My wife and I just returned from a trip with some close friends of ours to Hayesville, NC. For those of you who don’t know where Hayesville is, don’t feel bad. I was THERE and I barely know where it is! If memory serves, the entire county has fewer people than the high school that services just my neighborhood.

Here’s what’s funny, though. I honestly can’t remember the last time that I felt more relaxed and welcome.

We were visiting the family of a married couple that we are friends with and by the end of the weekend it seemed like we were ALL part of the family. Despite the fact that it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, I honestly didn’t want to leave.

We did a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, but it wasn’t even that we had some great agenda of mind-blowing activities. We pretty much just sat around and talked, played some games, visited some of the locals, enjoyed some great food and drinks, and got some sleep.

The Gratitude that my wife and I feel towards our friends and their family for including us in their holiday is impossible to measure and I found myself asking my wife to be sure to send them an honest to goodness Thank You card, something that I almost never do.

It was one of the best Thanksgiving holidays that I have ever had, and I want to share some of the highlights and pictures with each of you. I hope that your holiday was equally full of heart-felt gratitude and that you are going into the rest of the holiday season motivated and happy just to be living each moment.

In the meantime, here are some of the things that I learned while I was in Hayesville:

1) You can get a very tasty and filling meal for dirt cheap at the Hayesville Family Restaurant, whose employees wear shirts that say “H.F.R.” I’ll leave it up to you to decide what that stands for…

2) When the host is a master carpenter, it is possible to party in a house whose BASEMENT included: a pool table, a pottery wheel and kiln, a full-size entertainment room with big-screen TV, a full bar with refrigerator and an ice maker, 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. And that’s just in the basement.

3) When you are experiencing southern hospitality, you can hang out in the main living area of a huge, beautiful house, but most of you will just sit at the breakfast bar because that’s where the coffee and the conversation will flow for so long that you’ll quickly realize that you chit-chatted clean through the lunch hour and you haven’t even had a shower yet.

4) You can bring the family dog along for the fun, but that won’t stop some of the local college kids from bringing their own adorable puppy to the party, and then going to the Flea Market the next day to buy a Jack Russell Terrier. Yes, the Flea Market.

5) Apparently the Pursuit of Trivia is big business in those foothills and I’m proud to say that when the gals challenged the guys to a late-night game, we brought home the trophy despite the fact that I don’t remember ANYONE getting very many of the questions right!

6) No matter how much you’ve had to eat, you’ll still want to stop by the roadside stand to pick up some homemade apple butter and boiled peanuts. Don’t eat too much, though, because you might just end up eating a Jambalaya later that same day that’ll make you sweat and beg for more at the same time.

7) College football lasts all day long when you’ve got enough channels on the big screen to switch around on. And, with the bar, the refridgerator, and 2 separate bathrooms all within 20 feet of the TV, you can (and will) sit there ALL day watching it!

8) The average age-range at a party in Hayesville goes anywhere from around 13 years old to over 60, and every single person interacts and has fun with every other person there. In fact, if you’re not careful, you’ll pick up an adopted family or two before you leave.

9) The average side road through the hills is not very wide, so when you are on the way home be sure to watch what you say about that person who is coming at you from the other direction and taking up too much space on the road. After you curse them, you JUST might find out that it was one of your relatives making a late run for the party you just left!

And finally,

10) You have not witnessed friendship, hospitality, or good old-fashioned happiness to be alive until you have spent Thanksgiving dinner with people who have literally known each other for DECADES and would still give each other the shirt off their backs. Or, they would give YOU that shirt, too, even though they’ve only known you for a few hours.

Welcome to the South. I hope you enjoyed your visit! :)

If there is one absolutely immutable fact that can’t be denied about successfully interacting with other people, it is that the more interesting or entertaining you make that interaction, the more that person will remember you, and seek future interactions with you.

James Arthur Ray uses a phrase in many of his presentations: “It’s not what you do, it’s HOW you do it”, and he has several very entertaining examples of how he has witnessed that concept in his dealings with others.

In fact, he proves the concept beyond a shadow of a doubt by telling these stories in such a fun and interesting way that you want to watch him do it over and over again. It’s not so much the story that is entertaining as it is the WAY that he tells it.

