Thanksgiving, Abundance, and Luck

Many people email me wanting to know how to increase luck and abundance, and how to speed up manifestation time, and perhaps even have what they need appear instantly.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to a share few stories about the power of gratitude to change your experience of luck and abundance rapidly.

While luck seems to be an experience that happens entirely by chance, if you engage in experiments like I did, you'll discover that your thoughts, emotions and actions have a lot to do with how your life plays out.

Many years ago, a friend used to take me to a bingo hall. During the first year or two, I won nothing. I was convinced that it was not my destiny to win in any games of chance. I didn't expect to win, so I won nothing. I noticed, though, that some people seemed to almost always win, while others just as consistently won nothing.

One day while I was swimming I remembered the principle of gratitude and I decided to give it a try. For me swimming is one of the ways of going into a trance and programming my subconscious. As I kept swimming, in my mind's eye I saw myself winning a bingo game played on a green card, and I felt deep gratitude for my winnings - in advance. I kept swimming and visualizing myself winning for about 30 - 60 minutes. I went to bingo later that evening and I won $100 in the game I envisioned myself winning.

I wanted to find out whether I could win $1,400 jackpot. At the time if you won a jackpot, you'd get a plastic mug with inscription "jackpot winner", so I created an image of the mug with inscription "jackpot winner" on it, affirmed that I am a lucky jackpot winner and poured out gratitude for my winnings. Within a week I won that jackpot.

I made a similar experiment with a slot machine. Another friend took me to a casino to play at slot machines, and gave me $25 chip to go and entertain myself. I changed it into quarters and began playing. Again I envisioned myself as a winner, poured out gratitude for my winnings, and I won the jackpot on that slot machine.

At one time I urgently needed $200 and not having any idea where to get them, I went to bingo. A friend of mine showed up in the middle of the game that paid $200. Surprised to see me there, because he knew I didn’t have money to waste, he asked "What are you doing here?" I said, "I need $200." He burst out laughing, "And you came here to get it?" I nodded, and continued to play the game. Few more numbers were called. I raised my card, and yelled "Bingo" - I just won the $200 I needed. My friend was speechless, as I smiled and whispered to him "Mind over matter!"

Sometimes people ask "Well, how about winning millions of dollars?" Personally, I tend to focus on my needs being met at all times, - that is what I have programmed in my subconscious and it works for me. I never needed millions of dollars - though I do get emails from people who seem to have such needs. At times I was in situations where I needed more money than I had on hand. At such times, again I would program on the idea of the particular need being met and I’d pour out gratitude that it is met now. And whatever I needed would come in some form into my life, many times in interesting and unexpected ways. Sometimes what seemed to have required money, didn’t require any money at all. The need was filled in other ways. Those stories I will leave for some other time. Right now, I wanted to share few more ways of practicing gratitude.

Some people celebrate Thanksgiving once a year. Because the practice of gratitude is one of the most magical acts through which you can instantly create miracles in your life, I practice it in some form on daily basis.

When I desire to immerse myself in a multi-sensory experience to deepen that feeling of gratitude, I may light up candles. burn sweet smelling incense, and use aromatic oils that evoke the feeling of sacredness.

This method of getting into a trance has been used by most spiritual traditions through thousands of years and for a good reason. It engages many of your senses, it helps to create powerful imprints upon your subconscious mind and to anchor states of well-being. Each time you use them, you deepen that state of gratitude and well-being.

At times when you may be feeling down, you can rapidly trigger states of well-being by using those same stimuli, those same scents and sights, and sounds and even tastes you associated with feeling really good. Even when you work with hypnosis, subliminal or supraliminal plus recordings for example, you can use scents to anchor different states of being.

Among different ways of anchoring states, if you visit any bingo hall, you're bound to see many people having "charms" beside their playing cards, little figurines like trolls, or maybe a rabbit's foot, or an alligator's tooth. Perhaps you have your “lucky” clothes, or colors, or some little thing that is particular to your culture and beliefs.

