9. Imagine!

In 1986 I decided to write a book. I knew nothing about writing books. Since school I had never written anything longer than a postcard. All I knew was that I had a title – Being Happy! – and I wanted to sell a million copies.

I wrote one page per day, before breakfast.

I also made a cassette recording to play in my car. It had a simple message that repeated over and over: “‘Being Happy!’ is an international best-seller.” It continued for half an hour.

For the whole of 1987, I played this recording every time I got into my little red car. Well, actually, I only played it when I was alone – my friends seemed to prefer Dire Straits.

In mid-1987 I sent my completed Being Happy! manuscript to publishers around the world. All I received were rejections. The book may have been a success in my subconscious, but it wasn’t doing very well anywhere else.

It seemed I had hit a brick wall.

Then in March 1988, I was passing through Singapore where I had lunch with a friend, Jacquie Seow. I asked her, “Would you like to read my manuscript?” Jacquie agreed to read it and said, “There is a publisher living in my apartment building. I’ll show it to him.”

I thought, “A Singaporean publisher? That’s not part of my plan.” I gave Jacquie the book but I didn’t hold my breath.

Within two weeks, I had a publishing deal with Jacquie’s neighbor, Ian, and within eighteen months I was living off my author’s royalties. Being Happy!¹ continues to sell today.

You ask, “Andrew, what if you had never used the tape recording? Would it have happened anyway?”

Two Friends Play-acting

In the 1970s Fred Couples and Jim Nantz were buddies at the University of Houston. Fred was a dedicated golfer with dreams of winning the US Masters, and Jim had ambitions of becoming a top sports announcer.

Together, they would often play-act a scene where Fred, having just won the US Masters, was interviewed by the CBS announcer, Jim Nantz.

In 1992, Fred won the Masters. He was ushered into the Butler Cabin to receive the famous green jacket – and there, to get the inside story, was CBS’s Jim Nantz.

At the close of the interview they embraced with tears in their eyes, no doubt reflecting on how the imaginary scene that they had so often rehearsed in Houston had just unfolded before the world in Augusta.

Would Fred Couples have won the Masters Golf Championship without the play-acting? Would Jim Nantz have achieved his dream without the play-acting? Would it all have happened anyway?

Here’s what I know: there’s not a successful actor, astronaut, brain surgeon, pilot, pop star, president or pole dancer who didn’t imagine their dream over and over and over again long before it happened.

What Happens When the Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work?

Laws always work.

The law of gravity is never broken. For example, when a plane flies, it doesn’t mean that the law of gravity is broken. It means that forces stronger than gravity are pulling the plane upward. Once there is enough momentum, the plane lifts off the ground.

The law of attraction is the same. You need momentum. You plant your goal firmly into your subconscious. Once it is there, you have it – but most importantly, IT HAS YOU.

When your goal has you, you don’t have to figure everything out. It is more like you go along for the ride. When you have the knowing that you will be successful – and it is only a matter of WHEN – doing the work is a joy. Doing your best is automatic.

When your goal isn’t showing up, one of these explanations is likely.

• You chose a boring goal and quit thinking about it; so you didn’t attract it
• You got stuck in reverse gear with LACK thoughts. If you dwell on lack you get more lack
• You are doubting it, and when you doubt, you don’t have the necessary FEELING to achieve your goal
• You never became comfortable with it.

“Set a Date!”

Here’s something else that the books tell you, but which often doesn’t help. They tell you, “Set a DATE!” They tell you, “Choose a date by which you will have bought the house, found the perfect wife, scored the dream job.”

Dates usually add stress and give you reason to doubt.

Obviously, sometimes your plans are attached to a fixed date – a wedding, a speech or a tournament. It makes sense to see and feel those events unfolding perfectly, attached to a date. But in most other instances, see and feel your goals achieved and let them unfold in their own time.

So How Do I Know When My Goals Will Happen?

When your goal feels perfectly natural – when you say to yourself, “I know it is going to happen, and I am so comfortable that this will happen that I’m in no hurry” – that is when your dream job, or boyfriend, shows up.

But It Would Have Happened Anyway!

When life works out – when your lover walks into your life, when you get head-hunted by a rival company, when your headaches disappear, when your book hits the best-seller list – there’s the question, “Did I attract this, or would it have happened anyway?”

When you feel good, and keep feeling good, opportunities and good people just keep on finding you. Just keep doing what works.

What about People Who Say, “This is all garbage!”?

I’ve always believed in magic. When I wasn’t doing anything in this town, I’d go up every night, sit on Mulholland Drive, look out at the city, stretch out my arms and say, “Everybody wants to work with me. I’m a really good actor. I have all kinds of great movie offers.”

I’d just repeat these things over and over, literally convincing myself that I had a couple of movies lined up. I’d drive down that hill, ready to take the world on, going, “Movie offers are out there for me. I just don’t hear them yet.”²

Jim Carrey, Actor

In 1990, comedian Jim Carrey was still struggling to get work. It was on one night during that year, sitting in his old Toyota looking down on Los Angeles, that he wrote himself a cheque. It was for ten million dollars, for acting services rendered.

Jim carried the cheque in his wallet. By 1995 he had starred in Ace Ventura Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. His asking price was now twenty million dollars per movie.

Plenty of people don’t believe that thought affects matter or that we create our own success. But here is a challenge for you: find one wildly successful person who doesn’t believe it.

What do people like Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey (the first billion-dollar television host), Madonna (300 million albums sold) and Jack Canfield (500 million books in print) say about the power of the mind? They will tell you, “What you hold in your mind, you attract. What you hold in your mind, you become.”

There are other journalists who interview as well as Oprah Winfrey. A million other people have had better ideas than Richard Branson.

But the others couldn’t BELIEVE as well. And this includes your brother-in-law who says, “This is all fantasy!”. Who do you want to believe?

How Can I Be Happy When I Am Broke?

I was in a Kuala Lumpur shopping mall in 2013 when a man approached me. He was casually dressed but immaculate. He said, “Are you Andrew Matthews? I read your book twenty years ago.”

I sensed he had a story to share. So I invited him to Starbucks.

He said, “I’m Teuku from Aceh in Indonesia. My family was very poor. When I was in university I was so poor that I owned just one pair of trousers. I was so poor that my girlfriend would give me her shirts to wear. Many days I had nothing to eat.

“When I was at my lowest point, a friend loaned me the Indonesian version of your book, Being Happy!³

“Apart from text books, it is the first book I ever read. I began to understand that we choose our thoughts. I began to focus on what I HAD instead of what I DIDN’T HAVE.

“I made a list on a card of everything I wanted for my future: a good job, a wife, two healthy children, an apartment, a nice car …”

He leaned forward, “Today I am the regional business development manager for a multi-national corporation. I travel the world. I have a wife and two beautiful girls. They go to the best schools …”

Teuku’s eyes welled with tears. “Your book changed my life.”

My eyes were full of tears, too. I felt so happy for Teuku.

I must make two points here. Firstly, my book didn’t change his life; Teuku changed his life. Secondly, there is nothing new in my books. These principles have been around forever.

Teuku said, “I still have bad days. So I keep that card on my wall to remind me how far I have come.”

He asked about my next book. I explained that How Life Works was about the power of emotion: “How you think matters, but the real power is in how you feel.”

What about those successful people who never read a book about the subconscious mind?

Some people just know that thoughts are magnetic. They don’t need books. They don’t need to be convinced.

Some people are born knowing what took me a thousand books and thirty years to understand. They just spend their life FEELING as good as they can and knowing that everything will work out.

They just know THIS IS HOW LIFE WORKS.