Let's Make Money, Honey! money-making challenge FB "Live" #5

Hello, hello, this is Mary Schiller with you live here in our Let's Make Money, Honey 5-Day Money Making Challenge. I once again apologize for the croaky voice that I've got going on here. The good news is that I was having a little trouble earlier today health-wise, but I seem to have taken a turn for the better. So despite the way that my voice is coming across, I'm generally feeling a lot better now than I was a few hours ago. So I'm kind of celebrating here in Paris. Hey Doug, good to see you. Thank you for joining. And I'm really happy to say that I'm feeling, you know, probably about 50% better than I was this morning. I was a little bit concerned earlier today. But I'm doing okay. So just, you know, please bear with the froggy sound if you can. Hey, Sarah, thank you. And we'll just proceed as if nothing's wrong. So I'm really, really happy to be talking with you. It's our 5th live broadcast, which is really fun. And I have a whole bunch of notes for things that I would like to cover in this talk, but mostly I want to make sure— hey, Katie— I want to make sure that I answer any questions or thoughts that you have had over these past several days. And obviously we were in the Facebook group even before we did these live broadcasts, so there may have been things that came to you over the last, you know, week or two that you'd like to get some answers on. So I'm really— hi, Dale— I'm really I want to make sure that you understand that I am available here during this Facebook Live to answer any questions. Ask me the toughest ones you've got and I'm willing to answer. Hey, Verena, you're very, very welcome. So let me just pause for one second to get a sip of water. Excuse me. Before I get started, I just want to let you know that tomorrow, November 5th, November 15th, is the opening day for registration for the Let's Make Money Honey program. And just to give you a quick rundown about what that includes, it includes a 4-week online program which is actually available to you the moment that you register. So I used to have it come out once a week, but I decided to make it all available at once because people usually like it that way. So that's available to you. I also have a private Facebook group that I facilitate very much like I've been doing in here, and I host a twice-monthly, every other week, live session like this so people can ask questions. And basically it's an environment in which we support each other in seeing new things about money and supporting each other's goals and just really creating a space where it's okay to talk about money, it's okay to talk about whether we're concerned about it, if we'd like to have more of it, you know, how we're seeing things differently or not, and just a really, really nice place to hang out, if I do say so myself. I love everybody in here— in there, just as I love everyone in here. So look for an email from me and for a note in here when that's open. It will open at about this, this time tomorrow, so like 24 hours from now. Okay, so let's get started. In the first 4 of these talks, we covered quite a bit of ground, so I'll just take a couple minutes to summarize that. We talked about the fact that We no longer have to be concerned about anything related to our quote-unquote money mindset or any of the things like that that we have been told we need to be concerned about. You know, I spent, as I mentioned, I spent a lot of time and not so ironically, a lot of money on programs. Hi, Marie-Françoise. On programs that were supposed to teach me how to fix all my stuff. Around money, you know, how to get rid of limiting beliefs around money, how to see money in a different way so that, you know, it wouldn't be such a big problem in my life and, you know, get rid of all of these money mindset issues and how to, you know, recite certain affirmations so that I would, you know, be better at this making money thing. And hey, Kim, nice to see you too. And, you know, It just all was a big fat flop for me. None of it worked, which often seemed to reinforce the fact that I was just a failure in this whole money-making department. So that was a very depressing period of time for me. So I know when I mentioned all that before, a lot of you could relate to it. You know, you have also gone through things like that and come out the other side going, hmm, you know, why isn't this actually helping? And in some ways it's making it worse. Well, that was my experience. So that was sort of a clue to me that maybe there was something else that I wasn't seeing that was actually more helpful than that. So that was one thing that we talked about. Another thing that we talked about was the fact that we are actually the source of money, that money isn't something that's out there somewhere that we have to go and and, you know, try to catch and then bring into our life, that it's actually all part of this human system that we have within us. And it's a creative expression, if you will, of all of this abundance and wonderfulness that we are as people. So for me, that was a big, big revelation when I no longer saw money as something that I had to chase after. When I started realizing that, oh, you know, even if I'm in a job, and even if a paycheck is being handed to me, you know, for being in this job, I actually created that. That's part of me. That's an expression of me. Hey, Joanne, good to see you. And so, so that was a biggie. Another thing that we talked about was the fact that a lot of the discussion these days about things like financial freedom, quote unquote, financial security is just not true because those feelings cannot come from money. You know, that would be like saying that this pencil could give me a feeling of security or freedom. It's just not possible for those feelings to come from anything outside of us because in essence there isn't anything outside of us. As I just mentioned, Everything comes from within. And that includes freedom and security, which are part of our natural state as humans. We don't have to do anything to create those feelings. They already exist. And they're already infinite. We don't have to increase them in some way either, because something that's infinite can't be increased. So if we look at things like abundance, for instance, that's another word that's bandied about quite a bit in the money-making discussion. You know, that we somehow are supposed to attract abundance into our lives. And I think I, I say this somehow in the Let's Make Money, Honey book, that that would be like saying I have to attract human beingness into my life. It just doesn't make any sense because that is our natural state as humans. So there's really nothing we have to do in order to bring any of that. Into our, our lives. So that's sort of a very, very quick overview of what we talked about in the first few of these Facebook Live sessions. And so one of the