In spite of the saying that "rabbit's foot wasn't lucky for the rabbit", and that we may view the practices of "folk magic" as amusing superstitions, just like Pavlov's dog, we all tend to pair our inner experience with whatever may be present in our environment, and sooner or later, an object, sight, sound, smell, taste or touch, becomes a trigger for the inner state. For example, you could listen to Become Lucky supraliminal plus recording and as the recording helps you to open your mind and heart to the experience of gratitude, abundance and luck, you begin to feel good each time you hear my voice and as you discover that the recording has a positive impact upon your life on many different levels of your being, you keep on listening to it over and over, because the more often you listen to it, the more those feelings of well-being and positive expectations become imprinted upon your subconscious mind. As you pair my voice with the feeling of well-being and experience of luck, you begin to feel lucky and expect good fortune to come into your life, and in turn you create a happy feed-back loop, where the sound of my voice becomes a trigger for the experience of gratitude, luck and abundance in your life.

And when it comes to lucky charms, recently I read about the man in Canada who won a major lottery prize for the fifth time - the last prize was about $17 million. Now, while some people win major lottery prizes by playing different kinds of lottery systems, the lucky winner said, he didn't play any system, he just picked the numbers randomly. He let his inner wisdom guide him. He was also wearing a pair of lucky horseshoes.

And now, I wonder just in how many different ways can you program your subconscious mind with the feelings of well-being, gratitude, luck and ever-greater abundance ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lottery winners reveal their surprisingly modest dreams

They are rich beyond their wildest dreams. But as the nine winners of Britain's largest lottery prize spoke of their good fortune, their dreams turned out to be surprisingly modest.

Les Scadding and his wife Samantha Peachey-Scadding from Caerleon, south Wales 

Luxury sportscars, superyachts and exotic holidays? Not quite. A Vauxhall Corsa and a trip to Menorca were the biggest extravagances that the newly minted millionaires could countenance as the scale of their windfall sunk in.

The ticket-holders for Friday's £91m Euromillions jackpot were unveiled as Les Scadding and his wife Samantha Peachey-Scadding, from south Wales, and a syndicate of IT workers from Merseyside, dubbed 'The Magnificent Seven'. Each ticket was worth £45,570,835.50.

Mr Scadding, 58, declared himself "a very lucky man". Five years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer but has since been given the all-clear. "I'm lucky to be here today even without my winnings," he said.

The father of three grown-up children from a previous marriage lives in a three-bedroom end of terrace house in the small town of Caerleon, near Newport, with his 38-year-old wife.

He purchased a lucky dip ticket only because he forgot to take the card bearing his usual numbers on his trip to Tesco.

The mechanic and haulage driver was made redundant a year ago and until Friday was £68 in the red. He said he was looking forward to spoiling his wife, who runs a marketing and public relations business, after being a "kept man". "To start with, being unemployed meant I could have a few extra games of golf and meet the lads in the pub at lunchtime. But it wasn't like that in reality. We have struggled this year but now it is my turn to make it up to Sam."

Mr Scadding intends to buy a black Range Rover Sport with ivory interior. He said: "I have never, ever in my life owned a new car. I'm going to buy one now."

He described the win as "fate", explaining: "It's a funny thing but for the last 12 years I have always said I'm going to win the lottery. "My family all laughed at me. My daughter, who lives in Abu Dhabi, always asked, 'Have you won the lottery?' I rang her at the weekend and when I told her the whoop at the end was just incredible."

At a separate press conference on Merseyside, the other seven winners - who will each bank £6.5 million - reflected on their new lives. John Walsh, 57, James Bennett, 28, Sean Connor, 32, Alex Parry, 19, Emma Cartwright, 23, Ceri Scullion, 35 and Donna Rhodes, 39, have already quit their jobs at the BT office in Liverpool, where they were employed by Hewlett Packard.

