Read By Millionaires

The 7 Top Ways Millionaires Become Wealthy by Steven Mattos

2009-05-31T08:21:00.001-07:00

There are 7 common factors to those who build net fortunes of one million dollars or more. In America, there has never been more personal wealth than there is today; yet most American’s are not wealthy. Amazingly, a mere 3.5% of our households own almost one-half of the wealth in the United States! Although we may be hard working, educated, moderate to high-income earners, why are so few of us affluent?

In studying the affluent, I found a pattern that the wealthy follow. It is more often the result of planning, hard work, perseverance, and self-discipline that determines who become wealthy. The factors compiled here are summarized from the research done by Thomas Stanley Ph.D. on over 1100 actual millionaires (many are multi-millionaires) in the U.S. today.

1) Live Well Below Your Means

Don’t be fooled. The ‘average’ millionaire doesn’t look like a millionaire! The key word here is frugal, frugal, and frugal. The typical person is America is a consumptionist. It’s in our blood. We work hard, make money, and spend it well. Not the typical millionaire! They play great defense (saving and investing) as well as offense (making money). Just like in football – great offense is exciting…but great defense wins games. An interesting note: Millionaires on average claimed their spouses were as frugal or more than they were. It’s a family affair: Sacrifice high consumption today, for financial freedom tomorrow.

2) Spend Your Time, Energy, and Money in Ways that Build Wealth.

Although the road to Millionaire’s Ville takes a frugal path, they pay well for training and advice. Do investment planning. Go to seminars. Hire good attorneys, tax accountants, mentors and coaches. Learn to identify and invest in assets that produce income. The wealthy spend money when the investment will protect and grow their assets. Millionaires also know the details: How much is spent each month and on food, clothing, and shelter. The non-wealthy say they don’t have time to plan, while the wealthy make time to plan. But here’s the shocker: The average millionaire spends 8.5 hours per month planning, while the non-affluent spend 4.5 hours or less planning. How can 4 more hours per week impact your future? Make it happen and the odds are in your favor of joining the truly wealthy!

3) Choose Financial Independence over Displaying High Social Status

The wealthy run highly efficient operations both in business and at home. Most live in average neighborhoods, and drive average cars. They’re not interested in keeping up with the Jones’ – because the Jones’ aren’t financially free. It takes lots of energy to consume big mortgages, change homes every few years, buy the most recent model cars, and wear the latest fashions. The wealthy drive typically American made cars! Japanese cars come in 2nd place; half of these are Toyota Camrys. Yes, significant value per dollar is the key here. The Millionaire’s Motto: You aren’t what you drive. The status cars – Lexus, BMW’s, Mercedes? At 6.4% or less per each brand.

4) Don’t Accept Economic Support from Your Parents once Outside the Home

Sounds painful doesn’t it? It’s a fact that has taught the wealthy how to earn, keep, and invest money. Parents of the wealthy do not, or cannot, provide “economic outpatient care”. The results are clear: The more dollars the adult children receive, the fewer they accumulate. Those who are given less are motivated to accumulate more on their own merits. An amazing fact: 80% of millionaires are first generation millionaires; they have made their money on their own, in their lifetime. Many of these folks have been immigrants to the U.S., starting out with minimal cash on hand. Work hard to learn and generate wealth—it CAN be done, and happens in America every day.

5) Teach your children to be economically self-sufficient to foster a “Wealth Mind-Set”

Provide your children fish and they will eat for a day. Teach them to fish and they will eat for a lifetime. As you might guess, children who grew up to be affluent, who had affluent parents, were taught to be disciplined and intentional with their money. Robert Kyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, didn’t cave in when his son asked for a car at 16 years old, even when the neighbor kids were being given cars by their parents. He gave his son $3000, and a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, and a few books on investing in the stock market. Now Rich Dad’s son watches more CNN than MTV. He has the motivation, and is getting an education that will provide him for a lifetime, well beyond his first car purchase.

6) Become Proficient in Targeting Market Opportunities

Find your niche, like the wealthy do. Follow where the money flows, and look for specialized opportunities. Why not target the wealthy themselves? Yes, they are frugal, especially first generation self-made wealthy. BUT…they spend openly on investing in themselves and their families. Investment advice and services, business training, software, tax advice, legal, medical, dental, health, real estate, and education are top priorities. They pay well for products and services that protect and grow their assets. Remember the majority of the wealthy are self-employed entrepreneurs. Followed by medical professionals and business executives.

7) Choose the Right Occupation

You now have a good idea of what the affluent do. 20% are retirees. Of the remaining 80%, most of these are self-made businessmen and women. Keep in mind that entrepreneurs are 4 times more likely to become millionaires than those who work for others. There is no one business, or group of business more likely to breed millionaire-hood. Some are lecturers, others medical professionals, farmers, small manufacturers, and corner mom and pop stores. The most important predictor is the characteristics of the owner, than the type of business. It’s the winning combination of skills and attitude that hit’s the wealth target.

NOTE: The affluent attribute being honest with all people as the most important characteristic in their businesses, tied with being well disciplined. The vast majority of the wealthy were not stellar students, or born into money. They have made it through following a few simple principles and being consistent.

Best of all, you can do these! For more information, participate in Steve's LIVE workshops from your home or office. Curious about how that's possible? See the link below.

Author's Bio
Steven enjoys writing and teaching others on the special topics of wealth, health, and human potential. Steve left a lucrative career in biotechnology in 2000 to fully pursue his passions. Now he writes, trains, and coaches full time in San Jose, CA. If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy Steve's tele-classes at:

http://www.teleclassinternational.com/catalog.phtml?keywords=info01

The Power Of Giving

2008-04-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

By Karim Hajee
Author of Creating Power

Ever notice that those who are truly very wealthy and successful are always involved in charities? Many of them are not just writing checks and dolling out cash to the first charity that comes knocking. I mean they are truly involved with charities and they do this by giving their time, money, energy, setting up trusts, and getting involved in events.
They really go the distance for a charity their involved with. I know some of you might say:
"Well, if I had that kind of money - I'd be giving to charity too. I'd have the time to get involved in charities." But guess what - many of the most successful people got involved with charities long before they were rich and successful. And - just because your rich and successful doesn't mean you have a lot of time on your hands. Instead - many of the most successful and wealthiest people - have to make time
for the charity that their involved with.

There is tremendous power that comes with the act of giving - and I'll explain how this power is created and how it works. So in this week's newsletter I'm going to talk about
the power of giving. I'll show you how giving can provide dividends you never thought possible - and why giving doesn't have to involve your wallet.
Read on and discover the power of giving.

This newsletter is brought to you by Creating Power - the complete system that teaches you how to achieve your goals and live the life you want by working with the power of your mind and subconscious mind. Creating Power shows you how to accomplish goals you never
thought possible. To learn more visit: www.CreatingPower.com

Understanding The Power Of Giving

The power of giving comes from a selfless act - where you simply give from your heart. This act of giving is not tied to any special event, holiday or celebration - it is merely a time when you give from the heart because you want to share what you have, show your appreciation and give because you truly care. There should not be any other motive
behind it. You don't give so that you can get something in return.

When you give simply from the heart you are saying to the universe, your higher power is that you truly care and want to share what you have. You also say that you don't care if you don't get anything in return, you don't care if no one notices or if no one thanks you. After all that's not why you are doing it. When you do this - the response that you
get can be quite overwhelming. It will be as though a thousand hands came to help you even when you didn't ask for help. Things start to fall into place - because those who give from the heart - will get a thousand times the amount that they give.

Remember - I said that you give from the heart. You don't give with the expectation of getting something in return. You can give with the thought that you are sharing - that you are giving because you have so much. You are giving because you know and trust that you will always have what you want so you can afford to give something even before you
receive what you seek.

This mere act of giving from the heart and with the full knowledge that you have plenty and with the trust that you will always have more than enough - creates a bond between you and your higher power, spirit, universe, God or whatever you want to call entity. That bond is a trust - in which you are saying: "I know I will always have more than I want so I am
now giving something because I want to - fully trusting that I will always have more than what I want - and therefore I can share because I want to."

When you do this the universe or the higher power responds by saying - "ah-ha - ___ believes they have so much that they are already willing to share - let's give him/her some more so that they can continue to share." It really does work that way.

But too often we get caught up in our wants and needs, we get selfish - only focusing on ourselves and our own little problems - which when looked at in terms of the
bigger picture are really not that severe. Sure there are some of us who have some serious setbacks that we want to overcome - and I'm not trivializing that or any of your own personal concerns. However, I do think that we need to look at the needs of those of those around us as well - and then ask ourselves what can we do to help make things better. After all - it's our world - if we don't share how can we help each other and how can we overcome our own setbacks. If you don't help your neighbor - and if everybody didn't help their neighbor - how would we ever get things done? There would be no progress because we
would all be consumed with our own little world and not take the time to help each other.

Giving is a part of human nature. That's why when we do it we enjoy the process so much.
We enjoy seeing the other person smile; we enjoy helping someone else in some small way.
I know that not all of you are in a position to give a great deal, or to buy the ideal present
or to spend a lot of money. But you can give your time. You can give something small, you can make a small gesture to the universe and your higher power - that you believe you will always have what you want and more - you believe so much that you're willing to give and share that even before you receive it. This is something I teach in my Creating Power system. The Creating Power course spends a good deal of time teaching you how to
generate the Power of Giving - students who take my Creating Power system learn to incorporate the Power of Giving with other valuable techniques that catapult them to success. To learn more about Creating Power visit: www.CreatingPower.com

The Law Of Giving

You may have heard that if you give you will get in return. So you go out and you give and you give and it seems like you get nothing. Then you say - this doesn't work so you stop giving because you're tired and it got you nowhere. When this happens you're ready to give. What am I talking about?

The law of giving exists - and it simply says that if you give you will receive in abundance. But the catch to it is that you have to give from your heart. Sure you've heard that phrase before - but here's what it means. When you give from your heart - you give with no expectations. You give only because you want to give - because you want to share what you have and because you want to help somebody. I know somebody out there is going to say: "Ah- ha! So I can give to help people and I'll get in return. Great - I'll start giving tomorrow." You just missed my point! You can't give expecting something in return.
Sounds crazy - I know and that's only because we've been conditioned to give so that we get something in return. It's that old "What's in it for me?" approach - which just doesn't work with the Law of Giving.

Those who are successful - and I mean truly successful - like Paul Newman, Bill Gates,
Ted Turner, Warren Buffet - the list goes on and on - are all involved in charities - many of which they worked with before they were successful. I know skeptics will say: "Yeah but for them it's a great tax write off." But their time isn't - and that they give from their heart - no str'ings attached because they get nothing in return - or at least they don't go in wanting to get something in return. Just so you know - Bill Gates so far has donated 800-million
dollars to charities. Ted Turner is often remembered for billion dollars that he donated to the UN - but in 1994 he donated 200 million dollars to charities and he has his own non-profit organization fighting for endangered species.

My point is that they all donate money and time - and they give from the heart. When you give - and give from the heart you send out a powerful message that says: You're willing to share what you have and thus the more you have the more you will share. This is what is picked up your subconscious mind, the universe and your higher self. You then are drawn
to situations and circumstances that allow you to have more because you will share more. The key is to give from your heart and give before you receive.

Students who work with my Creating Power system learn the power of giving - they learn to give before they receive. They learn how to make demonstrations that attract more positive situations to them and thus allow them to achieve their goals and live the life they want. When you share - you get more in return. Creating Power teaches you how to instill the power of giving while you continue to work with other powerful techniques to help
you achieve your goals. To learn more visit: www.CreatingPower.com

How Giving Attracts More

I have an uncle who has done quite well for himself and at age 72 he still runs his company and factory. I remember talking to him recently and he told me about the tough times he endured. He said when he started out he didn't know how things would turn out.
But he was always involved in charities and always trying to help those around him. He didn't have a lot of money to give - but he had some time - so he got
involved with helping out people in need. Sometimes by getting old clothes from family members to donate, sometimes by collecting tins of food, anything he could do. As he started making some money he would donate a portion to his religious community - he never stopped donating and to this day is still involved in charities. His son who is
a very successful doctor who visits Africa once or twice a year to perform free surgery on those who are need - you could say like father like son - but the act of giving simply from their heart has catapulted them to success.

Both my uncle and his son said they give because they believed they had so much - and they just wanted to share what they had. There was no other motive. They have been rewarded ten times over - they both live very comfortable lives. I have countless stories that I can share with you about how people who give always get more in return - but the key is that they give without expecting anything - they simply give - knowing and trusting that they will always have more than what they need.

Now we all can't perform free surgery - but we can give a little of our time - since we all have they same amount - surely you can spare an hour or two on the weekends. If you go shopping - buy something small for someone - with the belief that you will always have more than you need. You can even buy something for yourself with that same belief.
You can give a small amount to charity - with the complete belief that you will always have more than you need.

When you understand and utilize this awesome power along with the other self-empowering techniques that you learn in my Creating Power system you'll see your life improve ten-fold. Students who work with my Creating Power course learn to work with a number of
techniques and begin seeing results within weeks.

How a Good Night's Sleep Helps you Learn

2008-04-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

Source: The Society for Neuroscience

Sleep does more than banish dark under-eye circles. It also helps you learn, according to an increasing amount of research in animals and humans. Advances in neuroscience led scientists in recent years to produce a large body of converging evidence that shows that sleep helps secure memories and aids at least some types of learning. The findings indicate that sleep is much more important than commonly believed.

It's 3 a.m. and you're still glued to The Osbournes marathon running on MTV. What's a little less sleep when you can see Ozzy war with the neighbors?

You're not alone. Many Americans skimp on shut-eye. Almost one-third of respondents said they get less than seven hours of sleep per night during the week, according to a recent survey of approximately 1,000 people by the National Sleep Foundation.

A large body of converging research, however, shows that it's time to rethink your priorities. Sleep is more important than many people believe. Specifically, studies find that it helps secure memories and aid learning. These findings are leading to:

A better understanding of how sleep and wakefulness contribute to learning.
Increased respect for sleep and its ability to benefit the brain.
Ways to use sleep to boost learning in healthy individuals and possibly those recovering from brain injuries.
The notion that sleep is important for learning has been kicked around, but hotly debated, by scientists for years. Recently, however, advances in neuroscience led researchers to carry out a variety of careful studies in both humans and animals, which provide clear evidence that sleep is indeed important for at least some types of memory and learning.

In particular it seems to secure memories, termed procedural memories, which help people learn skills. Thanks to procedural memories, you can master a video game, a gymnastics move or a melody on the piano.

In some of the work, researchers trained people to complete a procedural memory-based task and then determined if sleep improved their performance. Several studies show that it does. In one recent example, participants had to repeatedly type a sequence on a keyboard. A group trained in the morning and then tested 12 hours later showed no significant improvement. But a full night's sleep improved their performance by almost 20 percent. Another group, trained in the evening, improved their performance by about 20 percent after a full night's sleep. But after another 12 hours of staying awake, they showed hardly any improvement. This shows that sleep, not time, aids the learning.

Sleep may allow the brain to reprocess newly learned information so that memories of it stick. Research that uses technology to peer inside the brain supports this idea. In one study, scientists first found that sleep improved performance on a task that tests procedural memory. They then used an imaging technique to map brain activity and discovered that some brain areas activated during the training of the task were reactivated during sleep (see illustration).

Studies in animals that look even deeper also find evidence of reprocessing. For example, researchers scrutinized the brain cell activity of rats while they trained to run around a track and while they slept. The activity patterns matched. Also, an examination of brain cell activity in zebra finches indicates that during sleep the birds replay songs in their heads, possibly to help secure the memory of them.

Even a nap in the middle of the day may benefit some learning, according to a recent study. Researchers found that scores on a task that tests procedural memory worsened over the course of four daily practice sessions. Possibly this "burnout" occurs because the brain can only take in so much information before it has a chance to secure the memory of it through sleep. It turned out that a half-hour nap after the second session prevented further deterioration. An hour nap improved performance in later day sessions.

Researchers have plans for a number of other studies that could further solidify sleep's role in learning. They say, however, that already the evidence provides argument enough that it's time to shut off the TV and catch some zzzz's.

Giving and Receiving With Joy

2008-04-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

By Enoch Tan
Author of Manifestation Keys

All giving is an expression of joy. All giving is giving of joy. We give because of love. Love desires to give joy and happiness.

Whenever you give anything, you give something spiritual along with it. The feeling that you give with is the spirit of your giving. The feeling is the energy of your giving. When you give with joy, the energy that you send forth is that of joy. But when you give with the lack of joy, the energy that goes with your gift is a negative one.

When we give, we are not just giving a thing but we are also giving the energy that goes along with our giving. The energy that you give with is really more important than the gift itself. The essence is always joy although the form can be anything. When you give with joy and happiness, you bless the gift with the energy of joy and happiness and it will flourish with whom you give it to.

As you sow, so you shall reap. What goes around comes around. The energy you give out is the energy that returns to you. That is the reason why God wants you to be a cheerful giver.

Try to arrange your giving at times when you are feeling positive, happy and joyous. Try to refrain from giving when you are feeling down, negative and upset. Unless you know that you will definitely feel the opposite after doing so. Sometimes your energy is negative and you want to refrain from giving it away as much as possible because whatever you give multiplies. The only time to express your negativity is when it won’t affect anyone negatively or it is to a friend who is there to share your sorrows. That person is in an emphatic state to receive your negativity and dampen its effect or transmute it to positivism.

It is also as important to receive with the right kind of energy as it is to give with. You should not allow yourself to feel bad or ashamed about receiving a gift from someone else. You should receive it joyously and cheerfully as well. When the energy of joy in giving is met with the energy of joy in receiving, both parties are doubly blessed.

God is the joy giver, to give thanks is to express joy back to God for the joy he has given to you. The same energy that you give is the same energy that you’ll attract. Express joy to God and in return, you gain more joy. Seeing people express joy and appreciation about what you’ve given to them is all the thanks in the world you need from them, and it attracts more of those things from you. Being joyful, contented and happy attracts things that give you such emotions in your life. The key is to rejoice, to express your joy and gladness about something whenever you have the opportunity to do so and to express it immensely.

You can express your joy of receiving by giving to others. God blesses you so that you can be a blessing. You can express that joy by doing something that blesses others. That is what you would feel like doing and would want to do anyway. As you have freely received, so shall you feely give. When you sow bountifully, you shall reap bountifullly. Gratefulness leads to more receiving and the joy of receiving leads to more giving which leads to more receiving and giving. It is a beautiful and continuously expanding cycle of prospering and flourishing.

Giving and receiving are two aspects of exactly the same thing in accordance with the universal law of polarity. The amount of joy with which you give will be reflected in your joy in receiving and vice versa. It is in giving that you would also receive according to the immutable law of cause and effect. Often you would receive many times in magnitude more than you gave. But that should never be your motivation for giving. God always give out of unconditional love and joy. It is in the same Spirit of unconditional love and joy that you should give back to the universe.

As an integral and inseparable aspect of God, whatever you give to the universe, you equally give to yourself and the universe, and which will be reflected in your ability to receive. When you receive in whatever magnitude over that which you gave, you should always receive with extreme sincere gratitude. It doesn’t matter how much you have, or whether you think you can afford it or not. Give freely, joyously and with gratitude, and your reality and wealth will be enhanced considerably. Always give joyously and you will receive joyously.

When you give money, you are giving your life. Because money is gotten by giving your time, energy and effort in exchange for it. These things are your life. Who you give money to is who you show your love to. You give your life to who you love. The love of money is the root of all evil. The love of money means you only want money for yourself and not give it away. You want to accumulate and hoard it up and only use it to bless yourself and not others. It is being a lover of self more than a lover of God. What you do with money shows whether you have the love of money or that you use money to love others.

The Lord says they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. How can that be? Shouldn’t they that sow in joy reap in joy and they that sow in tears reap in tears? The explanation is joy and sadness are similar in nature but different in degree. Joy and sorrow are opposite polarities of the same emotional spectrum. That means joy can be transmuted into sorrow and sorrow can be transmuted into joy.

When you sow in tears, you are caring a lot. When you care a lot about someone, you can be emotionally affected. You seek to give your help and support to the person in need. But when the time comes where you see the blessings start unfolding in the life of person you care about, your sorrow turns into joy and you no longer weep tears of sadness, but tears of gladness instead. The tears are tears of compassion, and the rewards of acting in compassion is joy.

Actually, Happiness Isn't Within

2008-04-27T02:29:00.000-07:00

Some cultures are simply better at producing happy citizens than others.

By Eric Weiner
Author of The Geography of Bliss

A new year is upon us, and the self-help industrial complex is in full swing, pestering us to slim down, bulk up, become a new you, a better you, a happier you. Yes, it's all about you. The 1970s may have been the "Me Decade," but the naught years are shaping up to be the "You Decade."

There is, it turns out, little difference between You and Me. Both outlooks reflect a firmly held and particularly American belief that happiness lies deep inside the inner you, or me, or whatever.

The self-help industry has it wrong. Social scientists studying happiness (or subjective well-being, to use the academic term) have found that external factors – quality of government, social interactions and, to an extent, money – determine our happiness more than anything else. In other words, happiness does not reside inside of you. Happiness is out there.

Which particular "out there" makes a huge difference in your happiness level. National levels of contentment vary widely, from the morose Moldavians to the chronically cheerful Danes. Happiness, it turns out, is like oil. Some countries are awash in it; others are bone dry.

In fact, psychologists at the University of Leicester in Britain recently produced the world's first map of happiness. Using data from the emerging science of happiness, they created a color-coded atlas of bliss, a topography of the human spirit, from Algeria to Zimbabwe. It's not climate or topography or some mysterious "energy" that is at work here, but national culture. Some cultures are simply better at producing happy citizens than others.

Not surprisingly, democracies tend to fare better than dictatorships, though it's not clear which way the river of causality flows. Perhaps happy countries tend to embrace democracy and not the other way around.

Trust of others is another prerequisite for a happy nation, and that is a troubling fact for fans of American happiness. In 1960, 58 percent of Americans felt most people could be trusted. By the 1990s, only 35 percent held that view. Indeed, given our economic and military muscle, the US occupies a modest spot on the atlas of bliss. We are not as happy as we are wealthy.

The map contains more than a few surprises. Latin American countries, for instance, are among the happiest in the world, despite their relative poverty and often shaky political situations. "The Latino bonus" is what some researchers have dubbed this phenomenon. One explanation: the close family ties found in Latin American countries and among many Hispanics in the US.

Jean-Paul Sartre famously declared that "Hell is other people." Sartre got it wrong, or perhaps he was hanging out with the wrong people. The emerging science of happiness has found that the single biggest determinant of our happiness is the quantity and the quality of our relationships.

The way people relate to one another varies tremendously from one nation to another and, to a lesser extent, from one city to another. These differences persist despite the advent of cellphones, the Internet, and other technologies that have supposedly conquered distance.

We can be anywhere, the apostles of a placeless future tell us, a message that dovetails nicely with the self-help movement's we-can-be-happy-anywhere mantra. Rumors of geography's demise, though, have been greatly exaggerated.