things that I did in preparation for this one is I went back through the discussion we've been having a little bit, and I wrote down a few things that I wanted to make sure and address. But I do want to pause here and just see if you guys have any questions. Kathy says, this group has given me something unexpected. I'm not alone. Other adults struggle with money like I do. I know it's silly, but I kind of thought it was just me. Thank you. Oh, you're very welcome, Kathy. Believe me, you are not alone, not alone at all. And I'm only laughing because, I mean, if you think about— I mean, I wonder what the the number is actually of people who have either bought a book or more than one book on this topic, or the number of people who have enrolled in any sort of program or any sort of course, anything, gone to a talk that has something to do with making money. I mean, I couldn't even hazard a guess on that. Could you? It's got to be in the multiple millions, and that's probably just in the United States. But you can tell that this is something that's on people's minds because it comes across your Facebook feed all the time, probably. You've probably seen a fair number of ads relating to, you know, make money quickly, and, you know, here's a way to make quick cash, and, and all of that is basically appealing to people's sense that money is a problem and that money is something that requires them to follow somebody else's way of doing it, that they couldn't possibly know, you know, what they need to do in order to make money, that if they haven't made it by now, that there's something missing. And that they need to go out and get it from another person. And so I think if, if I would love for you to walk away from this challenge with anything, it would be recognizing the fact that you know exactly how to do this, that you don't need anybody else's plan. You don't need anyone else's blueprint. You don't need anyone else's anything in order to make money, that you already have all of it within yourself. And if that has been sort of elusive to you until now, that's totally okay. But you can start listening to a different part of yourself and start to ignore the stories that say, you know, I don't know how to do this and see what occurs as a result. Kathy, it's the focus is on the wrong part. Focus on bubbling our own natural creativity to the surface rather than fixing a broken human. Well, that's exactly right. Because if we recognize the fact that we aren't broken, that there isn't anything wrong with us, that there isn't anything we need to improve or fix. You know, first of all, think of how much time that frees up in our day. I mean, this is another thing I point to in the book. It's like, All the time I was spending trying to fix myself and trying to, you know, quote unquote, fix something that people were telling me was broken. All that time is now available to me to be creative and to be, you know, is now available for me to access, you know, in order to make money or do whatever I want with it. I can't honestly believe how much time I spent, you know, for my whole adult life really from age 22 to— well, let me think. From 19— I'm not joking. From 1983 through 2014, however many years that is, long time, I spent most of that time trying to fix myself. I was told that I was broken and that I had to do something to fix myself. And I'm sure that if I had been told the truth, which was there really wasn't anything wrong with me and that all that was happening was I was listening to some goofy thinking and I didn't have to do that. If I had been told that, I might have had a lot more opportunity to make the kind of money I wanted to make because I wouldn't have been focused on you know, like you said, the wrong part, the part that was saying, you know, something's wrong here that I have to fix. So couldn't agree with you more there, Kathy. So before I go into my list of ideas for things that we can talk about here, I just want to pause again and see what has occurred to you. You know, do you have a burning question on your mind? Because that's what's most important to me today, is that if you have a question that you'd like me to address here on this Facebook Live, I really want I don't want to do that, so I'm going to pause and take another sip of water. And pardon me, I've got to use a little tissue here. And I'll just wait a few moments to see what other comments come up. Oh, hi Danielle, so nice to see you. Yes, I'm seeing that same thing with my time in my life right now. I've started using my time for other things that bring me joy instead. Wow, that is awesome because that's what life is for. That is what life is for. Gosh, I'm reminded of an interview that I heard. When was this? I don't know, maybe a year ago. It was with somebody that I used to work with who is pretty well known and And he's actually been quite successful financially. And yet on this interview, he was talking about how much work it takes to become a good person and how much time you have to put in and how much effort you have to put in in order to become the person that you should be. And he sounded, even the tone of his voice was so labored and it literally sounded as if he was you know, carrying a boulder while he was talking. And the whole time I was listening, I was thinking, gosh, I wish I could just tell him the truth, which is that, you know, that's just not so. That, you know, are there things we could do to relate to people in a more compassionate way? Well, sure, but it all comes down to the same thing. It all comes down to recognizing that We're all absolutely fine. We all can, we can stop judging ourselves first of all and we can stop judging other people for their behavior and such when we realize that people act in certain ways that have no bearing on who they actually are underneath all of that. So I wish I could have told him that. Hey Karen, I keep coming up with the same ideas for making more money. I've tried them before and haven't worked so I'd like new ones but I can't seem to get past the old ones. Hey, it's great that you asked that because that was on my list of things to mention today. In fact, it was one of the central things I wanted to, um, bring up. And Doug is also kind of alluding to that. Is there a way to get started on new projects that are different? I seem to be having trouble getting started. So one of the things that I saw in some of the comments in the group related to, you know, I'm really paraphrasing this, this is sort of an amalgamation of a bunch of comments, but they were things like, you know, I've been doing this one thing for a long time and I keep trying to sort of tweak it and it's not really having the result that I want in terms of money, you know, or I really want to make money doing this thing and it just doesn't seem to be happening. But it's really the only thing that I want to be doing with my time. Or, you know, some variation