Episode 284: Can Money Actually Buy Happiness? with Moneeka Sawyer

[INTRODUCTION]

 

Hal: Here we go, goal achievers. Hey, it’s Hal Elrod, in case you didn’t know. Maybe it’s your first time listening. I don’t know but welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast and in the Achieve Your Podcast we interview successful individuals and success and successful are two words that are loaded words and so I really want you to define what success is for you. Is it happiness? Is it health? Is it financial freedom? Is it the impact you make in the world or the legacy you leave or is it all of the above? And I would say that, for me, success is really all of the above and then more that I didn’t even mention. But today, we’re going to approach success from a different way and one word, if I was summing it up in one word, success in the context of today’s conversation you’re about to hear with Moneeka Sawyer, in one word, success is bliss. And Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. 

 

Now, she is a real estate investor. That’s her profession, that’s her trade. She’s been doing that for over 20 years and she’s been through in the last 20 years as you can imagine, if you paid attention to the real estate market I know mine when it crashed in 2008 which is 11 years ago that was like my lowest point in my life or The Miracle Morning was born from that adversity, but she’s seen it all. She’s been through all the different cycles of the market and she turned $10,000 that she started with into over $2 million and working I think it’s part of the bliss for her. It’s just working only five different hours per month with very little stress and I always say, we’ll talk more about this, but I always say that in life you can be stressed out or you can be blissed out. I say that from stage all the time and I also say that it has nothing to do or very little to do with what’s going on around you and everything to do with what’s going on inside of you and while Moneeka was building her multimillion-dollar business, she has traveled over 55 countries. She dances every single day again, part of her bliss, and she’s been blessed with time with her husband over 20 years and she is also the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning book, Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment. 

 

She is the host of the podcast, Real Estate Investing For Women, and her expertise and bliss-filled laugh, you’re going to hear that today I guarantee it. If I can make her laugh but I think I have to make her laugh. There it is. You just heard it. You had a little preview. She just laughed so I was on her podcast and she laughs a lot. She’s happy, she’s healthy, she’s even featured on stages, radio, podcast, and TV station including ABC, CBS, Fox, and the CW impacting over 100 million people and today we’re going to make it 101 million-plus people as you listen to this podcast. Moneeka, welcome to the Achieve Your Goal Podcast. 

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Moneeka: Hey, Hal. Thank you so much for having me. 

 

Hal: You are so welcome and it really is a pleasure. I was on your show a while back, and occasionally, I’m on a show and I love the energy so much of the host that I go, “Will you come on my show? Will you bring that laugh and that bliss and that message that you have to the Achieve Your Goals listeners?” So, I’m grateful that you’re here and this is, again, it’s a word, bliss, that for me is so rich with meaning and I want to ask you for your definition. A lot of people ask me when I’m on their show, “Hal, how do you define miracle like that’s a loaded word?” Well, bliss is kind of a mysterious word, maybe loaded. What is bliss as you define it, Moneeka? 

 

Moneeka: Yes. So, thank you for asking that question. So, bliss is not just being happy. It’s a much deeper sense of joy and contentment and the absolute confidence that you can handle anything that comes your way. So, it’s really all about emotional mastery and emotional resilience and like what you talked about I always say and this is I think one of the things you really connected on also on my podcast was I always say you can’t control what happens on the outside, but you must control what happens on the inside. 

 

Hal: It sounds like you and I are pretty like-minded. 

 

Moneeka: I know. Yay. 

 

Hal: I like that. They say there are no new ideas and I’ve been studying metaphysics a lot lately. I’ve been studying the collective field of consciousness when it is interesting that when I often will talk to somebody like you or read a book and I’m sure you experienced this and you’re reading something and you go like or you have like an idea that you feel like as an original idea that you’ve never heard and then you realize that, “Oh, that was in Think and Grow Rich a hundred years ago. Oh, that was being taught by, oh, that was in the Bible,” like that collective field of consciousness of intelligence that we can all tap into if you want to. All right. So, I love it. So, bliss, so you use some words there, happiness and joy but you talked about emotional resilience and emotional mastery, and what happens inside of you versus what happens outside of you. So, how did you come to this idea of bliss, I mean, to the point where that ultimate phrase? They practically wrote the book on this. No, no, no, you actually wrote the book on this, right? So, you wrote the book, Choose Bliss. So, how did you come to this idea of bliss? 