Joe Hauckes over at the Working at Home on the Internet blog brings up a similar concept in his post about how and where your personality or your ego fit into your business dealings. My answer to that is that your personality IS your business, while your ego needs to check itself at the door.

There have been repeated examples of how people have either done business with or done repeated business with someone because of the way that the business owner treated them.

There are probably even more examples of how people have STOPPED doing business with people because of something that the business did wrong. An excellent and horrific example of this is the Bank of America fiasco that was posted over at Boing Boing and many other locations on the ‘net. To date, Bank of America has lost over $50 MILLION DOLLARS because they made a stupid mistake with one of their customers!

All of that being said, these concepts do not just apply to businesses. We have all known people that made us smile, laugh, or maybe just feel comfortable or at peace, and what happened? We wanted to see those people again!

On the flip side, we’ve all known people who “rubbed us the wrong way”, and not only do we not want to see them, but we will sometimes go out of our way NOT to see them!

The concept of handling your life with STYLE is one that I bring up because the majority of us are simply not doing it, and in many cases it is a large part of why we are meeting with limited success in life, both in business as well as in our personal lives.

Life throws so many different things at us that we spend most of our time just dodging bullets when what we really need to be doing is shooting off our own happy pills.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Law of Attraction is working on our lives at all times - whether we want it to be or not. So, if we are running around just dodging bullets all the time and not taking any time to be happy and become deliberate creators of our lives, then we will simply attract more of doing exactly that.

However, if we proactively go out of our way to treat people well (customers as well as friends and family), if we do our very best to provide a great experience for the people that we interact with, and if we keep up a positive and upbeat demeanor, then guess what the Law of Attraction will bring us?

More of that positive energy!

We get out of life exactly what we put into it. If that is simply reacting to the negativity that surrounds us, then all we will have is a life full of reacting to negativity. I’m here to tell you that at least at this point in the game, there is plenty of that to go around already.

I’m not saying that in order to perpetuate the negativity, but to illustrate the fact that if you want to start deliberately creating a life that is abundant in every way, there is more than enough room for you to stretch your “positive wings” and make it happen!

I am very grateful to be witnessing the fact that our society as a whole is on the edge of a major breakthrough in enlightenment that will be akin to us crawling out of the Dark Ages. The thanks for that fact goes to countless individuals, not the least of which being the army of bloggers, forum posters, and article writers on the Internet who are out there every day spreading the good word.

For you Americans, this whole process works in a similar fashion to voting. It may seem like one vote won’t make a difference, but in the grand scheme of things, one vote can make ALL the difference!

That same thing applies to you interacting with the people in your life using some high-octane personality that will keep them coming back to interact with you again and again. If you impress even ONE person today with your attitude, and that person captures your magic and passes it on to one person, and then that person catches it and passes it on, and so on and so on it goes…

Someone once said that you could network with the entire world if you only knew the right 20 people.

I don’t know about you, but I sure know 20 people, and each one of them would say that I’ve usually got a smile on my face. Can you say the same?

If you are interested in Ho'oponopono, be sure to check out Joe Vitale's DVD's 'Install and Transcend the Secret' and 'The Missing Secret'.

At this point in the game, the word "Ho‘oponopono" is not nearly as well known as it will be within the next 6 to 12 months, so I am putting forth this basic description of Ho‘oponopono so that you can decide for yourself if you would like to engage in some further study.

Based on what I know, I would recommend that you DO spend more time learning about and practicing Ho‘oponopono, and if you take that advice, Dr. Joe Vitale is the man who you want to learn about it from. Dr. Vitale's passion on this subject is amazing, and as of this date (November 7, 2006) he already has a book in the works on this very subject called Zero Limits.

The basic idea behind Ho‘oponopono stems from the meaning of the word, given to us by the Hawaiian culture. Loosely translated, Ho‘oponopono means "to set things right", or, in more simple terms, to fix stuff!

Everyone has things that they want to have fixed, and Ho‘oponopono is not only a powerful way to fix literally everything that you can imagine, but it is so ridiculously simple to use that there is really no reason to not take advantage of this powerful technique.

The basic concept behind Ho‘oponopono is going to first require you to realize the immutable fact that your entire existence comes from within, not from outside of yourself.

