Sometime back we happened upon a book by T.Harv Eker called “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind’. He was actually giving away a free downloadable copy of the book as an incentive to attend his conference in Sydney. The book is basically about how your thoughts can affect the amount of money or abundance you receive in your life, and in my personal opinion,  it is an excellent read.

I know there are a lot of skeptics who debunk the idea that we create our own world by our thoughts, but I was interested enough in what Harv Eker wrote to  attend the Millionaire Mind Intensive in Sydney earlier this month. This was one of those free seminars where they teach you a heap of stuff but they also promote the hell out of their products….so it’s almost like attending a 3 day infomercial. But if you can put the promotional stuff aside, the stuff he teaches is really worth taking in and the book is excellent.

Apart from wanting to hear just what Harv Eker had to say, we were really interested in finding out more about his 7 jars money system. Financial freedom is so important and when you start receiving large amounts of money it is very easy to just blow it, and this is something we don’t want to do.

I guess I need to take a step back, before discussing the seminar more fully. Before our business really took off we were becoming a bit, how shall I say it, hmm, despondent. We were working long hours and putting everything we had into trying to make our business a success but not much was really happening…we were basically struggling with the online business. Now Paula has been a long time advocate of self improvement and the power of positive thinking. I on the other hand have been a long time skeptic about this “stuff” as I called it. Well one day something she said just clicked with me, can’t remember what it was but it was a quote from Tony Robbins.

So I thought well it can’t hurt to listen to what he has to say. And as I played Tony’s lessons on my ipod when I went walking, it all began to make more and more sense

I could turn my life around and only I was responsible for my happiness and my feelings and by taking some positive action I could make all the difference to my world. So we started to factor some time each day before we started our work to listen to the audio versions of Tony Robbins and then The SGR Program (Science of Getting Rich), The Four Agreements, The Power of Now and Secrets of the Millionaire Mind along with a number of other self improvement books.

Now I don’t know if it was coincidence or not but the more we listened to these people the more opportunities began to come our way.  Our income improved quite significantly and we became more positive in our actions.

Thoughts  –> Emotions –> Actions = Results.

Anyway back to the T. Harv Eker ‘Millionaire Mind Intensive’.

This proved to be 3 days of full on interaction. It was definitely a positive experience and it was well worth attending. But as we have already mentioned, there are certain times during the conference where a lot of promotion for further courses and a lot of product selling of books and resources goes on.  And although some may find this hard sell off-putting, we find that if you are resolved to not getting swept along with the hype, you can enjoy the things that are beneficial to you and ignore the rest. It wasn’t like they chased us around to get us to buy their products and we could leave at anytime when they started into the hype.

It was amazing to actually to watch them in action and see how easily people could be swept up in it as they literally raced down to the back tables  to sign-up to courses which were in the thousands of dollars. These people really know how to promote. The only thing we ended up buying was a motivational meditation cd set which is something we knew we would use.

I was also amazed at how people can be ‘encouraged’ to pour their heart out, at times to perfect strangers. Not my thing, regardless of how much I am told that letting it all go will help me on my way to becoming a millionaire. I think it is more about having a positive approach, an action plan and a financial strategy in place and just being a little relaxed about it all.

I do recommend that you read “The Secrets of a Millionaire Mind”  or attend the Millionaire Mind Intensive, just leave your checkbook at home so that you don’t rush into signing up for something you may not need. Go home and think about it first, don’t get swept up in the hype of ‘only this price at this conference’.

So, on a more positive note, the book itself is well worth reading if you want to change your thoughts about money. Eker uses lots of comparisons between the rich and the poor. For example:

• Rich people associate with positive people, poor people associate with negative people.
• Rich people are excellent receivers, poor people are poor receivers.
• Rich people believe ‘I create my life’. Poor people believe, ‘Life happens to me’.
• Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them.
• Rich people focus on opportunities, poor people focus on obstacles.

Eker suggested that giving is most important, not only for the receiver but also for the giver. So we  decided to put into practice some of what we learnt  and we started by each taking $20 worth of $5 notes with us on our daily walk (while we were in Sydney) and giving it out to various homeless people on the street. The idea is to carry the money in your pocket, as you don’t want to be pulling out your purse on the street all the time, and to give it out without judgment. It helps with training your mind to not judge how a person may have arrived at their situation, and not to think about how they will spend the money, or whether or not they show gratitude, but just to give unconditionally.

In a nutshell the basic premise of the Secrets of a Millionaire Mind is that you set yourself up with a ‘money blueprint’ which sticks with you for as long as you hold onto it. So if you constantly believe that you can never be rich, that you can’t make ends meet and that you never have any money then that’s what will be the result in your life. Eker’s thinking is that if you believe money isn’t that important then you are most likely broke.

Money is important in my opinion – without it we can’t exist in the society we live in. We need it to survive so it’s incredibly important. And why would you only want a small amount to just get by? Who created that thinking for us? We should have enough money to have the freedom that we all deserve as well as to help others. Wouldn’t you love to help a friend who is in a financial crisis, wouldn’t you love to help a child who desperately needs an operation, wouldn’t you love to fund a school in an underdeveloped country? Only money can do this but for some reason many of us feel that we only deserve just enough to cover our expenses and maybe have a little fun if we can afford to. How limiting is that?

Then there are others that say that money can’t buy you happiness. I agree with that but then again being poor ain’t going to make you happy either. At least if you have plenty of money, you don’t have any worries about paying your bills and feeding your family – those problems disappear. I love this quote which pretty much sums it up:

“Money can’t buy happiness But I’d rather cry in my Ferrari”

Giveaway

Today we are going to be giving away 5 paperback copies of ‘The Secrets of a Millionaire Mind’ so if you are interested in receiving a copy please let us know in the comments below. If we get more than five people requesting a copy then we will be randomly selecting the winners. Giveaway closes on Oct 10, 2010.

If you are interested in seeing T. Harv Eker in action you can click the following link to  attend the Millionaire Mind Teleseminar.

UPDATE:  The competition has now closed and we will be announcing the winners shortly.  Thank you so much to all our lovely readers who participated.

AND THE WINNERS ARE….

• Todd Taylor
• Craig
• JamestheJust
• Ruth
• Jonas

Each of the above winners will be notified via email.

Thanks to all who entered.