Letting Life Happen

by Elizabeth A. ("Beth") Grant

In February 2006 I was laid off from my job as marketing director for a TV station, a position I loathed. In fact, like a square peg being pounded into a round hole, I had spent my entire seventeen-year career dreading going to work each day. While the shock of this event threw me off for a couple of days, I quickly embraced it. I was fully aware that I was in my defining moment. It was time to finally leave the corporate world behind and launch my dream career as a freelance writer. Even though this had been my wish for many years, I had only a meager portfolio, no savings, and no clients.

Still, I declared it!

Without the energy-drain of a job I dreaded, I found that my years of meditation paid off in droves. I quickly reached a state of inner happiness I’d never experienced before and had my first glimpse into spiritual bliss. At first, it was just a day here and a day there. External circumstances no longer had any effect on my well-being; I could be flush with money and blissful or penniless and blissful. Life was no longer a practice in reacting to events.

I diligently looked for writing gigs—anything—each morning on the Internet. It was slow-going. After a couple of months, I had picked up my first B-level journalism gig, for which I would be paid $650, and had another in the hopper. Financially, I was teetering on the edge, and I caught my ego saying to me a few times, “If you don’t make it big soon, you’re going to have to go look for a corporate job.” While my ego probably saw this as a clever tactic to keep me from changing and growing, it backfired. (Evidently my ego didn’t know that I would have done virtually anything not to have to go back to corporate America.)

One night, I was having dinner with a friend. She asked me how things were going. “I am blissfully happy,” I said. “I feel free, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I am living from an authentic place. But I’m starting to get nervous about money.” I had enough money to pay bills about six weeks out, but I couldn’t see beyond that.

“Why don’t you get up tomorrow and act ‘as if’ you already have a full roster of clients, a literary agent, and everything else a successful writer has?” she said.

So I did.

I proceeded with an undying belief that everything would work out. I continued my practice of daily meditation and set to work on not just finding paid work but working on projects that I felt passionate about, like a fiction book. I simply gave no more thought to the “how” of my life. A few times doubt crept in and I remember saying to myself, “I trust that the Universe will bring me everything I need.” These weren’t empty words. I really believed it.

One of the things I did to reinforce my belief that I was a successful writer and journalist was to stay after concerts and ask the artist for an interview. “I’m a freelance writer, and I was wondering if I could interview you,” I’d say. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It wasn’t! I was very nervous, and a part of me felt like a phony. After all, if I’d never been published, could I call myself a real journalist? Sometimes, they would ask me what publication I was with, and I would just answer, “I’m freelance. I can’t guarantee you I can get something published, but I love your music, and I’ll see what I can come up with.” Almost everyone I asked said yes.

One of the first people I interviewed was indie folk artist, Denison Witmer. It was a fascinating interview, and I marveled at h is choice to follow his bliss at the age of twenty with no plan and no expectations.

Within a month after “acting as if,” I effortlessly found a perfect part-time corporate writing job that would pay my bills while I pursued my writing passions. I had always heard freelancers issue two warnings: 1) Get ready for the dry spells, and 2) Your clients won’t pay you on time. Well, maybe that was true for them, but I chose to believe something different. I really believed that after taking seventeen years to get up the courage to do this, it would work out beautifully for me. I have worked every day since on the projects of my choice, and all of my clients have paid me within ten days—allegedly “unheard of” for a writer.

Then I had an inspired idea: I would write a book featuring fifty people who got paid to do what they loved! Helping people find the freedom I had found became my absolute passion, and still is.

For the next couple months, I was consumed with the idea for this book. Every time I would meet someone who seemed passionate about what he or she did, I would whip out my business card and ask if they’d be interested in being in my book. Soon, the drummer for a Grammy-winning rock band and an internationally-renowned sculptor effortlessly came into my life, and both readily agreed to participate. Evidently, people were more than happy to help others find happiness.

I set an intention to make more money doing what I loved. Soon, I landed another part-time gig, and a third, and before long, I was turning away clients. It was all so effortless—so different from the feeling of swimming upstream that had become my way of life for seventeen years. It was my third writing project that made me realize there was something bigger going on—something beyond the physical realm. A man in Belgium found me on the Internet and asked if he could send me a $5, 000 advance to edit his book for him. You have to realize I had no book-editing experience. There were thousands of other writers with lots of editing experience on the writers’ site where he looked. Yet he chose me.

From a spiritual standpoint, what had started out as a glimpse into blissful happiness had gradually become my way of life. I felt light, free, and totally authentic.

My time and attention quickly turned to my paid projects instead of my own book. Several months went by. I had my paid gigs and the book-editing project wrapped up, and soon I realized those seven-day work weeks had taken their toll. And although I still felt passionate about my own book, it had virtually faded from my mind. I still believed, though. I had not yet learned about the Law of Attraction, or the law of gender, which says that everything has a unique gestation period. Everything happens in its own time.

Then one day in April, a co-worker said to me, “You’ve been working so hard. Why don’t you take a vacation?” My ego quickly thought up fifty reasons why I couldn’t do this, not the least of which was that I couldn’t afford it. But a little seed was planted, and within a few weeks, I decided she was right. I decided I would take a trip for my fortieth birthday in June and began to search for the best destination. I decided on Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It’s not like I was dying to go to Ft. Lauderdale. It simply seemed like the right choice at the time.

