Today I’m going to tell you something that you probably do not want to hear. In fact when I was first introduced to this “rocketship to joy” I figured I’d rather ram my face through a wall.

The bottom line though: it WORKS. Today it made a waitress cry and feel hope for the first time in a life riddled with violence and poverty. In a group of single mothers whose boyfriends are in and out of prison – even for one who’d been to prison herself – while struggling against a life without education or support from anyone who understands… these women are finding hope and joy in the place they least expected it.

They’re finding it in vulnerability.

Why Vulnerability is THE Mothership

Okay, so Angela (my business partner) and I have an inside joke about ‘the mothership.’ If you like, we can call it the motherlode. What we’re saying is that the more vulnerable you’re willing to be (in a safe space of course), the happier you’ll become.

Now the first time I heard this, I wanted to scream. Because vulnerability felt like a nasty word. If you’re like I was, it may raise feelings of shame, fear, and disconnection. Not to mention we often stack emotions on top of vulnerability, so it could also feel like anger, betrayal, anxiety or judgment.

In my case, vulnerability meant being weak, being taken advantage of, and not being strong enough.

Yet researcher Brené Brown, PhD. has made studying courage and vulnerability her life’s work – first to disprove the value of vulnerability… and then to embrace and encourage it. Why? Because she found that vulnerability was the singular thing that differentiated happy people from unhappy people, and that embracing it can lead to authentic happiness – because embracing it allows us to feel truly worthy.

In one of her TEDTalks, she says:

“The only difference between people who felt worthy, and those who didn’t, was that those who felt worthy were able to be vulnerable.

They believed that what made them vulnerable also made them beautiful. They knew it was necessary and were willing to risk loving, being authentic, and giving of themselves… when there were no guarantees.”

In theory it all sounds nice, but if vulnerability is so great, why is it so hard? Why should we bother?

Photo by David Blackwell

I’m obviously not really talking about the drug here. But you get my point. What if you could get your bank account to swell with positive vibes and balances the same way the brain swells with the happy happy, joy joy during an ecstasy trip? And it was for REAL. Forever.

I’m talking true wealth, and true joy. Together.

Because authentic happiness, just like authentic wealth, is soooo much better!

So here’s a quick 3 ways you can launch your finances on an authentic ecstasy trip: authentic wealth that resonates with authentic happiness and love. Because at a vibrational and emotional level… it’s all the same stuff.

This will also prime us for massive quantum leaps when we start focusing action alongside these 3 steps during our 60-day challenge!! It’s like fueling up for the journey. The three ways described below will not only fill up your bank account – they fill YOU up. And that’s important because we can’t achieve massive change and achieve our goals if we’re overwhelmed or depleted or running on empty.

So don’t just read this and think, awww that was cute. ACTUALLY DO THIS.

3 Ways to Create Wealth as a Function of the Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

1. Give yourself one small thing every other day
It could be a compliment, flowers, a single unhurried hour for a bath or book. It could be a present or a kind word or an indulgence in a hobby or passion. However small or big, give yourself something at least once every other day.

2. Give someone else one small thing on the other days
The day after you give something to yourself, give something to someone else. It could be a hug, a kind word or compliment, a phone call, or a gift. Pray for someone or share your gratitude for them. Give to the people you love and the people you know. Then give to people who kind of annoy you or to complete strangers!

3. Practice awareness and follow your gut.
What is happening as you begin giving to yourself and to others is that you’re filling up with love. You’re filling your own ‘emotional bank account’ so that even when you give to others in Step 2, it’s still filling you up.

So what you want to do next is pay attention to random thoughts, new ideas, crazy cravings and other subtle messages. They’re telling you what to do next – and they lead to the money honey!

That sudden craving for chips and hummus at 2am… that may just land you in the grocery line with your soulmate or an important colleague.

Most people misunderstand intuition because they think it’s something big and bold and screaming in your face. It’s not. It’s the tiny whisperings… the subtle desires or thoughts that come out of nowhere and will leave just as fast.

Always pay attention and take action on the silly and subtle stuff! Because those crazy ideas and inspirations are what lead you to your wealth! They were inspired by your higher vibration – they were inspired by love.

So giddyup cupcake! Give it a go and see what happens. You’ll discover so many more gifts than just money.

Also be sure to chime in below as you take each step and share the experience! This is how we inspire each other and challenge ourselves. Consider it practice, my peeps!!

It’s now August 2011 and for the first time in 25 months… I’m about to have a real home base again! After traveling the world for two years, Austin has seduced me, captured my heart, and for reasons beyond my logical rationalizations, it just feels like the right place I need to be.

