Today it’s my great pleasure to introduce James Goi, Jr.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, James is author of the book “How To Attract Money Using Mind Power” and he is on a self-proclaimed “mission to help people everywhere lead more prosperous and rewarding lives.” James has been kind enough to take time from his very busy schedule to answer some of my specific questions and further discuss his philosophy of Life and Abundance. 

Hi James! Thanks for taking the time to share your ideas with my readers.  I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while now, after having read your eZine and several of your articles about Manifestation and Mind Power.  To me, it seems like there are hundreds of so-called Law of Attraction “experts” or gurus out there clamoring for our attention with brash and fantastic claims.  I’m less about the “flash” and “fluff” here at Navigating The Aether.  It may sound oxymoronic, but I’m what I like to call a “Practical Mystic” – I’m all about, as Edgar Cayce was known to say, “learning how to apply the rules of metaphysical operations to a corn cob.”  We’re looking for Real World applications that average people can use in their everyday lives.

I appreciate the low-key way you deliver your message. Your philosophy and approach remind me a great deal of my favorite two New Thought Mystics:  Neville Goddard and Dr. Joseph Murphy.  In my opinion, Neville and Dr. Murphy were 50 years ahead of their time and their teachings still ring true.  So if you would, please tell us how exactly you ended up on this path that you’re on today?  Did you have a “real career” or were you in the corporate world?

Well, I’ve never worked in the corporate world as such. I’ve done many things to make a living—so many that I likely could not recall them all from memory in one sitting. But to give you an idea, I’ve washed windows, cars and dishes. I’ve delivered newspapers, pizza, flowers and phone books. I’ve been a waiter, security guard and janitor. I was a telemarketer and telemarketing manager on and off for years. I’ve worked as a property manager and a production manager. I’ve done silkscreen printing. I’ve had my own business—a one-man hauling service I ran for about a year and a half. I’ve been a door-to-door salesman. I’ve been a caregiver. The list goes on as you may imagine by this point. And I did many of these jobs even after learning about mind power and metaphysics. Learning about these subjects is one thing—applying what you learn properly and consistently over time is quite another. But it was learning about mind power and metaphysics that set me on the path that eventually led to me publishing my book and going off in a whole new direction in my working life.

Was there a specific crisis or situation that made you start searching for answers and solutions?

I could say that Life was my crisis. I could say that Life itself was the situation that made me start searching for answers and solutions. Life is always a challenge, and it certainly was for me in my early adult years way back when. I was far from “home.” I was on my own. And I had to make my way. I had to survive. I had to pay rent and buy food and gas like everyone else. And it wasn’t easy.

I worked some hard jobs. I breathed in chemicals daily as a silkscreen printer and later as a silkscreen production manager. As a security guard, I fought to stay awake in the middle of the night at what sometimes turned out to be creepy worksites. I knocked on doors and made solicitation phone calls and so faced rejection daily. I repeatedly burned my forearms on hot racks as a donut maker—again while trying to stay awake in the middle of the night. I had horrific allergy attacks while cleaning out garages and moving old stinky couches and whatnot when I had my hauling business. Oh, and at one of my telemarketing-manager jobs I was literally working 13 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week including holidays, for months on end. I eventually had what I believe was a nervous breakdown and ended up stepping down as manager and promoting my assistant manager into the manager position. So then she was my boss. Talk about a high-stress job. That manager position was certainly one of those. I could go on about hard jobs but I think I’ve made my point.

Life was tough. Making money was tough. And again, I was doing much of this work even after becoming aware of mind power. As one might imagine, though, when I became aware of the concept that we can govern material reality, and attract things including money, largely by how we think and by using metaphysical techniques and mind-power techniques… Well, let’s just say I was interested! I got excited! I immediately saw the possibility for a somewhat easier life; for a more abundant life; for a more enjoyable and rewarding life.

The idea of using mind power to help myself attract the things I wanted and needed was a very attractive concept to me right from the start, as soon as I first became aware of it. I was excited about it then and I’m still excited about it today, decades later. I’m more excited. The more I learn about mind power through continued study and direct experience, the more excited I get.

James, I find it interesting that you state “Life was tough, making money was tough…”    I grew up poor in a rural area and those very words were the immediate family’s mantra during my childhood. It always seemed like “other people” were  successful and had the financial means to relish and enjoy life while, for some reason, we resigned ourselves to a life of drudgery, struggle and sacrifice. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies! There was definitely a mindset of constant lack or scarcity – one which I railed against and spent many years deconstructing.  Did you grow up poor or did people around you have negative relationships with money?

