I Stopped Manifesting

Before anyone knew his name, Jim Carrey was broke.

He was driving a beat-up car around Los Angeles, doing comedy clubs, getting nowhere. Some nights he'd drive up to the mountain and looked over the city that hadn't noticed him yet.

One of those nights, he pulled out his chequebook and wrote himself a cheque for $10 million.

In the memo line he wrote: for acting services rendered. He dated it Thanksgiving 1995. Then he folded it into his wallet and drove home. He kept it there for years, until the paper wore down and it was barely legible. And just before Thanksgiving 1995, he found out he was going to be paid $10 million for Dumb and Dumber.

You've seen this story.

It's on every second Instagram reel about manifestation. 📈

But it always stops right there. Cheque, wallet, miracle.

Nobody tells you about the years in the middle.

The comedy clubs where almost nobody showed up. The auditions he didn't get. The years of showing up to rooms that didn't want him, over and over, while that cheque quietly fell apart in his back pocket.

He wasn't waiting for the $10 million. He was working toward it every single day, with no evidence it was coming.

Years later, Oprah asked him about it. And his answer is the part that should be on the reels.

He said you can't just visualize and then go eat a sandwich.

That line stopped me. Because for a long time, I was eating the sandwich. 😮‍💨

I thought manifestation meant wanting something badly enough. Get clear on it. Believe it. Hold the picture in your head. And somehow, the thing would find its way to me.

It never once did.

Here's what I actually see now, every week.

People send me messages asking what I think about a duct cleaning business. A yoga studio. Getting licensed as a mortgage agent. Should they do it? Is it a good market? Can they do it as a side hustle? What kind of money do we make?

I answer when I can. But I've noticed something.

It's almost always the same people asking six months later. Different business. Same question. Nothing started.

The thinking feels like progress. That's the trap. Researching feels productive. Planning feels productive. Talking about it with your spouse for a year feels productive.

None of it moves you a single inch. 🧱

Which brings me to the thing people find strange.

I stopped reading business books.

Not forever - I have one rule. I don't pick up the next book until I've actually executed on something from the last one.

Because I was doing what a lot of us do. Finishing a book, feeling the rush, underlining the good parts, then buying another one. 10 books deep and my business hadn't changed at all. I was collecting instructions instead of following them.

The books weren't the problem. Reading them instead of doing the work was the problem.

The thing about manifestation is - the universe isn't listening to what you want. It's watching what you do. 🧭

Write the cheque if you want. Say the thing out loud. Put it on your mirror.

Then go do the work that makes the cheque cashable. 🤍

P.S. Hit reply and tell me honestly: what's the one thing you've been thinking about doing for over a year - and what's the smallest version of it you could start this week?

I read every reply, and your answers shape what I write next Sunday.