Page 111 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

trust your game plan for earning your way to financial freedom. “Our first duty,”

said George Bernard Shaw, “is not to be poor.”

The road to not being poor always travels through your professional
relationships in life. The more you serve those relationships, the more productive
those relationships will become, and the more money you will make.

“Money is life energy that we exchange and use as a result of the service we
provide to the universe,” wrote Deepak Chopra in Creating Affluence. When you
understand that money flows from service, you have a chance to understand
something even more valuable: Unexpectedly large amounts of money come
from unexpectedly large degrees of service.

The way to generate unexpected service to the people in your life is to ask
yourself, “What do they expect?” Once you’re clear on what that is, then ask,
“What can I do that they would not expect?” It’s always the unexpected service
that gets talked about. And it’s always getting talked about that increases your
professional value. As Napoleon Hill repeatedly pointed out, great wealth comes
from the habit of going the extra mile. And it is always a smart business move to
do a little more than you are paid for.

It is almost impossible to enjoy a life of self-motivation when you’re worried
about money. Don’t be embarrassed about giving this subject a great deal of
thought. Thinking about money a little bit in advance frees you from having to

always think about it later. Allow yourself to link financial well-being with an
increased capacity for compassion for others. If I am living in poverty, how
much love and attention can I give to my children or my fellow humans? How
much help can I be if I, for sheer lack of creative planning, am always worried
about being in debt? “Poverty is no disgrace,” said Napoleon Hill. “But it is
certainly not a recommendation.”

78. Make a list of your life

Never hesitate to sit down with yourself and make lists. The more you write
things down, the more you can dictate your own future. There is an unfortunate
myth that lists make things trivial. But lists do the opposite—they make things
come alive.

I have a friend who made a list of all the positive things about himself that
he could think of. He listed every characteristic and accomplishment that he