AFFORMATIONS ON MONEY AND ABUNDANCE
“The question isn’t at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income.”
— GEORGE FOREMAN
If there’s one subject where people are holding on to a ton of negative beliefs, it’s in the area of Money and Abundance.
Let’s start by looking at some of the common beliefs we’ve been told about wealth and money: “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven,” “If you’re rich, you must be selfish,” “Rich people are greedy,” “Rich people must have stolen from other people to make their money,” and so on.
Here’s what I want you to realize: your relationship with money is like your relationships with people. For example, when you treat a person poorly, he or she will not want to be around you. But when you treat someone well, they’ll probably want to stick around.
Money behaves in exactly the same way. When you speak, think, or act negatively about money, it won’t want to be around you. But when you speak, think, and act positively about money, it will be magnetically drawn to you.
Your relationship with money is like your relationships with people.
You might think it sounds crazy to talk about money “behaving” like a person does. However, there’s one very important thing I’d like you to remember:
Money comes attached to these strange creatures called human beings.
As I explain in my seminars and mastermind programs, money is simply a means of perceived value exchange among human beings. To paraphrase the philosopher Stuart Wilde, “The way money works is, you have some—and everyone else has all the rest.”
I teach my coaching clients to think about money as a means of exchange through which you can do more good in the world. I know that you are a heart-centered, caring person who really wants to make a difference in the world. The problem is that you’re probably carrying around disempowering beliefs about money that are hurting your ability to make more of it and live a more abundant lifestyle.
While it’s great to want to make a difference, I want you to stop believing that it’s more spiritual to be poor than to be rich. As a minister friend of mine once said, “The best way to help the poor is to not be one of them.”
Don’t limit your own wealth by misguidedly believing that those who have more money than you do are somehow not as “good” or “spiritual” as you are. I want you to remove the guilt and shame from your relationship with money. And yes, you do have a relationship with money, whether you have a lot or a little of it right now.
Think about all the things you do every day that relate to money. You perform work in exchange for it. (Can you honestly say you’d do what you do for work if you didn’t get paid for it?) You use money to pay your bills so you have things like electricity, water, food, clothing, and shelter to help you survive. Even worrying about money means you’re thinking about money!
Yet how many of us ever admit—even to ourselves—how much time we spend thinking about and trying to make more money?
In fact, just reading those last few paragraphs may have made you feel uncomfortable. But why? I believe much of our discomfort in talking about this subject relates to the words we use in relation to it.
Have you ever noticed that there is not one positive word in the English language to describe a person who loves money? Even the phrase “a person who loves money” feels like a negative description, doesn’t it?
We think of words like miser, hoarder, selfish, and greedy when describing someone who loves money. Remember Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol? No one would want to be like him, right?
Yet the fact remains that it’s not wrong to love money. Our money problems do not occur because we love money; our money problems occur when we put money before people.
Our money problems do not occur because we love money; they occur when we put money before people.
When you put money before people, you have the equation backward, because money is a means of perceived value exchange among people. Simply put, human beings give you money when they perceive that the value they’re going to receive from you is greater than the amount of money they give you.
For example, I got this e-mail from Susan, a television producer from California:
Dear Noah,
When I first heard you teach Afformations and speak about your own situation, I was struck by how similar it was to my own. I have been in the entertainment industry (primarily television), as well as a student of spiritual studies, for my entire adult life. However, after a landslide destroyed our home seven years ago, I felt pulled to study coaching and schools of success philosophies, investing tens of thousands of dollars.
I devoted all my energies and funds into starting a new venture that would give me more time to work with people. Much to my dismay, by the time I heard you speak, I was failing financially. I had burned through all my savings, had no income, and was avoiding phone calls from creditors. Fortunately, my husband was willing to buy the groceries and put gasoline into the car so I could stay in any kind of activity. I was physically stuck.
It was only because your story resonated so much with me that I was willing to spend the nominal sum to purchase your Afformations System home-study program. I listened to it right away, struck by the shift of philosophy. I noted in my journal, “What if he’s right? What if it is in the questions? It is written: ask and you will receive. What if we just have to learn how to ask?”
I followed your instructions, writing down why questions about my major problems. And then I flipped the question from a negative reinforcement of the situation into a positive suggestion for my subconscious to pursue. I could feel the difference immediately!
Then I listened to your iAfform Audios, and guidance began to flow, freeing my spirit to be creative.
Small bits of work began to arrive. Nothing to write home about; however, any income was a shift in a direction that lifted my spirit! I was not judging what came to me but accepting with gratitude, holding my vision, and using Afformations every day. Three months later, I had multiple job offers and took a production opportunity. And with each paycheck, my spirits lifted and my long-term vision prospered.
It’s now been six months. I have finished the first draft of my book and am using it as a springboard into my program to work with others. My work is demanding, but I have been promoted and received a significant bump in salary that puts me on track as a six-figure-income earner.
What have Afformations done for me? I went from being “penniless” (no income, no savings, dependent on others for the basics of survival) to having a six-figure income in six months. I am lightening up. I am having fun. I am pursuing my greater dream. Thank you, Noah!
Many people are looking for a way to “get rich quick.” The irony is that while “get rich quick” does not exist, the fastest and easiest way to become wealthy is to provide lots of value to lots of people—and keep doing it until you reach the level of income and abundance you desire.
The Afformations in this chapter are organized into two categories: Beliefs about Money and Healthy Money Habits. In the Beliefs about Money section, use these Afformations to examine your unconscious beliefs about money and how they may be holding you back. In the Healthy Money Habits section, I’ve listed Afformations to help you make better choices about how you use this tool called money in your everyday life.
Use the following Afformations to improve your relationship with money and increase your value to other people, and watch your relationships—with both money and people—become more fulfilling and more abundant every day of your new, rich life!