Even as someone who’s not Black, I find this to be a very inspiring book. If many people get to the top with the handicap of foolish ideas, and many others get to the top with the handicap of unearned racial and sometimes gender barriers, and yet they succeed in gaining what they desire, then I too, with whatever I think holds me back, can lead an extraordinary life. It’s permission to want things, basically, to want more life, and not always to “accept” that “there’s nothing you can do”. It’s permission to dream again. Whatever you desire, act on, and persevere in, you can have—a beautiful life, wonderful things to own or see, anything. It’s the emergence of hope.

…. I’m not going to tell you what to take away from the book because if I read a chapter and get one thing (eg set goals, —and be specific—), you might need some other thing he said. But I will say it’s just as good as the ‘original’ book, you know.

…. And the theme of faith/persistence, you know. It’s not that you start to believe and then right there your goals are fulfilled; there’s always a gap in time. Like I’m also reading The Attractor Factor and he has I think a whole chapter of the people talking about the changes or results that happened for them after they read the book; it’s a matter of getting that belief, to persist, that is almost the most valuable thing, because I’ve heard affirmations before you know; it’s not like it’s new. It’s just easy to think ‘Well it doesn’t do this or that’, or ‘But here I am still’, you know. I once was on an hour webinar about a romance books publishing opportunity, and I think the first twenty minutes were all belief; this one made it; that one made it—and looking back, that was the most valuable part for me, really, because I didn’t have a nice dollop of cash to invest, but I know that when the investor is ready, the opportunity appears, you know.

…. “There’s a gestation period for your dreams….” Jen Mazer

…. To see failure as a teacher, rather than as defeat….

Really anybody could benefit from this book, although it is fun to hear about the famous Black people, you know. I do know some of them.

…. “I thought (wealth) was only true in fairy tales/Meant for someone else, but not for me….”

They were kinda an intentionally stupid band, but music is music, you know. You think the good people are so bad; you think the good people are so good; but who thinks that they can become ‘better and better’, so to speak?

…. The Carnegie Secret/Nappy Hill books are kinda alternative prosperity, but just by virtue of being ~just~ on the other side of the fence, right: not that either side has to be bad, or anything….

But yeah: I hate to compare a paleface to a child whose face is like dark, rich, loamy soil that gives us life, you know: but I do kinda get what Joe Vitale means, now, when he says that that setting goals can be…. I mean, can you imagine setting ~exact~ goals for income and position, in like ten million exactly mechanical steps, for years and years, and for years and years into the future? I mean, goals ARE good: but it’s just as much about changing goals and the whole not-knowing of the ~journey~ right. Consider the direction you’re traveling in, but don’t set an upper limit to your success…. It is true that the average person has no goals in the negative sense: crippled by depression or antagonism; working and flailing about while secretly, subconsciously determined to get nothing: or else perhaps trying to get something for nothing, of course…. But I don’t know: am I supposed to be impressed by some Jeff Bezos type of business leader, with his rigid, albeit “successful” ideas of what the workplace should be? And again: it’s always inspiring to hear of people whose family line has taken them from the cargo hold to the C-suite, right…. But I mean, in one sense there certainly are people who have a great deal of wealth, having created enough value that they don’t realistically need to have the same fears that some of us might have in nervous moments. But really, the more I learn about money, and the more I get of sense of just how much I have NOT learned, and do NOT know—oh, and the rigid ideas and “knowledge” about finances that broke people have, right!—the more I start to wonder if our ~wonderful “business leaders” and all the rest of them have scarcely gone much farther than me, you know: it could be that there is far more that they do not know, than what they do know….

(shrugs) You know. To get weird on you.

…. But yeah, it’s not a bad book; I like being reminded of the good things—you learn more each time—even stated in the most basic, prosaic way…. Most people never get this far; most people are miserable. Although of course, the day you start to picture it in your mind, is not when it gets pictured outside in the world…. It’s funny, though, because some people even when they picture something and they get it, if they don’t have the information, they don’t REALLY GET that they can free: it’s just a half-understood or instinctual custom, or something….

And yeah: it would have been cool if there had been like the Lord of the Rings, only Black people got to be the Dwarves, and they did a Philadelphia soul number about hustling gold out of the Misty Mountains cold, which segued into Gandalf musing, You are surrounded by dangers, Gimli son of Gangster. You yourself are dangerous….

…. But yeah: I feel like the difference between a rich person who is happy and free and someone who has the knack for manifesting this high-rent lifestyle that drives them nuts—or at least leaves them bored—is not at all unlike the difference between religion and superstition, if we properly understand that latter term, instead of using it as a vague catch-all put-down for everything we don’t like, right. “A serviceable villain…. Sit you down, father! Rest you!”

And yes: you can also spend basically your entire productive life, thirty years or even more, picturing something in your mind, before you reach the utmost success, right…. You don’t want to assume: but you don’t want to be surprised….

There are many paradoxes about money, far more than we know, even aside from when people are actively crooked, which does of course happen sometimes….

…. I think that focusing on what you can control, rather than over which you have no power, isn’t really a call for capitulation to malign political forces, as the majority of journalists probably assume. It might very well be that your political activities are one of the things in your life you have a good amount of influence in, whereas perhaps at that same point, your personal relationships are outside your control—after all, you can never really force anybody to do anything, ever, really. But to just bash your head against the wall of steel resistance—to try to shame those who hate you and have no regard for you, and who will only hate you more for it: I mean, that’s journalism, maybe, if also perhaps a little repetitive, but it’s not even responsible, really, let alone fucking effective, you know?

…. And you know, I used to feel so annoyed by people who criticize capitalism in the sense that we should all just get used to being poor and hairy and anything else is raping the children, right: because the best businesses and the magazine stories are so great, and the socialist economic tomes and the living chess brain people are such bullshit…. But yeah, I kinda get it now, because the average manager at the average store has poverty consciousness, just in a slightly attenuated form: so everything is usually like: poverty consciousness (undiluted, pure form) being guided by poverty consciousness (diluted, attenuated form): and that’s why people are like: remember that time when Zombie Lenin and T-Rex teamed up and ate the rich people? Man, that was a great movie!…. It got terrible reviews, but you know what: the guy who played the T-Rex is a Real Man, and don’t let anybody tell you that….

I get it. Sometimes the system is bullshit. I don’t want to look at that and thrash pointlessly, but if you do—it’s your life….

…. Aside from racism, so much of the Black experience is applicable to people of all races: but yeah, as “good” as you’d think you were being, you shouldn’t be blindly loyal for loyalty’s sake, like the system has to have my support “so that things can be right”, no matter what happens to me: it’s like, that’s delusional religion, right; the system is supposed to be here for you, too—the other way isn’t even how things are “supposed” to be, right…. And yes: as ~bad~ as the system can be, it won’t give you something for nothing, and if you reject it unconditionally and try to punish it so it dies or whatever as a preliminary step for whatever else, you’ll make the average/neurotic to psychotic people punish you more than they were going to already, and hinder the less neurotic people from helping/nurturing you…. And there are many levels and types of error in the system, but something has to die that so that you can have your lunch, even if it’s say the tree that used to grow where the farm now stands—and in most people’s lunches, there’s obviously an animal death thrown in for good measure. There’d be no end of documenting the insanity of both average people and even people in leadership towards vulnerable populations, but that doesn’t mean that a ~natural~ system would involve people simply stinking and assuming that they “deserve”—or for that matter, “don’t deserve”—to “live the dream”, or that people who accomplish are necessarily enemies of the Good, you know. (shrugs)