I love a good metaphor. An especially powerful metaphor for me lately has been that of an onion. The Cleveland Method deals with a deep understanding of our core drives and unconscious motivations. When we focus inward, only then can we genuinely understand others. In recent months I’ve noticed a tremendous amount of growth in many of my students who have been applying persuasion techniques not just to business and sales, but to every facet of their lives. One of my students, an adviser who is becoming more and more successful in his business and financial life, was telling me on a recent phone call how these skills have not only affected his “bottom line” but they have meant so much to him in other ways. As a result of one technique, he stopped smoking and some other incredibly positive things have taken place in his life. (This is what I live for. When my students have breakthroughs in all areas.) I have experienced this in my own life as well. After shedding 140 pounds of unwanted fat, and still going strong, I’ve seen the figurative layers of the onion being peeled away in a tangible way. As we peel and change and get to the core of what is important in life, we find even more enhancements and improvements we can make. Peeling away the layers of the onion, shows us what’s underneath. I peeled away layers of unnecessary padding and found another problem that needs to be addressed. A hernia. And now I’m able to help myself even further. Metaphors motivate us to understand the power of our unconscious drives and the ultimate motivating factors in life. While m focus in my programs has become more laser focused on how to persuade our affluent clientle and prospects, I see that the bigger picture is fantastically important. We are our own first project in persuasion. When we learn to influence and persuade ourselves, that is the first brick in the foundation. I can absolutely guaranty you that there’s never been a great persuader on the face of the planet who doesn’t have a degree of mastery over his own life. Before I lost the weight, I had a very conflicted relationship with the thinking, the practice, and the actual doing. Eventually, something clicked. I got it. I understood on another level that as an onion, the first step is to peel away the skin, and to keep peeling through visualization, through tapping, through intention, through coaching, through determination, through the universe system-it all came together as if I were a magician and finally figured out the alchemical recipe for my own self mastery. This is all a process. I will be the first to say that this cannot be mastered. It would be arrogant to say that I have mastered persuasion or self-persuasion. It can’t be done. The minute I feel I’ve attained the highest I can, what point is there in continuing? Continuing to grow and evolve is what keeps us vibrant. My hope is that while I continue to focus primarily on persuading the affluent, that the bigger picture of evolution, growth and persuasion is really what my students come away with.

The best way to seek a soul mate, or a life partner, is to use the law of attraction. The best way to seek your ideal mate is not through your conscious mind, a friend, a professional matchmaker or a computer, but your own subconscious mind. Your subconscious is already aware of your character traits, and the manifestation will take into account who best fits your character, because nobody knows you best than your own subconscious. To begin looking for the perfect life partner, make a list of the character traits you are looking for in a soul mate. Are you looking for someone who is soft-spoken, religious, a good cook, a good home-maker, love animals, or someone with a good sense of humor? Is this person you are searching for good looking, articulate, brunette, blonde, blue or brown eyes, sexy, a good conversationalist, animal lover, or love decorating? And is this person working in a bank, with the government or self-employed? Tell your subconscious exactly the person you are looking for as your soul mate and meditate as you would like all your other requests to the universe. You have to be clear in your choice of a soul mate and ask the universe to find for you this person each time you meditate. Never stop asking. Then imagine being married to such a person already. If you are sleeping on a king-size bed now, sleep on one side of it and pretend your soul-mate is sleeping next to you. Make some room in your wardrobe for your soul mate’s clothes. Do the same on the dressing table to make room for your soul mate’s stuff. Have the feeling of expectancy that your soul mate will be joining your life soon and you are making room for him or her. Your emotions play a key role in the manifestation process. If you go out shopping, buy something for your soul mate, however small it may be, like a scarf, or a hand towel. Make belief that your soul mate is already living with you. Make all these feelings real, and then go out and socialize as you would on your normal leisure time. Each time you socialize, have this expectancy of meeting your soul mate and each time you meet a new person, size him or her up and refer to your list of criteria which you listed down in the beginning, and check next to those criteria if this person meets your desired traits. For anyone serious in getting the ideal soul mate of their dreams, this is one strategy you cannot ignore. The manifestation process is like the universe sieving through the masses of people to bring to you your ideal choice. As the likely candidates appear before you one after another, you have to make the choice of acceptance. As the subconscious cannot speak directly to you, you have to rely on instincts or six sense, because that is the subconscious way of communicating with you. But it doesn’t mean that if you reject, the flow of candidates will stop. It won’t. The candidates will continue to appear before you until you make a conscious decision of selecting your ideal choice.