Yes, technology has, in some cases, compressed distance, but not nearly as much as we've been led to believe. The vast majority of phone calls and e-mails never cross an international border. Even the Internet is largely a local technology, with most people checking local weather and sports and not the price of a grande latte in China.

Place matters even to those who forecast its demise. The purveyors of the placeless world, it turns out, tend to congregate in one place: a 50-mile corridor between San Francisco and San Jose, where they happily bike and hike and generally behave as though geography does matter.

Which it does. Its role in our happiness and our psyche is a fact that the forces of globalization and technology have failed to erode. That's why each year about 40 million Americans pick up stakes. Sure, we move for career opportunities or for family (a desire for either greater proximity or distance). But for many Americans, moving is about happiness: the U-haul version of Horace's legendary search for the Happy Isles.

The forces of technology aren't slaking our thirst for our own Happy Isles but stoking it. The number of people traveling – for work and pleasure – is on the rise, as packed airplane flights make painfully clear.

So, at the dawn of another new year, I say: Stop looking for the new you and, instead, book a flight. Or better yet, call a friend.

The Incredible Power of Contentment

2008-04-26T02:26:00.000-07:00

By Leo Babauta
Source: Zen Habits

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” - Cicero

While many readers have noted my efforts and articles on self-improvement, what I haven’t stressed as much is the beauty of becoming content with what you have and who you already are.

I’m definitely a goal-oriented person — I always have my eye on a goal, whether that’s writing a book, running a marathon, improving my blog, waking early, losing weight, or one of a dozen other goals I’ve had (and usually achieved) in the last couple of years. And once I’ve achieved a goal, I begin looking for another: now that I finished my second marathon, I’m already looking for a third.

So isn’t that a contradiction? Doesn’t that seem to indicate that I’m not content with my life? Not at all. I’m extremely content with my life, with what I have, and with who I am. I have accepted that I am the type of person who will always be striving for a goal, the type of person who enjoys a challenge, and who enjoys the journey. It’s not the goal that matters to me — it’s the journey to get there that is so fun. And I’m content with being that type of person.

So contentment isn’t a matter with being content with your situation in life and never trying to improve it. It’s a matter of being content with what you have — but realizing that as humans, we will always try to improve, no matter how happy we are. If we don’t, we have given up on life.

Today I’d like to discuss contentment, and the amazing things it can do in all aspects of our lives. And then we’ll look at a few tips for getting to contentment.

“Happiness is self-contentedness.” - Aristotle

My Life

I’m going to use my life as an example here, only because I’m more intimately familiar with it than any other life. Looking back, I wasn’t always content. There have been times in my life when I wasn’t happy, when things seemed dismal, when I wish I had more. I wasn’t content with the way things were, and now I know that my outlook on life was a major contributor to my unhappiness.

We choose whether we are happy or unhappy.

Read that sentence again if it’s not already something you consciously practice in your daily life. If you’re unhappy with your life right now, I will venture to guess that it’s because you’ve chosen to be unhappy. That sounds harsh, but in my experience it’s completely true.

[Edit based on reader comments: I cannot speak to whether this concept of happiness applies to everyone — especially clinically depressed or those with similar disorders, people who are starving or homeless, people who have undergone massive tragedies or abuse, or others in such circumstances. However, for most readers, I believe the principles will apply.]

You might say, “But my life is crap! Of course I’m going to be unhappy!” And I hear you: I’ve had those times when my job wasn’t going well, when my relationships weren’t going well, when my finances were very bad, when I was overweight, when my life was a mess.

But listen to this: I’ve had those conditions at several points in my life. And sometimes, I was unhappy in those kinds of conditions. And others, I was happy and content. So I’ve come to the conclusion — and it’s proven true time and again — that it’s not the conditions that make me unhappy, but my choice of thoughts, of attitude, of behavior.

What behaviors and thoughts and attitudes were different between my times of unhappiness and happiness? When I was unhappy, I focused on all the bad things in my life. Not only that, but I continually thought about how bad they were, and would complain, and would ask, “Why me?” I would let myself sink into inaction and eventually depression. I would be grumpy and cause those around me to be unhappy. That, in turn, only made the situation worse. It certainly didn’t help my job.

Let’s look at the times of happiness, in contrast: I focused instead on the good things in my life. Because while I had problems at my job and with my relationships and with my finances and health and all that … there were still good things. At least I had a job! At least I had someone who loved me! At least I wasn’t sick! At least I wasn’t bankrupt and homeless! I counted, instead, my blessings. I do this when things aren’t looking so good, and it turns me around.

I had a wife and beautiful children. I had the power to change my job. To simplify my life. To get out of debt. I had my health, even if I was overweight. I lived on a beautiful island with gorgeous beaches and wildlife and greenery. I had family around me who loved me. I had the power of my words, and my books that I loved reading. I had life!

And this outlook on life helped me to be happier. It improved my relationship, because I tried to appreciate my wife. It improved everything around me, in short — and we’ll take a closer look at those things next.

I was happy, despite my conditions, because I chose to be happy. I found contentment in what I already had, instead of wishing I had something else, instead of being discontented with what I had. Contentment not only made me happy, but it transformed my life in many ways. Here’s how.

Happiness

This is perhaps the most obvious area affected on this list, because many people see “contentedness” and “happiness” as one and the same. In many ways, they are, but it’s really a matter of focus. When you’re happy, it’s really a state of being, influenced by a number of factors, including contentedness.

Contentedness, on the other hand, is a matter of being satisfied with what you have. It focuses on what you have and don’t have instead of just being a state of being. It influences happiness. However, you can choose to be content, just as you can choose to be happy, and if you choose to be content, you will be happy.

There are many ways to become happy — you can become happy by doing certain things (running, getting into Flow, sex), you can become happy because you are loved or in love, you can become happy because you just won a competition or a million dollars. Being content is just one way to be happy, but it’s a great way.

Simplicity

Simplicity, of course, means many things to many people, but for me contentedness is at the core of simplicity. It’s about being content with less, with a simpler life, rather than always wanting more, always acquiring more, and never being content.

Simplicity means examining why you want more, and solving that issue at its root. At the root of wanting more is not being content with what you have. Once you’ve learned to be content, you don’t need more. You can stop acquiring, and start enjoying.

Now, I won’t claim to never want stuff. I wanted a Macbook Air and I got it. It’s helping me to write this post and this book right now. (However, in my defense, I waited more than a month before buying it to make sure I needed it.) But while I am not immune to wants, I have learned to catch myself now and then, and to examine why I want something. And then I try to tell myself that I already have everything I could possibly want and need. And that contentedness leads to simplicity.

Finances

Really this is the same as simplicity, but I wanted to show it from a financial angle. The reason we get into financial trouble, oftentimes, is that we buy more than we can afford. And the root of that buying is buying things we want instead of only things we need, and the root of that is not being content with what we already have.

Finding contentment with the stuff you have and with a simpler life can lead to buying less, to buying things we need instead of want, and to only spending what we can afford. I know this first-hand, as uncontrolled spending led to debt for me, and contentedness led to me getting out of debt.

Relationships

Many times it seems that we’re never satisfied with our significant others. They don’t behave how we want them to. That’s often at the root of relationship problems, as many-headed as those problems may seem.

Instead, learn to be content with the person you love, just as they are. This isn’t always easy, as we are usually trained (by our well-intentioned but never-satisfied parents, and others around us) to do just the opposite — to try to change people. However, you will only find trouble if you try to change your significant other. You might get them to change their behavior (but most often not), but they will be unhappy, and in turn the relationship will suffer.

I will admit to having a problem with this at times, but when this happens, I try to remind myself to love my partner as she is, for who she is. She is a beautiful person, just as she is now, and there is absolutely no need to change her. This has always led to a better relationship for me.

Kids

As mentioned above, parents are often not satisfied with their children. They need to be cleaner, better behaved, better in school, more organized and studious, more courteous and kind and compassionate, better groomed and better at sports. Well, that leads to the relationship problems mentioned above, later in the kids’ lives, as they have learned to never be satisfied with others and to try to change them.

It also leads to inferiority complexes in our children, in unhappiness, and in bad relationships with them. Instead, we should learn to love our children unconditionally, to accept them for the people they are, and to let them know this through not only our words but our actions.

Accept children for who they are, and they will be happier, and so will you.

Jobs

Should we be content with our jobs? Well, I won’t say that you should stick with a dead-end job and a boss that treats you like dirt. If you’re unhappy with your job, change it. That’s been my approach and it’s worked for me.

However, I have learned that being a content person in other areas of my life, and being content with my life in general, has generally helped me at any job. Discontented people tend to be complainers, or grumpy, or negative. That leads to problems at the job. People who are content tend not to complain and tend to have a more positive attitude, and in my experience that almost always leads to more opportunities, both within the job (promotions, new projects, etc.) and outside the job (job offers, networking, etc.).

Social change

I’ve heard some writers say that people like me, who preach happiness and contentedness and a positive outlook on life, are teaching people to accept social injustice and not strive for change. I disagree completely, and as someone who would like a freer society than the one in which we currently live, I have given this much thought.

My favorite social disrupter, Gandhi, had two seemingly contradictory quotes on the subject of contentedness. The first: “Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.” And the second: “Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.”

This might seem confusing until you look at how Gandhi brought about change. He was discontent with the system of oppression in his country, so he sought to change it. However, he was content as a person, with who he was and what he had in his personal life. This inner content allowed him to have the inner power to face (and eventually beat) the very powerful authorities in his country at the time. He could face them because nothing they could do to him could take away his happiness. They could take away all his possessions, throw him in prison, take away even food, and he was content.

He taught his fellow countrymen the same lesson, to make the best of what they had in India (making their own simple clothing, making their own food) instead of wanting the commercial goods from foreign countries. Being content with such simplicity would give them the independence from foreign commercial powers, and eventually (as they are part of the same organism) foreign political powers.

So social change can still happen if you are content with yourself, with your life, but not content with the system of oppression around you. This system, in my opinion, is responsible for holding us down, for the deaths of millions of people in Third World countries … but it isn’t until we learn to be content with what we have, and free ourselves of our dependence on commercial goods, that we will be able to change the system for good.

Getting to Contentment

So if contentedness is so great, how do you get there? That’s not always easy, but here are some things that have worked for me:

Count your blessings. I mentioned this above, and in a previous post, but for me it’s the best way to get to contentment. When you find yourself unhappy with something, or with what you don’t have, take a moment to count all the good things in your life. And I would bet there are many. It puts the focus on what you do have rather than what you don’t.

Stop, and remind yourself. When you find yourself unhappy with someone, or trying to change them, stop yourself. Take a deep breath, and remind yourself that you should try to be happy with that person for who he/she is. Take a moment to think about the good things about that person, the reasons you love that person. Then accept their faults as part of their entire package.

Stop, and consider why you want something. When you feel the urge to buy something, think about whether it’s a need or a want. If it’s a want, take a pause. It’s good to wait 30 days — keep a 30-day list … when you want something, put it on the list with the date, and if you still want it in 30 days, you can buy it). Consider why you want something. Are you not content with what you already have? Why not?

Take time to appreciate your life! I like to reflect on my life, and all the good things in it, on a regular basis. I do this when I run, or when I watch the sunset or sunrise, or when I’m out in nature. Another great method is a morning gratitude session — think of all the things and people you’re thankful for, and thank them silently.

Show people you appreciate them. It’s good to appreciate people, but it’s even better to show them. Give them a hug, smile, spend time with them, thank them out loud, thank them publicly.

Breathe, and smile. Once again, advice from one of my favorite monks, but it works in this context. Sometimes when we take the time to breathe, and smile, it can change our outlook on life.

Learn to enjoy the simple things. Instead of wanting to buy expensive things, and spend money on doing things like eating out or entertainment, learn to enjoy stuff that’s free. Conversations and walks with other people. Spending time outdoors. Watching a DVD or playing board games. Going to the beach. Playing sports. Running. These things don’t cost much, and they are awesome.

The Greatest Obstacle to Happiness,

2008-04-25T02:21:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Robert Anthony
Creator of The Secret of Deliberate Creation

Think of your present moment as your Point of Power, because it is the only point where you can exercise your full power. For most of us the present moment exists only as mental concept. If there is such a place where all the creative forces of the universe come together, how do we know it is the present moment? What evidence is there that this is true? Consider this; all your hopes for the future and even your memories of the past can happen only in the present moment. The present moment is that one point where everything comes together.

When does life start? When does it end? When do cause and effect take place? When is it that we meet every challenge? When are problems born and when are they resolved? When do we feel pain? When are we healed? This all happens in the present moment.

We have been taught that those moments are separate from each other, but in truth, they all take place in the now. No matter what happens in life, it is always now, then now, then now - always in the present moment.

Nothing exist outside of the NOW. Nothing ever happened in the past. – It happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future – It will happen in the Now. When you think of the past it is stored in the mind as a former now. And, when you think about the past, when do you do it? – You do it now! When the futures comes – it comes in the now. And, when you think about the future, when do you do it? – You do it now!

The past and the future have no realities of their own. Their realities are “borrowed” from the now.

All unhappiness is caused by denial of the present. We think problems are caused by our situations in life, but attachment to the past and future and denial of the now is the real problem. Ultimately then, there is only one problem in life – not living in the now.

You cannot be unhappy and fully present now. It is impossible to have a problem when your attention is in the now. When you live in the now, a situation is either dealt with or accepted now. A problem means you are dwelling on a situation mentally without having a true intention or possibility of taking action now.

ANSWERS COME IN THE NOW
Perhaps you are seeking answers to your questions or problems. Notice that sometimes you receive your answer, but most of the time you don’t. Why? Because you are not in the present moment when the answer arrives! Anytime your mind is out of the present moment you cannot receive the answer you need from Higher Intelligence.

The answer can come in many ways and at any time, but it will always come in the present moment. If we spend most of our time regretting and living in the past or worrying about the future we place ourselves out of the present moment where all creativity and answers take place.

Does it make any sense at all to desire, request, yearn and pray for that which is closest to your heart and necessary to your life and then not be paying attention when the answer arrives?

Our Point of Power can only exist in the present moment. We create from this moment whether the materialization appears instantly or later as a complex event. However, all creation takes place in the now. If we really understand this truth, we will have an inexhaustible supply of usable energy at our command.

It is only our thoughts, attitudes and emotions in the moment that have power. It is not what occurred to us in the past that will force us on a path that we would rather not be on. It is how tightly we hold on to that past by reliving its trauma and drama in our present moment. When we constantly worry and re-examine the past in order to discover what’s wrong with the present, we reinforce the building materials that will create exactly that which we are trying to escape.

VIBRATIONAL ENERGY OF THE NOW
Understand that in every moment you are sending out a vibrational energy through your thoughts. This vibrational energy is magnetizing and attracting everything to you. If you send out a vibrational energy that you don't have what you want, you will end up with more of the same - having what you don’t want.

If this is true, (and it is) then what could be more advantageous than using this moment to send out a vibrational energy or thought that is in alignment with what you want in your life? The answer is nothing is more important!

I am talking about the power of FOCUS. Ask yourself, "Am I activating what I want in this moment or am I focusing on something that doesn’t allow me to have what I want?"

Energy is tied into DESIRE. Anything that feels opposite to that energy or desire creates a situation that prevents us from having what we desire.

WHY WE HAVE TROUBLE LIVING IN THE NOW
Why does the mind habitually resist the now? It is because the mind cannot function and remain in control in the present moment. It only knows about your past personal history and the cumulative mind-set you inherited. In order for the mind to remain in control, it must continuously seek to cover up the present moment with the only thing it knows – the past.

Let me ask you a question – can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the “off” button? If you are constantly focusing on the past or future, you are not using your mind; your mind is using you. You don’t even know that you are its slave. It is almost like being possessed without knowing it.

WATCHING THE THINKER
If you find it difficult to live in the NOW, try this: Stand back and just observe the habitual tendency of your mind wanting to escape the now. You will observe that the future is usually better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope, pleasure and anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusions.

Don’t judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought – feel the emotion, observe the reaction – become the silent watcher. This will help you to focus on the moment, because the moment you realize you are not present, you ARE present.

FREEDOM FROM UNHAPPINESS
Problems of the mind cannot be solved with the mind. Studying the mind might make you a good psychologist, but doing so won’t take you beyond the mind just as studying madness isn’t enough to create madness.

When you create problems you create pain. All it takes is a single choice – a simple decision that no matter what happens you will not longer create pain by trying to live in the future or the past.

Are you worried? Do you have many “what if” thoughts? Ask yourself what “problem” you have right now, not tomorrow, not five minutes from now. What’s wrong with this moment?

Is your goal is taking up so much time and attention that you reduce the present moment as a means to an end?

Are you waiting to start living? If you develop such a mind-pattern no matter what you achieve or get the present will never be good enough.

The future will always seem better. This is a recipe for permanent dissatisfaction and non-fulfillment – don’t you agree?

Are you a habitual “waiter”? How much of your life do you spend waiting for the next holiday, better job, your child to grow up, success, make money, be important, and become enlightened?

Waiting is a state of mind. Basically it means you want the future. You don’t want the present. There is an inner conflict between your here and now, when you don't want to be here and a projected future is where you want to be.

The key is to break the old patterns of present moment denial and present moment resistance. We must learn to withdraw our attention from the past and future whenever they are not needed.

Should a situation arise that you need to deal with now, your actions will be clear and decisive if they arise out of present moment awareness. Your response will not be a reaction coming from the past conditioning of your mind, but from an intuitive present moment awareness of the situation.

YOUR INNER AND OUTER PURPOSE
Your journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The outer purpose is to arrive at your goal destination – to accomplish what you desire, to achieve what you want, which of course, implies the future.

But if your destination or the steps you are going to take in the future take up so much of your attention that they become more important than the steps you are taking now, then you completely miss the inner journey’s purpose. Your inner journey’s purpose has nothing to do with WHERE you are going or WHAT you are doing, but everything to do with the now. It has nothing to do with the future.

If you don’t understand your inner purpose you will fail at your outer purpose. Keep in mind that the outer purpose is just a game that you may continue to play because you enjoy it. And often you may fail, but so what.

Ultimately EVERY outer purpose is doomed to “fail” sooner or later because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things.

The sooner you realize your outer purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment the better. When you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose you can give up the unrealistic expectation that it can make you happy. More importantly, you make it subservient to your inner purpose.

Have your dwelling place in the NOW and pay brief visits to your past and future when required. Always say “yes” to the present moment. Surrender to what is and see how life suddenly starts working for you instead against you.

The key is to LIVE in the present moment, but know that you are creating your future in this moment. What you are looking for is balance in your thinking. In other words, living in the present moment while giving thought to something you desire and expecting it.

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT
We discussed throughout this book the idea of choosing what we desire and following our dreams. What stops many people from following their joy is that they are afraid that their way of doing something it will not be good enough or accepted. They compare what comes from them naturally with what is considered the norm. That whole process of conformity starts in school. They ask you to write a poem and then it is compared to another poem and if it is in the same form then it gets an “A”. If it is different and has a form of its own then it gets a “D.” When I was in first grade the teacher asked us to draw a picture of a cat. When I was finished my picture was considered so poor that I was told I have no talent as far as art is concerned. I never drew or participated in any art form after that.

Perhaps you decided that you couldn’t paint because you are comparing your form to another form. But the truth is you could no more paint like Van Gogh then Van Gogh could paint like you. The difference is that Van Gogh believed in himself and in his style of painting. That’s the magic.

No one can do what you do exactly the way you do it. This includes business, the arts or any area of life. A person’s self expression cannot be judged other then by a total fool. What you do, whatever makes you feel alive and joyful, is your unique expression. And it is probably the only thing that will bring you true joy and excitement.

THE UNHAPPY MAJORITY
Unfortunately, for many of us, we spend much of our days following and doing what we have come to believe we need to do, rather than what truly excites us and what would, for that very reason, end up bringing us the joy we seek.

Can we truly expect to experience enormous joy and happiness in our lives if the first concern we have in the morning upon wakening is to be on time to a job that does not bring us joy and excitement? If seventy percent of our days are filled with activities that do not bring us joy, excitement and love, then the remaining thirty- percent cannot compensate for that. All the seminars, books, meditation, and affirmations are not going to help.

Yet the more time we spend doing things that do not truly bring us joy and excitement, the more money we spend on other things trying to compensate for our growing unhappiness, and this ends up bringing us more debt. So the end result is that we are tied even more into working at what we dislike. It is a self-defeating circle.

Have you ever been in a room with many unhappy people? How did it feel in there? Now imagine what billions of unhappy people are doing to the world. Unfortunately we have become so accustomed to this energy that we don’t even notice it anymore. It’s as thick as molasses everywhere with the exception of a few pockets of joy now and then.

What we fail to understand is when we have billions of people doing things that they do not want to do, it creates unhappiness, That unhappiness creates a collective energy that goes into the environment and causes more damage to the environment than everything else combined. It is like anger causing an ulcer. The anger created the ulcer and people’s sadness creates the negative result in the environment.

There are many people concerned about the environment of the planet. They want to save the rivers, oceans and the forest. While that may be commendable, I can tell you that the energy from so many unhappy people on this planet is what is poisoning the environment more than everything else combined.

We will not solve our environmental problems until we solve the sad energy problem. What we don’t realize is that our physical environmental problems are created from the negative energy that comes from billions of unhappy people. Instead of trying to clean up the environment, we need to clean up the thinking and unhappiness of the people who are cause of our environmental problems.

OTHERS MAY NOT LIKE IT
You have read over and over throughout this book that all change comes from the inside. Trying to change things using the outside-in approach is always doomed to failure. On the surface this looks selfish, but you know by now that we can only change the planet one person at a time.

As you begin to search for and follow your joy and excitement you may feel this process appears a bit selfish. There may be other people around you that feel you are being selfish, but that is only because they cannot understand that by allowing you the freedom to find your joy and excitement that this will in turn make it easier for them to find and follow their joy also.

In the beginning having family around you and also having children can at times make following your joy and excitement more challenging. Sometimes following your joy may feel like you are not being practical or looking after your responsibilities. You could subconsciously be afraid that you will end up playing away your time, or indulging yourself, rather than looking after your family. In the beginning it can be a delicate balance, but as time goes on you will be much happier and the quality of time you spend together will improve considerably. Also, other things that need to be done will seem more enjoyable when you allow yourself to do them when it feels right rather than when you thought you should be doing them.

As you follow your joy and excitement people will automatically see how much happier you are and how much more you are enjoying life. This gets their attention and will slowly rub off on others around you. So in the beginning you could possibly receive some resistance from those close to you, even some resistance and fear from yourself. This will pass as you become happier and more excited to live each day. Joy is very addictive and draws people towards you. As people see that it is okay to follow your joy and excitement and that it is creative rather than destructive, they will very quickly attempt to bring this process into their own lives.

A STEP AT A TIME
Following our joy is not one large step, like quitting our job and spending our days sitting under a tree. That is not following our joy - that is escaping. There is a big difference between following the things that truly excite us and doing things to escape from a life that does not bring us joy.

