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Show notes

This week we’re talking to Bronni Hughes, financial journalist, blogger and professional deals hunter about manifesting and the thin line between being optimistic and goal oriented versus believing that you can daydream yourself rich.

We discussed:

• What is manifesting;

• “The Secret” and the “Law of Attraction”;

• Manifesting coaches and the claims they make for their offers;

• Victim blaming in Law of Attraction;

• The appeal of manifesting, especially for people facing systemic barriers to success;

• The good actions, traits and qualities that look like manifesting, but aren’t;

• Visualisation as a two-edged sword;

• Dr Laurie Santos’ podcast The Happiness Lab episode “Don’t Accentuate the Positive” and the story of Michael Phelps using negative visualisation to win the Beijing Olympics

• People whose jobs involve forecasting, preventing or responding to worst case scenarios;

• Law of Attraction and mental health issues;

• Thought-action fusion, manifesting, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder - Vice article;

• Toxic positivity and the need to process your real feelings;

• Law of Attraction discourages risk management and financial protection;

• A key evolutionary advantage of imagination is risk management, if manifesting really worked, we’d never have evolved thought;

• Non-manifesting ways to improve your finances

  • Don’t ignore the negative when it comes to your finances - face reality while also showing yourself compassion and being optimistic about the future;

  • Build an emergency fund in an easy access account;

  • The value of buying insurance and having the difficult conversations about what will happen to your money if you get sick or die;

• How trying to ignore a source of anxiety keeps you focused on it, whereas facing it allows you to let it go;

• Why you should be careful who you follow on social media because manifesting coaches seem very plausible and their sales pitches are relentless.

You can follow Bronni on Twitter and read her blogs Bronni.co.uk and Beauty Markdown.