 

Moneeka: Yeah. So, I was actually, Hal, I was born in a part of America where I was the only person in school that was not white and so because of that, as a very young girl, I was bullied and humiliated and tormented constantly and I learned very early in life that life is hard, that people weren’t going to like me and that I was all alone. And you can imagine, that’s not a very blissful or happy place to be. So, as I grew up, the torment became much worse. It actually got violent and there were some horrible things that happened that boys do to girls and then after all of that, I was in a car accident where I was sitting at a red light and a guy was going 50 miles an hour and just smacked me from behind and I became a cripple and was told that I was never going to really walk again. And if that’s not horrifying enough but what you don’t know is that I had been dancing since I was three years old and my biggest deepest dream was to become a professional dancer and now here I was with no legs. 

 

And so, I went through this whole period of and I know that you can relate to this story but I went through this period of I’m not going to be in a chair, I am going to walk again. I’m not just going to walk again. I’m going to dance again. I’m going to compete again. And yay me and I went after it. I saw the right doctors. This was in the years when there was no real holistic healing but I still would see a chiropractor, I’d see acupuncture, so I’d see all these healers and it just never got better. 

 

Hal: What age, by the way, was the accident?

 

Moneeka: The accident I was 21. So, things weren’t getting better. The pain was still completely overwhelming and as I realized that things were not getting better, about a year in, I started to feel hopeless like I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not getting better. I’m not able to find my path and I started to fall into a very deep depression and I remember it had been about a year of me kind of sinking down this hole where I was still in so much pain. One day I had been in bed for about a week and just crying and I had the covers pulled over my head. I don’t know if anybody else can relate to this but just like so depressed. And I woke up this one morning and I heard my mom’s voice in my head and she said, “Moneeka, get out of bed and go get some air. You’ll feel better.” So, thanks, mom, right? So, I pushed the covers off my head and I swung my legs around to get out of bed and then as I tried to stand up, I fell to the ground because my legs were too weak to hold me. 

 

And I just sat there on the ground. I pushed myself up against my bed and I just cried and, in that moment, I prayed and I said, “You know, God, it’s like it never gets better. It just keeps getting worse and I can’t keep going this way so have mercy on me. Either take me home or teach me how to live.” And about an hour later a girlfriend who I hadn’t heard from for over two years randomly called and I say that she was the answer to my prayer to God. She asked me how I was doing and turned me on to a coach named Ted and I think Ted saved my life. As we started chatting, he reminded me of my tenacity and my strength. He reminded me of my constant search for happiness and all the things that I have learned and then he added some of his own new skills and together we brought me back. And it was amazing. You make a decision to live and to be blissful but then you have to go through the journey, to get there. It wasn’t an easy journey but once the decision was made, I went for it. 

 

And together we brought me back and I started to experience life in a way I had never experienced it before, just with so much joy and bliss and where before I thought happiness is so fleeting. It was dependent on if I had no pain or if someone I loved was near me or if I had the right things or was around the right people, in those days I thought happiness was really fleeting but now I could really see that bliss was really about what was going on inside of my mind and my heart and my soul. So, Ted was so excited about sort of my recovery and so he hired me on as a bliss mentor underneath him as a coach and I started dealing his executive clients and again it was funny because I would talk to these guys. They’re super successful and how do we define success? And I know there’s lots of different definitions but they have like tons of money, the perfect house, the perfect marriage, the cute kids, the adorable dog, the white picket fence, the nice car, they had it all, right?

 

Hal: Yeah. 

 

Moneeka: But as we talked about why their business was failing, what we found is that they were no longer happy. They were not motivated. They weren’t inspired. They weren’t creative. And so, I took my lifelong journey and all the skills I had developed and what Ted taught me and I started to teach these amazingly successful men how to find joy again. That’s actually how I came to bliss and that’s how I moved into my work that’s why I wrote my book because the thing about coaching is I can only reach people one on one, speaking in groups I can only reach so many people, but a book can and has reached millions and millions of people to create bliss around the world.

 

Hal: Moneeka, you and I, I don’t know if I’m the male version of you or you’re the female version of me. I don’t know how…

 

Moneeka: I have that same feeling. It was amazing. 

