The paradox of wealth is that it seems to break the law of focus.
If you want something, you should focus on it… right? That’s simple wisdom. It seems logical. It just “makes sense”, surely.
In most cases… yes. But no one taught you one important exception. This ‘law of focus’ tends to be useless, if not counter-productive, when it comes to money.
The truth is, if you want plenty of money, focusing on it will stop you from getting it.
Note: This piece is better than the other ‘X Ways To Fast Money’ posts… but only if you’re serious about earning. It also talks about ‘manifestation’ and woo-woo sh*t like that, so if you’re not into that, check out one of the countless bland articles on google instead.
Especially during my homeless years when I was obsessed with ‘fast money.’
At that time, I was searching for ways to make money fast, but it’s been a while since I was in that mindset.
So, I just did a quick google for “fast money” and you know what came up on the first page?
A bunch of posts themed like: “19 Ways to Find Fast Cash.”
And without reading them, I’d bet they’re practically useless.
Because the people who need money ‘fast’ didn’t get to that situation due to a lack of “tips”, and a few more “tips” won’t get them out of their situation.
They ended up in a rough financial spot because no one taught them the deeper aspects of money.
Google also tells me they ask things like:
And again, questions like that don’t come from someone who actually needs “16 Legit Ways To Make Money Fast.”
Questions like that come from someone who needs real, direct, clear money teachings.
When I was desperate for fast money, what I really needed was someone to explain the paradox of wealth to me.
And more importantly, I wish I’d taught it to my students sooner, too, because my failure to do so caused needless suffering.
My failure to understand this paradox early on, and my failure to teach this emphatically enough…
I learned about this paradox over many years through various sources like Abraham-Hicks, Neale Donald Walsch, and Ken Honda.
But the point was driven home by a financially-charged breakup, followed by a reading of Reality Transurfing by Vadim Zeland.
I read it because someone I’d spent years teaching was still chasing fast money, and I thought this book might help me get through to them.
The book is brilliantly insightful in many ways, but also a complex, rambling read, so I’ll paraphrase instead of quoting its section on money.
"Money isn't really 'real', so it's not something one can 'manifest' solely on its own. Money comes as a side-effect, or an accompaniment, of other goals. But even knowing that, and focusing on goals that bring such side-effects, still… any strong mental, emotional, or physical dependence on –or desire for– 'money' will prevent both money and the related goal from being realized. Instead use joyful, frequent, non-resistant focus on the goal to manifest it, and money will come as a side-effect."
I translated Vadim’s insights about money as best as I could with the above paraphrase.
But even so, that paragraph could use more explanation.
So let’s break it down.
It’s not.
Think about it.
Nature has provided lots of abundance, that is true.
But before the human race existed, neither did money.
And when cavemen began bartering, money still didn’t exist.
And when humanity developed an actual money system, they simply assigned arbitrary numbers and values to various pieces of paper.
Money’s something we made up to symbolize nature’s value and abundance.
And now money is all just zeroes and ones in cyberspace.
Currencies are so volatile and ethereal, that an entire country’s money can become worthless overnight.
Even if someone ‘prints’ more money, all they’re doing is playing with inflation, and they’ve not actually created anything real, anything of ‘value.’
Money has never really existed as a ‘real’, experiential ‘thing’ one can manifest, and it still doesn’t.
Which brings us to the next line in my Zeland-paraphrase:
He’s saying you can’t get fast money simply by focusing on fast money.
Why?
Because money is just a ‘side-effect’ of prolonged (or acute) “perceived value exchange.”
What is “perceived value exchange?”
It’s when something occurs that others, well, perceive as valuable.
Diving deeper…
If something is poorly marketed, or given at the wrong time, its value may not be perceived.
Or if something isn’t very valuable –like a scammer’s offerings– it may still be perceived as valuable, and others end up conned into giving their money.
In all of the above cases, it’s the “’perceived value exchange” that is “real”, not the money.
Money is just an intangible marker or symbolic illusion of the actual, real, feel-able experiential thing.
