“Dream no small dreams, for small dreams have no power to move the hearts of men.” — Goethe
When I became a financial coach, I had no idea of the positive impact it would have on achieving my singing dreams and goals. I didn’t understand that the universal principals and laws that affect financial success could similarly affect my singing success.
I thought that to have financial success a person had to be a financial genius, with expertise in tracking cash flows and financial spreadsheets, investing in the stock market, accounting, net-worth calculations, estate planning, asset protection, business building, etc. Those skills are important, practical and helpful, but I found that the most important skills you need to create financial success are the same skills that can dramatically improve your success in any area of your life, including your singing. (Besides, mastering the art of finance is a piece of cake in comparison to mastering the art of classical singing.)
I am looking forward to this journey with you, and hope I can pass on to you some information and inspiration that will assist you in achieving everything you’ve ever dreamed about, and more.
Success Principal No. 1: You and only you are completely responsible for your life and what is happening in your life. We all have free will and get to choose our response to any situation. What an empowering thought that is! If you don’t like what is happening, you have the power to change it by choosing a different response to it—and yet many of us choose not to take responsibility, blaming someone or something for where we are, what is happening to us, and the condition of our lives.
In my financial coaching, I noticed that my clients who were blamers—blaming their spouse, children, the stock market, real estate, or a job layoff—did not experience financial success. What’s more, I began to see that my own blaming was negatively affecting my singing success. I would hear myself thinking thoughts such as: “I don’t have the money for that audition,” or: “There are just too many sopranos,” or: “I’m too short, too fat, too thin, too old, have a child, cats, husband, home, bills to pay … blah, blah, blah!”
I came to realize that those excuses were just another way to blame someone or something other that myself. If I let those excuses stop me, I would let anything stop me! As long as I stayed in the blame game, my power to change my circumstances was gone! I finally recognized that I was the one limiting me, that I was solely responsible for where I was. I had put myself where I was by the choices to blame I had made.
“Rich Dad,” from the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, a book I highly recommend, said: “To blame is lame.” Stop the blame game and create the life you’ve always dreamed of!
Taking back your power by claiming responsibility for your life can be a painful experience at times, especially when you get to claim responsibility for situations you’ve created that aren’t pleasant. On the other hand, it is exhilarating to realize that being responsible for what is happening to you means you can, by your choices, change what is happening to you.
Is it possible that our choices really determine what is happening in our lives, especially when things seem so random? How could we be responsible for that car accident, or that sickness we got right before a performance? This is how: We created those situations, by the thoughts we chose to think.
Numerous scientific studies have proven that our thoughts directly affect physics at a quantum level. Have you ever thought about something intently, then seen a television commercial that said something directly pertaining to what you were thinking about? Or have you been thinking about a particular person, only to have them call you within a short period of time? I call this “synchronicity,” and use it to remind me that my thoughts are affecting what is happening around me.
I’ll give you a few examples of synchronicity from my life.
One day, I had just finished eating a cob of corn. I was picking the kernels out of my teeth as I dialed the number for one of my financial clients for a coaching session. The first thing she said to me is that she just ate a cob of corn, which she should never do because corn upsets her stomach!
A few weeks ago, I was contemplating, just for fun, how I could possibly spend $100,000 per month. I needed a break from my work and sat in front of the TV. Amazingly, a commercial came on that said: “Spend $100,000!”
Another time, a client sent me an investment article, which I quickly skimmed through. The next day a different client was very excited about an article she had read—and described the exact article I had just read the night before!
Another example: I had brought an old pair of shoes with me to do an audition. As I looked at them—they were looking very ragged and well worn—I wished I hadn’t brought them and that I had a new pair of shoes to wear. After the audition, I changed clothes, stuffed the old shoes into the top of my bag and headed for home.
When I got home, I saw one of my shoes was missing. I could have blamed bad luck for my loss, but knowing the power of my thoughts, and recognizing the thoughts I was thinking about those shoes, I wasn’t surprised that I had “inadvertently” created a situation where I could never wear those shoes again.
It is a wonderful and exciting experience to begin to recognize the creative power of our thoughts by beginning to recognize synchronicity.
I studied piano as well as voice in college. One day I went into a piano lesson crying, because I had become sick again right before an important singing performance. My piano teacher gave me one of the best voice lessons I’ve ever had by telling me I was creating my sickness!
