How I Manifested a Mac Book Pro For Free

I won a free Mac Book Pro this week.

Big deal, good for me, right?

Well, I wanted to share the process of how I managed to manifest this laptop for free as I think my experiment might help others to manifest the things they want in life.

It all started about three months ago when I had this thought that maybe it would be cool to get a Mac.

I’ve never had a Mac before, I’ve always used PC’s, but in the last couple of years I’ve been hearing everyone saying good things about their Macs so I started to really think about getting one to see what all the “hooplah” is about.

The Experiment Starts

However, since I work from home and don’t do much traveling right now, I don’t really even use my regular laptop very much so I just couldn’t justify spending $2,500 on another laptop.

So I decided to find a way to manifest one for free instead.

I thought it would be fun to try to find a way to get one for free somehow, so I did the first thing you should do when you want to manifest something in your life:

Decide What You Want and Set an Intention To Get What You Want

That is exactly what I did.  I know it may sound simplistic, but you need to actually decide what you want.  And you have to be specific.  I decided and I  set my initial intention to get a Free Mac Book Pro.

Some of you may remember back in May of this year I had this banner ad appearing on my Blog:

I created this banner a couple of days after making my decision that I wanted my Free Mac Book Pro.

This is something that I also like to do after setting my intention.  I’ll write about it in my journal and I’ll share it with certain people that I know aren’t going to “poo poo” all over me with their negativity.

I really like working with Amped Media so I figured maybe there’s some way I could coerce them to send me a Free Mac Book Pro. 

That was really the end of the first step.  I decided what I wanted, I wrote about it in my journal, and I “publicly” announced it in a way by putting up a banner about it on my Blog.

However, I still really had no reason why I wanted one.  As I mentioned above, I don’t do a lot of traveling right now so I don’t really use laptops.  I have my main PC with dual screens and I use that every day to do my work.

Then a few weeks later, on June 11th, Tyler Cruz won a Free MacBook Pro package in a contest.

I was kind of pissed because I didn’t even hear about the contest, otherwise I would have entered myself.

The contest was held by the Tracking202 guys and I use their products and stuff so I couldn’t figure out why I never even heard of their contest.  Usually when I set an intention to get something, I’m really good at attracting the right opportunities to manifest that intention.

But in this case, the opportunity flew right under my radar.  I probably even saw advertising for that competition but my brain totally filtered it out.

I actually wasn’t disappointed that I didn’t win, I was disappointed that I didn’t even hear about the opportunity.

Then I realized I made a very common Law of Attraction mistake:

Don’t Limit Yourself By Trying to Control The How

I realized that my banner ad inadvertently was setting an intention to “Get a Free MacBook Pro from Amped Media Only” and not just “Get a Free MacBook Pro”.  I’m convinced this is why my brain filtered out that Tracking202 contest.  It didn’t match the intention I set.

By creating that banner, I was basically telling the universe that not only do I want a MacBook Pro for free, I was also telling it where I want it to come from!

Like I said, I like Amped Media, but I realized that I don’t care where the free laptop comes from.  So why limit myself, right?  So, I got rid of any mention of the MacBook Pro from my banner.

Very shortly after winning the competition, Tyler started telling me all the cool things he was doing with his MacBook Pro.

I especially liked the video editing he was starting to do for his Blog videos.  Talking to him started to get me more excited about getting a MacBook Pro myself.

This brings me to the next step in the process after deciding what you want, setting an intention to get it, and removing self-imposed blocks as to how you get it:

Have a Strong Enough Why

Upon launching my new Blog ( RCCarBasher.com ), I immediately knew that video is going to be a really big part of that Blog.

So I started playing around with some of the Windows based video editing software packages and they all drove me nuts.

I tried a bunch, but I didn’t really like any of them.  Some of the simple ones didn’t do what I wanted them to do, but the hardcore ones like Adobe Premiere were way too complicated for what I wanted.

I started to look at all the videos that people put together for all the Internet launches, and I realized that pretty much everyone is using a Mac to edit their videos.

Now I had my WHY.  I now wanted to get a MacBook Pro because I wanted to use it for video editing of all the videos I want to start doing on my blogs, especially my RCCarBasher.com Blog.