Money’s kind of like the stats on a scoreboard.
Even a toddler could go up and change the numbers on the board…
…but that doesn’t magically give the experience of being Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan.
Instead, the toddler benefits more from focusing on what he really wants, the experience of being as talented as Jordan, and in doing so, he’d manifest the actual, proper, true experience of being great at basketball.
And the ‘unreal’ desired score numbers would come along with that.
Focusing solely on manifesting the score numbers is useless and meaningless.
And money is the same, an illusory score-keeper of actual value exchange.
Whether you want fast money, lots of money, or both…
If you want your ‘money-score’ to increase, you manifest that best not by focusing on the score, but by focusing on being a “Michael Jordan of wealth.”
You focus on being someone talented and passionate about providing impactful, consistent value.
You focus on honing your skill at ‘perceived value exchange.’
No one teaches you this, but it’s a vital insight to have.
Because if you see money as a ‘real’ thing that you can attract without a ‘perceived value exchange’ behind it, you’ll never get it.
But you can get fast money flowing to you by focusing on all sorts of other things.
Which brings us to the next part:
And since you can focus quickly and consistently, or slowly and haphazardly on your goals, you also control how fast money flows to you.
What Vadim is getting at here is that if you focus on what your ‘true goals’ are in life (the experiences and feelings you’re truly eager to realize), then money will come to you alongside most or all of them.
He lists things like:
“...to have their own house and grow roses; travel the world and visit faraway places; catch trout in Alaska; go skiing in the Alps; raise horses on their own farm; enjoy life on their own oceanic island; become a movie star or an artist.”
The thing that trips people up is that for many goals…
… ‘money’ or ‘resources’ appears to be ‘step one’ towards achieving them.
And that often is the case.
Money is often ‘step one’, at least as far as taking action goes.
Which makes sense, right?
‘Getting money’ is basically the first ‘action step’ for ‘purchasing’ anything in our society.
After all, how is anyone going to do the above-mentioned things without funds?
And even if they could, who wants their life to be reliant on just gifting and charity?
People want to ‘pay their own way’ to many of their goals.
So this is what the majority of people do; they go after that “sack of money.”
In fact, I personally encourage people to attract, ‘manifest’, and circulate as much financial wealth as they want.
I do this because every time someone becomes a significant circulator of wealth, I see it as a blessing to our entire economy.
I’ve even told students that ‘creating some wealth’ is “step one” to many of their dreams.
They assumed that money was the goal, or that money was the “means to the goal.”
But remember, it’s not.
Money is a side-effect of perceived value exchange.
Money is a side-effect of expressing your true passions and purpose.
(Or at least… of expressing a temporary passion or purpose in a way others perceive as valuable.)
Because of this, I had to encourage students to ‘attract wealth’ while also emphasizing that money is a side-effect of ‘perceived value exchange’.
So I taught that yes, money is a vital step to realize their dreams…
…but also taught that if they wanted to attract money, they must express whatever inner-value they have out to the world, to the public, to others.
And I encouraged them to practice and polish that value expression until it’s well received and perceived by a certain tribe (or ‘type’) of others.
If money isn’t flowing well, chances are you’ve not focused enough on polishing your value, and tailoring an offering of it to a certain tribe.
I explain this process in my post “8 Fiery Steps To Grow Your Podcast (Or Anything Else)“, but it can even apply to ‘winning the lottery’ or ‘getting an inheritance.’
But I was wrong.
Because they were so impatient, and so hungry for fast money…
Oftentimes, they wouldn’t see ‘money’ flow ‘instantly’ (or ‘fast enough’) from their first few attempts at “value-sharing”.
Or as my friend I.C. Robledo pointed out, they’d see only a trickle of funds, and become hyper-focused on their “needs”, such as “needing X dollars by Y date”, and so on.
So I’ll take a moment to address this, since it’s such a common view.
It all comes down to people’s intense misunderstanding of what a ‘need’ is.
