“Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.”
— Martin H. Fischer
I am so incredibly excited about my new book. It officially debuts today. So rather than my normal quick post, I decided to humbly and proudly offer the introduction to Thank and Grow Rich: A 30-Day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.
I hope you enjoy it!
In 2013, my world was choke-slammed upside down. And I mean that in the best possible way. After 20-plus years of being a writer, sitting in my pajamas penning 15 books and countless magazine articles, I dropped the tracks for E-Squared. For whatever reason (luck, timing, planets aligning), that little black book with the funny title shot up into the stratosphere, capturing the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. It has since been translated into 30-some languages.
To this day, I can’t open my in-box without finding e-mails that start with some version of “You are never going to believe this.”
It’s like waking up every morning to my own self-help channel. “Guess what?” readers will write. “I just won $500,” or “I just got my dream job on a horse farm.” And I get to celebrate with them right here in Lawrence, Kansas. I get to add to their energy of excitement and joy.
I am deeply humbled to think my words might have helped even one person recognize a deeper truth. I am infinitely grateful that the do-it-yourself experiments in E-Squared cracked open a window to the unending beneficence of the universe.
In fact, if any serious researcher out there is looking for evidence that the world is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating—one of nine spiritual principles covered in E-Squared—I’ve got a whole folder full of lab report sheets I’d be willing to share.
Occasionally, however, I get an e-mail from a reader who’s pissed. They want to know who I think I am, claiming the world is a beautiful place. They want to know why all the good stuff happens to everybody else. They claim to have seen no evidence of what I call the field of infinite potentiality (the “FP”), and they’re going to, poor things, go out and eat worms.
This book is for them. And for that scared little place in all of us that still can’t quite believe the universe actually likes us and works in cahoots with our highest aspirations.
When I can, I write back to these unhappy naysayers. I often send a blog post about my own days of worm cuisine. I encourage them to give it one more shot, to keep looking for the magic.
I started to notice a pattern within these anomalous “Why me?” letters. As I said, they sound a lot like my own crazy voices, the wild-haired loudmouths that still occasionally raise their hands in the back of my head.
“Hey, you!” they like to scream. “You’re all alone. The world doesn’t care about you. This is all bullshit.”
Those voices are the popular kids. The ones who make the nightly news, the ones we discuss around the water-cooler, the ones we appoint commissions and launch websites to fight. In other words, the dominant paradigm.
But they’re not the truth. They will never be the truth.
Another theme I noticed is just how hard these readers are trying—repeating affirmations, making vision boards, drawing focus wheels.
I have nothing against those practices. I’ve been known to use some of them myself. But what happens when we fight and work and struggle, because we think nothing will change unless we do, is we put up roadblocks to all the good that wants to manifest right before our eyes.
The last thing I noticed about the “life sucks” e-mails is how deadly serious they all were. Oh! The gravitas! The sobriety!
“I did everything exactly as you said,” they’d accuse with a hint of feral anger.
And every time, I was tempted to tell a stupid joke or make a goofball face.
Anything to get them to—lighten up, people! The whole idea is to have fun! To play around in the quantum sandbox!
But yelling at serious people never works. At least it never works on the serious voices in my own head.
But here’s what does: Giving myself a break. Counting my blessings. And getting on the frequency of joy and gratitude.
The Radio Transmitting Tower Known as You
“I can’t just sit here vibrating with my own joy— I have to write about it, I have to share it.”
— David Mason
Who can forget the explosive scene from the movie A Few Good Men? Tom Cruise has Jack Nicholson on the witness stand. Cruise is badgering him, wanting to know whether or not he ordered a Code Red. He wants the truth.
Nicholson, getting redder and madder, finally erupts: “You can’t handle the truth.”
And that, in a nutshell, is the real answer to those e-mails wanting to know why all the good stuff happens to everyone else.
Until we can get on the frequency of gratitude, our connection to the bigger thing is blocked. Our bandwidth can’t handle the eternal, infinite love of the Divine Broadcast that constantly airs possibility, joy, freedom. We’ve clogged up the connection by giving the floor to our inner anxieties, our fears, our time-sucking melodramas. Like Cinderella’s stepsisters, we’ve crammed life’s unending beneficence into our tiny shoes of old judgments and antiquated programming.
So in this book, we’re going to upgrade the bandwidth of our consciousness. By using a simple, straightforward practice that takes at most five minutes a day, you will rewire your nervous system, rewrite old habits, and literally change the chemistry of your brain.
And that’s where gratitude comes in.
