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******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2000 by Phil Laut All rights reserved.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Accepting Your Current Financial Situation

by Phil Laut - Author of Money Is My Friend

Background Information
Disapproval and denial can never get you free.

There is a Power in Preference.

There is a very big difference between condemning your current situation and
wanting something better as compared to accepting your current situation and
preferring something different.

The future is much more important than the past. You can't get a better past. Some
people allow themselves to be held hostage by their past. This occurs because the
past is not acceptable to them and they waste a great deal of energy struggling to
justify the past, struggling to assign blame for the past, struggling to figure out the
causes of the past.

Denial (or suppression) is the enemy. Your mind thinks it is doing you a favor by
keeping you unaware of the contents that it hides from you. Therefore it is
important to understand there is nothing dangerous in your unconscious mind. At
moments of extreme danger, your whole life flashes before you. I experienced this
in the War, and so did a lot of other people. It is really a rush.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 2

Acceptance Occurs in the Present Moment
The present moment is your point of power where you have the choice to change
your thinking, to create the future you deserve and to get free of the thinking that is
the cause of your current situation.
OK, let's get right into it.
An essential element of making any change is the acknowledgment that the current
situation could be improved. Room for improvement is the largest room in the
world. For this reason, it is to your benefit to accept the current situation as OK
and then have a burning preference for improvement. Express this burning
preference for improvement with the massive action required to bring it about.
Unwillingness to see it this way leads you to think that the desire for improvement
only means that there is something wrong. Such perfectionism can keep you
miserable. People with this way of thinking don't make changes until the situation
becomes agony.
Ask for help before you need it. Some people have a great deal of fear of
dependency. For them the illusion of independence is more important than the
actuality of success. A person with such psychological factors may be prevented
from asking for help--even asking for the help that will set him free. This is
because he wrongly perceives his request for help as a risk to the very minimal
degree of independence that he experiences.
Most of us are ambivalent about change. By this I mean that we want change but
simultaneously we are afraid of it also.

In most of my work, I write about making changes, making progress, how to make
the changes you want, how to change more quickly.

Today I am going to talk about something different. Today's topic is your
relationship with your current financial situation. Some of you I am sure are
accustomed to five figure income months and others are struggling to get by. The
comments today apply to you regardless of your situation. It is always to your
benefit to accept your current reality as OK. It is always to your benefit to give up
condemning or complaining about debts, expenses and other problems.

Whatever your situation may be, it is to your benefit to accept responsibility for
having created it. The idea that you created your financial situation--the idea that
you are responsible for it--is not necessarily the Truth -the truth with a capital "T".
Instead the idea that you are responsible is a perspective a point of view. It is a
perspective that empowers you and makes it easier for you to make the changes
you want.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 3

In contrast, blaming your situation on outside forces enfeebles you in the following
manner--if you think that some outside force is the cause of your current situation,
then it becomes necessary for that outside force to change in order to have a
different situation.

Change Made Easier
The easy dynamics of change are to accept the current situation as something you
created and accept that it is OK the way it is. Then imagine a different situation --
one that you prefer--one that is a more accurate reflection of your current values.
And then make a total commitment to bring that about. You bring that about by
uncovering the psychological factors that have created your current situation and
progressively changing your thinking to create the situation that you prefer. At the
same time you put as much of your energy as possible into the accomplishment of
your goal. This is referred to as massive action. Now massive action by itself is
often not enough. Many of you have discovered that the expected, positive benefits
of massive action can sometimes be sabotaged by unknown psychological factors
that defy identification and confound analysis.

But I do not want to jump over accepting your current situation as quickly as that.
This is very important. Your current situation has been carefully (although perhaps
unconsciously) crafted by you over a period of more than just a few years. As a
reflection of your past thinking it is an excellent and highly accurate self-analytical
tool. What I mean by this is that accepting your current situation implies
acceptance of the thoughts that created it as well. By accepting these, your mind is
far more likely to give up the denial and let you know what specific thoughts were
responsible for creating the situation. This is important because you then can
change them to create a situation that you prefer to the one you have.

The Importance of Feelings
In addition to thoughts, feelings matter also. Denial is associated with
uncomfortable sensations. This is because, in at least an unconscious way, your
body knows that your mind is creating a future problem with the denial, causing
the experience of fear or perhaps only anxiety.
Fear is very important to understand. [I am using fear as an example here. It serves
as an example of any kind of emotion you consider negative, whether that be
sadness, anxiety, anger, sadness, jealousy, envy, shame or guilt. Fear is my
shorthand way of referring to any so-called "negative" emotion]

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 4

If you don't understand it, fear will ruin your life. If you do understand it, then you
can use it to empower yourself to do whatever you want.

In some cases, fear is accompanied by danger. (As was the case in Vietnam or
when you drive on the freeway.) Most of the time fear is irrational. Fears like fear
of rejection and fear of disapproval are examples of irrational fears where there is
no danger. Fear is your friend. Fear is a good thing. It does three very good things:
1. It heightens your senses--vision, hearing, --even makes you think quicker
2. It provides an intense adrenaline rush whose pleasure boosts your life urge.
3. It fills your body with strength so you can better deal with any challenge
Any feeling is the natural response that your body has to any challenge. This is a
normal response of all humans. The particular way that any feelings affects us
depends on how you interpret the feeling, by what you think it means, by whether
you are willing to accept it as OK or whether you choose to struggle to suppress or
avoid it. Your body produces a similar emotional reaction whether the challenge is
dangerous or not. The business challenges we face pose no danger. So, just let the
fear be there, thank it and bless it for helping you. Say, "thank you fear for coming
along when I need you most."
Feelings have two components. First is the energy itself and second is your opinion
about it. The essence of your opinion is whether you accept the energy and let it
help you----- or whether you fight against it. If you refuse to accept the fear, BAD
THINGS HAPPEN----- your energy is diverted to the struggle to suppress the fear.
If you accept the fear then you can use the energy that is available IN the fear to
accomplish something useful.
Accepting the fear is very, very important. When you do this, you separate your
intention and your feelings. This means that setbacks in the present and negative
experiences from the past no longer need to weaken your intention. In this way,
accepting the fear strengthens your intention and increases your productivity.