The trick is to find, in the present moment, the things that would bring us the most excitement, and then do whatever we can to follow that excitement, even in the smallest way. This causes a chain reaction that brings us more opportunities to do what we love to do.

I think that the hardest time people have with following their joy is trying to make a living and at the same time trying to follow their joy. I have noticed that one of the very first things we fear is our financial concerns. That’s why we start off slowly following the path little by little and letting things build upon themselves slowly.

However, I will tell you this, whenever I followed my joy it always turned out to be the most financial rewarding thing at the end. When you follow you true joy, wherever that leads you, and even if it changes from time to time, then the details will work themselves out on their own. If you try to work out all the details and debate them to death, you will go insane before you find the right answer. But if you just follow your joy and what brings you excitement then you will end up doing what is best for you and everyone.

Whatever we desire is waiting for us to claim it. You have already learned you do not have to know the details or how do anything. All you have to do is focus on what you want. I can't take away your fears and doubts no matter how many pages I write. You will just need to trust yourself and the Power within you that you can truly follow your joy and do things in a way that bring you joy and have it all work out.

The greatest obstacle to happiness is not living in the present moment and not following your joy. The solution is to do just the opposite. If you find yourself focusing on the past or the future, remind yourself that the present moment is all there is, and then surrender to what is and see how life suddenly starts working for you.

If you put the same amount of effort into finding what gives you joy as you put into going to work at a job you dislike, you will end up with results that will make you think, “Why did I wait so long to do this?”

FINAL THOUGHT
I have come to understand that when we enter this world we all do so with two wings. One is the Wing of Infinite Power. This is your connection with the Universe. And whether you know it or not, that wing is flapping by your side supporting you twenty-four hours a day 365 days a year from now to eternity. The other wing is that which you have consciously activated. This is the Wing of Self-Effort. This wing has to fly equally as hard as the Wing of Infinite Power. When it does you will have flight into the world of unlimited possibilities where anything and everything is possible for you. Then and only then will you understand how truly powerful you are and that you have all it takes within you to create what you desire.

So follow your joy whatever it may be; in whatever form it may come; let it come forth as it may; to be as it may. Let your joy, excitement and uncensored creativity carve you into the image of the Creator. For the crevasses and lines on our faces show not our age but how much we have dared to be true to ourselves.

Dr. Robert Anthony is the author of 15 books including the million copy best sellers "The Ultimate Secrets of Total Self Confidence" and "Advanced Formula for Total Success". His latest creation is the comprehensive 6-CD training program
The Secret of Deliberate Creation

The Secret of Happiness in 8 Words

2008-04-24T02:14:00.000-07:00

To Allow Yourself to Be Happy is the Greatest Wisdom There Is

By Stuart Goldsmith,
Excerpt from Seven Secrets of the Millionaires

You might like to know that the secret of happiness can be explained in just eight words and is, in fact, quite mundane. It does not involve meditation, drugs or self-flagellation. Each of the eight words is worth one million dollars, but here they are, free:

Tomorrow - Today - Live - For - Better - Working - A - While

What? You can't make sense of that? I gave you the words for free, but the correct order is going to cost you plenty...

Pause, while the anagram-freaks try to work it out themselves...

Got it? No? Okay, you'll have to read on...

Now, the price for my arranging the words for you is about ten minutes of your time to read this article carefully, because it has important implications for your happiness.

The first thing I want to say is that the human psyche - your psyche - is a very delicate thing indeed - and can be badly damaged, particularly during your early years, by what would outwardly seem to be "not very much."

Put another way, your mind is an incredibly delicate and subtle mechanism - a finely tuned and highly sensitive instrument. So delicate is this wonderful apparatus, that it is flat-out impossible to grow up without some damage to its mechanism.

Moderate damage is normal and severe damage is common.

Please read that last sentence again.

I would say that 100% of people - that's everyone - has moderate damage to their psyche, and about one in three have severe damage. I am talking about damage caused by a normal upbringing, not an abused upbringing. Thankfully abuse is not the norm, but more importantly, the psyche is damaged by numerous small incidents throughout your childhood where you didn't get exactly what you needed, exactly when you needed it.

Parents are, after all, people. They are neither omniscient nor telepathic. They do their absolute best, working from the basis of their own damaged psyches.

And so the cycle continues...

Now the point here is that because everyone is damaged, this means that everyone exhibits symptoms of "mental disturbance" during, and often throughout, their lives. I'm talking 100% of people here. Such symptoms include:

Anxiety
Depression
Sleeplessness
Irrational Fear / Panic Attacks
Feelings of Worthlessness, Insecurity, Pointlessness
Suicidal Thoughts
Substance Abuse (particularly alcohol which is a wonderful anesthetic for the harshness of life)
Irrational Anger / Impatience / Irritation
Worry
Because everyone experiences some or all of these on a scale of mild to severe, everyone pretends that they don't experience these things and we all play this ridiculous game in which we pretend it's just other people who have problems, not us.

I have talked to hundreds of people from paupers to billionaires. Scratch the surface and what do you get? The same old human-being we all are. The damaged psyche resulting in some or all of the negative symptoms I have listed.

I find this immensely comforting. The real problem about feeling down on life is when you think it's only you who feels like this, and that everyone else is having a great time counting their loot. If you can really take on board what I am telling you here, that everyone is a seething mass of insecurity, angst, unfinished business and emotional turmoil, then I think that helps a great deal.

It's called "the human condition" and comes about as a result of us all having such an immensely delicate psychology. We are about as equipped psychologically to handle the "slings and arrows" of life as a butterfly is to handle a force ten storm.

Every human on the planet is brave beyond measure. Forget "bravery in the face of enemy fire." That's just one sort of bravery and anyway, most soldiers didn't have a choice about going over the top. I'm talking real bravery of the sort you show every morning. You get up and face the world again. You against the world. And it's as much a battle today as it ever was. Labor-saving devices make very little difference. Do you have lots and lots of leisure time because you own a fridge, a washing machine, and a dishwasher? No? I thought not. It's the same old struggle by the same old human beings.

There is a danger in writing (and reading) a motivational, go-get-em, kick-ass "secrets of the millionaires" book because it encourages the sort of polarization I was talking about earlier. You can easily think something like: "Yeah, it's as I suspected, everyone else is happy and making great money, it's only me who cannot achieve anything of note. I'm all alone. Everyone else is so happy and well adjusted..."

I'm telling you now, in as plain a way as I can say, that everyone on the planet is more or less screwed up because of the way we are, and the way the world is. You just cannot avoid the damage.

You have to accept it, patch up what you can and live with the rest. So what can you do to increase your chance of happiness?

Live Today

The first part of the key to happiness is to live today.

That means you must try to live in the present moment, experiencing what is happening right now to you, good or bad.

This is it. This is your life. This is not a dress-rehearsal. But the twist here is to set this in the context of everything I have just said. Recognize that angst and upset are part of the human condition, experienced by everyone. This is just what it is to be a human being. We are all like this.

Why? Because from baby to teenager we had thousands of needs, most of which were met, many of which were not. Each time a need was met (particularly from early childhood)it caused psychological damage, sometimes mild, sometimes serious.

The brain is a highly adaptive and most damage can be routed around in order to allow the organism to continue functioning, albeit at a slightly reduced capacity. We develop coping strategies - the most effective of which is just good old-fashioned avoidance - we simply avoid the people and situations which cause the emotional pain and this stops us living life in all of its full colour.

When I say "live today" I'm not talking about some blissed-out, tree-hugging hippie who tries to permanently empty his mind in order to contact the "now." I'm talking about experiencing today with all of its upsets, angers, joys and sorrows. Just riding the wild bronco of life and not letting that sucker kick you off.

And when, as I often do, you experience a moment of intense pleasure, I want you to think to yourself: "This is as good as it gets." And it's true. These moments are as good as it gets.

Life is hard. Just as hard today, in its own way, as it ever was. Perhaps not as hard on us physically, but a lot harder on us mentally. That's why we're not a lot happier now than in in 1400 - to pick a year at random.

So I want you to snatch happiness when it comes to you, like a drowning man or woman seizing a life preserver. This is what it means to "live today."

The alternative is to ignore the minor day-to-day happiness and always be thinking some version of: "I'll be happy tomorrow, when..." (I have money, I get a girlfriend, I move from this bad area, I get myself a new car...)

You won't.

Or to think: "How can I possibly be happy now when..." and then insert your own unique bit of current misery, angst, depression, anxiety, panic or fear. The error here is to think that one day you'll be totally free of these things, and then you can be happy.

You won't. It's how we all are - riddled with this stuff. It's what makes us all human. It's what it means to be human. I'd go so far as to say that a person without a smattering of these things would be a flat, lifeless and intensely boring automaton. It is the degree of your angst which is important.

Zero makes you dull as dishwater.

A sprinkling makes you human and still allows for a lot of happiness. A moderate lever makes you interesting, quirky and able to cope mostly with life, but like a semi-active volcano, side-shoots of lava keep erupting and causing turmoil in your life - you need to spend some time fixing the damage, otherwise you may erupt one day.

A lot, and you are mostly immobilized in life and unable to function. Happiness is denied to you and all of your efforts should be expended in therapy to repair the worst of the damage, before you can go on. You are constantly depressed, frightened and anxious.

As an analogy, imagine a football team in immaculate, Percil-white strip, nancying around the field avoiding getting grass stains on their clean white socks. They would be a bit of a disappointment, really. They don't want to get too involved in the game in case they get mud on their shorts or bruise from that big, nasty old ball. Who wants to watch them? Who cares? They are not fully engaged with the game.

A football team whose players are muddied, bruised and riled are an altogether more interesting spectacle. They'll be fighting with passion and determination, taking daring risks, sometimes winning some ground, sometimes losing some ground, but always entirely absorbed in the game and playing right now in the present moment.

But a team which is injured, demoralized, cold and wet needs to do one thing - retire from the field, get some serious rest, bandage their cuts and recuperate. There is no point in their playing any longer. In fact they can't play. Their minds are not on the game, but fully absorbed with their pain and humiliation.

So, you see, the trick is to grab the happiness, now, in spite of any current misery from your worry list.

A Brighter Future

The final part of the key to happiness is: "While Working For a Better Tomorrow." So the whole secret is:

"Live Today While Working For a Better Tomorrow."

Why not write this out on a 3" x 5" card and put it somewhere you will see it each day? It's not a bad idea.

First, you grab every single morsel of happiness which comes your way, despite your perfectly normal negative feelings which you now know are part of the human condition and which everyone experiences.

Next, you must realize that everything you are today and everything you own today is a direct result of your past decisions. Decisions which you took, either consciously, or by default. Nobody else is to blame here. But once again I find this immensely comforting, because the power is in your hands to change the future, you don't have to wait for someone else to change it for you.

If your present life is a result of your past decisions, then the future is created by your present decisions, and boy is that true!

So you should be constantly working and scheming so that your future (which will come around soon enough) will be even better than your present. And you do this in spite of any angst and turmoil you might be feeling, just as you do it in spite of the fact that you have to breathe air and sleep seven hours each night.

Now if you recognize yourself in the "moderate" or "severe" category of emotional turmoil, then part of the process of planning for a better tomorrow involves working on yourself, perhaps, through therapy, counseling or talking to trusted friends. By the way, you cannot do this alone or through introspection.

Think of this as urgent repairs to the ship's hull, without which the boat is in danger of going down. Only a fool would try to sail in such a boat without spending some time in dock to patch things up. Perhaps you've been in denial about the condition of this leaky old tub? Have you been bailing like a demon for the last few years while battling on through stormy seas, just about keeping afloat? This is a judgment only you can make.

But apart fro the psychological work, there remains the real down and dirty work required right now, today, to make your future better for you and your family. I guess this is what separates the winners from the losers. Winners know they have to work now in order to get "lucky" several years down the line and reap the rewards. Losers want the rewards right now and cannot make the link between now and the future. They have what I have often described as a "Bunteresque" view of life (from Billy Bunter), hoping that something will turn up.

You can't live like that and be successful. You have to live your life on purpose, not by random chance. I cannot stress enough the importance of working for a better tomorrow despite ay strong reason why you feel you can't, such as:

The terrible state of the world
Your deep emotional scars
Your age (you feel it's too late)
Work gives direction, meaning and engages the brain. Idleness rots you from deep within.

I feel this is one of the most important issues and one of the hardest for me to write about. I guess the reason you bought this book [Editor's note: this article is an excerpt from the book Seven Secrets of the Millionaires] is because I'm just a few steps ahead of you on the path to wealth, happiness and freedom, and through my writings, I pass along my views of the scenery, what you can expect and how to negotiate the obstacles you are about to meet.

The final thing in Pandora's box was... hope. And when you are working for a better tomorrow, you are reaching into that box for that last, most precious gift.

The is no point in being wealthy if you are not happy

Immense wealth is within your grasp - but it won't be a simple ride.

Millions of people are wealthy and although it isn't an easy thing to get rich it is far from impossible.

Many chatter that they want to be rich, but few people have researched the factors required to achieve this. There are, indeed, several "secrets" known to those who have fought their own way to the top of the mountain. If you have some aptitude and are willing to listen, you can learn these secrets for yourself and follow those "lucky" ones to dizzying heights.

The first thing you must have is a firm belief that being rich is okay. If you harbor any opposing beliefs, then these will eventually sabotage your wealth-creating efforts, ensuring that you remain poor.

You must have a dream to act as a guiding beacon to lure you on when the going gets tough and the way ahead is dark. You cannot get rich by randomly selecting a field of endeavor for which you have no aptitude and even less interest. This is a ten or twenty year project; it cannot and must not be a ten or twenty year prison sentence. So you must do whatever it takes to unlock your secret dreams and passions. Hopefully others will share your passion and you can engage in commerce with them and make your fortune while having the time of your life.

One little trick used by all highly successful people is to have a battle-plan, sometimes called an action list or goal list. Life dreams are usually large and unwieldy and so the wise person knows how to break up these dreams into bite-sized chunks of a suitable size for our limited minds. Winners set goals, losers never set goals. It's that simple. Despite reading this advice fifty or a hundred times, still some people will not write down their goals.

Having written your goals and broken the large tasks down into simpler steps, now you require the discipline to keep you on track, working through the list. Winners have this discipline. Losers wander aimlessly, become bored or distracted, have low frustration tolerance, give up easily and drift away. If I had to pick one single secret as the most important, it would be to cultivate a sense of discipline because from this, many other things follow.

When setting your goals, make sure you keep firmly in mind that everything you obtain in this world has a price tag attached. You must be willing to pay the price, otherwise you are only window-shopping and this means you are not serious about life, just browsing.

Until this point, mostly this is theory. Now it is time for action. Above all, successful people are men and women of action. They get their sleeves rolled up and get on with the task at hand. Unsuccessful people procrastinate and always want to do it "tomorrow." Of course, tomorrow never comes. The two main reasons for non-action are laziness and fear. The fear is usually fear of success or fear of change. We are all lazy, we all fear change. Winners are able to push through these negatives. Losers succumb to them.

Before you start out on this journey, you need to have a clear idea about how much is enough, otherwise you have no destination and your search becomes an endless quest. If you are not clear about your destination, how can you ever know when you have arrived? Also, making money, no matter how enjoyable, has a price tag associated with it. Ideally you want to minimize the time you spend doing this and so you must have a clear idea of how much you want. There is no point whatsoever in amassing riches, never enjoying the fruits of your labors, and dying a wealthy man or woman. Money is an enabling force, not an end in itself.

Finally, the journey is everything as there is only one, macabre destination which we all share. The last stop on the line is Grim Reaper Halt. Life is a process, not a product. So no matter what your current level of wealth, it is time for you to start mastering one of life's most difficult lessons and that is to be happy right here, right now, while working towards a better tomorrow.

I wish you the very best in your journey,
Stuart Goldsmith

Happiness Comes Cheap - Even for Millionaires

2008-04-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

A bar of chocolate, a long soak in the bath, a snooze in the middle of the afternoon, a leisurely stroll in the park. These are the things that make us the most happy, according to new research from The University of Nottingham.

Source: PhysOrg.com

In a study commissioned by the National Lottery, Dr Richard Tunney of the University's School of Psychology found that it's the simple things in life that impact most positively on our sense of well being.

The study compared the 'happiness levels' of lottery jackpot winners with a control group, using a 'Satisfaction with Life Scale' developed by the University of Illinois. Respondents were asked how satisfied they were in relation to different elements of their life, their different mood states explored, how often they treated themselves and what form this took.

Surprisingly, it wasn't the flashy cars and diamond jewellery that upped the jackpot winners' happiness quotient. It was the listening to music, reading a book, or enjoying a bottle of wine with a takeaway that really made the difference.

Dr Tunney said: “Modern-day pressures take their toll on everyday happiness. As a result we try to make ourselves feel better and happier through personal rewards and treats. We've all heard the saying 'a little bit of what you fancy does you good', and treating yourself is the ideal way to keep spirits lifted when you're down in the dumps.

“As lottery jackpot winners are on the whole happier than non-winners — 95 per cent claim they are positive about their life compared to 71 per cent of people in the control group — we researched the treats they rewarded themselves with to see what could influence their mood state.”

The survey contrasted cost-free activities, such as walking and snoozing, with expensive ones like overseas holidays. It asked how frequently they might purchase 'staying in treats' — like a bottle of wine — and how often they bought themselves items like shoes, mobile phones and DVDs.

The research found that happy people — whether lottery jackpot winners or not — liked long baths, going swimming, playing games and enjoying their hobby. Those who described themselves as less happy didn't choose the cost-free indulgences. They rewarded themselves with CDs, cheap DVDs and inexpensive meals out instead.

“While buying sports cars, giving up work and going on exotic holidays is out of reach for most of us, there are small lessons we can learn from society's happiest people to help improve our quality of life,” Dr Tunney added.

“It appears that spending time relaxing is the secret to a happy life. Cost-free pleasures are the ones that make the difference — even when you can afford anything that you want.”

70 Ways to Increase Your Brain Power

2008-04-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

By Steve Gillman
Excerpt from A Book of Secrets

You Want More Brainpower - Not Higher IQ Scores!

Okay, maybe you want higher IQ scores too. The American Heritage Dictionary defines Intelligence Quotient as "The ratio of tested mental age to chronological age, usually expressed as a quotient multiplied by 100."

Basically, it's a test of intelligence, with 100 as the average score. There are some problems with IQ tests however.

A recent IQ test asked which of four fruits was different. It was the one with more than one seed; but what if you were not familiar with these fruits? Obviously this test is culturally biased. You are assumed to have certain knowledge, yet you are being tested for intelligence, not knowledge.

Now look at these letters: "ANLDEGN." Rearrange them and you'll have the name of a(n): Ocean, Country, State, City or Animal. This is from an IQ test I took. Hmm... There are very few oceans, so I could eliminate those - but wait a second! That's a test taking technique. An intelligence test shouldn't be testing your test-taking ability. I'm bound to score higher than a person of equal intelligence who hasn't learned simple techniques for scoring higher on multiple - choice tests.

Real Life Results Versus Scores

Now let me ask you a question. What was Henry Fords IQ? Who cares! The man was one of the most innovative people of the last century, and he did what he did by surrounding himself with intelligent people.

That practice alone has to be worth more than 20 IQ points in terms of real life results.

Real life results are what you want, right? So if you want to be more creative, learn to use creative problem solving techniques. If you want to concentrate better, there are techniques for that. Learn to speed-read and you'll have double the knowledge in the same time. After you paint your first Mona Lisa, build your first skyscraper or make your first million, what will your IQ score be? Who cares!?

Okay, an imperfect test is better than no test at all, and it is entertaining. I just took an IQ test, and although I don't think my IQ is really the 138 it showed, it was fun. If you really want to, you can try a free IQ test on my website http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com. Of course you'll score higher on a good day than a bad day, so try these tips to make it a good IQ test day:

70 Ways to Better Brainpower -
(In no particular order.)

1. Breath deep. More air in means more oxygen in the blood and therefore in the brain. Breath through your nose and you'll notice that you use your diaphragm more, drawing air deeper into your lungs. Several deep breaths can also help to relax you, which is conducive to clearer thinking.

2. Meditate. A simple meditation you can do right now is just closing your eyes and paying attention to your breath. Tensing up your muscles and then relaxing them to start may help. When your mind wanders, just bring your attention back to your breath. Five or ten minutes of this will usually relax you, clear your mind, and leave you more ready for any mental task.

3. Sit up straight. Posture affects your thinking process. Prove it to yourself by doing math in your head while slouching, looking at the floor and letting your mouth hang open. Then do the mental math while sitting up straight, keeping your mouth closed and looking forward or slightly upwards. You'll notice that it's easier to think with the latter posture.

4. Phosphotidyl Serine (PS). This supplement has been shown in clinical studies to increase lucidity and rate of learning. It activates cell-to-cell communication, helps regulate cell growth, improves the functioning of the special receptors found on cells, and prepares cells for activity. In other words, it can help your brain power. It's also thought to reverse memory decline. Phosphatidylserine has no known adverse side effects.

5.Vinpocetine. This extract, derived from an alkaloid found in the Periwinkle plant, is used as a cerebral vasodilator. It increases blood flow to the brain, which improves its oxygenation and thereby increases mental alertness and acuity. Research suggests it may also be the most powerful memory enhancer available to date.

6. Gingko Biloba. The leaves of this tree have been proven to increase blood flow to the brain. The trees are often planted in parks. My friends and I used to eat a few leaves when we wanted a brain boost. It is also inexpensive, if you buy the capsules or tea at any health food store.

7. Saint John's Wort. This is a common weed that may be growing in your yard. Although it's brain enhancing qualities are less documented (studies do show it's usefulness for treating long-term depression), many people swear by it's temporary mood-elevating effect, and our brains tend to function better when we are happy. It is inexpensive, but I used to just collect it in the yard and make tea of it. (Hyperacum Perforatum, if you want to look it up by it's botanical name.)

8. Good thinking habits. Just use a problem solving technique for several weeks and it will become a habit. Redesign everything you see for a while, and that will become a habit. You can develop many good thinking habits with some effort, and then be more resourceful effortlessly from that point on. Use the power of habit.

9. Use dead time. This is time that is otherwise wasted or just under-utilized. Driving time, time spent in waiting rooms, or even time spent raking your yard can be included in this. With a tape player and a trip to a public library, you can start to use this time to listen to books-on-tape. You may spend 200 hours a year in your car. What could you learn in that time?

10. Learn a language. Learning a new language has been shown to halt the age-related decline in brain function. It also introduces your mind to new concepts and new ways of looking at things (in English we are afraid, whereas in Spanish we have fear). It is one of the best brain exercises.

11. Rosemary. This common herb may have an effect on the brain when the scent is inhaled. We are waiting for the research, but some people swear that just sniffing rosemary wakes up their brain. It seems safe, so if you have rosemary in your spice rack, give it a try.