John Assaraf does a great job of vocalizing this concept during part of his teachings in the movie 'The Secret'. John says "There is no 'out there' and 'in here'", and that is the very truth of our Universal existence.

We are all one with all things at all times. That may be tough to grasp for some, but it's true. We are all simply extensions of "source energy", which is the very "stuff" that the entire Universe is made out of.

So, if we are made out of this source energy - which we are, and based on Quantum Mechanics, we are all creators of our own existence (which we are), then one very simple truth rears it's head for all to see, and it is quite undeniable:

Everything is your Creation!

Everything that you see, hear, feel, smell, touch, think, remember, or emotionally react to - these are all things that YOU have created. And yes, that includes the good, as well as the bad. Each of these things exists because on some level you want them to exist, which takes us back to Ho‘oponopono.

If everything that you perceive in the world exists BECAUSE you perceive it, can you guess what amazing and God-like power you have at your very fingertips?

That's right. You can either make more of it, or you can make it go away!

No, I'm not talking about creating thousand dollar bills out of thin air, or wishing away annoying in-laws. However, it is indeed possible for you to create your life so that you HAVE thousand dollars bills, or that your in-laws are no longer an annoyance to you.

That tip alone is probably worth the price of admission, right?

How is all of this done via Ho‘oponopono? By simply accepting responsibility.

When you truly grasp and get your head around the fact that you are literally creating every single piece of your existence - from the smallest molecule up through the tallest skyscraper, from the most heart-felt Love to the most gut-wrenching hatred - then you realize that you can effect change over each and every one of those things because you are responsible for them being there to begin with.

You do this simply by showing Gratitude for the things in your life that you are thankful for and that you want to grow and flourish, and by showing Forgiveness for the things that you want to go away or diminish.

Now, let's see if you have been paying attention:

If you are responsible for all things in your existence - the good as well as the bad - and you have the power to diminish or to allow those things to grow simply by showing Gratitude or Forgiveness, who are you showing Gratitude and Forgiveness TO?

……

……

……

Okay, time's up. It's YOU! If you created something that is wonderful, you are thanking yourself for doing so, thus ensuring future occurrences of that same positive behavior. If you created something terrible, then you are forgiving yourself for doing it, thus making sure that it doesn't happen again in the future.

Here is where it gets tough to swallow, but these concepts are just as true on a "microcosm" level as they are on a "macrocosm" level:

You are responsible for everything that is part of your existence. I always like the bad news first, so I'll share that courtesy with you (thus creating more courtesy for myself, if you've been paying attention):

Terrorism is your fault. Murder is your fault. Famine and disease are your fault. School shootings are your fault. Taxes are your fault.

OUCH! That hurts, doesn't it? You bet it does. But here's the good news:

Love is your fault. Childbirth is your fault. Families are your fault. Friends are your fault. Medical miracles are your fault. Firemen are your fault. Pets are your fault. A child's curiosity is your fault. Unadulterated JOY is all YOUR fault!

Are you starting to see your power now? You can do it all. In fact, you ARE doing it all. Right now, at this very moment as you read this. You are both creating and destroying your world, because it is all YOU.

When you go to bed tonight and you can't sleep, you created that. When you pass out face down on your pillow and get the best night's sleep of your life, you created that, too.

When you get out of bed in the morning and it's raining so hard that you can't even see your car in your own driveway, that is your creation. When you get up in the morning and you are greeted by a dawn that could literally be the dawning of Time itself (and it is), that is also your creation.

It's all you. All the Good, all the Bad, and everything in between. And you can control these things by learning to control your Gratitude and your Forgiveness reactions to them with Ho‘oponopono.

Different practitioners have different methods of invoking the power of Ho‘oponopono, but since I believe in Dr. Joe Vitale (after all, he is MY creation), I am utilizing his methods of invoking Ho‘oponopono, which can be summed up in the 4 phrases that he uses whenever he wants to invoke Ho‘oponopono, which is also called "cleaning":

"I Love You"

"I'm Sorry"

"Please Forgive Me"

"Thank You"

That's it! By creating a mantra of saying those 4 things pretty much as often as you can day after day and week after week, you will quickly come to the realization that by Loving yourself, by Apologizing to yourself when you have done something wrong, by Forgiving yourself for that wrong-doing, and by Thanking yourself for the opportunity to create Good, as well as to stop creating Bad, that you can create your life to be "right".

