Happiness Millionare: Positive Images for a R.I.C.H and Powerful Life

By Janet Jones

Get ready to be a Happiness Millionaire and change your life forever.

Are you struggling to reach your potential, believing there is more to life but don’t know how to change it?

Perhaps you are feeling unconfident, unfulfilled or even a little vulnerable?

Chances are you’re suffering from a poverty mindset, born ou

• Language: English
• Publisher: Happiness Millionaire Ltd
• Release date: Apr 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9780995611221

Book preview

Introduction

‘There is really only one goal, and that is to fulfil the highest, most truthful expression of yourself as a human being.’

— Oprah Winfrey

O n a Skype call to a friend in Toronto, I wasn’t feeling too successful as the financial implications of my divorce struck home. ‘At this rate I will never be a millionaire,’ I complained.

Somehow, at that point in my life I had been drawn into a world where the goal always seemed to be becoming a millionaire. That was what appeared to define success.

But thinking about it for a brief moment, I added, ‘Not to worry, at least I am a happiness millionaire.’

There it was — a defining moment, and I knew it. Have you ever experienced that? When an idea pops into your head and heart and you know that if you have the courage to follow it, it will take you on a journey and change your life forever?

I couldn’t end the call quickly enough. I had to check if anyone had put those two words together. They hadn’t. I knew they were my words and I had to act. I definitely wasn’t a monetary millionaire, but I felt driven to spend a few hundred dollars on domain names and websites.

I had no idea what I was to do with those two words, but somehow I knew they were my destiny. At the time I had no intention of writing a book or speaking on the subject of happiness. I was busy building my life as a photographer and raising my three children.

Back in July 2010, however, the Napoleon Hill Foundation in America had asked me to create 13 images to illustrate the book The Path to Riches and to become one of its contributing authors. The images were to explain the fundamental principles to happiness and success. They became the Power of Positive Images collection presented here and were to take my life in a new direction.

When I had taken the images, I decided to use them as my photographic business cards. But it turned out that more people were keen on knowing the meaning of the images and where they could buy them than in booking me for their photographic needs.

With the impact of the 2008 stock market crash, every month I would see more of my clients going out of business, and I just couldn’t hold on either. So the timing of the images was perfect. People really needed to learn new ways of maintaining a positive mental attitude, and I needed to be reminded myself.

Several people requested pocket-sized copies of the images to keep with them at all times. Believing that if someone tells you something three times you should act on it, I decided to create a pocket-sized product. And as it was the fundamental messages in the images that had made me a ‘happiness millionaire’, that was what I decided to call it.

In the next few months I was asked to put a training group together so people could learn more about the images. This was hailed as a success and I was asked to host another group. Word was getting out and I could see that the positive images were having a profound impact on people’s happiness.

They were also having a huge impact on my own. I had broken through my barriers and I was happy. Soon I was invited to speak up and down the UK and as far afield as Japan and Malaysia. I knew the time had come to write my story and share these images around the world.

I also knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I would have to dig deep and be completely honest about the twists and turns of my own journey to happiness. But sharing my story, and the images, would not only help others live the best — happiest — lives they could, it would also do the same for me.

PART I

Becoming a Happiness Millionaire

CHAPTER 1

P.O.O.R. to R.I.C.H.

‘Y ou must get married, you know,’ Dad said, glaring down at me as I sat in the blue armchair in my brother’s house.

His words cut through me as he left the room.

Were they the words he’d heard in 1948, I wondered, when Mum had fallen pregnant too?

As soon as I’d seen the home pregnancy test I’d known exactly what he’d say and what I’d have to do. But I also knew that if I followed his orders at least he’d approve of me.

Dad was my driving force, my reason. I was probably a lot like him. I was definitely different from my brother and two sisters. I hadn’t enjoyed the education system and had left school with just one qualification, in childcare. An ‘A’, in fact. But I knew that wouldn’t serve me well in too many careers. What was I to do?

‘Be a hairdresser,’ people said. ‘You don’t need qualifications for that — even thick people can be hairdressers.’

‘A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.’

