Everything starts with your thoughts.

“This year I’m chosing to live beyond my wildest dreams. Wonder where they’ll take me.” –Oprah

If you’ve already heard this story, mea culpa! But as a dear reader reminded me this morning, “You can’t be ‘fed’ enough good juju!” and just because you ate breakfast, doesn’t mean you’ll never eat again.

So this is a story sent to me yesterday from my friend, Dave Smiley. He’s the guy who made the movie “The Inner Weigh” which, if you haven’t seen, is definitely worth a watch.

Anyway, he told me about Cynthia Stafford, this amazing woman who was taking care of her brother’s five kids after he died in a tragic car accident. As you can imagine, she was busy. Five kids, raising them on her own. But she was not too busy to believe in the power of her own mind.

Every night before she went to bed, she’d visualize herself winning the lottery. She envisioned the amount she would win, even the shirt she’d be wearing when she heard the news. On Mother’s Day 2007 (as I said, this isn’t a new story), every little detail came to pass. She won $112 million in the lottery, the exact amount she’d been visualizing, and yes, she was wearing the lime green blouse with a leaf print she had imagined herself wearing. Today, she uses that money to support the arts and other charities she believes in. As she says “It’s a lot more fun to give than to receive.”

Not that she didn’t treat herself. After putting away funds for the kids’ education, she bought two Bentleys, one a baby blue convertible, took a dream trip to Paris and hired a personal trainer. She also started her own production company and is now making movies.

“I knew I’d get here,” Stafford said. “Everything starts with your thoughts. Whatever it is you want to achieve, you’ve got to believe in it first.”

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.