12. Mindfulness exercises. Concentration and clear thinking are more or less automatic once you remove distractions. Learn to stop and watch your busy mind. As you notice things that are subtly bothering you, deal with them. This might mean making a phone call you need to make, or putting things on a list so you can forget them for now. With practice, this becomes easier, and your thinking becomes more powerful.

13. Write. Writing is good for your mind in a number of ways. It is a way to tell your memory what is important, so you'll recall things more easily in the future. It is a way to clarify your thinking. It is a way to exercise your creativity and analytical ability. Diaries, idea-journals, poetry, note-taking and story-writing are all ways to use writing to boost your brain power.

14. Listen to Mozart. In a study at the University of California, researchers found that children who studied piano and sang daily in chorus, were much better at solving puzzles, and when tested, scored 80% higher in spatial intelligence than the non-musical group. In another study, 36 students were given three spatial reasoning tests on a standard IQ test. Just before the first test, they listened to Mozart's sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448 for ten minutes. Before the second test, they listened to a relaxation tape. Before the third, they sat in silence. The average scores for all 36 students: 1st test: 119. 2nd test: 111. 3rd test: 110. A nine-point boost from Mozart!

15. Develop your intuition. Intuition can be an important part of brainpower. Einstein and others have relied heavily on their intuitive hunches. See Chapter 25 for tips on how to develop your intuition.

16. Avoid foods that cause subtle allergies. These can include wheat, corn, peanuts and dairy products. Watch yourself to see if you have a problem with any of these. They cause digestive problems and brain fog in some people.

17. Sleep better. As long as you get a certain amount of sleep - probably a minimum of five hours - the quality seems to be more important than the quantity. Also, short naps in the afternoon seem to work well to recharge the brain for some people.

The Secrets of Powerful Sleep
Sleep LESS and have MORE energy by optimizing your sleep patterns in order to create an abundance of energy in your life. Learn more here...

18. Caffeine. The research shows higher test scores for students who drink coffee before major exams. My chess game gets better. In other studies, it has been shown that too much caffeine leads to poorer quality decisions. Caffeine affects individuals differently, and has some nasty long-term side effects for some of us, but short-term - it works!

19. Avoid sugar. Any simple carbohydrates can give you "brain fog." Sometimes called the "sugar blues" as well, this sluggish feeling makes it hard to think clearly. It results from the insulin rushing into the bloodstream to counteract the sugar rush. Avoid pasta, sugars, white bread and potato chips before any important mental tasks.

20. Hypnosis audios. The power of suggestion is real, and one way to use it is with hypnosis tapes, CD's or downloads. This type of brain "programing" has more evidence for it than subliminals.

21. Speed reading. Contrary to what many believe, your comprehension of material often goes up when you learn to speed-read. You get to learn a lot more in less time, and it is definitely a good brain exercise.

22. Exercise. Long term exercise can boost brainpower, which isn't surprising. Anything that affects physical health in a positive way probably helps the brain too. Recent research, though, shows that cognitive function is improved immediately after just ten minutes of aerobic exercise. If you need a brain recharge, you might want to walk up and down the stairs a few times.

23. Imaginary friends. Talking to and getting advice from characters in your mind can be a great way to access the information in your subconscious mind. Imagine a conversation with a person who has a lot of knowledge in the area you want advice in.

24. Develop your creativity. Creativity gives power to your thinking. Raw computation can be done by computers now, but humans provide the creative thought that shapes our world. See Chapter 24 for tips on developing your creativity.

25. Learn more efficiently. When you decide to learn something, take notes from the start. Leave each "learning session" with a question or two in mind, to create anticipation and curiosity. Take short breaks, so there will be more beginnings and endings to your studies (Things learned at the beginning or ending of a class or session are remembered better).

26. Use techniques for clear thinking. Cluttered rooms and offices can contribute to cluttered thinking. Organize a space for mental work. Sigh, stretch, and take a deep breath before you start on a tough mental job. Plan some distraction-free time for brainstorming.

27. Brain wave entrainment. The newest brain wave entrainment products are powerful tools for altering your brain function. Some will almost immediately relax you, while others will put your brain waves in a pattern that is most conducive to analytical thinking.

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28. Creatine. This is a compound found in meat, used by athletes to help build muscle. Now the evidence is here to show that it helps your brain as well. Proceedings B , a journal published by the Royal Society reports that the research showed improvement in working memory and general intelligence resulting from creatine supplementation. The dose used in the study was 5 grams per day. This is about the level used to boost sports performance, and is as much as you'd normally get in four pounds of meat, according to lead researcher Dr. Caroline Rae.

29. Talk. Talking is only good for the brain if you are actually exercising it, of course. Try explaining something that you don't understand very well to a friend, though, and you'll notice that the process of explaining will help you clarify your understanding.

30. Do something you enjoy. This is a way to both lower stress and rev up your brain. The key is to do something active. Watching TV doesn't count. Whether it is playing Scrabble or building birdhouses, when you are actively engaged in an activity that you enjoy, you worry less about things and you start to think better.

31. Adjust your beliefs. Believe you are smarter, and you'll become smarter. For this, affirmations may work, but even better is evidence. Make a note of your successes. Tell yourself, "Hey, that was really creative," when you do something creative. When you have a good idea, make a note of it. Gather the evidence for your own intelligence and you'll start to experience more of it.

32. Brain exercises. Do math in your mind while driving. Think of a new use for everything you see. Regular use of the brain has been shown to generate new neuronal growth, and even halt the decline of mental function that often comes with age.

33. Learn new things. This is another way to exercise the brain. It can also be done with little time investment if you use books-on-tapes while driving.

34. Walk. Exercise has been shown to benefit the brain, and walking is one of the best exercises for many. It is low impact, and the rhythmic nature of it seems to put you in a state that is very conducive to clear thinking. In fact, carry a tape recorder with you to take notes, and a twenty minute walk can be a great way to solve problems.

35. Model others. Find others that are creative, intelligent, or very productive. Do what they do, and think what they think. This is a key principle of neuro-linguistic programming. Be careful about taking their advice, though. Successful people often don't really understand why they are successful. Do what they do, not what they say.

36. Eat fish. Eating fish actually speeds up brain waves, and improves concentration. Researchers have also found an almost perfect correlation between intake of fish and lowered levels of depression in the various countries of the world. The U.S. has 24 times the incidence of depression as Japan, for example, where fish intake is much higher.

37. Avoid unnecessary arguments. When you defend a position too vigorously, especially when it is just to "win" the argument, you invest our ego into it. This is not conducive to the easy acceptance and use of new information. In other words, you put your mind in a rut, and you dig it deeper with each argument. Debate can be a valuable thing, but when the ego takes over, the mind closes a little. This is not a recipe for better thinking.

38. Laugh. The release of endorphins caused by laughter lowers stress levels, which is good for long term brain health. Laughter also tends to leave you more open to new ideas and thoughts.

39. Play. Stimulating the brain causes measurable changes in the structure of the brain. New connections are made and new brain cells are grown. Intellectual play, as well as any playing that involves hand-eye coordination stimulates the brain.

40. Do puzzles. Crossword puzzles, lateral thinking puzzles, and even good riddles are a great way to get brain exercise. You can work on them while waiting for a dentist appointment, or on the bus, if you are short on time.

41. Sing. When you are alone in your car, try singing about something you are working on. This taps into and exercises your right brain. Have you ever noticed how it is easier to rhyme when you sing than when you just speak or write? This is because the right brain is better at pattern recognition. By doing this brain exercise regularly you can train yourself to tap into the power of the right brain. This will make you a more effective problem-solver. If you doubt the distinction between the hemispheres of the brain, look at how stutterers can stop stuttering as soon as they start singing. Try it.

42. Nuts. University students in Brazil and other South American countries often eat several Brazil nuts before an exam, believing they are good for their mental power. The evidence is starting to confirm this. Other nuts that have minerals and amino acids that are beneficial to the brain include almonds and walnuts.

43. Olive oil. High in mono-unsaturated fat, olive oil has been shown to improve memory. A cheaper alternative is canola oil, but this hasn't been studied much yet.

44. Vitamin supplements. In studies, children scored higher on tests when on a regimen of daily vitamin supplements. "Experts" will tell you that if you eat a balanced diet, you don't need supplements, which, given the culture here, is really just a sales pitch for vitamins, isn't it? Who eats a perfectly balanced diet?

45. Fiber. It isn't just what goes in, but what comes out that is important to brain function. Toxic build-up in the body and brain can cause "brain fog." People often report clearer thinking as one of the benefits of curing their constipation.

46. Self awareness. This may not seem important to brain power, but it is. When you know yourself better, you can avoid the usual effects of ego and emotion in your seemingly "rational" thinking. Or you can at least take it into account. Watch yourself, especially as you explain things or argue.

47. Motivate yourself. Motivation is as important to mental tasks as it is to any other. Learn a few simple techniques for self motivation. You can start with those in Chapter 8.

48. Avoid too much stress. Neuropsychiastrist Richard Restak, M.D., form the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Services, sums up the research thus: "Stress causes brain damage." Long term stress has repeated been shown to hurt the brain, not to mention the rest of the body. Learn a few stress reduction techniques if you get stressed out often.

49. Get educated. Scientists have known for a while that the less educated get alzheimer's more frequently. Education in any area seems to make the brain stronger.

50. Avoid too much fat. In laboratory studies, animals consistently learn slower when they are on a diet high in fat. Type of fat may make a difference, so you may want to stick to using olive oil and other non-saturated fats. Saturated fats have been shown to actually stunt the growth of brain cells.

51. Eat less. Overeating has the immediate effect of redirecting more blood to the digestive process, leaving less for the brain. Long term, it can cause arterial obstructions that reduce blood flow to the brain permanently. In at least one study, rats on a restricted-calorie diet had more brainpower.

52. Avoid suspect foods. There is evidence that the following foods can be bad for your brain: Artificial food colorings, artificial sweeteners, colas, corn syrup, frostings, high-sugar drinks, hydrogenated fats, sugars, white bread, and any white-flour products.

53. Eat breakfast. When kids who didn't eat breakfast started to eat it, researchers found that their math scores went up a whole grade on average.

54. Avoid diabetes. The development of diabetes coincides with a dropping of IQ scores. In other words, if you want to maintain your brain power, follow your doctors dietary recommendations for preventing or treating diabetes.

55. Eat foods high in antioxidants. Antioxidants protect all your cells, including brain cells. Some of the foods highest in antioxidants include: prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, garlic, kale, cranberries, strawberries, spinach, and raspberries. In one test, rats had age-related mental decline reversed by eating the equivalent of a 1/2 cup of blueberries per day.

56. Drink wine. In moderation, red wine can be good for the brain, it seems. It is rich in antioxidants, which protect brain cells. One glass per day for women and two for men is usually considered a safe and moderate amount.

57. Use alcohol in moderation. In a study at the University of Indiana School of Medicine, elderly light drinkers (fewer than 4 drinks per week) scored higher on tests of thinking abilities than non-drinkers. Those who drank 10 or more drinks per week scored lower. It is known that alcohol can kill brain cells, so moderation seems to be the key.

58. Folic acid. According to one study, 200 micrograms of folic acid, the amount found in 3/4 cup of cooked spinach, alleviates depression and reverses memory loss.

59. Potential brain foods. Other foods that may be good for your brain include: Avocados, bananas, lean beef, brewer's yeast. broccoli, brown rice, brussel sprouts, cantaloupe, cheese, chicken, collard greens, eggs, flaxseed oil, legumes, oatmeal, oranges, peanut butter, peas, potatoes, romaine lettuce, salmon, soybeans, spinach, tuna, turkey, wheat germ, and yogurt.

60. Vitamin E. Jean Carper, in researching her book, "Your Miracle Brain," found that many brain researchers are taking 400 I.U.s of vitamin E daily. It is an antioxidant, and reduces the clogging of blood vessels, including those going in the brain.

61. Vitamin C. Taken in the form of orange juice in a study at the Texas Women's University, vitamin C increased the IQ scores of children.

62. Selenium. 100 micrograms of selenium has been shown to be a mood-elevator. Your brain almost certainly functions better when you are in a better mood. Foods rich in selenium include Brazil nuts and garlic.

63. Alpha-lipoic acid. Alpha-lipoic acid (10 to 50 milligrams daily) improves memory and protects nerve cells.

64. Inositol. This is a safe and natural substance that is often grouped with the B-vitamins. It reduces stress and promotes clear thinking. It contributes to energy production, and so can "wake you up." Animal studies show a measurable increase in physical activity for up to five hours after taking it.

65. Huperzine A. This is a compound extracted from the Chinese club moss. Researchers both in Israel and the U.S. have used it to treat alzheimer's. It improves memory and learning an seems to be very safe.

66. Ask questions. This is a great way to keep your brain in shape. Just get in the habit of asking questions often, even if it is only in your own mind. Why are taller buildings better? what is the purpose of curbs? Ask anything that comes to mind, and ponder the possible answers.

67. Sniff basil. This another of the herbs that may be good for your brain. No studies yet, but many report a brain boost from smelling basil.

68. Temperature. Many people have noted that they think better at certain temperatures. In general, it seems that being slightly cool, but not uncomfortable, is most conducive to good thinking. Try experimenting on yourself to see what temperature works best for you.

69. Use systems. From the time I was ten years old, 12 x 49 was always (12 x 50) - 12. It's easier to figure in your head this way (588, by the way). I didn't get any credit for my personal algorithms then, but they are selling these shortcuts on late-night TV now, because they work. You can find your own easier ways to do mental math or other mental tasks, or read a good book on them.

70. Make a brainpower plan. It takes about twenty to thirty days of repetition to establish new habits, many psychologists will tell you. This means that when you create your plan for better brainpower, be sure you plan to use that new problem solving technique, or eat those new brain foods for at least three weeks. You can use many of the brain boosters here and get immediate results, but it is creating new habits that will give you the most brainpower.

Are You Already Rich?

2008-04-21T02:01:00.000-07:00

The Wise Person Decides How Much is "Enough" Before Setting Foot on the Path to Riches

By Stuart Goldsmith,
Excerpt from Seven Secrets of the Millionaires

Now we arrive at the deepest secret of happiness associated with wealth. Also, this is the most difficult initiation test of all seven. Yes, knowing when to stop is actually more difficult than making it in the first place!

Remember one thing. The aim of life is to happy. Money is one way (yes, a big way) in which you can achieve happiness, but don't lose sight of the fact that it is happiness you are after as a final goal, not money.

If you ever make any real money you will be so caught up in your astonishing success that you will find it very hard to quit. You will be tempted to work harder and faster to get more whilst the going is good. Then, if you hit a lean time, you will work harder and faster to try to get back what you have lost. In short, you will always be working harder and faster. Knowing when enough is enough is the most difficult challenge you will ever face.

Most people do not face this challenge because they rarely make enough to live on and almost never create a surplus. However, it is useful to ask yourself the question at any stage of your life, even if "flat broke" as I hope to prove.

This is one of life's big questions, and I believe it would help you to try and answer it right now. In this single question I believe is embodied the spirit of the next thousand years - no small claim!

What is the question?

"Do You Have Enough?"

Strange question! Perhaps you're thinking "enough of what?" Or even, "what is he talking about?"

I have deliberately phrased the question in this simple form. You know what I'm talking about. You know what the question means. So I would like you to close your eyes for a moment, and let the question work its magic, before I elaborate and spoil its simple power.

Now I will answer your question, "enough of what?" I mean enough money, enough material possessions, enough "things." And before you answer a resounding "No - that's why I bought this book!" let me tell you some interesting facts about your current level of wealth. (I have accounted for inflation in these statistics.)

Wealth Fact #1

You are approximately one thousand times richer than the average ancient Egyptian, ignoring Pharaohs - you are only a mere fifty times richer than a Pharaoh. Of course you don't have the piles of gold they had, but that's not the point. The point is what they could and did buy with that gold, which was mainly slave-power. It has been estimated that modern inventions such as a motor car, washing machines, dishwashers, etc. are the equivalent of owning one thousand slaves, making you wealthier now (whatever your level of poverty) than the kings of the ancient world.

But...are you fifty times happier than a Pharaoh? Are you one thousand times happier than the average ancient Egyptian?

Are you even as happy as they were?

Wealth Fact #2

You are about three hundred times richer than the average ancient Briton living at the start of the first millennium; i.e. the year AD 1. You are an estimated thirty times richer than the wealthiest king or lord of that era. By richer, I mean your access to clean wholesome food, potable drinking water, transport, power, medicine, shelter, clothing and labour-saving devices, to mention only a few things. Stagnant piles of loot stacked up in a warehouse are not riches, any more than ten million in a Swiss bank account which is never touched is "money." Wealth is only meaningful if it is used.

Wealth Fact #3

You are an estimated one hundred times richer than the average Briton living at about the time of the Battle of Hastings, i.e. at around the start of the second millennium, the year AD 1066. You are ten times richer than the richest man on the planet one thousand years ago.

I am not including land ownership in these statistics. The mere ownership of land is not wealth: riches are measured in what the land produces. To prove this point, let me hereby grant you 100% ownership, absolute, of the planet Pluto - all ten trillion acres. You own the entire planet. Congratulations! Has it improved your level of wealth by even 1%? No, because it produces nothing.

Are you one hundred times happier than someone from 1066? Are you even as happy?

Wealth Fact #4

You are fifty times more wealthy than the average peasant living in the year 1500. Life was hard back then, but are you fifty times happier than they were? I doubt this very much. Are you even as happy? I wonder...

Wealth Fact #5

You are thirty times more wealthy than the average Englishman or woman living in 18th-century Britain.

Wealth Fact #6

You are twenty times more wealthy than the average Victorian. Looked at another way, you have the equivalent today of twenty Victorian servants working for you. A Victorian household with twenty staff would most definitely have been owned only by the super rich.

Wealth Fact #7

On average you are likely to be five times richer than your granddad. Are you five times happier than he was?

Wealth Fact #8

On average, you are likely to be twice as wealthy as your own parents, although this depends on your age. If you are 18, it will not apply. If you are 50, it almost certainly will. For example, think back to the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, whichever decade is closest to when you were growing up. Did each family have two cars? Mobile telephones? Dishwashers? Microwaves? Did your mom and dad take expensive foreign holidays, sometimes even more than one in a year? Did they wear expensive designer clothes? You get the idea. In the 1930s, which surely is only 'yesterday', over 25 million Americans had no income whatsoever; only 1% of UK homes had a telephone; only 50% had electricity and nutrition was so poor that six out of ten men who applied for the army failed their basic "if you can stagger, you're in" medical test and could not join up.

Wealth Fact #9

You are already in the very top 1% of the world in terms of wealth. Most people on the planet still live on subsistence farms, carrying water from long distances, without sanitation or electricity. Are you happier than they are, on average?

At this point in the proceedings, I want to ask my question again:

"Do you have enough?"

Think about it. You are already one thousand times wealthier than an ancient Egyptian, three hundred times richer than someone living in AD 1; twenty times wealthier than the average Victorian; five times wealthier than your grandfather and in the top 1% of wealthy people on the planet.

Do you have enough?

This is not a one-shot question, it is a question for life. You need to continuously ask yourself this from now until you die. If the answer is still "no," then I want to ask you a supplementary questions which you need to answer, right now: "When do you think you will have enough?" I am not asking these questions for amusement only. I believe the answers hold one of the keys to your happiness for the rest of your life.

I wish you the very best in your journey,
Stuart Goldsmith

How to Use The Power of Appreciation to Get What You Want

2008-04-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

By Karim Hajee
Author of Creating Power

If you knew that you attract more of what you want in life by simply appreciating what you have - would you do it? I mean would you really take the time to appreciate all the positive, good and terrific things in your life - no matter how small they are - if you knew that in return you would get more of those great things and you would also get everything that you wanted?

If you said yes - then it's time to start appreciating all those wonderful things in your life - because when you do - you'll be applying what I call The Power Of Appreciation - when you work with it properly - you'll get what you want and more.

In this article I'll outline exactly how the Power Of Appreciation works, how you can apply it in your everyday life and how you can work with the Power of Appreciation to dramatically improve the quality of your life and the lives of those around you.

Everyday we're presented with new challenges - but in each day we are also given a number of rewards and too often we fail to appreciate them - simple things like nature and it's awesome power, a great meal, a good friend, a kind act, a job, a paycheck - we fail to appreciate all of these little things.

When was the last time you took a moment to truly appreciate everything that you have in life. There is tremendous power in appreciation - because when you take time to appreciate something you attract more of the same.

How The Power Of Appreciation Works

When you appreciate something you almost always experience some emotion or feeling. For example: if you take a moment to appreciate the time you have with your family or a loved one you'll sense some emotion - you're going to feel good about this because you're focusing on the positive aspects of the family or loved one. These feelings or emotions that you utilize when you appreciate someone will attract more positive things and more positive people into your life.

Why?

Whatever you focus on you will attract, whatever emotions you attach to what you focus on -- you will attract in greater quantity.

If you focus on something positive you will attract more positive situations. If you focus on something negative - you will attract more negative situations. Here's an example of how focusing on something negative can make your life worse.

If you spend most of your day complaining, worrying, thinking about what could go wrong, thinking about what you don't have, thinking about all that is wrong with your life - you'll only attract more of that - and if you attach emotion to those thoughts - then you're going to attract what you don't want in greater quantities and it will happen much more quickly.

Take a look at what you regularly think about and then see if you attach any feeling to those thoughts. For example: if everyday you think about not having enough money and you have this sinking feeling when you think about that - then look at the results: has life improved in any way since you started having those thoughts?

By regularly having negative thoughts and thoughts of doom and gloom - you'll only attract more of the same. When you work with the Power of Appreciation you suddenly stop having negative thoughts and you actually start attracting more positive things into your life.

The Power of Appreciation starts working for you the minute you start appreciating the things that you have in life - try it and watch the emotional shift you enjoy.

Take a moment to appreciate something in your life. It can be anything - you can appreciate the meal you had at breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a conversation you had with a friend - anything.

Now when you do that your mind shifts, your focus shifts, your emotions shift and the energy you send out shifts. Instead of focusing on something negative and attracting more negative situations - you start feeling better and you start attracting more positive situations into your life. Which would you enjoy more? Feeling good about something or feeling down and out about something. Attracting positive situations or attracting negative situations?

I know what some of you will say -- "Karim, the reality is that there are not a lot of great things to appreciate. Sure I could find something but I still have to find a way to pay the bills, and get out of this rut that I am in." Yes you do - and here's the best part - when you work with the Power of Appreciation you will actually attract the situations that you want to improve your life. You will find a way to pay off the bills and you will climb out of that rut that you are in -- it's really that simple.

How To Apply The Power Of Appreciation

So now that you understand how the Power of Appreciation works and how it can dramatically improve the quality of your I'm going to give you a formula that will propel you to success if you apply it consistently for 60-consecutive days.

Here's what you should do.

Everyday when you wake up in the morning Appreciate the new day that you have. It's a chance to start fresh, make a difference, have a positive impact on someone, share your generosity or perform a kind act. This is a fresh start - a day that will never happen again. You can do this while you're taking a shower, getting ready for work, making or eating breakfast or on your way to work.