of that, in other words. And here's what is so amazing to me, and I didn't see this myself, and since I have, it's been extraordinarily helpful, is that we have this idea, as humans, we're very funny to me, we have this idea that we know how something is supposed to happen. We know how something is supposed to happen. And that if it doesn't happen with that how-to, that if, you know, if it doesn't happen in that way, well, then that's it. There's nothing else to do, you know? So we tend to end up in these either-or situations. Scenarios. Well, it's either this or that, and there isn't anything else. There's just no, there's just no other way. You know, I've tried this and I've tried that and nothing's worked, you know, so I'm stuck. There's no other way I can make money, or, or, you know, if I have to do something else, it's not going to be anything I enjoy, so I'm just not even going to look there. So I'm going to continue to, you know, live in this state of Depression around money. And I can relate to this because when I was in the job that I didn't like anymore, it seemed to me— this is how it looked to me— that the only way out of that job was to start working for myself again. That was how it looked to me. It was an either-or. It was either I stay in this job that I hate, or I work for myself. So what I did was I tried to create a new business on the side. And I was, this is key, was I was creating that business on the side solely based on the fact that I thought it could bring in money so I could leave my job, okay? Now I know that that's gotta sound familiar for some of you listening. You know, you're desperate to get out of a certain situation that's bringing in money. So you try to set up something else on the side just to make money to get out of the other thing, okay? Well, it was an unmitigated disaster. It was an absolute disaster because I wasn't focusing on the thing that was actually helpful. I was using some skills that I had But I wasn't really enjoying this thing on the side. And every time, I kid you not, every time I would get— this was a few years ago— every time I would get a client signing up and paying me something, I would just get this feeling inside like, oh no, now I have to do another one of these projects. And I should have known at that point that I was looking in the wrong direction, but it just wasn't obvious to me. And so For the longest time, that was my either/or. It was like either I'm in this job that I hate or I'm doing this other thing that I don't really like. And I'm stuck both ways now. Like now I've really painted myself into a corner. And I stayed in that kind of state for a few years. It took me probably 3 years to kind of wake up from that. And what woke me up was one day, I don't know why this thought came to me. But it did. And I'm very grateful. So I'm going to share this insight with you. It was like, hey, wait a second. This relates to what I talked about on yesterday's Facebook Live about what if it's actually easy? It was kind of like, wait a minute, what if there's actually a third possibility? What if there's actually more than another possibility here? What if there's like a million other possibilities here for me that I just haven't noticed because I've been so focused on this or that, that my, my eyes have been down here instead of looking up here and going, wow, look at this huge landscape of possibilities for me that I hadn't noticed. And as soon as I kind of lifted my head up and went, wow, there's a lot of other ways I could leave this job and not do stuff over here that I don't like, you know, what else is there? Well, I kid you not, within a week I had this freelance— I got this freelance gig that eventually turned into this a full-time sales job that I was talking about on the fourth of these Facebook Lives. And I thought, well, that was interesting. You know, so now here's the, here's the key to this. Whenever I find myself in one of those either-or kinds of sets of thinking, I know right away that I am just not seeing the forest for the trees. I know that I am looking at a fake story because it is never an either/or kind of situation, ever, ever, ever. It's always, you know, which of the millions of opportunities that are right in front of me, sort of glittering like, you know, crystal jewels, which of those would I like to try? It's more like that. That is the reality, not any sort of limited scenario that I've come up with in my head, if that makes sense. So let me know. Ellie says, at the moment I have more opportunities than I know what to do with, and I'm wondering if I have to choose or how many I can do. It's pretty amazing. I'd love to actually realize one or more. Then you can. There is, you know, we have also, I'm glad you said that, Ellie, that's awesome. You know, we have this also, this idea that we're only capable of, you know, maybe doing one thing at a time or something. And I think I personally, and a lot of other people are very good evidence to the fact that that is not true. You know, one of the questions I get asked so frequently is, How do you create so much? You know, how are you able to have so much creative output? You know, how are you able to do so many things? I've had people tell me that probably, I don't know when that started, probably 30 years ago people were asking me that. And now I can see very clearly, it's like, well, we have no limits on that either. It only looks like we do. Yeah, we do have to sleep sometimes, but I think that You know, one of the video coaching sessions in the Let's Make Money Honey program talks about, you know, get ready for the speed at which you can do things. Because once you start to realize that you do not have these limits, that those are all made up, suddenly your productivity will increase without effort. There's nothing you have to do to increase your productivity. It will just show up whenever you need it. It just shows up. So you can, Ellie, you can do as much as you want. And personally, I like doing that because I kind of figure out which things I really enjoy and which ones I kind of don't. And then I can focus more attention on the things that I do like. Thanks, Karen. Yeah, it's never either or, Danielle. I know it can really look like that sometimes. But like I said, that is a very helpful thing for me to see because then I know for a fact that I am not seeing what's really in front of me. Oh, I'm glad this is ringing true for you, Joanne. Hey, Marie-France. I feel the either-or thing right now. Either I get picked from an audition and then picked to do the job, or I have to create my own work, right? I'm open to creating my own work, that'd be great, but it all feels very hard and impossible. I'm exhausted and feel alone in all of it. So thank you for sharing that, Marie-Françoise. So I think what would be helpful to you and to other people if you're having that same sort of situation, like it's either this or