If you had been in the Hudson Valley at 5:30 a.m. a couple of days ago, you would’ve been privy to a scintillating moon, quite a few fawns and does, and a morning fog that made everything seem somewhat fictional.

And, if you had peeked into my kitchen window, you would’ve been treated to the refreshing image of a 47-year-
old man in plaid boxers, jumping from room to room, scream whispering, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I don’t generally exercise in this manner that early in the morning—or at any time really—but I had just awakened to an email congratulating me for having my song chosen as the backing track for a public service announcement and asking me to look over the appended agreement…yada yada yada.

The feeling was intense.

In my lifetime, I have written, recorded, and performed countless songs. But, for the first time ever, someone was going to pay me and play it on the internet and perhaps television—really cool stuff.

What’s even more exciting than that is that this was not really an isolated incident. It seems that every few days or so, something wonderful and miraculous happens, and my creative career is on a steady and upward trajectory.

Two thousand years ago, Roman philosopher Seneca said that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” and for the most part it is an accurate statement. But, it has also dawned on me that anyone can accomplish anything by employing some basic principles. It doesn’t matter if you want to write a bestselling novel, meet the man of your dreams, or lose 75 pounds, these criterion will work if you put them to use.

You might be reading this and thinking to yourself, “If it was that easy to have everything you want, everyone would be driving a Maserati, nobody would be grinding their life away at a soul-sucking job, and hospitals would be empty.”

Unfortunately, this is just not so.

Can you call to mind at least one example where the same resources were available to a handful of people and only a couple of them used them to their advantage?

I know even in the mundane case of my truck driving school a few years ago, I graduated and went on to earn enough to start a family and be the sole breadwinner. This was not the case with everyone. Or actually anyone else. But, it totally could’ve been.

Try this with something small at first. Once you have set a precedent of accomplishing something that seemed completely unattainable, you will want to up the ante.

Suspend your disbelief for a little while. Give yourself a break—and stop telling yourself why something can’t happen. Get a notebook and allow yourself to become a kid again. Write a description of what your life would look like if you could make it be anything you want. Get as detailed as you could possibly be. The universe works best with details.

Describe what it would feel like for your dream to come true. When you are done, get in the habit of reading this every single day—in the morning and before you go to bed.

Get connected to source. I would recommend reading Wayne Dyer’s The Power of Intention for a full description of how this works. Basically speaking, we are all connected to source energy—or God or Buddha or the universe—whatever you’re comfortable calling it.

Source energy is the polar opposite of ego. It is that incredibly magical thing that I am sure you have felt from time to time when you walked in a room and everybody stopped what they were doing just to start smiling and looking at you. We may all have experienced moments of this accidentally, but it is also entirely possible to inhabit this state permanently. If you constantly focus only on the things that make you happy and make you feel good, you will attract those things. It has been proven ad infinitum. What you think about expands.

Do the footwork. This is the number two of the one-two punch. It’d be great if all we had to do was meditate and get connected to source and everything would come our way. But, we’re talking about mechanics here, not magic. You definitely need to do whatever you can every day to help propel yourself toward the bullseye.

It’s fairly obvious if you want to create the body that is going to make you happy you will need to be tenacious about your diet and exercise. If you want to make a living selling your art—create magnificent art.

Spend a few minutes everyday in a state of gratitude for the greatness that is on the way. If this sounds ridiculous, go right back to suspending disbelief. Be open enough to realize that most people fail to realize their dreams because they have a rusty connection to “source.” This is how you can clean your spiritual terminals.

Give! Give! Give! I am by no means a wealthy man, but I can honestly say there has never been a time that I have donated $100 to a Go Fund Me for someone in trouble, bought someone a meal who really needed it, or given a fiver to the dude with the sign at the supermarket, and regretted it, or thought to myself, “I’d really have a better jump on these bills if I hadn’t done that.”

As a matter of fact, the more I give, the better things seem to get for me. I’m a little addicted to it. Try it every chance you get and see if things don’t start getting real good, real quick.

As a man who has suffered for decades living a mediocre life of half measures and false starts, and then fell lower to hit the rockiest of all bottoms, I can attest to the fact that anybody can do anything. It’s drummed into our heads, usually from a very early age, that this is not true.

There are many reasons for this and if you are interested in a more detailed explanation, pick up Jen Sincero’s You Are A Bad*ss or Anthony Robbin’s Awaken the Giant Within.

We are all human beings and, for the most part, we are all on an equal playing field.

Somebody is going to be enjoying an espresso at an Italian piazza by this time next year. Somebody is going to be staring into the eyes of the woman they have always dreamed about, and somebody is going to be meditating in Bali.

There is no good reason why it couldn’t be you.

~

Author: Billy Manas
Image: Elade Manu/Flickr
Editor: Lieselle Davidson
Copy Editor: Nicole Cameron
Social Editor: Erin Lawson