For instance, in our modern developed world, many people believe they need to eat three square meals a day, or two, or one.
But the truth is, nearly every one of those folks could fast for multiple days without issue, and in fact, their metabolism and digestive system would actually benefit from such an act.
But they’re too spoiled or comfortable or afraid.
And so they refuse to allow a fasting experience to occur, even if their bodies, nature, and the universe itself are nudging them towards such a fast.
Basically, they consider ‘three meals’ a need, but it’s actually just an addiction they’re scared to withdraw from.
And here’s another example.
“I need 8 hours of sleep.”
People really believe this, acting as if their world will end if this “sleep need” is unfulfilled even for a single night.
But once they have a child, or an emergency occurs, the same folks suddenly have no problem functioning –often for weeks or months on end– on far less sleep. Like any ‘new thing’, it’s a bit rough at first, but they quickly adapt and it becomes routine.
Their so-called “need” is really just an addiction they’ve gotten overly used to, an addiction they can easily beat when they’re motivated and eager enough to do so.
We can apply similar things to financial “needs.”
Having run my business while homeless for years, I know well that people “need” far less money than they claim or pretend.
I also know practically all of them are too afraid to find creative financial solutions, or to lower their standard of living even slightly.
On top of my homeless experiences, I’ve also declared bankruptcy before as well, causing my debt / credit to be reset after some time passed.
It was relatively easy, painless, and made almost zero waves in the world, all things considered. This is an option even Trump has taken, and he still managed to become president some time afterwards, so it’s certainly a good enough path for any other U.S. Citizen.
Finally, I have a friend who lives ‘off-grid’, and his small property provides all the wood he needs to heat his home, the freshwater well provides all the water he needs, and his garden & chickens provides all the food too. The amount of money he “needs” per year is paltry.
The point of all this is that…
People claim they “need” so much money, when that’s not the truth at all.
What they really mean is “I need X amount of dollars so that I don’t have to grow, change, or make adjustments to how I live my life, and I demand that sum be served up to me without me adjusting my approach to value and wealth-creation.”
Think you’re an exception?
Let’s explore the truth together.
(Email cynshineonline@gmail.com if you believe you’re an exception, and we’ll see.)
I challenge you to show me anyone claiming to “need X amount by Y date“…
…and I’ll show you someone intentionally and consciously arguing for their limitations and excusing their continual poor choices.
Anyway, the point is… ‘neediness’ is a form of ‘overimportance’ attached to money.
(Similar to the ‘water’ example further down the page).
And the harsh truth is that if a person chooses to obsess over ‘need’ (especially when that need is actually an illusion), they deserve the poverty they reap.
So whether it’s someone disappointed they didn’t earn as much money, or the fast money they prefer…
Or it’s someone claiming they “need X dollars by Y date”…
Their lack of financial understanding or financial timelines…
Led them to become negative about the situation and fall back into ‘chasing money’, rather than refining their expression of natural inner value.
So even though my “money is a side-effect” teachings instructed them to focus on goals and value-provision…
They’d still return to thinking “my goal is unlikely unless I focus on money.”
Which stopped all their progress.
Because focusing on money automatically puts the ‘true goal’, ‘true experience’, or ‘true desire’ on the back-burner.
It sends the message to the universe that “improved experiences are a low priority for me, but the ‘unreal’, illusory symbol of ‘money’ is a high-priority.”
It sends the message to life that you don’t seek real, tangible, substantial improvement, and you’re someone who prefers to live in fantasy-land, since money is an abstract, ‘unreal’ thing as we established earlier.
So…
I failed.
And my encouraging wealth-attraction was confusing for them.
And my encouraging ‘perceived value exchange’ wasn’t instantly gratifying enough.
How was I going to effectively teach people to thrive, if no matter what I did, or how clear I was, they weren’t getting it?
Vadim’s book sparked one potential solution.
Demonstrate the connection between “choosing realities where one’s goals are achieved” and “cashflow as a side-effect.”
Hmm.