— Chinese proverb

Perhaps I was ‘thick’ in some people’s eyes, but somewhere inside a seed was growing, a determination to be the best at whatever I chose to do. One day I would show Dad if it was the last thing I did.

Not that I was quite sure how. Having been told to be a hairdresser so many times, I did follow a hairdressing career. In fact, working diligently and achieving high grades, I attracted the attention of Pierre Alexandre, a top international hairstylist at the time. Pierre had confidence in me. First he offered me a Saturday job and later he invited me to work in his London and Manchester salons.

On Friday, December 30, 1983 at about 2 p.m., if you’d been driving down Leigh Road, Daisy Hill, near Bolton in Lancashire, you would have seen a very excited 19-year-old girl with short red spiky hair and punk clothes running and skipping to the newsagent’s to buy all the copies of the Manchester Evening News.

Sue Roberts, a hairdresser from Pierre’s Manchester salon, and I had been given the opportunity to create hair and make-up lookalikes of Toya Wilcox and Boy George, two big pop stars of the time. They were to feature in a full-page spread in the newspaper to encourage partygoers to dress up for the New Year.

Although I handed many of the newspapers to neighbours and friends, I saved one special copy for Dad. As I waited for him to come home from the pub after work, my heart skipped a beat. When he finally arrived, knowing I’d be in trouble if I disturbed him, I waited for him to have his tea. Then I waited for him to watch the 9 o’clock news. Finally, as he was sitting in front of the modern wall-mounted gas fire, I dropped to the floor in front of him and slid the Manchester Evening News over the top of his newspaper, page open on my work, and said, with a racing heart, ‘You don’t want to read that. This is much better.’

Taking a brief glance at my photograph, he pushed the paper away and in his broad Lancashire accent said sternly, ‘It doesn’t make you any better than anyone else.’

My heart burst open and broke. Fighting back the tears, I vowed I would never give up seeking his love.

Dad’s comment planted a seed in my mind that took root. It would contribute to the sabotage of many potential successes and relationships. It seems obvious now I’m aware of the power of my mind. However, it took 30 years and tidal waves of experience for me to understand what happened that night.

Now I know that any conversation or interaction between two people is loaded with hidden thoughts and feelings and can be easily misinterpreted because of them. That night in front of the fire, I interpreted Dad’s response to mean he didn’t love me. I felt worthless and unwanted — feelings that would influence all areas of my life. In truth, his response was likely to have been formed by his experiences and the opinions he’d been brought up with. How many of those poisonous seeds had been planted in his mind during his upbringing? Maybe he’d nurtured the deep-rooted belief that he wasn’t good enough and therefore, on a deep unknown level, he couldn’t accept that his child was good enough either.

This wasn’t about Dad, though — it was about me. Time to try again. Fashion shows are a great way for hair stylists to be outrageously creative and demonstrate their work. The Theatre Royal in Nottingham was where I would make my debut with Pierre for a Chinese New Year show. As Pierre’s personal make-up artist, I was up at 4.30 a.m., making up the models. I was also part of the show, wearing a baby Chinese dragon outfit.

Excitement bubbled from my gut to my fingertips. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. Standing in the red phone box outside the stage door, I piled coins into the pay phone, begging Dad to come down for the show.

‘It’s too far and there’s no motorway,’ he objected grumpily.

I could visualise him standing in the hall at the bottom of the stairs, the green two-tone dial-up phone in his hand and his reflection staring back at him from the 1970s chrome wall mirror with matching glass phone shelf. No doubt wearing the brown tank top [sweater vest] Mum had knitted for him.

I begged and begged. In the background, I could hear Mum by his side begging too.

Eventually he gave in.

The music started and the show began. Peeking from behind the stage curtain, I could see Dad complaining to Mum about having to give up his Saturday afternoon horse racing on the TV and Mum trying to console him with a bag of Maltesers, his favourite chocolates. I smiled.

The show came to a triumphant close and Pierre was on fire as he thanked everyone involved — except the make-up artist. So the baby Chinese dragon, wearing an over-large Chinese mask, crawled across the stage to where he was standing and clawed at his leg. This was my moment. Thanking me, he invited me to stand. Removing the oversized head, I proudly bowed to the audience in the direction of Mum and Dad.

