Law of Attraction

Keeping Promises to Yourself

One of the most positive, affirming things you can do is keep promises with yourself.

Be clear with yourself at the onset of any goal you set. If you plan do do something, see it through to completion; if you don’t plan to do it, don’t even get started!

There is a hidden benefit in the completion of tasks you set for yourself, whether they are small or large. This benefit extends past the task itself.

Every time that you follow through on a promise to yourself, you get an enormous self esteem boost. This self esteem boost is the inner voice saying “I am a winner!” This is very healthy.

You will actually experience an endorphin rush through your body and get addicted to this wonderful inner drug! You’ll become addicted to the “I am a winner” feeling and want to repeat it again and again.

Your goals can be small such as committing to a single task that you will follow through on today – “I will jog for 30 minutes tonight”. It can also be a large project, and you can commend yourself each time you chip away towards it’s completion. It may not be finished, but by taking a step closer your inner voice knows you are a winner.

Following through on what you say you will do builds your “foundation” and character from the inside out. No approval from anyone else can give you this, no money can buy this, it has to be cultivated and earned within. You wll approve of yourself, build your winner mentality thereby becoming magnetic to others.

On the flip side, when you make promises to yourself that you don’t keep, your inner voice says “I am a loser.” You come to know yourself as someone who does not follow through, and this builds a failure mentality. This is not good for self your esteem.

A negative inner dialogue and self interpretation will then color your future aspirations and hang over you like a dark cloud with feelings like “I never accomplish anything” and so on. Stay away from this like the plague!

So – I am very careful about what I promise myself to begin with…I don’t promise things to myself like “I will run 10 miles every day” simply because I know if I don’t keep my promise I’ll put my self esteem in the gutter. I can promise myself that I will run 3 times a week, or more.

You can start with very small things like “I commit to practicing guitar for 15 minutes tonight.” When you wake up the following day, you will feel that you followed through, you will experience a self esteem boost, and you are in a far better position to achieve more – because you activated the “I am a winner” feeling to which you’ll be addicted.

Now…get to work!

Cause and Effect

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

I just finished reading “The Master Key System” by Charles F. Haanel on my iPad. Apparently this book inspired Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard and build a tiny little company called Microsoft.

I enjoyed this book very much and plan to read it over and over regularly. The book was written before “self help” and “law of attraction” were an industry…so there is a seriousness and passion in the delivery of this information. Charles Haanel was not seeking to be a Guru – he was seeking to convey information about which he was passionate.

The writing style is very early 20th century and almost technical. It is not a warm and fuzzy read, but as you get in deeper, it shows a deep reverence for the magical process of bringing things into the physical world through use of the mind. About halfway through, I found the book to be a very spiritual book indeed!

The main idea in the book is that every effect in our lives is brought about by a cause. Preceding that – the first cause of anything is the thought in our mind. When we impress the thought of our mind on the unseen substance of the universe, we then get the effect.

As I read, I studied events and achievements in my life over the last few years and determined that what has gone well, been successful and brought me happiness.

Then I asked myself “are these things causes?” Actually the answer is no….the touring, the income, the friendships, the happiness, the satisfaction and excitement for ongoing achievements are all effects.

So what are the causes?

Meditating, practicing guitar, creative thinking, contacting people and being in touch, producing CDs, DVDs are casues…and they all start as thoughts.

Pesitive effects are delicious, like chocolate ice cream. Causes take work and brains and may not feel fun all the time.

Any person can see effects…it’s like looking in the rear view mirror. Many people deal with effects but not causes. It takes a creative person to pay attention to causes through their own thought.

My new axiom is to work on “causes” every day, and to always ask myself “am I working on cause or effect?”

What Do You Spend Your Days Doing?

By Adam Rafferty 3 Comments

Greetings friends. Top o’ the morning to you!!! 6:14 am…thunderstorm outside. Coffee brewing…it’s a great day!

Recently a fellow musician was asking me about how I have produced DVDs, CDs, booked tours and basically been a productive musician.

He himself is an awesome guitarist, so musical talent and skill wasn’t the issue at all. However, he found himself running from gig to gig hurriedly, and was curious about lessening the “craziness” in his life and accomplishing more meaningful things musically, financially and spiritually .

He flat out asked me “What do you spend your days doing? What does a day in the life of Adam look like?”

Great question, and I hope you enjoy the answer.

