Law of Attraction

Adam Rafferty Gig Review @ Henflings – Ben Lomand,CA 8-21-08

Greetings Friends!

Well, I am back in NY after almost 2 weeks in California. Wow, what a great time, what nice folks and what PERFECT weather!

On the last night of the very successful Cali trip I played at a place in Ben Lomand, CA called “Henflings”. Yep, I scoured the net for venues in the area I knew I’d be…lo and behold they gave me a gig….thanks guys!

One of the tricky things about playing solo is the anticipation of a gig right before load-in, (although I am getting better at anticipating only the best!) When I showed up it was a happy-hour, beer drinkin biker type crowd and I basically hoped they’d dig the music. Ben Lomand is a quiet place so I just hung out on a bench in the great outdoors and warmed the fingers up.

As an audience started to collect and the sun went down it felt more and more like a gig. Here are some of the highlights:

A good friend and fabulous blues player named David Crane stopped by to sit in and play a few tunes. Dave and I were childhood best friends and he came to Cali at age 12….serendipitously he became a guitar player, and it was special to connect with him on a musical level.

Go ahead youtube!!! I was encouraged and delighted by how receptive the audience was. A fellow named John introduced himself and said he’d seen my youtube vids and was excited that I would be in his area! Yeah!

“Billie Jean” had people in the back movin’ & groovin’….I even had a die hard fan on crutches up and dancing during “I Wish”…yes my fans will dance even with broken ankles…that’s dedication!!!

I got to test the waters with some new songs as well…Gershwins “Someone To Watch Over Me” is brand new. I am working on balancing out the firey songs with lush ballads…

The sound system was great. There’s no better feeling for me than to look out and see smiles. Ahh, the curse of the musician! 🙂

And, just when I found myself questioning my own sanity as to why I am shlepping across the country to play there, driving and flying endless hours, John told me that years ago he saw Tommy Emmanuel play there for a small audience.

Cool! I must be doing something right!!! 🙂

P.S. Gig pictures will be up on https://www.myspace.com/adamraffertytrio – just go to pics & look for Henflings…

Stillness at 7am and Pervading Peace

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Greetings Friends.

It’s about 7 am, and I am enjoying my first sips of hot fresh coffee…the streets of Queens are quiet and only half of the street is seeing the first rays of today’s sun….

This past week was fabulous. I had a knockout gig at Acoustic Long Island, spent time with my family, had some “working musician” type gigs, and today I leave for Nashville to hang out at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society yearly gathering.

Life is good. I am at peace. I am fortunate to wake up every day to infinite possibilities. I am blessed to have a worthwhile goal of playing this guitar as good as I can.

It’s really not all about “guitar” though. I am lucky and fortunate in life to see meaningful goals ahead of me, and I get to spend my time and energy every day realizing those goals. I have made decisions and sacrifices to set up that type of lifestyle.

To witness the unfolding of it all is breathtaking. To see that I, as a human, have the ability to visualize something and bring it into being is an awesome feeling.

A few years ago I envisioned playing solo acoustic guitar for people and knocking ’em out. To see that the “vision” has materialized means I can create my reality, I can do it – whether it is a house, car, career – anything – I can do it. And, I’ll never “get there”…it’s all a delicious process.

Success is the “delicious unfolding” of one’s desires. Success is living on purpose, rather than default.

I get to wake up every day and feel this good. That is wealth, abundance and success. I wish this for everyone.

When I talk to friends and family, and I see their confusion, not knowing the career direction they want, or frustration, the comparing to others and feeling like they are falling short, not looking good enough, and all the typical psycho spiritual ailments of common folks, I want to tell them……

Turn the TV off.
Turn the laptop off.
Get quiet.
Be still.
Breathe.
Allow restlessness to arise, but stay there.
Allow the chatter to go on, it is it’s own thing. It’s not you.
Watch what happens when it stops.
Bathe in the silence.
Breathe.
Listen.

Do this twice a day for 30 minutes and watch your life change.

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Time to pack…see you in Nashville!!!

Letting Seeds Grow

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

Greetings Friends!

Wow, so much has happened in the last week, I don’t know were to begin.

