For He Shall Not Be Disappointed.

When was the last time you gave any serious thought to your priorities, and where you expend your energy? Can you say with certainty that you are completely focused on ‘abundance’ and not on ‘lack’?

I don’t think people are born with an abundance mentality or a lack mentality. I think for many of us our priorities are the result of subtle, subconscious ‘programming’ that determines our approach to just about everything in life. Instead of being programmed for success, most people are programmed to avoid failure.

This programming controls how you react to hundreds of situations, each and every day. And the way you react reveals what your programming really is.There are many different warning signs all around us that we are suffering from lack programming or a poverty mentality, but none of these red flags will be of any use until we open our eyes and start looking for them.Like posted traffic signs and speed limits, these warning signs are there for our benefit, helping us raise awareness of our programming. Three of the most common warning signs I see are the following:

Warning sign #1: Constant Money Fixation What do you think about money? When you do think about it, are you concerned about how much of it you lack, or how much you can manifest? Have you ever thought about why you want to manifest money in the first place?

Most poor people spend all their time thinking about money (or more specifically, their lack of it). 

Warning sign #2: "I Hate Rich People!" Being jealous of all the things other people had That’s when the real problems start, because as much as you hate rich people, you  are working hard every day trying to become one! That sets the stage for a whole bunch of internal conflict. 

Warning sign #3: Fear-Based Decision-Making Making decisions based on fear of loss or failure never leads toward prosperity.In fact, fear-based decision-making can rob you of any sense of happiness or joy of success, and distort your behavior.

Have you ever seen someone experience more anguish at losing $10 than earning $100? Ever seen someone drive around a parking lot for 10 minutes to avoid a one-minute walk to the store?

These scenarios are fear-based, not prosperity driven. The decisions are not made on what the possible benefits are, but made in order to avoid a possible negative outcome.

How do you know what kind of programming you have? If you really want to know if you have prosperity programming or a poverty mentality, look for your answer in the previous scenarios. Do they sound familiar?

If you make decisions--particularly money and career ones--based on the "moving away from fear" model, you’ve got poverty programming. If your decisions are made based on a positive "move toward prosperity" model, then you have success programming.

The more you experience success and prosperity, the more you’ll start to realize how little they have to do with opportunity, chance, luck--or even training, education, or skill. It has everything to do with consciousness, beliefs, and even subconscious programming that you aren’t aware of.

You see, poverty is not an absence of money and things -- it is a mindset.

Prosperity is not an abundance of money and things--it’s also a mindset.

Things We Used To Do

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”

25 Signs You Have Grown Up ... ... Old!

1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.

2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.

3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.

4. 6:00 a.m is when you get up, not when you go to bed.

5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.

6. You watch the Weather Channel.

7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook up and breakup.

8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.

9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as dressed up.

10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.

11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.

12. You don’t know what time Wendy’s closes anymore.

13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.

14. You feed your dog Science Diets… Instead of McDonald’s leftovers.

15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

16. You take naps.

17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.

18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at three in the morning would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.

19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.

20. A four dollar bottle of wine is no longer pretty good shit.

21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.

22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again”

23. Ninety percent of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.

24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking , ”Oh shit what the hell happened??”

Bonus:

26: You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that it doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old ass.

American Pimp .... A Hughes Brothers Production

I've always had a guilty curiosity about the life of a pimp. Of course, we have those "pimp stereotypes" in films like "The Mack" and "Willie Dynamite." But do we really, really know ALL about this lucrative, though immoral, profession? Thanks to the Hughes Brothers, now we do.

First of all, this well-made documentary doesn't glorify the life of street pimps. I'm sure a lot of you out there (especially women) will take one look at a film like this, and say to yourself, "Why the hell do I want to watch a movie about greedy, heartless, misogynistic 'mack daddies' who make a living at degrading women for their own financial pleasure?" The Hughes Brothers don't try to take sides. In fact, the film opens with a montage of opinions (mostly negative) from everyday people about these pimps. Whether you condone the industry or condemn it, that's not the issue.

Allen and Albert Hughes do a wonderful job at intercutting the views and "days in the lives" of real pimps with clips from seventies blaxploitation flicks and topping it off with a vivid soundtrack filled with classic soul music. The film starts out by showing the more luxurious, darkly comic side of pimping. It's interesting to learn what real pimps really have to say. Of course, their vocabularies practically consist of three words: "ni**a," "motherf**ker" and "b**ch." But hey, that's how they talk. Am I going to blame the Hughes Brothers for writing an excessively profane script? They didn't write a script! This is how these pimps really talk!

As the film goes on, we learn the more serious side of pimping. We learn the pimping REALLY ain't easy. But at the same time, they're not completely heartless. When one of their "hos" die or get sucked into drug addiction, they can't go on with their lives like nothing happened. And it's interesting to see how different pimps took different paths. Some decided to quit the business and concentrate on raising their families, some ended up in the penitentiary and some (believe it or not) found religion. But some still feel that pimping is the way to go, and though it's immoral, they don't necessarily think it's wrong. We even get a brief introduction into the lives of "legal pimps." You know, those clean-cut white guys with the fancy whorehouses with quality hookers who will do anything they please for a large sum of money.

Expect to see gratuitous close-ups of female rear ends. At times, you feel as if you're watching a 2 Live Crew video. This is another film that I can consider a feminist's nightmare. Nevertheless, it's wonderfully done, eye-catching, compelling, funny and sometimes heartfelt. The Hughes meant to explore the subject without patronizing it. And I found it quite fascinating. If there happened to be a filmmaker who explored the world of pimping before these guys, then let me know. Until then, I give Allen and Albert two thumbs up for taking on daring subject matter involving an underworld of people often overlooked--or broadly portrayed--by the average filmmaker.