In May I thought, “I’d like to take on a weekend gig. It can pay for my vacation.” The next day, with that intention in the back of my mind, I went to a blog that lists freelance writing gigs, and boom! Like that, I found my perfect gig. It entailed writing an article to help people through the first thirty days of a life change—fulfilling and lucrative. Most writers spend weeks trolli ng the freelance sites to find scraps. But I had learned that things went differently for me than for other people. I understood what was going on in the unseen world around me. All I had to do was ask, believe, take inspired action, and receive.

As a part of this assignment, I had to interview three experts in the field of personal finance. When the editor sent me the list, I was shaking in my shoes! These were major well-known experts—contributors to Oprah and bestselling authors. Feeling a strange mix of terror and exhilaration, I forged ahead anyway. I called each person’s publicist and was met with a resounding, “We’d be happy to be interviewed!” I breathed a sigh of relief, and my confidence grew just a little bit more.

Well, it turned out that the only time these folks were available for interviews would be during my vacation. Since writing isn’t even like working to me, I was happy to oblige.
< br /> The first evening in my hotel, I considered ordering room service but instead decided to go down to the lobby bar to grab a bite to eat. A man came and sat down next to me, and we struck up a conversation. “Are you here on vacation?” I asked.

He told me his name was Richard. “No, I’m working. I’m a sea captain for a yacht owned by a billionaire. It’s parked outside in the marina,” he said. Now, being from the Midwest, this intrigued me. I mean, it’s not every day in Chicago that one meets a sea captain.

*Bing*

At that moment, something clicked in my brain. My book, Get Paid to Do What You Love, came back into my mind. I was surprised when I realized how long it had been since I’d thought about that book—months.

“Would you consider being in my book?” I asked. I explained the concept. He agreed, and we exchanged business cards. A feeling of exc itement came over me when I got back up to my room as I wondered if my book would ever get published. I didn’t know how it would happen, but inside, I knew it would because it would bring a great deal of good to the world.

Two days later, I called one of the personal finance experts, Lynnette Khalfani, for our interview. As I listened to her talk (she was fresh off the heels of an Oprah appearance), I realized, “Wow, she is absolutely passionate about what she does. Plus, she is so nice.” At the end of the interview, I mustered the courage and told her about my book idea.

There was a brief pause, and I wondered if I had overstepped my boundaries as an interviewer. “Not only will I be in your book,” she said, “I’ll help you get your book published!”

My body was filled with joy and exhilaration as I witnessed the Law of Attraction in action. By surrendering and embracing what life had brought me—the idea for a vacation, the destination that felt right, and the impromptu conversation with the sea captain—I had allowed the Universe to figure out the shortest path to my dream. When I got off the phone, I jumped up and down and was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. “I love my life!” I thought. “I can’t wait to see what happens next!”

I prepared a book proposal, and it was a couple months before our schedules meshed for a phone conference. Lynnette had reviewed my proposal in detail, and she spent three hours with me on the phone explaining what was good and what needed improvement. The greatest thing she stressed was that before a literary agent would be able to sell my book, I would need to establish a “platform” as an expert in this area, or at least prove I had a following.

This didn’t discourage me because I knew it was possible—I knew anyt hingwas possible; but, it would just take some time. In the meantime, I had been mentoring several people in applying the Law of Attraction and other Universal laws, and it was becoming apparent that I should begin teaching and coaching people in this area. Not only would this prove rewarding, it would also provide a great opportunity for me to prove myself as an expert. I embraced it. I could begin holding workshops, offer to speak at events, and continue working on my book.

I knew it might be years before I would be able to make a name for myself. I would have to get an article published in a major magazine at a minimum. “What I really need is a publicist,” I told a friend, “but they cost a fortune, and I simply don’t have the money.”

Two days later, I received an e-mail from a woman in New Jersey who I’d never met. Like my Belgian author, she’d found my profile on a writers’ Web site and wondere d if I would edit her book, a memoir of online dating. I asked her to send me a few chapters to review.

Part way through chapter one, I read the following sentence, and it stopped me in my tracks: “I think a lot of men are intimidated by me,” it said, “because I own my own PR firm.”

Although I have Law of Attraction experiences every day, when something like this happens, it always fills me with a sense of wonder, and it reinforces the idea that anything really is possible in life. Her name was Jane Coloccia, and I asked her if she would consider trading services. She told me she would be happy to and that she was going to ask me to anyway!

So I had my publicist, and it cost me nothing.

Lynnette Khalfani continues to work with me on getting my book published, Jane Coloccia helps me with my PR needs, and my practice as a personal growth advisor is thriving. This is how my life unfolds every day. I simply ask, believe, proceed “as if,” let Universal energy take care of the details, and oh so gratefully receive.

Message: If you just let go and surrender to the moment—embrace it, in fact—Universal energy will take care of the rest. Let go entirely of the “how” of things. Instead, put all of your attention on your core passions. Then, go forth with absolute faith that your dreams will manifest.

Elizabeth A. ("Beth") Grant is a marketing strategist, screenwriter, editor, singer/songwriter, and spiritual mentor. In her day job, she helps coaches, healers, and other Helping Professionals create thriving businesses by applying the concepts of Truth and Consciousness. Her clients learn to apply the Law of Attraction and combine it with truth-based marketing to create effortless success. When she's not working, she's bringing her talents for writing, music, and performance to audiences around the world.