Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Thinkonomics
Deliberately change your self-talk and self-image from lack to worth and prosperity — reframing money and your own deserving — using spoken affirmation until the new self-concept holds.
Catch your lack-talk, drop the shame around wanting prosperity, and speak present-tense affirmations of worth and abundance daily until your self-image shifts — Ike’s “Thinkonomics.” Let the new self-concept show up in how you carry and speak of yourself. Then act on it. The words change you, not your bank balance directly, and your worth was never measured by what you have.
What it is
“Thinkonomics” was Reverend Ike’s coined name for his core doctrine: thought and self-image are the true engines of prosperity, so the work is to deliberately change how you talk to and about yourself — from lack, smallness, and unworthiness toward worth, deserving, and prosperity.
The practice is affirmation aimed squarely at the self-concept: replacing “I can’t / I’m broke / that’s not for people like me” with spoken declarations of value and abundance, and reframing your whole relationship to money.
His most provocative reframe inverted scripture: “ the lack of money is the root of all evil“ — a deliberate jolt meant to dislodge guilt and shame around wanting prosperity and to license a positive, deserving self-image.
Where the companion practice ike visualize your good works in pictures, this one works in words and identity.
The Method
- Catch the lack-talk. Notice the habitual inner speech of poverty, smallness, and “not for me.” Ike treated this self-talk as the actual cause of staying stuck (The Inner Creates the Outer/The Inner Creates the Outer).
- Reframe money and deserving. Adopt Ike’s permission-giving stance: wanting and having money is not shameful — “the lack of money is the root of all evil.” The reframe is meant to remove guilt, not to worship money.
- Affirm worth and prosperity aloud. Speak first-person, present-tense declarations of value and abundance — “I am worthy of good; prosperity is my natural state” — in his confident, declarative cadence.
- Repeat until it holds. Say it daily and use it to interrupt the old self-talk in real time, so repetition re-impresses the self-image (The Inner Creates the Outer, The Inner Creates the Outer).
- Carry the new self-image into bearing and speech. The point of Thinkonomics is that the changed self-concept shows up as confidence, posture, and how you speak to others, not as a private mantra.
Source & Lineage
Reverend Ike (Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II), “Science of Living” sermons and broadcasts; his coinage “Thinkonomics,” the inversion “the lack of money is the root of all evil,” and “you can’t lose with the stuff I use.” Sits in the New Thought affirmation line (Coué’s autosuggestion, Trine’s “realizing prosperity supply,” Holmes/Fox spoken-word treatment) and the positive-self-talk lineage running through Peale and into modern self-concept work.
Common refinements
Affirming as denial. “I am prosperous” while ignoring real debt is brittle. Pair the self-image work with honest budgeting and action.
- Worshipping money. Ike’s reframe is meant to remove shame, not to make money the highest good. Aim the new self-image at worth and agency, not greed.
- Mistaking words for outcomes. Repetition reshapes self-concept, not external conditions directly. Use it to fuel action, then act.
- Internalizing the blame flip. “I’m poor because I think wrong” is the toxic shadow of this teaching. Reframe self-worth upward without accepting that lack is your fault.