They formed the syndicate only four months ago and Mr Walsh bought a lucky dip ticket. "I couldn't sleep on Sunday morning so ended up checking the numbers on Teletext at 3am. I had to wake up my wife, son and daughter so they could double check I wasn't dreaming."

Mr Walsh called the others to break the good news. "I didn't quite get the response I expected because, with the economy in the state that it's in, they all thought I was calling them to tell they had been made redundant."

Each of the syndicate members earned between £15,000 and £18,000 per year. Mr Bennett, who is married with two young sons, said: "I have never owned a house and we have already been searching on the internet. It is the most amazing feeling to be able to click the button which says 'No maximum price'. It is hard to believe that these dream homes we are looking at are now in our price range." Mrs Rhodes added: "We're just normal people. I don't know how to be different. I don't know what to do in an estate agents, I've never bought a house."

Mrs Scullion, who is planning a holiday to Menorca, fell off her stool in the nail salon when she heard the news. She plans to buy a minibus for the local children's hospital, which treated her son for a hole in the heart.

The youngest winner, Miss Parry, had been saving for the past year to buy her first car "and so the first thing I will do is treat myself to a blue Vauxhall Corsa." The win also means she can fulfil her dream of going to university. She turned down the chance last year because she was deterred by the prospect of student debt.

(ref. Telegegraph, UK)

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Newborn inspires mom to lose 71 pounds

At left, Veronica Noone, after her son was born in June 2005; and about 15 months later. She says she maintains her weight by trying not to be "perfect" in her diet.

(CNN) -- Veronica Noone had been a little overweight since her teens, and, like many people, had spent the better part of her life trying different diets, whatever was popular at the time.
Having a child changed that, she says. After she had her baby, she decided to lose the post-baby weight and the extra pounds she'd been carrying years before that. Dropping about 70 pounds in seven months, Noone's maintained a healthy weight for almost four years now.

Veronica Noone, 33, an online interactive designer at University of Maryland-Baltimore County who lives in Perry Hall, Maryland.

She was a very normal child but her weight struggles began after puberty. She was probably 10 to 20 pounds over the weight she thinks fits well on her 5-foot-9 frame. It struck her hard because in her group of friends, she was one of the chubby ones. She started to yo-yo diet to try to fit in.

After college she gained more weight, topping 200 pounds. She became what she calls a "serial dieter." When she and her husband decided they wanted to have a child, it was a decision that changed her outlook on life and her self image.

How much she lost: On June 30, 2005, she weighed 206.8 pounds. She reached her goal weight of 149 on January 19, 2006. She eventually got to 135 pounds, but finds 145 to be a more comfortable weight.

After her son was born in 2005, Noone started to eat in a different way. "I found that when my focus changed from trying to get thin to trying to be healthy and a good example [for my son], all of a sudden the weight started coming off," she says. Her preoccupation with her body image disappeared and she became more concerned with what were the best food choices she could make for her son.

But just as important, she came to another realization. "I didn't have to be perfect," she says about her plan to lose weight. Before, she would hammer herself if she broke with the diet and had a doughnut or something else that made her feel like she had failed. "Every choice I make is an on-plan choice. If I choose to eat a doughnut, that's fine. I'm going to eat that doughnut. It doesn't mean I'm off my diet. I'll account for that in a later meal. Or I'll have a lighter dinner."


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If you would like to lose weight and you find it challenging, Deep Trance Now Weight Loss recordings can help you to use your mind through hypnosis and NLP techniques - to easily adopt a healthy nutrition, engage in pleasant physical activities, program your body with a sense of fullness and program your subconscious with the image of your ideal body.

It is a Weight Loss program tailored to your needs and preferences ...

Fifth Time Lucky: Lottery Winner Succeeds in Claiming His $17 M Jackpot

ALBERTA, Canada -- A Canadian man has succeeded in his court challenge to collect a $17-million lottery prize -- his fifth such win, the Canadian Press is reporting.