that and all of this feels very hard, is just kind of— how can I say this? If you can kind of step back from yourself kind of zoom, since you're into acting and producing all that, Marie-Françoise, that you'll relate to this metaphor. Zoom the camera out, okay? And see the fact that you're on a set, okay? You're on a movie set. And you're acting the part of someone who sees their options as limited. And you're not realizing that you're actually on a set inside a building, and there's actually, if you just took a couple of steps out the exit, there's an entire world out there of other ways that things could happen for you. So, you know, I actually find the either-or thinking and this is so hard thinking, this will never work thinking, I actually really appreciate having that sensation because it's like flashing red lights going, whoa, Mary, just stop right there. Just stop because you're seeing something that is completely not true right now. So why don't you just sit down on the bench in your mind for a little while and just take a breather, appreciate the fact that your creative powers are so great that you have managed to paint a picture of life that looks very limiting because that's a pretty amazing achievement considering the fact that you have no limits. So, so pause and appreciate the power that you have to create this vision of yourself. And then, you know, take the time out and kind of realize where you are in this picture and that You're simply having a moment where you're looking at the movie, you're looking at the play, you're looking at the story, and you're buying into it. And actually, it's not real. It's not true. It looks real. But the moment you kind of go, whoa, wait a second, suddenly it's like, wow, there's like a million other ways that I could do this. You know, there's a million other ways or you know, infinite ways really, that I can have the kind of life that I want to have doing the things that I want to be doing. And maybe I'm just not seeing those because it's looked like this or that or nothing. So I don't know if that was helpful, Marie-Françoise, but let me know in the comments. Let me just take a quick look at my notes here. Oh, right, there was another question I wanted to— okay. So one of the people in the group, I couldn't find the comment again, but I remember the essence of what it was, was kind of questioning this idea of, you know, it actually being easy. That, you know, what if this money-making thing is actually easy? And one thing I wanted to say about that was that I'm sure that everybody watching this, whether you're on here live with me or you're watching the recording, that you can remember a time when you needed a certain amount of money for something and you were able to get it without much difficulty. I'm sure that you can all recall that. I can remember a time back in about 1991. So this was like way, way, way before I saw any of this stuff. I was at that time living on the poverty line and being very proud and not getting food stamps and things like that, even though I qualified for them. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was working part-time and I had— no, this was actually 1993. Sorry, 1993. I was working part-time and I decided to go back to school to get a master's degree. So I had taken out some student loans to help me live and cover the bills as well as the part-time job. I was a single mom at the time too. So I had lots going on. And I had a huge legal bill I was trying to pay off. And, and I also had incurred some medical expenses because I'd had a stint in the hospital, rather extended stint in the hospital because I had a really serious back problem. And so I had a couple of these bills that were just looming over me and The hospital bill was the more pressing one because I wasn't able to negotiate a good payoff plan with them. The lawyer was a little more understanding and they were taking payments, but the hospital was just being horrible about it. And I think I owed them about $4,000. And at the time, I think my, my total income from my job and the child support I was getting was like $1,400 a month. So it was not very much. That had to cover everything. And so I filled out my tax stuff, which was sort of silly because I didn't really make anything. So I filled it out anyway. And I was happily surprised by what was called then— I don't know if it's still called this— the Earned Income Tax Credit. And it was amazing because the check that I got reimbursing me from the government was almost to the penny the exact amount I needed to pay off the hospital bill. And I was just so like happy and surprised. And that was an example to me that I can look back on and go, you know, I didn't do anything to quote unquote earn that money. All I did was fill out a form and check a few boxes. And then that bill was taken care of for me. And so I'm sure, you know, if you thought about it, you could think of times when things like that have happened for you. And to me, that's all the evidence I need. I don't need— I just don't need any more than that to know that this does not have to be difficult at all. There have been plenty of times in my life where I have either come up with a way to earn the money myself in a way that's been pretty interesting and fast, or I've come up with some ingenious way of selling something in order to get the money I needed to pay for something. That's happened frequently. Or, you know, all kinds of things. So how many of you can relate to that? You know, you can hit an emoticon or tell me in the comments. If there has ever been a time where you really needed money for something and it came without you doing a whole lot to get it. So, you know, that's a pretty good indicator that this does not have to be, you know, this horrifically difficult experience that we all make it out to be. Yeah, I'm sure you can. I'm absolutely sure you can, Sarah, and others. And so the only thing that ever makes things look difficult, and I also, going back to Marie-Françoise's comment, the only thing, yeah, right, Karen, more than once. The things that make it look hard, the things that make it look exhausting, it's not anything out there. I don't really have a good way of saying this except to say that every single thing we experience comes from in here. There is nothing that out there that is making us experience anything. It's all coming from within here. So if we're feeling exhausted, we have the option to not look at that. If we're feeling like this is hard, we have the option to not look at that. It's all coming from in here. So it's not like, you know, somebody is waving something in my face and I have no option but to stare at it. I can just be like, yeah, I don't feel like looking at that today. So what else can I look at? What else is there for me? I'm tired of looking at these exhausted, tiring, difficult, this is hard thoughts. So what else is there? We do have that option. Sarah says, yeah, Doug can really touch you. Sarah says, my story up to now has been living hand to mouth. So, um, so is it possible, Sarah, for you to see that, that that is something that has looked real to you because you keep looking at it as real, that it actually doesn't reflect the reality of what you are and what you are capable of, but it has looked real because it's been in front of your face like this? And you've been staring at it for so long that it looks real. And that instead of, you know, instead of going, oh no, I don't have to look at that today, you just keep staring at it. And that's okay. We all do that about a lot of things. But we also have the option not to do that anymore. So let me know if that makes sense, Sarah. Danielle, not totally related, but similar. I paid it forward in the Starbucks line. Which totaled about $15. Next day, my hubby dropped me a $15 Starbucks gift card. That's funny. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's fun. Marie says, I've had similar experiences of things being taken care of easily. Yes, that's true. Overall, I've really never had any real money my whole life. I've been working since I was 16, living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. Okay, so Let me address that. So we, I think I wrote this in a comment in the group to somebody's statement where we can look back on our lives and say, well, that is evidence that this is true. That is evidence that I can't make money easily. You know, and in the post I said, well, I had 30 years of quote unquote evidence that I was mentally ill. I had 30 years of evidence that my life was horrible. I had 30 years of evidence that said I was never going to be happy. I had 30 years of evidence saying that because somebody chose to try to hurt me, that my life was a joke. You know, I had 30 years of evidence of all of that. But that didn't make it true. It looked true to me. It looked absolutely true, but that didn't mean that it actually was. You know, what we see as quote-unquote evidence will continue to look like evidence until we recognize the fact that it's made up. It's all made up. We are not obligated to ever look in that direction ever again. We can have a thought like that and just go, nah, not in the mood to listen to that today. What else is there? What else you got? I'd like something new, please. You know, we don't have to worry about having those thoughts. We don't have to be consumed with rewriting them or anything like that. That's a waste of time. As I've been saying, we do have the option to go, oh, right, I don't have to listen to that one. What else is there? So anything that looks like evidence for something, you're free to dismiss. It has no bearing on what you're capable of or what you can do or anything. So I don't know how else I can say that, but let me know if that didn't come through, Marie-Françoise. Um, Avrina, if any enough, I find it relatively easy to travel on a low budget. Finding ways to work for accommodation and board, but when it comes to making money, it looks like a different world. Well, isn't that interesting? Because you're utilizing the same thing. You're utilizing, for, you know, that same innate creativity when it comes to traveling that you could use to make it for making money. It's all the same resource. That was another thing we talked about pretty extensively on one of this, one of these calls, right? Is that If we see ourselves like Marie-Françoise, you're obviously very, very creative when it comes to performing and acting and writing and all of these things. That creative force is available to you when it comes to making money as well. There's no delineation within us in terms of creative powers. You know, it's not like, oh, Yeah, you're only creative here, but you're not creative over here. There's no such thing. It's across the board. So you can be creative in any way that you want, any way that you want. All you have to do is stop looking at the old story that keeps popping up. You know, you can, you know, as I kind of alluded to this earlier, I sometimes get kind of overwhelmed with appreciation for the fact that our thinking is so is so interesting that it can create these scenarios that make it look like we're lacking in some way. It's kind of like, wow, that is a really cool skill we have to make it look so real to us. That's pretty amazing. So you can, instead of judging yourself for that, you can stop and appreciate that fact about what it means to be human. And, you know, kind of laugh it off and sort of love yourself for that instead of being judgmental. I firmly believe that we can stop judging anything about ourselves, and that will also help us to access this creative power that we've got across the board. So, Sarah, yes, looks real but totally ready to change the picture, ready for new experiences. All you got to do is like ask, you know, that seems so strange to say, oh, can I ask for a new experience? Yeah, you can. You know, one of the things that I think I've mentioned this before is if I feel like I'm sort of caught in an old merry-go-round of thinking about something, I'll just say, you know, I would really like some new ideas about this. So what have you got for me? And I'll just wait and see what occurs. And one of my friends does this fun thing where she'll write down a question on a piece of paper, you know, I really like a new idea about whatever, you know, what do you think? And then whatever comes into her mind, she'll just write it down really fast. You know, before it disappears, she just writes it down. And you'd be amazed at, like I said, the incredible power we have to generate new ideas. They're just right there every time we need one. Every single time we need one, all we have to do is listen. And they're there. So let me go back up here. Hang on a second. Marie-Françoise. Don't the thoughts come back stronger when you dismiss them? I can do that for a short while, but then they come roaring back. I really appreciate you doing this. Oh, sure. I wonder if I don't have my own, it's not possible for me to see this. Oh, yeah, you asked this before, I think, Marie-Françoise, that whether I see something or not, It makes no difference because it doesn't matter. I mean, how can I put this? Whether we quote unquote see something doesn't mean it's not there. You know, just because I can't explain at all how gravity works doesn't mean that it isn't working. All the time. You know, just because I don't have an ability to understand right now with my current level of education, you know, how things in the universe operate in terms of, you know, all of the ways the planets— and I don't understand any of that— doesn't mean that it's not operational. This system that we're in is operational 24/7. Doesn't matter whether I see everything about it or not. You know, for example, during that 30-year-plus period where I was really seeing life as this kind of