Would this do the trick?
Well, that’s a whole other article yet to be written.
For now, let’s continue dissecting Reality Transurfing’s explanation of wealth-attraction, because it’s the foundation for everything else, anyway.
The next sentence in our blurb starts with:
This half-line seems like a ‘throwaway’ at first, but there’s actually a nugget of value in it.
It teaches that more than just disciplined “focus” on our goals (as opposed to money), still won’t guarantee fulfilling wealth attraction.
Still, something else is required.
So what else plays a role in attracting wealth through focus on our true desires?
(Reminder: Our true desires are never ‘money’, since it’s not ‘real’, anyway.)
We find out in the remaining half of the line:
Let’s think this through given what we discussed above.
What is strong dependence on, or desire for, money?
Well, it’s like a strong dependence on, or desire for, [illusory score-keeping numbers.]
It’s kind of a weird dependence, right?
Being obsessed with a ‘score’ or ‘illusory numbers’…
It’s a strange obsession.
Michael Jordan didn’t have it. He became great at basketball, not because he was obsessed with a ‘score’, but because he was obsessed with ‘performing well no matter what’.
Jordan made a point of ignoring ‘the score’ and leaving it as a side-effect of his practice regimen and focus.
If he obsessed over score, his performance would drop hugely.
And a similar obsession with ‘financial score’ will prevent you from becoming a talented creator of wealth.
It’ll stop you from earning fast money, or hell, even slow money.
Not only that, it will suck your focus away from where it’s meant to be, on the ‘true desires’ and goals you wish to experience (which will actually arrive along with funds)…
…preventing you from experiencing the wonderful life goals you really wanted the money for in the first place.
You must understand it’s not a real thing, and that it’s a side-effect of perceived value exchange.
Water is essential for you to live, but your attitude towards water is fairly neutral.
“I’m thirsty, I should find some water, no biggie.”
This is an attitude that will let you quench your thirst, while any other attitude will ruin your ability to quench your thirst.
Seeing water as “so important” –obsessing over it– will cause problems.
Seeing water as “gross” or “not worth your time” will also cause problems.
Only an attitude of “I love water, it’s great, but it’s also fine if I go thirsty for a while, I’ll get more soon”, will allow you to satisfy your thirst and manifest water.
The same would go if you put three people in a desert.
Person A places too much importance on water, and they feel anxiety and panic in the desert, which cuts off any inspired solution or way to find water.
Person B places too little importance on water, not bothering to seek it, and just keeps walking until they die of dehydration. They also receive zero inspired solutions.
Person C places an appropriate amount of importance on water, knowing it’s fine to go without for a bit, and that more is waiting to be discovered.
They remain unperturbed, focused, an empty vessel without a bunch of ‘noisy’ thoughts and feelings about water other than “Hmm, it’d be nice to acquire some water in good timing I’m sure I will.”
They have done their part by having a ‘correct’ attitude, a correct ‘level of importance’, towards water.
This lets their mind, inspiration, and the universe go to work on their behalf.
Person C starts thinking of many ways to get water:
Suddenly, Person C has an abundance of water options available to them.
The same thing goes for money.
It’s your task as a human being, to assign an appropriate level of importance to money, just as you’ve done with water. When you manage that, attracting such things to you becomes laughably easy.
This last sentence reminds us to use our focus properly, and to turn it away from the illusory score-keeper (money), and instead place it joyfully on the experiences we actually want, (of which money will accompany).
Let’s say you have a “dead bedroom”, because your partner’s wealth is lower than he’d like.
(Many masculine partners lose their libido when their career is rocky.)
Let’s say you know for certain this mate won’t become sexually active or intimate until his finances are reasonably in order.
You also aren’t as attractive as you’d prefer, because you can’t afford a gym membership, nice clothes, and so on.
You want extra funds to flow into your household because you know it will help both of these situations.
You have two options:
One of these will absolutely help you manifest money, the other will exaggerate whatever your problems and fears are.
