When I started to build my business after graduation, one of my standard phrases was this: " You just have to do it to succeed!" According to this sentence, I took out loans and was even proud to get them. Because that's just the way "they" did it. Because I thought: If you come from a modest background, you have to imitate everything that "the successful" present so luxuriously.

And that's how I ended up with an office building in Hamburg at a fine address, with a law firm, a tax consultancy, a financial consultancy and a property development company. Outwardly, it looked as if I had made it. (How it was inwardly, I have described in detail in my book Lieber die ganze Welt gegen mich als meine Seele).

It took me a long time to realize that I was running on a track that "they" had given me. But for the banks that gave me the loans, I was a wonderful customer, and they earned a lot - a very lot - from me.

My orientation was always determined by how much month I had left in the bank account, how much I could still spend, how much air was left. And so I was always limited. (This limitation started already in childhood: How much longer can I stay out? When do I have to come back in the house? When do I have to go to bed?)

I would probably have continued on this track until today if I hadn't realized one day that it actually had to be 180 degrees different. As if struck by a flash of inspiration, I realized that I could also turn around and look at the account from the other side. Because when you do that, there's no limit. Anyway, no bank has ever called me and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Sonnenburg, but your account is full. You need to open a new one." This turnaround turned my life upside down, or more precisely: on its feet. Because upside down it was before, when I thought in terms of limits. Suddenly, there was no limit because the view was fundamentally different. That's how I went from being a minus millionaire to a plus millionaire.

Later, I did the same in the health sector: I used to ask myself how much work, how much overtime I could still squeeze out of my body. Today I think, "How fit can I be?" and "How can I do more health-wise with less effort?" Today I am fitter than I was 20 years ago! So you can get fitter as you get older too!

Our society has a focus on limitations. Encouragement for creativity is not provided. We now know, for example, that the first three years of a person's life are crucial for brain development. But are our kindergartens filled with the very best teachers? No, children are "handed off" there and "sedated." They are allowed to play, but surely they should not be allowed to become the best possible people at a young age ... what a limited and cynical view this is! What kind of society could we live in if we prepared our offspring for life in these once-in-a-lifetime years so that everyone could reach their full potential? (I am not referring to the excessive ambition of some parents to make their child the poster child, but to the opportunities we all give ourselves away because we do not do everything to awaken the potential of our children).

Another example of limitation is social assistance: as the word implies, it should be a help in need and serve to lead people back to a life of self-reliance. To my great frustration, however, there are teachers these days who mean well but do anything but: they do enormous damage by teaching even schoolchildren how to fill out Hartz 4 applications! The children take this limitation with them from school into life, looking down.

Doctors and pharmaceutical companies, too, should not have as their main task to make more profit and to bring stock prices up, but should instead constantly ask themselves what they could do to become superfluous. It is important to provide help in need - for social workers as well as for doctors and pharmaceutical companies - but they too often look in the wrong direction. How great would it be if they turned their gaze 180 degrees? If they asked themselves the question "What can we do to make sure people on the outside are successful and healthy and we're no longer needed?" To do that, they would have to come out of the fear of no longer being superior or recognized. That in turn is up to us, the community, to welcome, respect and then support people who have done great things.

But to change the world, not only all "harmful" teachers or "evil" pharmaceutical companies have to change. Everyone can and should start doing it. If you turn your life around 180 degrees, the world can change immensely for you. Joy of life, health and prosperity will skyrocket. And you will automatically become a role model for your fellow human beings. Because there is enough wealth for everyone, it is just - still - wrongly distributed. Many people are convinced that prosperity is not for them, that they are not entitled, that they do not deserve it - often because they have grown up in a thought-world of limitations. Here I also remind dan the blog post in which I asked: What does a Roman horse's ass have to do with the space shuttle?

Unlearning is often difficult. But not because the facilitating thought patterns do not exist in the world (there are thousands who have made the 180-degree turn!), but because the "programming" of the limitations is so strong. And we do see the world with our eyes, but always through the glasses of our beliefs, convictions, paradigms. As soon as we change these and take off the glasses, we see new possibilities.

"Where have I observed today that needs to be turned 180 degrees in my environment? How can I live more freely to my full potential and create more wealth in the process?" - How about asking yourself these questions every night?

Sometimes the answers to this question come "only" from your head. How they can come from your whole being, you will learn in my CD course Sub-Personalities and especially in the workshop/seminar SeelenPower created for it. At the end of August / beginning of September there is the only one still this year. It's your chance, feel free to sign up.

Sincerely,

Wolfgang Sonnenburg
winning for life