Vibrant Nation

There is no shortage of wealth gurus out there promoting get-rich schemes, but what I know for sure is that achieving prosperity involves getting rid of limiting notions about our own worth - and that's best accomplished incrementally. Small daily actions add up, after all.

Here are four "get rich slowly" exercises that I've seen help many people launch and build their enterprises. $100 isn't a huge amount of money — and that's the point. It's not so large that it scares us and not so small that it's insignificant. Approached properly, it can be a useful tool for building abundance.

1. Use $100 as a test for your ideas.
   One of my favorite $100 ideas comes from Phil Laut in his book Money is My Friend. He suggests that every time you start a new profit center, you make a commitment to stick with it until you've earned your first $100 from it. When you reach that milestone, evaluate whether or not you wish to continue.
   
   Sometimes it takes a big investment of time to generate the first $100, but once there you can see how to repeat it more rapidly. Other times, you’ll find that you enjoyed earning the money less than you thought you would. The brilliance of this idea is that you are making decisions from a wiser position of experience, not frustration or fear.


2. Always carry a $100 bill in your wallet.
   It's a powerful tool for eliminating thoughts of lack and limitation. When you go to spend your last small bill, instead of thinking, "I don't have any money," you’ll find yourself thinking, "Oh, I have another $100." Only spend the bill if you have an emergency or know that you can replace it immediately.
   
   For all its convenience, many of our modern ways of dealing with money involve not actually having much contact with it. Credit cards, online banking and the like make money a distant set of numbers. Cash in our pocket has a different effect on us.


3. Be consistent in practicing the "$100 hour."
   Whether business is booming or slow as a snail, one of the best things you can do on a daily basis is to focus for an hour (if possible) on creating your next $100. Once you've mastered consistently creating new sources of cash flow, you'll probably want to raise the hourly amount. (If you need some idea starters check out the Getting Ideas chapter of my book, Making a Living Without a Job.)


4. Spread entrepreneurial spirit $100 at a time.
   Become a micro-lender at Kiva.org or give the gift of livestock through Heifer International. You might even send an anonymous $100 gift to a friend who's launching a business. Look for ways to seed worthwhile enterprises and support them.

Want to see "$100 hour" idea-generating in action? There's a terrific example on Barbara Sher's bulletin board. Thanks, Tituba, for the Twitter alert on this.