 

Hal: Right. Like, in an accident, did some inner work, discovered like a better way to live free from emotional pain and be blissed out and happy and grateful authentically all those things and then the feeling of responsibility that, hey, that’s how we can impact the world. Let’s put it in a book. I wrote the Miracle Morning. You wrote Choose Bliss. I mean wow. Yeah. I’m getting chills at how aligned our stories are. Yeah. Two souls that are on a similar journey. So, very cool. Well, let’s start with this. Let’s get actionable. I want to be practical and actionable. I think too many teachers and messengers and authors and whoever are very philosophical and they teach you philosophy which can be helpful but if it’s not actionable you don’t change your behavior, you often forget the philosophy or life gets in the way of the philosophy or your emotion gets in the way of philosophy. So, with all that said, give us one tip that we can use to be more blissful.

 

Moneeka: Absolutely. This is my favorite tip to give people because it’s actionable and usable right now even as you’re sitting with me, maybe you’re driving in a car and then suddenly someone cuts you off and you’re like, “Oh!” You get irritated, right? And you can feel this emotion happening and this can happen in lots of cases whether it’s at work, whether you just got cut off, and I’m just going to say use the cutoff one because a lot of us can relate to that. So, when you’re in a moment where you’re not blissful, you’re really like the opposite of blissful, you can create a bliss moment and this is what you do. Someone just cut you off in traffic let’s say and all of a sudden, you’re upset. Why are you upset? It’s not because of what just happened. It’s the meaning that you give that. Suddenly a story happens in your mind that I can’t believe they cut me off. What if they had hit me? All of these stories happen in your mind. That’s actually what causes the stress. 

 

So, this is how you do a bliss moment. You stop those stories in your mind. You do a complete interrupt so for me I’ll say, “Moneeka, stop,” then really interrupt the thought then I drop into my body, roll my shoulders back a little bit, relax my body, take a couple of deep breaths and now you’re in a place of being grounded and centered and compassionate and you can approach your life whatever decision, whatever situation, whatever you’re doing, you can approach that situation from this place of heartfelt bliss.

 

Hal: How do you stop – so let’s say something happens. Somebody cuts you off and you’re upset about it. So, I’m following your process where I say, “Interrupt the thought,” and I, “All right, Hal, knock it off. This is not productive. You’re being upset. It’s not going to fix it so there’s no point in being upset.” Take that deep breath and get centered in the body. What if the mind is not obeying, right? Because one thing is I feel we are programmed. You can study at a neurological level that there’s pathways in the brain that our brain fires off the same way it fired off last time somebody cut us off in traffic. We keep kind of living our life on repeat. So, I guess my question is if somebody does that and they interrupt the pattern, they get into the body and get centered through breath and relax the shoulders, but they still feel that emotion coming up. Is there any self-talk? Is there more physical work? And I’m sure I think through like for me, what you’re saying is you’re preaching to the choir but I’m thinking for anybody listening that’s like that sounds easier said than done. That’s kind of what I’m thinking. So, what would you say to that person and how would they implement this? 

 

Moneeka: Yeah. So, first of all, yes, it is hard because we are hardwired to act a different way. And so, it may not work the first time. So, the first thing that I’ll say to you is keep practicing because practice will make perfect. It may not help the first time but once you practice it 10 times you will start to see it maybe not even 10, maybe one or two or three. And you’ll start to see, oh, it is having an impact so the very first thing is understand that if it was easy everybody would be blissful, right? 

 

Hal: Yes. 

 

Moneeka: We have to actually focus on this and make it a priority and it’s not always easy. Anything worth having, sometimes you have to work for. So, it’s okay if it doesn’t work the first time. Here are some things. First of all, don’t beat yourself up because it didn’t work like just know, “Okay, I need to get better at this,” and you’ll practice it again next time. And what’s really, you can turn this into a game. Start looking for those moments that you can utilize as techniques so you can practice it so that it starts to build the neuropathways in your brain of how you react. So, you can like, “Okay, I’m upset about that,” and here’s another natural thing that people are like, “I’m upset and I deserve to be upset.” That was wrong. 

 

Hal: Yeah. 

 

Moneeka: You’re right? You do have a right to be upset and how does that make you feel? How does that make you perform and is that what you really want in your life even if you have a right to it?

 

Hal: Yeah. Is it useful? 