horrible joke that someone had played on me, I was still able to create a lot of stuff. I got two master's degrees. I got— I had some interesting jobs. I made money. I got remarried. I raised my daughter pretty successfully. I did a lot of things. So clearly the system was still working, even if I had no idea what was going on. It was still working on my behalf. It was still, you know, I was still accessing my innate creativity when I needed it. And it didn't matter that I didn't see what was going on. I will say that now that I do have a glimpse, tiniest, the tiniest glimpse of what's kind of going on behind the scenes, makes life a little bit easier. Because it's like once you see, you know, how the game is played, once you kind of know the rules of baseball, it's a lot easier to get a hit. You know, if I keep going up to the plate, not having any sense at all of how the game is played, occasionally things will sort of work. But it's a lot easier when you know the rules. So to me, Marie-Françoise, the fact that you're even here in this conversation means you understand everything that you need to understand. There's nothing you're not seeing at all. It's just kind of having the tiniest bit of awareness of the fact that if we're ever seeing something as like an either/or, or we're ever seeing a limit, that that's just false. And we don't have to go into a bad feeling. I kind of talked about this earlier where some of those feelings can seem very magnetic and like they're calling us into them and we have to go there. We don't have to go there. Like the Bob Newhart thing, we can just stop it. You know, one of my favorite lines in there is something where he, you know, the woman is saying, well, you know, my mother, blah, blah, blah, when I was growing up and he says, oh no, we don't go there. You know, that's exactly what I'm trying to do here. And say, if there's anything pulling you in a direction that doesn't feel light, that doesn't feel possible, that doesn't feel like it's filled with potential, you don't have to go there. You just don't have to go there. And if you do, oh well, so what? Doesn't matter. You can have all those feelings and stuff. It doesn't have anything to do with the underlying mechanism. That is always at work for you. So I don't know if that was helpful. And as to your question about, don't the thoughts come back stronger when you dismiss them? To me, they don't. It's kind of like a child, you know, if they're kind of misbehaving or behaving in a way that's not really all that great, you can kind of, you know, not pay attention to it and instead look towards their healthy side and assume that they're going to behave better and they kinda start to, that's sort of what I've noticed is that they don't come back stronger, it's just the opposite of that. Oh, thanks for the emojis. Sarah, since engaging in this challenge, tons of info has appeared to support me to write a group coaching offer. A salesperson gave me some free coaching, potential client contacted me last night. Boom, what you focus on expands. I'm gonna keep looking in a direction that's most fun. I actually really enjoy that idea of, excuse me, what we focus on expands. And I don't know that I would say it in quite that way. What I would say is, is that when we, when we stop focusing on the sometimes very powerful stories that seem very real, then we can see the expansiveness that's already here. And so, so maybe that is another way of saying this, that the blinders kind of fall away, you know, from, from our eyes, and we start to notice what's really in front of us all the time and what's around us all the time. And And we are, and I like what you said, Sarah, because you didn't necessarily have to do a lot of actions, quote unquote, for those things to occur. You probably did some, but it wasn't like you were on the phone last night calling 100 people saying, you know, do you want to work with me? You know, that's okay too. But there's so many things that we assume that we must do. You know, like I was saying earlier, we assume that we have to know the how of everything for something to occur. And that just has not been my experience at all. Most of the time, you know, I'll give you a very, very quick story. This is again way, way, way before I had any understanding here. You know, one of my goals when I was a single mom, I didn't know I was going to get remarried, but when my daughter was about 5. I divorced my first husband when she was 2. So when she was about 5 and was starting school, I said to myself, okay, you know, by the time she's 12, so I was giving myself like 7 years, by the time she's 12, I want to be doing work that allows me to be at home when she's done with school, because I figured from age 12 onward was super important to be available because that's when kids start to have trouble a lot of time. And I didn't have any idea how that was going to happen at the time. Like I said, I was, you know, living at the poverty line. I was, you know, a single mom trying to make ends meet and doing all this stuff and bettering myself and getting my education and everything. And I really didn't have a clue. But as things came to me during that time, I kept saying yes to them, you know. So eventually what occurred was I said yes to a few opportunities that seemed way outside my comfort zone. And I mean, like, far outside my comfort zone. And I ended up being able to teach university classes online. So I was still teaching some in person at that time when she turned 12. I was, but they, I asked for morning classes so I could be home in the afternoon. And then any other work that I was doing online, I could just do whenever. And so that just came from me being sort of open and going, yeah, I don't know how this is going to happen. I haven't the slightest idea, but I'm just gonna see what occurs and say yes to a lot of stuff, even if it seems like way out there. So I think that that's part of it too, is being willing to say yes to something, even if you have no idea how that fits into anything, you might be surprised that it does. Or it's a step in a direction that you may not have ever thought about because how could we ever know the how-to? How could we ever know that? So let me know if that's helpful to you. Verena, so could we perhaps see making money doing fun stuff like a skill in itself that we can get better at? Oh, for sure. Absolutely, for sure. You know, um, I think that the whole, how can I say this? I think we have a tendency to put this whole topic of making money into a little box. Like somehow it looks special, if you will. It looks like the exception. It looks like the thing that is like, that requires something unique from us. And as far as I can tell, it's, it's not true. It's simply another form of expression of being human. And we can apply our creative skills to it. And we can have fun with it, just like I'm I'm going to be continuing knitting a