Ode to Joy
“If your mind isn’t cluttered by unnecessary things, this could be the best day of your life.”
— from a message left on my voicemail by The Zing, AKA Ethan Hughes of the Possibility Alliance
Gratitude?
Really?
Isn’t that sort of, well, lame?
You just wrote a pair of powerhouse books about energy and infinite possibility. And now you’re just gonna sell out and write about something pantywaist like gratitude? That’s so basic, so flimsy, so 101 . . .
Hold on, Sparky.
The gratitude I’m talking about in this book is anything but flimsy or 101.
Let’s call it ferocious gratitude. In-your-face gratitude. None of the namby-pamby, sunshine-and-lollipops crap.
Because here’s the thing. When we don’t stop daily to inventory all the gazillion things going right in our lives, the crazy voices in our heads try to make us their bitch.
When we don’t militantly count our blessings, the voices start jabbering, telling us that life sucks, that we suck. They’re like the ticker crawl at the bottom of a news broadcast, running continuously in a nonstop loop.
As long as we keep tuning in to these voices, we fail to notice the incredible gift we’ve been given: to be here on planet Earth, to have this day, to enjoy this cosmic adventure. As long as we continue to etch their bald-faced lies deeper and deeper into our psyches, we cloud over our profound transformative connection to the field of infinite potentiality.
By simply stopping every day and registering our connection to this undeniable, unchanging Presence, we start to notice a deeper truth, a happier reality. We start to notice an eternal broadcast airing its joyful melody quietly beneath the static.
No offense to Napoleon Hill, the author of the self-help classic on which my title riffs, but the real power is in not thinking. If you want to override your brain’s unfortunate habit of leafing through your past and creating a present hologram to match, forget thinking. And start thanking. And I mean thanking everything. The bills that are stacking up. The doctor’s report you weren’t expecting. The buffoon of a boyfriend who drank an entire bottle of tequila last night and puked on your new Oriental carpet.
When we practice this brand of ferocious gratitude—what I have dubbed the extreme sport of gratitude—we come to realize that all the striving, the endless struggle, the perpetual scrambling for our place in line, is unnecessary. In truth, it’s counterproductive and actually blocks the energy field that is and always has been available to sustain and guide us.
Brazen gratitude provides a portal, an entry point straight into the heart of the very field of infinite possibilities my other two Hay House books introduced. It puts you on an energetic frequency, a vibration that calls in miracles.
When you’re on this frequency (and it’s very different from Eddie Haskell “That’s a lovely dress, Mrs. Cleaver” platitudes), there’s really very little else you have to do. The universe happily shows up with blessings and guidance. All you have to do is nod, don your scarf and new shades, and enjoy the ride.
Giving thanks, recognizing all the good in your life, is the gateway drug to a life most extraordinary. It’s the superpower that moves you onto the frequency where beauty and joy and creativity happen.
And here’s the big “secret.” You don’t have to work at connecting with this energy field. You don’t have to be good enough to merit its attention. Or follow any formula to find it. You really don’t have to do anything . . .
Except . . .
. . . quit listening to the voices. Quit creating static. This sweet, loving, all-knowing energy force is here right now, waiting like the bull on the other side of the rodeo gate, ready to charge out the very second you lift the barriers of all you’ve been taught. It’s pawing at the dirt, chomping at the bit, waiting for you to recognize that pretty much everything you’ve learned since the moment you popped out into the material plane is dead wrong.
This universal energy force never disappears. Or plays peekaboo or hide-and-go-seek. It never falters. It never does anything but love and give and bestow blessings.
This book is yet another chance (but please know you don’t need this book or anything or anyone else) to prove there’s a better way, a more natural way of living. It will help you tap into a frequency where miracles are as common as pie.
Like my previous Hay House books that offer real-time experiments, this one offers a 30-day trial in ferocious, militant, in-your-face gratitude.
Spirituality, as I’ve always said, should be more than theory.
The hypothesis for the 30-day experiment is insanely simple: If you devote yourself to scouting blessings, you’ll find them out the wazoo. If you turn each day into a 24-hour miracle reconnaissance mission, you’ll call forth Truth. You’ll get the happily ever after.
The book also contains 27 party games (who needs exercises?) that are easy to play, rip-roaringly fun, and guaranteed to build your abundance portfolio. (I’ll talk more about the five components of this blue-chip capital in later chapters.)
Just know that by the time you have finished the month-long gratitude party prescribed in this book, you will look around at the parallel universe you’ve suddenly entered and think, Really? Whatever happened to my depression? My fear? Was I insane back then?