But also, one of them takes “more effort” than the other if you’re out of practice with it.
Guess what most people would do in this situation?
Most keep their dead bedroom and unfit body and poor household for years, because they refuse to apply the helpful effort, towards the helpful solution.
They make the ‘wrong’ choice, and suffer for it.
But it’s not necessary.
With just a tiny bit of effort and practice, you can choose option two.
You can focus joyfully, frequently, non-resistedly on a lively, fulfilling sex life.
You can focus joyfully, frequently, non-resistedly on a beautiful body and appealing fashions.
You can focus on flowing value into the world, having others perceive that value, and exchange money with you for it.
Your healthy, mature focus on those wonderful goals will allow the universe to realize them for you.
The universe knows you’ll need abundant, fulfilling sums of money to help realize, and go alongside with, your dreams and desires.
The universe knows all the realities available to you, including the realities where you have your goals, dreams, and preferred experiences.
It also knows that a poverty-based, money-less path to them isn’t your preference.
The universe knows it’s part is to bring you inspired paths to money, but it also knows your part is to use your vast power of focus, to positively imagine the realities you want, without obsessing about the “financial score” much, if at all.
So, as long as you focus properly on your goals, the universe will ensure that money does manifest alongside them.
Many, many goals have ‘money’ as an obvious side-effect.
For example, it’s technically possible to travel the globe without money, but almost no one truly desires to do this. The goal of ‘traveling the world’ obviously involves substantial funding.
The universe gets that.
It’s not secretly aiming for your ‘travel manifestation’ to avoid money altogether like a hitchhiker or backpacker.
Remember, the universe is not stupid, so don’t act like it is.
Don’t micro-manage it, or panic and focus on money because you think the universe won’t manifest a good ‘financial score’ if you ever take your eye off the ‘money-ball’ for one second.
The universe already knows, and is already bringing it to you, as long as you do your part, which is to positively, joyfully, focus on feel-able experiences you truly want to have.
For example, the universe knows your goal of ‘world travel’ involves “a lot” of money.
And if you focus consistently on your “world travel” goal, (rather than its accompanying resources), the universe will bring your dream to life quickly…
Or if your goal is to ‘hire some help’ or ‘provide a job to talented staff’, this obviously involves substantial funding.
Again, the universe gets that.
It knows what’s involved in getting to the end goal, and it’s not secretly trying to make you a charity case.
(Why would it? The universe benefits from expansion and thriving, not poverty and stagnation.)
So just focus positively on a reality where you’re a job provider to a talented staff, and watch the universe bring everything necessary to realize that, wealth included.
You see?
There are ‘true desires’ you want to experience, and the universe is set up to allow you to experience them…
…But not if you turn your thoughts, emotions, and focus obsessively in the direction of money.
You can get fast money, but only if you have the discipline to focus non-resistantly on things besides fast money.
A joyful, positive, focus that simply says “I’m imagining, feeling, thinking, and living my goal now, and it feels sublime,” is a good example of what ‘non-resistant’ focus means.
Your focus is the key tool in creating the life you want.
So when assessing your focus:
It can’t be a “resistant” focus, if you intend to manifest wealth in any reasonable timing.
What’s “resistant” focus?
It’s what most people are doing when they say they’re “focusing” on something.
And it generally fails, hard.
So strengthen your focus muscles. Work them out. Get ‘focus fit.’
A reasonable question.
Some people do get results in some things by “forgetting about it”, and others get results by “focusing more on it”, so what’s that all about?
It works like this:
You only need as much focus as elevates your vibe / beliefs / emotions on a given topic.
In some cases, that’s a lot of positive focus until you feel consistently good enough for something to manifest.
In other cases it’s a “blip” of positive focus, and you feel good enough for something to manifest.
An anxious man in a desert may need significant positive focus on water in order to manifest it.
A relaxed, wealthy tycoon who owns water purifiers with backup generators, may not need more than a nanosecond of focus.
How much focus is necessary to manifest what you want is individual for you, in every case, on every topic.
