I was WOW'd by the women at WOW

I had the great honour and privilege of speaking at the WOW - Woman of Worth Conference - in Kelowna and Vancouver the past few weekends. WOW indeed! The energy of 200 women in Kelowna and nearly 1,000 in Vancouver was exhilarating!

My heartfelt thanks to all of you that stopped me in person and later emailed with your thoughts. Here's a note from Laura ... thanks for your touching missive. I've responded at the end of your note.

Hi Kelley,

I attended the WOW conference in Vancouver a few weeks ago. Your talk was the only talk I stayed in my seat for! I was skeptical at first, b/c my financial situation is a bit scary, as my husband is a full-time student, and I am home on EI with our ten month-old. Can you say DEBT CITY?

But then you said something that really spoke to me. I am still processing it and integrating it into my life. First you said that we are all millionaires. Hmm...That made me feel a bit more confident. You explained that if we play the lottery (which, sadly, I do), that when the money shows up, we'll just be thankful for it, but not surprised or reliant on it. (You put this all much more eloquently, but this is what I got from it.) I went home that day and thought, since I am a millionaire, I should start acting like one, thinking like one, and most importantly, TREATING MY MONEY like one. To me that means actually checking in on my bank account and looking the negative number in the eye. It means not hiding stashes of cash around the house, or leaving change on the floor of my car.

I took a lottery ticket to get checked that day and I won $10.00. Pretty funny! Later that day I asked for a scholarship to attend a Nia trainers course (remember the demo?), and I got a partial scholarship!I had to get out of dreamland (imagining my Vancouver home on Point Grey Rd. that I would live in after we won the lottery...), and into reality. And a reality that factually tells me that I am a millionaire is something I can live in. It is pretty hard work, keeping those negative thoughts out, (I'm not using a real rubber band, but I am doing it), but I am working at it everyday.

Thanks again for your talk. It really helped me get some perspective.

Yours,

Laura

And thank YOU for your note Laura. I applaud you and am so very proud of you for taking the responsibility to change your financial future. Debt City isn't fun and it doesn't have to be forever. You hit it on the nail...a millionaire DOES look at their financial situation openly and objectively and doesn't take on the debt or excess personally. Remember, the true millionaire at heart doesn't use money or the lack of it to define their worth. Many, many wealthy individuals have lost everything and got it back quickly only because their true worth lives within. I'm so thrilled that you took this home with you.

On a side note, it's ironic that I was running through my keynote presentation with my business coach before WOW. He's always stuck on my part where I believe and tell my audience that they truly are worth millions. Time and time again, he's tried to convince me that I should re-work my wording or preface that, in his words, "they're not really millionaires". I couldn't disagree with him more, and from your note and the many others I've received in the past, I'm never taking it out. In thinking about how I might convince you and my other audience members further, I've dug up this tremendous story by Earl Nightingale called Acres of Diamonds. (see below).

Blessings to you Laura and I'll look forward to hearing from you when your dollars do show up just as you knew they would.

Until then, live prosperously!

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ACRES OF DIAMONDS

The story — a true one — is told of an African farmer who heard tales about other farmers who had made millions by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. He sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems that brought such high prices on the markets of the world. Finally, worn out and in a fit of despondency, he threw himself into a river and drowned.

Meanwhile, the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing the small stream on the property one day, when suddenly there was a bright flash of blue and red light from the stream bottom. He bent down and picked up a stone. It was a good-sized stone, and admiring it, he brought it home and put it on his fireplace mantel as an interesting curiosity.

Several weeks later a visitor picked up the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand, and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he'd found. When the farmer said, no, that he thought it was a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. The farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that his creek was full of such stones, not all as large as the one on the mantel, but sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom.

The farm the first farmer had sold, so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be one of the most productive diamond mines on the entire African continent.The first farmer had owned, free and clear ... acres of diamonds. But he had sold them for practically nothing, in order to look for them elsewhere. The moral is clear: If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state, and to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams would have come true.

The thing about this story that has so profoundly affected millions of people is the idea that each of us is, at this very moment, standing in the middle of our own acres of diamonds. If we had only had the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we're now engaged, to explore ourselves, we would most likely find the riches we seek, whether they be financial or intangible or both.

Before you go running off to what you think are greener pastures, make sure that your own is not just as green or perhaps even greener. It has been said that if the other guy's pasture appears to be greener than ours, it's quite possible that it's getting better care. Besides, while you're looking at other pastures, other people are looking at yours.