How dare he say I was responsible for my sickness!
He recommended a book to read, a book that put me on the pathway of beginning to look at my thought patterns. I learned relaxation and visualization techniques—and lo and behold, I began to be healthy for important singing performances!
When you’ve taken responsibility for the life you’ve created via the thoughts you have been choosing, you can begin the wonderful journey of creating the life you want by learning how to choose thoughts that are in alignment with your goals.
Of course, that is much more easily said than done. How do we do it? We are all creatures of habit, and changing your thoughts from what they’ve been habitually focused on to a new way of thinking can be challenging.
One of the tools you can use to retrain your thoughts is affirmation. An affirmation is a phrase you declare positively or firmly. You say it to yourself again and again until it is engrained in your thought patterns. It might be something like: “Money comes easily and effortlessly to me.”
A few years ago, I began learning about the power of affirmations and came up with an affirmation I thought would help me stop judging myself every time I was on stage performing. The power that lies behind affirmations is in what you visualize (another topic we’ll be exploring) when you speak the words. You choose the wording of your affirmation—just make sure the vision you see is what you want to have happen.
It is very important to define the words you use in an affirmation. My affirmation was: “I don’t judge myself when I sing.” The next time I performed, I was dismayed to find that my self-judging had increased tenfold! In fact, I was having difficulty staying focused on anything except my own self-judgment.
What caused this to happen? Shortly after my experience, I read the book What to Say When you Talk to Yourself, by Shad Hemstetter. Your brain, says Hemstetter, doesn’t know the difference between a negative sentence and a positive sentence. Every time I affirmed: “I don’t judge myself,” the vision I saw behind my words was one of me judging myself, which only made the problem worse! When I realized my mistake, I asked myself: “What do I want?” I came up with several new affirmations, such as “I am calm and composed when I perform,” and: “I focus on the story or the drama of the words I am portraying,” and: “I am creative, spontaneous, and move freely on stage,” or: “I always perform at my peak of excellence.” The next time I performed, my new affirmations worked like a charm!
How does this relate to both your singing and your financial success? Have you ever looked at Classical Singer’s audition section, seen an audition that would be a wonderful opportunity for you, but then thought: “I can’t afford to do it”? What is the vision you have inside your head when you affirm those words? Do you see yourself finding a way to afford it? Probably not. The moment you affirm: “I can’t afford it,” your brain agrees with you—and is content to make that happen! Do you see how blaming your money circumstances for your decision not to go to the audition could be limiting you?
When I realized I was contriving these “negation affirmations,” I began to focus only on the opportunity an audition presented. Would the audition be good for me? If the answer was “yes,” I would apply for the audition, affirming and committing to myself that I could always find a way to come up with the money.
It was amazing to see the unforeseeable events and assistance, which I could never have dreamed would come my way, that would show up to help me get to the audition!
Here is a quote I love by mountaineer, author, and World War II POW W.H. Murray: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”
This statement is true in either direction. If you blame circumstances—and continue choosing thoughts that support the circumstances you don’t like—you’ve affirmed and committed yourself to a whole stream of events that will issue from that decision. Unforeseen incidents will happen to you to support the choice you made. So why not choose to have wonderful experiences in
your life?
I’m sure you would all agree that having wonderful experiences is definitely the way to go. That requires more than a commitment to personal responsibility for your life, however; it requires recognizing when you’re having thoughts that are creating things in your life you don’t want, and that can be tricky.
One of my areas of financial expertise is analyzing and helping people become aware of their financial thought patterns, their inner conversation with money (which is the subject of my next article). After all, awareness is the first step to changing. We will also learn about visualization, improving cash flows and net worth, debt reduction, saving, credit scores and credit reports, car buying, investing, and business building, to name a few topics. I would love to here your suggestions for other singing/financial topics.
I will not be teaching you how to become financially secure. Financial security is an illusion, based on fear and in direct opposition to the risks you’ll be required to take to be successful in either finances or singing.
The last thing I do during a session with my clients is make an assignment, so before we discuss Success Principle #2, here it is: Become aware of any blaming you may be doing, begin noticing synchronicity in your life, and start a list of positive affirmations to support what you want.
