Have you seen the above image before on Facebook? It is being shared as part of the law of attraction movement. The law of attraction. Everybody has heard of it. Look it up if you haven’t. Basically you should focus your mind on the things that you want: money, power, relationship, whatever, and it will appear in your life. Lisa Nichols in the film 'The Secret' basically explains it as follows: "Every time you look inside your mail expecting to see a bill, guess what? It'll be there. Each day you go out dreading the bill, you're never expecting anything great, you're thinking about debt, you're expecting debt. So debt must show up.....it showed up, because the law of attraction is always being obedient to your thoughts.” I don’t believe in it. Period. It is very comforting to think that all we have to do is visualize and say affirmations and our desires will appear. I think it is mental masturbation. If this was true, there would be much more lottery winners in the world! All lottery buyers are convinced that they will win the lottery one day; otherwise they wouldn’t be spending all their money buying the tickets in the first place! Positive thinking is good, but only if it leads to action! Positive thinking only works IF it leads to positive actions, but all too often people forget the action part and end up frustrated with no results. Don’t get me wrong. Positivity is important. In fact, it is a necessity in order to become successful. You must always dream big inside your head. The sky is the limit. But on a day-to-day basis, you must be willing to work from the ground up. The duality between the mind and reality is an important one. Oftentimes reality will not match what is inside your mind, and that’s okay. Reality is harsh and ugly. Things will happen despite our best efforts. But that shouldn’t stop us. Reality will match your dreams one day as long as you stay positive and you continue to take proper action. What you have in your mind is a template. Most successful entrepreneurs were considered delusional before they first became successful because they are so convinced something is going to work despite the odds. A more “realistic” person would have given up. Sometimes you need to be a little “delusional” and “unrealistic” to keep going forward. The most realistic thing to do is to do nothing and to stay where you are. You can’t fail if you don’t try, but who wants that? Believe in something. Faith. A higher power. Yourself. Something, anything. A boxer goes into the ring fully convinced that he will win. Reality will dictate only one winner in the end but he will walk into that ring 100% convinced he will win anyway. Because if he doesn’t, he will definitely lose. He won’t stand a chance in the ring if he even lets the possibility of losing enter his mind for a split second. If you can’t even convince yourself something is going to work, it will not get done. The moment you stop believing is when everything crumbles. To take a line from my intro post, Life ends when you stop dreaming and hope is lost when you stop believing. (http://stackthatmoney.whotrades.com/blog/43464648856). Have the mind of a fighter before entering the ring. If you want to build a castle, commit yourself fully to building a castle. But first you must build a wall. Commit yourself fully to building that wall. But then you must lay a single brick down first. Commit yourself fully to building laying that first brick down as perfectly as you can. And repeat. Again. And again. And again. Will Smith said it best "You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built.' You don't start there. You say, 'I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. Brick by brick. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall." Keep the castle in mind while you lay those bricks down. Your mind will carry you forward.