And only you know your feelings & ‘focus level’.
You’re also not ‘letting go’ of the desire (or positive focus), you’re letting go of the resistance (or negative focus.)
Practically anything (that’s not countering the laws of the universe) can work.
Neville Goddard taught to “live in the end” and “act as if”, and many people have gotten great results from these practices.
But they worked for people, because they obey the paradox of wealth explained above.
And it wasn’t the method that was creating the results, it was that the people using them shifted their focus purely and positively towards their true desires.
Neville never explained this properly though.
He insisted people “live in the end” but didn’t provide the ‘why’ very clearly.
He didn’t explain why you “can’t just focus on money,” or why it was more effective to ignore the money scoreboard and instead use mental and emotional techniques to focus on your goals.
Affirmations work for some people.
All that matters is that somehow you get your internal states, mental, emotional, and physical, aligned and focused joyfully on any particular desire, free of resistance, for ‘enough’ of a prolonged time or frequency.
If you want to get control of your finances, you must:
So understand that money will be part of the journey of realizing your goals, but realize that it’s an illusory, unimportant side-effect or accompaniment of joyfully focusing on your ‘true goals’ and the experiences and emotions you want to have…
…but money’s not something worth focusing on by itself.
Focus positively on the empire you want to build, or the healthy body, or the attractiveness, or the travel you want, or the family reunion, or the fun social outings.
Do that with joyful, non-resistant focus, and the money will always be delivered in fulfilling ways and times.
This is how anyone has manifested anything.
It’s also the way life, nature, the universe operates.
One more note though: Just because it’s an illusory accompaniment to the things you really want…
Treat it with love, joy, and care.
Read Happy Money by Ken Honda or Money And The Law Of Attraction by Abraham-Hicks.
Understand that while there’s always more available from the universe, that’s no reason to neglect the money that flows through anyone’s experience, yours included.
Create healthy systems to manage and budget your money, the way you’d make sure not to waste tons of water on a trip through the desert.
Do this at least until you attract an abundance of financial wealth.
Eventually you attract so much wealth that you can be more liberal with it, but you must start with an attitude of financial respect.
So there you have it.
It explains the paradox of wealth, and why –despite me loving money– I focus on everything but.
I focus on making great products, elevating my own wisdom and value, developing myself, helping others, uplifting any situation I can.
I focus on going the extra mile, improving my systems, being more efficient, training people, giving them permanent skills, putting out content, experimenting, learning, teaching, sharing.
I focus on elevating my marketing, reach, impact, and clarity.
I focus on exchanging more value with more people.
I focus on thinking better thoughts and feeling better emotions.
I focus on being light-hearted but diligent at these things, because I know they’re what let the universe work on my behalf, and they’re what let the financial scoreboard improve.
As I’ve done this throughout my life, I’ve always been able to “land in abundance”, even from some of the darkest times or during the most shocking financial setbacks or “life storms.”
Understanding this paradox of wealth will empower you massively.
“Getting it” can help you break huge generational ‘curses’ of poverty in your family line.
If not, it could be because you’re not ready…
…but if there’s something you feel I could clarify further, please let me know and I’ll take it into consideration.
I do pour a lot of love into my teachings, so I’ll continually improve my understanding and articulation, and I’ll continue nudging people to practice positive financial focus as much as I’m able…
With helpful articles like this one.
#TogetherWeRyze
Post Author:
‘J-Ryze’ Fonceca's diagnosis as 'genius' as a child made him arrogant. This led to him scraping by as a homeless entrepreneur... for years. Eventually he got out by helping Evan Carmichael build his empire of 3 million followers. A brief stint as 'the bimbo whisperer', coaching OnlyFans models followed, after which he finally pivoted to his "Eyes Wide Open" podcast with his partner Cyn. His clients call him the ‘living mindf*ck’, ‘mindset adrenalin’, & ‘best mentor ever.’ He lives in Toronto, has read thousands of books, & can play any champ in League Of Legends serviceably.
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