INTRODUCTION

What Do You Expect?

by Dr. Joe Vitale

When the first edition of this book came out, I was interviewed on a talk show where the host asked, Joe, with the economy in the tank and sinking, what are we to do?

How do you know it’s sinking? I asked. Where did you hear about it?

He seemed surprised by my questions. But I didn’t give him a chance to reply. I went on saying—

The only reason you think it’s terrible out there is because you are being programmed to think so by the mainstream media.

The host stared at me as I went on my soapbox and continued—

The media is trained to find bad news and broadcast it to you. The more they do it and you believe it, the worst the world looks. It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You live from the new paradigm of scarcity, and the media doing its job, broadcasts it. You don’t even see it happening. It feels real. You take it as reality.

At that point I could have told the true story of how ABC News came to my home—twice—and interviewed me for several hours. They even filmed an entire evening with me and celebrity fitness model Jennifer Nicole Lee during one of my Rolls-Royce Mastermind evenings. Six months later all that footage was edited down to barely three minutes of highly distorted news. The same news station that broadcast a slimy angle about my work also broadcast commercials for drugs with known side effects, such as death.

That’s mainstream news.

You might call it the Scarcity Network.

The Scarcity Network typically airs facts in negative terms and slants. For example, a reader sent me the following—

Joe, just a further example for you of negative news. The USA originally thought that we lost 131,000 jobs in July, it is actually 77K jobs better and it is still packaged as bad news. Then, some people feel that their job prospects are better so they decide to enter the labor force and we show an uptick in unemployment. Wouldn’t a headline of ‘US retains 77,000 more jobs than originally thought while more workers choose to enter the labor force’ be a better headline?

Yes, it would be a better headline. But the Scarcity Network won’t broadcast that. It’s not the programming they want you to have in your head. They don’t want you to Expect Miracles. They need you to live in fear. They need you controlled. They’re not doing this out of any intentional conspiracy, but because they were programmed, too. This is their paradigm. This is their mindset.

But I didn’t relate either of the above to my interviewer. Instead, I turned direction and said—

"But what if there was a different channel to watch or listen to? What if there was an Abundance Network and all it broadcast were inspiring stories of people succeeding, accomplishing, attracting and achieving? What if they spun everything in a good way?"

I continued with—

"We all know that there are people doing well in the world right now. If this alternative media broadcast their positive news, and that’s all you watched, you would soon be programmed to see the world as an abundant place. You would then create a self-fulfilling prophecy of abundance. You would then see abundance. You would then see opportunities. You would live in a world of miracles. That would then feel real. In fact, expecting miracles would be your natural and normal way of life."

At that point I could have related the true story of the man who gave out credit cards to a handful of homeless people as a test to see what they would do with them. In every case, the homeless person used the card as they said they would, didn’t misuse it to buy drugs or alcohol, and even returned the card when done.

The Abundance Network would report this story to show the hope and responsibility in the destitute; the Scarcity Network would run a similar test but air what didn’t work, even if they had to make it up, or they would complain that the cards had low limits, etc. They would find a weakness in an otherwise inspiring story. But they would focus on the weakness, not to correct it but to communicate the unspoken programming, See, told you homeless people were unreliable and it’s hopeless to try to help them!

Back to my interview.

My host barely had time to stutter before I kept going with—

Look. Both types of worlds exist right now—the lousy economy one as well as the abundant economy one. I’m not denying that. But it’s like an optical illusion. Depending on how you look, the image is either an old woman, or a young woman. Reality itself is neutral. The question is, which view are you going to let program you? Which do you want to live in? Do you want misery or miracles?

I’m not aware of an Abundance Network yet. But until something like it exists, what are you to do?

Here’s my suggestion—

Reprogram your mind.

Take charge of it.

Feed it the positive and you’ll see and then attract the positive.

You’ll tune in to the Abundance Network in your own mind. You’ll have a paradigm shift (a shift of your view of the world) and you’ll see abundance where you didn’t before. It’s basic Law of Attraction at work: you attract what you expect and believe. Just change the channel in your mind.

And then you can thumb your nose at the doomsayers out there.

You can become immune to them.

You can see reality as the grand optical illusion and choose which view of it best suits you.

How can you do this?

The best way is by reading books that program your mind for success. As long as you let the doom and gloom media program you, you will have a hard time attracting miracles. The thing is, you have a choice: you can expect miracles or you can expect problems.

The key is in one word: FAITH.

Do you have faith things will be better or do you have faith things will be worse?

Do you have faith in fear or faith in miracles?

You get to choose. It’s part of your free will. You can choose the positive or the negative. You can choose miracles or misery.

Remember, what you choose directs what you see. What you see helps determine what you do. And what you do helps determine what you attract.

There are people doing wonderfully well despite what the media says. How is that possible? Because they are looking at the glass as half full, not half empty.

I asked a real estate broker how come she was doing so well in today’s market when other realtors seemed to be struggling. She thought for a minute and said, I don’t watch the news.

I love that answer. She turned off the negative programming.

What station will you choose—the Scarcity Network or the Abundance Network?

It’s your move.

And your mind.

Choose wisely.