To commemorate this epic shift in my adventurous life, I’ve decided, along with Angela Hartman (my business partner, friend and roommate) to engage in an insane 60 day challenge. We’re going to hold ourselves accountable to:

• Making $150,000
• Launch the first 2 projects for our women’s company, O! Lila
• Losing 15 to 20 lbs of fat each, and build muscle for some kick ass sexy bods!
• Volunteering for local children’s causes (looking into a Big Sis program!)
• Daily meditation and spiritual practice (the main thing both of us have lost while traveling and homeless)
• All within 60 days!

And the best part of all this?

We’re going to give you the opportunity to watch over our shoulders!

Follow along with our goal setting strategy meeting.

Use the same 60-day success method we use to produce dramatic action, results and transformation.

See our exact To Do list every morning and how we hold each other accountable to it every night.

Watch every step we take to go from below scratch to $150,000 in 60 days…

Watch as we get into the best shape of our lives with only 24 minutes a day, plus exactly what we eat!

I’m so excited to do this, I’m bursting at the seams! It was a random idea that popped into my head at 2:23am the other night. Because here’s the truth…

I’m doing this because I’ve failed to get my butt in gear over the past year!

This is my radical honesty and dramatic action to hold myself accountable to the higher standards I want to live by and achieve. For a year I’ve wanted to launch this women’s transformation company with Angela. For a year I’ve been trying to get into shape. For a year I’ve been trying to bring myself fully back to balanced life.

And for a year I’ve struggled and basically failed.

Yes I traveled, had fun, explored, ran my other successful businesses and got really really lost to all the details.

Now it’s time to GET FOUND. And to step up and do what I know I came here to do.

Get ready to hold me accountable. Get ready to join me and Angela on this 60-day journey. Get ready to set your own goals and achieve your own results alongside us! And get ready to look over our shoulder to see exactly how it gets done, day to day.

We’ll be gearing up to begin around Sept 15th.

In the meantime, I’ll be blogging to get us all pumped and prepared!

For now I’ll leave you with this:

The world of tomorrow is created based on your acts of today. I came across this principle while reading Paramhansa Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi.” And though we all know, teach and believe this – I still found upon reflection that I’d become lax these past 12 months. Content with continuing my easy consulting work rather than truly strive forward with my passion venture.

I found that I kept hoping for a new tomorrow – one where I was fit, healthy, balanced and grounded, and building a successful multimillion dollar business that reflected my passion and purpose.

I acknowledged that such a future required today’s actions: working out, sticking to a healthy lifestyle, staying put in a home base with my own things and my own energy, and maintaining daily strategic action that actually BUILDS a business – rather than continuing to brainstorm it while working on others’ businesses.

I was doing NONE of these things consistently over this past year. Yet I wanted the future they would create. Which is impossible.

And so I ask you to consider – what is the world of tomorrow you want to have? What acts of today are necessary to create it?

If you join me on this journey, I’ll help you figure that out and keep you taking those precise actions day in and day out. Together, we’ll make the world of both our tomorrows inevitable.

COMMANDMENT SIX: Thou Shalt Remain Accountable

Accountability often seals the deal on our success. AND it’s what most of us dread!

In his new book, “The 4-Hour Body,” Tim Ferriss talks about accountability systems that have proven extremely effective for weight loss, including:

• Posting your goals to a public forum like Facebook or a Goal Announcement website
• Creating a private group or email list for you and your friends where you update them on your goal and s#@! talk them in the process so that you’ll never live it down if you don’t succeed
• Creating an Accountability Group with weekly calls and/or have a buddy you talk to each morning and each evening

I encourage you to adopt at least one of these as you begin executing and moving toward your goals. This will ensure that you take action on what you learn and that your actions breed progress and profits.

At the least, I highly recommend you have an accountability partner. He or she will hold you accountable to the tasks you assign yourself each day. You can focus only on your business tasks, however I prefer to include personal goals and tasks as well since it’s all LIFE and a better life is really the BIG goal here!

And just to be clear: Your accountability partner is not here to pass judgment, give you another hand to beat yourself up with, or to nag you into doing what you otherwise would not do. These are all inappropriate uses for an accountability partner and will invalidate its effectiveness.

Instead, your accountability partner is there solely to train you to do what Wallace Wattles calls “acting in a way that causes you to more than fill your present place” in his book, “The Science of Getting Rich.” This allows you to exude a certain essence that, when encountered by others, will inspire them to want to work with you, help you, or profoundly change their own lives and ways of being as a result of encountering you.