If you don't accept the fear, then you give it the power to determine your behavior.
Your feeling will trump your intellect. The trouble with this, as you probably
already know, is that your feelings do not have your long term best interest at
heart.
The fear is present to help you. It is present to help you deal with the challenge.
Bless your fear and it becomes excitement. Fear is about change. No fear, no
change.
Now, I realize that this is probably different than everything you have ever thought
about fear. It may take a while to learn this new way of being.
Make a sign. Put it next to your phone. "Fear is here to help me. God Bless you."

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 5

This is especially useful if you have one of those phones that seem to weigh 50
pounds.
Remember that because of denial, it may be just about impossible to identify your
personal obstacles by looking in your mind. This is because of the denial and
suppression that we all have in our mind and because of our mind's compulsive
desire to be right. In some cases, you may be able to identify your own
psychological obstacles to success with an unbiased examination of your behavior
and results. Here is the usefulness of an experienced mentor or consultant. In my
Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting, the first step that happens in your Free Initial
Consultation is that I identify for you the precise psychological obstacles to your
success and how to deal with them. It is essential that you have an understanding
of these obstacles or limitations and how they function. Your path to excellence
and success is through these obstacles--how could there be any other way--if your
path to success were other than through the obstacles, then they wouldn't be
obstacles.
Summary and Conclusion
For this reason, it is to your benefit to accept the current situation as OK and then
have a burning preference for improvement. Express this burning preference for
improvement with the massive action required to bring it about.

Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting
Program

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-
results-of-clients.htm

If you liked Money Is My Friend, you’ll
love my NEW book, Wealth without a Job

http://www.phillaut.com/supermarket.htm#
wwoj

******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2000 by Phil Laut All rights reserved.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Overcoming Your Objections to Wealth This is part I of a two part series.

by Phil Laut - Author of Money Is My Friend

"Objections to wealth? Are you crazy? Why would I object to wealth?" describes
the common first reaction people have to this topic. "I work 25 hours per day, 8
days per week, I listen to conference calls, read books, listen to tapes and attend
seminars, and you are telling me I have objections to wealth?"
We are not talking about consciously chosen objections, but rather unconscious
objections that you probably don't know about.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 6

Today there is a multi-trillion-dollar economy. If you earned a billion or two every
year, no one would notice or complain. It stands to reason that objections exist or
we would have more money already.
Of course there is another possibility. Perhaps you blame your lack on a bad
upbringing, bad luck, a God who hates you or something else. If you do any of
these things, then these excuses represent, in fact, your unacknowledged
objections.
I doubt that anyone possesses all the objections I will be describing. Whatever your
objections, it isn't necessary to overcome all of them to increase your income.
These operate below the surface of your awareness and without your control.
Without awareness, it's impossible to change them. Use the intensity of your
emotional reaction to these descriptions to identify which objections you
unconsciously employ.
Denial (or suppression) is the enemy. Your mind thinks it is doing you a favor by
keeping you unaware of the contents that it hides from you. Therefore it is
important to understand there is nothing dangerous in your unconscious mind. At
moments of extreme danger, your whole life flashes before you. I experienced this
in the War, and so did a lot of other people. It is really a rush.
This flash could be interpreted as your mind saying to you, "In this situation, there
is no longer any reason to keep anything suppressed. So here is everything I know
and everything I have experienced. Pick out anything you might find useful to save
yourself in this emergency situation."
Now, my intention with this talk is to help you reduce your own denial and
suppression and provide you with access to memories and events currently locked
in your unconscious standing in the way of increasing your wealth. It is OK to
remember everything. Yes it is. Let yourself go deep on this.
In some instances, it will be clear that these objections originated in your family.
Others are so ingrained into the fabric of our society that the origin may be
impossible to identify and some may come from your religious training.
In the most general sense there are two reactions that children have to dysfunction.
One is the escaper and the other is the fixer. By escape, I don't necessarily mean
physical escape. Emotional escape counts, too. The fixer sees the pain of his family
members and tries to fix those people, in hopes of receiving better treatment from
them. In general males use the escape method and almost never the fixer method
while females usually go for trying to fix it, although some go the escape route.
Some people exhibit behavior of each.
ESCAPE
The person who is still on the escape route is like Harrison Ford's character in "The
Fugitive". He can never relax, for he always fears apprehension, he doesn't

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 7

accomplish very much because avoiding capture is a full time job, he doesn't trust
himself to make plans because he knows that any plan he may make is very likely
to be disrupted by some outside force. He has a very high desire for freedom, but
doesn't seem to have much of it. The key issue for this person is to realize that he
has successfully escaped.
There is a sense of resignation. When you feel this resignation, ask it to leave. Talk
to it. Tell it doesn't belong here. Tell it you deserve better. This person feels like a
chronic loser. The resignation (which is the opposite of the feeling of deserving)
allows him to put up with the worst and while expecting the best. This person finds
it difficult to imagine a victory greater than avoiding apprehension. When this
feeling of resignation comes up, ask it to leave. Talk to it. Tell it you don't have
time for it right now. Tell it it doesn't belong to you. Tell it you deserve better. This
person's mental and emotional focus is on the past and what is negative. It is
difficult for him to focus on the positive aspects of life right in front of him. This
person may tend to blame others for his problems. The important challenge for the
escape artist is to acknowledge that his escape has already occurred and he is free,
and to become the designer of his own future.
FIXER
The fixer is really quite different. This person may view everyone as an authority
figure, and also have problems with authority figures. This view of everyone as an
authority figure means that everything that everyone else says, and everyone else
does and everyone else wants is more important than what you say, do and want.
Sometimes the fixer has success selling for others, but not for himself. The fixer
has a hard time selling for himself because excessive empathy for the customer.
This person gets his self-worth from other people and other people's opinions about
him, which he magnifies in importance far beyond any reasonable proportion. This
person sometimes has a hard time seeing that his parents would have treated him
the same no matter what. There is often the lingering belief that childhood would
have been better if you had been smarter, prettier or stronger. This psychological
dynamic causes undue worry and concern about the opinions of others. Now that
you are grown up you have the right to decide whether anything your parents think
means anything. The fixer seems to be romantically attracted to escape artists.
Freedom for this person comes from his designing his own identity.

Arguments about Money
Did your parents argue about money? Did those arguments end your parents'
marriage? Was the divorce an extended war about money and the control it
provided? Did one or both of your parents, after their divorce, complain to you
about the behavior of the other related to money?

