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the next 24 hours.”
    The next day, I got fired.
    Another time, when my freelancing was slow, I sent out résumés, something I’m prone to do whenever I feel panicky. Sure enough, I was offered a job within a few weeks. The offer—writing marketing materials for a local bus line (okay, I didn’t say I was offered an interesting job in two weeks)—was for more money than I’d ever made in my life. But how could I afford to give up all that time?
    Was I really ready to forgo my freelancing career? Once again, I demanded a clear sign. I needed to know within 24 hours because that’s when I needed to give my employer-to-be a yea or a nay .
    The very next morning, Travel + Leisure , the magazine I most wanted to write for, called to give me an assignment.
    I hung up, shouted “Yes!” and did the goal-line hootchie-koo. But my guidance must have been in the mood to show off that day, because not 15 minutes later, another magazine I’d never even heard of, let alone sent a query to, called and wanted a story about Kansas City steaks. I had to call and tell my would-be boss, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
    To be in the kingdom, as A Course in Miracles puts it, is to merely focus your full attention on it. You have to be willing to perceive nothing else.
    Currently, our minds are devoted to things we do not want. Our positive intentions occupy but a tiny sliver of our minds. The rest is focused on the problems we hope the intentions will eliminate. The majority of our brainpower is devoted to the old beliefs of scarcity, problem relationships, and a God who shoots fire bolts from heaven.
    The reason 99.9 percent of your mind is still devoted to things you don’t want is because that’s the world’s default setting, what it defines as normal. The world’s default setting sees news about floods and earthquakes, hears stories about your second cousin’s epilepsy, and says, “See, what did I tell you?” It’s next to impossible to override the world’s default setting even though you know—at least theoretically—that another way is possible.
    Let’s take being broke, for example. Most of us can agree we don’t want to be broke. So what do we do? We devote our minds to avoiding it. We work long hours. We call our stockbrokers. We read books and articles about getting rich, fully ignoring the fact that by trying to “get” rich, we are devoting our minds to the idea that we’re not already rich. Consequently, we’ve decided in advance to be broke.
    If we simply devote our minds to feeling rich, to being grateful for all the already-apparent riches in our lives—say, our families and our wonderful friends—being broke would disappear. We only experience it because we devote our thoughts to it. That’s how powerful our minds are.
    My friend Carla is resolute in her belief that when you feel broke, you simply must go out shopping. Immediately. “Ya gotta kick that belief in the nuts,” is how I believe she words it. I tried this once on a press trip to Mackinac Island, Michigan. I was just launching my freelance career, still not sure how this “money thing” was going to pan out. I was staying at the luxurious Grand Hotel, keenly aware that the clothes I’d shoved into my suitcase at the last minute did not live up to Jane Seymour’s wardrobe in Somewhere in Time or even to the Grand’s present-day guests daintily munching their tea biscuits on the 660-foot porch. Clearly, I was underdressed. And the five-course, men-in-coats-and-ties dinner hadn’t even started.
    I moseyed into the pricey gift shop, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a gorgeous teal silk dress. One surreptitious peek at the price tag was proof positive that that frock was way beyond my normal budget—four times, in fact, what I’d typically spend on a dress. That’s when I knew I had to have it. I had to “act the part” of the successful freelance writer I wanted to be. I bought that dress, knowing I was paving the way for