us from having to barter dry cleaning services for apples or trading a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card for a car.  It also provides us with a way to energize and contribute to causes we believe in and want to support.

In this sense, money is a form of energy … it can make things happen, in your life and the lives of others.  This gets right back to some of the fundamental laws of building wealth that I teach in my speaking and training programs: what goes around comes around.  Once you have your basic survival needs (food, shelter, security) met, you should be doing two other things with your money:  giving it away and investing it.

You can start to understand the true nature of abundance when you examine the the word affluence.  It comes from the Latin affluere which means to flow to.  This is what needs to happen with not only your money but the rest of the wealth and abundance in your life, including all of the talents, passion and expertise that anyone can bring to the market to make all the difference - and all the money - in the world.

Building wealth involves all dimensions of our life that are important to us.  And this definitely includes money … if for no other reason than for all the good it can do in helping you towards contentment and purpose in your life.

Article 9: Passion is the Emotion of Wealth

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

- Dr. Howard Thurman: Author, theologian, educator and civil rights leader

 You here a lot about passion these days.  Everyone wants to follow their passion and do what they love.

Cool.  Really.  That’s cool.  That more people are becoming aware of what they love, what brings them joy … makes them come alive.

Where does passion come from?  Why are we moved to the point of tears or agitated to the brink of madness about certain topics? Our passions are the present-moment manifestation of our underlying attitudes and emotions, connecting our heads with our hearts. They don’t come out of the blue, but are shaped by our beliefs and values.  Understanding this helps us to know not only what we’re passionate about, but why. Read more

Back in the Saddle Again

Yep, one of my favorite Aerosmith songs…it’s got that classic 1-2 combo punch of Steven Tyler’s screeching vocals and Joe Perry’s Les Paul guitar (I read somewhere he has over 600 guitars - I get grief for owning 8!).

Thus I digress. Back in the (Blogging) saddle that is. For those of you who are actually still listening, the blogging will indeed be back with a vengeance. I have been getting my speaking platform (programs, collateral, new website, etc) together and thinking a lot about why I am doing this.

I have seen the hits on the website dwindle and book sales vanish from the radar.

No matter…I’m back. This blog will migrate to my new speaker site (www.MarkRafter.com) at some point because that is going to be my focus and where I want to beef up the traffic. There will be a brand new format for the blog as well, a new name and a consistent and earnest effort on my part to help readers with wealthbuilding, both in terms of how you find personal fulfillment and meaning in your life as well as how to generate income.

I’ll start by finishing the synopsis blogs on the articles of The Wealth Manifesto. I plan on doing a video series for that as my new format readily incorporates video as well.

Here we go …. sorry I was gone so long.

Article 8: Competencies are the Building Blocks of Wealth

Competencies, capacities, strengths …. all are talking about the same thing: what can you do?

Competencies are a major component of our Wealth Potential and include the combination of talents, skills, knowledge, experiences, contacts and many more resources that are an integral part of who we are. It is a part of the Unique Value Proposition that each of us can contribute in exchange for what we want, specifically, wealth in whatever dimension we desire.

If you are employed, your employer expects that you will contribute value to the company’s objectives above and beyond what they are paying you. If you buy a service - cell phones, yard maintenance, business coaching … whatever - you expect a certain value in return for the money you pay.

If you help your neighbor rebuild his deck, you have a reasonable expectation that he will return the favor. This is not necessarily WHY you help him in the first place as giving of yourself has it’s own rewards beyond an in-kind exchange. Realistically though, you would feel as though the balance sheet was a bit awry if when it came time to rebuild your deck, The Neighbor was ‘tied-up’ for three weekends in a row.

Identifying and deploying your competencies builds on the foundation of values I discussed in an earlier post. It is an integral part of The Wealth Manifesto system and something everyone can do … everyone can create value.

This is part of the path to wealth.

Article 7: Values are the Foundation of Wealth

When you find something to be valuable, it is a reflection of your values. All of those things which you find valuable in your life form your system of values.

It is this collection of values, most of them reflecting our beliefs and those we grew up with, that we use to make decisions everyday about the tradeoffs in our lives. More work vs. less time with the kids, more exercise vs. less dessert, being honest vs. lying to get what you want etc. This is one function of our system of values. You will make choices between these kinds of things based on what is most important to you at a given time in your life. Read more

The (Same Old) Moses Code

I watched this last night at a local meetup group I am a part of. It’s called “Living The Secret.” We talk about “metaphysics type stuff.”

The Moses Code was released in a similar way as The Secret with a movie tied to a book of the same name. The format of the movie is similar as well wherein you are presented with long lost and/or overlooked profound truths that have been discovered by someone. The discoverer in this case is Moses Code author James Twyman and, it appears author Neale Donald Walsch who figured out there should have been a comma in the key phrase around which the book/movie is built (more on that in a minute).

Much of this ado centers around Moses’ conversation with God when he was in front of the Burning Bush “that was not consumed by the fire.” When challenged by Moses as to His identity, God (sort of) tells Moses “I am that I am.”

This, as it turns out, is a big deal.

The movie then turns to explaining the omnipresence of God through this statement, which as ND Walsch points out, really should be interpreted as ‘I Am That (COMMA) I Am’ in a sort of ‘Aw shucks’ way of God saying, “I am everything (that’s the omnipresence talking), you know? Really, I AM.”

The entire balance of the movie is built around how we implement this “code of creation” in our lives and make this concept work for us. Coincidentally enough, this process includes:

Giving, Oneness and Destiny. Yes, I know you see it too: that spells GOD.