Alberta-based Seguro Ndabene had to fight the Western Lottery Corporation at length to obtain his jackpot, after another man claimed the ticket was part of a group purchase, the Canadian Press report said. This man, Tony Koprnicky, later withdrew his claim and no others came forward either.

Mr Ndabene played random numbers in all his five wins and had no advice for lottery players. Mathematicians are stunned by his wins, the report mentioned.

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Since October 2004, when he won more than $1 million, Ndabene has been on an unbelievable lottery winning streak.

In subsequent draws he won $100,000, $57,000, and $1.3 million, before his latest jackpot, he said.

"They shouldn't torture a person like me just 'cause I won several times," the native of Mozambique said.

Yves Blanchette, who sold the winning ticket at his Airdrie Co-op lotto kiosk was happy for his customer.

"I like ... his horseshoes," Blanchette said.

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Using lucky horseshoes may be one way of programming your mind with luck and getting on a lottery winning streak, here are some other methods to help you increase your chances of winning the lottery ... :)

Spiritual Fasting - A Secret Source of Power

Fasting can help you to renew your body and your mind and to deepen your awareness of the spirit within you.

On a physical level, as your body gets rid of toxins and has the opportunity to renew and recharge itself, many even seemingly incurable health problems will simply dissolve.

Dr. Oda Birchinger who supervised over 70,000 fasts, pointed out that fasting can heal and help rheumatism in the joints and muscles, circulatory problems, skin diseases, allergies, respiratory problems, eye problems, to name just a few.

Dr. Tanner who fasted for 53 days when he was 77 years old discovered among other things that his thin, grey hair was replaced with new black hair, the same color he had as a young man.

On a mental level, fasting will help you to get rid of worries, fears and anxieties. It will also help you to get rid of all sorts of addictions.

On a spiritual level, not only will your awareness of the spirit within you deepen, but as different energy centers open and balance, different powers will begin to emerge spontaneously from within you.

There is no other way for certain powers to emerge from within you, except through fasting, because fasting removes both physical and mental obstacles, allowing the spiritual energy to express freely through you.

As a side-effect of fasting, you will discover that your abundance will increase also.

In short, fasting is the fastest way of bringing miracles into your life.

The difference between dieting and spiritual fasting is that while you are engaged in spiritual fasting, and are abstaining from food, you are focusing your thoughts on that which is eternal within you. By directing your attention to that which is eternal within you, through meditation, chanting, heartfelt prayer or by repeating spiritual affirmations throughout the day, you will discover that you can go for a long time without food and still not feel hungry, because you will be absorbing the energy directly through breathing and through the energy center on top of your head.

When you focus your attention on that which is eternal within you, you may experience a sensation of electricity running through your body, because you will literally plug yourself into an ocean of boundless living energy and power.

We live in an ocean of boundless, living energy and power - in an ocean of boundless life-force. Energy flows where attention goes, so as you direct your attention to it you open yourself up and allow this boundless living energy and power to flow through you.

You should listen to your body when you fast and you should prepare your mind and body for the fast. If you regularly engage in some kind of spiritual practice, you will find it much more enjoyable and effortless to fast.

If you have never fasted before, you may begin fasting just for 24 hours. If you want to go on longer fasts, you may prepare your body by eating light food for a while. You may then try fasting for 5 or 10 days on liquids - fruit or vegetable juices, even clear broth, or you may try fasting on water alone and see how long you can do that while feeling reasonably comfortable. Slowly you can work your way up to 40 day fasts or even longer.

If you keep on fasting frequently, you will develop a habit of fasting and you will also discover that you can fast longer and longer with greater and greater comfort and enjoyment.

When you complete your fast and return to eating food, do so gradually. Begin with soups, raw or steamed vegetables or fruits and light salads. Let your body adjust to digesting food again.

Not only will you fast longer and longer with greater and greater comfort, but you may enjoy it more and more as you experience the spiritual high and all kinds of benefits that will emerge spontaneously from fasting.

