Here’s the deal. The FTC requires that I disclose any “material connections” I have with the companies who provide products and services I endorse on this site. Long story shot, I’m obligated to let you know if I’ve made any money or gotten any comped (i.e., free) products or services from anything I mention on this site.

KEEP READING FOR THE PROSPERITY RETHINK

This is that disclosure.  And here is my list:

• Inman News
• HGTV’s FrontDoor.com
• the National Association of Home Builders
• Foreclosure.com
• Black Enterprise Magazine
• Uptown Magazine
• Quicken
• Amazon
• Angie’s List
• eList Grabber
• Real estate brokers and agents referred
• Mr. Internet/Online Dominance
• Publishers of some of the books I review (no pay, but on occasion I get review copies of the books)
• Hay House
• My FICO

Note – I fully intend for this list to grow. If your company is interested in getting on the list, let me know {but read to the end of this page first, pretty please}.

I’m not done, though – there’s a prosperity lesson in this moment.  First off, every one of these organizations and individuals rocks so extremely hard that I have been raving about them since the moment I heard about them (way before I became affiliated with them) and will continue to do so long after the FTC disclosure requirement is eliminated as unconstitutional.

Evangelizing about or working with a company you believe in does NOT have to connote bias or evil intentions – in my world, it indicates synergies and prosperous partnerships.

The list of companies that have approached me for an endorsement, recommendation or ad that I have declined to work with because I couldn’t do so with wholehearted enthusiasm is much longer than the list you see above. Note to rethinkers – true prosperity and authenticity often go hand-in-hand, contrary to popular belief.

More importantly, though, I have a big issue with the message the FTC disclosure policy sends. The word disclosure itself connotes a confession – you don’t normally disclose something good, right? It hints at an underlying belief that there is something inherently sinister, deceptive or evil about internet personalities, experts and bloggers getting paid or getting perks.

Many smart women trying to work through prosperity blocks and money issues have a similar, flawed belief that blocks them from manifesting their true value at work or in business – that there is something worthy or good about working for free, and something nasty or bad about getting paid for what you do.

So, it’s time for a rethink. I’m rethinking this FTC disclosure requirement from an obligation into an opportunity to challenge and obliterate this backwards belief. Not only is there nothing wrong with getting paid or getting perks, that’s the whole point.  My raison d’être is to raise the prosperity level of smart women – myself included!

I love this business with every ounce of my being, but it is a business – not a hobby. And the goal of a business is to make money. In a prosperous worldview, if I wasn’t making money with my business, that would be something worth of confessing or “disclosing.”

Living the prosperity way and conscious lifestyle design is declaring, creating, earning and demanding your value in the marketplace, ladies. And I want to model that for you.

So, I’m rethinking the FTC disclosure policy wholesale – in fact, I’m flipping this so-called disclosure into a declaration. I hereby declare that it is my intent to make money via this site and this movement, and to raise my own level of prosperity by facilitating a rise in your level of prosperity. I further declare my intention to have every single individual that reads this feel just this bold and unabashed about their own intention to prosper and thrive financially and otherwise.

In that spirit, I hereby make a permanent addendum to my disclosure policy, borrowed from webpreneur extraordinaire John Chow. I don’t yet make money in all the ways he lists here, but I aspire to, so I declare that declaring these aspirations in writing is my first step to manifesting them:

• I make money from every post I put on this blog. If I’m not making money from every blog post, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
• Every link on this blog is a paid link. If it is not a paid link, then it was an oversight on my part and it will become a paid link soon.
• Every product I write about on this blog, I get for free. If I didn’t get it for free, then there was a miss-communication with the company that sent it and I will be billing them for the cost so the product becomes free.
• I make money from every tweet I send out on Twitter. If I didn’t make money on the tweet, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
• If you email me, all of the information in your email is mine to do with as I please, such as exploit for financial profit, use as blackmail, or quote on my blog.
• The T-shirts you see me wear at trade shows. I get paid to wear them. If I didn’t get paid to wear them, then it means I ran out of paid shirts and had to wear a free one. In which case, I will go to the company that gave me the free shirt and ask them to sponsor it.
• If something on the Net is making a lot of money, you can bet I will be in on it. If I’m not in on it, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
• Just because I get paid to blog, tweet, wear T-shirts, etc. does NOT mean I will give you or your company a positive review, blog post or endorsement. As a matter of fact, chances are pretty high that I might slam you.

Enough said. Until I have another name to add to the list, that is.