sweater tonight. You know, it can be the same. This, it's the exact same thing. There's no, there's no need for us to look at it the way that we have tended to look at it. It's, it's simply another piece of human expression. So yeah, absolutely. We can look at it that way. And I think it's a fun thing. To look at because of the fact that you can sort of look at the product of it like I can with my sweater. I can say, okay, so is this sweater fitting me properly? If it's not, you know, what can I do to adjust it? It's the same with money. Hmm, you know, I'd really like to make more of it. What could I do? Like, what skill could I develop maybe that I haven't? You know, what's something new that I could try that might bring more? To me, or what could I do to bring more money that's kind of less time? You know, what can I do? And kind of make it into the game that it already is, this game that we're playing. So I don't know if that answers your comment, Verena, let me know. Oh, Susanna, I'm glad you're making money doing fun stuff, that's cool. Danielle, can you say more about outside of comfort zone versus following your joy? Seems it would be the opposite, but they must somehow be the same if you decided to go for it. So in my case, like, it was, it was one of those moments. I remember the first thing that came to me was, I might have told this story before, that one of my colleagues at the university, we were both teaching writing at this university, and she was in a car accident, and she had been teaching classes online and couldn't type. Because she had injured her hands in the accident. And so she's like, I really need somebody to take over these online classes for me because I can't do this while I'm recovering. It's just too hard. And I had no idea what an online class was. Never seen one before. This was early. This was probably like, what year would that have been? 1996 or '97. I don't know. So it was not very early in this whole online teaching thing. And I didn't know what it was. I had no idea what was involved. And I said, okay, yeah, I'll do that. And I remember having this thought of, what am I doing? I have no idea if I could do this. I don't even know what it is. So I hope I can figure this out, you know, kind of thing. But at the same time, it was sort of exciting. It was like, wow, this, this could be interesting. You know, maybe I'll actually like it. You know, and kind of going back to what we were talking about yesterday, like, what if this is actually easy? When something new is presented to us, we have no idea if we're going to be good at it. It's going to be fun if it's going to be something we like. You know, we don't know until we actually try. Right. So I don't necessarily reject things like that out of hand anymore, especially if it's an idea that's come from within me. You know, that sounds really out there. It's like, how do I know I'm not good at that if I've never tried it before? Let's just try it and see. You never know what's going to happen. So I don't know if that helps, Daniel. Okay, good, Verena. Thanks. Let me get a sip of water really quick. And let me just jump back to my notes because I know we're getting close to the top of the hour. Looks like we've covered most of the stuff that I had. Yeah, I think so. So I guess I'll just leave it here and see if anybody else has any comments or, or thoughts before we wrap this up. And I'll just reiterate that the program Let's Make Money, Hope Honey opens for registration tomorrow at about 5 PM Paris time. If you are on the challenge email list, I have sent out these special codes for you for your preferred pricing. I hope that you got those. Those are just for you guys. I also gave them to the people who are on my book launch team because they're an awesome group too. There was a question that Claire McDonald asked. Oh, do you mean in the group? Oh yes. I actually do remember that, so let me address that. So Claire had asked about needing some direction about the fact that we are everything we need and that she wanted to know how to actually feel that truth. So let me just address that, and I will address Kathy. I'll do that too. So is that the question you're referring to, Marie-Françoise, that she wanted to be able to feel the truth of this fact that she was everything that she needed? And so the best way I think for me to address that, and I think I can do it fairly quickly, is to say that— and I hope this doesn't skirt the question, but it's one of the ways that I feel I can answer it. Okay, good, Marie-Françoise. Whether I know that or not, whether I feel that or not is irrelevant. Because, you know, whether— this kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier— whether I have any understanding of how I am working as a human being, whether I have any understanding of how this computer works. Whether I have any understanding of how electricity works actually makes no difference. It's still working. It's still working. And if you want to, to feel that working, if you want to feel the system a bit more. It seems to me that there's only one way to do that. And that's to simply recognize that anything you see in your life that shows you a limitation is false. And you're not obligated to follow it. You know, that was really the piece that had been missing for me for such a long time. Because every time I experienced, you know, in my case, it could be anything. In my case, it was post-traumatic stress disorder, quote unquote. Anytime I experienced that, I felt I was obligated to listen because it looked real to me. It looked like truth to me. It looked like my natural state was one of anxiety and stress and sadness and, you know, despair and horrible things like that. That looked like it was my natural state. When I kind of even caught a glimpse of the fact that that wasn't true, that's when things started changing. Even though I still felt like crap a lot of the time, I admit that, and I still have days where I feel crappy. It doesn't matter to me anymore. And whether or not I ever saw that, still made no— makes no difference. It doesn't have any impact on the truth. Whether we see anything about this or not makes no difference. The truth is still the truth. And if we want to feel it more, it seems like I said that the only thing that's necessary is recognizing that anything we see that looks limiting is false. And it's really that simple. And that's why I'm kind of grateful for moments when something looks limiting, or something looks stressful, or something looks like we were saying, like an either/or, because it's kind of like, oh, hey, there's a good wake-up for me. You know, if I feel worked up, I'm grateful for that because it's like, okay, right, I'm making that up. You know, I may feel horrible for a day or two or an hour or whatever, but I'm making that up. So I can address that a bit more. I'm going to do one more of these calls as a bonus for you guys