When our self esteem is low, we tend to have the habit of picking at ourselves. Little self criticisms enter our thoughts constantly, and a lot of the time we do not even realize we are doing it! We just feel crumby. It is simply a bad habit to pick at your self, but since that makes us feel sad and incompetent it limits us from doing all we can in life. When we notice we are doing self criticizing, we can argue with the criticism and that helps. But if each evening we just think of three things we can feel good about ourselves, that would go a long way to building a more positive habit of looking at ourselves in terms of the good, rather than the bad and help us in life. We deserve to have better self esteem. And the stronger we are, the more we can help others and want to help others, so we should never feel guilty about feeling good about ourselves. It is not selfish. There is a big difference between healthy self esteem and being egotistical or insensitive to others. The egoist usually does not feel good about themselves. Their big words about themselves is a cover up how small they feel. Self esteem is often quiet. Some person with good self esteem is not threatened by others criticizing them. With healthy self esteem they can laugh at their own mistakes, rather than having mistakes make them unhappy and sad. So at the end of each day, write in a journal or an online blog at least three things that either you did today or ways that you are, that are things that you can feel good about or proud of. Maybe you were kind to someone or did a task very well, or resisted a temptation, or just simply did your best and tried, even if things did not turn out well. What kinds of things do you admire in other people? Did you do any of those things today? What qualities did you admire in your parents? Do you take after them in any of those ways? Are there other ways you chose consciously not to be like? Have you avoided addictions or crime? We already have many qualities we take for granted. Perhaps you received a compliment or two today, or a thank you note, and those are also good things to note. Do remember all these things in your daily life. Write three things a night for a week to start and then try to make it a whole month slowly and slowly. Every person has value, every single day. You especially need to write three things on those days when you feel less good about yourself, but if you miss a night, just start again the next night. In a month you will have a little collection. It can be a good thing to re-read when you are feeling low. And will feel a noticeable difference as you go through your day.

Hypnosis is a therapy that can be used to improve the concentration levels and thereby achieving your goals and ambitions in life. Hypnosis helps to increase the self confidence and self esteem. If you have got more good traits but you are shy to express anything then you certainly need hypnosis therapy. You need not be arrogant or selfish, but you should possess self confidence to achieve your goals. For improving self confidence you should first get ready mentally to remove your negative thoughts and believe in yourself and in your capabilities. Consider these points about hypnosis: 1) You should learn to eliminate the unnecessary fears you have that are burdens in your career. For example, if anybody praises you and you do not feel that you are not fit for that, you need to learn to accept and enjoy admiration. This will help to improve your self confidence. In short, you should not think too much about what others will say but rather you should instead focus on removing your doubts. You can thus learn to make positive decisions and this will help you to attain self confidence and self esteem. 2) You can use hypnosis to get relief from worry, pain, stress and fear. Some people will have many fear and phobias. And such things can act as hurdles for self improvement. In these case, you can use hypnosis to get rid of fears and phobias. You can start either self hypnosis or get the help of a hypnotist. 3) You can also learn to be happy with the help of hypnosis. Life will be harder if you are indulge in sadness and worries all the time. You must learn to be cheerful. Be happy hypnosis will help you to eliminate your sadness quickly. You can remove your negative thoughts with the help of hypnosis. ‘Be happy’ hypnosis motivates to produce a world carefree and happy. The happiness starts from your inner mind. You should stay relaxed and set your mind to be happy. Always wake up with the smile. Tell your subconscious mind that you are self content with everything you have. 4) Many people think that hypnosis is a strange subject. But you can use even self hypnosis to change your behavior and thoughts. Many experts believe that our thoughts rule our body. So the more you think positively the more you can attain positive results. You must also learn not to focus your mind in negative thinking. This is because negative thoughts can have the same impact like positive thoughts. 5) Hypnosis helps the inner mind to relax. In this relaxed mind status you can tell our suggestions repeatedly to your subconscious mind. This will help you improvement in personal life or in business. 6) Hypnotism can help those people who really want to be hypnotized. It will not help you if you want not to be hypnotized. Hypnosis really relaxes you from your worries and stress levels. You can feel like you’ve had hours of sound sleep when you are in medium trances for minutes. In short, you can use hypnosis for nearly anything. Even if you want to lose your body weight you can do that with hypnosis. Hypnosis also helps to get rid of addictions to smoke, drinks, drugs, computer or video games.

