At 17 years old, Steven Ortiz is a role model at amplifying possibility into reality. Spending absolutely no money, he now owns a Porsche.

What Steven did is find people who needed what he had, and he offered it to them in exchange for what they had to offer.  In these interesting economic times, it’s apparently entirely possible that a family might want to trade an expensive, two-seater sports car for a more roomy and utilitarian vehicle that meets their needs.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/cell.phone.porsche.2.1817906.html

Steven first traded a free cell phone he’d been given for a better model.

Let me repeat that.  Steven first traded a free cell phone he’d been given for a better model.

Now…why would somebody want to do that?  Well, I can tell you that after my son recently lost the brand new iPhone 3GS I bought him for Christmas, we selected a more conventional cell phone with a more economical service plan in order to recoup the cost of that lost phone.  There are probably lots of people out there with 2 or 3 or 4-year contracts that would like to downgrade their plans, and not pay for a new phone.  Makes sense, right?

As we think about the value we are trying to create in our own lives, Steven’s story makes it clear that we can create enormous value in our own lives by creating value in the lives of others.  And there are many, many ways to achieve that.

Sometimes we become blocked because we think we know how we must turn our dreamed of possibilities into reality.  Or we think we know that certain possibilities only come from certain activities, or connections.

The truth is that the universe has more ways to deliver our dreams to us than we can count.  Explore every new idea for its potential.  Somewhere, the cosmic Powers That Be will laugh in delight when you discover a new path that has so far been hidden from all of us.

The future is sometimes a scary thing. When you’re down or challenged, you imagine the worst possible outcomes happening to you, and spend sleepless nights wondering how you will get through it all. How can you overcome your fear of the unknown future and instead embrace it to create what you want in life?
If you can look to the future as a positive place where your dreams dominate and your fears take a backseat, you can feel more confident in your own creativity and tolerate more risk. Confidence and risk tolerance are two key components in achieving what you want. To get there, you need to shift your perception of the future and what it portends.
I personally love the future. I’d like to share with you some of the reasons why in the hopes that if you’re worrying about your own future you will gain some new motivation to put that worry aside and adore the future as much as I do.

10. There’s so much of it. Or at least, I think there is. Like most humans, I consider myself relatively immortal. The older I get, the more I become familiar with my own creaking life cycle, but I still can’t see the end on the horizon. Even if I were to die tomorrow, the day I’m living today can be as long or short, as joyful or depressing, as fulfilling or worrisome as I allow it be. I can make whatever time I have left feel like a long road into hell or a short and merry skip to the market.
9. It’s unpredictable. I’m surprised by the number of the times I’ve said to myself, “I never imagined that my life would take this turn.” It’s encouraging to know I can’t predict the future all the time, no matter how good of a futurist I am. That means the thrill of discovery still belongs to me, and the manner in which my creations will manifest will often surprise and delight me.
8. It’s generous. I know that I will be given so much in the years to come: love, new friends, beautiful days, engaging experiences, laughter…the universe has so much to give, and there’s always more where that come from. I can happily appreciate every gift as it comes my way, and I can fully expect continued abundance from an unlimited source.
7. It’s full of discovery. We’ve come to a time in our evolution when the universe seems like an onion that we’re peeling apart layer by layer. I can’t wait to see what the next layers will reveal to us! Each layer we’ve revealed so far has taught us more about our own power to create and change our world. There’s so much more to come.
6. It’s mine. If I embrace my own power, I can live in the future any way I want. Every day I have the opportunity to accept that challenge. Every day that I do not, my future becomes someone else’s, not mine.
5. It’s a promise. As I sit here writing, some future is promised to me, no matter how small. I can make every moment of it count, if I stay awake and aware. The more precious I make my moments, the more useful and valuable they will become. The ones I let pass with small notice are the gold coins that fall out of my pocket while I run to fix the past or the future.
4. It will teach me. There is so much more to learn! Before me lie infinite chances to turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom. I am a practicing student in between the moments when I think I know everything and when I think I know nothing. When I stop thinking about what I do and do not know and let my mind discover, I sit lightly at the feet of the future and learn.
3. It’s the playing field of my purpose. My legacy is yet to be written. I can choose in each future moment to be true to my purpose and to honor my passions, because no one else can make my contribution but me. The field is huge, the possibilities limitless, and all I have to do is suit up, show up, and play the game.
2. It’s exciting! As the creator of my own experience, I look forward to all of the wonderful and as yet unknown possibilities that I will amplify into reality! I have seen, projected and predicted the future, I have designed, visualized and planned the future, but there’s nothing as powerful as the future turning into the present and all of those projections, predictions, visualizations and plans becoming reality in this moment.
1. It’s a loom. And on that loom, as my life’s master weaver, it’s my intention to weave a rich, warm and tasty tapestry of life, full of hope, cheer, love, comfort and passion from the fabric of time.