You will behold the proof, as A Course in Miracles promises, that love trumps fear, laughter trumps tears, and abundance trumps loss.
And it all starts with recognizing the beauty that surrounds you, flows through you, fills you with light. It all starts with getting on the frequency of gratitude.
Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the about to be released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy
68 Responses
Pam, I can’t tell you how this book has helped me. I’m doing the affirmation AA 2.0, fist pump included, and it gives me joy right out of the gate in the morning. My mind is now so busy looking for the miracles and the three good things to document that it has forgotten to do the “Oh me, oh my” thing! This technique is amazing!!!! Thank you, Wonder Woman. We leap into the next best thing from here!
Thank you, Gail!! You’re going on my gratitude list tomorrow! All of you wonderful commenters are!
Happy Book Birthday today! With great excitement I received your book in the post today on its birthday!! May it be a happily outrageous success!! Thank you!!!! Jenneke 🙂
Happy and outrageous! Great words. Thanks, Jenneke!
Boy, did I need this… right at this moment. My tears of sadness turned to tears of gratitude. Thank you Pam Grout for all you do. You shone a light into my life today. Can’t WAIT to read the new book. Congrats! Love, Amanda B
Shining light. That’s my mission. Thanks for noticing!
I can’t wait for Amazon to deliver your book – so excited for you and me! Congratulations on your book release. May you receive many blessings. Thanks! Tracy
Thanks! Blessings are pretty much ongoing in my life! They’re like whiskers. They keep growing!
When will we have the book translate to Spanish? Please! Please!
I’m pretty sure the Spanish rights have been sold. But I’d have to check.
Amazon
Shipping Confirmation
Hello Melanie S Keller,
“Thank & Grow Rich: A 30-Day…” has shipped.
_______
I am VERY excited for my delivery tomorrow. 🙂
Here’s to tomorrow’s delivery! And a fantabulous day yet today!
Thank you I have just ordered through Amazon
Woo-hoo! Let the games begin!!
Hi Pam, I called Barnes & Noble just now (8-30-16 /10:21 a.m.). They don’t have it in the store yet.!! Crap! Guess I’ll search around. Goodie, a new Pam Grout book! I’ll find it. Jean
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It’ll probably find you!
Thanks Pam, and all the very best to you
Warm Regards, Shiv
And to you, Shiv!!!
One of the most beautiful “rants” I’ve heard!!!!! You go Pam!!! Always love receiving your emails and read all of them! Thanks for the constant reminders about what’s really important.
i guess I am a bit guilty of ranting! And you’re right, the constant reminders are necessary!
Thank you for this preview of the joyous times to come with your new book! I am excitedly waiting for it to be delivered from Amazon and having the chance to read the Intro has set my heart aflutter in anticipation of experiencing the 30-day party! Thank you Pam for all that you are doing to change the lives of so many of us!
Thanks, Donna! Hearts aflutter it is!!!
YESSSS!!! Congratulations, my friend! The new book is so much more than AWESOME! Here’s to upgrading the bandwidth of our consciousness!! I am celebrating as I lose the tired old Ass Hat and don the new scarf and shades!!! 😎❤️👍
Yes, love the new scarf and shades!!! It looks good on you!!!
Congrats, Pam!! I can’t wait to read it and start the experiment!! 🙂
You can start today. Whoop!
Yaaaaah!!! * happy dance* Just bought the book, can’t wait to get it in the mail !!!! ♥♥
YAAAAH!! *Happy Dance* ..just bought the book!! Can’t wait to get it in the mail!!!
Happy Dance–cha-cha-cha!!!
See how Mercury retro shows up ? Here is the full post minus my own play by play best of highlights 🙂 lol Just gotta laugh thru these things
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Laughing? Always a good use of time, methinks!
Hi Pam , How funny . Meant to send this to someone who I had sent play by play highlights if your work along with this announcement of your new book !
Ha ha – sent it to you instead. You go girl , congrats on your book’s bday . Just suggested it as a new title to my book club .
You are an amazing gift in my life & I look forward to each and every always timely , always real, always hits the spot every time blog posts !!!
With Infinite Appreciation, Debra
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Infinite appreciation right back!!