 

Moneeka: Is it useful? Is it going to make you blissful? Yeah. 

 

Hal: And I want to follow up on that. So, the context, the way that we teach a really similar lesson and truth is truth which is especially if you’ve been through what you and I have been through and the car accident, being told you’re not going to walk again like either you let that destroy you emotionally, you become the victim, or you rise above it and you learn how to manage your emotions in such a way that adversities don’t really deter you in a major way. So, for me, I teach what I call the Five Minute Rule which says it’s okay to be negative when something goes unexpected or not according to plan or it’s painful or difficult to set your timer on your phone for five minutes and you get five minutes to bitch, moan, complain, cry, vent, punch a wall, and then after five minutes, you take a deep, and I basically going to say the same thing. Get in your body, take a deep breath, you say three really liberating words which are, “Can’t change it,” and it’s not that you can’t change the future. It’s that you can’t change the past. It already happened. You can’t change it. 

 

And so, when I learned this, I was 19. It was in my sales training and my thought I kind of I share this with audiences because I go, “Look, if you’re thinking this, raise your hand if you think five minutes is not quite long enough like you need at least like a five-hour rule, maybe five days to be pissed off,” and everybody raises. They’re like not a lot of hands go up but, “Yeah, it’s like come on five minutes like I’m just starting to get upset at five minutes. I’m barely scratching. I’m just getting riled up. My face isn’t even as red as it’s going to be in about ten more minutes.” So, but that’s the thing is when I learned this, I thought five minutes isn’t enough and I need longer and sure enough the first time I had a customer cancel an order that it was like my biggest order of the week. It was the last day. It helped me hit my goal and now I failed my goal because I lost the order. Actually, after five minutes, the timer went off five minutes later and I go, and this was like a week into my sales career and I go, “I’m so mad,” and the timer goes off and I’m ready to throw the phone. I’m going, “I’m still mad. Just because five minutes went by, I’m still upset.” 

 

But after I practiced this for and it was probably, I mean, that was probably a few days in and it was maybe after a week, I don’t remember the exact day, but here’s what happened is it creates what you’re talking about, Moneeka, this is conscious awareness. Either you’re reactive or you’re proactive in terms of how like you said the meaning that you’re giving to the things in your life that aren’t pleasant or aren’t desirable or you didn’t expect to want. And the idea is that when the timer would go off the first few times, it wasn’t enough time and then each time I was being consciously aware that, wait, there’s no point in dwelling on something I can’t change, like there’s no point in staying upset like I said in the opening when I was introducing you, you can be stressed out or you can be blissed out. It doesn’t matter what’s happening to you. It’s the meaning that, as Moneeka said, you give it to it and your response. And so, what happened is and I can literally picture the moment. I was in my apartment. I had another woman cancel an order and I was – there might have been an appointment but anyway, it’s where I was like it was the last day toward my goal and I set the timer five minutes and I like got up and I’m like, “Oh, son of a… I can’t believe she canceled the order like I needed this so bad. I have no time to make up for this.” 

 

And I pick my phone back up and I had four minutes and 32 seconds left. And I went, “Wait a minute, what’s the point of me being upset for another 4.5 minutes? I could just turn the timer off right now and say can’t change it and accept it and get peace with it and schedule more appointments. That seems like a better use of my time and energy.” So, the five-minute rule within a matter of a week, it turned into a five-second rule where I’m like I just needed like get vent for a second and then there’s no point in changing so I love what you’re saying. I play that devil’s advocate of like, “Okay. Well, what if you do that and you interrupt your thought, the pattern?” You get centered in your body, you relax the shoulder, you take a deep breath, Moneeka, like you said and then you just kind of give yourself permission to feel that bliss but what if they’re still upset and then for me, that was it. It’s like, well, after a matter of days or a week or so I realized I was reconditioning the meaning that I’ve been giving to adversity my entire life realizing, “Oh, I’m not a victim. It’s not a life sentence that whenever something happens that I didn’t want to happen, I have to be upset about it until I forget about it.” I am most people, right? Like anytime they think about something that makes them upset they just get upset whether it happened five days or five months or five decades ago.

