Earn More, Stress Less - Read an extract from the book
7 October 2009
Introduction
One thing’s for sure. Over the next few years an awful lot of people are going to spend an awful lot of time, effort, energy and sleepless nights worrying about money. People who never, or rarely, had to do it before are going to have to do it now. The Credit Crunch / Collapse of the Banking System / Second Great Depression – whatever you care to call it – is going to result in, is already resulting in, unhappiness, depression, ill-health, broken relationships - and worse - on a scale that is hard to imagine.
Yet there is a way out and numerous teachers / philosophers / writers, both past and present, have pointed to it. Philosophers like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Emerson and more recently people like Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Wallace Wattles’ The Science of Getting Rich and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne have all shown how anybody can have as much money as they need.
So why this book?
The answer is that this is practical – like all of my previous books. Rather than giving vague or complicated or airy-fairy or new-age sounding advice, it is a how-to book. It provides examples, exercises, templates and how-to’s to enable the reader to get all the money they want. Deepak Chopra will tell you, for example, to ‘release this list of my desires and surrender it to the womb of creation, trusting that when things don’t seem to go my way, there is a reason, and that the cosmic plan has designs for me much grander than even those that I have conceived’ (Chopra, 1996). I will tell you how (and why you need) to do these things.
You’d be entirely justified in asking what my credentials are in writing it. Am I as rich as Croesus? Why haven’t you seen me on Dragon’s Den? Or in the press trumpeting my own achievements?
Well, my credentials are these. First I have enough money for all my needs. I pay taxes in Ireland and – without in any way meaning to boast – last year, I was in the top 1% of earners in that country. Does this mean I’ve never had money problems? Hell no. I’ve experienced not being able to pay the mortgage, not having money for food, banks regarding me as a lower form of life than pond weed. I’ve had the sheriff call. On January 1 2001 I had a business-related debt of € 750,000. I have more first-hand experience than many of the terrors that come with lack of money.
However, between 2001 and 2006 I cleared that debt using the ideas in this book. My income in 2008 was double what it was in 2007 as a result of using the ideas in this book. My next objective, which I expect to see realised this year, is to make a million euros – € 800,000 in earnings and € 200,000 in debt reduction (i.e. becoming mortgage-free).
In summary - if I’m not any richer than that, it’s because I don’t want to be or need to be. I’m living the life I want on the money I earn and I don’t worry about money.
And so can you. It doesn’t matter what’s happened to you in the past or what your current situation is. It doesn’t matter what bad luck or lousy breaks or terrible things that have happened to you – and I know that lots of lousy things have happened to lots of people. The central proposition of this book is that if you do the things it shows you, you can live the life you want to live, have all the money you want / need and you won’t have to worry about money. If this idea appeals to you then read on.
If you look around at other books on making money, they generally fall into three categories.
- Biographies of successful businessmen
- ‘Stop buying lattes very day and pretty soon you’ll have a big stash in the bank’ kind of books
- ‘Principles’ of making money or becoming rich.
This book is none of these. Instead it harnesses what is usually referred to – though other people have other names for it - as the universal Law of Attraction. If that’s already sounding too new-age for you, don’t worry. You won’t find much that’s new age in this book. This book is firmly anchored in the practical.
In this book I will ask you to do certain things. They will all seem eminently sensible and practical. Yet in doing them you will be using the Law of Attraction. From time to time, I will refer to this Law and some books on the subject, to provide a context for Earn More, Stress Less. You, on the other hand, can go through this entire book, make all the money you want and never have to think about the Law of Attraction – if that’s what you want.
For the three months that I was writing this book, some people acted as case studies. They were introduced to the ideas in the book and began to try them out. Their experiences, feelings and reactions are dotted throughout the book. All talk about the benefits they have gained. All have said that they intend to continue.
The book is divided into three parts called
- Decide how much you want
- Have a plan
- Believe.
These three things – figure out how much you want, build a plan and believe - are the things you must do if you want to earn more and stress less. Most of the chapters have one or more sections called ‘Go Do It’. These are where I ask you to do the things necessary to begin getting all the money you want. You can see that these are the most important parts of the book. When you come to do these exercises it would be good to keep them together – maybe in a special notebook or in a particular folder on your computer.
Part 1, How Much Do You Want will help you get a sense of what life will be like as your money starts to flow in. As one of my case study people said, ‘I have to say I enjoyed doing it, and the “feel good” aura is still with me.’ As you work your way through Part 2, you will start to feel really positive. You will be taking action. You will be taking your situation by the scruff of the neck and doing something about it instead of passively taking what life is doing to you. I completely accept that no matter how up-beat you are, there are times when it can all become too much. That is what Part 3 is there for – to stop yourself from worrying, stressing or becoming depressed – and, in the process, undoing all the good work you’ve done in Parts 1 and 2.
As part of my research for this book, I came across a number of examples of well-known people who have used the Law of Attraction. These were people like Oprah Winfrey, Scott Adams (author of the Dilbert cartoons), Jack Canfield (one of the people featured in the book, The Secret) and TV presenter Noel Edmonds. Are these people famous and wealthy because the Law of Attraction applies to them, and only to them? Come on - sounds a bit unlikely really, doesn’t it? Are they famous and wealthy because they have some amazing, unique talent? Well, they have talents – for sure – but we all do, don’t we? We all have talents that make us unique? Are they famous and wealthy because they live in a certain city or state or country or area? Nope – doesn’t seem to be that. Or is it because they are involved in a certain line of work? Uh, don’t think so. Maybe they save a lot and that’s why they’re rich? Well I’m sure they have savings but I think we can probably assume that that’s not the answer either.
It’s something else, isn’t it?
In conclusion, let me ask this. What’s your alternative to all of this? Well, it seems to me it’s to sit at home, watch day-time television and bemoan your lot. Don’t! Where’s that going to get you? Get out and do something? Do what this book tells you. Then watch the results flow. It may be a bad time for you – it is for many people. But think of your journey through this book as an adventure – a game, if you like. You may not have a lot to lose. You have much to gain.
So, let’s begin – and good luck.