Pam, the notice your book was accessible and mine was in my email last night after I patiently waited for it from my pre-ordering it minutes after finding out about it about a month back. I was in tears after reading the very same section you shared above. As I realized the miracles that have occurred for me in the last few days: Waking up Sunday morning with the urge to find my DVD on the Silva Method, which led me to the computer, to FB, to the first post on my page. By Therese Wade, MSc
Guest Writer for Wake Up World… which led me to the article of Dina Proctor’s, that led me to desire her book. An interestingly humorous snafu, causing me to contact Amazon… whom in fixing the simple computer glitch at Amazon, to my joy of finding the book was free, the glitches cleared and the amazing words now dancing in my mind of a long held “nagging” voice in my head dilema… Thanks to Dina I now hear with the cartoon voice of Daffy Duck… To be able to laugh it off whenever it tries to stop or correct me.
Then imagine my pure joy of reading this chapter with the amazing realization of the love and guidance that has always been there, trying to reach me, but veiled behind the once “nagging voice” now just a comical narrator to old stories from my past.
I so wish to thank you for realizing why the gratitude lists from my previous attempts did not work. “I was following the system to a T!” but I did not get/understand to be so incredibly thankful for the inside smiles. Things that light me up in some of the most miniscule moments. Like the interesting scavenger trail to both the book Sunday and the pre-purchase, first thing when I got home and off work book of yours.
You so rock and are so awesome in your writing and sharing for others to discover, relish, let go of the old, to fly in the new awareness of this incredible joy inside… That is always there, waiting, beckoning, loving!!!
Thanks and Happy Birthday to your Amazing Book’!’!’!’
“.”
Cat
Thanks so much, Cat!
Hi Pam, I received your book today. Congratulations! I can not wait to get started. You have become my mentor whether you like it or not. Love your books. I didn’t get a signed book but that is okay it just means something better is on it way. Please keep inspiring us to be grateful.
Love, Janet
You know I will! Thanks, my friend!
I ADORE this post!
Happy Book Birthday!!! Thank you for all that you do tell help us live more inspired and full lives.
I am most grateful for you.
My book just arrived!!!!!
I am sooooooo excited to read it!!!
? What happens when you are asking and preparing and no sign has come?
Sent from my iPhone
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I am so grateful for you, for this post and for the fact that your book is quietly waiting for me on my kindle to crack open and let the gratitude and appreciation flow. In fact I have been feeling the gratitude flow since I read the first sentence of your post. That and a couple of burst of spontaneous laughter for good measure. Thank you so so much for being a bright light and encouraging all of us to tune into the joy and gratitude frequency and turn up our light as well!
Love and hugs,
Bryan
I truly cannot wait for mine to arrive on my doorstep!!!
Already read the first few chapters! I preordered it and love that you showed up here to inspire us and keep us vibrating to gratitude!
Lauren Tripp Big fan
Sent from my iPhone
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Happy Book Birthday Pam!
I’ve been so looking forward to this “special delivery” of yours that the FP woke me up at 3:20 this morning to check my Nook…and there she was!
Thanks for all you do.
Just reading your post today with the excerpt from your book brings me gratitude. Happy Birthday Day for your book. May it bring happiness and love filled with gratitude to many more people. Keep on penning!
Happy and Joyous Birthday to your book, many blessings to you Pam. The Universe is rewarding you for the kind reminder that you continue to give us that she is listening , has our back and wants to step in with amazing blessings, if we only Ask, Believe and receive. Namaste 🙏🙏🙏
You are so inspiring ans so real! I can’t wait to read your new book. Thank you ! Thank you! Thank you!
Mine, and the extra one I preordered for my best buddy, arrived today. We are both itching to read them. You’re the best, Pam, thank you very much, you star! Xxx
Hi Pam,
I preordered your book from Amazon and received it last week.
I enjoyed your E books but this is my favorite, very helpful.
Thanks.
Gail
Can not wait to order your book. So very grateful to the Big FP for discovering your words of magic and fabulousness! Thank you so much Pam, for doing what you do:))
Happy Happy Birthday! I’ll be picking up my copy this week! 🙂 Love the blog post!!
No time to read the whole post right now, but looking forward to savoring it, tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have been reading the book (I pre-ordered from my favorite local bookshop) for almost two weeks and loving it!!! Lucky me!
is your book ” E square ” translated in other language? i am trying to find one in French for my mom. is the slogan “I am a human being i make mistake get over it ” negative or positive?
Do I feel a tremendous wave of gratitude reading about your book surging all around me? YES!!! Am sending you joyful blessings for another chart topper, dear Pam!
I LOVE YOU AND YOUR AMAZING BOOKS!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CHANGING MY LIFE!!!! Keep the new books coming, please, forever!!! I will buy them all and can’t wait for your new one! You are awesome beyond words, and I hope I get to meet you one day!