I shared this with Tyler and he asked me why I wasn’t competing in the competitions he’s running on his Publisher Challenge site.

To be honest up until then I didn’t even realize he had competitions up there where someone at my affiliate level could win a MacBook Pro.

I used to compete in his competitions when he first started doing them but after a while there were always a few super affiliates doing massive volume and winning the top prizes so I stopped trying to compete.

Pay Attention to Opportunities

Finding out about the Publisher Challenge competitions presented me with an opportunity to try to compete for a free laptop.

There was actually one competition that was running in July, which had a 13″ MacBook as one of the prizes, but I didn’t actually hear about it until I think 3 days before the competition was over.

I decided to try competing anyways, but I didn’t end up winning any of the prizes.  A few days just wasn’t enough time to get any real traction on any campaigns or to try to compete with the other affiliates who had a whole month to compete.

There was, however, a second competition that was on Publisher Challenge sponsored by Peerfly Affiliate Network that ran for 60 days starting in July.  As of August 1st, other affiliates had a 30 day lead on me but I still had another 30 days to try to compete with them.

This is where something interesting happened.  I didn’t start competing.

For two weeks I kept getting distracted and sidetracked and didn’t do anything towards the competition.  This leads me to the next thing that may happen to you:

Expect to Get Distracted if You’re Not Fully Committed

Things come up.  Life gets in the way.  You get busy with “stuff” and that’s exactly what I did for two weeks!  I kept thinking about the competition but I wasn’t taking any action towards winning.

Finally on Aug 14th I knew I had to make a decision.  Commit to winning this laptop and do whatever is necessary to win it, or stop thinking about it.

I decided to commit myself to winning, and I began to take action.  That’s the next step:

Commit to Getting What You Want

Here’s an excerpt from an MSN chat I had with Tyler that day (Aug 14th):

Tyler: I see you made a sale on Peerfly.  You can climb into the top 5 still.  Hell you could win the f*&#ing TV if you tried.
Paul: I plan on it.

He’s saying “TV” because that was the top prize in the competition.  By that time I had already spoken with Peerfly and they agreed to substitute the top prize for cash I could use towards a MacBook Pro instead of the TV.

Then on Aug 17th:

Tyler: You’re not doing well today.  2114 is gaining ahead, and 787.
Paul: Whatever, all I can do is earn as much as I can… what the other guys do is beyond my control… so I’m not going to worry about it.

August 17th was a crappy day for me in terms of earning and 2114 (another competitor) had a phenomenal day.  Either way I didn’t care because I know I can’t control someone else.

Then on Aug 18th:

Tyler: You’re beating 2114 today!  He pushed hard yesterday though, did like $550.
Paul: Sweet!  I’m only like $8 away from beating “S” for #3 spot too.

By the end of that day (Aug 18th) I secured third place:

Tyler: You’re in 3rd now.
Paul: Nice!   3 – IMM – $1,404.00.  Closing in on “787″, only $631.80 to go
Tyler: Yeah.  It will be a battle with 2114 though.  You only have 13 days left.
Paul: Yes… But I will win…  I’ve seen it in my mind… so it will happen.

There’s a hint there.  Guess what I was doing all along?  Visualization!   I visualized winning the contest and having the MacBook Pro in my hands long before even hitting the #3 spot.

Here’s another hint for you guys…look at this conversation on Aug 26th:

Tyler: Did you see next months contest?
Paul: Briefly, but I’m first focusing on this one.
Tyler: Ok Tony.
Paul: I don’t want to get distracted.   I thought I was Bobby Flay?

I was literally TOTALLY focused on this contest.  Visualization, checking my stats all day long, on my computer and on my iPhone when I was out of the house.

Ask my wife, I was driving her nuts.  I wouldn’t shut up about this laptop I’m going to win.

When Tyler calls me “Tony” he’s referring to Tony Robbins, and when I mention Bobby Flay, I’m referring to Tyler’s Blogger Celebrity Lookalike Post where he claims I look like Bobby Flay.

Now, was it all downhill for me?  No way… this is the next thing I want to mention:

Don’t Expect a Flawless, Perfect Flightpath

As any pilot can attest to, an airplane flying from point A to point B is almost always “off course”.  It’s impossible for the plane to be on the exact flightpath.  The pilots are always making adjustments and corrections to get back on course.