 

Moneeka: And people do carry it for like five decades. It’s still there for you and it’s like really is that still serving you? And you know what I really love is I ask you to be up my podcast because I listen to some of yours and I love this five-minute rule thing because one of the things that I used to say is you do actually have a right to your emotions. You do. Like you say truth is truth and sometimes things suck and that’s the truth. And so, what I would say is give yourself a time on it when you get to honor your feelings and you get to really honor them and live them and be them and then commit to yourself that you will turn it off and commit to your own happiness again in order to move forward. And so, for me, I kind of left it for people to like kind of look inside at what that time limit is whether it’s a day, it’s an hour, it’s a couple of days, if someone dies maybe you want a month but I love the way you took it from this kind of pick to try this, just do this, because if something really horrible happens, you may still be there for a while. You may still be there for a month but if your intention is to only be there for five minutes, you’re so much more likely to succeed at getting back to bliss than if you will not have that intention to get back there and in a timely fashion, right?

 

Hal: Yeah. Well, and the thing is you might as well choose bliss in the midst of your adversity. That’s the difference is people think it’s mutually exclusive like I feel bad because bad things happen. You feel bad because you’re not willing to give yourself the gift of acceptance and being at peace with “bad thing that happened”.

 

Moneeka: Absolutely. Where you talk about can’t change it, the motto that I have used is I am at complete peace with exactly how my life is today. And so that’s all was my motto is I’m at peace with how…

 

Hal: I’m at peace with how my life is today, exactly how my life is today.

 

Moneeka: Yeah.

 

Hal: I love that. I know something that you talk about is that you believe wealth is crucial to bliss and I believe the same thing or I won’t say it’s crucial but I believe it’s important. I think you actually use the word important. I think I just switched to the word crucial but you believe wealth is important to bliss. I do as well. I love to hear why you think that is.

 

Moneeka: It is actually been scientifically proven that people that struggle with money are not happy. Now, it is also been statistically proven is that once we can pay the bills and we’re comfortable, we tend to be more happy but I think what happens in the world now especially in our business world so many people are out there with a real message. They’re just not out there to make money. They’re out there to and I’m sure that this is true with many of your listeners, they’re out there to actually change something, do something important, right? And the honest truth is it’s hard to do things that are important if you’re broke. You need to have wealth supporting you creating your foundation, taking care of you so it’s not taking up your mind real estate so that your mind real estate can be focused on your passion, the things that you want to do in the world, your message and the more wealth you have, the more good you can do. So, to the point where you’re paying the bills and surviving, it’s going to actually affect your actual happiness and your actual bliss. Creating more wealth does help to support you in creating more bliss in your own life because it allows you to be authentically who you want to be in the world in the biggest way possible.

 

Hal: Yeah. I’ve heard. One of my mentors used to say that money is not the root of all evil and it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you more of what you are. It’s the grand amplifier so if you are a good person, money is a tool for you to do more good in the world and if you’re a jerk, money is a tool for you to be a bigger jerk.

 

Moneeka: Right. And that’s why I focus so much on bliss because I want people to experience bliss through that journey so who they become as they’re building wealth is who they get to be when they’re wealthy and that’s who they amplify in the world. We’re so aligned on that because you don’t want to be amplifying the parts of you that are not the most beautiful parts. As a blissful person, you can amplify that bliss through your work and to the world and that’s the important thing, right?

 

Hal: Yeah. Absolutely. Let me ask you this then. There’s a very cliché saying that money can’t buy happiness. Would you agree with that or would you say that money does buy happiness?

 

Moneeka: I think that it does actually buy happiness in the way that I just talked about and that people who are broke it’s a lot harder to be happy. Let me just qualify this. I don’t believe that we have to be rich to be happy. I don’t believe that we actually have to be at the mercy of everything around us to be happy. We’ve already talked about that but I will say is that being in pain makes it more difficult to be blissful. It just does. It’s harder work so if you are physically in pain, emotionally in pain, or financially in pain, you are going to have a harder time finding happiness. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just means that it’s less probable.

 

Hal: Yeah. And you said it, you put it out there which is like study show like it’s proven and here’s just one context of many but what is the number one cause of divorce? Its money problems.

 

Moneeka: It’s money problems, absolutely.

