The Treasure

Lucia Canovi

translated from French by Paula Filippo,

with Gwenllian Lewis

The Treasure

Questions are keys.

Keys open treasure chests.

© lucia-canovi.com, 2017

All rights reserved

"More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men

than has been taken from the earth."

Napoleon Hill

"In life the spoils of victory go to those who make 100% commitment to the outcome,

to those who have a no matter what it takes attitude."

Jack Canfield

"In the game of life you will discover,

as you set your goals and unlock your own mind,

that the world will unlock its treasure and rewards to you.

Realistically, most closed doors are in your mind."

Zig Ziglar

Introduction

There are so many people who feel that dreams are made for dreaming and reality must simply be endured; so many people who will never attempt to take their secret ambitions out of the cupboard, where they sit gathering dust; so many people who resign themselves to merely existing, just like everyone else, without ever daring to hope for more than a holiday in Florida, or a raise at work, that this makes you part of a very small minority… I’m even tempted to say… of a tiny elite!

You think, or at least hope, you can make your dreams come true. That is why you were drawn to this book. You have realized that life is not a prison sentence to be endured; that we are not shackled like convicts, condemned by destiny to slave away our days, and that for those who have the courage to dream their lives and live their dream, sooner or later, the doors to success and happiness will open wide.

Congratulations.

Within these pages, you will discover a new method that is simple, free of charge, and extraordinarily powerful. You do not even have to believe it is going to work, in order for it to do so. The ‘offirmation’ technique is effective for everyone, even for sceptics. However, it is not the same as the well-known ‘positive affirmation’, pioneered by Émile Coué, or the ‘afformation’ method formulated by Noah Saint John, although it owes much to both of these.

This work has two overlapping goals: to expose you to the revolutionary offirmation technique and to give you a frame of reference which will help you quickly sift through the many and varied theories and tools of personal development, separating out the true from the false, the useless from the effective, and the sound advice from the empty, throwaway statements (the so-called ‘psychobabble’).

If you have ever read any books on personal development, you may have noticed they very often repeat the same old things. On the one hand, this is normal, because the human mind has very precise laws to which it always returns. On the other hand, this ‘psittacism’¹ reveals that the research in this domain is going nowhere: is stuck in a rut.

This book is different. It contains ideas you will not find elsewhere. These original ideas do not contradict well-established theories that have gone before, but link them together and illuminate them in a brand-new way. The riches you will discover between these pages are not yet part of your consciousness; in short, the book you are about to read is one you will never have read before.

Therefore, I ask you to be patient during those passages where you will merely be going back over what you already know, because this will lead you to other ones, where you will discover new points of view and original perspectives. I give you my word: when you have reading this book, you will understand things (about yourself, about the way your mind works, about the simplest and most effective way to realize your dreams…) that you have never understood before.

This promise applies whether you are a mental health professional or a seasoned traveller on the road of personal development. Yes, even if you are an authority in these areas, reading this book will give you a deeper understanding of what does and does not work in psychology and personal development. Supposing you have already fulfilled all your personal dreams and that the only thing left is to help others fulfil theirs; this book will help you to help them.

Is this a little ambitious? Yes indeed! But read this book carefully to the end and you will see that it holds its own.

I also ask you not come to negative conclusions regarding my style. I could very well express the same ideas in an abstract and complex way that would give you the impression I was terribly intelligent and you were terribly stupid. I am capable of this: I have taught at university.

I avoid doing this, because my goal is not to impress you, but to help you turn your most wonderful dreams into concrete and tangible realities. Therefore, take the ideas you are about to discover between these pages seriously, even if they are expressed in a light and simple style. This is how the treasure you have available to you will make you rich.

What do we need to make our dreams come true?

Without further ado, let us get right to the heart of the matter: how to create the best possible future for ourselves by realizing our dreams.