You can fast for a particular purpose, for healing, abundance, supernatural abilities, for any other specific blessing, or simply because you enjoy the depth of spiritual awareness you experience while you are fasting.

One side effect of that deepened spiritual awareness is that you will open yourself to information that was not available to you before. You will begin to clearly hear the voice of the Spirit within you.

As you remove the obstacles that are clouding your awareness of the Spirit within you, your Inner Light will begin to shine brighter and brighter and you will begin to notice more and more Light radiating through your eyes.

You will begin to experience greater and greater sense of profound inner peace and whatever you may want to manifest in your life will begin to manifest faster and faster simply because you have removed the obstacles from within you.

If you need addictional help with fasting you can get Stop Feeling Hungry supraliminal plus CD or mp3 here

How to get instant results with hypnosis and the power of your mind

Many people wonder how much time does it take to get results with hypnosis and how can you speed up manifestation time and perhaps even get instant results?

Here is simple truth:

If you have NO INNER OBSTACLES, you get INSTANT RESULTS.

If you have conflicting ideas, beliefs, desires, and expectations - you introduce friction and the element of time.

When you are totally congruent, when every aspect of you is fully in agreement in respect to what you desire to manifest and experience, you get instant results.

From that perspective you could say that the entire purpose of hypnosis, meditation, prayer, magic or any other spiritual or esoteric practice is simply to REMOVE INNER OBSTACLES.

Remember: NO OBSTACLES = INSTANT RESULTS

That’s why people who regularly purify their minds through meditation, hypnosis and other spiritual or esoteric practices have more and more experiences where one moment they think of something and the next moment - it is manifested.

And that’s why some people who practice hypnosis try to access as deep levels of the mind as they can in an attempt to by-pass inner obstacles and conflicts and get instant results.

Accessing deeper levels of the mind doesn’t mean becoming unconscious. However, if you are not used to being fully conscious when accessing deeper levels of the mind, you may tend to fall asleep and become unconscious when you drift deeper and deeper into trance.

And if you regularly meditate or practice some form of self-hypnosis, you will be able to access deeper and deeper levels of the mind and still remain conscious.

The purpose of accessing deeper levels of the mind, of getting into a deep trance, is to fully subjectively experience your desired outcome.

Some people ask: “How do I know if I am at the level of the mind I need to be to successfully program my subconscious mind with my desired outcome?”

You are in the optimal state of mind for programming your subconscious mind when you are fully immersed in vividly experiencing the reality of your desired outcome - and NOTHING else exists for you.

If you have conflicting ideas, each of those ideas has some energy vested in it and the ideas into which you have invested the most energy - WIN - and manifest in your life.

You invest energy into the ideas that live in your subconscious mind through the intensity of emotions you have associated with those ideas, and through repetition.
The more emotional energy you invest in an idea, the less repetitions it needs to manifest. Intense emotions can bring about instant results.

No idea lives in isolation in your subconscious mind, and any other related idea will either reinforce it and give it more power or it will diminish its power and perhaps even cancel it altogether.

By constantly thinking about something, you keep constantly feeding i with your energy, because “energy follows thought”.

There are many things that you are able to manifest instantly in your life because you have already invested whatever energy is needed for those things to manifest. You have also invested lots of energy in developing skills required to manifest some of those ideas.

If you have all body parts and they are all in working condition - you have learned how to walk, how to talk, how to read, how to write, and you have developed many other skills that are useful to you in your everyday life.

If you have invested time in some kind of mind-training and you regularly practice meditation, hypnosis or are engaged in other kinds of spiritual or esoteric practices, you may have developed certain above average abilities when it comes to working with consciousness and energy.

You can accelerate the manifestation of your goals by drawing upon the skills you have already developed.

If you have learned how to walk, you can learn how to dance. If you have learned how to speak one language, you can learn how to speak any other language.

Some skills that you have developed are transferable and when you apply them in a new context, you are still way ahead of someone who doesn’t have such skills.