Dont get me wrong, I agree with the fundamentals behind this movie/book. I think anything that gets these ideas in front of more people is a good thing. What I object to is people stretching a thin idea (and the facts) into a revelation in the guise of a marketing platform. That they are taking this a different direction than The Secret and pointing out that what you want needs to go beyond new bicycles and jewelery is fantastic…a far more soulful approach (which of course if reflected in my book as well). I think The Secret was much more a statement to crass consumerism in that sense.

First of all, none of this at the fundamentals level is really new. Giving, the principle of reciprocity, creating value for others is found all through my book (The Wealth Manifesto). Oneness is exactly what the concept of the superconscious mind is based upon (Chapter 6 of The Wealth Manifesto). Destiny (purpose, meaning in your life) is covered in Chapter 5. All of this is tied together nicely in Chapter 14, without my having to manufacture significance using a story out of the Bible.

At the Burning Bush, God did not literally say, ‘I am that I am’ so there would be no need for the profound observation that the comma was missing and God was really telling Moses that they (God, Moses, and everything else) were one and the same thing. God, according to the Bible identified Himself as Yahweh. Yahweh comes from the Hebrew word “Hayah”, meaning “he who is, or I am that I am”. Oh … there is that phrase again! But wait, if you think for a second of all the translations, interpretations, biases, editing and such that the Bible has gone through, how can you base your whole concept on supposedly missing punctuation in the ENGLISH version of something that happened 3200 years ago?

I suppose maybe it was too much of a stretch to come up with things like Giving, Oneness and Destiny that spelled out ‘YAHWEH .’ OK, I feel like I am ranting…we’re done here. More power to Mr. Twyman and friends for getting the message out there…I wish them great success because indeed, much learning is done by storytelling.

And by telling jokes … reminds me of that classic where a Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.”

Oneness indeed.

Article 6: Wealth Begins With Your State of Mind

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” - James Allen, British author and poet

We all have several dimensions of mind that we work with and that work for us. Understanding the roles of your conscious, subconscious and superconscious minds is critical to becoming wealthy.

Our conscious mind is the day-to-day mind that deals with the “real” world of time and space (not to be confused with space-time because this starts us down the rabbit hole of quantum mechanics …. let’s stay away from there for now).

The subconscious mind is a kind of database for all the knowledge, experiences, trauma and triumphs that have ever occured in our lives. It supports the conscious mind by retrieving data based on the commands or needs of the conscious mind.

The superconscious mind is less familiar but the concept is broadly used. It has also been called the Universal Mind, the collective unconscious, Non-Local Intelligence, and many other names. For all intents and purposes, it fulfills the classical Christian definition of God

The classic book on success, Think and Grow Rich was about this very same topic. It is the core of the Law of Attraction and other aspects of the metaphysics of creating your own reality.

Of all of these, the conscious mind is the most familiar to us … we have the most experience with it and the most control over it. When we get to the subconscious mind, things start to get a bit more tentative as to who is controlling what. It is critical to train your subconscious to focus on the things you want. The information held in your subconscious can be a self limiting belief that keeps you from a dream or a persistent determination that pushes you on when your conscious mind wants to quit. It is important also to note that the subconscious mind does not really “think” all that well. More than anything else it is important to pay attention to your emotions as this is how the subconscious communicates best with the conscious - this will give you an idea of how aligned your actions are with your true desires.

The subsconscious is also how the conscious mind communicates with the superconscious mind, the source of creativity and intuition - it is what some people say is our sixth sense.

Harnessing the power of all of our minds is critical to manifesting wealth, hence Article 6 of The Wealth Manifesto: wealth is exactly what you think it is. More next time on how our beliefs, attitude and intentionality figure into the equation.

Resistance is Futile

You many know this line from Star Trek The Next Generation, uttered by The Borg to inform some soon to be conquered individual that they might as well give up because ‘resistance is futile.’

I agree, in principle but for a far different reason. I dont believe in giving in to a hostile force trying to bend my will to their way of thinking (Microsoft has been referred to as a corporate version of the Borg … sort of fits if you think about it in a monopolistic sort of way). I have a quote in my book that explains my perspective a little bit better:

“The root cause of anything that diminishes our wellbeing can be found in resistance.”
-Abraham-Hicks

This is from the teachings of Abraham, provided to us by Jerry and Esther Hicks, a couple of very leading edge thinkers and teachers in the area of the Law of Attraction and other metaphysics. The point is that when you are resisting, the universe is trying to tell you something: you should not be doing this, it is not the right time to be doing this, you are doing this for the wrong reasons, etc.

You emotions are how your subconscious communicates with the real world and your conscious mind. If you are pissed off about something, angry, sad … whatever … resistance is rearing it’s head. Listen to your feelings, explore all the possible sources of why you may be resisting the situation, activity, or person that is causing you to not go with the flow.

An example: I am in the process of writing news releases for my book coming out on May 9th (The Wealth Manifesto). I have been struggling with getting this done for the better part of a day and a half. I MUST send these out to all the major reviewers (everything from the New York Times to any magazine that has anything to do with my subject material) as this is free publicity and an essential part of my marketing campaign. I wont get into the reasons I uncovered for WHY I was resisting this (unless someone asks me to) but I finally figured out that it was not the right time to be writing these news releases, the flow was not there.

It’s not like I dont have plenty of other things to do in getting the promotion together for my book (dozens of things, many of which I really enjoy) - I was essentially wasting my time beating my head against the monitor trying to crank these out.

If you are having a hard time with something and it is causing you grief (”diminishing your wellbeing”), leave it and move on to something else that feels better for the time being. Your mood and your productivity will increase dramatically if you dont resist the subliminal messages you are getting from the superconscious mind.  There is great power there … we must learn to listen to it.

Cheers.

Next Page »