I certainly did not grow up rich. But neither was I deprived of the basics of food, clothing and shelter, not to mention birthday and Christmas gifts and all of that. I come from an honest, hard-working, family. I was painfully aware that people worked for their money. And as a kid I worked at times too. I had paper routes. I was a butcher’s (my uncle) assistant and so on. Everyone worked. They got by. But even as a young child I always felt that, you know, I felt that someday I wanted to be rich. Someday I wanted to be able to stay home instead of driving to some job somewhere. And so here I am. It’s someday today. I no longer have to drive to jobs.

And I don’t know if I’d say people around me had negative relationships with money, but it sure seemed that everyone was working hard for their money and that there was just enough but not a whole lot extra. I always wanted more than enough. I thought there should be extra. Plenty. Lots. I just felt it in my bones and I believed it was good and right to have more.

I quote Neville quite often because I like his eloquent and timeless observations. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with him or his teachings, but the following passage came from a lecture he gave in 1969 called “The Game Of Life”:

“There are those who are depressed all day long and remain that way all of their life. I remember back in New York City, when I would see certain people walking in my direction I would want to cross the street, because I did not want to hear their depressing stories. They would spend hours telling about their wife or husband, their children or grandchildren, and each story geared to depression. Never changing their mood, their world never changed. Seeing no change, they would not recognize a law between the inner world they maintain and the outer world of response. But if you apply this law you can predict your future. Feel a new mood rise within you. Sustain it and soon you will meet people who embody this new state. Even inanimate objects are under the sway of these affinities. In a certain mood I have gone to my library and removed a book I have not touched in years. And when I casually open it, I find confirmation of my mood. A table, though remaining the same, will be seen differently based upon your momentary mood, for everything reflects it. It is your mood which decides your fortune, not your fortune that decides your mood. People feeling poor attract poverty, not knowing that if they felt rich they would attract wealth.”

Do you agree with what he’s saying – that a person’s mood or feeling ultimately decides their “fortune” or outcome? And if so, then what practical advice can you give to the rest of us?

I am familiar with Neville. Yes, I certainly do agree that a person’s mood or feeling ultimately decides their fortune or outcome. That concept is at the root of practical metaphysics and the intelligent application of mind power for bringing about specific results. And I really love that last sentence: “People feeling poor attract poverty, not knowing that if they felt rich they would attract wealth.” That’s a concept which is right at the core of what I teach. In my book I have a chapter called, “Think and Feel As If.” The technique is to basically think and feel as if those financial circumstances we want to bring about either are now or will be reality.

There’s a lot of power in emotion; in feeling. Positive and negative feelings both have the tendency to attract to us events, conditions and circumstances which then validate the feelings which gave rise to those events, conditions and circumstances. And how we feel is largely a result of how we think. If we think negative thoughts about things we would not like to see happen, or that we fear might happen, we’re not going to feel good. We’re going to feel pessimistic. And of course the opposite is also true: If we think positive thoughts about things we would like to see happen, and that we hope may happen, we are going to feel good. We’re going to feel optimistic.

And those moods, good or bad, positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic, and along with the thoughts and images which accompany them, basically act as instructions to the universe. Through our own thoughts and feelings and images we’re basically telling the universe what to do either for us or to us. And how can we know if we are in the process of attracting wanted or unwanted things?

It all comes back to feeling. How we feel indicates whether we are attracting things we want or things we don’t want. And if we’re feeling bad or “poor”, as Neville says, we are going to attract poverty and negative circumstances. If we’re feeling good, and specifically for our purposes, if we’re feeling “rich”, we’re going to attract wealth and positive circumstances.

And as far as what practical advice I would give everyone regarding attracting wealth using mind power, it would be to gain a working knowledge of how mind power and universal law work. A big part of it is governing our feeling, and striving to feel good and prosperous more than we feel bad and in lack. But there’s a lot to that. The application of mind power, the way I teach it specifically for attracting money, is a multi-faceted process.

So I of course recommend that people who resonate with what I’m saying here seek out more of my material. Read my book; subscribe to my free monthly eZine; watch my youtube videos; listen to my radio interviews. All of that. And learn from other teachers as well. Do your research. Read other books on these types of subjects. My best advice to people might be to not make mind power, or attracting money, a hobby—make it a way of life. If you’re serious about attracting more money into your life, then get serious about learning what you have to learn and doing what you have to do.

