This is a "chapter" from my book, Life: It's a Trip. I worked in restaurants for many, many years, and my favorite part was being a waiter. Being a waiter allowed me the flexibility of scheduling that I didn’t have when I worked as a manager. And I enjoyed the fact that for the most part, I controlled my income by taking care of my customers. Let me share two stories from when I worked at Steak and Ale to illustrate my point. One night, as I was going about my shift taking care of my customers, one customer surprised me with the question, “Did you use to work at Atchafalaya’s?” “Yes”, I said. “That was three years ago.” “That’s right”, he said. “And you waited on us one time. That was the best service I had ever received. From now on, I am going to ask for you every time I come here.” I thanked him for the compliment and for remembering me. He took care of me very well that day. About a week later, I got a phone call at home from the restaurant manager. He told me that some guy called and said he was bringing in some business clients the next day and wanted me to wait on them. The manager told him that it was my day off and I wouldn’t be in, but he will have the best waiter take care of him. The man said, “No. Will you please call Rasheed and see if he can come in to wait on me, and call me back?” I knew who it was. I went in, worked for an hour off the clock to take care of my customer and made $50.00. That was in 1996. When I said I controlled my income, for the most part, incidents like this were a part of it. The other part is the fact that when your customers are asking for you, the management tends to give you the best stations to work and make sure that you are making enough money to stick around. There is another aspect of it, as well. You become the best waiter, the one that is assigned to special customers. One night, the manager took me aside and told me, “A couple is coming in at seven o’clock and it is the lady’s birthday tomorrow, but the gentleman has to be out of town, so he wants to surprise her. I have set up a table in the back room for them. They want to be left alone but have a memorable experience. Take care of it.”

I have been working with the brilliant Tania Fox for a couple of months now. Her genius is to help you excavate your genius and then communicate it to the world in a way that makes it easily accessible. It is conventional to build a mailing list in order to reach your target audience, and that is what I was discussing with her when I came to realize what I would call my genius. I have always believed that whatever I need, want, or ask for, is available to me because it already exists and is in motion towards me. It shows up, materializes, or manifests at the right time when I tune into it and communicate my desire to the Universe. The reason this works is because I am in tune with my intuition. Whenever I am being myself and act by tapping into my intuition, my actions produce the results that manifest my desire. I believe that all the resources of the universe is at my disposal when I am genuinely being myself and acting from that core. In other words, when I take inspired actions, they always, unmistakably, lead to a series of events that produce the results I want. You can call it synchronicity, coincidence, or luck; it doesn't matter, because the results are always the same. When I act from that place of knowing that comes from surrendering to my intuition's guidance regardless of how counterintuitive it may feel, miracles unfold. Another way to put it is this: the how is not my department. I cannot say that this would work for everybody or in every situation, but at this stage in my life's journey, creating a mailing list and a marketing strategy feels like dabbling in the "cursed how's." And, THAT is why I have decided not to create a mailing list.

The Mrs. and I went on a road trip to celebrate my birthday. I kept track of all the expenses we traveled. Upon return, when I totaled up all the experiences, it came out to $444, or $222 per peeson. Our room number at the hotel we stayed at was 222. 2/22 also happens to be my wife's birthday. A coincidence? Or is there more to it? What do you think? Share it in comments. I'll express my thoughts in a separate post later on.

Have you ever had one of those days when it seems like nothing is working? What do you do? Do you keep pushing? Do you work harder hoping to make a breakthrough? But, what if there is a message in there for you that you're not getting? What if the reason that nothing is working is because that's exactly what you're supposed to be doing, NOTHING! In other words, when nothing is working, do nothing. (Because NOTHING IS working.) So the next time when you're having one of those days when nothing seems to be working, just remember, it's a message for you to do nothing, at least for a while. Give your system a break, instead of breaking it and then having to fix it later. The antidote to STRESS is ALWAYS rest and relaxation.

They say that when you market to everyone, you market to no one. (Is that true? According to whom? What gives them the ABSOLUTE authority to make the claim?) Whatever the case may be, I have decided to market to everyone. Come to think of it, why do we even have to market and sell? Why can't we just give away what we have? Because, what I have learned in life is that the more you give away, the more you have to give away. If I was to translate that into the commercial language, it would mean that the more you gave away the larger your income would be and you'll have more resources and opportunities to give away what you have. I have changed the language on the community's About page to make it all inclusive rather than it being a community for men only. Over the years I have experienced that more women are attracted to my message than men, and it would be foolish of me to make it available only to men, when traditionally my ideal audience has been women. Also, the fact remains that this community has both men and women in its membership from the start, and if I look at the leadership board I find both men and women on the list. Please feel free to leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments. @Christina Brady @Mitchell Allen @Lisa Black @Mike Bayer @Eileen MacDonell @Guy Bandy @Georgiana D @Aslam Khatri @Katinka van Kan @James Bansbach