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 8

The answers to all of these questions do not have to be affirmative for you to be
affected by your parents' arguments about money. The emotional logic in this case
leads to conclusions such as: "Money causes arguments, therefore the way to have
peace is to have no money" or something like, "Money hurts people and makes
them unhappy, so the way to be happy is to have no money."
Possibly you cave in early in any negotiation rather than deal with the stress. You
are unable to stand up for yourself without losing your temper.

Desire for Dependency
A person who did not receive adequate love and guidance as a child may keep
himself poor as a means of unconscious revenge toward the parents he believes
failed him or as a way to maintain dependency in hopes of finally getting the
missing love and guidance. This is a psychological pattern that I have observed
with increasing prevalence over my years of individual consulting experience. It is
quite common among sons raised by a single mother. As my personal view, it is
arrogant to believe that one parent can do as good a job as two in bringing up a
child. I've heard it said that a woman can do anything a man can do except thirty
pushups and teach a boy to be a man.
People with the desire to remain dependent often find a job they are dependent
upon and stubbornly avoid even the investigation of an alternative method of
income production. These people also suffer from misperceptions of themselves,
seeing their own assets as liabilities.
Fear of Corruption

If you believe that money will corrupt you, you are corrupt already. Money cannot
corrupt you. There are lots of popular sayings about this. "Money is the root of all
evil." "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Money projects
power. No question about that. However, from this it's a big leap of logic to state
that money is the cause of the corruption.
There are corrupt and degenerate poor people and corrupt and degenerate rich
people. The only difference is that money enables rich degenerates to express
themselves more fully.
Your own business is a wonderful thing. It's your creation whereby you serve
others by expressing those values that are most important to you. The more money
you earn the more able you become to serve even more people by the expression of
your important values, which is all money can do anyway. The idea that money
will corrupt you assumes that money has the power to change your values. If
money has that much power, then the values weren't very strong to begin with.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 9

Fear of Loss
You don't have to be a rich person to be paranoid about loss. Loss is tough to deal
with for all of us. There are few experiences that match the power of a loss to make
you feel like a victim. You did nothing wrong and still got hurt. No one has a
desire to increase loss in his life, nevertheless loss seems to be a part of life,
whether we accept this or not. The real issue is how you deal with the inevitability
of loss. Every loss poses a challenge. The challenge is to continue your life without
the person or object that has meant so much to you. Like all challenges, a loss
creates additional energy, so that you can deal with it. This additional energy is
experienced as intense emotions, most commonly sadness. Sadness isn't a sign of
weakness, despite the unwillingness of most men to cry. Crying is more than the
response to a loss. It's also nature's therapy that heals both the despair and the
denial associated with loss. If you compulsively defend yourself against loss, this
will prevent you from accumulating the things you want and, in the extreme, will
leave you in the condition of "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,"
a deluded description of freedom by Janis Joplin, unfortunate heroin addict and
suicide.

Inherited Wealth
Inheritances intensify the values of any family. In functional families, wealth
serves to advance the important values of family members. In dysfunctional
families the wealth serves to act out patterns related to control and lead to the
association of money with affection. To the younger generation, the family wealth
may appear to be so great that any money-earning endeavor seems futile.
Additionally there is most often intense guilt about just the possibility of receiving
this "blood money."

Confusion about Receiving
Judging by appearances, giving is an intentional act and receiving is an accident.
For this reason, it's difficult for some people to take responsibility for receiving-to
apprehend that receiving is a skill. Pre-verbal infants fulfill their desires by
howling in complaint about their need. Grown-ups get what they want by asking
for it and offering something in return. At the extreme, if you don’t ask for what
you want, then your receiving will be limited to what others offer you.
Shame has a circular, self-fulfilling logic of its own. Shame involves the belief that
there is something wrong with you -- the unconscious belief that you have
genetically transferred character defects you are helpless to correct. Such a

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 10

conclusion surely effects sense of worthiness. Thus, a person with a great deal of
shame has difficulty receiving the good things in life.
Even if you believe that it's better to give than receive, this does not make
receiving wrong. Without receivers, givers would be out of business. Receiving is
a skill--obviously some people are better at it than others. It's a skill that can be
improved, but difficult to practice. When someone gives you or offers you
something that you want, simply say "thank you" graciously.
Your parents may have required you to respond with manufactured gratitude for
the terrible Christmas tie from your dear aunt. That was then and this is now. As an
adult, it's perfectly fine to politely say "No. Thank you", when you are offered
something that you don't want. Knowing this, receiving does not necessarily
obligate you to do something that you don't want to do.
Rejection prevents receiving, too. When you were a child, all good things came
from one place. Adulthood greatly increases the possible sources. So, it's no longer
a big deal when someone says no. Look around for another source.
It is time to stop holding your parents accountable for your life situation and
affairs. Success is a choice that is up to you. Your results depend on your
consciousness and nothing else. The present moment is your point of power. That
past is over and cannot be changed except in how it affects you. To the extent you
hold your parents accountable is the extent to which you give away your power to
them still.

Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting
Program

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-
results-of-clients.htm

If you liked Money Is My Friend, you’ll
love my NEW book, Wealth without a Job

http://www.phillaut.com/supermarket.htm#
wwoj

******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2000 by Phil Laut All rights reserved.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Overcoming Your Objections to Wealth This is part II of a two part series.

by Phil Laut - Author of Money Is My Friend

"Objections to wealth? Are you crazy? Why would I object to wealth?" This
describes the common first reaction people have to this topic. I work 25 hours per
day, 8 days per week, I listen to conference calls, read books, listen to tapes and
attend seminars, and you are telling me I have objections to wealth?
We are not talking about consciously chosen objections, but rather unconscious
objections that you may not know about.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 11