And if you want to Amp It Up: Get started right this second! The future is already here, and it waits for no one. Not even a master weaver like you.

http://awomanswhimsy.com/2010/01/05/i-am-woman/

Finally, Linda does what she was meant to do.

Are you amplifying your dream into reality? Are you being the you you want to be in the world?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/16/1531062/buyer-makes-200000-profit-in-20.html

I find these meditations helpful in reminding me that the experience I’m having every day is one that I am making up, and that I can have a different experience if I so choose.  As we focus on bring our dreamed of possibilities to life, we must make significant shifts in our beliefs so that we can begin to live those dreams.  Jeddah’s teachings in the Seeds of Enlightment provide tools to help you move from an intellectual understanding of what you are trying to create, to experiencing that which you are trying to create.  I recommend this product highly.  Enjoy.

Are you trying to balance bringing a dream to life with the demands of your current life?  Does it seem as if you constantly prioritize that which you “should” do over that which you wish to do, that your focus and activities continue to be centered on the way the things are instead of the way you’d like them to be?

I know that I struggle with this, and a conversation I had yesterday made me realize why that is.  I was wondering how to further my own creative process when I happen to be involved in a pretty intense client project that is not only taking up much of my time but also a lot of my creative brain power.  Now this has been a choice, of course.  I want to provide excellent value to my clients, so my brain naturally mulls the best ways to deliver that value, even when I’m not billing my time.  I’ve found it very hard to compartmentalize that. 

I’ve come to realize that the nature of my work for my clients creates pull.  That is, because I am responsible to someone else for delivering results, my client projects have a certain gravity that draws me to them.  My dreams, meanwhile, are only important to me.  If I do something about them today or I don’t, only I (and maybe a few close people) know that.  The threads of my dream that I have already drawn out of the ether lay fallow, humming and vibrating, but getting quieter and more still the longer I let them lie.  Eventually, if I don’t go back and pluck at them again, they will melt back into nothingness as if I had never raised them up in the first place.  Only I will remember that they ever existed.  This is the inescapable truth about being the master creator of your life:  You’re not done until the dream is real. 

My dreams, therefore, require push.  I have to focus on them and expend energy on them and cajole them along if they are to come true.  If I don’t apply push, they don’t happen.  So I thought, how can I get my dreams to pull, rather than require push?  Some great ideas came to mind.

First, invest.  I have to take a risk.  I have to take a big step, the taking of which will require me to expend energy toward my dream.  For me, some risks might include borrowing money, or renting a bigger office, or hiring more people.  Or all of those.  I have to get the world’s hooks tangibly into me and my dream so that I am obligated to move forward.

Second, share.  Tell everyone that I’m going to take the big risk, take it, and then tell everyone that I took it.  Send out an announcement. Have a party in my new office.  Introduce my new hires. 

In retrospect, I realize this worked with the writing of my book.  I purposely kept telling everyone that I was writing it, and then every time I ran into anyone, I was asked, “How’s the book coming?”  “What’s up with the book?”  The whole world, it seemed, was invested in my dream. 

But for the world to get invested, I need to get invested first.  So off I go, because I have a lot to do!  Stay tuned for what happens next!

What if you allowed yourself to hope for, desire and pursue this scintillating vision?  

What if you spent time every day imagining yourself in that joyful world of beauty and light, as if it were the life you are leading now?  

What if you allowed yourself every day the opportunity to feel the emotions that come with such a life: the joy, the serenity, the peace, the connectedness?

Is it possible that you might begin to draw this dream life out of the ether?  That every day—little by little at first, and then faster and faster—your life would begin to look more and more like your dream life?  

Could it be that your passion would be ignited, that your head would clear, and that suddenly you would know, really know what you’re supposed to be doing in each moment?

Get your vision crystal clear in your head.  At every opportunity, make it bigger, bolder and juicier, until it is a towering and magical fairy castle in which you live.  

Only you can protect the integrity of your dreams.  Dream now.  Dream boldly.  Take action.  

2009 is your year.  And it will never come again.  Make your move now.