I feel as though through my 20’s and into my 30’s I had a tricky time navigating “making a living” much the way he did. Not just money-wise, but making for myself a life of quality, fulfillment, and happiness in general.

I very much hope that anyone reading this (particularly younger musicians starting a career) will get the most usable, most important piece of info they’ll ever get…right here.

I say this not out of arrogance or self importance, but out of respect for the information itself, which I did not create! I have been fortunate over the past few years to have learned “sacred information” taught by wise men for generations.

Ready, set, here goes. This will take some work.

1. Determine your life’s main objective.

2 Write down 5 to 10 goals you’d like to achieve.

3. Determine the ONE of the 5 goal that is the most important, the one will have the most impact on your life.

4. Fully visualize its completion with absolutely no concern of how to do it. Know unfailingly that once you see it in your minds eye, it is achieved.

(The sky is the limit by the way.)

“What? That’s it?” you ask. Yes – but in this tiny answer runs a depth too vast to explain in a short post!

To visualize something not yet here, to use the imagination faculty is planting the seed of great accomplishment in your life.

Many will tell you to “be realistic” and look what’s around you. Frankly, if you are looking at what’s around you, you are seeing the “past”, the end of the life cycle of creation.

It takes enormous courage to look into yourself and set a goal. Size is not the issue – you can visualize a penny or a million dollars for example. Visualizing them costs nothing except your time and effort – same energy required!

When you decide clearly what your goal is, your daily activities then support the goal, the vision, the objective. You become a 24/7/365 problem solving, goal achievement machine.

Any creation requires a plan. I love to use mundane, everyday examples. Take for example a Thanksgiving meal, and let’s walk through the visualization and manifestation.

The visualization comes first. Let’s say you want the following on the table by a given time: turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, rolls, gravy, vegetables, and something to drink – let’s say wine for grown ups and juice for kids.

Then – all actions lead to the goal, but please meditate deeply on the fact that the end vision came first, and the actions come after the vision of completion. These actions may include making a list, shopping, chopping, buying utensils, inviting people over via phone & internet, defrosting items, and planning a coordinated cooking schedule so everything is served hot at the same time.

Do you see that the full visualization of the end result informs the actions? Seeing the end makes you into a mechanism to achieve the end objective and pulls you to the vision, every time, without fail. We do this constantly in everyday life. It’s a natural law – like gravity.

Every single time I travel by plane, I think of the Wright Brothers, who did the same thing. It took incredible vision before anyone had flown, for 2 guys to see this possibility and not give up until it was reality.

The common person can say “planes, yeah whatever” because they only have the strength to look at what is – which is already the past. To say “yeah whatever” to planes is easy, lazy and what most common people do.

To look into your own life, with imagination and create and do what the Wright Brothers did is the mark of greatness.

To then see this in action, you will realize – it’s not about the goal itself. To see the Divine Laws in action and bring your visions to you is the most fulfilling thing in life…breathtaking. Through achievement, you grow spiritually and see with new eyes.

So to answer my buddy’s question “what do you spend your day doing?”, I review goals, determine the most important, and then get to work on finishing them.

Even if you work a regular job, have kids, or go to school – you can still set a goal and choose the most important one, and visualize it’s completion.

Homework Assignment…don’t read it, do it!!!

1. Determine your life’s main objective.

2 Write down 5 to 10 goals you’d like to achieve.

3. Determine the ONE of the 5 goal that is the most important, the one will have the most impact on your life.

4. Fully visualize its completion with absolutely no concern of how to do it. Know unfailingly that once you see it in your minds eye, it is achieved.

The Bandstand is Sacred

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

Last night I played one of my venues in Austria that I first played 14 years ago…it’s a modest place….just a schnitzel, beer and good time music spot for touring acts.

It’s insane to think I stepped in that same room 14 years ago on my first European tour!

In preparation for last night’s gig, I made a list in the hotel of a bunch of tunes I either have not played recently, have not played yet, or new ones I wanted to try out.

My attitude for a moment, was that since this wasn’t a “serious” concert hall gig I could try things out and experiment.

But wait – there’s a flaw in that kind of thought…because that’s like saying “these people” in the audience don’t matter as much as “other people” in a concert hall.

Basically that’s like saying “you don’t matter”. What if you were one of the people at last night’s show, and what if I took that attitude?

As the place filled up, I saw longtime fans and friends in the room and knew they came for a great show. My adrenaline started pumping. I often think of the Billy Joel lyric to Piano Man – “he (the bartender) knows that it’s me they’ve been coming to see, to forget about life for a while.”