tomorrow, and I can talk about it a bit more. But whatever we feel or don't feel is simply a result of whatever thoughts we have going on. It doesn't change the fact of anything. So I don't know if that helps, but we'll see. Oh, you're very welcome, Karen. Anything limiting is false. Correct. How could there ever be a limit on you and me? How could there ever be? I mean, do we really think that we are contained in our thinking? I mean, we can know that that's false because we can watch our thinking. So, you know, as Eckhart Tolle talks about, you know, if we can watch our thinking, then we are not our thinking. I mean, that just seems obvious, right? Like if you can watch something, you're not that thing. So that's a pretty good clue right there. Oh, you're very welcome. If something else comes up, you know, ask me. The term obligation is an interesting one. I'm infinitely creative but feel the opposite 99% of the time. So sit with the point of view that you don't have to feel it, that anything limiting is false. Yeah, and if you do feel it, this was the other piece that I was going to say was when I started to kind of get that all the anxiety and stuff that I had wasn't an indicator of me. That it was simply thinking I was having, then the fact that I felt anxious started to look like, okay, so what? So now most of the time, if I'm in kind of a state that isn't very fun, I'm more likely to say, oh, well, so what? You know, it's not a problem. You know, even if I feel a certain way 99% of the time, it's not indicating anything true. So there's no real issue with that. So I don't know if that's helpful, but I can come back to it if you'd like on tomorrow's call. Um, so let me answer, uh, Kathy's question. Um, please review how the program works. So the program is really cool, I think, if I do say so myself, because it includes a 4-week online program that you can go through at your leisure. Each week has several videos of me talking, and it kind of walks you through a lot of the topics that we've been covering in here, and each week has a little exercise that you can do. And then on top of that, I facilitate a Facebook group, and I'm committing to doing that for at least another year. And so every month— we just started this in November— every month we have a theme. This month's theme in there has been do more of what you want and less of what you don't and see what happens. And so every month I have two Facebook Lives and they're very much like this where I will talk about something related to the theme for the month or something in one of the lessons that someone's brought up. And then we'll have a Q&A and then I put that recording inside the course so you have access to it very easily. So basically you have access to everything all the time. And I've designed it so you can, uh, pay for a year and have access to it for a whole year, uh, for a low price, um, of $247 with your challenge discount. Or if you'd rather just pay monthly, I have it now set up so you can do that. So if you take advantage of the challenge group discount, your first month is $19, and then it's $29 a month after that. So you have the option of doing whichever you're more comfortable with and just seeing if it's right for you. And for the full price one, there is a 15-day guarantee. So if you kind of look at it and after, and you know, before 15 days, you're like, ah, this really isn't for me, just let me know and you can get a refund. If you do the monthly, then you can just stop the monthly payment and not continue. So I wouldn't want anyone to be in there who didn't find that it was beneficial to them. That's why I've got that included. So let me know if you have any other questions about that. I'm happy to answer. And yes, Kathy, you're together for a whole year with me because— and this has really become clear to me since I've been teaching this class now for since the summer— that it's really nice to have this space to explore this over time because we can sort of get incremental shifts that happen. But I've seen that over time, and some of the people in this challenge group are actually in the course, like Ellie is one, you know, sometimes there have been huge shifts that have taken place over several weeks or several months. And it's just really, really exciting to see that in other people and in yourself. And so that's why I really want to offer a ton of support for you because I know, you know, in the scheme of things that this topic can look very big and and can look, you know, somewhat hard to conquer, if you will. And I really want to be available to you for as long as I possibly can and be a support to you as you experience it in a different way. As consistency is more important than intensity. Oh, that's a great point. I agree with that. You know, I had originally conceived this as sort of a shorter course And then I just realized, you know, I feel like just continuing to look at money as an example that is really tangible is very, very helpful to me and to the people in the program because it's such a big part of our lives and it's such a fun place to see changes happen because they are sort of material and kind of right in front of us. It's been really exciting from that perspective. All right, so any other questions before we close out this call? Thanks again for putting up with the raspy, sick Mary voice. Hopefully tomorrow I will have more of a voice for our final Facebook Live. And on tomorrow's, I will again reserve a whole bunch of time for Q&A. And I'm gonna go back once again through some of the comments and see if there's something that I missed that I would really like to address. So anybody else? Aw, thank you, Doug. Appreciate that. And love back to all of you. I really appreciated your attendance on these and your participation and most of all for your honesty and your willingness to kind of put yourself out there visibly saying the things that are on your mind and questioning things. Oh, you're welcome, Marie-Françoise. Questioning me and kind of really asking pointed questions because that's what I really want to answer are the pointed questions that are really on your mind. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. All right. Well, I guess that's all for today. I hope that wherever you are in the world, you have a wonderful day and evening ahead of you. I am going to have some carrot and ginger soup for dinner. Supposedly the ginger is supposed to help. My husband went and bought me a ginger shot kind of juice thing, and I couldn't even come close to drinking it straight. So he went and got me some other juice to mix it with, so hopefully that will do something to knock this cold out of here and I'll be better tomorrow. All right, I'm going to sign off then. Thank you so much, and please don't hesitate to post more comments if you are watching on the replay. I am happy to answer. All right, I will talk to you again very soon. Bye for now.