Work is fun when it is part of our mission, our quest. Work however, loses some of its luster when it becomes part of the routine with little long-term value. Residual income opportunities have the ability however, to provide lasting financial security and keep work fun! It took me many years to understand a teaching of my parents that “work is fun.” It was a teaching that went well beyond my childhood imaginings in both concept, and reality. As I pursued a career, I had a mission and accomplishing this mission became the quest. A game of persistence, tenacity and ultimate achievement. There were certainly hard times but these were blended with a mixture of fun times and moments of exhilaration as the mission was accomplished. What comes next though? Is life a constant pursuit of one mission, only to achieve another mission? This mindset can wear the soul down and limit your ability to really “smell the flowers” and soak up the sunrays. So, with our careers achieved… many settle into “the routine.” A time where the adrenalin rush subsides and a relative constancy in life is achieved. However, inflation keeps climbing… kids come, dinners are more expensive, yearning to travel creeps in and the weekly paycheck remains constant. Then… our belief system tells us that the company owes us more for doing the same thing. A feeling of being trapped settles in and the fun disappears. The problem though is not in the career that we chose, not in the company that provides our income… but the subdued reality that we get paid for what we do today, and tomorrow we will get paid for what we do then. If we want to pause, take a breather, take an extended vacation, our income stops. We feel trapped, there is no fun. A few individuals have however, found a way to perform a task today… work hard and do it well… and continue to be paid for this very same task tomorrow, next week, the following month and the coming year(s). These people are all around you and in this type of work environment… you can really have some fun. After all, isn’t it nice to be on the beach, or relaxing in your own backyard knowing that you are still reaping the fruits of your past labor? Actors, musicians, insurance agents, landlords and business owners are just a few of these individuals. Now, the income these individuals earn in the beginning is usually a modest sum but as they persevere in their chosen field the earnings climb AND these earnings compound what is already being earned from past work. At some point in time, they have Multiple Streams of Income (MSIs) that will outshine any standard routine job these individuals have had as their Primary Source of Income (PSI). This is when they may choose to remain in their current job… because they have financial freedom (and security), they like what they do and get satisfaction from their chosen tasks. Some however, opt to take a year long sabbatical and think of new ventures, some pursue the next challenge with greater vigor and others find ways to help others; after all, Abraham Lincoln once said… “you cannot help the poor by becoming one yourself.” If you are looking for financial freedom, you should contemplate supplementing your PSI with one, or more, MSIs. MSI opportunities are many and most can be generated from the comfort of your own home on a part-time basis. Do a search on the Internet for passive income, residual income or home business opportunities and become a small business owner. With the right system, the right dedication and a sincere passion for building financial security… you can become independently wealthy. This combination of identifying proven systems and putting a residual wealth building formula in place means that you are working for yourself today, but you too will soon start to see your labor bear fruit more, and more, as time goes by. My parents were right… work is fun!