To achieve this eminently desirable objective, we must take two types of action (in the broadest sense of the word):

1. Setting up a programme, route, or action plan for ourselves; in other words, organizing our strategy;

2. Living in the real world; that is to say, setting this plan in motion.

Is that all?

Well… yes and no, because if we are not absolutely sure we can succeed, we will not. We must therefore add a third step:

3. Developing the profound conviction which will permit effective action and stack the deck in our favour.

These three steps are not entirely distinct from each other; they overlay and overlap, but each one is as crucial as the others. Let us examine them more closely.

1. Decide on a strategy

How should we determine our strategy; in other words, how do we establish a plan of action?

To successfully complete this step, we just need some basic information, a sheet of paper and a pencil. It is not difficult, but even so, it requires some thought and a smidgeon of courage. Indeed, setting out a plan for ourselves means checking off hundreds of possibilities and deciding on just one, thus overcoming the stumbling block of hesitation which hinders so many people.

At first, this plan does not have to be complicated; it can be as simple as: I am going to get rich by buying and reselling things, I am going to become famous by writing books, or I am going to win this difficult competition by preparing well.

Those who have no action plan and count on luck to achieve their objectives are kidding themselves. These pipe-dreamers are often very nice, but the probability of them obtaining what they want from life is almost zero. There are a few extremely rare exceptions, but do not be tempted to follow their example; the road they have chosen is a dead end.

2. Spring into action

Let us move on to the second step: springing into action.

Springing into action is not always easy, but it should at least be self-evident. However, nowadays, it is less and less obvious, as many people imagine they can get what they desire without doing anything.

Where does this illusion come from?

From the popular law of attraction. This so-called ‘law’ gives many people - including me at one time of my life - the impression that it is enough to just think about a big sack of gold with sufficient intensity, in order for it to miraculously land at our feet.

That is the message conveyed in The Secret (2006), the famous film by Rhonda Byrne. The Secret is a thrilling and intoxicating film which contains a good measure of truth, but mixed up with this are some very woolly ideas, such as when some guy or other is dumbstruck when he finds a huge elephant in his tiny apartment. How did the animal get there?

The explanation given in the film is that the abovementioned chap has attracted the pachyderm through the power of his thoughts. By concentrating on the concept of an elephant, he has ‘materialized’ one (‘materialize’ is a popular verb among gurus of the law of attraction.)

Of course, it does not work like that, except in certain fairy tales and not even in all of those.

As you are aware, ‘materializing’ an elephant involves a very definite procedure, such as going to the circus, the zoo or to Africa. Moreover, ‘materializing’ this impressive animal in one's two-room apartment is even trickier.

The narrator of The Secret then goes on to state that there’s nothing to worry about, you don’t have to simply think about an elephant for it to materialize immediately: the law of attraction leaves us enough time to turn around. There is a time delay between the thought and its physical manifestation. However, this clarification does not change a thing. Whether you are saying that you just need to think about an elephant to make one materialize quickly or that you just need to think about an elephant for a long time to make one materialize in the end, you are ultimately opting for a magic thought.

In a nutshell, to obtain what we desire, we cannot dispense with action. The famous life coach, Anthony Robbins (as well as other luminaries of personal development) expressed it very clearly: Action is what leads to every great success story. Action is what brings results.

No action, no result, period.

Nevertheless, how do we spring into action?

For some, this will mean spending hours in front of the computer screen, learning how to programme. For others, it will mean studying a new language forty-five minutes a day without fail, come rain or shine. On the other hand, for some, it will mean racking up overtime in order to save money for a long-awaited, round-the-world voyage of a lifetime. For yet others, or these same people, it might mean contacting a stranger to ask for advice or help, in spite of the fear of being told to take a hike... To accomplish a project of any scale, we need help from others.

The common thread in all these actions it that they involve significant effort and a form of determination.