Later in the day - after you've been consumed with work for a few hours, usually at about lunch time is a good time to do this next exercise - find something that has already taken place during the day or the day before that you can appreciate. Simply find one thing that you really appreciate - it can be anything - small or large - it doesn't matter. Just fill yourself up with that feeling of appreciation.

At the end of your day - preferably in the early evening, perhaps on your way home from work - take a few moments to appreciate the people you enjoy being with. This process allows you to continue enjoying their presence in your life while at the same time attracting more, positive people into your life. Try to think of a different person everyday.

Finally as you go to bed at night - simply appreciate all the wonderful things that happened during the day. Don't limit yourself to appreciating only the big things that took place - appreciate the little things that happened during the day. Sometimes you may feel your day was overwhelming and you may even call it a bad day. Really there are no bad days - just bad ways of looking at things. And if you still feel that you truly had a bad day - at least you got through it and survived - that's something you can appreciate.

I know some of you may say: "Karim, this is all well and good - but some days I just don't have anything to appreciate - I'm really in the dumps." It's never really that bad and if you start searching - you'll find something to appreciate - even a nice meal that you had. You may have had it alone, you may have had it late - but at least you got one. There are millions of people who aren't even that fortunate - so appreciate what you have and you'll see more positive things flow into your life.

Students who work with my Creating Power System learn how to train their mind to focus on what they want and in the process direct their subconscious mind to create the life they want. When you utilize the Power of Appreciation you tell your subconscious mind that you are ready to attract positive situations, people and events into your life. With Creating Power you'll learn how to do this and much more and you'll see the results sooner than you expect.

Sincerely,
Karim Hajee

Karim Hajee is the creator of The Creating Power System

How to Be Happy Right Now

2008-04-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

By Urayoan Paz
Author of The Gratitude-Bliss Meditation Handbook

I will ask you a simple question...

DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY?

Really, think about it. Do you really want to be happy? Do you deserve to be happy? Are you doing everything in your power to be happy?

Or do you think happiness is something for the wealthy, the good-looking, royalty, and the spiritually advanced?

Well, guess again. I have developed the perfect way for you to be happy. It's called Gratitude-Bliss Meditation.

But first, If you think happiness is not for you then stop reading this report right now. You might not be ready for this powerful technique. But if you are ready for happiness, then read on.

Being Happy

From the beginning of human history we have been searching for happiness. Most of our daily functions and overall desires all revolve around "being happy." Being satisfied is a key goal in our current "materialistic society."

But something that the spiritually advanced noticed quickly was that everything material is impermanent. Like beauty fades, and youth withers away, so does everything material. So happiness cannot depend on the material.

So as this revelation was made clearer, many ancient traditions focused on the opposite, the spiritual. And thus, if you begin studying ancient texts and modern sciences, you'll notice their complexity. The more you learn the more you get confused. Eventually, the main goal, happiness (or personal contentment), is lost in the haze.

Some, the very adept, are able to reach that state of pure happiness through spiritual ascension, via ascetic practices. Going on retreat to the middle of nowhere and living in a monastery devoid of life's simple pleasures, does not seem like a practical option for a normal human being living in the 21st Century. For us, the normal human beings, spiritual ascension is a goal we might want but not at the expense of "living life to the fullest."

For most of us, our time is our most precious commodity. We love to live life in the moment and we enjoy life more when we are in action. We like doing, evolving, learning, interacting, being, moving; this is who we are.

Sitting in a room quietly for thirty minutes, then thrusting yourself into this hectic city-world and thinking everything is going to be perfect is not a realistic view of life. Plus, with bills, spouses, bosses, coworkers, offspring, and other obstacles, one needs a "real world" approach to this fast-paced life.

So we come to this statement:

More important than spiritual ascension is personal contentment.

Only with personal contentment can you ascend spiritually. Personal contentment does not mean material or sensory satisfaction. Personal contentment means to be truly happy with yourself right here and now.

From this state of personal contentment EVERYTHING is possible. Personal contentment brings peace of mind. That's why I have developed Gratitude-Bliss Meditation (GBM). Based on ancient philosophies and good old common sense, GBM is the perfect solution for 21st Century fast-paced life.

This technique will put you in a state of contentment, guaranteed. Just like 1 + 1 = 2, following these instructions cannot fail.

The Power of Gratitude

Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions a human being can experience. It alone can put you in a state of Bliss (contentment). A grateful mind is a content mind. A grateful mind needs nothing. When you are in a state of Gratitude, peace and overall contentment follows.

So from this we can say that...

Gratitude = contentment = True Happiness (Bliss)

Another key point about gratitude is that when FOCUSED, it becomes an extremely powerful energy source that releases Bliss at any time. So with the power of GBM you can turn a bad moment into a great one!

Shall your lives be filled with Gratitude, Joy, and Bliss!

Your Friend in Happiness,
Urayoan Paz

Urayoan Paz has dedicated the past 15 years to the search of truth and happiness. In his research he has found that GRATITUDE is the most important aspect of spiritual life. Click here for The Gratitude-Bliss Meditation Handbook.

Think Big, Dream Bigger to Manifest Your Life

2008-04-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

By Barry Goss,
Creator of The Manifestation Portal

There is the story of the kindergarten teacher who asks a child what she is drawing. "I'm drawing a picture of God," the child replies. "But, sweetheart," says the teacher, "no one knows what God looks like." They will in a minute!" says the child.

Now, that is a perfect example of Thinking BIG !!

Big Thinkers possess this childlike faith. Not a childish faith that lacks maturity and understanding, but an attitude of deep faith in themselves. If you are a big thinker, you have an inner voice that asks "why not..." and "what if..." and you're in tune with your own skills, talents, and abilities to SEE the unseen or create the uncreatable.

Here's another example of a Big Thinker:

The Italian sculptor Agostino d'Antonio worked diligently on a large piece of marble. Unable to produce his desired masterpiece, he lamented, "I can do nothing with it." Other sculptors also worked this difficult piece of marble, but to no avail. Michelangelo discovered the stone and visualized the possibilities in it. His "I-can-make-it-happen" attitude resulted in one of the world's masterpieces - the statue of David.

Yes, sometimes, all it takes is to have unstoppable belief and high-faith in your own creative talents to turn your imagination into reality.

But ... if thinking big is all it takes, by now, wouldn't we already have a world full of people steadfastly achieving their goals and bringing major accomplishments into their life?

Let's look at an example of a Big Dreamer first; then maybe I can shed some more light on the question above.

There is the story of Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) who hears an ethereal message ("If you build it, they / He will come") that inspires him to construct a baseball diamond in the middle of his Iowa cornfield ... with the promise that the ghosts of famous baseball players will inhabit it for games at night.

Ray heard his inner voice (let's just say his connection to source or his higher-self), believed in the possibilities (however far beyond obvious), talked about it with intention, clarity, and passion. He took action on his inner promptings, regardless of how nonsensical they seemed at the time.

One of the manifesting mentors I interviewed basically told me everything in the world in suggestion - just one step away from a dream.

Life is indeed a dream and the producers of Field of Dreams make this point during a scene where Ray's father (John) asked:

"Is this heaven?"

Ray Kinsella: No - it's Iowa. John: I could have sworn it was heaven. Ray: Is there a heaven? John: Oh, yeah. It's the place where dreams come true. (Ray looks around, seeing his wife playing with their daughter on the porch.) Ray: Maybe this is heaven.

Yes, Big Dreamers - just like Big Thinkers - find it easy to believe that all things are possible, and that life can be as passionate, pure and invigorating as fresh-cut outfield grass. However, oftentimes, this is where to two similarities end. For instance, to me, the movie Field of Dreams isn't so much a story of a possibility-thinking farmer, searching for boyish excitement in his life, as much as it is a story about TRUST and the power of VISION mixed into the manifesting process.

A bonafide Big Dreamer is somebody who is what I like to call a Vivid Visionary. Just like Ray, they have a personally compelling belief in the "inner voice" that prompts them along to take the little steps that eventually lead to bigger steps, unleashing the power of manifestation in their life.

And that power basically says: whatever it is you think constantly about, feel good about when talking about it, or become immersed in with unwavering emotion and focus, will become evident for you - not only to your own senses but to those around you who were involved while you took that first small step.

Sure, we all know the movie was fiction - a fantasy film, based on W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel "Shoeless Joe" - however, when you watch the progression of Kevin Costner's character (Ray), from the first few dismissals' of his inner voice to his KNOWING that he was personally responsible for turning his vision into reality, you get to see a Vivid Visionary in the making.

My friend Dr. Michael Norwood, defines vision like this:

"A Vision has many components. It may start off as a goal, a mission or even a dream. However, whereas the goal, mission and dream describe something one accomplishes, a Vision is something one becomes."

The question was once asked of a highly successful businessman: "How have you done so much in your lifetime?"

He replied, "I have dreamed. I have turned my mind loose to imagine what I wanted to do. Then I have gone to bed and thought about my dreams. In the night I dreamt about my dreams and turned then into my Vision. And when I awoke in the morning, I envisioned my day - I knew what action that I needed to employ to help me pull in the resources and people to support my Vision and make it a reality."

Personal Accountability Check - How many of you reading this truly spend at least 15-minutes a night imagining what you want in your mind, energizing it with feeling (i.e., putting yourself in the picture versus looking at the picture screen from the auditorium), and then affirming it mentally when you wake up?

Come on ... be honest !

One of the Manifesting Mentors I interviewed told me emphatically:

"Just 15 minutes of creative visualization a day can change you life in unimaginable ways. It's just that most people don't believe in their own imagination".

Read that twice. Three times, if you want to.

There's incredible wisdom and stinging truth in that statement.

More so than just personal confidence, big picture thinking, or being an idea-driven person, being a Big Dreamer is all about taking your wants to sleep, thinking constantly about them, talking about them, planning them with focus, and adding all the spices to your dreams that will give you the realization of actually manifesting your dreams - bigger, better, and faster than ever.

The ability to image, and the ability to expect what we dream about to come true, are two of the finest qualities of being a human being. Together, with belief in our own reality-creating power, we can truly be a Vivid Visionary. As Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the U.S., said: "We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers."

So, dream on .... but, add some ACTION (without it, you're just a Big Thinker), sprinkle in some FOCUS (think about your dreams / desires enough to bring them into consistent awareness), and top them off with TRUST (that you will, without question, always get exactly what you ask for).

You truly are the one who STARTS it all - from daydream, to night dream, to living out your dream - regardless of how outside of you it may SEEM!

I'll leave you with one final quote / scene from Field of Dreams. [ On wondering who the voice was - telling him "If You Build It, He / They Will Come" ]

Ray Kinsella: What are you grinning at, you ghost? Shoeless Joe: "If you build it -" (gestures toward catcher, who is Ray's father, John Kinsella) "- he will come." Ray : It was you? Shoeless Joe: No, Ray. It was you.

Bruce Lee's $10 Million Dollar Secret

2008-04-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

By Gary Ryan Blair (The Goals Guy)
Creator of Your Personal Strategic Plan

Here's a message which I'm sure you'll love, and find immediate value from.

At Planet Hollywood in New York City, there is a letter hanging on the wall that martial artist and actor Bruce Lee wrote to himself.

The top of the letter, which Lee WROTE and dated January 9, 1970, has stamped on it "SECRET." It starts out, "By 1980 I will be the best known oriental movie star in the United States and will have secured $10 million dollars."

The most interesting part of this letter, however, was the second part-the part, often omitted when we sit down with ourselves to set goals.

Lee goes on to write, "And in return I will give the very best acting I could possibly give every single time I am in front of the camera and I will live in peace and harmony."

How fascinating that Bruce Lee wrote he would have peace and harmony after he said what he would do to obtain his goal.

There are two kinds of goals: product and process.

A product goal is what you are going to achieve, such as, "I will become a Vice President of Sales by next June," or "I will weigh 118 lbs, wear a size 2, and look fabulous on my birthday."

A process goal is what we will do to get it, which means developing a "prescription for success." This is a plan that winners will follow very closely in their daily work habits and periodically evaluate themselves on.

To learn how to apply Bruce Lee's product and process "SECRET",
listen to the audio at the following link and enjoy the message.

http://www.goalsguy.com/mp3/BruceLeeByGaryRyanBlair.mp3

Everything Counts!

Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy
Creator of Your Personal Strategic Plan

Magic Words That Make You Rich

2008-04-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

By Ted Nicholas,
Author of Magic Words That Make You Rich

How to get everything you’ve ever wanted in life by saying the right words.

The words with which you communicate determine the quality of your life. This is true whether communicating with others or with yourself. Especially with yourself. The impact of words actually causes measurable biological changes in ourselves. And in others. Words are stored in our conscious and subconscious minds. We think in words.

Certain words incite many emotions and subsequent actions. Words have the power to induce someone to laugh, to cry, to be kind, to be loving, to be cooperative, or to buy. Or be unkind, angry, or irrational. Whether words are written or spoken, they have enormous power. Of course, when words are spoken, the added factors of voice timbre, emphasis, emotion . . . all have the potential to cause even more impact.

This book offers many concrete examples of using simple words to produce certain results. This may sound like a form of manipulation. Actually, it is. But, here is the important distinction that needs to be made. Manipulation can be either positive or negative. I define negative manipulation in this context: the use of words that causes others to act for the benefit of the communicator. Positive manipulation is when certain words tend to cause responses that are of mutual benefit to the speaker or writer and the person with whom you communicate.

The techniques I’ll reveal to you have all been developed in a win/win context.

Here is what few people seem to realize: People all over the world really want to accommodate their fellow humans. But they must be approached properly. It’s my experience and observation that many people do not give much attention to the people we meet in life and who have positions on the lower end of the job scale. In fact, some people not only ignore them, they are rude and insensitive to them.

Here is a big mistake. I believe every human being should be treated with dignity and respect. Reason? People in service occupations, for example, such as waiters and waitresses, the health club attendants, golf and tennis assistants, hotel desk clerks, rental car agents, office clerks, etc. have an ongoing power to add so much quality and meaning to our lives. Little people mean a lot.

So, Rule Number One: Treat the "little" people in your world with dignity and respect. Learn their names and background information by asking questions. Think about it. Who do you think will get special consideration when it is requested? The open and kind caring person? Or the person who treats the "little" people as though they were invisible? The answer is obvious. I’ve found that the "little" people I’ve taken time to know have enormous power to make my life more enjoyable and add real quality to each day. Plus, it’s fun to make lots of new friends.

It’s been proven by the experts that body language communicates with as much impact as the words we speak. Therefore, to enhance their power, practice saying the secret words with:

* a smile (you can even hear a smile on the telephone);
* a warm, rich tone to your voice;
* enthusiasm in what you request;
* good eye contact;
* a firm handshake;
* sincerity-you can't fake friendliness;
* a purposeful posture-standing tall; and
* a manner that communicates an expectation that you deserve and expect to get what you request.

I submit that with each person we come in contact, we have, in a certain sense, the opportunity to market ourselves. To be liked or disliked. Of course, the more people like us, the happier they are to be helpful.

I use "magic words" every day of my life. Here they are revealed to you, dear reader, for the very first time anywhere.

Self-Communication
Unless you first learn to communicate with yourself, you will not be very effective communicating with others. The silent words we all say to ourselves produce feelings. These can be positive, happy and life-enhancing, or negative, unhappy and detrimental to us.

Silent Words Are Heard!
You literally affect and change your nervous system by your internal dialogue. While I will focus mainly on the silent words, it’s important that I at least touch on another vital aspect of communication to ourselves and to the outside world.

We communicate both to our inner self with the world outside as much by the way we use our body as in our words. And our body messages, along with words spoken or silent, help create our emotion. Of course, we also hear silent words in the voice pitch and quality we choose, for our unspoken voice is heard. We hear a whiny, sleepy, apologetic voice, or we hear a rich, strong energetic voice when we speak to ourselves through internal dialogue.

In addition, if you sit slouched and speak softly and slowly with a yawning voice tone, tell yourself you are learning about communication as you begin to feel a lack of energy and drowsiness.

Any doubts? Try this test. Read the previous paragraph and see how you feel. Let yourself really experience the feelings your actions produce within you.

Now try this standing up. Walk briskly and purposefully across the room - head back, good posture. Sit comfortably, but keep your back straight as you sit in your chair. Speak silently to yourself in a strong voice with energy. Tell yourself you are learning about self-communication as you feel growing excitement about all the new benefits your new knowledge brings to your life. Let yourself really experience the emotions. See the difference!

The way we use our body muscles, facial muscles and posture is critical to our self-communication. Even how you use your eyes. It’s almost impossible to feel up if you continually look downward, especially with a frown on your face. And it’s almost impossible to feel down when you are looking straight up with a smile on your face.

Try it!

In summary, communication with the outside world, written or spoken, first starts with self-communication. Self-communication starts with the way we use our body along with the silent words we say to ourselves. The loudness of the inner words, along with the richness of tone used when we say them combine to produce our inner emotional state. Interestingly, our communication to others reflects this inner state. It can’t be hidden, at least not for long.

How to get the very best table in any restaurant

Key words are: "Celebrating Tonight"

When calling for a reservation, say, "I’d like the very best, most special table you have. We’re celebrating tonight. What can you do for us?"

If you bring your spouse on a date instead of a client or friend, say instead, "I’d like the most romantic table you have in the corner, so we can sit side by side. We’re celebrating tonight."

If the maitre d’ asks what you are celebrating (unless, of course, it’s a birthday, anniversary, sales achievement, asset purchase, or other special event) say, "We’re celebrating . . .

Ted Nicholas, widely recognized as one of the greatest direct marketing wizards of all time, is best-known for having earned 24.5 million dollars on the sale of a single book that was primarily sold through direct mail. He is called the Five Hundred Million Dollar Man because he has marketed over $500 million worth of products in 49 different industries. Ted's newest book, "Magic Words That Bring You Riches" reveals 17 magic words that can make you a fortune. Learn more by clicking here.

The Greatest Success Secret of All Time

2008-04-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

By Frank Tibolt
Excerpt from A Touch of Greatness

Wise old Andy Carnegie, multi-millionaire philanthropist and builder of men (he created 43 millionaires) became an omnivorous reader as soon as he first learned to read.

He particularly liked stories of biography about successful and rich men. He quickly learned that most successful men made a habit of writing down goals and striving for them. He read this so often he regarded it as the secret of success. He preached it to anyone who'd listen.

He went so far as to think up a little trick for finding out how many of his own employees wrote down goals and aimed at them. This he did as follows:

He thought up a questionnaire of 15 questions so worded to make them think he wanted their opinions and suggestions. Here were some of the questions:

• How long have you been working here?
• What prompted you to come to work for us?
• Are you satisfied with your pay and working conditions?
• Do you have any suggestions for improving conditions, or improving the
company?
• Are you earning enough money for the work you do, in your opinion?
• Do you make enough money to take good care of your family?

Etc. etc. 15 questions in all.

But in between the 15 was one, the only one he was interested in. That one was:

Do you have the habit of writing down goals and working to reach them?

When the questionnaires came in, he had his accountants separate the "yes" sheets from the "no" sheets. There were 226 Yes sheets and 3572 No sheets.
Then he checked the earnings of each employee. The 226 Yes sheets were among the 10% of the highest earners in the company. The No sheets were among the 90% of the lowest earners.

After the test was over he confessed his trick and explained he did it to persuade them to become GOAL SETTERS. And it paid off. The production of the plant increased and hundreds began goal-setting. Many of them became rich. Fortythree of them became millionaires.

For a while he was nicknamed the High Priest of GOAL SETTING.

Since that time dozens of other research agencies, colleges, accountants, employment agencies and others conducted similar tests. And they always came out close to these figures of 6% and 94%.

GOAL SETTING... THE GREATEST, MOST VALUABLE AND MOST USEFUL OF ALL SUCCESS TECHNIQUES

This technique applies to any goal — large, small, short range, long range, personal, job or career. It works for just a passing thought. Writing down a mere passing thought works like magic for converting that thought into a goal. And writing down a goal works like DYNAMITE for converting a goal into reality.

You are already acquainted with GOAL SETTING through reading Lesson 1 [from the book A Touch of Greatness]. That lesson applied GOAL SETTING to writing down the six most urgent tasks for the next day. Your next step is to write down something with a longer range, like a week. Then gradually for a little longer like a month or so. As you see the giant results, you'll automatically apply it to longer and longer range goals.

Don't choose as your first step upward, a goal that your judgment tells you is so high that it's probably unreachable, or one that will take you so long that it might become discouraging. Select one that you're sure you can reach with a LITTLE time and effort.

Many students ask me: "You say most people know that deciding on and writing down a goal is the most important first step toward success. If so many people know that, why do so few people do it?"

That's a logical question. I'll be glad to answer it. I'll call on Edison and Napoleon to help me answer it. Napoleon wrote:

"The most difficult of all tasks, and hence the most rewarding, is the POWER TO DECIDE. It takes little power to do big things. But it takes great power to decide on big things. And deciding on a goal is a BIG thing. It affects us all our lives."

Whatever you want — large or small, material, mental, or spiritual — write it down as a goal then do something every day to help you reach it. That's the nearest thing to that "so called" SECRET OF SUCCESS you’ll ever discover.

The great Goethe wrote: “First build a proper goal. That proper goal will make it easy, almost automatic, to build a proper YOU.”

William. James and other great psychologists tell us: Compared to what we should be, we are only half alive. We are making use of only a small part of our mind power. Deep down inside of us are vast powers we know nothing of and never use.

How can we wake up more of our mind power? By waking up more of our 12 billion brain cells most of which are idle, asleep. Some wake up by themselves. But the surest, most powerful technique is to set goals and to work towards them.

After you've chosen your goal, whether long range, or short range, whether a job goal or some other, you now have the task of realizing it. When your car needs a major repair, your mechanic selects the best tools. And when you want to realize a goal, you also need the best, quickest and surest tools.

And what are they?

Without the slightest question of a doubt, they are PENCIL AND PAPER... writing.

Edison once said: "Most people will go to ANY length to avoid the labor of thinking." My classes taught me: Many people will go to any length to avoid the labor of writing. They'll practice auto-suggestion, positive thinking, meditating, affirmations, even hypnotism. But they shrink from writing.

They are throwing away their sharpest tool for the purpose of realizing a goal. Why? Because writing requires thinking, the most exact kind of thinking.

In fact writing forces us to think. It has ten times the power to force us to concentrate and think accurately, exactly, and meaningfully as mere talking or silent pondering. You can prove this in a minute. Just try to write something without thinking. You can't. Forcing yourself to write harnesses a group of brain cells to produce thoughts and that develops mind power.

The starting point of all achievement is a vision, a dream. That dream continued changes to a desire. And if it's definite, it leads to a plan, which in turn leads to action. But it must be definite and WRITTEN DOWN as a goal. Otherwise it's a mere passing thought.