Like a bull that sees a red cape waving, when I see an audience, I know there is no holding back, there are no more excuses, there is nothing short of giving 10,000%! Life is not a rehearsal. Bullshit walks. Excuse my French.

The stage is the final destination for which all the sacrifices, hard work and practice hours have been put in. To squander it on “trying something” instead of really “doing something” is a waste IMHO. This is where the world class performance goes down. Not sometime in the future – but RIGHT NOW.

By the 3rd tune in to my first set, the sweat was dripping, I was soaked. I saw people out there grooving. I pulled out all the stops…humor, beatbox, chops, beauty of sound and a blues feel from hell. Of course I played the heaviest and sweatiest groove I could muster up.

I take no prisoners…I play as if it’s my last gig on planet earth, and I give thanks each and every time for the opportunity to have this blessed life of playing music. When I finish the gig and take bows, I give thanks to God, The Universe, my musical fathers and the audience again and again.

Slam dunks baby – in your face! 🙂 That’s the attitude.

What a night it was…it felt so good, so right to give give give to the audience, to bring these people joy, and it was a magical night.

And then I thought back to my mentor, Mike Longo and all the other jazz mentors…and they always said that “The Bandstand is Sacred”. Now I understand even more what he meant.

Being on the bandstand means it is time to “hit” – not to try things, not to experiment, not to give anything short of 100%, ever.

Every gig counts.
Every time you play music it counts.
Every one who listens to you counts – the most!

Music is as “serious as a heart attack”. If you are not serious about it, move over – because I am, and I’ll run you over.

The Bandstand is Sacred

I’m glad it was taught to me, over and over – and I am glad I remembered that last night.

The Message in the Music – Part One

By Adam Rafferty Leave a Comment

Good Morning Gang!

I very much enjoy listening to interviews of quantum physicists, thinkers and just about anything that bridges science and spirituality.

Last night I listened to a very cool podcast episode of Kelly Howell’s “Theater of the Mind” podcast. Her guest was Rob Bryanton, creator of “Imagining the 10th Dimension” blog and video podcast.

I am subscribed to Rob’s channel on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/10thdim) and love listening to him. Sometimes it’s a little over my head, but when I get it, I like it. He has a real smile and sense of humor throughout his work.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA]

In the interview last night I learned something new about Rob. He told a story how for years he simply had these creative thoughts about how our universe is built sitting quietly as his inner thinking. After he had a near death experience (he almost bled to death on an operating table) he knew, upon coming back to consciousness a day later – that he had to “get his message out” and started his book, blog and more.

I found this to be fascinating, and it resonated with me. I have never had an NDE, but I did realize that at some point I had the feeling that no matter what, I had to get my “message out there.”

Many of us have this, and it’s the gusto of life – to live with an ideal, and get our message out there, even if it makes life a little less comfortable sometimes.

“What the heck is my message?” I thought. Then I reflected on my past as a kid, on up to the recent Michael Jackson project.

It then occurred to me. As a little kid, my mom encouraged me to use tracing paper and trace comics like Spiderman, Batman. It was great hand-eye coordination, and f you’re little (3,4,5 years old) it gives an enormous sense of accomplishment to finish a tracing.

As I did it I’d always have the feeling that there’s no “me”. It’s the pencil, the paper and the comic. Yet, when I’d look at the finished product I’d see that there was another “force” or “personality” in the tracing that I did not try to put there, yet it slipped in. This seemed beautifully odd.

Music and drawing (when I did draw) has always been that to me, honestly. I don’t try to put “myself” into it. I simply try to deliver the elements as best I can with the highest degree of accuracy – and that includes the feeling I get from listening or observing.

When I step back and listen to myself recorded, I am amazed at exactly the same thing…that somehow, magically a soul (mine? you decide…) imprints it’s essence onto what was an effort much like using tracing paper.

When others then say “it’s soulful” or “you played with feeling” I secretly know that all I’m doing is trying to do it “right”. The soul-personality-infusion aspect of playing music is a weird, unintentional, magical by product of just trying to be a good cratfsman (or woman).

So, for example with all the Michael Jackson fingerstyle recordings my job efforts were simply to “trace”…to convey the lines of the music, to convey the rhythmic concept, and to watch in amazement as “a personality” or “emotion” makes itself known.

That’s one of the messages in my music…to line up physical reality as perfectly as I can…and behold the unintentional expression of the Unknowable, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient.