Denise Duffield Thomas Lucky Bitch Book

Lucky Bitch

Get bonus chapters and audios at www.LuckyBitchBook.com/bonus.html

A very special welcome to readers of “How to Brilliant at Public Speaking” by the fabulously talented lucky bitch, Sarah Lloyd-Hughes. I’m honoured to be included in the launch for this

great book and give you this gift of my special little eBook “Lucky Bitch”.

I wish you the very best of luck in becoming absolutely brilliant at public speaking and taking your talents out into the world. I can’t wait to see what you manifest in your life.

If you’d like more gifts from me, please visit www.luckybitchbook.com/bonus.html

© Denise Duffield-Thomas 2011 www.DeniseDuffieldThomas.com

Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................ 4

The Ultimate Job .................................................................. 7

The 10 Lucky Bitch Commandments .................................. 23

Start with forgiveness ..................................................................................................................23

Get over yourself ..........................................................................................................................28

Be grateful ....................................................................................................................................32

Treat yourself like a VIP ...............................................................................................................34

Get your boobs on board .............................................................................................................36

Some people will think you suck, get over it ...............................................................................37

Good is good enough ...................................................................................................................41

Create your own karma ...............................................................................................................43

Manifesting is a muscle ................................................................................................................44

Luck is an inside game ..................................................................................................................45

Lucky Bitch

Your Lucky, Lucky Career .................................................. 47

Lucky people work to their strengths. .........................................................................................48

Dancers, Singers and Actors ..........................................................................................51

Artists, Sculptors and other Creatives .............................................................................54

Writers, Coaches and Entrepreneurs ..............................................................................56

Lucky in Love .................................................................... 58

A Great Relationship Can Double Your Luck ................................................................................61

Dealing with breakups .................................................................................................................63

You deserve love ..........................................................................................................................66

Abundantly Lucky .............................................................. 67

Working hard is not enough ........................................................................................................68

We show the Universe how to treat us .......................................................................................70

A lucky windfall won’t solve your money problems ....................................................................70

Asking for what you want ............................................................................................................72

Overcoming money blocks ...........................................................................................................73

Exceptionally good health .................................................. 77

Diets don’t work ...........................................................................................................................77

There’s no magic ..........................................................................................................................82

Release your fears ........................................................................................................................83

Be happy now ...............................................................................................................................84

Extreme Self-Care Makeover .......................................................................................................85

It’s ok to change ...........................................................................................................................86

Three Lucky Bitches .......................................................... 88

Anna Rogers: Founder of Miss Eco Glam .....................................................................................88

Emma MacDougall, Raw Food Scotland ......................................................................................89

My final wish for you ......................................................... 92


Introduction

You lucky bitch! You outrageously successful woman! You scream success,

happiness, health and vitality. “Lucky bitch!” is a refrain we hear often in our society, often

with thinly disguised envy wrapped in humour. But don’t worry – by the end of this book,

you’ll be full embracing your absolutely awesome good luck.

Do you already consider yourself a lucky person or are you reading this book to get

some much needed ideas about how to improve your fortune? Either is totally okay.

The truth is – we can all consciously create luck in our own lives, not entirely by hard

work and perspiration as the refrain goes, but with a combination of the right kind of effort,

plus an unwavering belief that we deserve to experience the highest levels of love,

abundance, good health and personal success.

Make this realisation and the results can be astounding.

However, I haven’t been specially selected by the Universe any more than the next

person. There’s nothing particularly unusual about me, I wasn’t born under a lucky star, I

didn’t grow up wealthy and I haven’t yet won the lottery.

In fact, some of us have not had the most auspicious starts in life and there were

times indeed in my life where I was downright unlucky. There have been times when I was

down to my last dollar, when I struggled with finding a fulfilling career path and times when I

honestly felt like the potential deep inside me was to be forever lost.

Yet, since those days of dark despair, the most extraordinary things keep happening

to me. I’ve become unbelievably lucky. Opportunities seem to be attracted to me and crazy

synchronicities have become a regular occurrence. Bank errors in my favour, all-expenses

paid travel around the world, the right mentors and courses along with the money to pay

them, even winning at Bingo – it all seemed magical.

At first I thought it was random, but it happened with such regularity that I had to take

a second look at what I was doing to attract this good fortune to me. Then I started coaching

other women in similar situations, and also began happening to them. I get emails all the

time that start with “Denise, you’re never going to believe what happened;”.

Suddenly, people are attracting dream jobs, pay increases, free flights, new

relationships and increased levels of happiness for no apparent reason.

Lucky Bitch

The world around all of us is changing. Many of us are awaking to the possibility of

being the Director in our own lives. We realise that we don’t have to accept what we’re

given, but that reality is highly malleable. We are indeed responsible for our own

circumstances.

It's like we are remembering who we are. Many of us are turning away from old belief

systems like we are shrugging off an old coat. None of our revelations are new. Instead it's

like this version of happiness we were promised long ago simply doesn’t make sense any

more.

What lucky bitches we are! It’s becoming so easy today to find the information we

need to unlock these secrets and keep our positivity high. New leaders are emerging.

Concepts of manifestation and the Law of Attraction have become mainstream. Thanks to

the power of the internet, we are able to find our like-minded tribes worldwide, and share

what we know with each other.

I’m so grateful that I can be part of this movement, to be a living, breathing example

of what you can do when you harness your own power and decide to live in your own reality.

This is not a book where I just brag about my accomplishments and how astoundingly lucky

I’ve become. Well, not; entirely. My genuine wish is that you’re inspired by the luck me and

my clients have been able to harness, because trust me – it’s not random.

This book is designed to inspire you to take action in areas of your life that may be

lacking some magic. Some concepts are familiar, and some may be new, but I invite you to

take them all a new level that you have always dreamed for your life. What else could be

possible for you?

You’ll learn some very practical techniques to exponentially increase your luck. You’ll

also learn some wonderful metaphysical concepts which produce amazing results in the real

world and make your day to day life much more fun and fulfilling.

However, never presume the results are 100% predictable. When you set an

intention to change your life, it will happen. Always. Not always in the way you expected, but

always in the way you asked for. The Universe is ridiculously literal. The time frame

however, is unknown. The Universe is a complex machine. We do not yet know the exact

chain of events we put into motion when we send out a request. We can only trust that we’ve

been heard, and trust we will be taken care of.


I believe we won’t need these rituals in the future in order to manifest our heart’s

desire. In the meantime, we do; perhaps as a pathway for us to believe we can do it.

As you read this book – ask yourself constantly “What do I really want for myself?”.

Some chapters might bring up some emotion for you. Disbelief or impatience. Perhaps

frustration, anger or resentment. If this happens, put your hand on your heart and affirm

“Good things are happening for me too, I am ready for the next step”. Do that every day for a

month and you’ll be astounded at what the Universe brings you.

The truth is, we’re all capable of becoming unbelievably lucky. It’s possible to choose

to become that “lucky bitch”, and to see the doors of opportunity open automatically for you.

As I was writing this, I was drawn to picking some writing music. The famous Barbara

Streisand song How Lucky Can You Get was the first song that caught my eye; the version

from one of my favourite musicals Hot Shoe Shuffle. I wasn’t even aware of the awesome

synchronicity as I started dancing around my living room, I just love any excuse to dance.

As the song finished, I realised was I was singing a song all about gratitude,

abundance, luck and loving life. Isn’t that fabulous? Another message from the Universe. I

get them all the time and I always express my thanks for how marvellously I’m taken care of.

We all are, all the time. We just need our eyes opened every once in a while.

This book is designed to give you everything you need to become more consciously

aware of what you are attracting into your life and start directing your energies to becoming

luckier in the things that matter most to you – whether that’s in love, money, business,

relationships or health.

There is enough for everyone. Just because you become a luck magnet doesn’t

mean that someone else in your life will have to go without. Nor will my supreme luckiness

suck up all your luck too. There is enough for us all. We have an ocean of abundance, of

luck and of good fortune. You can choose to be lucky or unlucky. The Universe doesn’t

distinguish; it just gives you exactly what you ask for.

I’m so excited for you!

Denise Duffield-Thomas

Success Magnet

Lucky Bitch

The Ultimate Job

I want to share the whole story with you of how I won the Ultimate Job competition,

because it really is an unbelievable tale. There is something in this for everyone, so even if

you've heard it before, I want you to read it with new eyes. There is a lot of information here

that I’ve never shared publicly until now, and it really illustrates how “good luck” and hard

work can combine to attract absolutely anything you want in life.

Here’s the short version. In 2010, my husband Mark and I won a social media

competition to travel around the world for free, reviewing honeymoon destinations all over

the globe. Places of sheer luxury, of blinding adventure. It was all expenses paid plus we got

paid a salary. Awesome, right?

We travelled to 12 different countries over six months. Tropical islands and the

beating heart of the desert. Luxurious resorts and hotels. We experienced them all, and in

return we had to write about it and make videos. It’s a dream job.

We started in New York, visiting the fabulous and the famous; like the Waldorf-

Astoria and the Empire State Building. Next on to Kenya and a safari, meeting real life

Masai warriors and seeing elephants and lions in the wild. We stayed in private villas in

Mauritius and Zanzibar; in some locations we had a butler and a personal chef. We

traversed Malta, Spain, Jordan, Ireland, the UK, Indonesia, Thailand and finally topped it all

off in beautiful Queensland, Australia. It was unbelievable, right?

Of course it was hard work, and not a total holiday, but obviously a small price to pay

for an unbelievable opportunity. Most people would absolutely kill for it.

Was it a fluke? No, it was not. I believe I completely manifested the opportunity into

my life. I used the Law of Attraction techniques to actually win it. You can manifest

opportunities, but you also have to win them and take action to actually achieve them.

I’ve been interested in personal development since I was about fourteen, when I

walked into a second-hand book shop and I found an amazing book called The Magic of

Believing. It’s all about creating your reality with your thoughts and feelings. This was news

to me. I grew up with a single mum in an area that, whilst a positive environment, it wasn’t

particularly inspiring. It wasn’t stretching me to grow and to be a better person. So, at that

age, when I read about goal setting and the power of positivity, I was absolutely blown away.

The seed had been deposited, and would germinate many years later.


Whilst at University, I attended personal development seminars like Tony Robbins’

“Unleash the Power Within” and walked on hot coals while thousands of people shouted and

pumped their fists.

I also read hundreds of motivational books. These kept me positive, but they weren't

really changing anything for the better in my life. I got good jobs here and there, but regularly

sabotaged myself, and didn’t earn very much money. I started businesses and

entrepreneurial ventures, but these didn’t really work out. Again, I didn’t really make any

money out of these endeavours.

I felt like all that positivity and all those personal development books and seminars

weren’t really doing me any good in reality. It was disappointing, and I thought there must

have been something wrong with me. I was really searching for something more. I wanted to

prove to the world that I was exceptional, but I was lost. I was afraid that I was worse than

ordinary.

Several years ago I watched the movie The Secret, and became determined that I

was going to do something different. I set an intention to find a mentor and very quickly

found a lady called Karen Knowler, who is a fantastic raw food and business coach in the

United Kingdom. She was starting off a six-month business course and I knew that I really,

really wanted to work with her.

I was listening to Karen speak on a podcast and I got this tingly feeling all over my

body. Something was whispering “Yes!” to me, so I got a bank loan to do the course. I felt

absolutely moved to do it.

Karen asked us to write down our ideal day the first day of the seminar. I’d never

done this exercise before and I think it’s a really good one if you’re wondering where to start.

I described a day where my husband, Mark and I would wake up in a beautiful bed

and the sun would stream in the window. We would get up, do yoga together, have a

beautiful, luxurious breakfast and then we go out exploring. And occasionally, we might

check our laptops and do a little bit of work. But our time was free and we were allowed to do

whatever we wanted.

There was a bit of silence after that because what I described wasn’t really anything

concrete. It was a very idealistic dream. But Karen, being a very open-minded person, was

very encouraging.

Lucky Bitch

I knew it seemed unrealistic because of where I was at that time in my life. I was

working in a job that I didn’t love. I was unhealthy. I was living in London and I was getting

increasingly depressed about the weather and my financial situation. I was engaged to Mark

and although that was working out really well for me I wouldn’t say the rest of my life was a

success, despite all the books I’d read.

On the outside, I probably looked like I was a very positive person, but on the inside I

didn’t feel like I was achieving anything.

A few months after that day with Karen, Mark and I got married and went on

honeymoon and it was exactly like I described in my “perfect day” exercise. We got up with

the sun shining, did yoga together and explored all day long. It was three of the most

beautiful and relaxing weeks in Singapore, Indonesia and Australia. We were blissfully in our

love bubble.

One evening in Indonesia, we stayed in a beautiful location, our room high in the sky

on stilts. It was beautifully balmy, and above us the pitch-black night covered with a million

shining stars. I stood there and I said, “Universe, I want more of this in my life. This is what I

want. Bring it to me.” And I consciously anchored that experience down into the ground, and

into the earth. I wanted to remember that experience, and come back to it when I wanted to.

We had an incredible honeymoon, but then we had to go back to London. Bah! I

wasn’t feeling great about it, but I knew that I had to focus on what I wanted, and not what I

didn’t want. So, I started telling everybody who would listen that Mark and I were going

travelling again. I would say “We’re going to go travelling for six months next year. I’m really

excited about it. It’s going to be amazing.”

And people would ask, “Oh, really? Cool! Where you are going to go?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet. We’ll figure it out. Somewhere sunny.”

This happened for about six months where I just kept on holding the vision of myself;

standing there, under the beautiful night, and knowing that it was going to happen. Going

back to that anchor I had created under the night sky and re-experiencing it through my

imagination.


I set a very specific goal and wrote it on my wall:

• 6 months travel with Mark

• Conferences for free

• $3000 a month spending money

I knew how I would do it. Or so I thought. I’d write an e-book, or something, and earn

£3,000 a month. I thought we could probably travel to conferences for free if we did some

speaking or helping out. It would be just what we would need to go travelling and

backpacking around Asia.

I had that solution in my head, even if I wasn’t that attached to it. All I could think

about was actually going travelling. Remembering the warm breeze on my skin, and seeing

the beautiful stars. It kept me going through the cold London winter.

In the New Year, I got a text from my friend, Christina. She said, “I’ve found your

perfect job.” She sent me a link to competition website. And honestly, as soon as I saw it, I

knew that it was for me.

Six months free travel for one lucky couple and the salary? It was £3000 per month.

The second I looked at the website, I said to myself, “Oh, my God, this is exactly

what is going to take us travelling.” I just knew it from day one.

Mark came home to me babbling about the competition, and I told him we were going

to win it. That was how we were going to go travelling – it was a done deal!

And bless his heart, but he just responded with, “Okay, let’s do it.”

He was very supportive, and it’s incredibly important to tell your dreams to people

who are going to play along with you. He didn’t say, “Oh, it’s ridiculous.”

We put together an application video that night, but we almost got divorced doing it. It

was one of those experiences where we tried to do it as a team, but I would yell at him

because he wasn’t getting it right, then he would yell back at me. We filmed it on my mobile

phone and it was a disaster. Mark had to learn to edit the video very quickly and that was

tough for him as well. He had never done it before.

Lucky Bitch

We almost gave up several times before we even got started. That’s the tragedy. So

many people would have seen that opportunity and not put in an application because they

would have thought, “Ah, well, so many people are going to apply. Why would we win?

There’s no point in doing it.” Or they would have just given up at that first hurdle.

From those humble beginnings, we won the Ultimate Job. How did we do it? Once

we put in our application, we did absolutely everything we could think of. Every technique

that I’ve ever read in any personal development book, we put into practice.

But I think the biggest secret is we kept our eye on the prize. We never, ever, ever

gave up. We constantly and consistently knew that this opportunity was ours. We didn’t let

any doubt or fear come into it, nor were we attached to it. I believe that other people who

applied for the competition were very, very attached to it. I wasn’t attached to the actual

winning the competition. I thought it was an amazing opportunity. I was going to go for it with

every fibre of my being. But it was the travelling that I wanted, and what I focused on.

Many people find one of the most popular articles on my website, "Can You Win the

Lottery Using the Law of Attraction?”. What people do is focus so much on the money

through the lottery that they block other ways that the Universe can bring them the

abundance that they want.

If you think, “Yeah, one of my goals is to win the lottery”, then focus on what you

would do with the money. Is it because you want to have a magnificent house? Is it because

you want to go travelling around the world? Is it because you want to give money away to

charities? Focus on that, not how it’s going to come to you.

I came up with a huge list of things that I did to win the Ultimate Job competition

when we were halfway through the trip. I knew I was going to write a book about it, even

before we even officially won it.

I couldn’t sleep one night because I wanted to talk about it so much. We were staying

in a retreat in West Bali National Park, and after tossing and turning for hours, I got up in the

middle of the night and took my diary into the bathroom.

I sat and wrote down as many things as I could remember that we did to win the

competition because I knew that I would be able to share it with other people and inspire

them to go for those big, audacious dreams.


Visualise your success

One of the biggest things we did was to visualise ourselves travelling through

airports, on the plane, looking out of the window and feeling so excited we were going to

have so many adventures.

We visualised ourselves winning the actual competition, rehearsing that moment

when they called our names. Mark and I would say to each other, “Mark and Denise. Mark

and Denise.”

I would dream about it on my commute to work. Every time we saw each other at

home, we would say, “Mark and Denise. Mark and Denise.” We visualised ourselves telling

people about it, saying, “Oh, my God, you’re never going to guess what happened. We won.

How exciting!”

We visualised ourselves in sunny countries, waking up with the sun streaming

through our bedroom, doing early morning yoga and just having that beautiful, relaxing time

together. As many times as I could during the day, I visualised all these happening. And I

have to say I probably wasn’t the best employee at this time because all I could think about

was travelling.

The Law of Attraction teachings tell us that thinking is not enough. It’s not enough

just to write down your goals. You have to feel it. You have to get into that space of living it.

And I did. I would sit there looking out at the grey London sky, but in my mind and in my

heart, I was miles away, every cell of my being lying on a beach with the sun on my body. I

got myself into that space every single day.

I read a fantastic book called The Little Book of Affirmations, which are affirmations

in the form or a question. Instead of the usual ones like “I am happy and healthy,” they are

changed to “Why am I so happy and healthy? Why am I so lucky? Why am I about to go off

on a great adventure?” This makes your brain start to come up with the reasons why. The

very reasons which begin to change your reality, just by asking simple questions.

A key shift for me was having a greater purpose for winning. I never thought, “Well,

wouldn’t it be nice to have a free holiday?” I was thinking, “This is going to change my life. I

am going to tell so many people and it’s going to change their lives as well. This is going to

have a ripple effect throughout the Universe.” I had a big reason for it. It was hugely

emotional for me.

Lucky Bitch

I would stand at my train station, in my winter coat and rehearse the speech I would

give at conferences after we won the competition. I knew that this served a greater purpose

for me. I was asking the Universe for business ideas. I was asking the Universe for book

ideas before we’d even started talking about travelling. I knew it was an amazing opportunity

which I could leverage for the rest of my life. I knew it would be proof of the things that I’d

been talking about for so many years. It would launch my career as an author, a speaker

and an entrepreneur. So I was giving that speech about what I learnt and how I won the

Ultimate Job, before I had even won it.

I knew I was going to write this book, before we won it.

I told so many people, “We’re going to win it.” As soon as I found out about the

competition, I would say to people, “We’re going to win it.” And then we got into the Top 50,

and I’d say, “I think we’re going to win it.” And then, “I’ve just got this feeling that we’re going

to win it,” And friends began to mirror what I already believed. They too started to believe.

Then I did some really practical things. I scheduled it in my calendar. I looked at

when the trip was going to start and finish. I blocked it out the days with “Travelling on the

Ultimate Job.”

This was really important. I’ve used this technique in other ways before, because if

there’s something that you really want to go to; a conference, a holiday or a particular date

that you want to have in your diary, then just block it out. Energetically, you’re making space.

I had people saying, “Oh, are you going to go to that conference next year?”

I’d say, “Oh, actually, we’re going to be on the Ultimate Job, so no.”

It allowed me to look at things that were happening over the next six months, to look

at what problems could come up. For example, I saw that we were going to have to miss

somebody’s wedding. I energetically got used to that. I also got used to the idea that we’d

also be away for our first anniversary and my birthday.

It also made me look at other practical considerations. We’d have to rent out our

apartment, find a new home for our cats and budget really carefully to make sure we could

still pay for our credit card bills while we were away.

This might sound really premature, but one of the things I teach people is to declutter

yourself mentally, emotionally and physically. A lot of those problems would have just been

held energetically over my head. Who knows, I could have blocked the opportunity because I


had all of these worries. This is a powerful manifestation technique, moving forward “as if”

it’s already done.

Aside from doing a lot of visualisation, and putting the important things in our

calendar, we started looking at the practical implications of winning. In the meantime, the

judges were selecting fifty couples out of the 30,000 entrants to go into the next round. The

morning that they were announcing it, I actually had a dream that we were in the Top fifty.

We woke up and it didn’t come to any surprise to either of us when we saw that we had

made it. We both just felt so aligned to the opportunity and all we had to do was to get into

the right space to receive it.

We started looking at what else we could do to show the Universe that we were really

serious. So I decided to make an Ultimate Job dream board. I thought of all the places I

wanted to visit. . I took pictures. I made a collage and I printed it out. I made it my desktop on

my computer both at home and at work so every time I turned on my computer I saw it.

I changed my work password to “Ultimate Job Winner”, so I had to write it at least ten

times a day. Every time I did, it just gave me that little jolt of thinking, “Yes, I’m going to win

this. Yes, it’s mine.”

I also changed Mark’s name in my mobile phone to "Mark Ultimate Job Buddy."

Every time he called me, this would appear and I’d think the same thing all over again.

A couple of times a day, Mark and I would send messages just to say, “Isn’t it going

to be amazing when we’re travelling around the world for free, going to sunny countries

every day, doing whatever it is that we want to do? How exciting is this going to be?” And

every time we did that, it would again jolt us, bringing us to that same place of feeling the

win. Every spare moment that I had, we would excitedly reaffirm it all to ourselves.

At no point did I let doubt or fear enter my thoughts. I focused on what it would feel

like to win and have that freedom.

I also started using my journal to write down the ideal day again but with more

specific details about the Ultimate Job. I also wrote down things like, “I am the Ultimate Job

winner. I won the Ultimate Job. How exciting that I won this Ultimate Job!”, It was a process

of constant reinforcement.

I don’t want you to think that all we did was visualise. It wasn't purely metaphysical.

The dream gave us the courage to take action. This was the key. This was what was so

important about it.

Lucky Bitch

Nothing is really ever going to happen if you just sit around and wish for it. We knew

that we had to take some real and solid action, far out of our comfort zones. So we cold-

called newspapers and radio stations, to try and get our own press and PR.

That was one of the things that the judges were looking for when we got to the top

fifty. They wanted to see how active you were on generating press and using social media. I

did things I’ve never had the guts to do before.

The next stage was selecting ten couples to compete in the final. We didn’t want to

take any chances, so leading up to the announcement we spent time making little videos,

and making sure the judges knew who we were.

When we made it in the top ten, we were just so thrilled and excited. It was fantastic

to see that we were getting closer and closer to our dreams. The Universe was just saying,

“Yes, yes, yes.”

Again, no time to rest. We knew we had to take it one step further.

We had to prepare ourselves quite a lot for the final. We wanted to make sure that

we were the most prepared couple there. Destiny is one thing but being prepared is always

as important. When destiny comes knocking, you don't want to be caught in your underwear,

do you?

We thought, “Okay, it’s going to be a whole weekend of challenges with nine other

couples. What could they possibly get us to do?”

We brainstormed everything. We thought they might test us on geography. They

might test us on things about Ireland, our location at the time. We thought perhaps the town

we were staying in, Dublin, and about their company. We researched everything, just like

you would for any job interview. We made sure that we were prepared and ready. And

believe me, we were.

We went walking every morning together before work. There, we e would test each

other on questions about geography and about ourselves. We would practice our answers. If

the judges were going to ask us, “Why do you want to win this competition? Why do you

think you’re the best couple? What is each other’s best strengths and weaknesses?” We

knew it all.

What else could we do to show the Universe that we were ready to go on this trip?

We decided to do something quite drastic.


One of the downsides to potentially winning the competition was having to rent out

our apartment. We decided that being in the top ten meant we were one step closer, so we

wanted to show we were serious.

We started advertising our apartment to prospective tenants. It paid off, and just

before the final weekend we found two girls who wanted to rent it for six months.

This is where you might be thinking, “Denise, that’s not a great idea.. Why would you

do that when you weren’t 100 percent guaranteed you were going to win?”

I knew that even though we had no Plan B, on the remote possibility we didn’t win the

competition I knew that I wanted to change my life so badly that I was willing to move

anyway. I was willing to do what it took to get out of that place that I didn’t like any more. So

for me, there was no risk; there was no downside. But just to be safe, the weekend before

we left for the Ultimate Job final, we had the two girls come over to sign the contract and

give us their rental deposit.

I said to them, “Look, we’re going away for the weekend, so I’m not going to bank this

check until we get back on Monday. But in the meantime, it’s yours, and here’s the contract.”

I just knew, regardless, that we were going to move.

Another audacious move was telling both our bosses at work as soon as we made it

to the final. We had very mixed reactions to the news.

Mark’s boss said, “Wow, cool. Great opportunity. Of course, you have to go for it.” I

don’t think his employers quite believed that he was going to win. So it wasn’t a big deal for

them.

The reaction of my boss surprised me a lot. I was only working part-time and working

part-time on writing. My boss was not at all supportive. In fact, she was downright nasty

about it. My boss loved travelling, and she had just come back from a holiday in Africa. I

knew that she wanted to go travelling again, so I think the information for her was just too

much to bear. She told me I was irresponsible. She told me she was very disappointed in

me. She focussed on my notice period, something so inconsequential in the grand scheme

of things. She started the silent treatment until we left for the competition.

Not everyone’s going to be very supportive of the things that you want to do. It could

happen to you when something big happens.

Lucky Bitch

You may have heard me speak about my “Yes” necklace, which I love. It is a silver

disk necklace with, “Yes,” on it. I wore it every day just to remind myself that, “Yes, I go for

opportunities and yes, this job is going to be mine.” So every time I felt unsure about it, I

would just look at my necklace and smile.

I ramped up the visualisations. The movie, What the Bleep Do We Know? talks about

alternate Universes and the theory that every possibility exists at any one time. Sliding

Doors, has the same kind of theme. There could be different versions of you that chose

different things in life.

Somewhere out there is a version of me who is a professional dancer. A version of

me is maybe a rock star or an actress. A version of me is a single mum on welfare. There

are so many different ways that my life could have turned. And quantum physics and

quantum mechanics say that all of those things exist somewhere in a parallel Universe all at

the same time, which is kind of wacky and crazy.

However I decided to use that information to fire up my creative imagination and

make my dreams attractive to the Universe. I thought, “Somewhere in the Universe I have

won this competition. It is inevitable that I have won it. It may be a remote probability, but in

one particular Universe it has happened. So all I have to do is find that Universe and just

jump into it. Consciously decide to jump into that possibility as it presents itself.”

Remember how Mary Poppins jumps into the chalk drawing on the sidewalk and she

goes into a completely different reality? I shared this with Mark. I’m so happy that Mark is the

kind of open-minded guy who didn’t think I was mental.

We would hold hands and I’d say, “Okay, let’s jump into the Universe where we have

already won this competition. Let’s jump into the Universe where the judges think that we are

the perfect couple for them. Let’s just jump into that possibility.” And we would physically

jump into it together.

I know that sounds a little crazy, but all of these things compounded to make me feel

that we were going to win the competition. The certainty helped me make those decisions in

the real world like telling my boss that I was quitting my job, making those calls that I needed

to make and really preparing myself for what was to come.

The final job interview


We arrived in Ireland and the first thing we did was to look around the town instead of

going straight to our accommodation or going for a drink. We went to the tourism office and

got a map of the town. We started familiarising ourselves with the town because we didn’t

know what else to do to prepare.

First our competition: There were nine other couples and us. One couple had come

from the US, one from Canada, two different couples coming from the UK, five couples were

Irish and one couple comprised of a South African and a Brazilian who lived in Ireland.

We didn’t watch any of our competitor’s videos and I didn’t learn much about them.

That might sound a little bit counter-intuitive but I didn’t want to psych myself out. I knew my

only real competition on that weekend was myself, and allowing any doubt, fear or anxiety

creep in.

We had people come up to us and go, “Ah, you’re Mark and Denise! Oh, I love your

videos.” And I would be thinking, “I don’t know who you are.” I just wanted to focus

completely on us and made sure that we were speaking to the judges the most.

We were instructed for our first task straight away. There were eight dinner

reservations in town, and ten couples. We needed to figure out clues to find the restaurants

in town. The two couples that didn’t find a restaurant went to the fish and chip shop for

dinner. Everyone else received a beautiful dinner.

So Mark and I started straight away. We got out our map from the tourism board that

we had picked up on our earlier traverse across the city. We used Google. We looked at

every restaurant in that town and marked them on our map. Then we jumped on the bus into

town.

I know for a fact that not every couple did this. Some couples hung around, some

had a drink, refreshed their makeup and got ready for the night out. We didn’t. We prepared.

There’s always preparation and planning behind luck. You’ve heard so many times

that luck is where opportunity and preparation collide, haven't you? That’s what kind of the

“lucky bitch” philosophy is all about. It’s not entirely to do with luck.

We got into the town and were given our clues. We decided to go for the less obvious

options. We ran off through the town. Hilarity ensued. Ten couples literally running through a

small town. Both Mark and I had running shoes on, but some people had high heels because

they were going out for dinner. We found one of the restaurants with the special

reservations, and ticked it off as a success. Two couples could not say the same thing.

Lucky Bitch

It was a similar treasure hunt challenge the next day. We had to find one of the

judges, who was going to be with a radio crew. The first couple that made it to the judge

would get a spot on radio.

Mark and I knew that would be an awesome way to promote ourselves and to show

what we could do. We made sure that we had our map handy, and we worked together as a

team. We were the first couple there. We knew, when the second couple turned up and said

“Ugh, the Duffield-Thomas’s!” because we were just starting to quietly but calculatedly trying

to win every challenge.

The biggest challenge was to make two videos throughout the weekend. One was a

promotional video about the town and the other was about the Ultimate Job. We had actually

started working on it already, so we didn’t have to start from scratch. This was, in hindsight,

quite a smart thing to do because making those videos was incredibly stressful.

We had to have incredible teamwork, taking turns speaking on the video and editing

until four in the morning. Some of the other couples just went out drinking.

We wanted to make sure that we did absolutely everything for this opportunity and

didn’t lose just on a technicality like not getting an assignment in on time. We also wanted to

make sure that the judges saw us as the reliable people we were, always willing to go that

extra mile, cheerful, ready and willing to undertake the next challenges in front of us. So we

always made sure we were on time for every single meet up, lunch and challenge. We

always, always had smile on our faces!

That was not a Law of Attraction thing. I think that’s just a life thing. If you’ve read the

classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People; it talks about those interpersonal

skills that just make you seem a lucky person.

Being agreeable, pleasant, nice, approachable was important to us, because we

wanted the judges to see that we could represent their brand and their competition.

The final thing in our favour was the final job interview. We had to sit down with a

panel of four judges. We had rehearsed so much that we knew who was going to say what.

We had little signals to each other about how we were going to answer different questions.

So if there was a tough question for me (like geography) I could skilfully hand it over to Mark.

This was also to show how good we were as a team.


Wearing my "Yes" necklace, we went in there and just told the judges that we know

how important the competition was to their brand and we wanted to be a part of their team.

We didn’t want to be arrogant. Our focus was to make sure the judges knew that we

wanted it. We went in with some creative ideas; like getting married in every country and

breaking a Guinness world record. This definitely got their attention.

Finally, the closing ceremony where the winners would be announced was upon us.

All of the couples were lined up in one row. As we sat there, Mark and I were whispering to

each other, “Mark and Denise. Mark and Denise. Mark and Denise.”

Seconds before they announced the winners, we were saying to each other “You

thank the judges; I’ll thank the venue.”

Who knows what the other couples were sitting there thinking? They might have

been stressing out about their jobs or what they were going to do with their apartment or

their pets and all those little things going through their head.

We were energetically ready. There were no emotional obstacles in our way to

receiving it.

Sure enough, they announced the winners saying, wait for it;. “Mark and Denise!”

Mark and I looked at each other with excitement but little surprise. We were already

there mentally and emotionally. We were ready to go! The Universe was just catching up

with us.

Abraham Hicks talks about things being in vibrational escrow. It’s being held

somewhere for you, just waiting for that opportunity where it’s given to you. And so, we

already felt like the opportunity of us travelling around the world for free was in vibrational

escrow. It just happened to come from this particular opportunity.

We were thrilled and excited. Our friends and family were equally ecstatic. However,

in the time it took to change for the celebration dinner, some people had already written

negative commentary online. They were clearly really pissed off that their friends and family

hadn’t won. It was our first taste of negative press and being criticised. Ouch.

The public at large, of course having willed their loved ones to win, were not happy

with the outcome. So they thought that writing derogatory things about us would be a

suitable response. That we were boring. Even that we were cheaters.

Lucky Bitch

One person found out about our apartment advertisement, and said, “Well, this is

rigged because they obviously knew they were going to win.”

One of my friends, Angela, actually responded to the online criticism with “No, she

was just manifesting it and visualising,” which just made me laugh so much. My friends

understood what we had achieved, but the rest had not caught up. The only way some

people knew how to alleviate the disappointment was with lies and nastiness.

What you have to realise, is that it’s not really about you. It’s about who they think

you are. How many times have you made a comment online about someone and you’ve

thought, “Oh, look how ugly they are,” or, “They’re annoying,” or, “Look at her hair,” or,

“Listen to her voice.” And you just do it without thinking they’re a real person. Put yourself in

that situation. The same thing is going to happen to you. People won’t think that you’re a real

person. However, we recognised it and were able to chuckle our way down to dinner.

Only two couples out of the nine actually said anything to us at all. It was an awkward

gala dinner with at least seven couples who were so angry and disappointed they could

barely see straight. One or two couples made fools of themselves. One couple actually

yelled at one of the judges in the bathroom. Another couple just left straight away.

Winning was an inevitable possibility for us because we were in the right Universe.

But if we hadn’t, we would have said, “Hmm, that sucks. I wonder how else we’re going to go

travelling because this is happening regardless.”

Some of the other couples were certain they were going to win, but they didn't have

everything in alignment. They were so attached to the outcome of winning that they were

completely devastated. We weren't attached to the idea of winning, but the idea of travelling.

We thought “Cool. If it didn’t happen, we’re still going travelling somehow. Let’s now make

that happen”

One of the couples actually said later, “We can’t believe Mark and Denise won. They

were the least charismatic of all the couples.” We were so focused on what was important;

winning challenges and charming the people who mattered. Impressing the other candidates

didn't factor high on our scale of importance.

So, that was how we won the Ultimate Job. Six months travelling around the world,

visiting the most incredible places. The judges even took us up on our offer of getting

married in every country. We ended up getting married 87 times around the world.


We did break the Guinness world record, which was 83 weddings, but by the time our

application was processed, the current record holders were up to 99 weddings!

I hope this story has inspired you to look at your own life and see what’s really

important to you. See how you can dream bigger.

Challenge your view on what you consider to be impossible and what could happen.

This is an unbelievable story that was manifested out of thin air— an opportunity to

go travelling around the world. You know, that trip was worth at least half a million euros in

total.

Do you know how many times I heard. “Oh, you lucky bitch. I’m so jealous.”

I always say, “Well, yeah, it’s not just luck.”

Look at all the things that I did to win the Ultimate Job. There was actual, measurable

work that went into winning it.

But there was also the constant belief that I was going to win it. It takes conscious

effort to do that visualisation every day, to have the courage to do things out of your comfort

zone.

It was work and effort and constant 100-percent belief. But now you can take the

lessons behind this story to manifest amazing things for your own life. You can make the

impossible real.

When you believe that your success is inevitable, all you have to do is walk towards

it. Your dream is seeking you out so start moving towards it and Lucky Bitch is going to tell

you exactly how.

Harness the luck that is available for you, grab those opportunities that are just

waiting for you to jump up and claim. You can be one of those that people say to, “You’re

such a lucky bitch!”

And you can just smile and say, “I know. And good things are happening to you, too.”

Lucky Bitch

The 10 Lucky Bitch Commandments

You want to know exactly how I’ve become a luck magnet? Here are my tips for shamelessly

embracing your outrageous success;

1. Start with forgiveness

2. Get over yourself

3. Be grateful

4. Treat yourself like a VIP

5. Get your boobs on board

6. Some people will think you suck, get over it

7. Good is good enough

8. Create your own karma

9. Manifesting is a muscle

10. Luck is an inside game

Sometimes the Universe works in mysterious ways. Every technique I share with you

works in different ways, but you may have to try more than one. My philosophy is to throw

everything you can at the problem. Something will work, but most of the time because you’re

making an effort, the solution will appear in a completely different way.

A word on the placebo effect;. Who gives a crap? I don’t care if something works

because of positive suggestion, I only care that it works. I don’t pretend to know the exact

reason behind these techniques, because they have made real and lasting practical

difference in my life in the real world.

Optimistic people expect good things to happen to them.

Start with forgiveness

I will talk about forgiveness until my tongue gives up and your ears fall off, because if I

was only allowed one personal development tool in my superhero Lucky Bitch utility belt, I

would choose forgiveness over and above everything else.


“Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison

and expecting the other person to die”

Forgiveness is the reason that I’ve been able to move on from my past and consciously

create my present. I’ve seen for myself the transformation it creates in my clients' lives. It

can literally transmute your energy to work for you, not against you.

In my late teens and early twenties I spent so much time in resentment and anger,

blaming my “crappy childhood” for why I was lost, why I couldn’t be happy in a job and why I

attracted bad boyfriends. It was my parents’ fault I was so messed up! If only they did a

better job, I would be stable, happy and “normal”. They really screwed up!

I even resented people who were light and happy. It made me sick to see how

effortlessly they went through life, whereas I saw myself as “damaged”. It made the contrast

to how I felt even worse, lucky bitches!

“It’s alright for them...” I thought “...they had a perfect childhood”. How lucky to be born to

middle class parents who had money, didn’t divorce, gave them everything they asked for

and always had time to shower on them. From the outside that’s what I thought.

As humans, we can hold grudges that go back many years. I have clients who have

been holding onto memories that are more than 40 years old but they still remember them as

if they happened yesterday.

The memories take up so much space and energy that it can kill your enjoyment of life

like a noxious weed, poisoning your current relationships, or hold you back from

experiencing love. Even when something good happens, there is an underlying sense of “I

don’t deserve this” or “good times never last”. You sabotage yourself to prove how messed

up you are.

Resentment can even live in your body and cause illness. My Nan had breast cancer in

her early 60s. I believe it was a direct result of living with unexpressed anger and resentment

over her marriage. She was holding a lot of blame towards my grandfather and his actions

towards their marriage. She then blamed herself when he got sick and had to go into a

nursing home. She obsessed about it and drove herself sick.

Blame, shame, resentment and anger will block you from living the life of your dreams.

It wasn’t just my parents I couldn’t forgive. I would lay awake at night recounting a work

conversation from years before and still feeling angry towards my boss. The unfairness and

Lucky Bitch

the feeling of being taken advantage of still lived with me. It affected my sleep and my ability

to move on because I kept attracting bosses and careers that treated me the same way.

I went to counselling several times and just cried the whole time. I couldn’t articulate

everything I was angry about. I could easily recite my “story”, growing up with a single mum,

the poverty, my “less than ideal” childhood but I couldn’t believe there was a way out. I

wanted a magic pill.

My resentment of my mother made me hate myself because I looked and sounded just

like her. I spent most of my twenties living in London, many miles away from my family in

Australia because I was so; fucking; angry.

I was terrified of manifesting a serious illness and I came close many times. In my

twenties I had many health scares; a suspected brain tumour that turned out to be nothing,

hospitalisation for pneumonia, mysterious aches and pains, not to mention feeling tired and

lethargic all the time. One summer I was so depressed I said “God, I wouldn’t be upset if you

ran me over with a bus”. I had no joy in my life.

The light bulb moment came for me when I learnt about the power of forgiveness through

Louise Hay and her beautiful book You Can Heal Your Life. Louise credits self-love and

forgiveness as the most powerful gift you can give to yourself.

Now that I’ve experienced it, I credit forgiveness as the single greatest thing I’ve done for

myself. I don’t regret the thousands I spent on personal development but I wish I realised

that everything was a panacea until I went to the root of the problem and just forgave

everything I saw as unforgivable.

Seriously – walking on hot coals with Tony Robbins was amazing but once the buzz

wore off, I was still just as lost as ever.

A true secret of outrageously successful women is the ability to transmute negative into

positive. Relieving the hurts of the past takes up real energy that we can use to create, to

love, to experience and to deliberately manifest a truly vibrant life.

Three simple phrases:

I forgive you...

I’m sorry...

I love you...


Doing this simple forgiveness exercise will eliminate at least 80% of your personal hang-

ups and make you feel lighter than ever before. The best part is that you don’t even need to

have a conversation with anyone, there’s no need to physically stand in front of people to

forgive them. You can forgive the deceased and people you’ve never met.

You’ll be able to harness your own luck guilt-free, to consciously start to create your ideal

life and even transform relationships in the real world without your baggage clouding your

perception of reality. When you get rid of all the emotional crap that you are carrying, it

means that your natural talents, your natural love of life can shine through. You can go forth

into a brighter future happy, free and unencumbered by your past.

Forgiveness doesn’t condone or justify bad behaviour. Some people are absolute twats,

and you may have experienced things that are unforgiveable. However, what purpose does

it serve for you to carry it forever? They have probably moved on with their life and so

forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

Nothing is too large or small for you to forgive. I’ve read amazing stories of people who

have rediscovered joy in their life by forgiving their kidnapper, or the drug addict who killed a

member of their family. Peace of mind, grace, new possibility and healing were all the gifts

they gave themselves.

A forgiveness exercise is a simple ritual. You do not have to wait until a full moon, there’s

no need to get naked and light candles (although you can if you wish). You just need to start

with a list.

Start by writing down everything you can think of that is still a painful memory. Many

people start with their parents and their childhood because there is often a wealth of

material. Every little thing – whether it’s something cruel that was said to you or a traumatic

incident that was inflicted upon you.

Then start writing down:

• Old relationships and everything that person did to make you angry or sad. This

is especially important if you were cheated on, a victim of violence or were

“wronged” in some way. Write down each incident separately.

• Any bosses or colleagues who were mean, intimidating or caused you stress in

any way. In particular anything they said to you that you still feel strong emotion

around.

Lucky Bitch

• Friends or family who have bitched about you, excluded you, made you feel bad

about yourself.

• A teacher who embarrassed you in front of the whole class, told you were stupid,

or unfairly gave you a bad mark.

Write it all down.

Then, sit somewhere in a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed for 30 minutes. In

turn, think about each person or situation. If possible, recall what you felt in that moment,

whether it was anger, shame, embarrassment, fear, rejection or sadness.

Let the emotion come up and then say:

I forgive you

I’m sorry

And I love you

You don’t need to force anything, but you may feel emotion or sadness come up. Just let

the image fade away and go onto the next thing on your list. You don’t even really have to

100% “mean it”, but it’s just enough to start.

Some people report having to do the exercise several times for really emotional and

painful memories but each time will clear many years’ worth of resentment and anger. This

exercise is worth several years in therapy!

Give it a few days and then check in with your list to see what memories still remain.

You’ll be surprised to find that you can’t even recall certain “stories” and if you do, there

won’t be any trace of embarrassment or anger.

It’s really unbelievable. I started out with at least three pages worth of hurts and

injustices and I honestly couldn’t recite the same list to you today. It’s all gone. It’s almost

made me more compassionate towards my own parents and the difficulties they must have

gone through as young parents who were incompatible, with very little money and unsure

about how to raise children.

What happens afterwards?

Things will shift in the real world without any other intervention. You will feel happier and

lighter without trying. Don’t be surprised if you get a call out of the blue from someone you’ve

forgiven. They will experience the benefits too – they might feel lighter or more loving


towards you. You may even feel unexpected feelings of happiness. It was there all along,

waiting until you cleared the energy.

You won’t be seeing that person or situation through a distorted filter anymore. You’ll be

free of the chains and open to new possibilities for your relationship. You may never even

think of them again, which can be a blessing. You’ve also given yourself a great gift –

freedom.

I have a completely transformed relationship now with my own mother. I can listen to her

and not through the filter of an angry child. I have compassion for the struggles she went

through as a single mum and I can see her as a human being.

Nothing is too small to forgive. One client forgave a teacher she had when she was eight

years old; someone who embarrassed her in front of a whole class and set up a lingering

fear that she was stupid. Clearing that gave her so much freedom.

There’s no end to forgiveness and after you get the really traumatic events out of the

way, it’s fun and so freeing! Forgiveness is an onion skin. You will always find new things to

forgive.

Feel like you’ve heard it all before and have already made peace with the past? Take

it one step further. Forgive the bankers who ruined the economy. Forgive the President and

Prime Minister. Forgive corporations who pollute the environment.

Everywhere you have anger in your life, make a conscious decision to forgive. It will

really transform your life and when you release that negative energy – watch what happens

to your luck!

Get over yourself

So you’ve done the forgiveness work and cleared your slate. It’s time to go even

deeper into what could be holding you back from the next level of success and happiness.

It’s not your job or the economy. It’s not your age, gender or weight. Guess what; it’s you!

Most of us know at a superficial level that the only thing holding us back is ourselves

but we don’t realise just how powerful we are. Our ability to protect ourselves from potential

pain is incredible. Self-sabotage is a misunderstood creature – it’s only trying to keep you

from facing rejection! It’s the ultimate “helicopter parent”, swaddling you in cotton wool so

you never injure yourself in any way.

Lucky Bitch

Unfortunately, allowing ourselves to experience pain or put ourselves open to

potential embarrassment is how we learn. Parents know that eventually they’ll have to let

their children go out into the big, bad world otherwise they’ll turn out to be co-dependent, low

functioning adults who don’t know how to do anything for themselves.

Set an intention that it’s time to get over your fears. The luckiest people are also the

people who just do it. They get more practice, they open themselves to more opportunity and

they don’t take every rejection personally.

The goal isn’t to eliminate fear entirely. I'm not sure that's possible, and sometimes

fear can drive us. However, realise that every human who has ever lived has been just as

shit-scared as you. Everyone. They just moved forward a tiny bit anyway, or they died with

regrets.

Barbara Streisand suffered from crippling stage fright for years, and that’s why she

rarely tours. However, every few years she forces herself on stage. Isn’t the world a better

place for her talent?

I know many people who are lucky enough to have the innate talent, but they are too

afraid to do anything about it. I’m talking people who have manuscripts ready to go, plays

written, unbelievable skills in teaching, cooking or healing but they are too scared to let their

talent shine. You’re a little bit scared too, aren’t you?

Scared of what?

Scared of being so awesome that it will turn you into a diva. Scared of being told you

have no talent. Scared of getting constructive feedback from someone you admire or a

bluntly worded rejection. Scared that you will become famous and get a stalker. Scared that

your partner will leave you or that you’ll leave them. Scared that you aren’t as smart as you

think.

Fears can be completely irrational but it’s time to get over them.

How I got over my fear of sharks

When I was fourteen, I went swimming with my grandmother at a beach in Forster,

New South Wales. I was an avid swimmer and loved going to the beach like most kids who

grow up in Australia. Swimming is just part of life.


The waves were huge and for a while we were trapped out beyond the biggest

waves. We were exhausted but every time we tried to swim for shore, we were dumped with

the waves crashing around us. We decided to tread water for a while until the set passed.

In the distance I saw four dark fins and in my tired state, I thought they were sharks. I

started panicking. I thought to myself “This is how I’m going to die – ripped apart by hungry

sharks”.

My Nan tried to calm me down but she was scared too. There were dark rocks

underneath us and I thought we were gone. I was crying and sobbing. The waves had

subsided enough for us to swim to shore and once we were safely on land, we realised that

they weren’t sharks at all, but dolphins.

What could have been a beautiful, unique and spiritual experience of swimming with

wild dolphins turned into a moment of complete and utter panic.

I didn’t really go into the water again for the next sixteen years. I could go in up to my

ankles but then I'd panic or I’d be scanning the horizon and jumping at any little shadow in

the waves. The fear was so great that I would even freak out if I went into a swimming pool!

Even on the Ultimate job trip, I very rarely went into the ocean. We visited some of

the most incredible beaches in the world and I just couldn’t enjoy it. I panicked every time I

went near the water, even countries that have never had recorded shark attacks. The fear

was very real. We did a radio interview during the trip and I was asked if I was going to go

snorkelling in Jordan as the Red Sea is absolutely famous. When I said I was afraid of

sharks, I could see the interviewers face “What a waste” he was thinking. And I’m sure many

people listening thought the same thing. “She’s so lucky, I’d take advantage of every

opportunity on that trip”.

That pissed me off. So I tried a few different things. Finally I said “Universe, please

help me with this. I’m ready to overcome my fear”.

The Universe is always listening – so be careful what you ask for.

Sometimes you have just to hitch up your panties and say “fuck it”. I like to put myself

into situations where I have to do it. One of the weddings in Queensland was scheduled to

be on a floating pontoon in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. I saw this on the itinerary

but I assumed it would have a pool in the middle of it like on a cruise ship.

Lucky Bitch

The idea was that we’d get married on the pontoon and then we’d jump onto the

giant slide together as man and wife as the photographer captured our landing into the

water. Fun right? Except when we got there, I realised that the slide went straight into the

ocean. No netted area, no protected pool. No sandy clear bottom to be seen and because it

was a cloudy day, the ocean was a dark green colour.

OH. MY. GOD. My worst nightmare. In Australia no less – land of the Great White

Shark.

I could have said “No, I’m afraid of the water. I’m not going to do it”. But instead I just

went with the flow. It was going to have to be done, no way would I make a scene. My fear of

embarrassing myself was greater that day, and hopefully if a shark came along, he’d eat

Mark first. That’s what I told myself anyway.

I stuck a smile on my face for the whole wedding, while gripping Mark’s hands very

tightly. I felt sick to my stomach.

I did it! As soon we got out of the water, I high-fived Mark!

The photographer approached with a frown on his face. “Denise – you’re covering

Mark’s face. You’ll have to do it again”.

The second time was easier, but don’t forget that I was wearing a short white

wedding dress and a veil, as well as a full face of makeup. My hair was already ruined on the

first take, my dress was see through but my adrenaline was through the roof.

We did this shot 5 times and then the photographer requested some underwater

shots. No problem, right?

Now, I live in sunny Newcastle Australia and I’m pleased to say that last Summer,

Mark and I swam almost every day in the ocean. It was the most liberating experience,

remembering what it was like to ride waves and to be lost in your own thoughts while

connecting to the power of water. What a lucky bitch!

Overcoming that fear has been so symbolic for me, so much that it has unravelled

many other fears. If I can swim in the ocean, I can do anything! I’ve absorbed that lesson of

forcing myself to overcome my fears and it’s now my main strategy.


When I find myself scared of public speaking, I’ll book a workshop date or a

teleseminar because I know I’ll show up and deliver no matter what. My fear of making a fool

of myself is outweighed by the fear of letting someone down.

I’m still scared of sharks but I’m more willing to put myself in that situation because I

know the rewards, and I understand what I’ll miss out on. The chances of me being eaten by

sharks is greater in the water than staying on the sand, but it’s still very slight overall.

Ditto with any irrational fear. The chances of you being told that you’re horrible and

have no talent are pretty small, but that doesn’t mean you won’t face rejection.

What often looks like luck from the outside is merely the willingness to do what most

people don’t have the guts to do. Most wannabe actors don’t audition nearly enough. Most

aspiring writers have never sent their work out to be published and most women don’t get

pay increases because they simply don’t ask for them.

Why is it so important to acknowledge your fears? Isn’t it negative to dwell on what

you don’t want? Absolutely we should focus on the positive and I’m not encouraging you to

wallow in misery, but until you face it, you won’t see the patterns that you may have been

repeating over and over. These patterns have trapped you and you need to break through to

get to the other side. In other words – get over yourself.

When you think about all your goals coming true, what fears come up?

• If I achieve this goal, I’m afraid that;..

• To achieve this goal, I’ll have to do things I’m scared of like;.

• What’s the very worst thing that could happen?

Be grateful

Gratitude is a powerful force and it can transform your perspective of the world. It’s

another over-used personal development tool, but for good reason. Gratitude is not

complacency, but neither is it pure perfection.

At every stage of your success journey, you must embrace what you have now,

otherwise it will never be enough, and you will be the ungrateful and spoilt brat like Veruca

Salt, always wanting the next shiny object, now daddy!

Lucky Bitch

Leaders like Oprah and John Di Martini credit a regular practice of gratitude for the

abundance they’ve been able to create. Oprah inspired the world to keep daily gratitude

journals and Di Martini wrote a whole book on the regular practice of giving thanks.

The Universe responds to our feelings and mirrors our reality in line with those

powerful emotions. When we focus on lack, we attract more lack. When we focus on the

amazing abundance and opportunity around us, we activate unseen forces in the Universe

intent on matching our vibration with even more.

The opposite of grateful is being thankless, churlish and unmindful. It shows we’re

unaware of what is truly possible. We’re like ignorant tourists, breaking everything and

consuming resources with abandon, uncaring and not even enjoying the experience.

It’s difficult when your “reality” seems so real. The goldfish can’t see the water – he’s

in it. When you’re in your experience of being in debt, in a horrible job, lonely on a Saturday

night, all you can feel is the pain of your experience.

You don’t understand Denise – this is true. My bank account is empty, I don’t have

any money, I really am having this experience!

The only way out of it is to change your perception and find the silver lining. That can

be hard, I understand. A lot is invested in defending our “right way” of thinking – but it

doesn’t mean that it’s true.

Gratitude can transform the past. When I focused on the positive of my childhood –

the independence I gained and the relaxed attitude of my mum, it completely transformed

my experience of it – when I forgave my parents and then found things about my childhood

that have benefited me today, I no longer think I had a “bad childhood”, but I had an

awesome one. I choose to look at it from a different direction.

Journal

• What are you grateful for in your life right now?

• What are you grateful about with your health?

• What gratitude can you express about your relationships?

• What aspects of the past can you now be grateful about?


One of the best ways to increase your luck and capacity for good fortune is to treat

yourself like you are already blessed in every way. The thing is, you are!

Treat yourself like a VIP

Are you cheap with yourself or do you treat yourself like a Very Important Person? I

used to be so embarrassingly stingy with myself, never letting myself even look in the

window of a shop. I didn’t even let myself dream that I was worth more.

A lot of people are poor students at University, but I took it to an extreme level. Not

only that, I made it mean that I was an unworthy person, less than other people.

For six months I lived in an outdoor laundry that had been converted into a room of

sorts, with a single bed and some stacked milk crates for my clothes. I didn't even have

proper windows! It was a metal grate with clear plastic over it. This "room" cost me $50 a

week, which was cheap, even in 1998, but I felt like such a loser coming home to that each

day. I was failing University. I was depressed. I had no money and I lived in a shed! Could it

get any worse?

The trouble was I had no minimum standards for myself. I accepted whatever

circumstances I could “afford” without demanding something different.

In my twenties I often dressed in ill-fitting and cheap clothes because I thought caring

about my appearance was superficial. In reality, my stinginess with myself just made me feel

bad. It takes up valuable energy to disguise a missing button or hide a stain. I was no longer

a “poor kid” but I was energetically locked in that pattern.

Extreme self-care and outrageous self-love is a crucial secret of successful women

and they don’t wait to be offered it on a silver platter – they create it for themselves.

This is not only about spending money – it’s an attitude and increasing your

expectation of minimum standards – raising the bar for yourself.

One of my biggest annoyances is the overuse of the word “luxury” when it comes to

products sold to women. Next time you’re watching TV, just notice how many ordinary,

everyday and downright boring products are sold using language such as “treat yourself”. It’s

not gorgeous shoes or spa days, its household items like washing up liquid, air freshener

spray and body wash – as if women should be grateful to spend 5 minutes soaping up our

bodies, that it’s the highlight of our day. The message is – be busy, expect less.

Lucky Bitch

I understand that when you’re a mother to young children, having a shower perhaps

is a luxury, but women please – don’t we deserve more than to just increase the enjoyment

of washing up dishes?

Real luxury is being attuned to our self-worth, it’s allowing ourselves to have the jobs

we want, spend time with the people we like, be challenged and entertained.

Winning the Ultimate Job definitely increased my capacity for luxury and showed us

how rich people lived. Yes, it’s comfortable having someone to run a bath, pack your

luggage for you and order you cabs. It’s amazing.

But I also realised that everyday experiences can be luxurious too. Having time off to

read a book in the sunshine, drinking tea out of a special mug and swimming in the ocean

are all things I denied myself, citing lack of time.

When is the last time you consciously celebrated a success in your life?

Do you reward yourself when you complete a project, get a new article published or

sell a piece of work, or did you move on to the next thing, telling yourself it was no big deal?

Celebrate! Every milestone should be celebrated because it anchors the experience

in. Find any excuse to congratulate yourself for a job well done. Success breeds success

and the more "proof" you have that you are successful, the easier it will be to attract further

good fortune.

When I ran my first 1-day workshop, I made sure I celebrated. I was incredibly tired

afterwards but I went to the poshest restaurant in town (I already had fabulous hair

remember) and ordered a single glass of champagne. I sat there by myself soaking in the

experience and telling myself “This is just the beginning. Well done babe”.

It wasn’t a huge deal, a workshop of 25 people but it was something I created by

myself. It wasn’t perfect but I put it together with passion and commitment so I knew that I

had done my best, so I deserved to enjoy it.

Celebrating an experience in that way gives you permission to be richly rewarded for

your efforts. It shows the Universe how to treat you and it puts you in that success mindset.

Don’t let the moment pass you by unacknowledged.

David Neagle says he made a decision that he would only fly first class, no matter

what and the money always appears. I’ve also heard Ali Brown say the same thing.


I myself decided that I’ll always buy the VIP option at conferences. It’s worth the

money to have all the little extras, like priority seating and free lunch. Usually you can have

lunch with the speaker or have a photo taken. It’s just a decision I made, so I can stop

worrying about it. I’m a VIP, so of course I’ll choose that option.

Decide to constantly upgrade your life. I used to dye my hair myself and then recently

I made a decision to always go to a salon. It makes me feel amazing and it’s a small price to

pay, I’m willing to budget to have that. Similarly when I have a conference or speaking

engagement, I’ll get my hair professionally blow-dried.

There’s a difference between being frugal and being down-right cheap with yourself.

You probably have a drawer full of lovely beauty products that you never use, beautiful

underwear that never sees the light of day and favourite shoes that are saved for “best”.

Get them out and increase your pleasure threshold!

What’s the next level of self-care, luxury or indulgence for you? Make a decision.

Decide in advance how much of your income is going to be solely to be spent on yourself. I

recommend at least 10%. That money is dedicated to pleasure and celebration. Ten percent

isn't too much to ask, is it? This money cannot be spent on mundane things like such

underwear (unless it's gorgeous), personal care products like tampons that you'd buy

anyway or something for your children, partner or friends.

Decide to treat yourself like a superstar and watch your luck and success soar. I

personally guarantee it and I’ll see you in the VIP lounge.

Get your boobs on board

When I was at University, I decided to do something that really challenged my

perception of my body and pose nude for an art class. It was one of the most liberating

experiences of my life because it made me accept my body. Not only that, I could see my

body through other people’s eyes.

Women experience so much self-hatred of our bodies and it can really hold us back

in many areas of our life. At every fibre of our being, we are saying “You are not worth

more”.

The next step to forgiving everyone else is also forgiving yourself and loving your

body no matter what.

Lucky Bitch

How can you live a truly exceptional life when you are unconsciously infusing every

part of your being with judgement such as “You are wrong, you are ugly, you are fat, you are

hairy, you are not right, you are not perfect.” It permeates your entire body and your entire

soul. How can you live this beautiful life, creating exactly what you want with that kind of

negativity?

You may not even be aware of the judgements you have on yourself.

Do body forgiveness work in the same way you forgive other people. Go through

each area of your body in turn and say, “Toes, I forgive you. I love you. I’m sorry,” and work

your way up to the top of your head. Feel that love and acceptance to every single cell of

your body. Realize that you’re not perfect and that’s okay, but you are loved.

Do the exercise again and give an outrageous compliment to each part of your body.

Praise your beautiful hair, your perfectly shaped lips and your lovely shoulders. Inform every

cell that you’re a gorgeous, exceptional woman and you expect they all behave accordingly!

Imagine how much you can create when your boobs are on board with your dreams?

When your toes feel like part of the team that’s creating your life?

It may sound silly but when every single cell of your body aligned in the direction of

your dreams, the whole Universe is screaming “Yes! Yes! You love us; we love you; let’s do

it.” But when you live in the reality that “I’m not perfect,” every part of your body is dragging

you down and your energy is scattered.

Get your boobs on board the luck train.

Some people will think you suck, get over it

There’s nothing you can do to avoid it.

Women who let themselves shine and achieve a certain level of success will attract a

small amount of negativity. There will always be some smart-arse who thinks you’re a lucky

bitch with no talent.

I’m an extremely opinionated person but it doesn’t mean that I’m always right (I’m

frequently right however).

Nobody really has the right to an opinion unless they’ve done the exact same thing

you want to do. Even then, if they did it 20, 10 or even 5 years ago, then times have

changed. Helpful advice is always welcome, but I’m talking about uninformed people making


blanket declarative statements designed to make you feel unsure and anxious about your

decisions.

You can’t make it in showbiz because you’re too short

You need a degree for that

You’re not qualified to do that

There’s no money in that

I tried that once, didn’t work

They always sound like they know they are talking about because they are so damn

sure of themselves. Show some humanity and take it with a pinch of salt. I’m sure you’ve

said similar things before.

Many of us find it painfully hard to hear feedback, even when we ask for it. I HATE

sending out a survey at the end of a course or coaching, because I’m often afraid of what

people will say. Stupidly, it would make the course better next time, but I don’t want to hear

that people don’t like me. It’s because we take it so personally.

And just because someone put it on the internet – doesn’t mean it’s true

It can be shocking how unsupportive and actually downright bitchy other people can be

when your life starts to take off. You’ll start to get all sorts of well-meaning “advice” which is

often criticism in disguise.

Leading an exceptional or even unconventional life can be really threatening for other

people.

Remember, that’s it’s their stuff and not yours.

As silly as it sounds, most of us are more worried about what random strangers say than

our loved ones. After all, our partner or our mum are unlikely to outright say “you suck and

you have no talent”, but people on the internet will and do!

“Hi Denise,

I enjoy reading your about your success - although I would like to offer a piece of

wisdom - that when things are going your way you give back out. I think though it's

important to remember the fine line of Narcissism when manifesting - everything is

Lucky Bitch

coming to ME etc....it's all about ME. Doing things for free can keep you grounded

and avoid looking like you expect everyone to conform to your wishes (especially

when you are successfully manifesting) and it reminds oneself that all these things

come from Grace and not 'ME' or "My Precious" as Gollum puts it.”

People like that love to give their criticism in the form of “wisdom” or “advice”. I have to

admit that this offering really pissed me off. First because nobody wants to think that they

come off as bragging or being narcissistic.

The first piece of negative feedback can often be devastating, but it’s the fear of the

potential criticism that can cut the most. As Mark Twain said “I’ve known many troubles in

my life – most of which never happened.”

To illustrate this story, I went searching for Amazon reviews on commercially

successful books. Take Lauren Weisberger's first novel, The Devil Wears Prada. I loved this

book and found it a great summer read. It’s not literary masterpiece, but wouldn’t you be

proud of that novel’s success?

The Devil Wears Prada has sold millions of copies, spent more than a year on the

New York Times bestseller list, and has been made into a fabulously fun movie starring

Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, which won a Golden Globe and grossed over $300

million worldwide. I bet her parents and friends are so proud.

However, I hope Lauren has a thick skin. The official Amazon reviewer calls her “an

inept, ungrammatical writer” and out of over a thousand reviews she has several more 1-star

reviews than 5-star ones. Do you think she reads them and regrets she ever put herself out

there for public scrutiny? I doubt it – she’s written at least six other books. She just kept on

creating.

Don’t you think she was thrilled about her novel being made into a movie? Perhaps

she was less so when on the DVD commentary, the screenwriter basically said that the

source material was shit and she had to make a lot of changes to make it barely watchable.

I’m paraphrasing dramatically, but OUCH!

Can you accept that a certain level of success inevitably attracts bad reviews?

What would you prefer?


1. Ten people buy your “great work” and all love it. Every single person (which

includes a big percentage of your friends and family) has only great things to say about it.

Yay for you!

2. A thousand people buy your book, come and see your play, buy your art-work or

come to your workshop. The majority of these people are strangers to you. Thirty people say

it’s the best thing they’ve ever seen in their whole life, 940 people seemed to have enjoyed

it, but thirty people say it’s the worst thing they’ve ever seen. They viciously write about it on

their blogs, they publicly vow it was a waste of money and swear that you’re a terrible con-

artist with no talent.

Your ego probably prefers the first option. You can feel good about yourself, even if

you have the sneaking suspicion that you’re meant for something greater. But you can’t live

off applause. It’s not enough to hear “well done” and our thrill over getting a gold star doesn’t

last forever.

Becoming exceptional means making yourself vulnerable.

Amy De Bhrun, a young Irish actress based in London is starting to become an

established actress. We started working together because she wanted to move to the next

level in her career, including being paid great money. When she started to do more work, it

was inevitable that she’d get a bad review eventually. Her one-woman show got two

wonderful reviews followed by two “not so amazing” ones.

After feeling hurt initially, Amy wrote to me:

“I came to realise that the higher the level, the more open you are to criticism. There

are more people seeing your work and therefore there are more opinions and you

cannot please everyone 100% of the time.

So I guess if you spark a strong reaction in people it is a beautiful thing - you have

touched them in some way, and maybe enabled them to look at something within

themselves... and from there it is their choice whether they consider it a positive or

negative.

Once you can stand over your work and know you have given it 100% and for a

greater purpose – that’s the most important thing”

Lucky Bitch

Some people will think you suck no matter WHAT you do. It’s the truth. You will never

please those people who live off complaints and revel in other people’s failure.

When I was growing up, my mum was a single parent and for a couple of years, we

lived in a housing estate run by the council. My mum was welfare, on a single parent

pension. Now, I didn’t go to fancy private schools, but because I was a voracious reader

from an early age, I knew I was smart. The beauty about living in a council estate is that

everyone was equal. Everyone’s houses were built exactly the same, nobody had a lot of

money or particularly fancy cars. This has changed now because of readily available credit,

you’re just as likely to see a massive satellite dish and new car outside a council house just

the same as any other.

I was at a friend’s house in the neighbourhood one day eating fish and chips for

dinner, and I asked politely if they had any condiments. My friend’s parents laughed so hard.

“Do you mean tomato sauce?”, and then teased me for being so “fancy”. I was bewildered

that an adult would make fun of a child for having a good vocabulary. It was the first time I

realised that it was considered wrong to be different.

Automatically I was considered “stuck-up” because I read books and I got good

grades. “You think you’re so smart!” my brother would always say to me, as if that was a bad

thing to excel at school.

You can try and make yourself small to make other people feel better about

themselves but the truth is that you are already a success story and someone will always be

threatened by that.

Good is good enough

I really should have called this book “lazy bitch”, because I’m all about finding the

short cut to success, despite being a recovering perfectionist Virgo. I’m smart and lazy – a

great combination! I have extremely high standards and love delivering good work, but at

some point you just have to accept that life can be easier.

Being a perfectionist sets you up for constant disappointment and feelings of failure

because nothing is ever really good enough. Even when something wonderful happens,

there's a niggling feeling that you didn't deserve it.

I didn't even want to call myself a perfectionist because I wasn't perfect! I didn’t

deserve the title – I was ashamed to admit that I wasn’t perfect.


Back in my consulting career, my team had a big job to deliver for the United Nations.

Everyone on the project got called away to different jobs, so it was just me. There was a

miscommunication with the client and our deadline was moved forward. We had less than

two weeks to deliver a full Corporate Social Responsibility manual. Guess who had to “make

it happen”?

I put in a superhuman effort, bent time and space to finish the project. I got a massive

amount of praise from my manager and the client. But you know what? I’ve never looked at

that manual since. Why?

I was too afraid to see a spelling mistake.

How many times have you received a compliment about a job well done and replied

with “Oh, it was nothing” or felt like a fraud because it wasn’t a 100% effort?

It can completely ruin the satisfaction of the moment and sets you up for a lifetime of

disappointment and frustration. It tells the Universe that you’ll never be happy and you don’t

deserve to feel contentment or pride.

Extreme perfectionism is self-hatred in disguise and only serves to make us feel bad

about ourselves. High achieving women in particular can get caught up in wanting everything

done right and causing themselves and the people around them constant anxiety and stress.

• Being a perfectionist around your body and diet can lead to disordered eating

and being either over- or underweight.

• Being a perfectionist around your relationship sets you up for failure because

nothing your partner does will ever truly please you.

• Being a perfectionist employer makes your employees afraid to experiment in

case they get things wrong.

By far, the most dangerous side effect is that perfectionists punish themselves

constantly and deny themselves happiness until they jump through increasingly hard hurdles

to prove they are worth it. This includes wearing cheap clothes until you’re a perfect size, not

showing your creative efforts to anyone because it’s not ready “yet” and ignoring the guy

who is perfect for you because he’s not conventionally handsome.

I wanted to be a life coach before I even knew what that was, but do you know how

long it took me to do it? I felt like I had to be perfect in my own life (and that was never going

Lucky Bitch

to happen). I would have waited forever, unhappy with my life but too paralysed to do

anything about it.

I love being a role model but I'm also a real person. I've learnt to forgive myself

instantly for any mistakes I make and to feel genuine pride when I do a good job.

There’s real freedom in deciding that you are good enough.

Create your own karma

I don’t believe we come into this world with accumulated negative karma that we’re

destined to repay but we definitely have lessons to learn and we will always attract what we

put out into the world.

If you believe that you’re destined to suffer in this lifetime, then that’s exactly what

you’ll attract unless you decide to start afresh through forgiveness and self-love. Set yourself

free in this lifetime and give yourself permission to be truly successful. It’s just as valid as an

experience as suffering and poverty. You can choose.

If you do believe in karma, then it’s only going to benefit you to behave in ways that

increase your positive karma, such as doing good things for others and being a positive

citizen of the world.

There was a time in my life when things around me were grey and average. I was

living in London, commuting every day to a job I didn’t like and wondering when the hell my

luck was going to turn around. I decided that I was going to start with sending out positive

energy to the people around me.

Miserable commuters got waves of happy vibes. I would select a particularly sad or

bored person and send them wishes such as a fantastic sex life, great adventure or

unexpected windfalls. I had so much fun creating these “love bombs” for other people, it

would cheer me up knowing that if I could wish good things for other people, I could accept

them for myself.

We know everything in the world is made up of energy. Everything from your body to

your computer, the trees grass and dirt, everything is made up of energy. We become

magnetised to things that are the same frequency, or the same energetic vibration as us. So

if you can align yourself with positivity, you’ll attract similar people and situations. They can’t

help it; their energy is the same as yours, and so energy attracts energy.


Similarly, if you’re feeling particularly negative and constantly act in self-destructive

ways that show the Universe you’re unaware and uncaring, you’ll receive your negative

karma very quickly.

You might ding your car, stub your toe, or you meet someone who says something

really mean to you, and you think, “Where the hell did that come from?” It’s because again,

your energy has attracted their energy.

I see everything like as a positive affirmation that I’m a lucky person. It’s become a

self-fulfilling prophecy. Luck creates more luck, courage creates courage and good feelings

attract more good feelings.

When I break a glass or a mirror, I don’t say “Oh no, 7 years bad luck” or blame it on

bad karma. I’m mildly annoyed but I move on. However, when I see a rainbow, I take a

moment to reflect on my good luck and thank the Universe profusely for blessing me with

such good fortune. I know I deserve it because I send so much good out into the world.

The more people I tell about being lucky, the more people believe me. The more

others reflect back to me, the more I believe it myself. It’s like two mirrors side by side.

Where does it stop and begin? Who knows?

If you’re a happy, positive person you’ll continue to attract even more into your life. If

you’re a miserable, mean, unhappy and negative person –guess what? More is coming to

you and you can decide. That’s karma in a nutshell.

Manifesting is a muscle

Some people seem effortlessly lucky, but the secret is that they are more

experienced in goal setting and making specific requests of the Universe.

Deciding what we want is not easy. Some of us have very, very weak practice around

this area. We’re very weak about deciding what we want because sometimes it’s easier just

to be passive and let life and circumstance happen for you.

How often do you write down your goals?

Just like working out, the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it. There’s no doubt

that a daily practice of goal setting will change your life. When you see the results of what

you can manifest, your belief will be stronger and the quicker it will work next time. It’s self-

fulfilling.

Lucky Bitch

Sometimes you’ll be in that magical flow and you’ll set an intention for something and

it will happen almost immediately. It’s crazy when it happens, but it’s true. But if you’re not

making a regular practice of goal setting, visualising and consciously creating your life, it can

feel so hard.

When you hear other people’s manifesting success stories does it make you feel

jealous? Like they are blessed by the Universe and you’re not?

There’s little secret to manifesting but it requires patience and constant vigilance that

you’re staying positive and in the right frame of mind. However to start with, the Universe

needs to know what to send you. That’s why a regular practice goal setting is non-

negotiable.

It’s like calling up your local pizza place and saying, “Please send me a pizza.”

They’ll say “What size and what toppings do you want?”

And you say, “Well, I think you probably know me by now. You know what my

preferences are. Just send me what you think I would like. Surprise me”

That’s exactly what we’re doing all the time to the universe. We’re saying, “You know

what? I just don’t have the courage right now to make a decision on what kind of job that I

want. So please just send me a job you think I would like.” Or, “You know what? I really don’t

like my husband. Universe, please make him disappear but don’t ask me to change

anything. Please send me someone better.”

Practice making decisions and telling the Universe exactly what you’re playing for –

the shape, colour, size and the exact juiciness you’re after. With practice you’ll start

receiving what you ask for.

Lucky women know what they want and aren’t afraid to ask for it – as simply as

ordering your favourite coffee at Starbucks. It can be as complicated as you want.

Luck is an inside game


Is luck an accident?

Outliers, The Story of Success is a book from “intellectual adventurer” Malcolm

Gladwell with interesting, accessible and often profound insights about the secrets behind

seemingly “inexplicable” success stories.

Outliers is about people and situations that fall outside the norm, the stories we hear

about the gifted or outrageously talented. Gladwell takes one in a million success stories,

and demystifies everything we know about success and failure.

One brilliant example: What do 70% of professional hockey players have in

common?

Regardless of any other factor such as height or background is they were born in the

first half of the year with at least 40% born in the first quarter. Why would that matter? Does

that mean that Aquarians and Pisceans are just born with a genius for hockey?

Quite simply, the advantage of having a birthday so close to the cut-off date of

January 1st means that you would have the advantage of being close to older than some of

the other players in your cohort. You will have better coordination and skill because you are

older. This will mean you are picked into better teams, consequently have more practice and

become better. Every year this repeats itself.

An accidental combination of your birth date and a love of hockey becomes a self-

fulfilling prophecy. Armed with this fascinating case study, Gladwell proposes that if

countries such as Canada had two separate leagues, they would have twice as many major

league hockey players as they do now.

Similarly with any kind of luck. I want to show you how you can apply these luck

principles to your career, increase your abundance, attract and keep love in your life and

achieve awesome health.

Lucky Bitch

Your Lucky, Lucky Career

In my early twenties when I was trying to find my passion and purpose, I worked for a

few months as a telemarketer in a call-centre. This was indeed a crappy and boring job,

especially for someone like me, who values freedom above all else.

Within a couple of weeks I was the number two sales person in the company. I

probably could have been number one without much more effort, but I decided to quit. Just

lucky right? Either that or I was a naturally good sales person.

None of the above.. I completely rigged the system.

Our shift hours were 5pm to 9pm. For four hours we had to constantly make cold

calls to people at home, to convince them to buy a broadband service that they didn’t want.

It’s demoralising hearing “no” over and over, especially when you just want to help people.

We got a couple of inbound calls during that time, and it was a fight to answer the call

as quickly as possible. Those calls were warm leads with a much higher probability of a sign

up. One evening I decided to stay back an hour and see how many calls came in.

When everyone else clocked off to go to the pub at 9pm, I stayed around and

answered every single inbound call. It was usually someone who had just seen an ad on TV,

or had been on the company website. They were calling to ask a few questions and to sign

up.

Guess who took those sign-ups? Me.

So that became my routine. Half-heartedly make cold calls for four hours and maybe

get one sign-up, and then work that one extra hour. The extra hour was unpaid but my

commissions made up for it, plus I got the recognition and reward for being a top

salesperson.

I’m aware this wasn’t particularly 100% ethical.. After all, wasn’t I hired to cold call

people? Well, no. I was hired to get sales for the company, and I became very creative about

how I achieved that. The thing was, their preferred way was actually a colossal waste of time

and energy. I quickly discovered their secret; it was probably cheaper to hire a bunch of

young people than it was to spend more money on advertising. Or a better product. You see,

most of what we do is absolute crap, and actually designed to create more work. The secret

is to work out the “cheat” in everyday life and your luck will hit the roof.


Lucky people work to their strengths.

If you’ve ever struggled to find your purpose and passion, I bet you already know

what it is. Sometimes it’s the easiest and most obvious answer. It’s cheating the system

again, but this time in a good way. Why make things difficult for yourself when you can do

what comes most naturally to you?

I spent my twenties desperately trying to find my purpose. I read countless books

such as Po Bronson's “What Should I Do With My Life?” and took far too many personality

tests. However, the clues were always right in front of me. All I had to do was look to my

childhood;

11. I forced myself to be on the debate team

12. One of my first jobs was talking on stage for children’s shows

13. My most favourite present was the electric typewriter I got for my ninth

birthday

14. I was always starting new clubs and creative projects to make extra money

15. When I was twelve, we moved into a house with a blackboard attached to my

bedroom. I thought this was fantastic, and started giving lectures to my

brother and cousin Rick, who weren’t having any of it.

All of that points to leader, creator, entrepreneur, mentor, coach, speaker or writer.

Funnily enough, exactly what I do now. But it took forever for me to make that my career,

because it felt too easy. I didn’t want to screw up what was so important to me.

I actually had a vision as a child that being a grown-up was working in an office all

day, wearing a suit with shoulder pads and sitting at a desk in front of a computer. That’s

exactly what I ended up with. However, experience soon showed that the other parts of

corporate life, the meetings, the bureaucracy and the lack of autonomy, they just didn’t suit

me.

So, I went looking for alternatives where I could still use those skills, but in a way that

suited my natural preferences better. Of course I’ll continue to tweak as I go. Nothing is ever

set in stone, and we have the ability to change our minds all the time if something isn’t

working. In fact, this is necessary. For example, I prefer to meet with clients over Skype than

face-to-face, so I changed my coaching offerings so it suited my natural strengths.

Lucky Bitch

In a recent coaching session, my client mentioned how she loved her job organising

holiday respite care for people with disabilities but was increasingly frustrated about where

she lived in Australia. She had just come home from two years living in Canada and was

desperate to get back to the winter life. Her dream was mountains, and although she had

never lived there, something in her heart told her Switzerland was the place to go. She

desired to quit everything and be a ski bum in Europe, but she was frustrated because

saving was taking so long. She was worried about finding a job when the competition was so

fierce, even for lowly paid ski jobs.

Together we looked at what was really important to her and how she could have both

of these things in her life; the career she loved and the freedom and adventure she craved. I

asked her if she realised there were organisations that arranged skiing holidays for disabled

people. She’d never thought about it. It seemed too easy. No more angst, the solution was

perfect and with her experience and personal passion, it shouldn’t be too hard for her to find

a job. She almost couldn’t believe that it could come together so perfectly.

Why couldn’t she come up with that solution herself? In hindsight, it’s completely

obvious, but she almost needed that permission to live a life that was perfectly suited to her

as a whole person. We’re used to separating our lives into segments; our passions and the

things we have to do for money.

I’ve been told this many times by friends and well-meaning relatives. When the

Ultimate Job finished, we were told with undisguised glee “Well, you’ll have to go back to the

real world now, won’t you?” as if we were living a fantasy life.

Guess what? The real world can be awesome too.

And then there’s guilt. After all, aren’t we told: “Life isn’t meant to be easy.” You work,

you pay your bills and then you die.

Many of my clients tell me the guilt they feel about out-earning their parents,

especially for work that comes easily to them. One client spoke of her dad getting up at

dawn every day and working physically hard all day for minimum wage.

It therefore seemed almost obscene for her to make good money as a coach. After

all, she wasn't working with her hands or creating anything visibly tangible. She was “only”

talking to them over the phone.


I understand. My own mother worked many jobs while I was growing up; as a

cleaner, a secretary and a waitress, and she is now an assistant nurse. She works long

hours with the sick, elderly and disabled and although she mostly loves her work, it takes a

lot out of her.

I was embarrassed to tell her that I could make her daily wage in one hour. It felt

unseemly but I realised that I couldn’t hold myself back any longer.

You’ll probably have to get over the fact that you’ll earn more than your parents, and

for something that you love as well..

The very easiest way to have luck in your business or career is to do something that

you love. I know, this can be an incredibly overused cliché. When I was in one of le my

cubicle jobs that didn’t suit me, I remember reading “Do What You Love, The Money Will

Follow” and I was like “But WHEN mofo?!” The problem was that I had completely

misunderstood this mantra. I had started doing things for money, or because I thought it was

a good idea. Not for the love of it. So the money never followed. My heart wasn't in it.

My first real business was helping women to lose weight for their wedding. I thought it

was a good idea, a niche perhaps, but it was a problem for several reasons. Firstly, I’m not

that into weddings and secondly, I’m not an expert in health. I was great at helping women

overcome their barriers to good health but weddings bore the shit out of me.

Just because you’re good at something, doesn’t mean you have to do it for a living if

your heart isn't in it. I am an excellent event manager, but my heart is no longer working

behind the scenes. It’s working on stage and being the decision maker – not the executor.

So, despite the fact that I have been joyfully writing, speaking, mentoring and

creating from such a young age, why did it take me so long to make it my career?

Because I was afraid.

I was afraid of people telling me I was too young, too uneducated, the wrong kind of

background, too fat or not pretty enough. Fear causes real physical pain.

Doing what I love is really freaking awesome. I love helping women be brave, do

things that scare them, create businesses and live inspired lives. But doing my own work still

scares me. Yes, it scares me to death but it’s so much better than trying to fit into the mould

of working for someone else.

Lucky Bitch

Writing this book caused me many shuddering nervous breakdowns and tears. Even

though I spent a lot of time writing for my website, I don’t think of myself as a proper writer.

Probably because I did Business Studies at University instead of becoming a journalist.

“What if it’s shit? What if people hate it? Oh, it’s terrible. Nobody is going to buy it. I’m

going to throw up if anyone does buy it.”

I wish I could tell you there was a magic pill which makes everything awesome but

it’s not true. And that’s particularly true for this next group of people;

Dancers, Singers and Actors

I started tap, jazz and ballet lessons when I was eight and I took to it really easily. I

loved it and soon I was dancing almost every day after school and every weekend I was

performing in local competitions and virtually anywhere our dance teacher could find a stage

– local shopping centres, festivals and retirement homes.

I never actively pursued professional dancing as I was convinced that I was too short

and had the wrong body type. You know someone who is the exact height as me? Madonna.

I’m not saying that I was good enough to perform professionally, but who knows what

I could have accomplished with the desire and hope, but I completely cut off the possibility

with the belief that I was too short.

My friend Paul is a professional dancer who has performed regularly on cruise ships

and touring shows for the last ten years since he was seventeen. What most people don’t

know about Paul is that he had a car accident when he was fourteen which left him with

severe leg injuries. He has trouble fully pointing his toe, but he disguises it extremely well

through good technique.

If you saw him bare-legged you would notice his injuries, and he has a slight limp

when he’s tired. I’ve heard people say to Paul that he works regularly because he’s a guy

and he’s good looking, but trust me, Paul could have had a great excuse for not being a

professional dancer. He’s also extremely dedicated to his technique and physical

appearance, which is imperative to his industry but many of his friends who don’t work

regularly probably pass Paul’s career off as “luck.”. Paul has never thought of anything else.

Talk about turning your “short-comings” into an advantage. Meaghan Davies is an

accomplished dancer, actor, singer and voice over artist. She is also extremely petite at just

under 5 feet tall. Here are her beautiful insights in her own words:


Have you had people (friend, family, teachers) tell that you couldn't be a performer?

It's interesting. I was fairly insecure as a child. I had a dance teacher who made me

feel as small as an ant. But then didn't we all? In a way, it made me more determined to

prove myself. My parents encouraged me and I don't ever remember them sitting me down

and telling me to "get a real job.”

How have you used your height to your advantage?

Anything that makes us different can be a weakness or a strength. It's usually a

weakness if you listen to your detractors. However if you have courage inside, you realise

that your differences are what makes you stand out from a crowd and this knowledge can be

quite powerful. Being just under five foot has certainly lost me a lot of roles I'd be considered

for if I was a few inches taller. Yet at the same time, it's helped some pretty incredible people

remember me. I don't think without all the other ingredients (persistence, talent,

professionalism) my height would have helped me. But with these qualities, it has certainly

given me my own little niche. In a small industry like the Australian arts industry, sometimes I

think I'd rather fit in with the chorus line so to speak. But then when a role comes up that's a

little left of centre, it really seems to have my name on it!

Why do you think that some people with talent and the looks don't necessarily make

it? Do your friends who are performers have any particular commonalities?

Haha, I'd often say those with the looks DO make it. Those with just the talent have

to work a lot harder. It's a shame really. You hear some amazing singers doing solo sets

down the road, and then hear some really average singers in concert charging hundreds of

dollars a pop. It'd be nice if society could get past looks. After all, you don't need to be a

supermodel to be a lawyer, a teacher, a politician. And surely it's great to see a whole lot of

different types of people represented on our screens.

I really think a lot of it comes down to sheer determination. And getting that break.

You look back at the group of people you studied at university with, and most of them have

gone very successfully into other fields. Sometimes I think people just wake up and realise

that they spend a lot of time dreaming about working in the arts, but not a lot of time doing it.

It's not easy at all. And when you love something, you want to do it as much as

possible. Imagine a lawyer studying for years to become a lawyer, yet only getting an

opportunity to practise a few times a year. And in those few times, they might eventually

realise that with all the down time, and the little "work" time, it's not actually worth it. So I

Lucky Bitch

think you really have to want it. I also think you have to be willing to sacrifice a LOT for it; a

decent pay-check, a normal life, security and so on. I'm not intending to paint a bleak picture.

But it is what it is in this country. You need to do it because you love it. It's what gets you out

of bed in the morning. Otherwise I think it's just too tough. Talent and looks is not even close

to being enough. There will always be someone more attractive, more suited to a particular

role. There's a lot more to it.

Have you had any particular "lucky breaks" that you felt were divinely guided, or in

the right place at the right time?

Absolutely. It is quite serendipitous when I look at how I got to work with a certain

person. They might have seen me in a show that I almost didn't do. I might be in the right

city in the right place in the world at a certain time that has me run into someone who knows

someone I know. Not many lucky breaks come from just having your CV and headshots out

there. Often when you think you've just had enough, you get a call from your agent for a job

you are so excited to do. That's what keeps you going. It keeps you hanging in there. It

reminds you of why you do what you do.

Do you struggle to get paid well for what you love?

There isn't a lot of money in the arts in this country. And it's unfortunate. It really

limits how great the work can be. There comes a time also, when an actor needs to start

treating their work like a business. The craft is an art. But to run any business you need to

get paid.

I think it's imperative that we don't undervalue ourselves. I have trained for many,

many years to have the skills I have. I started dancing when I was three; I learnt several

musical instruments, attended back to back dance classes, singing classes, acting classes,

university, took additional workshops around the world. These skills make me the performer I

am today. And actors are asked continually to work for deferred pay. When the project is

great, the team is inspiring of course I'll consider it. However sometimes you need to step

back and say, who is gaining here. Is this my personal project or someone else's? Is it me,

or is it them that should be taking the financial risk? Can I work for nothing, again? The

answer is sometimes, okay. The answer is sometimes, no.

Anything else you want to add for aspiring actors/dancers/whatever?

We are our own biggest barriers to success. The older I get, the less energy I have to

take big risks and the less brave I become. I'm beginning to challenge this concept again.


The best moments of my life have been due to an element of risk taking. Of stepping outside

my comfort zone! I have always said if you walk into a casting and don't believe you belong

there, that you can do the job, then why on earth would the casting director believe in you?

The easiest way to achieve something is to stop just thinking about it, and actually

get out there and do it. Success should be a verb!

Artists, Sculptors and other Creatives

The “starving artist” mentality is alive and well in our generation, just as it has

persisted for centuries. What’s the deal with that? Who decided that it’s a “sell-out” to

actually get paid for your contribution to the world.

Business coach and art marketing consultant Freea L. Sarti helps visual artists build

sustainable businesses, meant to stand the test of time. She shares some thoughts on “luck”

and artistic success.

With the artists you work with, what do you think differentiates those who "make it"

and those who don't.

The main determining factor in artists who “make it” versus those who don't is an

artist's ability to allow their “creativity” to encompass all aspects of their career, not just when

it comes to producing their work. They have a willingness to be flexible, to learn new skills, to

do WHATEVER is necessary to bring their dream to full fruition. This means taking FULL

responsibility for their success and taking full control of their future.

Success can be defined in a variety of ways, so I think it is important to define that

by “making it”, I mean that they can comfortably support themselves financially with their

creative business, and in addition, they feel a sense of life fulfilment due to their

commitment to their own personal core values.

Specifically, they have the following attributes:

• Realize the importance of “investing” in themselves in terms of time, energy

and money.

• Know how to leverage their time, energy and resources, so that they get the

highest ROI, (Return on Investment) when engaged in business activities

• Have a clear vision and strategic plan for following through

Lucky Bitch

• Work within the realm of their strengths and work to improve their

weaknesses or delegate them

• Are resourceful and persistent

• Value themselves and their work or services

• Are committed to integrity, courage and perseverance

• Are fully committed to making a difference in their community, city or in the

world at large and storm the castle without hesitation

• Move forward constantly, accepting that they WILL make mistakes, and

knowing that when they do, it is not a big deal and will allow them to actually

learn and expand like NEVER before.

How can artists overcome the "starving artist" mentality and earn a decent wage for their

work?

First, identify any limiting factors that hold you back from pricing your art work fairly. If you

are not sure what “fair” is, get help from a coach or consultant... (A really good consultant

won't tell you what price to put on your work, but will help you develop the skills and

confidence to price your own work with integrity).

Next, identify any limiting beliefs about money in general and financial success/comfort. Ask

if any obstacles exist. If so, identify whether they are internal or external. Most are internal.

Now that you have a grasp on your constraints, develop necessary skills, acquire needed

knowledge and do any spiritual or psychological work needed to shift these constraints.

If you start working on other business endeavours first, without removing any obstacles in

the way of you building a sustainable business and making a comfortable living, you'll waste

precious energy and resources. Working through this process first will save you years of

hard work.

Do you have any stories of artists who just seem really lucky? What makes them lucky?

Ginger Markley, a sculptor had the amazing privilege of taking a class with world famous

sculptor Gene Pearson. During this class Ginger learned a specific technique which

transformed her work almost overnight. Luck or will or a little bit of both, this one event

changed the course of Ginger's entire life and career.


Ciel Lorenzen, founder of ee'meesh Organics Body Products, was granted the opportunity to

travel across the globe to learn from indigenous women how to craft natural botanicals into

healing body products. Without a clear vision, she would not have learned about the

opportunity to learn a dying skill from the “masters.” Without this “lucky” experience, Ciel

would not hold the sacred wisdom that she infuses into her offerings. Once Ciel had this

knowledge, her product line exploded and she could barely keep up with her ideas for new

products.

Marne Jaye, a masterful painter of African animals had the good luck of being invited to

contribute to the Academy Award gift bags. That's a pretty amazing audience to be exposed

to and the kind of lucky opportunity that leads to sales down the road and for the life of your

career...not to mention the referrals that come as a result, which magnify your income.

In each of these cases, what made these artists “really lucky” was the fact that they had a

clear vision of where their careers were going and had a strategic plan. While they could

never have predicted the specific opportunities that would come to them, having clarity is

what allowed things to naturally unfold and being in the “right place at the right time.” In

every case luck was manifested with action, will and confidence.

Writers, Coaches and Entrepreneurs

Every single piece of advice above relates to you too. Oops, I hope you didn’t skip it

because you’re not a dancer or actor! Every creative profession has the danger of being

vulnerable. Forget about the voice in your head that you can’t make a real business or living

out of your talent.

It doesn’t matter what your excuses are, too young, too old, too fat, too something.

Laura is almost twenty six, and she’s starting to do some coaching on the side of her

job, with a view to one day making it a full time vocation. She was totally deflated at a recent

event because a forty-something woman told her that she didn’t have enough life experience

to be an effective coach.

Is that true? It depends, doesn’t it? But chances are, the clients she will attract with

be the ones who will resonate with her particular skills and experience and she’ll be able to

offer real value. If she waits until someone else deems that she is ready, chances are she’ll

never be ready.

The same thing happened to me, but it came from my landlord of all people. When

he was showing us around our new apartment he asked me what I did for a living. His

Lucky Bitch

response was “You’re a bit too young for that, aren’t you?” My silent response was “How old

do I have to be?” I don’t have to know all the answers, but I can ask great questions.

Every professional and entrepreneurial endeavour has an apprenticeship period

where you may have to give your services away free or take on other work to pay your bills.

There’s a learning curve in any profession and it may take you hundreds of hours in unpaid

grift before it pays off.

The problem is that there’s no rule book to tell you exactly what you need to

complete your apprenticeship and, sadly, most people give up well before they can start to

taste some of the success.

JK Rowling’s Harry Potter famously got rejected by 12 publishers, but that’s nothing.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was rejected 38 times. Would you have given up

earlier than these women did?

Want to be published? How many manuscripts have you sent in the last six months?

Have you gotten and implemented any feedback about what you can improve about your

idea? Have you treated each rejection as one step in your apprenticeship or have you given

up thinking that you’re “unlucky” and that your work is no good?

Luckily, Thomas Edison didn’t take his repeated failures personally, he was just

trying to solve a problem of producing a workable light bulb and the challenge of it was

probably incredibly exciting for him.

What if you could face your career in the same way? As if publishing a book or

making a living from your website was a game you had to win and nothing more – certainly

not a reflection of your worth as a person!


Lucky in Love

As I coach women, love comes up in many sessions in one way or another. Women

who are single and looking or those who have been hurt by love. Women in great

relationships, some who want to lovingly transition out of theirs. Others who have had their

hearts trampled by divorce but are starting to find their own power for the first time.

As a woman who is officially the second most married woman in the world, does that

make me an expert on love? No way. Yes, I’ve been married 87 times in a Guinness World

Record attempt but marriage is no guarantee of having a fabulous relationship.

I’ve had many people tell me I’m a lucky bitch for my amazing husband. Yes, I’m

lucky to find someone who has a complementary personality to mine, allows me to be me,

supports me in all I do, and very often is able to resist the crazy Virgo who lives inside me.

However, I come from a family of women “unlucky in love”. Divorce, infidelity,

domestic violence, loveless marriages and above all, an overriding message from a young

age that “all men are bastards”.

I would listen to my mum, Nan and aunties sit around and bitch about the men in

their lives and then they would turn to me and say “Don’t you ever trust a man, Denise.

Learn from us!”. But unfortunately, they never seemed to learn from their own mistakes and

made them several times over!

But I vowed “Never!” and so I was very unlucky in the love department. I nearly

ended up with the wrong sort of man several times but “luckily” I got an opportunity to move

to London at age 22, where I met my husband Mark.

Despite the weddings, I feel relationships are my least area of expertise. I wish I

knew more except that loving yourself is one of the secrets to finding a “good man,” and then

you just need to try and relax. Before I met Mark I had made a list of everything I wanted in a

man and it was a pretty small list – kind, funny, smart and who lets me be independent.

My friend Lenore said she made a gigantic list of over 200 qualities she wanted in a

man and he showed up very quickly!

Lily came to one of my goal setting seminars and I was blown away with how serious

she was about finding a relationship. Too serious, I thought. She was stressing herself out

Lucky Bitch

over it. She was so invested in her lack of a relationship, that all the dream boarding and

goal setting was not going to make anything happen.

I set her very practical tasks every week to increase her chances of manifesting her

perfect man. Luckily, she was open enough to do everything I told her, regardless of how

silly it sounded.

Lily says:

“I had been a single girl for seven years when I decided it was time to do something

drastic. So I enlisted the help of Denise to turn my love life around. Denise helped me

break down barriers and make dating fun.

“One of my tasks was to send out 20 messages on an internet dating site. This was

tough for me as I like to assess each profile closely. Denise said you have one

minute to look at each profile and you have to send 20 messages to interesting guys

in a week. I did it. It was terrifying at first but I started to feel more relaxed about the

whole dating thing.

“Denise's great technique whereby you make what you want to manifest one of your

passwords was great as it brings the idea into your consciousness daily. I made my

Facebook profile password 'Myboyfriend'. Each day I logged in and thought of myself

as having a boyfriend. I even changed my mum's name in my mobile phone to

'Grandma'.

“I was contacted by a friend five weeks ago who had a single male friend she wanted

me to meet. I was more comfortable with dating now and ready for love so I agreed

to be 'set up'. Since that meeting one month ago we've spoken or seen each other

nearly every day. I know it's only early days yet but it feels really relaxed and easy.

Time will tell if he is my life-long soul mate.”

I’m not surprised that Lily found love unexpectedly despite doing online dating. Just

going through the motions can lead to “being ready”. The exact thing happened to me.

I was living in London at age 23, and was sick of being single. I set out to find love

with a mission. Three months of internet dating and I fell in love with a guy I had been friends

with for six months or so. He was right there, but I wasn’t in the right mindset to “see” him.

A man at my seminar (yes, they do come, but they are rare) told me that he was

looking to attract a girlfriend, but it wasn’t happening. This guy knew a lot about the Law of


Attraction already, so he had done the dream board, affirmations and knew exactly what he

wanted from a girlfriend.

I asked him “How’s your bedroom?”

He sheepishly told me that his bedroom currently had high piles of books and papers

all around his room. Even though they were quite neat, he had to be careful walking about

the room as not to upset these towers.

“How is she going to get in?” I asked him.

I saw the light go off. One of the very first teachings of my Inspired Life Formula

course is to declutter your life as much as possible, both physically and emotionally. He had

done the emotional work; he just had to make some physical and energetic space for a new

lady to come into his life.

You need to make room in every way possible. One of my clients, who is twice

divorced was finally ready to attract a new man into her life but when we looked at her

calendar, there was literally no time for dates, let alone for a relationship. She also ran a

retreat business out of her home, so there was little privacy for a potential relationship. Over

a few weeks, she started to let go of some of her commitments and setting some energetic

boundaries, including reducing the amount of workshops on Friday nights and the weekend,

and giving herself some time away from her business. This action opens that energetic

space for a new relationship to enter your life.

Here are some quick tips if you feel like you’ve been unlucky in finding love:

• Declutter your bedroom, in particular the bedside drawer on the opposite side of

the bed and make some room in your closets and drawers

• Throw out any old underwear

• Get a bikini wax or start getting laser hair removal

• Get some room in your calendar, even if you just spend a few nights or weekends

by yourself.

Don’t tell yourself that you’ll start taking care of yourself when you have a special

someone in your life. Start acting as if you’re already loved and the Universe will soon take

care of the missing partner.

Lucky Bitch

A Great Relationship Can Double Your Luck

I completely appreciate how lucky I am to have a partner who is so open-minded and

just as committed to creating an amazing life. Without his support and enthusiasm for

winning the Ultimate Job, we may not have won. My optimism may have been enough but

with both of us aligned to the outcome, we were unbeatable.

Together we believe in our luck as a couple and continually affirm to each other how

lucky we are to be so compatible. “I’m so lucky!” is a refrain heard constantly in our house,

as well as “I’m so proud of you”.

It also helps to have someone to talk to when things get rough. Yes, I’m very positive

but I have periods of self-doubt too. Mark can pull me back from falling into a pit of despair

and self-pity by reminding me that I’m smart, capable and simply awesome. His belief in me

expands my belief in myself.

Do you regularly talk about your goals and dreams together? Do you have a sense of

what your partner is trying to achieve with their own life? Do you support each other and

reflect each other’s highest possible potential?

You may not want to take your partner on the exact same personal development path

as you, but it helps if they understand what you are doing, and especially why. After all, they

will be around for the journey, and will also reap the benefits of your success.

However, some partners could use a little nudge in the right direction, and some of

your new luck mentality might rub off on them too!

What if your partner is sabotaging you?

It can be hard making a big lifestyle change if your partner isn’t supportive and it feels

like they are undermining your effort to improve your life.

I’ve heard terrible examples of a husband being so unsupportive and threatened by

his wife’s new venture that he changed the internet password so she couldn’t work on her

new business. It just made her more determined. His fear was that if she had her own life

and succeeded by herself, she’d leave him. Of course, the fact that he was such a complete

dick-head meant that the failure of their marriage was inevitable.

It’s very common to feel threatened when one half of the couple starts changing,

perhaps by becoming fitter and healthier or succeeding in an area of your life. He may have


secret worries that you will no longer find him attractive or good enough, or that some other

caveman; I mean, man will snatch you away.

Encouragement and praise works well

I hate to say it but men are vain creatures, and you can exploit that by offering

compliments before he’s even done anything. Start to make him feel good, fortunate and

lucky just because he’s with you.

Unfortunately nagging incessantly doesn’t work, I’ve tried and tried, but keeping

positive and telling him he’s already the man you love.

16. Hey – have you lost weight?

17. Well done for that new client you got at work

18. You look great in that suit

Before you know it, he’s preening in the mirror and feeling motivated because he

knows you love him. This definitely works, because he’ll start to see himself in a new light,

and it won’t take much convincing him that he’s a stud muffin (even if it’s on the

inside;.waaaaay inside).

Don’t tell Mark I told you this, but he was really overweight when we met. I never

mentioned anything about his weight, only told him how handsome and sexy he was. I

introduced him to healthy food that made us both feel good and within 6 months he was a

completely changed man. His personality shifted too. He didn’t have to play the chubby,

cheeky guy. He could be happy in himself and I supported him either way.

Be the example

If you are constantly moaning and complaining, then you are hardly the best advert

for a lucky life. It’s a huge transformation on one hand – but on the other, it’s not that big a

deal. You don’t have to drastically change your lifestyle to harness your luck – you are still

the same person – just a lighter, happier and more successful version of yourself. What a

lucky guy he is to have you!

Make yourself happy

If all else fails and he doesn’t seem to support your journey into the superstar you

are, then please don’t let that stop you. This is for your own personal happiness, and nobody

Lucky Bitch

should derail that for you. Don’t let your partner’s negative or indifferent attitude make you

think that you are not worth it.

Dealing with breakups

What happens when the fairy tale ends? Many people feel like such a failure after

divorce, as if their luck has run out for good. However, your growth cannot be held back by

someone else. In some cases, you can find the courage to bless the experience and let go.

Leah Groot writes,

“I knew I was leaving my husband but we were committed to a job overseas for a few

months and I was struggling with everything. One day I asked for help and immediately my

wedding ring started burning my finger (this had never happened before). I took it off and

straight away I realised the emotional significance of this physical act and I was a lot calmer

from then on.”

Sarah had gone through the biggest transformation over the last couple of years and

learnt that loving herself was more important than staying in her relationship even though

nothing was actually “wrong”.

You seemed to have a great marriage, but shortly after your 10th wedding

anniversary, it was over. What made you decide to leave?

I had the big fairy tale wedding and that’s exactly what it was - not real. I knew on my

wedding day that I was marrying for safety and security. My husband was the first man I met

who had a job and wasn’t on drugs and he was a decent man.

I met him at 21 and married at 23. Of course there were times over the years when I

felt I was in love with him and we had some great times but there was always that voice of

doubt telling me I was living half a life.

“It only came as a shock to so many people when we split up because I had felt too

guilty to tell anyone how I really felt. My family was constantly telling me how lucky I was to

have my husband and I essentially felt invisible. I used to hide my body up and not want to

be noticed. I hid behind him a lot as an excuse not to face the world.

“I am an actress so am very good at pretending everything is okay. I could use my

voice on stage, but was too afraid in the real world. I went to America to do a film-acting

course for a month and it totally changed my life. I was on my own in a new country with no


one to hide behind and I discovered that people liked me for me, and that I actually had a big

voice with lots to say. I was a woman, not just a wife.

“Essentially over the next six months my husband and I grew further apart as I began

to embrace who I really was. He said to me that if I was to stay with him I would have to

change back into who I had been before. I knew then that no matter what pain was to come,

it was too painful to stay in a relationship that had become too small for both of us.

What's life post-divorce (good, bad and the ugly?)

“Life post-divorce at first was horrible. I left my comfortable two-bedroom home,

having the financial security within my marriage, and moved into a friend’s tiny spare room

the other side of London. I started a job I hated the day after I left my husband. I had to

somehow start supporting myself fully.

“I was in such a mess, I think having to get up every day and go to work was the only

thing that got me through. I used to wear dark glasses on the train for six months so I could

cry.

“I spent the next year running around dating ridiculous men because I couldn’t bear

to be alone. I think those initial six months were the hardest of my life. I remember standing

on the side of a train track in London in the freezing cold, having no money, no husband, no

home and thinking I would never recover.

“Yet in that moment that quiet calm voice inside me told me everything would be

okay and the storm would clear. I was getting to see how strong I actually was.

“When my divorce settlement eventually came through I did more living in 18 months

than I had done for 35 years. I went to Rio to learn to surf and hang-glide, I wrote and

produced 2 short films, did stand-up comedy in Hollywood, joined a writing class and was

awarded most original work of the term.

“I learnt to Tango and Samba whilst being taught entirely in Portuguese. I learnt the

trapeze, I travelled to New York and LA. I danced every week. I fell in love and lost love. I

had money and lost money.

However through my heartbreak and every new experience I finally understood what

life is. I learnt compassion, and I was finally alive. As I write this it is nearly two years to the

day that my husband and I separated. Of course there are moments that are tough but I

always live from my heart now and I have never looked back.

Lucky Bitch

What resistance did you get from friends and family?

“My family pretty much stopped speaking to me when my marriage fell apart. They

totally blamed me, and had put my husband on a pedestal. My husband actually told me if I

left I would never cope and that I would be homeless. My mother had told him to throw me

out on the streets to teach me a lesson.

“I felt when I was married they had lost sight of me. I truly believed they had come to

love my husband more than me; of course that was not the case. It took 6 months of me

standing on my own two feet and coping without them for them to see I was actually serious

and it wasn’t a ‘phase’.

“I had some very tough talks with my father eventually and even now he doesn’t fully

understand how I could be happy without a husband. My mother and I eventually reconciled

and I am now closer than ever to my family. I have had to forgive them for not being there

when I needed them, but at the same time that period in my life taught me a lot about myself.

I had always been the good girl in my family, I had married like the good girl whereas

underneath I had slowly been falling apart, but I had never told anyone.

“All my female friends were amazing. They never judged and always listened, even in

my most crazy moments. My husband and I had our own friends, so it didn’t affect my social

circle at all. I have the most wonderful and creative women in my life now and really, they

have become family to me.

Your photos are so unbelievably beautiful - did you know you had this talent?

“I had no idea. I am looking at photographs on my desk now and thinking “Did I really

take that?” Last year I had this intuitive nudge to get a camera, it just kept coming up. So I

ordered one that was basic but felt good to use. It arrived and just lay on the side for a

month and I thought “Well that was a waste of money- my intuition was clearly off.” However

when I got to Los Angeles in February I just started taking pictures and haven’t stopped

since.

“I always let my husband take the pictures and I just assumed I was no good at it. I’m

learning the technical side so my pictures can match my vision. I am discovering I love the

post process work too and I am surprised to learn I am a visual artist. I am nurturing this

talent and I know it is linked to my acting and writing.


“I don’t know where this journey is going but I am enjoying it very much. It feels like

yet another part of me has opened up and I can see what I couldn’t before. I think I am less

scared of expressing myself in this way as I feel there is less at risk at this stage compared

to my acting. I expect as I progress more fears will come up but right now I feel like a child

who gets to play and make beautiful art.”

You deserve love

If love wasn’t such an important part of being human, why is every song about it?

Why are we always talking about it – finding it, losing it, renewing and maintaining it.

Take time to forgive and forget the past so you can move on and break the old

patterns. Rip up old love letters, throw away the manky sweater you’re still hanging on to

and let go of the fears you have about opening up your heart.

The biggest secret I know to have an audaciously awesome relationship is to realise

that you deserve it. You deserve to be lucky in love. You deserve awesome sex and a

partner who supports you and contributes to your well-being.

If you’re in a relationship, how can you take it to the next level? What direction are

you travelling in together? Get another person to believe in you and you’ll be amazed at

what you can create together.

Love rocks, you lucky things!

Lucky Bitch

Abundantly Lucky

Growing up with a single mother on child support didn’t give me the best financial start in

life. Money was tight, my mum worked several jobs to support us and there wasn’t a lot extra

to go around. However, like most kids, I wasn’t too worried about money. I just wanted to

play with my friends and have a good time. My mum’s views on money was that it came and

went, you hard to work hard for it but also good fortune would come when you least

expected it. Mum is extremely lucky and would often win at bingo or on the poker machines.

Something happened when I was twelve that completely warped my view on money and

abundance. We lived in a council estate where everyone’s family was the same, everyone

had the exact same house and nobody had anything flashy or ostentatious.

My mum met and married a very rich, older man and we moved out of the council estate

and into his huge mansion. Everything changed and it felt like we won the lottery!

Suddenly, we were driven to school in a beautiful white car with pop-up headlights

instead of my mum’s old brown bomb with rips in the dashboard. I got a pony and my brother

got a motorbike. We had six cats, two dogs and five acres of land to play in.

It was heaven. We had a housekeeper, our own TV and VHS in our rooms and I had

double bed like a princess. Everything about that house was luxurious – a fully stocked bar,

a walk-in pantry and closet – to me, it was the ultimate house. Everyone thought we were so

lucky!

My friends came over and I loved showing them around our house with its formal dining

room, two lounge rooms, three car garage and swimming pool. Every part of the house had

something interesting, like a Wurlitzer jukebox and billiard table. I had my thirteenth birthday

party in that house and I thought I was so cool. I was the luckiest girl in the world!


However, as people who marry for money and security find out quickly, Mum and my

step-dad weren’t terribly suited. The relationship was fairly turbulent and over the four years

they were together, they would constantly break up and we would be kicked out. Our little

family would move in and out of that mansion four times, each time moving into a different

small, cheap rental which was all my mum could afford by herself.

Rags to riches, rags to riches.

It was confusing and humiliating. That experience taught me a valuable lesson but as

usual, I took it to the extreme. I decided that you can’t trust money and for years, I told

myself that if anything good happened in my life, it was just a matter of time until it all turned

to shit. Don’t get comfortable. Good times don’t last. Rich men rule the world.

Working hard is not enough

I spent my twenties thoroughly exhausting myself trying to prove that I would be

independent and never be at the mercy of someone else. As well as going to University full

time, I juggled four or five jobs at a time. A long weekend was seen as a great opportunity to

work more. But I never got ahead. I never saved – always working from pay cheque to pay

cheque and worrying constantly about money.

If working hard was enough, more people would be rolling in riches. If the world was fair,

teachers and nurses would get paid as much as investment bankers.

However, some people on average incomes seem to have a knack for making money,

just as some rich people have a knack of wasting it. What’s their secret?

My friend Kate is a female fire-fighter and one of the smartest people I know. She and

her husband have a clear vision and a plan for their financial future, and it includes investing

in property. She’s looking ahead to the day when they have children and she has to retire

from fire-fighting.

Lucky Bitch

Kate doesn’t rely on “luck” to find the best properties. She has invested money in taking

a course, learning about the market and hiring a mentor to help her. Rather than spending

15 minutes looking at a house and buying it, like Mark and I did in 2005, she researches and

calculates on massive spreadsheets before she takes the risk.

Overworked and underpaid

Self-worth is 100% tied up with money, and many women undersell themselves.

I’ve had many jobs in my life, over fifty at the last count. Many of them were low-skilled

and low-waged jobs like cleaning, waitressing, temping or TV extra work; mostly jobs that I

absolutely hated.

I also did many things for money that I now regret. To pay for my school fees one

semester, I participated in a paid medical experiment, testing out a new morphine based

drug. Weeks after my experiment and long after the money was spent, there was an

experiment where people’s fingers and toes fell off and a several people died.

I also worked for a phone-sex company during University. It was in many ways the

perfect job for me because it was open 24 hours a day, so I could take on as many shifts as I

wanted. It was a well-run office that looked like any other and the other women were all ages

and ethnicities. I was nineteen, and I thought it was hilarious. I enjoyed drama so I over-

acted every conversation and loved telling people about it. I thought it gave me something

interesting and memorable to tell people. Faking “sexy” moans at 3am while I was

simultaneously studying for my economics exam was proof to myself that I was independent

and proud of it.

I understand why I did it at the time and how I justified it to myself, but I’m sad that I

didn’t believe I could use my talents in better ways for a pay cheque.

Even as I progressed in my career, I never made more than a certain amount. My

income threshold was stuck. Every time I was in line for a pay increase, I would sabotage


myself by either leaving the company, or feeling resentful that someone else was getting

paid more than me. The money conversation was scary to me.

We show the Universe how to treat us

Although I went to many seminars about developing a millionaire mindset, in reality, I felt

guilty spending even the smallest scrap of money on myself.

I only shopped at second hand shops, so my clothes always felt ill-fitted. I treated myself

like a second class citizen. I read books about millionaires and dreamed about having a lot

of money but I lived like a pauper. The message I was sending out was “I don’t deserve”.

And that’s exactly what I got in return.

A lucky windfall won’t solve your money problems

Lottery winners don’t have their problems solved overnight by their unexpected windfall

because money doesn’t change you, in only enhances who you already are. If you

fundamentally believe that being rich makes you a bad person, or if you think that it will solve

all of your problems it doesn’t matter how much money you get.

According to NSW Lotteries, the odds of choosing all 6 winning numbers is

approximately 8,145,060 to one, but here are some interesting statistics for you. Camelot

Group who operate the UK lottery released a survey of their national lottery winners to show

what affect winning the lottery had on their overall happiness and lifestyle.

• 55% are happier after winning, 43% reported no affect on happiness and just

2% are less happy

• 90% of winners who already had a best friend before winning are still best

friends with the same person.

• 84% of winners have not taken up any new hobbies since their win.

• 32% of all winners state they have gained weight since their win, compared to

14% who lost them.

Lucky Bitch

• 44% of their winnings were spent after 5 years

• 88% of lottery winners still participate in the lottery every week and just 2%

have stopped playing altogether.

What tells me is that money in itself doesn’t really change your life too much. If you

struggled to lose weight before,

If you don’t know how to handle money, you will always end up broke.

Being rich and famous isn’t enough to shield you from your money problems. Lindsay

Lohan has estimated to have burned through eight million dollars of her acting income

through wild partying, drugs and alcohol, holidays and luxury goods. She bought herself a

luxury car and promptly crashed it, and she’s been forced to sell two properties which could

have been a valuable nest egg if she decided to stop acting.

Reality stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag had many “lucky” breaks and made

millions from their shows and endorsement deals. They are now living rent-free at Spencer’s

parents’ house and wondering what happened to all that money.

Anyone who has built a large fortune from scratch will tell you it took time and effort to

build long-lasting wealth.

Elizabeth Taylor was famously the first woman to make one million dollars for a film role

and according to reports, grew her fortune to close to one billion dollars, despite not starring

in a movie since 1994 (The Flintstones!). Her White Diamonds perfume made close to

seventy million dollars in 2010 alone and her jewellery collection was worth more than one

hundred and fifty million dollars. Liz had no trouble holding onto her wealth and obviously

invested well.

Contrast that to other film stars who ended their final years in poverty having squandered

entire fortunes. Marilyn Monroe, equally as famous as Elizabeth Taylor, although only 36 at


the time of her death left very little in her will besides her house, clothes and personal

effects. Would she have been able to amass a large personal fortune or would she have

continued the same patterns?

Asking for what you want

Sometimes the lucky people get what they want simply because they ask for it. In the

corporate world, women are least likely to approach a pay increase at all or they just get

what they are given.

My friend Jo Townsend is a business and finance journalist, TV presenter and producer.

And dammit, she’s always been good with money. We used to work together in the school

holidays and she always managed to save her money while mine was frittered away. While I

make dream boards and meditate on abundance, Jo saves and invests!

Jo’s website is www.jogirl.com and she gives practical, non-scary advice on all things

money for normal women like you and me. One thing that she’s adamant about is asking for

a pay increase and not waiting for someone else to hand it to you.

Here are her valuable tips:

• Remember that things will only be uncomfortable for a little while – hopefully

only a few minutes – in front of your boss. Like doing the plank at Bootcamp,

it’s short term pain, you know that uncomfortable moment is going to go

away. So make like a band-aid and do it quick.

• Talk to your boss in positive terms – don’t make it seem like a whinge.

Something along the lines of “I love it here, but I want to be paid more” is

going to come across a lot better than “I hate that I don’t get paid enough”

when asking for a salary increase.

19. Make a list of notes in case your mind goes blank in the office – or send a

short, friendly email outlining your contributions to the company over the past

year and why you should have a pay hike. But always try to do at least part of

the negotiating in person. It’ll mean more cash for you.

Lucky Bitch

20. Do your research first and work out what the market is paying for similar

positions.

21. Tell the truth. If you haven’t been sought out by a rival company, don’t make

out that you have – it’ll come back to bite you.

22. And if you really don’t think your boss will give you cash, try to negotiate on

the things that cost you to come to work – gym fees in the city, parking and

toll passes, and other benefits.

Overcoming money blocks

It’s incredibly common for women to have massive resistance about earning good money

and we’re still earning much less than men. Why? In many cases we’re more efficient than

men, we’re good at our jobs and our interpersonal skills are better.

I believe we all have a river of abundance. It’s just some of us have large rocks (ok,

boulders) or even a rusty car in ours. The trickle is still coming to us, but there’s so much

crap in the way, such as:

Negative self-beliefs: that’s for other people, not for me. I’m not “destined” to be rich

Guilt: it can’t be so easy to make money – I should give my gifts away for free

Negative thoughts: rich people are so selfish and destructive to the environment.

In my experience, female entrepreneurs have it worse because we have to set our

prices, ask for the sale and deal with our own taxes. It brings up many fears, insecurity and

anxiety for some of my clients.

At one of my events, a woman told me that she abandoned her business as a personal

trainer because she literally could not accept money from her clients. She loved what she

did, it was fulfilling to her and she felt like she was making a real difference. However, it was

sending her broke, because a client would try and pay her and she went into awkward

spasms. Then because she wasn’t clear about her boundaries – like paying in advance or


even paying on the day of training, clients (unconsciously or deliberately) wouldn’t pay her,

would forget to bring money to training sessions or take advantage of her.

She had to go back to working for someone else because she couldn’t afford to run the

business at a loss any more. Very sad, especially since she loved it so much and people

were willing to pay her. It should have been a no-brainer.

Many creative women, especially the actors, dancers, artists and writers have incredible

trouble earning money from their talent, because it’s an unconventional career choice and so

tied up in their individual identity that it feels like cheating.

Many women now who earn their living through a combination of things, such as

coaching, speaking and writing start offering their information for free, through blogs or

through practising coaching on the top of their full-time job. The transition between free and

paid can feel like a leap too far.

So, you overcome that hurdle and you’re earning good money. How far can you go? I

often ask women “what’s a seemly amount of money to be paid?”. There’s an unspoken and

unacknowledged threshold.

Money brings up so many emotions for people. When I shared how excited I was to be

paid $500 for a speech, I had a comment saying that I was being narcissistic and a show-off.

What would happen if I got paid thousands for a speech?

Ask yourself what you’re comfortable with and strive to stretch that boundary.

Time to grow up

I was very comfortable having a conversation around being a millionaire, but it terrified

me having a meeting with an accountant. Literally, I was terrified and sweaty.

I still have to force myself to pay my taxes, to remind myself that I have to put money

aside and not to spend all of my money like a teenager on clothes and shoes. But at least I

Lucky Bitch

can actually spend money on myself now! I have no more problem to spend money on

clothes.

An adult knows that she needs to spend her money wisely, have a good relationship with

her finances and also believes that’s it ok to earn money.

It’s a balancing act between the mindset and the practicality.

I believe to truly lucky wealthy women need both. The abundance mindset, to believe

that you are allowed and deserving to make a good living and if you wish, to be wealthy.

AND she needs the “big girl” responsibilities.

It’s not always about the money

In just two years I won over half a million dollars’ worth of travel, courses, tickets,

scholarships and home study programmes. But I still had debt and no money in the bank.

But it seemed that every time I wanted something, it would appear as if by magic.

I was frustrated that I couldn’t earn very much money. Finally I realised what was

happening. The Universe was giving me exactly what I was asking for, despite having such

huge money blocks. It’s because I was getting into the feeling of having these things in my

life, rather than the lack. I got excited about travel and going to seminars. I aligned them to

me and they were attracted to my energy. We were a vibrational match!

I didn’t want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, and I realised that I felt so incredibly

supported but I also felt like a pampered child, getting what I wanted but not experiencing

the “adult” place of being able to pay for things myself.

Finally I said out loud “Thank you so much Universe for bringing me what I want and

need. I appreciate being so looked after. I’m a big girl now and I’d like the opportunity to earn

some actual money, so I can pay for things too.”


After that, some amazing things started to happen. Clients started showing up and I

allowed myself to accept money for my work.

So, don’t think you always need physical money to show up. You may not even need to

be a millionaire to live the lifestyle you want to lead!

But money is nice too, so go out and get some you lucky lady!

Lucky Bitch

Exceptionally good health

I used to look at women who were naturally slim and vibrant and think “lucky bitch”

because I always struggled with my weight. But it was more than that. I felt sluggish,

unmotivated and I was always tired. I wanted to have the energy to do all the awesome

things I wanted to do but my body couldn’t keep up with my brain!

Good health is your birth-right. It’s about you living your best life, feeling healthy and

confident and knowing 100% that you deserve it. As usual, the difference between being an

effortlessly healthy person and someone who angsts about it usually comes down to how

you feel about yourself and what you think you deserve.

Here’s how to tip the odds in your favour:

Own your past

It’s time to understand what may be holding you back from the fantastic health you

crave, whether it’s better sleep or to look smoking hot in a bikini. To be able to clear the slate

and be effortlessly healthy, you need to get clear on where you’ve come from, identify why

you’ve failed or succeeded in the past and put that old story to rest.

Many women who struggle to lose weight feel like major failures, but this is not true.

When you take the time to analyse your past, you can see patterns that were holding you

back, some of which were completely out of your control.

Your first task is simply to write down your story. This is a really important exercise

because you can get really deep and dirty and describe your struggles in vivid and

compelling detail. It’s only for you, so you can get really on what has been holding you back

until now. You just need to be completely honest with yourself. You don’t have to share this

with anyone.

It may be crystal clear what your patterns are, or you may need to do some further

probing. If you have a sympathetic friend, telling it to someone else (if you are comfortable

about that) can usually uncover themes that you weren’t even aware of.

Diets don’t work

I just don’t believe that diets work – otherwise you wouldn’t hear so many horror

stories of women who have struggled for years through ridiculous things like the Atkins diet

or eating nothing but cabbage soup.


Being rich and famous doesn’t mean your diets will work – even if you have a private

chef and personal trainer. Even the Biggest Loser contestants struggle to maintain even an

average level of exercise and diet after they leave the show.

One of the world’s most famous “failed” dieters, Oprah Winfrey shares many stories

about times in her life when her eating was completely out of control. One day she was so

desperate for junk food that she threw some frozen buns in the oven and turned the heat up

high to cook them quickly. She was so impatient she ate them, burnt on the outside and

frozen on the inside and covered all over with maple syrup. This is a woman who is a

billionaire. She could hire someone to watch her 24/7 but she suffers from the same problem

as other women.

My idea of a fun treat was to go to all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut and you might think I’m

exaggerating but I could sit there for hours. I actually went there to celebrate my 26th

birthday! I absolutely loved pepperoni pizza – couldn’t get enough and I would eat and eat

and literally never feel full. I could eat much more than male friends, and would come out

with my stomach straining, but always feeling like I could fit in just one more piece;..

For my 28th birthday, I had afternoon tea at the Ritz Hotel in London. It’s a beautiful

and memorable experience that I would recommend to anyone. It’s also a fancy kind of all-

you-can-eat because the waiters top up your scones and sandwiches for as long as two

hours! Well, I just couldn’t stop. We were the last people left in the dining room and kept

taking more and more. I hobbled to the toilet and could barely peel off my Spanx!

Overeating until I was sick was a regular occurrence for me. I also had a serious

McDonald’s addiction, which I would hide from Mark and I’d also buy a packet of crisps to

eat on the way home.

Why the gluttony? I thought I just liked food and that I was greedy. But I know that I

ate to make myself feel numb and to deal with areas in my life where I felt uncomfortable,

such as work. My eating resembled a form of self-harm. Making myself fat also let me stay in

those situations because I didn’t have the energy to change it.

When I got clear on my past, I realised:

• I was numbing myself with food when I was stressed or worried

• I was using food as punishment or reward instead of self-nourishment

• I was staying fat to justify bad situations in my life

Lucky Bitch

• I beat myself up when I did something “bad”

Make a commitment to yourself

I can remember the day clearly when I decided that I was going to commit myself

fully to changing my health. Here’s what was going on for me at the time:

Physically, I was at my heaviest weight and I didn’t feel comfortable in myself. I didn’t

want to spend money on “fat clothes”, so I wore dull colours and second hand clothing. I was

stingy with myself to the point of embarrassment.

I had recurring problems with my knees and back, so I was going to the

physiotherapist all the time. I suffered from anxiety at work, which gave me itchy fits and

constant sweatiness and bad B.O. My skin was dull and my eyes were lifeless.

I had been hospitalised two and a half years earlier with pneumonia, and I still felt like

I was physically weak. I would get puffed out climbing stairs, and if I got a cold I was worried

that the pneumonia would come back. My body felt heavy and I knew I wasn’t healthy.

Energetically, I wasn’t great either. I constantly felt stressed and tired. Mark would try

and encourage me to exercise with him, but I couldn’t muster the energy. I just liked to lie

around reading on the weekend. Work was grinding me down and I found I was getting really

negative, constantly bitching and complaining about work and my colleagues.

Keep it simple

What really helped for me was forgiving myself for the mistakes of my past, forgiving

others so I could move on from pain and deciding that I was worth it.

I started eating lots of green salads and green smoothies every morning for

breakfast. I still do this now – just throw some spinach and fruit in a blender.

I started doing yoga which gave me peace of mind and the feeling I was doing

something that was stretching me physically and emotionally.

When I heard about rebounding (jumping on a mini trampoline), I thought it was too

good to be true. How can something that low impact give you good results? Anyway, I’m

fairly lazy, so I decided to buy one to see how I feel. It’s fun and a good stress release too.


Choose simple nourishing food

It’s as simple as that. Tell yourself there are no rules. You are the adult and YOU are

in control of what you are eating, maybe for the first time you can remember.

There are however, principles and choices. Principles can give you a new framework

of which foods will truly make your body sing. Then you have the right to choose to eat those

foods in whatever quantity you want. Principles of fresh, clean, unprocessed and organic

foods.

Each time you make a choice that nourishes your body; you are stepping closer to

your dreams. Every time you make a choice that harms or otherwise compromises your

health is stepping you further from your dream. That’s it. It doesn’t make your dream

disappear; it just means you should make your next choice a better one. That way, you are

moving in the right direction.

You may think that if you finally relaxed and had no rules about your food, you might

go crazy and eat everything in sight. Trust me, that won’t happen (well, maybe for a day!).

Puts yourself in charge of your health. The more simple, fresh and life-giving food

you can put into your body, the easier it becomes. When your body is nourished it stops

crying out for you to put more into it.

It’s more than your dress size

Of course, health is more than just pure weight. After all someone can look skinny

but be incredibly unhealthy on the inside. Think of the skinny models that smoke and eat

junk food. Eventually that will catch up with them, either in middle aged weight gain or some

serious disease like cancer.

In 2005 I had a serious bout of pneumonia, which led to me being in hospital for two

weeks. When I was discharged my clothes hung off me I had lost so much weight. My first

shopping trip out after hospital, I was enamoured with my skinny frame which is ridiculous

because I was still recovering from a serious illness – I could barely walk up stairs without

wheezing, my skin was pale and sallow and I had just spent two weeks eating hospital food

and junk food my friends smuggled into the hospital!

Lucky Bitch

Take care of the little things

Like most people, you probably have some niggling health problems you’ve been

ignoring. Some of them may be caused by your current diet, and others can be prevented

with a bit of self- care, exercise or long overdue professional attention.

• Go to the dentist for a check-up

• Get your cervical smear done on time

• Check out that dodgy back pain

• Buy some awesome running shoes

If there is something “wrong” with your body, don’t take it as a sign that you are not

“destined” to lose weight or there’s something wrong with you as a person. Don’t wait until

your knees are better, or your back doesn’t hurt so much to start changing your life. Use that

as a reason to get better and healthier.

Holistic health professionals know that the outside of your body can indicate the

health of the inside. They don’t just treat the symptoms, but look for the underlying cause.

In Gillian McKeith’s book, You Are What You Eat, she list symptoms that may be

linked to dietary deficiencies. For example – spots around your jaw may indicate a problem

in your kidney area, and excessive yawning and sighing (definitely what I used to do) can

mean that you are suffering from hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar). Not surprisingly, Gillian

recommends a diet that is mainly vegetable based with small amounts of grains and lean

meat.

Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life offers possible emotional reasons behind

health problems and gives affirmations which will help overcome blocks to healing your

body.

For example, under bowel problems, the probable cause could be fear of letting go of

the old and no longer needed. The healing affirmation is I freely and easily release the old

and joyously welcome the new.

Make an inventory of how things are working in your body right now. Don’t judge

anything emotionally, like thinking “too fat”, or “ugly”. Try and be objective as if you were a

doctor merely recording symptoms.


Is there something that you know you could be taking care of right now, but you are

resisting because of the time, money or other reasons involved in solving it?

You would never neglect an innocent child like you neglect yourself, would you?

By neglect, I mean all the things in your body that you ignore or put up with. My

physiotherapist says that he sees people who tell him they can’t raise their arm above their

head. When he asks how long it’s been going on they say “oh, about ten years”.

Now when something feels wrong I deal with it straight away. There’s usually a

practical reason – usually something I’m eating. It doesn’t mean I’m not worth it, or my body

is “resisting” weight loss.

Aligned yourself with good health

As I started taking better care of myself emotionally I started to eliminate some

physical problems too. It was a big realisation to me that I didn’t have to suffer.

“To me, good health is more than just exercise and diet.

It's really a point of view and a mental attitude you have about yourself.”

Angela Lansbury

This has got nothing to do with will power. What’s going on in your head can

completely sabotage your daily activities and make everything a mental tug of war that you

have to “fight” with the sheer force of will. Even if you are doing everything “right”, like eating

well with nourishing food and exercising your body, you can be totally tripped up by your

mind and heart being out of alignment with your desires. You have to be willing to grow and

change on an inner level for permanent change to happen. That’s why people can drastically

change their outward appearance temporarily on a crash diet but return back normal equally

quickly; nothing’s changed on the inside.

Think of the language we use. “I am fat”. We reduce our whole being to a substance

on our bodies. Fat in itself is not an enemy. It’s an essential part of our brain, regulates our

hormones and runs our whole body, but it’s become such an emotive issue for women. It

becomes who we are.

There’s no magic

My friend Amber lost a bunch of weight for her wedding (again, I was thinking lucky

bitch!), so I asked her what she did. Pretty simple really:

Lucky Bitch

“The biggest help for me to tell you the truth was to cut out bread for five days of the

week. I am still trying to do this now but am more relaxed about it. It made such a huge

difference to me. I felt more awake! Less bloated! Had more energy!

“I also started doing a bit more regular exercise - the best thing about it is I never

went to the gym. I started just going for a 10 minute walk every couple of days. Then thought

to myself, “Well that’s very easy - I'll add another 10 minutes.”

“I never did more than 30 minutes of walking/running (mostly walking) 5 days a week.

I would start off by running to get my heart rate up quickly then walk briskly to keep it at that

rate for the full 20-30 minutes.

“I would also supplement it with yoga in the mornings 2-3 days a week - again only

around 25 minutes. So really not a huge amount of exercise but enough that I was either

losing or maintaining my weight.

“One other major factor was to cut down my meal sizes. I managed to shrink my

appetite down in order not to need to eat too much in one sitting. Plus actually thinking about

eating and deciding how hungry I was on a scale of 1-10 and eating accordingly to that (this

is a Paul McKenna technique).”

Simple right? No luck involved, but regular consistent work. No angst necessary.

Release your fears

When I managed to lose weight, I struggled with fears around being thin. I was afraid

I would become vain and shallow, or get unwelcome attention from men. I could also blame

my health challenges on my weight, such as depression, anxiety and low motivation and

some sick part of me didn’t want to give that up.

It’s not surprising that I would frequently put the lost weight back on. Holding onto the

weight validated some of the excuses I used for not living my dream life. For example, I

could justify being depressed because I was overweight, and I could justify being overweight

because I was depressed! If Mark gently suggested going to the gym together, I would snap

at him “Can’t you see how down I am? I don’t have the energy to exercise! Are you saying

I’m fat?”

Have you ever been doing really well on a new diet and getting great results, and

then suddenly you are sabotaging yourself and feeling massive resistance about continuing?

This is incredibly common because all of a sudden you are in new territory, and you don’t


know how to act. If you don’t have a script for your new life, you’ll just revert to someone

else’s. Or you fear that you will, so it stops you from achieving your goals.

Let me explain – you might have a friend who is naturally slim, but you think she’s

really vain and obsessed with her looks. So you worry that you’ll be vain if you are slim. So,

it’s safer to stay the way you are. But that’s her script, not yours and you don’t have to repeat

it. This is an incredibly common phenomenon but we never recognise it. It’s easier to think

that we don’t have the will-power than it is to admit that we’re scared of what life will be like

when all our dreams come true. The fear of the unknown seems to be stronger than the

potential reward.

After all, if you’ve never felt slim, vibrant and healthy, how do you know how to act

when you get there? You might struggle with the identity of the new you. Who is she? What

does she like? How does she dress or behave in public? How does she deal with the new

attention from men?

You might fear that you’ll act differently, that your friends won’t like the new you,

some people might be jealous, or that in some way it will put your relationship in jeopardy.

Sometimes our scripts are dictated by other people’s expectations of us. Perhaps you’ve had

a friend say a negative comment to you when you thought you looked great, or you had a

boyfriend act jealous around other men. Maybe you yourself have acted badly in the past

and you decided that it was safer to be overweight than to “risk” it happening again.

You may worry that you’ll become a completely different person or that others will

view you negatively. A common fear is that you’ll have a lot of male attention that you can’t

handle and that you’ll even cheat on your new partner.

When you think about all your health goals coming true, what fears come up?

If I achieve this goal, I’m afraid that;..

What’s the very worst thing that could happen?

These fears are definitely real for you but if you focus on them, that’s what you will

get. You will be stuck living someone else’s script. The trick is to make your ideal life so

compelling that it’s exciting to think about that instead of the fears you have.

Be happy now

Lucky Bitch

You don’t have to wait until some perfect day in the future to get a manicure, or to

buy a fabulous pair of shoes. Some things don’t even cost money, like spending an extra 15

minutes on your makeup or hair each morning. If you can’t be bothered doing it now, what

makes you think that you will when you’re slim? Step into her shoes and make it real for you

NOW.

Remember this is a journey and a life-long process. There will never be a time when

everything is fixed and perfect because that doesn’t exist. You can choose to be happy in

each moment if you want to.

Making your dream of exceptional health so compelling, so irresistible that you feel

yourself living it more and more each day. The more you believe in the new exciting vision,

the more reality will feel like a temporary state and you will naturally start to act in the way

that nourishes your ideal self. Success breeds success and small but regular incremental

changes lead to permanent and long lasting transformation.

Extreme Self-Care Makeover

Self-care is not just about buying yourself flowers or going to the hairdresser but

treating yourself how you would treat others. This includes “forgiving” yourself for mistakes in

any area of your life. Imagine saying “you’re so stupid, you never get anything right” to a little

kid, or “you are so fat” to your mother.

“Getting my lifelong weight struggle under control has come from a process

of treating myself as well as I treat others in every way.”

Oprah Winfrey

I love spending time in solitude, sitting in a beautiful space – either at home or in a

park and just reading and enjoying the beauty around me. Being in nature makes me feel

good and healthy.

Sometimes when we are busy, fun things go out the window because we think we

don’t have time. When money is tight, we feel guilty about spending money on fun

experiences. The reason why it’s so important is that when we laugh and have fun – we feel

lighter and happier. This spills over into how we treat our bodies.

What do you like to do for fun?

When’s the last time you did any of these things?


What’s holding you back?

I officially give you permission to have fun. Be silly and do something just for the

sheer fun of it. You’ll feel better about yourself.

Don’t let budget issues hold you back from self-care. It’s usually a reflection of how

you treat yourself on the inside. I did a programme where I had to do a self-care activity

every day for 30 days and I was shocked how I was treating myself. Some days I would write

down “went for a walk” under self-care. Does that sound like a luxurious treat?

Does it make you feel special and relaxed when you are at home? Are you

surrounded by beautiful things? Does it support your vision for yourself?

Does your kitchen support your healthy lifestyle? Do you ensure that you have

healthy snacks around, or are your cupboards filled with junk food that will tempt you and

make you feel crappy later? Are there any appliances you no longer use, out of date food in

the cupboard or unhealthy junk food hidden in the freezer – get rid of it!

Declutter and let go

Do you watch extreme makeover – House Edition? Wouldn’t it be great to have

someone come in and start over? Just knock everything down and build you a new house?

Well, you can at least get rid of things that aren’t serving you. Some people are

hoarders or “pack rats”, but it’s extremely healthy to evaluate your possessions and throw

out anything that you don’t use or love anymore. Wouldn’t it be great if you only kept things

that you absolutely love? Who cares if you have hardly anything left, it gives you a great

place to start and sends a message to the universe that you don’t tolerate mediocrity

anymore!

Go through your wardrobe and revaluate. Do your clothes fit with the new vision you

have for yourself? Are you holding on to an outdated memory of yourself? Does anything not

fit anymore after a month of living more healthily? When I dropped a dress size, I was so

determined that I would never be that size again that I gave away all those size 14 clothes –

even the ones that I loved. Keeping a tiny cheerleading outfit is fine, if it’s packed away in

the attic as a keepsake and not staring at you in your wardrobe anymore!

It’s ok to change

Lucky Bitch

Give yourself permission to grow and change. Old habits might be starting to feel

strange, and this is the time where old friends who don’t serve you anymore don’t seem that

appealing to hang around with anymore. Places you used to go don’t seem as fun. Foods

that used to tempt you taste bland and make you feel sick.

There’s nothing wrong with growing and evolving past a time in your life. Usually

when there is a dramatic change, like leaving high school, lots of things and people change

all at once. Suddenly you might be feeling really different, but your friends, work and family

are all the same. It doesn’t matter, you can be their role model but you also have the

strength to give up the habits that don’t fit into your ideal life.

Some people at this point start to realise with all this new found confidence and

energy they could do things they never thought possible. Quit an unfulfilling job, take up a

new hobby, restart an old one or embark on a creative project.

Either way, you’re on your way to harnessing your full power and being the luckiest,

healthiest version of yourself. At every stage take it to the next level. You’re not only worth it,

it’s your destiny. It’s time.

Always act like you're wearing an invisible crown.

Author Unknown


Three Lucky Bitches

I’ve asked three very special women to share their stories of manifestation so you

can be inspired by their “luck” and general awesomeness!

Anna Rogers: Founder of Miss Eco Glam

www.MissEcoGlam.com

''I grew up being extremely negative as in one of the most negative people I and

others knew! I did not know how to be positive and saw only bad things happen to me,

blaming it all on other people and the world.

When I read the book 'The Secret' things began to turn around, almost overnight.

I also began to look at others, such as Denise for inspiration. I found her story so

amazing; especially with the travel competition and instead of being sickly jealous, I thought,

'Wow, I could do that too'! And that is how I began to manifest my own long term dream of

becoming a travel writer.

I literally attracted the right people to me, and the right opportunities, keeping my

thoughts positive and quite specific. One good thing led to another, and this year I have

been to Costa Rica on a 5 week all expenses paid trip visiting 10 resorts and retreats. To

say that it was a dream come true is an understatement, I still pinch myself now because

more of it is happening!

I have just been to Greece on a luxury cruise and am about to set off to visit Tahiti

and Thailand too - all in one entire year!

I really pictured myself being there and put up maps around my computer of where I

wanted to go and put screensavers on my computer that had the pictures of the places I

wanted to visit.

Whilst I was waiting for my story idea to be approved from the magazine, I just kept

focusing that it was going to come true, in fact, that it already was.

I have found that my true friends are happy for me, but many people don't comment

on how it all happened and in a way, I can understand why. When so many people are

struggling to find their way, and to create their own reality and dreams coming true, it is like a

kick in the face for them to see people seemingly get things easy.

Lucky Bitch

They are right; it is easy when you know how to create your dream life! I am a lucky

bitch? Yep, I am, and I am proud of it! But I am not some super woman, what I have done

can be done by anyone, I promise you that. I have gone from having a terribly sad life to

having one where I see massive changes happen very quickly, all because I know how to

use my thoughts. Anyone, and I do mean it, can do this if they know how!''

Emma MacDougall, Raw Food Scotland

Emma is “the go-to raw food pimp & pusher for sassy superheroes”

www.rawfoodscotland.com

Emma, you have such a cool life. Why are you such a lucky bitch?

I didn't used to be. What I've come to realise is that it's absolutely fundamentally

important that you choose the right mind-set. I discovered that when I chose to find one good

thing in every potential 'bad' situation that I started to feel a bit more happy.

The more positive I became about situations the more things just seemed to go my

way. Don't get me wrong, things still happen to test me and push me to what I think I'm

capable of dealing with in any given day but what's happened is that I'm able to accept the

situation much more quickly.

Before I used to try and argue with reality and stay in a negative frame of mind about

how crap something was. Once you 'man up' and say to yourself well, this is how it is and I

know if I look hard enough I'll find a positive in this situation then the universe just doesn't

seem like a bad place anymore. Things just seem to go easier!

So yes, mind-set is imperative! Positive mental attitude will change your life!

You seem to live your life in a really authentic way. How do other people

(family, friends, husband, etc) react to your choices?

A mixture of fear, awe, wonder, frustration and "oh my god, what's she doing now?"

I think that others can see my behaviour as selfish at times. I'm just really good at

figuring out what I want and going for it. And I do it very quickly. This can upset people that

either aren't sure what they want, don't know how to get it or are scared at the prospect of

going after it.


People will generally be supportive when they are comfortable with what they are

doing in their own life or if they know that what you're doing won't affect them. People that

are close to you like parents and husbands have more of a stake in what you're doing and

how it affects them so this can be tricky to negotiate.

I really firmly believe that you get one shot at life and you ought to pursue your

dreams. Sometimes people are happy to come along with you for the ride, sometimes

people aren't. The tricky bit is when you have to decide whether to forego some of the things

you want because you'd rather please someone else.

What's your best manifesting tip?

I'd say that vision boards work really well for me. I've had 5 since I 'discovered' them

2 years ago and everything has come to pass. I don't do the big massive things so much

because I'm more interested in the short-term, what I want for the next 12 months or so.

Keeping it focused on smaller things reaps quicker rewards that builds your manifesting

muscle and gives you confidence to go for bigger.

Also, I've written out my ideal day more times than I can remember. It's changed

since I first started doing it but that's because there's an element of getting what I want and

realising it's not actually making me as happy as I'd thought.

Also, writing a letter to Santa is a good one! Asking specifically for what I want...

Does eating a raw food diet contribute to your “superpowers”?

I think that it can certainly support it. I'd say that when I've lost myself in less healthy

cooked foods I do feel less focused and able to concentrate or feel. Feeling is so pivotal to

manifesting. If you can't feel the amazingness of what you're attempting to manifest it's much

harder to draw to you. When you're clogged up and feeling heavy and stodgy it doesn't work

as well. This is what I've found for myself.

I have however had some really amazing days without raw food, perhaps because

other aspects of my health were being supported.

Hard work, luck or a combination - what's your take on it?

I think I've worked hard on myself in terms of my self-development and I think that

that is pivotal for pursuing a life worth living. It's also an on-going process. Reading the stuff

is easy but putting it in to practice is more tricky.

Lucky Bitch

You must take action towards whatever it is you want to achieve, that doesn't need to

be hard work. Looking at it as a whole you'll see how far you've come but just taking small

steps each day doesn't feel that difficult to me.

Luck definitely comes when you're in your flow. Getting in to your flow can mean

doing the work on yourself and your physical health. Some days that has seemed very hard!!

And anything else you want to add, about luck or life in general?

I think that so many people seem to believe that it's not possible to get what they

want out of life. We're all set in these limited belief patterns. The biggest thing for me is when

I've said something to myself or someone else, asking whether it's actually true. What I've

found is a lot of my beliefs are things that I've picked up from others. Listen to the ones that

will tell you that it is possible to achieve a life of your dreams because they're actually doing

it. Surround yourself with these people and you'll change your beliefs! Don't listen to

negativity. Stop watching TV and reading negative stories in the press. Like I said, a positive

attitude is what will change your life. It doesn't mean you're not living in the real world, it just

means that you see things a bit differently.


My final wish for you

Life can be so unbelievably awesome when you just realise that YOU, yes YOU are

allowed to create it exactly how you want. You haven’t missed out and there’s plenty of time

for you to decide that life is going to be different.

I’m so excited for you!

Many people have asked me why I wear my yes necklace all the time; surely it

doesn’t have magical powers? Nope, but I do.

The magic powers are inside you. That’s the “Secret”.

No one personal development tool or ritual is going to give what you want. Yes, it will

be scary; yes it will be painful some days. No, it’s going to be perfect. YOU don’t need to be

perfect.

You just need to show up and say yes.

Say yes to an awesome, abundance, healthy, wealthy and audaciously lucky life.

You lucky bitch.

www.DeniseDuffieldThomas.com

P.S This is the first version of this book and so isn’t as sparkly as I would like to make

it yet. You’ll always get the most current version free of charge plus lots of awesome

bonuses goodies. Just go to www.LuckyBitchBook.com/bonus.html

About Denise Duffield-Thomas

Denise is an author, life coach and motivational speaker who helps women (and a

few cool guys) find the courage to create a truly amazing life.

Denise currently lives in Newcastle, Australia with her husband Mark (who’s such a

lucky bastard!)

Denise Duffield Thomas Lucky Bitch Book

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