Holiday Reads: Infinite Receiving by Suzy Ashworth
Manifest your dreams, plus a sidebar of vision boarding.
The final book in my holiday reading trilogy, but first…
A bit of background
The way I came to own a copy of this book and actually be reading it, is a tad convoluted…
… you didn’t think it was going to be straight-forward did you?
I first came across the concept of manifesting many years ago with the classic tomb ‘The Secret by Rhonda Byrne’, which I’m sure you’ve all read, or maybe just the successful business owners amongst you, as I’m 100% sure you all have.
Mr.D and I read it quite a few years ago and concluded that we pretty much thought like that anyway, at least about 95% of the time.
We both naturally have a positive mindset, always assuming things are going to go great when we start them. Why wouldn’t they?
And have swam through life in a sea of good fortune and empty parking spaces.
Don’t get me wrong, we are also relentless grafters, but why wouldn’t you put a shit ton of effort in when you know it’s going to turn out great? 😉
However, having read that book, it did not escape our notice that maybe we were successful because we thought like that naturally, both agreeing that a positive mindset is a massive advantage in life.
Then probably 10 years later I stumbled upon ‘Manifest by Roxie Nafousi’, she was a guest on a podcast and went into some detail about vision boards.
As a graphic artist, I was all over the concept of a vision board, this seemed like fun and I appreciated that if you keep things front and centre of your mind, you naturally move towards them, if only to prove that this vision board nonsense really works.
The thing about all of this, is we all REALLY want it to work. This is surely the easiest way to get anything, just create a collage of all the things you want and wait.
“What a piece of piss”, some might say.
So I bought the audio book, gardened my way through it, cranked up Adobe InDesign and put together a beautiful vision board, containing two major things that I wanted to happen, and three major things that I was more than happy with and wanted to stay the same.
This was about June 2023, so that vision board was for the next six months, i.e. I wanted it to come true by the end of the year.
Here’s where it gets interesting… because it all came true!
The heftiest item on that board was the sale of my last company, which I’m sure anyone would agree, is a big ask.
That was ‘top left’, pole position, of all the things I wanted to happen.
It happened.
As did all the other things.
So you can imagine, my believe in the concept of vision boards, went up a notch.
I intended to make another one for 2024, but in my Gap Year whirl of nothingness it never made it past the post-it note stage sadly, so none of the things that I would have put on it came true.
They remained on the post-it, making me feel guilty at not giving them a place to shine.
I was still exploring the concept of manifesting when I happened upon Suzy Ashworth’s podcast1 in early 2024.
She would start each one with a super-annoying five minute pitch for the above book… which she was giving away for free.
Well, sort of free, obviously I had to pay the disproportionately high postage and packing costs, but that doesn’t count, does it? 😂
So the book arrived, I glanced at the back, and nearly died laughing when she describes herself as a:
Quantum Transformation and Embodiment Coach for conscious entrepreneurs.
And swiftly filed it on my bookshelf in the ‘load of bollox’ section.
Seriously?
What about all those unconscious entrepreneurs, surely they need your quantum transformation skills too Suzy?
I love a creative job title, but this really did take the biscuit.
Book forgotten.
One year on… I started January 2025 full of energy and intentions, ‘saved as’ my 2023 vision board and updated it for this year.
Coincidentally, Paul McKenna was a guest on a radio show around that time talking about his latest book ‘Power Manifesting’.
I’m a fan of Paul McKenna, I think he has gravitas in his field and am happy to listen to what he has to say on the subject, so I downloaded the audio book and gardened my way through it.
I must admit most of the theories I had heard before, but one very clever trick which I thought was worth a go is this…
Put real calendar events in your diary for the stages of the thing that you want to manifest.
For example, if your goal was to ‘get your dream job’, you might put a calendar event in February for the interview, then one in March for the 2nd interview/stage, then a later one for the job offer and a final one to mark your first day at work.
This was a shiny new concept to me, and I could appreciate that real calendar events would keep that dream front and centre of mind so it could only help the situation.
And wouldn’t it be beyond funny if it happened on or near that date!
Another huge advantage to all of this, is that it costs nothing to add a few items into your digital calendar, so why wouldn’t I give it a go?
I would, and I did.
Once again, the (top left, pole position) thing that I would dearly love to happen later on this year, is a REALLY BIG UNLIKELY THING (RBUT), a pipe dream if you like.
But if it costs me nothing to perhaps help it along, I’m in.
Around February, the strangest thing happened…
… you guessed it… occurrences related to the RBUT actually started to appear!
Bloody hell!
For realises?
Yep!
The first calendar item related to it, was for the last day of March… when I was now going to be on holiday.
So when I looked at my bookshelf for a pre-holiday browse, that shiny gold lettering grabbed my attention.
“Come on Suzy, you’re coming with me, but if you try and upsell me anything along the way, we’re really going to fall out. Get in the suitcase.”
I’ve always been one to put the effort in, where effort is required, so why not this.
Although reading on a tropical beach isn’t much like effort, I thought it might at least focus my attention towards that goal, if nothing else.
So when poor old Julia Cameron’s second divorce loomed into view, I needed some light relief, and Suzy made it to the beach.
Suzy’s aim is to wrap her readers in her relentless positivity, warmth and encouragement, however if your starting point isn’t that you hate yourself and you’re in the gutter, a lot of it isn’t too relevant.
To summarise, the over-arching premise of this book is:
FAITH + ACTION = MIRACLES
Suzy delivers this life-changing wonder of an equation as if she's letting you into the secret of life itself.
I couldn’t help but be slightly less excited about this discovery, as essentially it boils down to:
Belief in getting off your arse and doing stuff = results
I’m sure many a laundry basket has been emptied using this steadfast philosophy, and no doubt we are en route to curing cancer because of it too.
I.e. is it not just obvious?
How many of you have ever accomplished anything by doing absolutely nothing?
No?
Thought not.
Even a Vision Board requires an amount of effort. 😂
In summary
I’m sure she means well, and perhaps this book can help people who don’t have a positive mindset to start with, but luckily that’s not me.
If you quite like the idea of having a relentlessly upbeat cheerleader coaching you through your next steps, then please let me know, and I will happily post this book to you, so you can give it a whirl! First come first served.
Interestingly, this book’s presence on my holiday, did however do it’s job in keeping the RBUT at the forefront of my mind… and low and behold it moved on to stage two just after we arrived back, which just goes to prove that:
Faith + Relaxation = A Christmas Miracle!
I will keep you updated later in the year, if it does reach fruition (and reveal what it was), and if it doesn’t, we shall never speak of it again.
Keep the faith chaps!
K8x
Join in the comments below:
Have you tried a vision board?
Will you be putting some extra diary entries in for things that you hope will happen?
Have you ever achieved anything, other than a giant shit, by sitting on your arse?
Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, it really helps others find it.
I would highly recommend one episode of her podcast though, with the guest Chesney Hawkes, in amongst the chat he tells the story of his ‘near plane crash’ experience, which is absolutely terrifying! Instead of remaining cool in a crisis, one of the Air Stewards really started losing her shit, saying they were all going to die and started throwing mini bottles of gin around the cabin. You couldn’t make it up, incredible true story!
https://suzyashworth.com/when-suzy-met-the-one-and-only-chesney-hawkes/
Great post, amusing 😂 to answer your prompt, I recently browsed through my old files on Pages and came across my first-ever vision board, which I set to come true on 6/10/2017 — so specific, I know. Not much of it came into ‘reality’, but then again, many much better events took place 😂 I love the idea of vision boards so later on, you can recollect what you once thought you wanted 😂