If you already know steps from five different dances, picking the steps from the sixth one will be a piece of cake for you. If you speak few Roman languages, learning another one may be a piece of cake for you, as you would already recognize many of the words.

If you have successfully used the power of your mind to manifest different things in your life, you already know how to manifest anything else.

Sometimes, though, you may want to manifest something that is way beyond anything you have ever manifested before - something that seems to be much bigger than you.

What can help you is practicing GETTING OUT OF THE WAY or what some people call UNDOING YOURSELF - even going beyond the level of your mind.

Nike ad says “Just DO IT”. The idea is to put your thoughts aside, and just surrender to the experience of your desired outcome.

Exercises in a Course in Miracles have you repeat different affirmations for clearing your mind of inner obstacles, like: “My thoughts do not mean anything.”

Or simply watch the thought passing through your mind as if they were clouds, dissolving into nothingness, and as they dissolve, the Light of pure consciousness will automatically shine through.

If you do meditate on this Inner Light, eventually you will EXPERIENCE It - containing EVERYTHING within It - all knowledge, power, abundance, peace, joy, you and everyone else - as one - without beginning or an end.

Shiva Sutras suggest different practices that help you to focus on nothingness - on the gap between your inhalation and exhalation, on the gap between your thoughts, or if you were listening to sounds, on the point of silence where one sound ends and another begins.

Another practice consists of simply observing your thoughts with detachment, realizing that they have no meaning in and of themselves - and any meaning they have is only the meaning you have associated with them.

The meaning that you have associated with different ideas is what gives them power in your life - and you have the power to withdraw energy from any disempowering idea.

The more you contemplate that which is timeless, limitless, infinite, eternal, that which is without beginning or end, the more power will you have to manifest your goals and the faster will they manifest, because you will be spontaneously dissolving inner obstacles.

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), as well as in different esoteric practices and natural / folk magic, there are countless fun techniques and mind tricks designed to help you to overcome inner obstacles.

Daily practice of forgiveness and gratitude will help to dissolve any emotional obstacles that may be preventing you from experiencing your desired outcomes - freeing up the energy and producing instant and seemingly miraculous results.

How to get what you want through negotiation

Many people are attracted to learn hypnosis because they would like to know how to hypnotize other people - how to influence, how to persuade others so that other people would give them what they need or want.

The fact is that each one of us is hypnotizing and influencing other people every day through communication, through the choice of words we use, through the way we use those words to paint images and elicit emotions, as well as through our behavior.

Each one of us is negotiating our needs in some way each day through verbal and non-verbal communication - with our families, friends, people with whom we have professional relationships, people with whom we'd like to develop closer relationships and even with strangers we meet in a course of a day.

All of us began practicing negotiation even before we learned how to use words, using variety of skills we had - from crying and giggling, to pointing at what we wanted or perhaps even throwing a tantrum, rewarding our parents with angelic sweetness or insisting they meet our needs by making nerve-wrecking noises.

As we were growing up, we developed our preferred negotiating styles, based on what seemed to have worked best for us, and based on what skills we were willing to learn. Some people learned to resort to brute force, to threatening, intimidating others and generally playing the role of a bully; some learned to resort to begging, pleading and generally playing the role of a martyr; and some chose to learn how to communicate and negotiate more elegantly - weaving words and the knowledge of human nature in a way that is more likely to satisfy the needs of everyone involved.

In negotiation, there is always give and take and the first step to any effective negotiation consists of gathering information, so to begin:

- Define your outcome - what is it that you want, what is it that you are willing to settle for, what can you afford to lose.

- Create Plan "B" - consider your alternative options, if you can't reach the agreement.

- Learn all that you need to know about the person with whom you intend to negotiate and who has the authority to negotiate with you - what are this person's objectives, what motivates this person, what the person likes and dislikes and how can you establish the common ground.

If you were looking for a job, it only makes sense to learn as much as you can about the company where you want to apply for a job, as well as about the person you'd be working for and the person who may be interviewing you, so that you can find the common ground and emphasize the skills, abilities and personality traits you have which will make you the most desirable candidate for the job in the eyes of your employer.