Remember that the loose definition of Ho‘oponopono is "to set things right". Since you are the sole creator of your entire existence, you have the power to create whatever "right" world that you want to live in, and you can do it by simply saying and believing those 4 simple phrases.

Related Downloads:
Conscious Creation
The Hidden Secret
Law of Attraction
Mind Power
Self Limiting BeliefsI know that for some of you, all of this may seem incredibly hard to believe. You refuse to grasp the fact that you are literally the very creator of the entire existence that you live, and that you can easily manipulate that existence with 4 sets of words.

So here is one more test for you:

If you don't believe any of this, who created that disbelief?

Think about it.

And yes, I Forgive You.

If someone were to say to you, “You are going to get the same reward whether it is easy for you to get it, or if it is hard for you to get it. You choose which method you want to use.”, what do you think your response would be?

Well, unless you are feeling some irrational need to work harder than you actually have to in life, you are probably going to take the easy route, right?

In fact, at least here in America, a very large part of our culture is based on that very concept: finding the easy way. Do you know that in the United States of America people used to actually have to GET UP to change the channel on their TV???

Appalling, I know. The reason I know is because my remote is broken right now, so I actually have to do this. I could go buy a new remote, but that wouldn’t be, well…easy!

So, our society continues to search for the “Easy Button” and in fact there is a television commercial that Bryant Sandburg references in his Home Business Blog that shows one of these Easy Buttons.

Bryant provides a great take on the concept of how this mythical “easy button” applies to business in today’s world, and I am going to extrapolate his wisdom and put forth the fact that the same thing happens in pretty much every aspect of our lives.

There is nothing wrong with taking the easy way out if the end result of the situation is going to be the same either way. However, if by taking the easy way out you are not getting what you really want out of life, then it suddenly becomes a problem, doesn’t it?

And you’ve done this many times in your life, haven’t you?

Of course you have! Don’t sit there shaking your head like you have always jumped head first into every situation in life, tearing down walls and mowing down enemies until you got EXACTLY what you wanted by taking the hard road.

However, I’m open-minded. If that does describe you, please post a comment to this blog and tell me all about it. I probably want to get to know you! For everyone else, let’s continue on…

Why do we always look for the Easy Way Out?

For most of us, it is simply that we are used to doing things the way that we do them - regardless of whether or not the way that we do them will get us what we want out of life. Our “status quo” is simply easier to maintain than making the effort to effect some quality changes.

All of us have spent money that we shouldn’t have spent because we wanted some material goods, or some experience. Then we complain because we don’t have enough money.

Everyone has stuffed down a 2,000 or 3,000 calorie feast of artery-clogging burgers, fries, and milkshakes, and then not liked the reflection that they saw in the mirror.

Each of us has taken a job we didn’t want or passed up an opportunity at our present job because taking the hard road would have meant putting forth an effort that was outside of our normal realm of comfort. We follow that up by telling anyone who will listen about how much we dislike our job!

I could go on and on with examples just like this, and you could easily think of dozens of other examples from your own life about how you refused to go “off the beaten path” because it was easier to stay on the well-trodden road that you were used to.

How has that been working out for you?

By now you may be thinking that this post hasn’t given you any real information about that Shortcut to Success that was mentioned in the title.

Not to worry, this IS a Self-Empowerment Blog, after all, so here is the Easy Button that you have been waiting for:

When you spend money that you know you aren’t supposed to be spending, how does that make you feel? Do you feel prosperous, generous, and full of Gratitude that life has given you so much money that you can spend it as if it existed in an unlimited supply? Or, do you feel guilty? Do you worry about how you are going to pay your Visa bill after springing for the extra $300 worth of souvenirs while you were on vacation, and that one night when you ordered room service for the whole family and it cost you roughly the equivalent of your car payment?

What about when you eat food that you KNOW is going to expand your waistline or your hip size? How does that make you feel? Do you feel thin, sexy, and confident? Or, do you feel fat, unattractive, and lacking in the self-restraint that it would have taken to turn down that 2nd helping, or that fatty dessert?