For me, I say, Expect Miracles.

But what if you don’t think you can make the shift to having faith in miracles?

A friend listened to an interview I did where I was asked questions about marketing for musicians. Since I’ve been a marketer and I’m now a musician, it was easy for me to do. During it I plugged my music support team, from Sarah Marie and Mathew Dixon to Guy Monroe and Daniel Barrett. I also plugged my favorite singer, Michelle Malone, and talked about songwriters I love, such as Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty. And usually every time I mentioned someone, I gave out their website.

After it, my friend said, You’re a natural promoter.

I smiled.

For the first few decades of my life, I had no idea what promotion was. I had to learn it. And then I had to make it second nature to me. So today it appears I’m a natural promoter.

But am I?

When I was in college in the early 1970s, broke and unhappy, a friend of mine said You’re naturally pessimistic.

Today people often comment, Joe, you’re naturally optimistic.

Well, which is it?

Am I naturally pessimistic or naturally optimistic?

What about you?

What are you naturally good at?

You have a tendency to lean one way or another in behavior right now based on your past habits. But you can also retrain yourself to lean in another direction with new habits.

•  If you’re not happy, you can train yourself to be happy.

•  If you’re not a promoter, you can train yourself to be a promoter.

•  If you’re not skilled at a talent, you can train yourself to be skilled at it.

•  If you don’t yet see miracles around you, you can train yourself to see them now.

With enough training, people will look at you and say, You’re naturally good at that.

But we’ll both know the secret.

The secret to being naturally good at anything is focused practice.

Lots of it. I’m practicing the guitar every day. I’m writing songs almost daily. I’m reading books on singing, songwriting, and performing. I’m taking lessons. I’ve got a support team. My first music CD, Blue Healer, is now out. I’ll be performing in Las Vegas soon. At one point soon, people will say, You’re naturally good on guitar. But I wasn’t naturally good to begin with.

It’s the same with having faith.

Read, study and practice every day and you, too, can be naturally good at expecting miracles.

I have faith you can do this.

Remember, you get what you expect.

So—EXPECT MIRACLES!

CHAPTER 1

Why Guru Advice Doesn’t Work

gurus offering advice on everything from weight loss to how to make millions are everywhere: radio, television, all over the bookstores. The movie, The Secret, has created a world wide growth and demand in those seeking their own personal path to a full and meaningful life. Most of these gurus are sincere and know what they’re talking about because, like me, they’ve traveled the road themselves. It doesn’t matter if it’s Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, or Joe Vitale, we’ve all experienced our own trials in life and set out upon the path of improvement.

It’s natural when you find the answers in your own life to want to share those answers with those around you. As I traveled my own path, I also committed myself to helping others travel theirs, as well. I frequently come across people who have tried a particular program or gone to a seminar and still haven’t experienced success in their lives. They make statements like, That kind of stuff doesn’t really work; it’s all hype, or I fell for that once and bought all their stuff and it didn’t make one bit of difference, so why should I believe you? It’s not uncommon for these people to view their own lack of results and then make a blanket statement that nothing will work for them. They frequently dismiss and discredit any other program, without even trying it.

I’ve also been told that none of this self-development stuff is anything new and that’s absolutely correct. Most of this knowledge and wisdom has been around since ancient times. For centuries, people have sought to improve their lives and understand why we behave the way we do. Socrates is a great example of someone who sought the truth. The Socratic Method is rooted in the concept of breaking a problem down and asking numerous, probing questions to discern the truth and that’s exactly what most self-development programs do. They require introspection, you have to ask yourself the hard questions. Why do you believe what you believe? Where did the beliefs come from? What are you willing to do to change your results? Socrates made it a point to approach people who were considered the wisest in Athens and ask them questions which forced them to examine their own ideas and beliefs. They hated it! They felt foolish and eventually found a way to get rid of him and have him sentenced to death.

Boy, am I glad they don’t do that to self-development gurus today! The reason Socrates ended up in that situation is that the people he asked the questions didn’t like what they saw within themselves. They liked the status quo they were living and became very angry when those beliefs were challenged. We do the same thing today. We’ll try a program and say we want to be different, but when it comes to taking responsibility for the results in our lives, we feel bad and this can result in anger, sadness, and a reluctance to continue. It’s easier to go back to what we’ve known than it is to struggle through unknown territory.

You’ll notice that almost every self-development program has a slightly different take on what you need to do to achieve your goals. You might wonder why, if this knowledge has been around for centuries, someone hasn’t figured out the one definite answer to life’s problems? This is because different approaches work for different people. We haven’t all had the same experiences and therefore don’t have the same memories. Consequently, our perceptions and beliefs will all be slightly different and therefore we respond to different triggers.

For example, if you lose 80 pounds on program B, after having failed to lose any weight on program A, does that mean no one else can succeed on program A? No, it doesn’t. We all respond differently to given events and I can tell you that 99% of the success of any endeavor has nothing to do with whatever program you’re in. It has to do with you.

DISCERNING THE TRUTH

We live in a world of sound bites, these days. People hear a five second statement and make all kinds of assumptions—some right, some wrong. This is especially true for those seeking direction and help