 

Hal: It’s couples fighting over – so it’s the stress that not being able to put food on the table or put the roof over your head or pay your bills, the stress that that causes and then the context of a marriage it breaks the marriage. And yeah, I like that you said that. You’re not saying that you need to be rich but it’s being able to provide for yourself and the necessities of life and that’s by the way the beauty of it is if you want to live off the land, you actually don’t need any money. So, it’s almost like you could say it’s resources that you need. You need resources to support your lifestyle and for most of us money is one of those resources, right?

 

Moneeka: Absolutely.

 

Hal: So, yeah, if you live off the land and you hunt your food and you live in a hut and you don’t have any property taxes like you don’t actually need money but you do need resources.

 

Moneeka: But it’s also what about your future? Like if you live off the land but you don’t want your children to have to live off the land, you want to send them to college, then money becomes important again. I don’t know whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate but money is our transactional way of creating life and it creates our future. It creates our possibilities. And so, having it at your disposal gives you more options, more possibilities, more opportunities.

 

Hal: Yeah. And it also gives you – it does, all of those things. The freedom to do what you want with the money that you have. One of my best friends and my business partner, Jon Berghoff, he’s been saying this for like he was wise beyond his years. He’s younger than I am and he was like in his 20s but when we used to have money conversations, he said money is just energy. Money is just energy. And he said if you want to put that energy toward providing water for people who don’t have water, that’s what money allows you to do or food for people that don’t have food and they don’t have the means to earn their own food because of the culture that they live in where it’s not the capitalistic culture and they can’t go out to earn their own money and their hands are tied. You know what I mean? So, because, yeah, you’re right whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong, I have mixed opinions on I mean really like capitalism in some ways because just the idea that, yeah, anyway, it’s another conversation. 

 

Part of me is like we should get further and further and further back and regress to primal times where we are living off the land and we’re not competing for who has the biggest car or all of those things. I’m a big fan of like I might write a book that they called prehistoric parenting, getting back to what works or something like that but, anyway, the point is the reality is that the culture that we do live in if somebody’s sick they have bills and if you have money, in fact, I have a friend right now who she’s a single mom and she has cancer and it’s so sad. She was a teacher and the school let her go because of her appearance. She had lost all her hair and she’s lost a lot of weight. The parents were afraid of saying their kids were afraid of her.

 

Moneeka: Oh, my gosh.

 

Hal: Can you imagine? I mean she is like the sweetest, most selfless human being on the planet and who has dedicated her life to being an underpaid teacher and she was trying to teach between her chemo treatments and they had to let her go because the parents were frightened by her appearance. But anyway, the point is her hospital bills and her bills were like $12,000 a month and she can’t support herself and she has no health so I’m paying her bills right now and I was like, “Is money bad? Is money the root of all evil or does it allow you to help people who are in need and need that help and that support?” Anyway, so yeah, so I think we belabor that point but I think money is such – I read a great book years ago called The Soul Of Money and it talked a lot about that but just the idea that money is not bad. It’s what you do with it. It can be one of the most beautiful things in the world.

 

Moneeka: And again, it’s what meaning are you giving to it.

 

Hal: There you go. Yeah.

 

Moneeka: Right? You have control over that.

 

Hal: Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So, what is your book? So, we haven’t even talked about this. Let’s at least like mention it, what is your book, Choose Bliss, about? We have a general idea but I’d love to hear your like how do you explain it? What is your book, Choose Bliss, about and where is the best place to get it?

 

Moneeka: So, I was an executive coach for over a decade and I tried a lot of different strategies. So, there were strategies that worked really well for me and there were strategies that worked for every one of my clients. I compiled all of those strategies into my book, Choose Bliss, and guess what the first one is? Create your morning routine.

 

Hal: I was going to say it. It’s got to be a morning ritual, yeah.

 

Moneeka: It is. It was the morning routine, another way that we’re totally aligned. Yeah. So that’s really what Choose Bliss is. So, it’s written as my story so you really get to know who I am and where I’m coming from.

   

Hal: Just like my book. Geez, Moneeka, we’re so aligned. 

 

Moneeka: I know and then there’s a lot of really good actionable strategies because I’m like you. Theory is awesome. It doesn’t get the job done. You need to get the job done. Bliss is about taking action and so that’s what the book is about.

 

Hal: I love it. So, is it safe to say that if our listeners, if you love The Miracle Morning, you’re going to love Choose Bliss? I think it’s pretty safe to say…

 

Moneeka: I absolutely think so. I think we’re totally aligned.