If you were looking for a date and you wanted to seduce a person, it only makes sense to learn as much as you can about that person, what the person wants in life and out of a partner, as well as what the person is able and willing to share, so that you are able to establish a common ground and approach the person in a way that would make you the most desirable suitor in this person's eyes.

- If possible try to negotiate on your home field, at a place where you feel comfortable, or on a neutral field.

- Choose time of the day when you are in a best position to negotiate - it may be a time when you are at your mental peak or a time when the person you are negotiating with is in a particularly good mood.

- Dress in a way that helps you to project an image that is most appropriate to the negotiation.

If you are applying for a job, dressing for an interview in a way that helps your prospective employer to imagine you as part of a team may help you to land the job.

If you are looking for a date, how you dress and act may depend on what kind of a date you are trying to attract - rich, elegant, seductive, kinky or whatever rocks your boat.

- All successful communication and negotiation begins by establishing rapport, so ...

- Find a common ground.

- Smile, match and mirror body language.

- Talk about common interests, concerns and viewpoints you share, pose questions to which the other person can say "yes" to get the person in a mood to agree with you.

As people tend to put different labels to same experiences, and same words can mean very different things to different people ...

Make sure that you and the person you are negotiating with speak the same language. If you are not sure what the person is trying to communicate, ask for clarification to avoid misunderstanding.

- Use simple language.

- Use descriptive words that paint vivid mental images.

- Be specific.

- Backtrack and paraphrase - repeat what the person you are negotiating with said, and/or what you have agreed, in your own words, so that you are sure you are both in agreement and there is no misunderstanding.

Sometimes the negotiations get stuck because we are insisting that the other person gives us something that the person is not in a position to give us. Sometimes the negotiations get stuck because we get fixated on one solution to the problem, when in fact there may be many other alternatives and the more flexible and creative we are, the more likely we are to find mutually acceptable creative solutions.

The greater vocabulary we develop and the more we learn about communication, human nature and what motivates people, the more effective we become as communicators and the more elegantly we are able to negotiate.

Winning big is everyone's dream, but are you ready for it?

Scottish Lottery Winners

The National Lottery is this month celebrating its 15th anniversary, with licensee Camelot staging parties for past winners all round the UK, including a gathering at Hampden Park for some of Scotland’s 436 big winners, among them 190 millionaires or multi-millionaires since 1994.

Lotto winner John McGuinness, however, was a notable absentee from the Scottish prizewinners’ bash.

McGuinness, 45, one of the earliest and biggest winners in the UK when in January 1996 he picked up £10,055,900, said last month he was broke.

Scottish-based financial planner Duncan Glassey has built a business on advising the suddenly wealthy, and steering them away from becoming almost as suddenly poor again. “We are all capable of making the wrong investment decisions based on greed and naivete,” Glassey says.

“One lady came to me having lost her lottery win on a fraudulent investment scheme. She had invested £750,000 won by her fiancé, on the promise of a 50% return on her investment. The lady was knowledgeable on financial matters and had a successful private practice as a psychologist. But what she knew didn’t influence her behaviour.”

He goes on: “People who receive sudden wealth often suffer great frustration over how to deal with such a large amount of money. For some this results in a painful inability to identify real needs and longings, or to connect with meaningful work or occupation. Others find it difficult to establish authentic and trusting friendships.”

An international survey found that 35% of lottery winners turn out to be bankrupt within 10 years.

“In drawing up a plan we often find that if they buy the lovely house that they have always dreamed about, get the cars they want, give the gifts they want to brothers, sisters and close family, then the money will run out after about five years,” Glassey says. “The first mistake people make if they win £1m or £2m is they think they can live a millionaire’s lifestyle.”

Only a month ago, nine regulars at the Doon Inn in Blantyre scooped a £4,525,058 win from their lottery syndicate, triggering windfalls of over £500,000 for each of them. But is that enough to retire?

