Forget the Economy... Your Thoughts Really Create Your Business Reality

By Debbie Bermont

Throughout history people have built wildly successful businesses around the world starting with no money and no formal business education. If you were to study these people you would find they have one very important thing in common. They believed in their own success and ability to attract money into their life.

My grandfather was an example of an entrepreneur who overcame great financial hardship to achieve wealth in his lifetime. He had immigrated to the United States when he was eight years old from Russia in 1913 with his family. By the time he was eleven he left school to start his own business so he could help support his poor family. He never returned to a formal education and spent the rest of his life building a multi-million dollar empire of several businesses starting with no money. He built extremely successful businesses during World War One, World War Two, during times of economic growth, and during economic depression.

Although he started out with empty pockets, in his mind he considered himself to be rich. Despite being a poor Russian immigrant and having only a fifth grade education, my grandfather practiced how to be rich from the time he was very young. He focused on what he was going to get, not what he didn’t have.

My grandfather focused on an internal state of prosperity consciousness. He didn’t pay attention to what the economy was doing. He was always looking for opportunities. And he found them...everywhere! He never focused on lack. He focused on prosperity.

If you focus your thoughts on lack in any area of your business you will have a problem before you ever begin to spend a dime on marketing. Your thoughts about money have a direct affect on the growth of your business. That is why the first step to achieving business success is to create an internal focus of prosperity consciousness before you externally focus on how to develop new business.

Your thoughts are governed by the universal law of energy – what you focus on becomes your reality. In other words, your thoughts about the success of your business are a form of energy. As soon as these thoughts turn into a feeling you will have some sort of physical experience in your body, which either constricts or expands the energy flow to your business. You can either focus on expansion in your business, which is “prosperity consciousness” or constriction in your business, which is “lack consciousness.”

Successful people approach their business with an internal prosperity consciousness, which opens up the energy flow to their business. When you internally focus on prosperity consciousness your thoughts are concentrated on what you have now and what you can get including more customers, more referral sources, more sales, new products, and new markets. When you internally focus on lack consciousness your thoughts are always focused on what you don’t have, which constricts the energy flow to your business. And you end up with more of what you didn’t want – a lack of business.

Let’s first explore what happens to the energy flow to your business when you have thoughts of lack. Here are examples of thoughts, which illustrate lack consciousness:

1. I don’t have enough money to pay my business bills or payroll.
   
2. My business sales are not increasing fast enough.
   
3. I don’t have enough customers.
   
4. My competitors are stealing my market share.
   
5. I’m worried that my business will go bankrupt.
   
6. I need a larger budget to market my business.
   
7. I don’t have the business skills to make my business successful.
   
8. I’m afraid my business sales will decline if the economy takes a downturn.
   
9. I will never be successful in growing my business.
   
10. There is not enough business for me and my competitors.
    

Every time you have a thought about an area of lack in your business it is accompanied by a feeling. The feeling can be fear, stress, struggle, or anxiety. These are typically the emotions most people experience when they are worried about their financial situation. These emotions constrict your energy and prevent you from attracting into your life the very things you desire and don’t have right now.

Even if the economy was flourishing you would still experience lackluster sales if you constrict the energy flow to your business with thoughts of lack regarding any area of your business. This is why it’s essential to open up the energy flow to your business by developing an internal prosperity consciousness. When the flow of energy is open you are ready to receive the explosive sales you want.

Here are examples of thoughts, which illustrate prosperity consciousness:

1. I have enough money in my life right now and it keeps increasing.
   
2. There is plenty of business for my company and my competition.
   
3. I know that I can easily reach my sales goals.
   
4. I am confident that my sales will increase 50% this year.
   
5. My business has incredible growth potential.
   
6. Every time I need help with an area in my business the solution shows up.
   
7. I surround myself with people who support the growth of my company.
   
8. My bills are always paid on time.
   
9. My company’s profitability keeps increasing.
   
10. My referral sources and existing customers are happy to refer more business to my company.
    

When you read the above statements you’ll notice that they acknowledge the prosperity that is now present in the form of sales, customers, or opportunities and also for the prosperity that is coming in the future.

Let’s take a look at the energy flow to your business from a different perspective. The balance in your bank account and the bills you owe are a finite number right now. Even if your expenses increased they would still represent a finite number.

Imagine taking all the bills you owe right now and placing them in a box on a table and then sealing the box shut. That box is a confined space, but around the box is an unlimited supply of air. This box represents a very small space in a world full of opportunities. The space around the box represents the unlimited opportunities available to you where the energy flows freely.

You choose where your energy will go. When you focus on what you don’t have...you will always be faced with constriction and shoving yourself in that little box. There is no space to get out and expand.

On the other hand when you focus on what could be possible represented by the air around the box, your mind starts looking for ways to expand your business, to find solutions, to make connections. That’s when miracles happen such as your sales start increasing rapidly, you create a new product or service or an important business partnership comes your way. Prosperity will always flow in your direction if you allow it.

The principles of energy flow expansion and constriction are the same for every human being on this planet. It has nothing to do with your social or economic status, or your race or religion, or your education level. As long as you are a thinking human being that has choice you can decide where you want your focus to be. You can focus on the limited, finite space of lack and struggle, or you can choose the infinite space of unlimited opportunities and increasing wealth.

The next time you pick up the paper and read an article about a declining economy or lackluster sales, remind yourself that if you choose to focus on a world of limitations and lack you too will experience the same results in your company. Or, you can follow the example of my grandfather and choose to focus on what is possible and you’ll open up the energy flow for an unlimited amount of business to come your way.

Debbie Bermont is president of Source Communications, a marketing consulting firm. Debbie is a leading expert on helping businesses reduce their marketing costs and accelerating their sales growth. For more information go to www.outrageousbusinessgrowth.com or call (619) 291-6951. Published in Networking Today, March 2005.