How about when you got passed over for a big promotion at work, or didn’t get a job that you really wanted? Does that make you feel like someone who can literally have any job that they want, and who is blazing their own trail through their professional career? Or, do you wonder if you will ever get out of your career rut? Do you try to figure out why others who are clearly not as qualified as you keep getting all of the good opportunities?

By now you should be starting to see the point that I am driving at here:

The way you FEEL about your life is what dictates what life will give you.

We live in a vibratory Universe where all things at all times are vibrating with a certain frequency. Whatever vibrations your feelings are sending out will attract similar vibrations back into your life.

So, using the above examples:

If spending money makes you feel good, more financial opportunities will present themselves that cause you to continue to feel good. If spending money makes you feel guilty, you will continue to stay in a financial state that allows you to only spend money in guilty ways.

If eating food makes you feel healthy, lean, and confident, then even when you over-indulge you won’t see the effects as badly as someone who has a gluttony-like reaction to eating. Your reaction to your nutrition and exercise program - or lack thereof - is just as important in terms of attracting success as is the program itself.

If your feelings about your career options are in line with success, prosperity, and long-term stability, then you will attract whatever it is in your life that brings you more of those feelings. However, if you feel like you are being “kept down” by the system, or like you really don’t have any career options because of your life’s circumstances, then your feelings will create vibrations which ensure that you are correct at every turn.

The moral of this story is that there is no actual “Easy Button". However, you can make your life easier by listening to your feelings and reacting accordingly.

YOU are the Easy Button!

One of the many constants in our Universe is that there is really no such thing as “standing still”. Oh, it may seem like you’re standing still - figuratively or literally - but since the entire Universe is made up of constantly vibrating energy, I promise you, nothing is ever completely “still”.

We live in an expanding Universe where the mass of energy that makes up all things is constantly seeking expression through every means possible - including the human existence. That energy wants to grow, and “standing still” is simply not an option.

However, that being said, in the figurative version of the term standing still, many people are doing their best to stay exactly where they are in life, despite the fact that they don’t really want to be there to begin with.

Some people call this “settling”, others use the term “complacency”, while some may be harsh enough to simply call those people “lazy”.

In his awesome blog, Ben Casnocha said it wonderfully:

‘If you settle for 100% or A+ then you are settling. The crave to improve evaporates. If you feel like you’ve peaked then you’ve lost your “intrapersonal culture of improvement”.’

What a great way to put it! Congratulations, Ben, you have probably just created one of the new buzzword terms for this generation!

Ben is 100% correct. If you stop kicking, biting, scratching, and clawing your way forward in life, then one thing is going to happen beyond a shadow of a doubt -

- you’ll start sliding backwards.

Now, that isn’t to say that life is supposed to be a struggle, and I don’t mean to insinuate that at all. However, as most people are aware, there are often times in life when we are challenged and we have to fight to get what we want out of any given situation.

Sometimes that fight comes in the form of simply knowing when to turn the other cheek. It may come in the form of keeping your mouth shut when you really want to say something negative to someone else. You may have to fight in the form “sticking to your guns” in order to make your dreams manifest into reality.

Whether your version of “fighting” makes your life seem difficult is just your perception of the circumstances. Everything that we deal with in life is dependent 100% on our point of view. (Paraphrased from the immortal words of Obi-Wan Kenobi for you Star Wars fans)

In fact, if you subscribe to the increasingly well-received concept of Quantum Reality, not only is your life dependent on your point of view, it is CREATED by your point of view!

So, if think that your life is a struggle, and that it is easier to just stay where you are rather than taking the steps to move forward, I will refer you back to the top of this post:

If you are not growing, you are _____________________.

If you are not living, you ____________________.

The question that you have to ask yourself is whether or not you are quite ready to throw in the towel?

If you are, then go ahead and just lay down where you are right now. Life will invariably come by and run you over.

Otherwise, if you are ready to keep “fighting the good fight”, then I invite you to use the power of Quantum Reality (as if you had a choice), and read my article ‘Become What you Want to Attract‘.

Miraculously enough, it seems that in order to be deliriously happy, all you have to do is decide that you want to be.

It will only be a struggle if you are one of those people who was filling in the blanks above…