Love and joy, Jeanne Johnson Music of the Spheres jeanne@jeannespheres.com http://www.jeannespheres.com http://www.youtube.com/user/jjvln
Oh, Pam, how grateful I am for your books! What gifts to treasure always. Congratulations on this blessed birthing day. Thank you, thank you.
Hi Pam,
i’ve had Thank and Grow Rich in my hot little hands for 3 nights now and all sorts of kooky fun things have been happening.
Quick question; Are the 3 blessings we make each morning; predictions of how that day might unfold, or, are we reflecting on the blessings that occurred the day before?
I wasn’t entirely sure, so I have been doing both am and pm blessings to cover my bases, as well as adding a party game to the mix! So far, this seems to be working.
I’ve also noticed that blessings I’ve sent out, where I wasn’t so attached to the outcome, seem to be the ones manifesting the quickest.
I’ve dubbed this the Let Go & Let Dude phenomenon 😉
I have your book in my hands 🙂 it’s my happy reading beforw going to sleep tonight 🙂 thank you for deciding to be you, and to share it with us, i can definitely say i’m happier since being able to read/practice your experiments and read.tour blog. Happy birthday to you, and us who get to share the gift!!
I hope I will can buy your book in FRANCE
Gratitude, sometimes really hard to find when you’ve dug a dark hole to crawl in to and not realised until you can’t see your hand in front of you face. Time for me to rise up, stop feeling sorry for myself and remember that I was a much more positive, nicer to be around, helpful, creative, energetic and healthier person.. Four young adult children can do that to you, because we all know that the journey to adulthood is all sooth sailing, just like a catamaran on glass like waters in the Whitsundays.. hahah, NOT… more like a fishing boat navigating the Bass Straight of Tasmania in the month of August.
Thank you Pam for your books. Now, it’s time for me to kick my own arse and focus on finding in me some Gratitude!
Enjoy your week ahead.
T.. x
Hi Pam: Congratulations on your new book, I just put in my order. It sounds spectacular and I am thinking it may work for our church to use it as a precursor to Thanksgiving this year. I haven’t received it yet, but the party games sound like they could work for what I have in mind. I absolutely love your books and always thoroughly enjoy reading your blogs. Your sense of humor and level of authenticity shine through and make your writing such a delight to read.
You may remember that I used to be one of the ministers at the Unity church in Lawrence working with Darlene Strickland and then met you more recently at Linda Chubbuck’s home one evening to learn about creating our Power Posse. From that I actually visited your Lawrence group one Sunday morning to see firsthand how it was done. I have since moved from the area to Spokane Washington, and I am currently co-ministering at the Unity Center there with my husband Gary.
I have some exciting news myself. I have just completed my book called “You Can’t Sleep Through Your Awakening” and it is going to be launched in October. Very excited about it!
I was wondering if you would be willing to look at the first three chapters and consider giving an endorsement of some kind. I have attached the introduction and Chapters 1, 2 and 3 if you have the time and are interested. I can also send you the entire manuscript if you would be willing to look it over. I would so appreciate any feedback you have for me, Pam. I admire your writing skills and am always inspired by your words of wisdom.
Thanks for the wonderful work you continue to share.
Many blessings, Jane Simmons
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I am putting out there to the Universe for Pam to read this post and indeed be honoured to read your manuscript. I wish you the very best on your launch Rev. Dr. Jane Simmons.
Hi Jane,
Didn’t see the attachments. You might want to contact me through my website at http://www.pamgrout.com. The contact page is probably best.
Thanks,
Pam
I’m glad to see putting it out to the Universe worked Pam. 😀
What choice do sourpusses like me have but to fight and work and struggle? This kind of thing doesn’t come naturally to us at all. Furthermore, being grateful for bad things is nothing if not a chore, and it certainly is not fun.
Dear sweet beautiful adorable Bailey,
Being a sourpuss (great word, by the way) is only a habit. Might I posit it’s a habit that can be changed. Either way, you get to choose. Thanks for writing.
I want to believe that what you write works, I really do. But the results I’ve got with your books say they do not work, and I do not know how to change that. I wish you offered something in the way of troubleshooting.
Bailey,
As we like to (facetiously) like to say at our house, when someone is boo-hoo-ing about this or that: “It sucks to be you!”. It’s a reminder that complaining gets us nowhere, and we have the the ability to change what we are complaining about. After years of saying, and hearing it, it still brings humor to the situation.