 

Hal: Awesome. Moneeka, well, you’re blissful to talk to. Your energy, it comes through in your voice and your laugh and it just you have such a great energy. I’m very like sensitive and in tune. I feel like with people’s energy and yours is blissful so thank you for doing what you’re doing in the world and sharing your bliss with our listeners.

 

Moneeka: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

 

Hal: You’re so welcome. Well, goal achievers, I almost forgot. Where can people learn more from you and about you? Tell me the name of the podcast, again, and I don’t know if you have a website or where can people follow and keep up with you?

 

Moneeka: Yeah. So, Choose Bliss is available on Amazon. That’s the one place. You can go to BlissfulInvestor.com to find out more about me and kind of what my philosophy is about wealth. And then the podcast is Real Estate Investing For Women and I know that is real estate focused but it’s a very holistic approach to wealth. So, we talk about mindset, heart-set, and strategies and money smart. So, it’s the whole picture to creating success, Real Estate Investing For Women.

 

Hal: And BlissfulInvestor.com did you say?

 

Moneeka: Yes. BlissfulInvestor.com.

 

Hal: We’ll put all those in the show notes and, goal achievers, I will say this. I’ll give a quick like little tangent soapbox for a second. You may have heard me say this before. You may not have but I am a big, big, big believer in passive income and that’s kind of a word that can sometimes even be a cringe word where you go, “Oh, like get rich quick and create passive income and blah, blah, blah.” No. When I was in the hospital fighting cancer, I had passive income from the 13 books I had written and the 30-some translations of The Miracle Morning and every single one of those I got checks all year long and it literally supported my family and I truly believe that one of the most important things that you can do if you live in a society, in our society where you need income to put the roof over your head and buy your food, if you’re not living on the land so to speak which I think is probably 99.9% give or take of our listeners. 

 

Creating passive income and that’s what I like. Moneeka, we didn’t focus on that today but I would just say go to Moneeka’s websites and I would imagine whether it’s for women but I imagine it probably the same investing strategies and I don’t think it’s like, “Oh, you’re a man. These won’t work for you,” but investing in real estate unless you’re going to be an author and the thing about writing books and making money after books it’s much harder. I’m very blessed and fortunate and I’ll say lucky that my books have generated significant income because it’s not common. It’s harder to duplicate. Real estate investing, I always when I’m coaching clients or talking to friends or whatever and they’re like, “How do I create passive income? Should I write books?” I go, “Eh, you can but if you want more of a sure-fire way, my best friend, one of my best friends in the whole world, Matt Recor, I mean he’s already retired at 35 by investing in real estate. He’s still going but yeah. 

 

Moneeka: Yeah. It truly is the easiest way to create wealth and passive income. It really is.

 

Hal: It really is and my other best friend, David Osborn, he could retire. I think his net worth is $100 million and it’s all from real estate investing. So, anyway, I didn’t mean to go too far into that but because like we talked about like Moneeka said that in terms of bliss, wealth is a big part of that and that financial freedom. You don’t have to be rich but financial freedom does bring such a quality of life where you’re not stressed about it. So, anyway, so check out Moneeka’s stuff, BlissfulInvestor.com, The Real Estate Investing For Women Podcast, and check out the book on Amazon, Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment. 

 

[CLOSING]

 

Hal: And goal achievers, I think that’s it for today. I love you. I appreciate you. By the way, if you do want to join me in person for two to three life-changing days, we’re about to get into I’m going to start talking more about this because we’re getting into the time where it’s time to start looking. Tickets are on sale now for the Best Year Ever Blueprint Live Experience. You can check that out, BestYearEverLive.com. This is our sixth year and we have 350 spots. I think they’re already spoken for but that means there’s about 100 spots available, 100 tickets available, so BestYearEverLive.com. You can check that out and I would love to spend a few days with you, December 13 through 15 in sunny San Diego, California. So, Moneeka, thank you again for being on the show. Appreciate you.

 

Moneeka: Thank you so much for having me. This is amazing.

 

Hal: Yeah. I really enjoyed our conversation. And goal achievers, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and until next time, go out there and achieve your biggest goals and dreams because you absolutely deserve nothing less. I love you. Appreciate you. And I will talk to you soon, everybody. Take care. 

 

 [END]