As my wife can attest to, I ran into some major obstacles during this contest.

My biggest competitor (2114) had some HUGE days where he totally blew me out of the water and he was already thousands of dollars ahead of me in the competition before I even started playing.

Because I was in a rush to launch new offers, and test new traffic sources, I made some mistakes which cost me some money and conversion losses.

For one, I accidentally set my Yahoo daily account and campaign limit way too high and got a one day spike on traffic (over $500 worth in one day!), which led Yahoo to pre-charge my credit card for 3 days worth of future traffic ($1,500!) even though I don’t normally do anywhere near that amount of volume with them.  I had no idea they do that as Google charges you after, not before.

That tied up some credit card room which I was intending to use to pay my Google account bill, which led to Google pausing my account while they waited for payment.  So for a few days during the challenge I had $0 earnings while my biggest competitor was having big days!  This of course had to happen right after I had just paid all my personal bills and didn’t have a lot of cash laying around to pay the Google bill.

I had a whole bunch of obstacles thrown my way during this two week period, but I just kept rolling with the punches and kept focusing on getting this MacBook Pro I visualized.

It’s not that the amount I had to earn to win was massive, but it was just that everything kept going wrong… almost like my commitment was being tested.

It actually got to the point where it wasn’t even about the MacBook Pro anymore.  I became obsessed with winning this contest because I knew that all these challenges I was running into were being created by my own limiting beliefs, and if I didn’t push past them in this competition, they would continue to plague me in my business long after this contest was over.

This leads me to the next thing:

When Everything Seems to be Going Wrong, You’re Much Closer Than You Think

Some of you may know what I’m talking about.  You set a goal to achieve something and you get to this place where it almost seems like the whole Universe is stacked against you, and you just want to scream:

“Why the hell is this so difficult!?  This shouldn’t be THIS HARD!?”

When you’re at that point, you’re now ready to face your limiting beliefs.  Ask yourself  “Why am I creating this experience?  What am I afraid of?”

I did some self reflection and I found my reasons/limiting beliefs.  Then I did some clearing work to get rid of these limiting beliefs.

Once I did that, things started flowing again, and I felt totally different.  Now I wasn’t so obsessed with winning the laptop anymore.

I still wanted to win it, but it’s like I knew that overcoming my limiting beliefs was the best prize of all, so it didn’t really matter if I won the laptop anymore.

Well, I shouldn’t say it didn’t matter… but lets just say I wasn’t as obsessed with it anymore.  I was still committed though, and I kept watching my stats all the way until the last minute of the contest.

Here’s my message to Tyler 4 minutes after the contest ended:

Paul: 9:04pm – Look like I got #1 spot.  Yaay!
Tyler: Yup.  Congrats, you earned it.

So what do you do once you achieve your goal?

Make sure you celebrate!

After I picked up my laptop, I went out for all you can eat sushi with my wife.  Make sure you acknowledge the fact that you accomplished your goal and write about it in your journal if you keep one.

I actually like to do a recap in my journal of the events that transpired, any synchronicities I experienced, limiting beliefs I overcame and things I learned.

Don’t Forget Gratitude

Take the time to express gratitude as well.

I want to take a second now to thank Tyler Cruz for hosting this contest on Publisher Challenge, and Chad from Peerfly for sponsoring the contest and having the patience to work with me to find some good offers for me to run on his network.

My First MacBook Pro Video

This morning I decided to go pickup some lunch, and I saw my flip video sitting on my desk so I decided to take it along for the ride.

I shot a video where I talk about the process I went through to win this laptop and thought I’d put it up for you guys to watch.  I cover a lot of what I wrote about already here in this article, but as Tony Robbins says “Repetition is the mother of all learning.” so hope it helps you guys out.

I must warn you though, this is the first video I’ve done of this kind.  The camera angle is horrible as I had no way to really mount it in proper place, so you’re going to be looking at the top of my head throughout the video.  I also haven’t shaved for a few days (like any full time affiliate marketers shave!), and my hair looks like I just woke up… and that’s because I did pretty much just wake up before lunch.

This video is also way too long (30mins).  I really need to learn to make shorter videos, hehe.  Tell me what you guys think.

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