Denial (or suppression) is the enemy. Your mind thinks it is doing you a favor by
keeping you unaware of the contents that it hides from you. Therefore it is
important to understand there is nothing dangerous in your unconscious mind. At
moments of extreme danger, for example, your entire life flashes before you. I
experienced this in the War, and so did a lot of other people. It is really a rush.
This flash could be interpreted as your mind saying to you, "There is no reason to
keep anything suppressed. So here is everything I know and everything I have
experienced. Pick out anything you might find useful to save yourself in this
emergency situation." The point is that it is safe to know everything in your mind.
Now, my intention with this talk is to help you reduce your own denial and
suppression and provide you with access to memories and events currently locked
in your unconscious. These stand in the way of increasing your wealth. It is OK to
remember everything. Yes it is. Let yourself go deep on this.
Once again denial is the enemy. Denial of unresolved painful incidents result in
erroneous conclusions--erroneous conclusions about yourself, your relation to
others and about money. This is why I recommend the use of affirmations to
eliminate the denial and to change this resulting conclusions. Denial is the enemy
because you cannot change what you are not aware of.
Today there is a multi-trillion-dollar economy. If you earned a billion or two every
year, no one would notice or complain. It stands to reason that some objections
exist or we would have more already.
This is part 2 of a 2 part series about objections to wealth. In October I covered
escape, fixer or caretaker, arguments about money, desire for dependency, fear of
corruption, fear of loss, inherited wealth and confusion about receiving.
This month I will discuss:
Consumerism
Envy
Struggle and Procrastination
Religious Guilt
These are objections that operate below the surface of your awareness and without
your control. Without awareness, it's impossible to change them. Use the intensity
of your emotional reaction to these descriptions to identify which objections you
unconsciously employ.
In some cases, it will be clear that these objections originated in your family. The
ones that came from your family are the result of 20,000 meals with people who
did not have the right information about money. Other objections are so ingrained
into the fabric of our society that their origin may be impossible to identify and
some may come from your religious training.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 12

Consumerism
Consumerism involves the belief that money is for spending only. This is learned
in childhood. Earning, spending, saving and investing describe all of the possible
actions with money. You probably saw your parents in consumer mode many more
times than you saw them at work (earning) or than you saw them saving or
investing.
If your parents gave you money, as a child, without teaching you about saving and
investing, then it is easy to carry this consumerism mentality forward into
adulthood. In our modern capitalistic society, there are people asking you to buy
from them everywhere you go. Thus money without purpose is soon spent.
For some, consumerism is like a progressive addiction, requiring that bigger and
bigger things be bought, as though somehow the "stuff" will fill up some internal
emptiness. The idea that money could be used to increase one's income is an alien
concept.
People with the consumerism mentality possess a strong unconscious loyalty to
this way of thinking. In many cases I have worked with clients who begin to use
the techniques I teach. Then as their income increases they create financial
setbacks, most often $300-$400 automobile breakdowns. These mishaps eat up the
increase in cash, until the person breaks free of the idea that money is only for
spending. One time I had a client with consumerism mentality and a $750,000
inheritance. For this person, car problems were not costly enough to eat into the
income increases that were occurring. This person created a series of $10,000
house problems, (electrical, plumbing and roofing) during successive months until
the consumerism cleared up. The general reaction to the consumerism mentality is
to (unconsciously) create lack of money with expenses that immediately consume
any increases in income. In cases where the person receives windfalls from time to
time, these are quickly spent to satisfy the pent up dem and that was generated
while waiting for the windfall. I mention this to point out that sometime
persistence is necessary in overcoming consumer mentality.
The person immersed in consumerism consciousness needs to understand that
money exists to express your purpose and that spending is just one way to use it.
The person with the consumerism consciousness is unlikely to consider that money
exists to increase one's income. The person with the consumerism consciousness
thinks like this, "How am I going to make the cash and credit resources I have now
last until the next pay day? The person with the income consciousness thinks,
"How can I use the current cash and credit resources I have now to increase my
income?
Despite its popularity in our society, consumerism provides little satisfaction
compared to the expression of your true purpose. There are many paths out of the

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 13

consumerism trap. They all involve practicing other ways to use money besides
spending or they involve understanding that money exists to express your purpose
and that consumerism and status seeking can only provide minimal satisfaction.
The person with the consumer mentality must separate the thinking about and the
actions of earning and spending. Pay your bills one day per month, not every day.
Allow yourself to earn three times as much as you spend. Learn to live in simple
abundance. Pay yourself first. Set aside a definite percentage each time you receive
income into two or more saving accounts each with definite purposes. Do this even
if some bills remain unpaid.
Build a merchant mentality to replace the consumer mentality. A merchant
mentality represents a viable alternative to consumerism. A merchant engages in
financial transactions every day. You build a merchant mentality by starting a
simple retail product business of your own and using it as the way to learn to sell
and take charge of your income. A merchant knows that money is the fluid that
makes his business flow and he uses it to invest in inventory and to create new
customers. All of these activities are outside the awareness of consumerism.

Envy
Some people have more than you and others have less. This seems to be the nature
of things. The important issue is your reaction to this reality. The Creator of things
did not create Mercedes so that you could not have one. Conversely there may be
lots of reasons that you do not have a Mercedes. One of these reasons however is
not that someone else has one. Envy means that you begrudge (rather then rejoice
about) the success of others.
The major problem here is your underlying assumption that people will begrudge
you your success if you ever get any, so there is a tendency to stay poor rather than
risk the disapproval of the people around you. Wealth is not nearly as big a deal as
people without it believe it to be. Here is a quote from Mark Cuban (owner of the
Dallas Mavericks) "It (wealth) does not make it any easier to hit a jump shot or
lose weight." Mark Cuban, founder of broadcast.com with a net worth of $1.7
billion at the time.

Religious Guilt
You can believe in and practice whatever religion you prefer. For the purpose of
this talk, the question regarding your religion is: Does it support and contribute to
your long-term well-being and prosperity? Or does it make you feel guilty about
the possibility of earning the income you want?
People feel guilty for all sorts of reasons, some valid and others not. Guilt serves as
the window to our conscience. The individual with no awareness of guilt is a

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 14

sociopath. When we violate an important moral principle, it is healthy to feel
guilty. Guilt is the emotional messenger that tells us we have erred and require
correction.
However, sometimes we feel guilty without doing anything wrong. Manipulative
people try to make us feel guilty as a way to control us. Appeals such as, "If you
really loved me, then you would......." or "If you really cared, then you would
contribute to this cause" are prominent examples. In extreme cases, poverty is
perceived as the only proof of innocence.
Sayings such as "Money is the root of all evil" can work to keep you poor forever
if you believe them. Religious guilt has lots of power. By comparison, violating
your parents' rules, can send you to bed without supper. Some religions believe that
the punishment for violating religious rules is eternal suffering.