Perfect. Dad’s face said everything.

Backstage, he had a tear in his eye and later that day, bought me a new pair of hairdressing scissors. Was this it? Had he acknowledged me? Could I move on now?

Physically at least, I did move on. The magic of the theatre in Manchester and London’s West End enticed me into becoming a wig-dresser and make-up artist to the stars. I had the privilege of working alongside amazing people like Julie Walters and Liam Neeson and eventually of shaking hands with President Gorbachev.

All the time, though, I was just aiming for Dad’s approval. I would have given anything to have heard the words ‘I’m so proud of you’, but they never came. It seemed that he really would have been proud if I’d left school, worked locally, then found myself a nice husband and settled down with a family, but I wasn’t doing that. Our ideals were so different.

It took a while to comprehend that seeking happiness through Dad’s approval would only result in unhappiness and low self-esteem. One day I would discover that this approach was a seed for a poverty mindset.

A poverty mindset

‘The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.’

— President James A. Garfield

Clichéd as it may sound, the journey to self-confidence and self-worth really does start within. Most people are either not aware of this or have laughed it off as ‘New Age thinking’, but ultimately, to achieve happiness and fulfilment, we must realise that our problems arise from our own thinking.

This may seem a strange concept. When life is difficult, challenging and sometimes downright impossible, we tend to focus on the external problems, whether these concern relationships, work, money or health. Rarely, when things are going wrong, do we link internal self-esteem, self-worth or self-confidence to external experiences. We often see focusing on ourselves as a selfish thing to do, but actually if we learn to present our true self to the world we can both minimise life’s challenges and flourish when they arise.

When we look around, we find most people, young and old, are out of alignment with their true selves, portraying a different image to the outside world than their inner one. Then one day the truth breaks through and the façade comes crashing down, revealing all. This is the truth that President James A. Garfield observed would first make you miserable before it set you free. How do I know this? For many years I was a master at hiding behind my façade.

I believe both Dad and I were masters of this and suffered from what I refer to as a P.O.O.R. mindset — a poverty mind-set. Most people live with this sort of mindset, which leaves them vulnerable, unconfident and unfulfilled. The thought processes of people with this mindset are based on fear, doubt and worry.

I recall a time when Dad treated my brother, my then husband and me to a pint at the local pub. At times Dad was an expert poverty-thinker, and this was one of them. He was the first at the bar, buying us all a drink. But unbeknownst to me, he had brought some of my brother’s homebrew with him. After consuming his first pint, he filled his glass up under the table with the free beer from my brother.

Deeply embarrassed, I challenged him on how he expected the landlord to pay his bills and staff, let alone provide a great service to the community if people sneaked their own beer onto the premises. I was rather cross with him, as I felt his attitude was self-centred and short-sighted, as poverty thinking often is.

Don’t get me wrong — Dad was a generous man and often described by his friends as a rogue but a gentleman. Although on the surface this may be a light, silly story of a chancer who got away with saving some money, the implications are much deeper. Dad died leaving a substantial amount of money in the bank because he was afraid of spending it. He rarely took holidays and often wore his dead friends’ clothes. We laughed at him for his attitude, but in hindsight this isn’t the behaviour of a person who has good self-esteem or self-respect and who is laying down good values for his family to follow.

Exercise: Take the P.O.O.R. test

Could you be suffering from deep-rooted poverty thinking? Complete the P.O.O.R. test to see if you are. You may be surprised by what it highlights.

Become a book member at www.happinessmillionairebook membership.com and print off this PDF.

Find a quiet space and take the time to complete this test. Don’t rush. Slow your breathing right down. Breathe deeply into your diaphragm and breathe out until all the air from your lungs has been expelled. This will put your ego to one side so that you can answer the questions honestly.

As your breath slows, become aware of your surroundings. Now bring your attention to the following questions and answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Poverty mindset

Overwhelm

Off-balance

Regret

If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these