Today I want to tell you about the quarter game. Hypnotist Mike Mandel wrote about it a few days ago:
You imagine you will find a quarter somewhere today, as though it’s been left deliberately for you. And Mike says, more often than not, it turns out to be true.
Now, as you might have noticed, I’m a sucker for magic and magical thinking.
I mean, over the past month alone, I’ve sent emails about blindsight… the illusory nature of reality… my own tendency to see mystical significance in trivial events… and even a religious epiphany I experienced at age 20.
And here I am today, telling you to manifest quarters into your life.
I wish I could control myself better so I could look a little more serious and professional… and stop myself from morphing into the male, copywriting version of Rhonda Byrne, the Australian TV producer who made that movie The Secret.
But what to do? Here’s my story:
Yesterday, I went out for a walk. And I played the quarter game for the first time. I told myself I’d find a quarter, as though it had been left deliberately for me.
After a few minutes of walking around, I didn’t find a single quarter.
But then I told myself, “You know what, quarters are fine. But what would be really great is if I found that missing license plate.”
Because this past Sunday, I went to my car — actually, my mom’s 20-year-old white Audi, which I have been using for past six months — and I found the front license plate was gone.
This is a huuuge hassle.
Where I am right now (Croatia), it means I have to go to the police, report the license plate as missing, apply to get a whole new set, then update documents, insurance, the vehicle inspection. It’s such a pain in the ass that I have been ignoring it and instead just not using the car for the past few days.
That’s why it would have been great to “manifest” that license plate back into my life.
It would save me hours or days of sitting around in government offices, filling out paperwork, driving around town… or alternately, stressing that cops will pull me over and fine me and harass me if I don’t do all that.
So there I was yesterday, with the sudden idea to play the license plate game. And the darnedest thing happened.
Within five minutes, I had the missing license plate in my hand. I found it over a wall and down a ditch, in some bushes, close to where my car — well, my mom’s car — had been parked.
I’m not sure how the license plate got there. And I’m not sure exactly how I had the idea to check there.
All I know is that, had I not read Mike Mandel’s email… and had I not half-jokingly played the quarter game… I would not have thought to play the license plate game, or search for the license plate where I did find it. As though somebody had deliberately left it there for me.
But let me wrap this up. Here’s a quote from Eric Hoffer’s book True Believer, about the psychology of revolutions, religions, and other mass movements:
“The remarkable thing is that the successful, too, however much they pride themselves on their foresight, fortitude, thrift and other ‘sterling qualities,’ are at bottom convinced that their success is the result of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. The self-confidence of even the consistently successful is never absolute.”
Hoffer’s point is that people only attempt real change when they feel they have their hands on some “irresistible power.” And this irresistible power is almost always something outside themselves… or at least outside the limits they feel to be their own identity.
Such, it seems, is human psychology. You can fight it. Or you can work with it.
If you can work with it in a socially acceptable way, good for you.
But even if you end up at risk of looking like a male Rhonda Byrne, it’s still a pretty good deal to make.
Because if you just rely on your own “sterling qualities,” odds are you end up sitting around government offices for days… pulling your hair out… and cursing the stupidity and injustice of the world.
The alternative is to effect change in your life without all that stress. And all you have to do is believe — in magic if you have to — and play the game every day.
Last thing:
Every day, I write an email about copywriting, marketing, or woo-woo topics like manifesting quarters. If you’d like these emails to magically manifest themselves in your inbox each day, you can sign up here.