Struggle and Procrastination
My late mother, God rest her soul, had a sign in her kitchen with a picture of an
industrious beaver and the caption that said something like, "The world owes you a
living, but you must work hard to collect it." This is the common idea that one
must struggle to produce an income. This idea can be a significant obstacle to
wealth. If you are already busy, then doubling your income by working twice as
hard isn't an attractive possibility.
Let's think about this for a moment. Some people earn $20,000 per year and others
earn $200,000 per year or more. It's a physical impossibility for the high earner to
work ten times harder. Hard work is required to increase your income, but not
proportionately harder. Improving the quality of your thinking, learning to have
your emotions support your purpose, increasing your willingness to receive and
designing new and better ways to serve others are far more productive than
increased struggle.
In general, procrastination is caused by one kind of fear or another. For people who
believe that more income requires more struggle, the tendency to procrastinate
stems from the desire to avoid additional struggle.
Each one of these objections functions to maintain an unconsciously defined
comfort range about money. In other words, there is an unconsciously defined
lower limit at which point you will take extreme action to improve your situation
and an upper limit beyond which you would feel uncomfortable or nervous about
having so much. Successfully dealing with the objections in your own mind
empowers you to be more comfortable with wanting and having greater wealth.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 15

Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting
Program

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-
results-of-clients.htm

If you liked Money Is My Friend, you’ll
love my NEW book, Wealth without a Job

http://www.phillaut.com/supermarket.htm#
wwoj

******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2000 by Phil Laut All rights reserved.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 16

How to Make Yourself Broke, Depressed and Upset

by Phil Laut - Author of Money Is My Friend

Most writing about personal development (mine included) describes methods for
increasing wealth, happiness and satisfaction. I am probably not the only one who
wonders why everyone does not follow those simple guidelines that lead to a more
satisfying life. I suppose it is because we are rebellious, don't want to change and
want to be right. In 1964, I graduated (with honors, no less) the U.S. Coast Guard
Academy, a military school where rebelliousness is not a prized quality. Yet, I still
experience a rebellious streak in myself that those four years failed to suppress.
Sometimes, I observe in others what seems to be a similar counterproductive
rebelliousness.
It is likely that everyone experiences periods of lack, depression and upset. There
is a definite strategy that produces these unfavorable results. This issue of the
Emerging Entrepreneur Newsletter describes counterproductive strategy in general
terms, so that you may choose a different course and different results. As pointed
out in previous editions of this Newsletter, awareness of your personal unconscious
negative thinking is an extremely valuable resource because you can change what
you know about and cannot change what you don't know about.
Strategy
The strategy for poverty, depression and upset is easy to remember because each
component begins with the letter "P".
1. Personally
Take everything that happens personally. At the extreme, conclude that everything
happens as an indictment of you. Assume that people who reject you have it in for
you. See the world and the people in it as hostile or at least uncaring. Blame your
condition on external circumstances. Blame reliably puts you at effect and renders
you helpless. Compare yourself to others frequently and unfavorably. Complain
about the people around you to anyone who listens and to some who don't. Rely on
this complaining as a temporary respite from misery and as an opportunity to
justify unhappiness or lack of accomplishment. Stay at work you don't like and
expect the money to make up for the dissatisfaction. Assume it is your
responsibility to fix things that are beyond your control, including the feelings of
others. Avoid asking for what you want.
2. Pervasive
Allow the negative attitude created in Part 1 to pervade other areas of your life. For
example, allow setbacks at work to affect your close relationships and allow upsets
in your family to detract from your performance at work. Increase the
pervasiveness even more by listening to country western music or rap, if you

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 17

prefer, so that your negative thinking gains rhyme and melody, thus becoming
easier to remember. Then, seek re-inforcement of this thinking by associating with
like-minded individuals who drain your energy and complain to you about their
plight.
3. Permanent
Make all of this permanent by thinking it will never change. Or perhaps by
thinking you are too old to change or that you will change after you have more
education, a better job, get married, get divorced, have children, move to California
or the children grow up. In your relationships, refuse to give the other person what
you know they want until you get what you want from them.
These three P's are an excellent strategy to follow, if you want to become broke,
depressed and upset.
The last step, (make your thinking permanent), is the topic I addressed with the
Mental Flexibility Quiz in the December 2001 issue of the Newsletter, and
reproduced here. Developing mental flexibility can be considered the opposite of,
or the antidote for, the making conclusions permanent.
Six Questions with TRUE or FALSE answers
1. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
2. The sun neither rises in the east nor sets in the west. This is an illusion caused

by the rotation of the Earth on its axis.

3. One thousand dollars is a great deal of money.
4. One thousand dollars is a small amount of money.
5. Everything is the same
6. Everything is different.
If your answers were six TRUE, then your grade is 100%, actually six FALSE
would rate 100% also. The point being that truth or falsity is a function of
perspective rather than content, meaning that that the quiz is intended to measure
the mental flexibility required to shift perspective.
Explanation of answers:
1-2 That the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West is a fact provable to any
sighted person with a reliable compass, but it is a completely useless (and even
misleading) fact to a scientist calculating the proper trajectory of a space craft from
Earth to Mars. For his or her calculations, the scientist needs the perspective of a
stationary Sun with the planets revolving around it.
3-4 $1000 is a great deal of money for a person shopping at the food market and
very little for a person shopping at the Mercedes dealer. Not recognizing that both
these statements are true could cause a person to overspend at the food market and
be disappointed at the Mercedes dealer (or perhaps purchase a car beyond his
means).

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 18

5-6 In order to function and communicate, we assume things to be the same that

really are not. We accept two five-dollar bills in exchange for a ten, even
though value is the only perspective in which they are identical. We use
collective nouns such as Americans, women, men and so forth even though
the members of these groups are vastly different from each other. We
assume for convenience that some things are the same that really are
different. Even two pennies are different from each other at the molecular
level. But on the other hand, all matter at the sub-atomic level is composed
of the same quarks and mesons and other particles that physicists know
about, that are all the same. Whether things are considered that same or
different is determined by perspective and not content.

Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting
Program

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-
results-of-clients.htm

If you liked Money Is My Friend, you’ll
love my NEW book, Wealth without a Job

http://www.phillaut.com/supermarket.htm#
wwoj

******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2000 by Phil Laut All rights reserved.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Common Problems with Planning

by Phil Laut - Author of Money Is My Friend

Plans are important. You could say that your current situation is the result of many
plans you chose in the past, both consciously and unconsciously. Typically the
unconsciously chosen plans cause those results that are less than pleasant. Here we
will be making conscious plans to accomplish goals that are expressions of true
purpose.
A goal without a plan is a dream that won't come true. Sure, dreams sometimes
come true all by themselves, but mostly this occurs in the movies. In real life, a
goal is most often accomplished by carefully planning it out and then following the
plan, adjusting for new information and unanticipated events as they occur. Having
your planned activities laid out all the way to the fruition of your goal aids you in
focusing on the task at hand because the recording of the plan frees you from
having to remember all the steps to come.
Planning is easy because you have a natural ability to do it. Feelings are an
increase in physical energy in response to a challenge. Your body automatically
provides the energy you need to deal with any challenge. In a similar manner, a
plan results from the natural increase in mental energy in response to a challenge.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 19

Whenever you are confronted with a challenging problem, your mind naturally
begins to figure out and evaluate various solutions. For example, if you are driving
to work and a tire goes flat, your mind immediately begins to make a plan to
minimize the lateness of your arrival. You may consider abandoning the car and
taking a taxi, changing the tire yourself, or telephoning for a repair service to help
you. None of these alternatives is perfect. Each results in different disadvantages.
There is no ideal solution. The best choice depends on your personal values about
punctuality and money, as well as the resources available to you.
Detailed plans are not required even for complicated tasks if you have done them
before. The first time you give a formal dinner party for ten guests, you would
want to plan it out in detail and write it down to ensure you remembered
everything. After a few successful dinner parties, the detailed plan would no longer
be necessary. At this point your plan might consist only of a guest list and a menu.
A detailed plan is required to accomplish any significant goal that is new to you.
The bigger the project the more you need a plan. The more people involved, the
more you need a plan. The length of a plan depends on the complexity of the job.
The plan of the Apollo Project to send men to the Moon and return them safely
filled many, many thick books. First, write your goal once again in the present
tense with a definite date. The challenge of the plan is to create a map or a path
from where you are now to the destination you desire. The most common
difficulties people have with planning are:
7. Fear
8. Fear
9. Fear
10. Fear
11. Fear
12. Fear
13. Too much focus on numbers
14. Inadequate access to creativity
15. Time Focus too short
16. Plan out of harmony with true purpose
Explanation about the problems people have with planning:
1-6 Fear
Planning is scary. It's about the future, so you should expect fear to be a prominent
emotion. This is normal. Fears are always about the unknown future. You may
have intense emotions about events in your personal history, but those emotions
are probably sadness or resentment. The events are over. Our fears are about things
that haven't happened yet. Remember the fear is there to help you deal with the
challenge. Don't avoid it. Let it help you by accepting it as normal.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 20

7. Too much focus on numbers.
In many instances, if you ask a business manager for their plan, you will be
presented with an EXCEL(r) spreadsheet that lays out anticipated receipts and
expenditures. Unfortunately this does not qualify as a plan, because it cannot serve
as a guide to action. The spreadsheet is a budget only. Now a budget is a good
thing to have, but it is not a plan. A budget can measure the progress of a plan's
execution, but by itself does not serve as a guide to the sequential action required
for success. A plan does that. Clearly an understanding of the numbers is an
important part of a plan, but more is required for success.
8. Inadequate access to creativity
A plan is about the future. The logical, analytical function of your mind is poorly
equipped to deal with the future. This is because the future doesn't exist yet and the
analytical portion of your mind is suited for analyzing the cause and effect of what
already exists. The creative function of your mind is best equipped for dealing with
the future. If you try to "figure out" your plan you will inevitably become "stuck."
When the participants in my seminar make their plan, I tell them it is very easy to
know when you are stuck. You gaze off into the middle distance, most often
glassy-eyed and slack jawed, awaiting some form of inspiration to come along to
guide you. "Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen," I tell them. Instead
put your creativity to work immediately.

Creativity is not just for Artists and Writers

Most people grossly underestimate the power of their own creativity, because it
was squashed so strongly in school. I suggest you make a list of twenty items every
day. Set a timer for two minutes. Write as fast as you can, without regard to
spelling, grammar or quality of ideas. Write WHATEVER comes to mind.
After completing the list each day, circle the most practical items..
What you are doing here is akin to taking your creativity to the gym for a tone up.
The idea(s) that will actually produce the money for you may appear on one of
your lists. It is also possible that it will come to you while you are doing something
else. This will be the result of your increased creativity. .
Try using these topics to make lists that can help you.

• 20 early steps in my plan

• 20 people who could help me

• 20 people who have done something similar before

• 20 places I could look for information
• 20 ways I could avoid the next step altogether

• 20 things I know could never work

Making such lists enables you to access the creative function of your mind and
then call upon your analytical function to evaluate the alternatives.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 21

9. Time focus too short
If you have always relied on a job for income, it is possible you possess consumer
mentality related to your personal business and money. Consumer mentality asks,
"how can I make my current cash and credit resources last until the next
paycheck?" In a business of your own, an investor mentality is required. This asks,
"How can I most effectively use my current cash and credit resources to increase
my income?" Asking the second question stretches your time horizon beyond the
short term to the further distant future where your plans will bear fruit.
10. Plan out of harmony with true purpose
We are motivated by values. Values are abstract characteristics or ideals that each
of us deems worthy for their own sake. We don't have the same values as each
other and sometimes our own values conflict. Purpose is an objective statement of
how we intend to express values in our life. A purpose is timeless--it is about
expression, not accomplishment. A goal on the other hand exists in time, having a
beginning, a middle and an end. Satisfaction results from a consciously chosen
purpose derived from your chosen ways of expressing your important values by
carrying out goals and plans that express the purpose you chose.

Life is meaningless without purpose. In other words, it has no meaning but the
meaning we choose. If one's purpose is unconsciously chosen from childhood, then
satisfaction is impossible, regardless of external appearances of success, because
you are living out what someone else told you to do or rebelling against this. You
can choose and declare any purpose that suits you.
It is impossible to get very excited about expressing your inherited purpose. You
didn't choose it, so the amount of satisfaction it can deliver is severely limited.
Purpose, values, goal and plans function in a hierarchy like a chain of command or
an organizational chart. An excellent way to describe your declaration of your true
purpose is to say that your true purpose is a statement of how you intend to express
your most important values. Then each goal becomes a specific expression of your
purpose and each plan a method to accomplish that goal. The hierarchical chart
looks like this:

Values

Purpose

Goals

Plans

Dealing with Time
Any plan is similar to a schedule. It establishes priorities about time. Most parents
decide time issues for their children. My mother fed me on a schedule given her by
the pediatrician. It was always a rush. She shoveled in the food faster than I wanted

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 22

it. Then later when I mastered the spoon, she told me that I ate too fast. (I know,
tough childhood.) I concluded that other people make the decisions about time and
speed, that they do so in an inconsistent manner, and that my preferences about
time and speed were less important. You do not need an experience like this to
convince you that other people are in charge of time. Most parents put their
children to bed when the parents are tired. In school, other people determined the
schedule; determined how many years we must attend to reach graduation. Military
training, of course, takes this to an extreme. At a job, your employer determines
your work schedule, time-off and vacations. Perhaps you influence the schedule a
little, but this is probably not an adult-adult negotiation.
To succeed with planning, it may be necessary to place yourself in charge of time.

Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting
Program

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-
results-of-clients.htm

If you liked Money Is My Friend, you’ll
love my NEW book, Wealth without a Job

http://www.phillaut.com/supermarket.htm#
wwoj

******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2000 by Phil Laut All rights reserved.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Unresolved Guilt May be Affecting your Financial Life in Unknown Ways

by Phil Laut - Author of Money Is My Friend

Why this topic?
Some readers may be surprised to find such a topic in a financial newsletter. For
more than 25 years I have had a consulting practice and seminar business aiding
thousands of individuals move toward the income they want from work they love.
Parental and societal training unintentionally leads most people to accept the
income that is offered from work they tolerate. A significant percentage of the
people I have worked with have broken free of past conditioning by successfully
dealing with unresolved guilt from various sources.

Steps for Positive Change
As you probably know, it is unreasonable to expect these issues to clear up
overnight. I like to point out that the unconscious patterns of behavior and thinking
acting to limit your income without your awareness were imparted over an
extended period during 20,000 meals with people who had the wrong information
about money.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 23

I lay out a simple three-step method for positive change. It's the triple A program
of Awareness, Acceptance and Action.
Awareness-It is impossible to change what you do not know about. In order to
increase awareness, denial, suppression and in some cases, arrogance, must be
overcome.
Acceptance-Disapproval makes any accomplishment more difficult. Accepting any
situation, as well as yourself in it facilitates change. In many cases, expectations
and self-condemnation need to be overcome.
Action Problems are more like cheese than wine, i.e. they do not improve with age.
Very little positive change occurs without effective action. Dreaming alone will
not make it so.
In relation to this article, it is my intention that you increase your Awareness of
how unresolved guilt may be affecting your financial life and through this to allow
you to obtain a greater degree of self-acceptance.
Hopefully everything in this article does not apply to you, so it is probably a good
idea to look upon these comments in the perspective of "If the shoe fits, wear it."

What is Guilt?
The definition of guilt that makes the most sense is that guilt is self-punishment in
a universe perceived to be unsafe. This means if you did something wrong in an
unsafe universe, it would seem a good idea to punish yourself first in an attempt to
beat the much bigger and stronger universe to the punch. Thus guilt is in fact its
own punishment. Additionally, guilt is less selective than you may believe. Guilt
about some issue completely unrelated to money could be limiting your financial
success without your awareness.
Forgiveness (which means giving up the claim of retribution, including retribution
against yourself) frees you from the hold of the past. There is also the possibility
that failing to resolve guilt for unacceptable behavior in the past could motivate
you to repeat it in order to justify it.

How guilt may be affecting you
Unresolved guilt could be affecting your financial life by:

• Lowering your deserve quotient

• Stopping you from asking for what you want.

• Stopping you from knowing what you want.

• Stopping you from taking those risks that would get you what you want.

• Causing you to say "Yes" when saying "No" is much more to your benefit.

• Causing you to attract people who drain your energy and money with no

hope of benefit to you, resulting in justified resentment on your part. Such a

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 24

dynamic may tend to cause you to view your success as the result of good
luck and the failure of others as the result of bad luck.

• People stealing from you.

• Inexplicable losses of money.

• In other ways by making decisions for you.

No one would want to be completely free of guilt
If you were to behave in manner outside of your own morality, you would feel
guilty. This sort of guilt is healthy. Healthy guilt provides a window to our
conscience. I believe it is natural to feel guilty for breaking agreements,
intentionally deceiving others, telling lies and the like. Anticipation of such guilt
actually aids us in avoiding destructive behavior. A person without such a sense of
guilt finds himself without a moral compass as has been demonstrated by recent
events with famous politicians, professional athletes and others. Complete lack of
awareness of guilt turns renders a person psychopathic.

In fact, the origin of the unresolved guilt is far less important that being aware of it
and changing it. Nevertheless, I will describe some of its possible sources.
Societal Guilt about money
Parental guilt
Guilt about sex
Religious guilt
Survivor's guilt.

Societal Guilt about money
Guilt about money and its backlash, which we could refer to as class envy or
resentment about rich people, is so intense in our society that any sort of
reasonable discussion about public policy related to taxation is just about
impossible. The income gap between the highest earning and lowest earning
segments of the population steadily increases and the promise of middle class
financial security is rapidly becoming a fantasy. Here I am referring to the typical
middle class dream of home ownership, sending kids to college and saving for a
comfortable retirement. I you feel guilty about becoming rich then you will tend to
avoid or fail at those steps that will make you rich, in order to avoid the discomfort
of the associated guilt. Conversely if you resent rich people, you will tend to avoid
riches, so as to avoid the possibility of receiving the same resentment that you now
project on to rich people. There may be many reasons that you cannot afford a
Rolls Royce. The fact that someone else has one is no t one of these reasons.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 25

Parental guilt
Personal and societal expectations regarding parenthood are unreasonably high.
Parenthood is one of the toughest jobs in the world, for which there is little useful
training. Unfortunately the only training most people receive at this is from their
own parents. Although you have the ability to influence others, you do not control
them, including your children. You probably made lots of mistakes of commission
and omission in raising your children. If you did the best job possible and your
children turned out below your expectations, this is OK. You probably did all you
could and further self-punishment serves no one.

Guilt about sex
Most Americans are crazy about sex. I mean crazy in both meanings of crazy. By
Americans, I refer to the residents of the Western Hemisphere. Societal views
about sex outside the Western Hemisphere are quite different. Our opinions and
feelings about sex are the result of intense and extremely mixed messages. Sex is
over-glamorized by the popular media and condemned by people who are uptight
about it. Some people are so judgmental about sex that they demand that the
Government enact laws so that their personal moral views are forced on society as
a whole. My personal view is that legal prohibitions of sexual activity among
consenting adults, provided it does not hurt anyone or involve children, are
counterproductive. Everyone has the right to his own views, but not the right to
impose them on others who are of no concern. It is common for people to make
agreements with their sexual partners to forego sexual activity outside the
relationship in order to foster commitment and trust. Breaking such agreements
most often results in the ruin of the relationship.

