CHAPTER 14:

GRATITUDE: THE GATEWAY DRUG TO

AWESOMENESS

When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.

—Anthony Robbins; author, speaker, motivator, life-changer

When I was a little kid, my parents made my brothers and sister and I answer the

phone in this very formal way, “Jennifer Sincero speaking,” as if, between

fighting over who got to play with the Big Wheel and stuffing balloons down our

pants, we were all running our own private concierge businesses.

CHAPTER 13:

GIVE AND LET GIVE

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely

try to help another without helping himself.

—RalphWaldo Emerson; American poet, essayist, visionary, giver

One day while driving somewhere with my family, we stopped off at a store

along the way and told my niece, then five years old, that she could get herself a

little sumthin’. She came up to the register with a six-pack of orange Tic Tacs

and charmed her way into getting the whole thing, instead of being told to put it

back and just buy one

CHAPTER 12:

LEAD WITH YOUR CROTCH

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there

are few.

—Shunryu Suzuki; Japanese Zen monk, author, teacher also

lovingly known as the “Crooked Cucumber”

I know the big saying is “youth is wasted on the young,” but I think, in certain

respects anyway, we’ve really got it going on in our late teens and early twenties.

Aside from all the angst and drama and escorts home from the police, we’ve still

got our little kid-like ability to create “just because” still firmly intact, but we’ve

also got this newly-hatched adult ability to make big things happen in our lives.

Add to this the fact that we’re not yet jaded by a long list of failures, and are still

under the vague impression that death is something that happens to other people,

we, if you’re anything like me, leap into our lives when we’re young with an

idiotic, yet awesome, disregard for “what-if’s.”

CHAPTER 11:

YOUR BRAIN IS YOUR BITCH

Mind is the master power that molds and makes

And man is Mind and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought and, shaping what he wills

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking glass.

PART 3:

HOW TO TAP INTO

THE

MOTHERLODE CHAPTER 10:

CHAPTER 10:

MEDITATION 101

You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you

too.

—Shrii Shrii Anandamurti; Indian philosopher, social

revolutionary, author, composer

Meditation, otherwise known as sitting still and thinking about nothing, is one of

those things that can be just as stupidly simple as it is surprisingly hard. It

reminds me of those contests where a bunch of people stand around a brand-new

car or truck, and whoever leaves their hands on it the longest gets to take it

home.

CHAPTER 9:

LOINCLOTH MAN

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

—André Gide; French author, Nobel Prize winner, fearless self-

explorer

Every May I go backpacking through the desert wilderness areas of southeast

Utah with two longtime friends of mine. It’s one of the most magnificent and

bizarre places I’ve ever been: giant, jagged, obscenely pink ridges of rock jut out

of the ground like huge slabs of raw meat; white, yellow, and purple towers of

sandstone stretch and twist into sculptures made of taffy; deep cracks in the

earth’s surface form cathedral-like slot canyons whose walls, smoothed over

from flash floods and sandstorms, change colors from moment to moment as the

sun’s rays shift through the narrow opening high above.

CHAPTER 8:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to

your adventure.

—Joseph Campbell; American mythologist, author whose

books/ideas influenced the making of Star Wars

Getting clear about what your unique purpose is can be the difference between

living a happy, fulfilled life of abundance, choice, and expansiveness or living in

the restrictive veal pen of your own indecision and tired old excuses.

CHAPTER 7

I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb.

I also know I’m not blonde.

—Dolly Parton; singer, songwriter, actress, altruist,

businesswoman, bright shiny light

A friend of mine—a brilliant writer—once called me in a panic when she

suddenly became frozen with fear over the subject matter of the book she was

working on and could no longer bring herself to write it.

Her book was, among many other splendid things, very personal, dark, and

twisted, and my friend was concerned that it was too much. That it was crossing

the line.