A friend of mine recently gave me a copy of a Tony Robbins CD (sorry Tony, don’t worry – I’ll be buying stuff from you soon!) and I gotta say – the man is a genius.

The expression “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” was exemplified when I heard this cd.

A typical frustration that I bump into (and many of us do) is “why can’t I be further along than I am”. Whether it is financial, career, family, skill at something, one’s physical appearance – it is easy to be dissatisfied with the present circmstances.

Eckhart Tolle would say it is the experience of saying “no” and pushing against what is that brings us unhappiness. Absolutely true.

But Tony said something so real, so obvious that I just perked up.

He said, “maybe you’ve planted seeds and just have to wait until they grow”.

Bingo. This really chilled me out!

I often get comments on youtube and audience comments amounting to “why aren’t you more famous, you’re as good as ……(pick a well know guitarist)”. And then, I find that I am walking around, irritated slightly at the perfect unerring response of the universe. I am where I am, but want to be “further ahead”.

Add to that the financial pressures of life, a little bit of ego…and away we go!!! 🙂 The frustrated ideas bring about frustrated emotions, and then I roll down the slippery slope of negativity. Hmm….how can I avoid this?

Now I see. My little seeds of my acoustic guitar direction have had much less time underground than some other people’s “seeds”. It is natural, perfect for me to be right where I am. The seeds are sprouting, and I gotta “keep on keepin on” to make sure the water and sunlight is consistent. That means ongoing touring, practicing, writing – and WAITING PATIENTLY to let nature “do it’s thing”!

I am writing about this so that you can take a look at your life and see if you are frustrated that “little seedlings” are causing you upset because you want them to be more grown up than they are.

A farmer knows if he want’s a harvest that he has to prepare months ahead…..

Giving a Free Sample Away Now; Receiving Later After the Buffer of Time

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

Greetings!

You and I are both marketers. In fact we all are marketers. If you have a day gig you are selling your services and time. If you are a freelancer, you are a marketer. You sell your product or service. Or, if you are in school you will soon be doing what I have just described.

Because marketing has become a discipline / study in and of itself, some people use it as an abstraction and as a talent to simply “market” something – whatever it may be. That’s fine for them, but I find it much more interesting to sell myself and my music.

Even rock bands are marketers. They provide an experience, and eventually provide bookers and promoters with an evening of profit when they bring their following to a show.

For the past few days I have been checking out some of my favorite “information gurus” to see how they use free samples, or even gifts as a giveaway. Everybody loves the idea of “FREE”. I do. It implies no risk. And, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about the person I am getting something free from. I must say – I have gotten hooked on people after getting their free stuff.

FREE MP3s, PDF files, reading blog posts, you tube videos….get me hooked. Ok, I’m easy! 🙂

So I have been observing myself, and my own emotional buttons, seeing how I feel when they get pushed.

At “Trader Joe’s” grocery I got a tasty little treat of a sausage slice in a mini dixie cup. Yummy, at 8pm when I have not yet eaten. That made me more likely to buy them sausages. Wait- I actually did buy some!

In my quest to get better educated about marketing, I recently saw some “marketing web pages” of nobody’s whom I have never heard of, selling $497 ebook products with no free sample. Hmm, curious. What happens is I see it, and say “NEXT!”

For them to ask for a sale without giving me something is just bad marketing!

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I attempted (and still do) to look “under the hood” as it were – to take a cosmic view of this selling, marketing, free stuff. Sounds crazy I know. Leave it to us Americans to spiritualize making money! 🙂

But seriously folks, I love what I do and want to continue what it is I do – play music. So that means I have to sell the little gems that pour out of my mind, whether they are videos, books, pdfs, mp3s, CD’s or shows.

So…up rises a fear factor, a survival “worry”.

“What if I give it away when I could have sold it? That was too much work to just give away” and so on….I have experienced that. As it turns out, the more one closes off giving, it’s like putting gaffers tape over receiving! (Thanks to Mike Littman for that analogy!)

And so in a meditation, where I had clarity – I realized this:

1) No energy is ever lost.

Even if you go out to the woods and scream, everything around you received that vibration and it just gets transferred over and over, back and forth. This means, to give something away whether it is for free or not – the energy will surely boomerang back.

2) Time does not exist! Don’t forget.

