Fox News Business: Personal Finance
Published: Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Act As If You Have It,
And You Just Might Get It
By Nancy Colasurdo, Life Coach

If you're at your wit's end with financial/job woes and you're ready to open yourself to something new and bold, this column is for you. If you're closed to new and bold, I'm going to assume you'll keep reading anyway just to see how crazy I am.

Or, perhaps better stated, how innovative Mike Dooley is.

Dooley is the author of Infinite Possibilities, a book released in September that has already enjoyed best seller status on The New York Times and Amazon.com lists. While it is filled with wise nuggets centered around the theme of 'Thoughts Become Things," what he has to say about employment and money is particularly apt in our nation's current state.

"We are the creators of change," Dooley said in our recent interview. "It must come from within. That's the exact opposite of what we've been told all our lives."

To that end, Dooley suggests in his book the idea of acting 'as if.' This is something actors do all the time when preparing for a role. Dooley recommends it to "help suspend an old belief and install a new one." Let's take his section on finding employment. In addition to the customary things people do when looking for a job – preparing a resume, contacting agencies, reading 'help wanted' ads and networking – his advice goes like this:

If someone were without a job, she could start behaving as if she were already employed. She could set her alarm clock each night, and she could make sure her wardrobe was up to par. If she couldn't afford all the clothes she'd need, she could make an effort to go window-shopping for whatever she'd buy as if she could afford it; she could also try on a few suits. She could even leave for work on the occasional morning as if she had the job of her dreams ... Perhaps the outing could involve a visit downtown or a drive to different prospective employers' buildings - as if she already worked there. She could meet a friend and have coffee, lunch, or dinner wherever people employed in her field go to have coffee, lunch or dinner.

Still with me? If this comes across as too out there, then maybe you were also one of those folks who thought The Secret was a bunch of hogwash. Just last weekend The Simpsons took a swipe at that monumental best seller with an episode centered on a book called The Answer. But Dooley’s advice is a perfect example of what most critics of The Secret didn’t take into consideration – your actions must match up with your goal. As I’ve said before, if your dream is to win the Pulitzer Prize but you don’t write, that’s probably not going to line up in your favor.

"People will say, 'I'm losing my house and my car and you're asking me to do this?'" said Dooley, who is featured in The Secret. "And my answer is, 'Yeah.'"

It's what he calls playing both ends to the middle. For those who are already doing the customary things to effect change, like scouring the want ads or attending job fairs, one end is covered. But what about the other end? That's the bold side. Months before I got this gig to write twice-weekly for FoxBusiness.com, I wrote a bunch of columns in hopes of securing a forum somewhere. When the opportunity came up, I was able to say, "I'll be happy to send you some sample columns tomorrow." Voila. That was two years ago.

Is that magic? It felt more like preparing for the outcome I wanted and acting as if I already had a published column. One of my favorite lines in Dooley's book addresses this: "Faith in the Universe is a belief in magic, but once you understand the endless abilities of the Universe and realize that it offers itself to any and all who ask, the magic becomes far less mysterious and infinitely more friendly, dependable, and even predictable – hardly magic at all."

Think of it more like those aligned with The Secret do: The one thing you focus on is the one thing you're going to perpetuate. If you're going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, wouldn't you rather it's a cool job than something that feeds into your notion that life must be drudgery?

Every so often, even though I subscribe to the beliefs presented in Dooley's book, I like to have reminders. Dooley has made that easy. A little piece of his personality arrives in my email box every weekday. It typically goes something like this:

Without challenge, Nancy, adventure is impossible.

Shorty,

The Universe

Dooley – working through his Web site www.TUT.com -- is the man behind the messages from 'The Universe' that go to over 300,000 people each day. The emails are creative, witty and thought-provoking. As one of my Facebook friends wrote of them recently, "I adore my special note each day.'

Life should be that fun, shouldn't it?

As Albert Einstein said, "A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"

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Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.