It only comes around once a year and we think it’s for the kids. But it’s for you too, and no, I’m not joking. Because if you think about it, Halloween is a great tool to empower your life.

I know you think it’s all about groveling at your neighbor’s porch for free candy. That, and lugging around those orange Jack O’Lantern shaped buckets. But it can be far more than that if you break it down.

What’s Halloween Really About?

It’s about performing. A short little performance repeated over and over throughout the night. You wear a costume, perform a little theater, and create an illusion that you’re something you’re not. You attempt to surprise and delight your neighbors.

Yes, the bar is set really low. All you have to do is show up, in any excuse for a costume, and utter the magic words: Trick Or Treat! Then, unless you’ve done something unseemly or inappropriate, you get paid. Right on the spot. No questions asked.

Halloween Is About Getting Paid For Performing

That’s what Halloween really is. A chance to get out there and perform. For payment. In the form of tasty little high fructose laden treats. That you get to take home and savor.

Kind of like any other payment for services rendered.

Therefore, it’s useful to think of Halloween as a chance to improve your performance for pay on every other day of your life.

Be Something You’re Not

Halloween empowers us to become something we’re not. One night a year, we get to pretend to be anything we want. This is a powerful act. Because deep down, we all want this in some way or another. To be different than we are – stronger, smarter, sexier, thinner – we all yearn to be something we currently are not.

So, on every other day, just like you do on Halloween, dress the part and act like the person you want to become. Don’t just wish it, be it. Put on the costume of the successful person you want to be.

Don’t head to the gym in floppy sweats. Throw on that muscle shirt or squeeze into those Lycra tights. It doesn’t matter that your muffin top has a muffin top, or that you have to put on an extra pair of Spanx just to get into those tights. None of that matters.

If you walk around in the clothes of a fit person, you will start to think and feel like a fit person. Then you will start to act like one. Leave the workout clothes on when you get home, and you’ll eat like a fit person too.

Pretend to be that to which you aspire, and soon enough you will be.

Put On A Show

Realize that whenever you enter a room or make a phone call, you’re about to perform. Just like when you’re on your neighbor’s porch on Halloween. It’s showtime, so rock the stage.

Project your charisma with every personal encounter. Be original, unique, thought-provoking, or even plain old provoking. The better the show, the more candy you get.

Give everyone your best performance. Think it through in advance, mentally rehearse it, then treat that encounter like a performance you’re getting paid for.

Because it is. And you are. Just in a little less direct a way as on Halloween night.

Oh, and put some style into those voicemail messages. Make that person rush to call you back because your message is so compelling and your tone so engaging.

If you treat every interaction as a performance, you will attract more and better into your life.

Raise The Bar

The bar is low for Halloween because it wouldn’t be cool to deny kids candy when their costumes are lame. But you don’t need to lower your performance to where the bar is set.

Let’s face it, kids with killer costumes get more candy. Even when we want to be fair to all the kids, we can’t help but give a little more to the kids who go above and beyond to surprise and delight us.

The same is true for adults who go above and beyond. They get rewarded in lots of ways – raises, promotions, new opportunities. bigger discounts and better-looking dates.

So realize that you’re on stage at all times. Whenever there are people (or security cameras) around, you are performing for an audience. Then consider whether you should play down to the bar, or raise it. Just because other people go through the motions, it doesn’t mean you should too. There’s lots of candy at stake here.

Knock on that door, take a little step back, and a big deep breath. Then when that door opens, dazzle them with your show. And if their Treat isn’t up to the quality of your performance, take your act to the next door. You can always come later with a Trick…