In addition, it makes sense: no matter how you define the word ‘success’, the road that leads to success is not a toboggan run you can easily slide down; it is an uphill climb, which is a little rocky at times. We will not climb it by lying next to the pool with our feet up - unless perhaps, in this position, we are busy thinking deeply about the plot for our latest novel. However, even in that case, we would still have to glue our buns to a chair and fingers to a keyboard for hours, wracking our brains to create coherent characters, rewriting the ending several times, etc.

Therefore, it is not about taking action once or twice, and then waiting with our arms folded for the juicy fruit to fall from the tree by itself, but about working with perseverance and tenacity to finish our projects... until we achieve success! To map our chosen future, there is no other path.

3. Programme your mind

The third task to perform consists of programming the mind with the conviction that we can and will fulfil our dreams.

To do this, we can read books on personal development, resort to hypnosis, see life coaches etc. and to gain time, saving years, I advise you to do all these things as well as using offirmations. These are little, effective and super-powerful questions; the instruction manual for which lies in this treasure chest.

Two out of three ingredients is not enough!

Now, let us look at what happens when we accomplish just two out of the three necessary tasks.

1. No action

Let us suppose that John conscientiously trains his subconscious and writes out an excellent plan of action, but does not do anything: he is not ready, it is not the right time, he is waiting for his ‘eureka’ moment, the stars are not in his favour, etc. What happens?

Nothing.

Ten or twenty years later, John realizes with chagrin that someone has ‘stolen’ the great idea that was going to make arich, happy and famous and feels a burning regret: If only I had acted without waiting for the perfect moment…

You can never hear these words enough: to succeed, you need to act.

2. No conviction

Let us now imagine that John writes a plan and springs into action. If he is absolutely sure of being able to achieve his objectives and persevere without ever becoming discouraged, demonstrating both tenacity and flexibility, he will realize his dreams, but if he has subconscious blockages - beliefs from his childhood or elsewhere which limit him - people will say he has no luck, because unforeseen events will find a way to destroy what he seeks to build. When we take action without first adjusting our minds to the right frequency, namely the frequency of success, we will fail just before we achieve our goal, by sabotaging our own work, snared by the phobia of success.

3. No plan

Finally, let us suppose that John programs his subconscious to adopt a mind-set of success and springs into action. What will happen then?

Without a clear and precise plan, his efforts will fall apart. At the first sign of difficulty, he will abandon his current endeavour, and find himself back at square one. Seduced by the colourful throng of constantly changing opportunities that swirl endlessly around him, he will jump from one idea to the other like a frog from lily pad to lily pad.

The result? Not much. In the same way a farmer who sows his seeds in every corner, even on the roof of his farmhouse, but who does nothing else, will not harvest much. It is the act of laying out a precise plan and sticking to it that makes our efforts fruitful, channelling them in a definite direction. And the more that we focus our efforts, the more we concentrate them onto a specific area, the more they will be fruitful. Precision is key.

The effects of offirmations

At what level do offirmations work?

Offirmations work simultaneously on three levels:

1. They reprogramme your subconscious mind and imagination, so that you can achieve your objectives.

2. They help you to formulate a plan that will lead you from point A (where you are) to point B (where you want to get to).

3. They motivate you to spring into action and maintain your motivation at its highest level.

Their effectiveness is comparable to that of an expert hypnotherapist, but we may not always have a good hypnotherapist at hand and hypnosis sessions are costly and time-consuming. However, we can use offirmations without the need for anyone or anything. What is more, we can listen to, read or write our offirmations anywhere, at any time and even when we cannot read or listen to them, we can still turn them over in your mind.

Here, however, I am only talking about offirmations which have no specific date. When you have finished taking stock of this treasury, you will understand that if offirmations without specified dates represent meaningful progress in the personal development domain, date-specific offirmations represent a huge leap forward; a radical paradigm shift that will permit you to realize our dreams much more easily.

Christopher Columbus’ egg

But what, in fact, are ‘offirmations’?

If I gave you an example of an offirmation right now, you would not be at all impressed. That’s all? you would say, I was expecting something much more spectacular… Offirmations appear to be very simple questions, and they