These principles can seem so far-fetched to most people – I know I get some strange looks when I’m out in a crowd and start talking about “manifesting” or using our minds to “attract” things - their eyes glaze over. Not exactly the best “Dinner Party Conversation Starter” if you know what I mean?    What examples can you give to the person who says that manifesting is just more “New Age Hooey”?

I can totally empathize with you about strange looks. I get some strange looks when I talk about this stuff, or even when I just say the title of my book, “How to Attract Money Using Mind Power”. Some people just don’t know what to make of this stuff. It scares some people. It confuses them. Sometimes it makes them think, but sometimes, near as I can tell, it just causes their minds to shut down.

As far as an example in support of manifesting, really, I look at Life as an example of manifesting. Everyone is manifesting, either for good or for bad, and either knowingly or unknowingly—but everyone is doing it. People can just observe what’s going on around them. Like the friend who’s always saying he can’t get a break—and never does seem to get a break. Like the family member who believes she was born under a lucky star, and who seems to be luckier than the law of averages can account for.

We don’t think and feel in the ways we do because of how things are as much as things are the way they are because of how we think and feel. And as far as examples of specifically how mind power can be used to manifest, or attract, money—I could give so many. People tell me all the time of receiving unexpected money and other gifts, pay raises, new jobs and the like, all after becoming more positive and expectant regarding money.

I myself am constantly having demonstrations in my own life—from finding coins and paper money on the street all the way up to six-figure windfalls. But the sad thing (if we want to judge it as sad) is that I find that people who think manifesting is just a bunch of “New Age Hooey” are quite often very set in their ways of thinking. It doesn’t seem to matter what examples they see or hear, they are apparently just predisposed to not being open to the concept of manifesting. It often truly seems that no “proof” is possible for such people.

And at the other end of the spectrum are people like me. From the first time I heard of this general idea of manifesting, from the first book I read on the subject, I just intuitively knew it was true. It was not a blind faith or naive belief—it was a strong and distinct inner knowing. I knew this stuff would work, and I immediately set out working it and seeing the results. I think people have the right to believe however they choose to, and so I don’t tend to spend my time trying to convince the non-believers; I tend to spend my time instructing the believers on how to do it.

So how can one focus on good outcomes when their job sucks, their spouse or significant other is constantly negative, and they have a whopping grand total of $13.79 in the checking account until next payday? We’ve all been there, some more than others… How is it possible to attract abundance in such circumstances?

One great thing about being human is that we can consciously choose to control our thoughts and thus control them; we can consciously choose to entertain certain images within our minds and thus entertain them. We can be standing in two feet of snow and still close our eyes and imagine that we are lying on a beautiful tropical beach.

Along the same lines, people whose jobs suck can think about and imagine themselves doing jobs they would enjoy doing and would be passionate about doing; people with negative spouses and significant others can think about and imagine themselves in harmonious relationships; people with “$13.79” in their checking accounts can think about and imagine themselves having tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in assets.

That’s how we can focus on good outcomes regardless of present outer circumstances. We can do so by choice. We choose to focus on good, desired outcomes and circumstances more than we focus on our present less-than-desirable outcomes and circumstances. And that is—largely and to simplify it—how we are able to attract abundance and harmony even though we be in circumstances of lack and discord. In fact, the more lack and discord our circumstances reflect, the more we need to think in more prosperous and harmonious ways.

If we want to see improved conditions on the outer, we must first create those conditions on the inner. First the thoughts, then the things. That’s how it works. It doesn’t work the other way around. To boil it way down: We attract abundance by thinking, feeling and imagining abundance, and we can do that regardless of present outward appearances.

Well, James, thank you for answering my questions and for giving my audience some great insights – you’ve been very helpful.  So what are you up to these days?  How can my readers keep up with you?

Right now I continue to do radio interviews as often as they come up. As far as keeping up with me, the very best way is to subscribe to my free monthly Mind Power & Money Ezine. Each month I write about various aspects of the attracting-money process, and I announce upcoming radio interviews and whatever else I might be up to. And of course if people are resonating with what I teach, they should definitely connect with me on Twitter and Facebook where they can receive up-to-the-minute updates on what I’m up to. Thanks for having me Chris! I really appreciate it! For those interested, here are some links to make connecting with me quick and easy:

WEBSITE: http://jamesgoijr.com/

FREE MONTHLY EZINE: http://jamesgoijr.com/subscribe-now

FACEBOOK PERSONAL PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/jamesgoijr

FACEBOOK PUBLIC PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/JamesGoiJrPublicPage

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/jamesgoijr