Unless you write down your goal on paper, you are merely toying ...you haven't gotten serious. I'd like to print in letters 12 inches high this MILLION DOLLAR MESSAGE:

ONLY BY WRITING DOWN YOUR GOAL ON PAPER CAN YOU HARNESS YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND TO GO TO WORK TO REALIZE YOUR GOAL

I can't emphasize too strongly: Only the emotions, feeling, have the power to put a message over to the subconscious mind. Ordinary thinking or talking does NOT arouse the emotions. Seeing your goal on paper involves the optic nerve which is 17 times larger than most other nerves. Therefore, seeing it on paper makes a deeper impression on the mind, makes you remember it longer and it penetrates your inner, subconscious mind.

Many potentially great people remained just ordinary because they never wrote down their goals. And many ordinary men who did write down their goals rose to wealth and some even to greatness. A written down goal has more power than brilliance, luck, pull, even genius.

Writing down your goal is so important that I'm going to remind you, urge you, spur you and coax you to write it down until you're blue in the face. If I fail to motivate you to write it down, I'm a flop as a teacher. If you don't like to write, I strongly urge you to force yourself to write until it becomes a habit. Any skill or habit can be developed and acquired, IF we want it seriously enough to seriously set our minds to it. That requires SELF MASTERY, will power, discipline. Here is a good place to begin developing this SELF MASTERY — one of the two MIND GROWTH traits.

Writing down your goal is planting the seed. That seed will grow and draw all other success aids it needs, like the apple seed that grows and draws all the ingredients it needs. Writing is both physical and mental. It has double power... bringing faster results than any single power. It reaches the subconscious mind.

The subconscious is much smarter than the conscious mind. It's much older, millions of years older. The conscious mind is a comparatively late-comer.
Writing it down gives it momentum, life, substance ...makes it definite and PERMANENT. Mere mental thinking lasts a few seconds. Writing on paper never forgets. Writing it down has two powers, drawing and driving power. Through the subconscious it draws and through the conscious it drives us to do everything we can think of to help realize that goal. It's the quick way.

Writing it down is like hiring a MIRACLE WORKER.

Outside forces, seemingly from nowhere come to your aid. There's an ancient Swiss saying: FATE ADDS A THREAD TO THE CLOTH BEGUN. How? I don't know. Experts have several theories about how a goal converts itself to its physical equivalent. Here is the one most widely accepted:

Your conscious mind is the RULER of your life. Your subconscious mind is the FACTORY. This factory is also a giant COMPUTER. It has thousands of separate facts, ideas, plans, notions, concepts and thoughts. A written down order from the conscious mind signals the subconscious mind to select, compare, combine, adopt, adapt, reject, relate and switch these facts and thoughts around and combine them into new forms, new ideas, plans, and means to realize that goal. It even has cybernetic action like a guided missile. When it wanders off course it self-corrects and puts itself right back on course.

Paper with writing on it never forgets. And writing a goal on paper is in some way related to writing it on the subconscious mind, where it acts like a note to ourselves and projects itself upon our eyes and minds to spur us, urge us and nag us until we take some action.

Writing it down activates a new group of our 12 billion brain cells to go to work and realize our goal. Authorities admit they know very little about just how and why this subconscious mind works. But like electricity which produces light, although they don't know how and why electricity works, they are not willing to sit in the dark until they discover how and why. They're satisfied to push buttons and turn it on.

Many hesitate because they don't know how nature works. No one does. She works in mysterious ways. How she transforms a goal into its counterpart in material form is one of her secrets. As we use electricity without knowing how it works, let's do the same with writing down a goal. Those who do, win; those who don't, fail.

Writing down a goal is like turning on a switch. Pencil touching paper is like joining two electric wires together to form a path for the flow of electric power. This simple act of writing down your goal will do more to realize it than anything else you can do. It's electrifying, galvanizing, magnetizing ...it draws all it needs toward it ...it will make you a new person …it will lift you from creature of circumstance to master of circumstance ... it will release the sleeping powers of your mind ...it will permeate every facet of your life. A note on paper never forgets. Nor does your subconscious mind. It might flare forth weeks later.

Your problem is more than half solved once you get your message over to the subconscious mind. In six weeks it can change your whole life. Seemingly miracles begin to happen. Ideas to help you realize your goal will come from everywhere ...seemingly even out of thin air. Your hopes rise ...you change from drifting to driving. Your whole life seems to surge ahead.

Optimism replaces pessimism, positive replaces negative. Hope blooms and despair flees. Your confidence drives out all doubt — indifference changes to enthusiasm. You're on your way!

One surprising way your subconscious mind works on your goal is: IT WORKS ON YOU. Your written down goal motivates you to action. It seems to set a fire under you to wake you up. It changes your whole attitude and outlook. Writing it down takes less than a minute but does more than 20 years of mere wishing to realize it. It's a literal magnet, a charm that draws everything it needs.

You'll notice your goal working on you right away. Seeing your goal on paper will alert you to notice everything even remotely related to your goal. You'll notice your goal gripping you and everything you do. It will keep you ever alert for new ideas; give you new spring, new energy and zeal, new spirit to permeate your whole being.

So far we’ve been emphasizing the power of the subconscious mind to help us realize our goal. That was proper. Writing it down on paper was the mightiest single action we could take to help realize it. But since we want quick results, we owe it to ourselves to use ALL possible aids. Our conscious mind also has power. Remember it is the RULER of our life.

And remember it was our conscious mind that impelled us to harness our
subconscious mind to help realize that goal. And remember: "Committing your goal on paper will activate both your conscious mind and subconscious minds, and help keep your goal always before your vision."

There are several ways to harness your conscious mind to help you realize your goal. Probably the most powerful one is as a reminder. Keep that goal in mind. That requires conscious effort. Look at that written goal. Be sure to LOOK at it, not merely think of it. Look at it every evening. In addition, write it on several cards.
Put one in your car, one in your bedroom, one in your bathroom, and others where you'll AUTOMATICALLY see them without depending on your unreliable memory.

Your success, and how quickly you'll realize your goal, will depend on how long you can keep your enthusiasm up. Some have enthusiasm for a few minutes, others for a few days, some a few weeks, or months. But the real winners are the ones who keep it up for years. Keep in mind enthusiasm creates energy. Energy impels you from within to take actions that help you realize your goal.

OTHER WAYS TO HARNESS THE CONSCIOUS MIND

Also keep in mind the subconscious mind is deaf to mere thinking or weak wishing. It only heeds strong feeling, emotion. Other methods to harness your conscious mind are:

1. Auto suggestions ... telling yourself, aloud if alone, in positive tones that you will realize your goal. Still better, telling yourself that you are already realizing it.
2. Visualizing, seeing it mentally as realized.
3. Every evening reading the list of all the rich, rewards of your goal.
4. Meditation and affirmations.
5. Talking to people in fields of your interest.
6. Reading trade journals about your goal.
7. Reading success books, articles and stories about men in your field of interest.
8. Listening to lectures, tapes, records on success.
9. Associating with successful people.
10. Try to think up several ways of your own. Thinking is the highest faculty of the mind. Exercise it at every opportunity. It's easy: COMPARE AND COMBINE.
For quickest results, while your subconscious mind is drawing, your conscious mind should be driving you to develop the qualities needed to reach your goal. To this end get up a list of slogans, axioms, proverbs, precepts, maxims, mottos as short reminders. Read them every day.

WE NEED MORE TO BE REMINDED THAN INFORMED

To make the most of yourself keep in mind: We need more to be reminded than informed. All ambitious people, from the lowest to the highest need not merely yearly, or quarterly, or monthly or weekly inspiration, but DAILY reminders.

B.C. Forbes, the millionaire founder of Forbes Magazine, read an average of three success books every week for 20 years. Most leaders in business, industry, education, religion, entertainment, and EVERY FIELD are ALWAYS improving themselves by reading, studying, and seeking inspiration. Most world famous leaders claim they read practically all the new books on success, positive thinking, human relations and other success books as fast as they come out. Napoleon once said: "Show me an army of leaders and I'll show you an army of readers."

Do you remember the last words of Kaiser to the students of Denver University? They were: "After you decide on a goal, put it in writing. Then every evening read it to keep it in mind. The next day, and every day, do one thing to take you a little closer to that goal. Keep that up for five years or until you reach your goal."

"BUT," I sense some of you mentally say, "That's harder than it sounds. That takes the kind of will power and brains you read about in the history books. That might be all right for Henry Kaiser and other big shots, but I don't have the will power and the persistence to stick to a goal and do one thing every day for five years to reach it."

If that's your only objection, I have good news for you.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE BRILLIANT TO SUCCEED

The news I'm going to tell you might be the BEST NEWS YOU EVER HEARD. If you act on it, it might mark the turning point in your life. Pull up a chair and I'll tell you the one big factor behind most hugely successful men and women; that helps turn "ordinary" ability into "extraordinary" achievement; helps change average people into big shots, more often than any other trait. It took me 20 years to discover it. I'll tell it to you in 20 minutes.

Whether you want to get rich, become a star salesman, a top executive or entertainer, your ONLY right starting step is to find or develop some OVERMASTERING GOAL, VISION OR PURPOSE TO DRAW AND DRIVE YOU TO SUCCESS. Otherwise you'll fall by the wayside as all "average" folks do.

This right FEELING OR PURPOSE will speed you ahead further and faster than all the knowledge in all the books and colleges. The more people I analyze, the more convinced I am that the chief benefit of education is to help you find a worthy goal, vision or purpose in life, to give life meaning and to DRIVE AND DRAW YOU TO SUCCESS.

THE REAL CAUSE OF MOST FAILURES

Nothing leads to futility and failure like the lack of a chief, strong aim, goal or purpose in life. In my classes, clinic and correspondence course, I have analyzed more than 2000 people. Eighty-seven percent were accomplishing less than their highest potential because they had no goal or vision to draw and drive them forward.

You'll never even know what your real power and possibilities are until you feel that irresistible pull from an overmastering purpose from within, drawing you forward. That vision or goal, that purpose or feeling will act like a magnet, pulling you from in front, instead of requiring a push from behind. Your powerful subconscious mind will take over and replace the crude will power and DRIVE AND DRAW you forward.

This dominant goal will relieve you of the source of petty annoyances, fears, hates, peeves, excuses, inhibitions, and complexes that lick little men. Whenever an obstacle crops up, you'll automatically think, "How small this petty piffle will look five years from today." Your vision will carry you over obstacles like a jet bomber.
It will free you from the paralyzing complexes and the picayune peeves that flatten floundering floaters.

You'll automatically think with Sir Thomas Buxton,

"The longer I live, the stronger becomes my conviction that the truest difference between the success and the failure, between the strong and the weak, between the big and the small man, that separates the boys from the men, is nothing but a powerful aim in life, a purpose once fixed and then death or victory. And no perfect speech or manners, no culture or education, no pull or influence, can make a two-legged creature a man without it."

By Frank Tibolt, author of A Touch of Greatness

How to Experience Total Freedom

2008-04-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

By Eckhart Tolle
Author of The Power of Now

Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there," or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It's a split that tears you apart inside.

Does the past take up a great deal of your attention? Do you frequently talk and think about it, either positively or negatively? The great things that you have achieved, your adventures or experiences, or your victim story and the dreadful things that were done to you, or maybe what you did to someone else?

Are your thought processes creating guilt, pride, resentment, anger, regret, or self-pity? Then you are not only reinforcing a false sense of self but also helping to accelerate your body's aging process by creating an accumulation of past in your psyche. Verify this for yourself by observing those around you who have a strong tendency to hold on to the past.

Die To The Past Every Moment

You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence.

Are you worried? Do you have many "what if" thoughts? You are identified with your mind, which is projecting itself into an imaginary future situation and creating fear. There is no way that you can cope with such a situation, because it doesn't exist. It's a mental phantom.

You can stop this health- and life-corroding insanity simply by acknowledging the present moment.

Become Aware Of Your Breathing

Feel the air flowing in and out of your body. Feel your inner energy field. All that you ever have to deal with, cope with, in real life -- as opposed to imaginary mind projections -- is this moment. Ask yourself what "problem" you have right now, not next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from nöw. What is wrong with this moment?

You can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future -- nor do you have to. The answer, the strength, the right action, or the resource will be there when you need it, not before, not after.

Are you a habitual "waiter"? How much of your life do you spend waiting? What I call "small-scale waiting" is waiting in line at the post office, in a traffïc jam, at the airport, or waiting for someone to arrive, to finish work, and so on. "Large-scale waiting" is waiting for the next vacation, for a better job, for the children to grow up, for a truly meaningful relationship, for success, to make monëy, to be important, to become enlightened. It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.

Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you haven't got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you losë the present.

For example, many people are waiting for prosperity. It cannot come in the future. When you honor, acknowledge, and fully accept your present reality -- where you are, who you are, what you are doing right nöw -- when you fully accept what you have got, you are grateful for what you have got, grateful for what is, grateful for Being. Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity. It cannot come in the future. Then, in time, that prosperity manifests for you in various ways.

If you are dissatisfied with what you have got, or even frustrated or angry about your present lack, that may motivate you to become rich, but even if you do make millïons, you will continue to experience the inner condition of lack, and deep down you will continue to feel unfulfilled. You may have many exciting experiences that monëy can buy, but they will come and go and always leave you with an empty feeling and the need for further physical or psychological gratification. You won't abide in Being and so feel the fullness of life nöw that alone is true prosperity.

Give Up Waiting As A State Of Mind

When you catch yourself slipping into waiting... snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be, and enjoy being. If you are present, there is never any need for you to wait for anything.

So next time somebody says, "Sorry to have kept you waiting," you can reply, "That's all right, I wasn't waiting. I was just standing here enjoying myself -- in joy in my self."

These are just a few of the habitual mind strategies for denying the present moment that are part of ordinary unconsciousness. They are easy to overlook because they are so much a part of normal living: the background static of perpetual discontent. But the more you practice monitoring your inner mental-emotional state, the easier it will be to know when you have been trapped in past or future, which is to say unconscious, and to awaken out of the dream of time into the present. But beware: The false, unhappy self, based on mind identification, lives on time. It knows that the present moment is its own death and so feels very threatened by it. It will do all it can to take you out of it. It will try to keep you trapped in time.

In a sense, the state of presence could be compared to waiting. It is a qualitatively different kind of waiting, one that requires your total alertness. Something could happen at any moment, and if you are not absolutely awake, absolutely still, you will miss it. In that state, all your attention is in the Now. There is none left for daydreaming, thinking, remembering, anticipating. There is no tension in it, no fear, just alert presence. You are present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body.

In that state, the "you" that has a past and a future, the personality if you like, is hardly there anymore. And yet nothing of value is lost. You are still essentially yourself. In fact, you are more fully yourself than you ever were before, or rather it is only now that you are truly yourself.

The past cannot survive in your presence. Whatever you need to know about the unconscious past in you, the challenges of the present will bring it out. If you delve into the past, it will become a bottomless pit: There is always more. You may think that you need more time to understand the past or become free of it, in other words, that the future will eventually free you of the past. This is a delusion. Only the present can free you of the past. More time cannot free you of time.

Access the power of Now. That is the key. The power of Now is none other than the power of your presence, your consciousness liberated from thought forms. So deal with the past on the level of the present. The more attention you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a "self" out of it.

Don't misunderstand: Attention is essential, but not to the past as past. Give attention to the present; give attention to your behavior, to your reactions, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present. There's the past in you. If you can be present enough to watch all those things, not critically or analytically but nonjudgmentally, then you are dealing with the past and dissolving it through the power of your presence.

You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present.

Eckhart Tolle is the author of the internationally-acclaimed The Power of Now and Stillness Speaks.

The Secret of "Doing Without Doing"

2008-04-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

By Robert Anthony, Ph.D
Creator of The Secret of Deliberate Creation

One of the mistaken certainties or misconceptions
most people operate under is that you get what you
want in life by what you DO, or through the actions
you take. Most people believe that the DOING or action
part is what makes things happen. However, this causes
you to create in reverse.

Let me explain.

The reason we put a lot of emphasis on action is
because we do not understand the power of our thought.
If you analyze it, 90% of most people's actions are
spent trying to compensate for inappropriate thought.

The Chinese philosopher Lao-tsu said that, "In the
practice of the Way, every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things until
finally you arrive at *non action* When nothing is
done, nothing is left undone". What he is talking
about is *doing without doing*

The problem is that most of us are preoccupied with
"doing". Unfortunately most of our doing usually
involves struggle. In the western world we are
conditioned to be action-oriented, so we place a
tremendous value on doing. We are so busy doing that
we do not realize that all this "doingness" causes us
to create in a reverse fashion.

Most of our actions are out of fear, worry or doubt
because webelieve nothing will get done unless we DO
something. In other words, we are trying to force our
desire into manifestation through action.

If your decision to DO is dominant, then you will not
focus on what you want to BE in the present moment.
This causes you to miscreate because BEING is the
first and most important step in the creative process.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Here is the secret:
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

It is not your action that makes things happen, it is
your intent. You can reduce the need for action to a
very minimum by allowing yourself to focus on what you
desire until you feel the positive energy begin to
move within you. This energy is not based on doubt,
fear, anxiety, worry or need. If you focus on what you
want instead of what you don't want, you will know
when it is time to take action. And when you do, it
will be effortless. Doors open and the entire universe
will conspire to assist you in your desire.

Put simply, you should take no action on anything
until you have visualized your desire and made it real
enough in your mind that your next action (step),
whatever it is, seems like the most logical step.

How can you know the next logical step? Here is the
test that you can give to yourself before taking any
action. If you focus on what you desire and still feel
overwhelmed or anxious, then you are not ready for any
action. You know you are ready when it feels like the
next logical step is effortless. There is no effort,
no strain, and no pain.

What we want to do is to use the leverage of energy,
the same leverage of energy that creates everything in
the universe. However, we are so caught up in the
reality of WHAT IS, that we feel we must create
everything through mental effort and physical activity.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
How to Effortlessly Attract the
Wonderful Things In Life
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Have you ever seen people who seem to have all the
wonderful things in their life without much effort? It
almost seems like they have an advantage over everyone
else. Then you see the people who work the hardest
usually have the least. That doesn't seem fair does
it? But that's the way the universe works.

Unfortunately, those who work the hardest usually
have the least because they haven't learned the
leverage of aligning their energy. They are going
about creating their lives the hard way. They are
trying to use their actions to create what they want.

We have also been programmed that in order to have
what we desire we must work hard. How many times have
you heard - "No pain, no gain." The implication is
that if you want to make something of yourself, you
must work hard. The message is clear - if you are not
hurting or struggling, you are not moving forward.

But here is the truth - anytime you are struggling
you are miscreating. Anytime you feel pain or
struggle, your magnetic point of attraction is
directed to that which you do not want, rather than to
that which you desire. Read it again!

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Action is the *Last* Step
in the Creation Process
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Actions are necessary, but they are the last
component of the creation processes. Actions cannot be
used effectively to initiate results, because
initiation is the function of BEING, then thought,
then action.

Remember, the creation of anything is through your
vibration. Everything vibrates, and it is by that
vibration that we harmonize and attract experiences to
ourselves. So before you act or do anything, first ask
yourself, how am I vibrating? How do you tell? You
tell by how you FEEL. Your feelings show you your
vibration. How you feel determines what you attract.

When you use the process of creating by only focusing
on what you want instead of what you don't want, you
will see that the universe will provide a different
set of circumstances for you that requires much less
action. This puts you in a state of "doing without
doing" or action without effort.

Dr. Robert Anthony is the creator of "The Secret of Deliberate Creation"

Ancient Warrior Secrets for the Modern Entrepreneur

2008-04-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

By Hirini Reedy
Author of Maori Secrets for Modern Life

The words you see on-screen trigger subconscious responses. Dark images penetrate your mind. Your heartbeat increases slightly. Your muscles tighten. Like a warrior advancing to combat, you prepare to engage with your market. Ready, aim, fire. You send an email!

Everyday, military metaphors are projected across our computer screens. Guerrilla marketing. Market penetration. Global domination. Competitive intelligence and more. How do you approach your marketing, your business? At the end of the day, do you feel like you have been in battle? Suffering battle fatigue.

War is just metaphor for the application of force. By understanding the nature of war, you can apply this understanding to business. You can apply the principles of war with elegance or with crudeness. It is like knowing the difference between a charging gladiator and a meditating warrior-monk.

Here are some warrior secrets that have been derived from traditional Maori martial arts and modern military tactics. Adapt and apply some of these principles into your life and business.

1. The Power of Oneness. When tracking and observing, you need to become one with your environment. The trees, the insects, the wildlife become your eyes and ears. The forest becomes part of your body. In order to reach this level of feeling, you need to become one with yourself. This power of oneness begins with the point of stillness. You need to slow down your thinking and relax into yourself. Slow down your thoughts so that you can sense your own body. Tense muscles. Nervous responses. Stressed breathing. Just slow down and take time out from your busy work environment. Spend an hour of slow thinking each day. Do nothing during this hour then move when you are ready. The modern entrepreneur is like a scout, silently observing then moving with swift, efficient actions.

2. Know Yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes it takes honesty to admit your own weaknesses. Your partner, your children or close friends can all be good mirrors. They reflect back both your good and ugly features. The ego of a mighty entrepreneur can be easily pricked by the honest opinion of his 4-year old daughter. Your results are also another good indication. What results are you getting? Look around you for 360 degree feedback. Put yourself in uncomfortable positions so that you can stretch and grow.

3. Know Your Enemy. I said know your enemy, not kill your enemy. Sometimes your worst enemy can be yourself. Sometimes your enemy is called your competitor. Try this. Look at your competitors as potential allies. Study them. Think like them. Talk to them. Understand them. They very much want the same things in life as you do. Yet be like an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. Negotiate and operate from a position of strength and honour rather than weakness and deceit. The energy of your values and beliefs radiate out from you like a force-field. What energy are you sending out?

4. Think 3 Times Beyond Your Current Capability. Some warrior races such as the Maori of New Zealand used to train so that one warrior was equal to three or more opponents. Their smallness in numbers was compensated for by the quality of the warriors. Find a way to leverage your current capability so that you achieve a 300 percent improvement in your results. You could be three times faster in delivering your product to the customer. Or your product could be three times more reliable. Why stop at a ratio of three? Perhaps you could achieve a 10, 20 times improvement ratio on your current capability.

5. Focussed Relaxation in High Stress Situations. Stress is the number one cause of reduced work efficiency. When teaching martial arts I encourage people to consciously laugh when in high stress situations. This relaxes the body and allows natural reflexes to emerge. Imagine a bloodstained maniac running at you with an axe. Your body starts to tense up. Your mind panics. Now imagine the same axe maniac running straight into an invisible concrete wall three metres in front of you. He is completely knocked unconscious and thrown backwards onto the floor. You laugh. Now slow this moving image down, frame-by-frame. Bring the invisible concrete wall a little closer each time. Laugh as the maniac gets knocked out. Now speed up the frame sequence. Charging axe maniac. Bang! Knock out! Hahaha! Repeat several times. The concrete wall becomes a metaphor for the power of your focussed mind. The next stage is to learn and apply defensive shock-actions so that you have the equivalent physical impact of an invisible concrete wall. Use this same mind process when encountering negative or hostile customers. Put up an invisible barrier to block their negative energy. Use laughter to disarm the tension. Be in control of your own mind and space.

Find ways to activate the warrior energy within you. Use it as a force for good. This is the challenge for the modern entrepreneur. To serve the common good while creating several successful businesses.

Hirini Reedy is a native author, poet, civil engineer, retired military officer, martial arts black belt, NLP master and internet entrepreneur. Learn more at Maori Secrets for Modern Life

How to Develop Your Creativity

2008-04-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

By Steve Gillman
Author of Secrets of Lucky People

For more creative problem solving, you need to develop your creativity. Here's how:

1. Encourage it.
2. Train your brain.

Work on both of these right now, and you can experience greater creativity today.

Encouraging Creativity

Encouraging creativity will make you more creative. No big surprise there. This principle is true for many things you might want to see more of in your life. Encouragement works, but how do you encourage creativity?

Start by paying attention to it. The subconscious mind tends to give you more of what you pay attention to. If you ignore the creative aspects of your life, you're telling your subconscious mind they're unimportant. Consciously note when you're creative, and look for opportunities to be creative, and your subconscious mind will start feeding you more creative ideas.

Writing down your ideas is another good way to encourage and increase creativity. Keep an "idea journal." Do this regularly, and you'll start having more ideas while you are writing. Small ideas may normally be forgotten, but by writing them down, your subconscious may work on them, and transform them into something very creative.

Encourage greater creativity in yourself by putting creative ideas into practice. If you paint or write, for example, try anything new, just because it's new. Even driving a different route to work to see if it is quicker can help.

The point is to get you mind working outside of its regular patterns. Change your surroundings to encourage creativity. Want more creativity in your love life? Hike up a mountain with your partner. Need story ideas? Sit on a roof to write. For new ideas for your business, take a notebook to the park and sit by the duck pond. Any change of environment can get your brain out of it's ruts.

Training Your Mind For Creativity

Entrepreneurs see potential profit in a situation, because their minds are trained for that. Lawyers see potential problems, because that's how their minds are trained. Watch any good comedian and you'll notice that she has trained her mind to look for the "different angle" on everyday things. The ways in which you repeatedly think become habit, and that's how you train your mind. If you learn the techniques of creative thinking, use them until they are a habit, then creative thinking will be as natural for you as lying is for a politician. Start with these three habits:

1. Challenge assumptions. What if restaurants didn't have employees? Visitors pay a machine as they enter, feed themselves at a buffet, and everything is as automated as possible, so one owner-operator could run a large restaurant alone. Challenge all you assumptions for practice. Do you really have to go to work? Do swimming pools need water? Can education be a bad thing?

2. Change your perspective. A dog's thoughts about your busyness could clue you in to the unnecessary things you do. Considering dollars-per-day instead of per-hour could give you a plan to let employees go home when they finish a quota. Increased efficiency is likely, and you could adjust daily pay and quotas so both you and employees made more money. See everything from several perspectives.

3. Let ideas run wild. Does flying furniture seem silly? It could lead to the concept of a hover-lifter. Just slide the device under furniture and it lifts it with a cushion of air, making for easy moving. Try not to stifle your creativity. Just relax, let ideas come, and know that you can always discard them later.

For these thought-patterns to be automatic, you need to use them regularly. It takes several weeks to develop a habit, so write a few of your favorite techniques on a card and carry it with you. Look it over throughout the day and apply the techniques to anything. A little work up front, and soon you'll have almost effortless creativity.

This articles is an excerpt from Problem Solving Power, a bonus ebook which is available when you order Secrets of Lucky People by Steve Gillman.

Steve Gillman is also the author of A Book of Secrets. Read Minds, Save Money, Boost Brainpower, Get Lucky, Find Treasure, Subliminally Persuade People, Buy Real Estate With No Money Down - And More!

How to Put Your Mind to Sleep Quickly

2008-04-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

By Kacper M. Postawski
Creator of the Sleep Wiz Revitalizing Program

If you often lay awake, unable to put your mind to rest while you're tossing and turning, you're going to love what you're about to read, because I'm about to share with you one of the most powerful methods for quickly shutting off your mind, and drifting off to sleep.

As you may already know, your mind must be in the Alpha brain-wave stage to fall asleep. This is the stage your mind enters you're still conscious, but your body and begin to relax. It enables your more rampant and conscious mind to turn off as you enter the realm of sleep.

We all know how it feels... when you're lying awake in bed trying to fall asleep, it seems like your mind is running on hyper-speed. It's almost like you're thinking 10 times faster than when you're just normally awake and alert. In fact, if you experience this often, I can tell you for a fact that your mind IS working harder than it is when you're not trying to fall asleep, and there is a very good reason for it, here's why this happens...

In my books and articles on sleep, I often teach a principle: "What you focus on expands." You see, your mind responds to focus, and it goes hand in hand with the law of momentum. What is the law of momentum? Quite simply:

"Energy in motion, tends to STAY in motion"
"Energy stopped, tends to STAY stopped"

In other words, if you take action in your life, and begin to create success, you will experience more and more success every day. Success breeds success. On the other hand, if you sit your butt down on the couch to watch TV and say, "Aww, just one show, I'll only watch 1 show," very soon you'll be sitting there for 4 hours, and you'll watch 5 or 6 shows.

The law of momentum is everywhere in life, in physics, with your body, and most importantly, with your "thoughts." You see, your thinking is very predictable, it all works on the law of focus and momentum. Your mind is like a big ball of potential thinking energy, just waiting for you to give it a direction to think wildly into...

It awaits and responds your every command. It's an exceptional tool. Except, most of us aren't very experienced at "controlling" this amazing tool. In fact, a lot people aren't even aware that they can control it! And this is where sleep problems come in.

Imagine your mind like a giant overflowing lake that's just waiting for an outlet to pour into... Slowly, when it finds an outlet, it begins with a trickle of water. That trickle turns into a stream. Then, that stream turns into a small river. Pretty soon, the small river is a giant unstoppable waterfall. Your thoughts work in the same way when you're "trying" to fall asleep.

For example, you're laying in bed, frustrated, forcing your mind to not think. "I just want to get some sleep! Stop thinking. Okay, starting now... I won't think anymore. No think... nothing. My life is nothing... If only I would finally get motivated in my job maybe I would finally create the income to start traveling instead of dealing with these problems. Problems, how can I... Ahh, I'm thinking again! Stop!"

You get even more frustrated, and repeat the process over again in a few minutes. So how do you stop it? It's easy, you see, you can easily control your thinking, except most people aren't aware of the tools necessary! The good news is, I'm about to give you the 3 step handbook to controlling your mind. Here are the 3 universal steps that will enable you to not only stop thinking, you'll also be able to lower your brain-waves into the alpha brain-state, which will quickly let you enter sleep...

The 3-Step Process for Controlling Your Mind

Step 1: Awareness
The first step to changing anything is becoming aware that it's happening, especially if it's your mind. Pretend your mind is racing, and you finally realize that you're thinking... Most people at this stage get extremely frustrated and "try" to force the mind into submission. It doesn't work! Why? Because, what you focus on expands. The more frustrated you get, the more you're focusing on frustration, so you'll get even MORE frustration, and more thinking... on and on!

So the first step, is to simply become "aware" of the fact that you're thinking. Nothing more. When you notice that you're thinking, smile to yourself, and say, "I just noticed myself thinking... Interesting..."

Now notice what happens inside of you when you do this... something VERY profound. If "I" just noticed "myself" thinking, perhaps there are really two completely separate identities running your life? There is the "I" and there is the "self."

The "I", is the real you, the higher being, the "I" behind the mind, that runs the show, the heart, the soul, the true conscious being, the choice maker.

The "self" is the mind. If left to run the show, will run in endless circles until the edge of insanity.

The moment you do this, the moment you become "Aware" - you are no longer a slave to your mind. You have won. After you become aware... do nothing, just lay there for 3 seconds and notice how it feels to be present in who you really are, not the mind, but you, the "I" - there is a great feeling of peace behind that presence in the "I." Why? Because when you are aware like this, you're aware of the power of your choice making. You now have the power of choice.

Step 2: Relaxed Focus
"What you focus on expands." Now that you have become aware of your thinking. All you have to do is "direct" your mind into a place that will bring you into a deep, deep place of relaxation. Think about it, if before your mind will relentlessly race into any direction you give it, why not pick a direction that will give you peace and restful sleep?

But, most people don't know what that direction really is. It's really easy. If you focus on anything your body does or feels subconsciously, you will begin to become more and more realized. For example your breathing, the feeling of the pillow on your head, the sounds of nature outside (unless you live in the city), the warmth of your body. These are all things that happen, yet your conscious mind doesn't think about them.

As you know, "What you focus on, expands"... So what would happen if you focused on something that is happening in your "subconscious"? That's right, your conscious thinking would diminish, and your subconscious mind would begin to take over the entire process of you falling asleep! It really is that simple, and it works every-time.

The easiest one, is your breathing. And I promise you if you just try this tonight, you will be shocked when you wake up in the morning: "Wow! It worked!"

Step 3: Repetition
As I said, the easiest one to focus on is your breathing. In the beginning, you'll find this easier said than done. Let me walk you through it.

Begin by taking your focus onto your breathing. Take a deep breath in. Hold it for a short while, and slowly exhale...
Count "1"
Breathe in again... hold it shortly, exhale slowly, and count...
"2"
Why count? Because I guarantee you, in the very beginning, you may find it challenging to hold your focus. In fact, you'll be surprised as you may not even make it to "5" the first time. This is because your conscious ever-thinking mind will butt in and interrupt. You may randomly go off into a barrage of thoughts again. If this happens, and it very well may, what do you do?

Simply become aware, and begin focusing on your breathing again. Guess what happens? As you become aware, 2 or 3 times... your mind will give up. I guarantee you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, when you get to "10" or "15" breaths you will feel a wave of relaxation in your body. This is the silent "click" as your mind shifts from the high frequency Beta brain-waves into Alpha brain-waves. Your subconscious mind will do the rest!

That's all for now, if you'd like to get the entire guide to getting incredible sleep, waking up earlier with even more energy than before, by energizing your "inner sleep" system with simple, yet extremely powerful things you can start to act on even tonight, then grab my full eBook, "Powerful Sleep."

Kacper Postawski is an innovative sleep science researcher and the creator of the "Powerful Sleep - Secrets of the Inner Sleep Clock" which can teach you how to sleep up to three hours less per night and have *more* energy, not less!

The Proper Use of Affirmations and Subliminal Messages for Personal Power

2008-04-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

By Adrian Cooper
Creator of the Mind Power Studio

One of the major secrets to success with anything at all, be it wealth, health, success or anything else at all that you desire is to bypass the conscious mind in order to access the immense powers of the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is around 90% of your total mind power as opposed to the 10% of mind that you usually use in your normal daily waking state.

The subconscious mind is therefore sublime; it will accept anything you submit to it without question, and will then act upon your instructions thereby bring your vibration into complete harmony with your desires, thus enabling them to manifest into your life where you can experience them in full.

This is a major secret to success. It is a truth that there is quite literally nothing that we cannot be, do or have, nothing at all. The Universe is infinitely abundant and knows no limitations of any sort. You, as an individual aspect of the Universe, a co-creator, are therefore only limited by your powers to know, imagine and attract your desires.

In order to attract your desires you not only have to know and ask for your desires, but most importantly you have to "vibrate" in harmony with your desires by believing that you have all you desire right now.

To vibrate in harmony with your desires includes positive thinking, i.e. only thinking in terms that your desire already exists in your experiential reality, a feeling that you are already experiencing and enjoying your desires, and a feeling of gratitude for enjoying your desires.

This is where the power of affirmations really comes into its own. The conscious, rational mind will always endeavour to reject anything that does not appear to be "real", logical or attainable. It does not know, at a conscious level that you are infinitely powerful and capable of realising any desire at all. The conscious mind will therefore reject anything it "disagrees" with and will accordingly block your wishes.

Fortunately, as the subconscious mind is all powerful, much more so than the conscious mind, all we need to do is to use the powers of positive thinking to impress our wishes and desires upon the subconscious mind, which will in turn cause you to know that your desire already exists in your life, thereby causing you to vibrate in harmony with it after which it will appear in your life as an experiential reality.

How to Enhance Your Power With Affirmations

The power of positive thinking can be enhanced and reinforced by the use of affirmations. An affirmation is a short statement repeated frequently in the present tense in order to impress the intent of the affirmation on to the subconscious Mind, thereby in turn causing the subject of your affirmation to manifest as a part of your own physical reality.

As with all positive thinking, affirmations must always be phrased in the present tense as if the desired result has already become an absolute reality. This will attract and influence Energy in accordance with The Law of Attraction, in turn creating the reality of the object of your affirmations within the inner spheres of the Universe, which reality must then in turn subsequently manifest into the physical world where the benefits can be realised.

It is also important that the affirmation, like positive thinking, is never stated in the future tense, for example, "I will have a job promotion"; this implies the indefinite future, that a negative situation already exists, and the result cannot therefore manifest positively into your present reality. Rejecting all negative thoughts and replacing them only with their opposite, most positive affirmations will result in positive vibrations of Energy that will eventually manifest into your own physical life and reality in the form you most desire.

An excellent time to repeat affirmations, with as much sincerity and emotion as possible, is just before drifting off to sleep at night, and just after waking in the morning before arising. At these times your conscious Mind is most in communication with your subconscious Mind and therefore the inner causal spheres of Energy. Repeat the affirmation throughout the day; write down the affirmation on notepaper and place copies of your affirmation around your home, repeating the affirmation frequently, and whenever you are reminded to do so. If you make use of a personal computer for long periods of time, it is a very good and effective idea to have a copy of your affirmation on your PC desktop utilising some appropriate software. You might not always notice the affirmation, but it will still be integrated into your subconscious Mind where it can begin its effect.

The ideal affirmation must be as short as possible and totally unambiguous. It is important to note that the subconscious Mind cannot easily assimilate long statements. The subconscious Mind, immense and powerful as it is, is actually very child-like in the way it perceives, and is therefore much more easily influenced by short, appropriately worded statements. Also the subconscious Mind never, ever questions any statement; it will rather accept the statement as an absolute fact, and set about bringing the object of the statement into reality by means of its powerful influence over the inner Energy levels of the Universe to which it is strongly connected.

Affirmations must always stated the present tense, and most importantly charged with as much feeling, positive Energy and emotion as possible, and as if the result has already manifested into your life as an absolute reality; a fact that you should have absolutely no doubt in your Mind. You should intensely feel the joy, happiness and all other emotions involved, which will generate the corresponding positive vibrations of Energy in accordance with The Law of Attraction.

Here are some examples of well-constructed affirmations:

Attracting great business success:

My business attracts more new customers every day
My business is highly profitable
My customers are very loyal
I enjoy a high level of repeat business
I effortlessly achieve an unlimited income stream
I am always alert to new business opportunities
My customers think very highly of me
I easily create new sources of income
My income potential is unlimited

Attracting great wealth:

Money flows to me effortlessly
I always have everything I desire
I manage my money very effectively
I always welcome new sources of income
I instantly attract to me everything I desire
I welcome great abundance into my life
I greatly enjoy everything I have
I can easily attract anything I ask for
I enjoy giving money to worthy causes

Attracting perfect health:

I always feel in perfect health
I am glowing with health, energy and vitality
I am always at my perfect weight
I always feel radiant, joyful and well
I never feel tired
I always feel full of energy
I always enjoy a good night's sleep

Enjoying a fantastic memory:

I can recall anything at will
I remember everything that happens in my life
I remember names, places and events effortlessly
I have a very powerful memory
I learn and remember new things with ease
My memory is constantly improving
I have total confidence in my memory
I can remember anything, about anywhere from any situation

Enjoying complete happiness:

I always feel completely happy, joyful and contented
I am completely happy with my life, family and friends
I love myself completely in every way
I only attract happy, positive, joyful people
I feel radiant with joy, happiness and contentment
I always feel active, dynamic and enthusiastic
I am glowing with energy and unconditional love
I always feel very enthusiastic
I love my mind, body and soul

Enjoying complete self-confidence:

I face all situations with total confidence
I have total faith in my own abilities
I always feel completely motivated
I believe completely in everything I do
I know that everyone has complete faith in me
I always ask for help if need it
I feel very comfortable around other people
I always look forward to new situations
I always look forward to meeting new people

Enjoying perfect relationships:

I always attract people who are perfect for me
People always find me attractive and irresistible
When I meet people they like me instantly
I always look for the good in everyone I meet
People enjoy being around me
I am always at perfect ease in my relationships
Everyone I meet enjoys my personality
I can attract new relationships at will
People find me relaxed, calm and easy to be with

Enjoying perfect weight:

I am always the right weight for my build
I have complete control over my eating
I only eat when I feel hungry
I can lose weight easily if I wish to do so
I never feel hungry between meals
I can say no if people offer me food

Stopping smoking:

I have no desire for tobacco
My health is much better as a non-smoker
I do not present a passive smoking health risk to others
I save a lot more money by not buying cigarettes
I never think about cigarettes
I enjoy breathing fresh, clean air
My clothes smell fresh as a non-smoker

Lucid dreaming:

I can fully remember my dreams when I awake
I always know when I am dreaming
I take full control of my dreams
I can create any situation at will in my dreams
I can go anywhere and do anything in my dreams
My dreams are always vivid and memorable
I can meet people who have passed on in my dreams
I am fully aware during my dreams

These are just as few, very powerful examples of what can be achieved with well-constructed affirmations.

How to Enhance Your Power With Subliminal Messages

An even more powerful possibility exists as an alternative to affirmations that are stated aloud or within the mind. This is the power of "Subliminal messages".

The power of subliminal messages has been proven over the course of many years to be a highly effective way of programming the subconscious mind by using either audio or visual methods. In fact, so powerful are subliminal messages in the way they impress the subconscious mind, that in 1974 the US government banned all forms of subliminal messaging on all radio and television.

Subliminal messages work by bypassing the working at a level that cannot be detected by the conscious mind. The conscious mind therefore never has an opportunity to reject them before the subconscious mind can receive and act upon them.

There are two main ways of using subliminal messages in a most powerful way; visually and audibly. Visual subliminal messages are affirmations that are flashed before the eyes so quickly that the conscious mind cannot perceive them. The affirmations therefore go directly to the subconscious mind, which perceives and acts upon them immediately. Audio subliminal messages work in a similar way by being played at a frequency that is just above the normal threshold of human hearing. Again, as with visual subliminal messages, although the conscious mind cannot perceive these affirmations the all-powerful subconscious mind can perceive them, and will therefore proceed to immediately act upon them.

It is clear therefore that both audio and visual subliminal messages are extremely powerful in accessing the enormous potential of the subconscious mind in realising all of your wishes without the rational conscious mind blocking the process. A combination of affirmations and subliminal messages is an extremely powerful combination in attracting into your life anything at all that you need, wish for and desire.

Mind Power Studio includes two main subliminal messaging components, both of which have been custom developed based upon many years experience and extensive research.

Subliminal Mind Power utilises extremely powerful, latest PC based, highly effective technologies by flashing millions of affirmations that you can compose yourself unobtrusively while you use your PC, without having to utilise any time or effort whatsoever. The affirmations appear on the screen for only a matter of milliseconds, long enough to impress the subconscious mind without being perceived and rejected by conscious mind. Your subconscious mind will receive many thousands of messages per day while you work at your PC, not even being aware that your mind is being programmed for complete success.

The Silent Subliminal function included with Mind Power Studio is based upon a highly advanced formula that involves increasing the sound level of your affirmations to a level that is just above the perception level of the conscious mind, but which can be easily perceived by the subconscious mind where it will be most effective for your mind power tracks and therefore your objectives.
In conjunction with the other powerful Mind power Studio components, the affirmation and subliminal messages functions provide an extremely powerful platform to program your mind for complete success, and to realise everything you desire in the shortest possible time.

Written by Adrian Cooper, creator of the Mind Power Studio, which includes everything you need to create any reality for yourself, attracting everything you could possibly need, desire or wish for.

The Power of Repeated Words and Thoughts

2008-04-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

By Remez Sasson
Author of Visualize and Achieve

Thinking is usually a mixture of words, sentences, mental images and sensations. Thoughts are visitors, who visit the central station of the mind. They come, stay a while and then disappear making space for other thoughts. Some of these thoughts stay longer, gain power and affect the life of the person thinking them.

It seems that most people let thoughts connected with worries, fears, anger or unhappiness occupy their mind most of the time. They keep engaging their mind with inner conversation about negative situations and actions. This inner conversation eventually affects the subconscious mind, making it accept and take seriously the thoughts and ideas expressed in those inner conversations.

It is of vital importance to be careful of what goes into the subconscious mind. Words and thoughts that are repeated often get stronger by the repetitions, sink into the subconscious mind and affect the behavior, actions and reactions of the person involved.

The subconscious mind regards the words and thoughts that get lodged inside it as expressing and describing a real situation, and therefore endeavors to align the words and thoughts with reality. It works diligently to make these words and thoughts a reality in the life of the person saying or thinking them.

This means that if you often tell yourself that it is difficult or impossible to acquire money, the subconscious mind will accept you words and put obstacles in your way. If you keep saying that you are rich, it will find ways to bring you opportunities and push you towards taking advantage of these opportunities.

The thoughts that you express through your words shape your life. This is often done unconsciously, as few pay attention to their thoughts and the words they use while thinking, and let outside circumstances and situations determine what they think about. In this case there is no freedom. Here the outside world affects the inner world.

If you consciously choose the thoughts, phrases and words that you repeat in your mind, your life will start to change. You will begin creating new situations and circumstances. You will be using the power of affirmations.

Affirmations are sentences that are repeated often during the day, and which sink into the subconscious mind, thereby releasing its enormous power to materialize the intention of the words and phrases in the outside world. This does not mean that every word has the power to make changes. The words have to be said with attention and with feeling, in order to trigger the subconscious mind into action.

Affirmations have to be phrased in positive words in order to be effective. Consider the following two sentences:

1. I am not weak anymore.

2. I am strong and powerful.

Though both sentences seem to say the same thing in different words, the first one is a negative sentence. It creates in the mind a mental image of weakness. This is a wrong wording. The second sentence awakens in the mind a mental image of strength.

It is not enough to say an affirmation a few times, and then expect your life to change. More than this is necessary. It is important to affirm with attention, as well as with strong desire, faith and persistence. It is also important to choose the right affirmation for any specific situation. You need to feel comfortable with it; otherwise the affirmation may not work or may bring you something that you do not want.

Affirmations can be used to strengthen the process of creative visualization, and they can be used on their own. They are of special importance for people who find it difficult to visualize. In this case they are a substitution to creative visualization.

Instead of repeating negative and useless words and phrases in the mind, you can choose positive words and phrases to help you build the life you want. By choosing your thoughts and words you exercise control over your life.