An Aberdeen-based deep-sea diver on six-figure earnings consulted Glassey after a big lottery win. “He said, ‘unless I can go to Portugal every weekend and play golf and not have to work, I am going back to work on Monday’. He was aware he couldn’t otherwise maintain his current lifestyle – it’s unusual for someone to be so level-headed.”

Since their £2.9m syndicate win in February 2007, the staff of Smile hair and beauty in Burnside, Lanarkshire, have all paid off their mortgages and bought new homes and cars. But though two have retired, Wendy Brown, Natalie McGuire, Lorna Alexander and Megan McCann all still work together at the salon.

But most dramatic was the winner who Glassey encountered while advising in Edinburgh on behalf of Ernst & Young in the lottery’s early days.

“He owed his best friend £500 and couldn’t pay him back, so he tried the lottery. He won £1.5m, paid his friend back, and came to see E&Y. He said he was going to give all the money to the Salvation Army, and had made the decision not to tell his wife or his children. He was an Irishman with a big family of seven, they were incredibly close and he was terrified this money was going to influence them.”

Glassey recalls: “In many ways I really respected the guy. But the downside was that he never took any advice. Today, I would probably try a lot harder to persuade him to put money in trust for children or grandchildren’s education, to take a long-term view.”

McGuinness was a hospital porter who blew most of his £10m win on sports cars, luxury holidays, a mansion in Lanarkshire, and ploughing cash into Livingston Football Club, though he gave £3m away to family and friends.

“I thought I’d plenty of money and what was a few million to invest in a football club,” he said in a recent interview. “Now I’m worried about how to pay for the shopping.”

Glassey observes: “For many people whose experiences were not positive, much of the damage has its roots in non-financial matters. Many simply did not know how to handle the attention and emotions involved, and they were not prepared to make the decisions and set the boundaries that were necessary …

“Many people have stories of scams, bankruptcies, and unexpected losses. Lottery winners have told me about spending binges and how they hid money from their spouses. There is often an unbalanced relationship with money which can manifest itself as shame, guilt, anger, fear, rampant materialism, hoarding and all manner of addictive or compulsive behaviour.”

Camelot has a panel of 10 financial advisory firms and 10 legal firms standing by every week for all winners of prizes over £50,000. “The IFAs are all assessed on their independence, their charging structure and their expertise and knowledge,” says Camelot’s Rob Dwight.

That definition would appear to rule out going to the bank for advice. “We see winners before everyone else, in the privacy of their own home – though understandably you may get winners who shout it from the rooftops, and a bank or building society may see an opportunity to push their services forward.”

Glassey recalls: “We came across horror stories where the winner said the bank had contacted them, and they had put all the money into a with-profits bond. Luckily, on some occasions it was within a 14-day cooling-off period – but on some occasions we arrived too late.”

He adds: “In those days Royal Bank of Scotland was known to send round a limousine to pick up a (lottery-winning) client for a meeting with the bank manager – for some people that is a wow factor.”

So what is best advice for a newly minted millionaire?

“It goes from the very practical, to changing the telephone number and organising a PO box number, in case people are trying to contact them remotely or track them down, to giving them the first advice – do nothing for 12 months, yes, you have hit the jackpot but what do you want to do with it?”

Next comes a gradual initiation into financial jargon, the meaning of risk, and building a life plan. Investment would be “low-risk in the first couple of years until they become more knowledgeable”. A typical spread at the outset would be 70% in gilts, high-quality corporate bonds and cash spread among different institutions in £50,000 chunks, and 30% in equity funds with very widely diversified holdings.

Advisers should charge on the basis of ongoing service, not products.

Glassey concludes: “Money is the single most transformational substance in our society. It is seductive, alluring, fascinating, and perceived as greatly desirable. It is everyone’s dream – but you must be mentally prepared.”

- ref.  HeraldScotland, Simon Bain

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Get mentally prepared to win now:)