When you give away a free thing – and you know step 1, that the equivalent will surely come back, the basic difference between a freebie and a paid item is the amount of time it takes to “receive” in return. If you give a freebie away, there are no “guarantees” in the material plane of getting paid. No one is writing a check or hitting a paypal button, but if you wait – and here’s the condition – truly given a piece of yourself, of your spark, of your genius – it must come back.

So there’s no real difference in a way. Giving the free thing away means you have faith that this law works.

(I think of this often when I play gigs…how I had to “sit in” for free for a while, give people a sample of “my playing” and now it has come around so that I get paid to play guitar.)

3) Feel the Worth in What You Provide

All this having been said, we all have our different gauges and inner workings as to what we charge for, what we sell and what we give away. I think another very important point is this:

Even though you might be giving it away for FREE, you must feel the worth in what you provide. If you don’t feel that what you are offering has true worth, that will be reflected back to you!

4) You’ll Get What You Give

Here’s why you need to follow step 3. If you give out CRAP, you get CRAP. If you give out LOVE, you get LOVE. Trust me, I have experienced this and know it to be true.

This is part of the reason that doing what you love, following your bliss, is so important!

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Food for thought! Now it’s time for breakfast….have a great day!

Are Your Goals Supported by Your Environments?

By Adam Rafferty Leave a Comment

Greetings! Friends, I listened to an amazing interview last night – Jim Bunch was interviewed by Raymond Aaron.

I am not selling you anything. I believe in Raymond so here is his link. Raymond is a heavyweight, not a snake oil success guru. The real thing:

https://www.aaron.com/

You may have never heard of these fellows. Raymond Aaron has developed a program called “The Monthly Mentor” and others as well. My accountability
partner has shown me some of Raymonds materials, and they are pretty much the most awesome goal setting tools I (and my partner) have seen to date.

Ok, yes I am a musician, but I have goals – and whether you are a musician or not, we are in fact very similar! And all of us have this in common – we want to evolve, achieve, reach new heights, in whatever our main areas of life may be.

Jim talked about “the hot bath” phenomena with motivation. All to often I have seen this in my students as well. The “hot bath” can be likened to inspiration. He recounted how many of his students made commitments at motivational seminars and then a year later found themselves in the same place, not having followed through on goals.

Ouch! I think this is something we can all relate to – and bravo if you can’t or don’t.

So if you are like me (and you are) you want to eat right, exercise, meditate, (practice an instrument or whatever you are developing) keep your place clean, make more money….you see where this is going? The list gets long, and items fall through the cracks. Or we get overwhelmed (I do if I get overloaded).

Many of the teachers and coaches teach subconcious re-programming through affirmations and visualitzations. That’s another topic completely and a very important one. Essentially you re-program your mind. I can write more on that later, but there is already plenty out there. I suggest reading John Assarafof this topic.

Jim went on to break down, in his estimation, the factors responsible in bringing about change or progress:

10% Willpower (The “hot bath” problem; motivation wears off an then we fall into old habits.)

40% Subconcious (Very significant chunk here!)

50% Environment (Oh my God!!)

Environments support the direction of behaviors, beliefs and actions – good and bad. Wow!!!

In my travels through life I have taken notes like:

– A clean desk helps me work with a clear mind.

– Talking to people who are negative does me no good.

– Allowing myself to sit with an instrument in my hands guarantees improvement.

– If I have junk food in the house, I eat junk food.

– If I go to a bar I usually end up drinking more than I want to.

– Students who take lessons every week make more progress. The environment holds them accountable.

And so on. Can you see that these are all environments?

The desk, the social circles, the comitted time and focus on core genius, the refridgerator, the bar. Each environment supports behaviors and the environments “pull” can knock out will power.

Good grief!!! What a wake up call…

My commitment this week is to answer these questions, and maybe you’d want to try it too:

What 3 environments do I need to eliminate?

What 3 environments can I put in place to raise my standard of life?

This is hard core stuff. It can’t be “bought” as it comes from inside.

I will follow this up with a list for you, and in publishing it I will have you hold me accountable!

What environments in your life help you? What hinder you? Do you need to put something new in place? Eliminate something?

May you go in peace and kick ass in life! Until tomorrow….