Here are a few affirmations:

*Day by day I am becoming happier and more satisfied.
*With every inhalation I am filling myself with happiness.
*Love is filling my life now.
*The power of the Cosmos is filling my life with love.
*A lot of money is flowing now into my life.
*The power of the Universal Mind is now filling my life with wealth.
*The powerful and vital energy of the Cosmos is flowing and filling my body and mind.
*Healing energy is constantly filling every cell of my body.
*I always stay calm and in control of myself, in every situation and in all circumstances.
*I am having a wonderful, happy and fascinating day.

Remez Sasson writes and teaches about self improvement, spiritual growth, meditation, positive thinking, creative visualization, success and mind power. He is the author of several books, including Visualize and Achieve and Peach of Mind In Daily Life.

How Napoleon Hill Got Me a Porsche

2008-04-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

By Nelson Berry
Creator of Subliminal Video Messages

We all want to improve! But picking the most straightforward, uncomplicated, undemanding, uninvolved and untroublesome way to improve is sometimes discouraging. I should know...

Let me explain and share with you about my personal experience with this merry-go-round enigma and maybe you can relate, or have experienced the same mind-boggler yourself.

I had grown up in a commercialism oriented family. After college, I met a guy who was my age, driving a Porsche, had a nice 3-bedroom condo, beautiful live-in girlfriend in Boulder, CO and didn't go to college. I thought, "Jeez, I wonder what he does". I asked him and he told me, "I market highly speculative oil & gas deals."

This was right around the time of the Kuwait Invasion by Iraq, so oil & gas was a blistering topic in the telecast and around the universe. The price of oil skyrocketed and everyone wanted some of the pipeline. It piqued my interest and I thought I could do it. At least I was ambitious. Actually, I craved what he had. He related, "I'll get you an interview and call you tomorrow. I'll help you out to learn how to do this."

When I got there for an interview, I noticed he wasn't the only one who had a Porsche in the parking lot, there where Porsches, Monster Trucks, Mercedes, BMWs and then a couple of shoddy cars parked in the back. I didn't just park in the back, I parked 1/2 block away!

I go in and see well groomed guys and gals walking around with suits. It looked like the inside of a GQ magazine. The smell of cigarettes permeated the air. I could hear all this yelling and racket going on in the background, behind the partition and really wanted to see what was going on back there.

I filled out an overly simple questionnaire in the lobby and was called in for the interview. I walked into the office of the principal (the top guy). He was a big burly guy that was very well groomed, but he seemed to have a nervous twitch on his neck. I remember it was like he kept trying to adjust his tie without his hand.

He invited me to lunch and we scaled into his monster truck and when he fired that thing up, it sounded like a bomb went off in the truck bed!

We went to a place called the Flagstaff House. For those of you who know Boulder, this is "THE" 5-Star eatery in town. The scenery looking over the mountain range and the smell of brisk mountain air and my experience of the day so far was making me think I was getting closer to that Porsche that I coveted. It was nice, but I got the feeling that I was being rushed for a fraternity. After the $200 feast, he explained the indoctrination required and told me to start tomorrow. He didn't ask, he told me! I'm IN!!!!

Dry cleaning wasn't an option at that time, so I was up early ironing coat & tie so I could "look" like everyone else. I had these clothes left over from my college days and was used to doing my own ironing. Except I didn't have an ironing board! But I had a can of starch! I laid down a good clean towel and ironed them on the floor.

I arrived and walked around that partition for the first time...

Have you ever seen the movie "Boiler Room"?

The only difference between this location and an actual boiler room was that they had air conditioning.

The only marketing they had was the phone and boxes of leads from D&B.

The SEC license training was intense. New recruits where expected to spend 12 hours per day on the phone, eat lunch at their desk and make 300 cold calls a day plus do the training classes. I didn't mind the hard work, I wanted that "Porsche"!

I got my license after about a month and was a full broker. I was off to the races... every little bit of extra money I got was going into more sales training programs.

6 months later... I had financially failed at this job. I was tired and couldn't figure out why I wasn't doing better. I had asked around the office, but, in hindsight, one thing I can tell you about most "top salespeople" is that they don't share their secrets around their office. Except for 1 guy who, after work one day, gave me his copy of "Think & Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. He wished me luck as sped off in his "Beemer". I opened it up and saw underlines, highlights, notes in the margins... it looked like a 5th-time hand-me-down college text book. I pondered if this may be the secret. I hadn't gotten any boost from any of the other guys except the standard training, so I really treasured this gift.

One of the chapters was double underscored and seemed like the pages where worn out more in that chapter than any other. It was the chapter on "Auto-Suggestion"...

"I have never known anyone who was inspired to use the secret, who did not achieve noteworthy success in his chosen calling. I have never known any person to distinguish himself, or to accumulate riches of any consequence, without possession of the secret." - Napoleon Hill

I applied it immediately and in about 60 days, it was starting...

Now this is 8 months into my new job (my first job AND only commission) and I hadn't made any meaningful exchanges worth telling you about. My folks where tired of me mooching off of them so this is where the rubber hits the road. Poverty was an understatement! I gave it another 30 days and was offered, or "drawn" to, a job in sales at another place that wasn't all commission and my sales went through the roof. That was 15 years ago.

At the time, I couldn't tell if it was the culmination my education, experience & training or if it was Think & Grow Rich that helped flip the switch on. Now I know that it takes both... I also know that it is hard to apply certain types of information, education & training without doing "inside work", or subconscious work ALSO.

Then I was drawn to subliminal messages. I realized that subliminal messages weren't yet available back in 1937, so I got with a sound engineer and started making my own.

It a layman's phenomenon that is clearly explained in this book.

I found that I could apply these same techniques with subliminal messages while I was doing something else and my productivity increased exponentially.

I bet you can too!

What is your "Porsche"? Are you ready?

Warmly,
Nelson D. Berry
Creator of Subliminal Videos

How to Imprint Your Goals

2008-04-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Robert Anthony
Creator of Rapid Manifestation

Deciding to change a habit, attitude or personal situation does not automatically bring about the change desired. The decision to make the change is only the first step. Further action is required in order to effect a change in your subconscious self-image. You have learned that your goal is the mental picture of what you want. When you write down the goal, it becomes an affirmation.

The process of doing this is called “Imprinting”. Imprinting is the deliberate control of thoughts and pictures of the kind of changes we want to make. The imprinting occurs when our subconscious mind accepts the new visual image of the end result. Imprinting is a three-step process:

1. You affirm your goal.
2. You picture the end result.
3. You feel the emotion that goes along with accomplishing the goal.

Let's talk about each step so that we are absolutely clear on the procedure.

Step 1 - Affirm Your Goal

An affirmation is simply a statement of fact or belief that is written out in a personal, positive, present tense form as though the goal were already a reality. When you write out your affirmations, you deliberately control the programming of your subconscious by directing the visual picture to the end result you want.

Step 2 - Picture the End Result

Picture and experience in your mind the accomplishment of the end result. See yourself actively involved in the accomplishment. This is called constructive “synthetic visualization” or “virtual reality”. It works on the theory of displacement. You are displacing the old picture and old self-image with the new. Remember - you will move toward the goal that you picture.

Step 3 - Feel the Emotion That Goes Along with Accomplishment

The subconscious responds to feelings more than to words. It doesn’t respond any better to positive feelings than to negative feelings. It just responds to feelings. The more emotion or feeling we can put behind an idea, the faster it will manifest. So feeling and emotion are very important for impact. It can be said that our affirmation will manifest in direct proportion to the frequency with which we use picturing and emotional involvement. What you want to do is see to yourself accomplishing the end result while feeling the joy and satisfaction of the accomplishment.

All three steps are necessary for successful imprinting. If you just read your affirmations you can expect about a 10% success rate. If you read and visualize the end result, you can expect about a 55% success rate.
If you read your affirmations, picture the end result, and feel the emotion behind the accomplishment of what you are picturing, you can expect a 100 % success rate!

How to Be Outstanding in any Situation

2008-04-05T00:17:00.000-07:00

By Steve G. Jones,
Clinical Hypnotherapist
Better Living With Hypnosis

As my New Year's gift to you, I would like to give you something you can use today. You will be amazed at how many times what I'm about to share will come in handy, if you use it.

This technique is called anchoring. Today, anchoring is generally considered part of the body of knowledge known as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) which has its roots in Pavlovian behavior modification. You remember Pavlov. He was the Russian scientist who, in about the year 1900, made dogs salivate by ringing a bell.

Here's how he did it: He would start by ringing a bell while letting dogs smell meat powder. They would salivate from smelling the meat powder. Eventually, he only needed to ring a bell and this alone caused the dogs to salivate. The dogs had associated the bell with hunger. The bell was an anchor for salivation. Pretty simple, huh?

Unfortunately, you are exposed to this form of conditioning every day.

Did you know that TV commercial makers use anchoring to manipulate you? TV commercials will show you a sexy person smoking to cause you to associate (anchor) sexiness with smoking. Beer commercials are notorious for showing women in bikinis so that you will associate beer with sex. Fast food commercials show happy families clogging their arteries to cause you to associate eating garbage with being happy.

This technique has been used AGAINST you countless times.

Now, I'm going to hand you the keys to the car and let you take control of your anchoring. It is possible to apply this same basic technique to almost any problem. Smoking, overeating, nail biting, fear of public speaking, all of these conditions are treatable with NLP. On many of my hypnosis recordings, I use NLP to reinforce the positive change.

Let's take a look at how Pavlov's discovery can HELP you right now. I teach this technique to established actors who need a little boost between multi-million dollar movies. Yes, even established actors feel a little self-conscious sometimes. And they love quick powerful techniques which they can use before going on camera.

So here is how positive anchoring works:

Step 1. Think of three times in your life when you felt very powerful and in control and write them down (one sentence describing each).

Step 2. Stand alone in a room and think of the first situation. Recall it in full color with sound and anything else that could make it real to you.

Step 3. At the moment when you feel fully back in that moment, slap your left shoulder with your right hand and say, "Power!"

Step 4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each of the three memories.
N.B. Remember, you want to anchor each feeling by slapping your shoulder when you feel the memory at its MOST INTENSE moment. In NLP, this process of reinforcing the anchor is called stacking anchors.

Now that you have the anchor installed, you can "fire it off" as needed. The next time you are in a situation requiring confidence, slap your left shoulder with your right hand and say, "Power!" Just as sure as Pavlov's dogs salivated when they heard that bell, and just as sure as countless people associate smoking with sexiness, you will feel confidence surging through you because now your mind associates confidence with that slapping motion and the word "power"!

Occasionally feeling a lack of confidence is a normal part of being human. Having an effective strategy for immediately turning this into confidence is a normal part of being outstanding.

Have an OUTSTANDING New Year!

Steve G. Jones is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist who works extensively with Hollywood actors, writers, directors, and producers, helping them achieve their very best. Learn more at Better Living With Hypnosis.

Positive Brainwashing

2008-04-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

By Cornelis Boertjens
Creator of Vision Board

Brainwashing is a term perceived in a negative way by most people. But you know what, I think our brains could actually do with a bit of a washing sometimes!

You see, everyone comes into this world with a clear mind, and a belief that everything is possible. All is positive and well. Remember as a child, you could do and become everything, without any boundaries!

As we grow up however, we pick up beliefs, fears and limitations from our surroundings and peers that gradually form the person we are today. A lot of these beliefs unfortunately are negative and as we build our lives they limit us in our actions and being. Very often they therefore contribute to unhappiness or feeling unfulfilled in our lives and business.

It can be the smallest -- seemingly harmless -- remark from a mother like “just let me handle that, you are no good at that” that can convince you that you are not good at a certain task. A teacher who calls a pupil “the clumsy one” can do more harm with this remark than he realizes when repeated often enough. With every remark the belief is harnessed further in the child that it indeed is clumsy. Even though a remark is said with a smile or with the intend to be funny, it still leaves a legacy in the belief system.

This programming of course doesn’t stop at adulthood, it keeps influencing people in all stages of life. We are being influenced by our parents, kids, partner, friends, colleagues, television, newspapers, magazines and so on. Sometimes positive, but very often in a negative way. No wonder we limit ourselves in so many ways! Belief is the key to your success. If you belief you can do something, you can. If you belief you can’t do something, you will be right too.

The good news is: we can “reprogram” our mind and replace our negative, limiting beliefs for positive contributing ones. Positive brainwashing is what I like to call it! This can be done by the use of so called “affirmations”. An affirmation is a positive self talk statement, stated in the present tense that covers a goal you want to achieve and that ‘overrules’ negative beliefs towards that goal.

An example is “I easily do 10 sales calls a day”. Or “I am an excellent negotiator”. By stating this positive affirmation regularly during your day, you will achieve the goal you have set for yourself easier. This positive self talk helps your mind to overcome beliefs that you have about yourself, that limit your success and actions. Compare our mind with a computer: when you change the input, the output will change accordingly.

So if you have the limiting belief that you are no good in public speaking (probably because of negative experiences in the past) you can actually reprogram your mind by stating the following affirmation: “ I am an excellent public speaker. I love to speak for huge audiences and people love to hear me talk”. By affirming this belief over and over, you actually start to believe it and your mind will find a way to make this statement a reality. At some stage, you might decide to do a course in public speaking, or someone might ask you to speak at some kind of seminar, which forces you to work on your speaking skills. Somehow, this positive affirmation help you to reach the ‘goal’ you have set for yourself, and open doors for you that would normally would have been kept closed. And this works for virtually everything. Belief, and it will happen.

Imagine standing for a big river, with a heavy stream. You have to cross it, but you don’t think you can actually do it. Your belief is keeping you from crossing, although you physically should be able to do it easily. It just looks too hard! Then someone else comes up from behind you, and without thinking starts crossing the river and gets to the other side. His belief was positive, and he knew he could do it. The interesting thing is that this will probably influence your belief: “if he can do it, I can do it too” and you will then cross the river without any problem at all. Similar things happen when a group of people is introduced to the phenomenon of fire walking. At first a big group of people will say that there is no way they will walk on fire. Until…other people with higher beliefs go first, then all of a sudden everyone else rushes over to do it as well.

So think about YOUR beliefs, and try to discover which belief are actually holding you back from reaching your full potential in your life. Then, one by one, start eliminating these beliefs from your system. Formulate a positive affirmation that counters your negative belief, and re affirm it daily. Write them in your diary, on your bathroom mirror, next to your computer; anywhere you see it often and say the affirmation out loud as often as possible. You will be happily surprised by the results!

How to Program Your Mind While You Sleep

2008-04-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

By Hale Carlton
Creator of Sleep Programming

Hello, my name is Hale Carlton – and I'd like to give you a very warm welcome to this site.

Now, if there's one thing I know about – it's how to “program” the mind!

I'm the former CEO of the Australian brainwave giant “Deep Brainwaves Inc” – and the man behind the brainwaves in many products, such as The Meditation Program and Subliminal CDs.

I've also been involved in creating and preparing material for tools such the Brainwave Generator. I even received a degree in Advanced Neurotechnology.

I'm an authority in the world of mind technology – and that's why I not only recognize the power of sleep programming, but I also developed the program I'm about to discuss with you.

But before all of that, let's ask a question.

WHAT IS SLEEP PROGRAMMING?

Sleep programming is a technique of feeding powerful suggestions to your mind while you sleep, reprogramming your thoughts at the deepest possible level.

And the crazy thing is that you already know how powerful it is.

Let me tell you why.

Think about hypnosis. It's perhaps the world's most widely-accepted method of self-change. The principles are simple: you get super-relaxed and enter a receptive state of mind, while the hypnotherapist feeds suggestions to your mind.

Yes – People experience BIG CHANGE with hypnosis.

But it's limited.

Limited to one hour. On an uncomfortable therapist chair. Trying to relax. Fighting itches and eye twitching. Not being able to fully relax. Getting those sudden heart thumps.

Hypnosis can help people experience dramatic change. However, it isn't the most powerful technique. It's like going out for a drive in a Kia, when you could be sitting in a Mercedes.

Sleep Programming does the exact same job as hypnosis – but for every single hour that you're asleep!

Think about it.

When are you most relaxed? When is your mind totally open to suggestion? When are you entering those deep, deep, suggestible Delta brainwave states that the hypnotherapist only dreams of getting you into?

Only when you're in bed – asleep!

Sleep Programming is like attending an extremely powerful eight hour hypnosis session every single night. It's powerful – and it's been thoroughly proven too!

There's a whole branch of science known as “hypnopedia”, which documents the influence of commands while you sleep. The US Government even use the technique to teach morse code to military recruits while they sleep.

It works.

The only question is: Are you taking advantage?

The Best Kept Secret in the Self-Development Industry

Sleep Programming is perhaps the best kept secret in the self-development industry. And you know something?

It's so simple that you could put some of the techniques behind Sleep Programming to practice yourself, and begin reprogramming your own mind – tonight.

You could begin very simply – by recording your own affirmations, and playing them on loop while you fall to sleep.

Of course, there are a few pitfalls: most people don't respond well to their own voice; you need to be extremely careful when wording your affirmations; and, you can't incorporate advanced techniques, such as inductions, binaural beats, monaural beats, and so on.

But you could literally begin tonight – without anything else.

Over the past 6 years, I've helped to research and refine various sleep programming techniques, via our audio labs based in Australia.

I've seen thousands of individuals from across the globe use this technology to begin making rapid change in their lives – without any effort whatsoever.

IT'S POWERFUL.

In fact, I'd say it's the most powerful personal development tool I've stumbled across in my entire 30 years of working in the self-growth industry.

(And I don't say that about ANY OTHER product or service. ONLY Sleep Programming!)

That's why last year, I started working on the development of the WORLD'S FIRST Sleep Programming CD range.

I'm talking about a small collection of audio recordings designed to help assist in KEY AREAS of your life... such as SELF-CONFIDENCE... INTELLIGENCE... WEIGHT LOSS... and more.

Each of our powerful Sleep Programming sessions contain:

ADVANCED Mind Programming Scripts – Just listen as the words take you into a deep slumber, then send commands direct to your mind – reprogramming your thoughts at the deepest possible level. Incorporates direct commands, hypnotic language, NLP and visualization.

POWERFUL Atmospheric Music from Max Adronov - Each recording contains specially composed music from world-leading producer, Max Andronov. Sit back and allow your mind to get absorbed into the sounds – taking you to far away places in just minutes!

SPECIALLY DESIGNED Brainwave Technology - Your mind will always be in a receptive state for the messages, thanks to the “binaural beat” and “monaural beat” brainwave technology used on each CD. This is EXTREMELY POTENT, and works with or without headphones!

Yes – these are the MOST ADVANCED Sleep Programming recordings ever produced.

And they're EASY to USE too. Simply play the CD on loop as your fall asleep. There's nothing extra you need to do. Just relax – and let the recording do ALL of the hard work for you!

Each recording will literally begin reprogramming your inner thoughts - changing your life from the inside, starting on the VERY FIRST NIGHT you use them. And after that, the RESULTS just get BETTER and BETTER.

You're converting your eight hours of sleep into a fully-fledged, completely relaxing, totally enjoyable HYPNOSIS SESSION.

The $100,000 Self Improvement Experiment

2008-04-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

By John Paul Carinci
Author of The Power of Being Different

The magic of believing will help you gain tremendous rewards. Let's look at an example of belief. When you have pains in your chest, you may become alarmed. After you make an appointment with your doctor, he will give you a complete examination and tell you to come back in order to go over the test results. On the second visit, the doctor tells you that all the tests come back negative and that there is nothing to be concerned about. He explains that perhaps you were affected by stress and that you should try to relax. If you do not feel better, he suggests that you can come back for another visit.

Having heard the good news that nothing is wrong, you leave the doctor’s office suddenly feeling fantastic. Your mind gets rid of all your aches and pains that you thought were real.

Belief in something, including your own health, is very powerful. If you learn how to capitalize on the power of belief, you can alter your life for the good.

What if someone promised to pay you $100,000 in return for following a 10-day plan that was not hazardous in any way, morally acceptable to you, and which was guaranteed to improve your life? Would you agree to follow the plan? You probably would because you wanted the $100,000 reward.

Here’s the $100,000 self-improvement plan that I am giving you:

The $100,000 Self Improvement Experiment

1. Get up at 6 A.M. each morning and study for one hour in your chosen field.
2. Before leaving home each morning, make a list of the 10 most important things to do for the day. At the end of the day, cross off your accomplished tasks. Remember that each accomplished task is a small victory and the subconscious mind needs to savor its accomplishments.
3. Three times a day - before leaving home each morning, while traveling, and
before going to sleep - repeat your own “Positive Self-Suggestion Statements.”

You can use the following statements given earlier as a guide or develop
your own personal statements that fit your lifestyle and personality.
Positive Self-Suggestion Statements

I feel healthy; I feel happy; I feel terrific.
I like myself; I like myself; I like myself.
I will be successful; it’s inevitable because my aggressiveness will equal opportunities for my success.
I can; I will; I want to. I can; I will; I want to.
All things are possible through belief in myself and the Lord; and with his help I can accomplish anything.
I feel great; I feel wonderful; I've got the world by the tail.
If I start acting enthusiastic, I'll become enthusiastic.
If I start acting positive, I'll become positive.
If I start acting happy, I'll become happy.
It's amazing; but when I act enthusiastic, others around me become enthusiastic.
It's amazing; when I act positive, others around me become positive.
It's amazing; when I act happy, others around me become happy.
We have choices in life; we can act enthusiastic or we can act blasé; I choose to act enthusiastic.
We can act positive or negative; I choose to act positive.
We can act happy or sad; I choose to act happy.
Why would anyone in their right mind want to act sad?
Yes! I do feel healthy; I do feel happy because I am healthy; I do feel terrific.
I really do have the world by the tail.
Each day for the next ten days you must look for the good in every situation. No matter how bad it may be, you must find something good about it. Even if the car runs out of gas, say something like this, “That's good; now I can get some needed exercise!” If it starts raining on you, you could say, “The rain is good. We needed more water for the flowers and birds.” No matter what happens, you must find good in it and believe there is good happening around you.

Each night before you go to sleep, you are to read for one hour, but you must also read a self-help book.

I'm sure you can fulfill this 10-day plan, especially if you want to be paid the $100,000. Would you still continue the plan if you knew that the company promising the $100,000 went bankrupt on the second day that you started on the plan?

Many people would give up. Not because they could not complete the plan, but because they were only motivated by the $100,000 offer. Those are the people who may never be successful because they do not have a personal plan and they are not willing to keep working to improve themselves despite a setback with the $100,000 reward.

Are you willing to be different? Do you dare to try to be different? Are you willing to stand out from the crowd? Are you able to put aside people laughing at you or questioning what you are doing in order to accomplish something great, which they do not see? If people do not see immediate success, are you willing to continue on with your dream?

Ever since you were a child, you have been making choices for your life. Now is the time to chose to be different in order to achieve the greatest success possible in what you want to accomplish.

The Greatest Success Secret of All Time

2008-04-01T00:09:00.000-07:00