Religious Guilt Detrimental to Earning the Income You Want from Work you
love.
Thankfully we have freedom of religion here. You can have whatever religious
beliefs you like. The issue I address is how religious beliefs affect your finances.
No matter what church you belong to, there are rich people who are members. It is
OK for you to be one of these. There is a religious model of life that says that we
separate from God at birth and remain so until death. From this erroneous
assumption comes the conclusion that the purpose of life is to earn a reunion with
God at some unknown time in the future. Such a reunion is supposedly conditional
upon your adherence to an often elaborate system of dualistic and arbitrary
morality. This morality often includes the idea that money is evil.
If you believe that money will corrupt you, you are corrupt already. Money cannot
corrupt you. There are lots of popular sayings about this. "Money is the root of all

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 26

evil." "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Money projects
power. No question about that. However, from this it's a big leap of logic to state
that money is the cause of the corruption.
There are corrupt and degenerate poor people and corrupt and degenerate rich
people. The only difference is that money enables rich degenerates to express
themselves more fully.
Your own business is a wonderful thing. It's your creation whereby you serve
others by expressing those values that are most important to you. The more money
you earn the more able you become to serve even more people by the expression of
your important values, which is all money can do anyway. The idea that money
will corrupt you assumes that money has the power to change your values. If
money has that much power, then the values weren't very strong in the first place.
Religion that keeps you poor borders on medieval superstition. It is time you were
free of this. This model produces struggle and lack. Unity with the Source of
Sources can only aid in your prosperity. Another way to say this is that the Creator
of the universe did not create Mercedes automobiles so that you could not have
one.

Survivor's guilt
Survivor's guilt is the result of a natural, but erroneous conclusion made by the
survivors of catastrophic events. It based on the erroneous conclusion that there is
some relationship between the fact that the victims died and the survivor's did not.
Survivor's of air crashes, wartime combat, the Nazi holocaust, as well as other man
made and natural disasters experience survivor's guilt to some degree.
From my personal experience, I grew up in a small town in New Jersey (pop.
7,000). Ten people from my town went to Vietnam and I was the only one to come
back. Many of casualties were people I knew. During the process of my recovery
from the War experience I sought therapy about the survivor's guilt. I saw that the
solution was the realization that those people were dead and I was alive and those
two things had nothing to do with each other.
It is my belief that survivor's guilt is the primary component in Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD). One characteristic all sufferers from PTSD have in
common is that they survived while others did not. The survivor's guilt tends to
keep the PTSD in place far longer and far more severely than need be, because the
guilt makes the events more painful to talk about and leads the sufferer to think he
SHOULD feel bad. Additionally the sufferer from survivor's guilt has a tendency
to seek validation as, at least, a temporary relief from the guilt. Thus the mature
Private Ryan in "Saving Private Ryan" asks his wife to tell him that he has led a
good life.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 27

Conclusion
The effort of suppressing guilt only increases its power. If the information in this
article uncovers an incident where you hurt someone (intentionally or not) an
apology is quite likely to free you from the guilt.

In other instances, the following affirmations can aid in increasing your awareness
of guilt feelings so that they may be accepted and cease to bother you. The basic
affirmation on this subject is:
I forgive myself for allowing guilt to make decisions and hold me back. Now I use
self-acceptance and massive action to lead straight to my goal.

Others of use are:
Affirmations:

God is my Father.
I am free of those religious views that in the past kept me poor. I step forward to
claim all the good that God has for me.
I am not my past. I am a child of God.
I now possess the foresight to think through my behavior to its ultimate results.

Affirmation: (about survivor's guilt)

I am alive and they are dead and these two things have nothing to do with each
other.

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sample chapter and details.

******************************************************************
Phil Laut is a Charlotte-based author, teacher and business consultant. He is author of Money Is My Friend, a
400,000 copy best seller published in 18 languages and dealing with the emotional aspects of earning, spending,
saving and investing. He offers small business consulting focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, as
well as courses throughout the world. For additional information, refer to

http://www.phillaut.com

or

http://www.pavlovpublishing.com

or phone [phone].
Copyright © 2001 by Phil Laut. All rights reserved.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 28

EMERGING ENTREPRENEUR CONSULTING

On Line info

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-results-of-clients.htm

The consulting program is different from the book you just read because it is personalized to you-

-personalized to your individual psychology and your individual goals.

Top performers in all fields use excellent coaches. Who's yours?

Don’t repeat these common financial mistakes:

1. Accept the income offered for work you only tolerate
2. Shrink your dreams to fit your paycheck
3. Over-payment of taxes
4. Reliance on one source of income
5. Struggle and juggle external factors to make ends meet
6. Belief that money can solve your financial problems
7. Work for money instead of having money work for you

Instead:
1. Earn the income you want from work that satisfies you
2. Expand your income to accommodate your cherished dreams
3. Learn how advance planning can limit taxes legally
4. Develop alternate sources of income
5. Harness the creative power of your mind, so that income production becomes reliable
6. Learn to permanently change your personal money psychology
7. Build an investment program that provides passive income and peace of mind

About the Consulting Work

This work combines psychology and finance in a way not available anywhere else. You will quickly get to
the bottom of any emotional issues that have sabotaged your progress and change these permanently;
results not usually available even from many years of psychoanalytical or personal growth work. These
empower you to generate the income you deserve.

Money Is My Friend-eBook by Phil Laut Bonus Material page 29

Emerging Entrepreneur Consulting Program

Consulting clients come from a wide range of ethnic, educational, financial and professional backgrounds,
including:

• a Registered Investment Advisor in Florida

• an Internet entrepreneur in Massachusetts

• a medical doctor in Mexico

• a real estate agent in Tennessee

• an IT executive in New Jersey

• a meditation teacher in New York

• a mortgage broker in North Carolina

• several network marketers in USA and Canada

• a Government worker in New York

• an independent court reporter in San Francisco

a software designer in Oregon

Initial Consultation Is Free

Initial consultation is free and its benefits are priceless.

It is easy to get started right away.

On-line Info

http://www.phillaut.com/phil-laut-income-results-of-clients.htm

Ask for the confidential questionnaire that pinpoints the psychological obstacles that slow your progress
and provides a prescription to lead you to your desires.

800-597-1923

e-mail:

[e-mail]