Why employees are losers

If you're an employee, you probably want to crucify me for writing a headline that is, well, quite insulting.

But wait! Put down the cross, the hammer and the nails, and hear me out. I might be able to "ressuscitate" your genius so that you, too, can create wealth as easily as you breathe.

Here's my main idea for today: A job is a container, and work is the content.

An executive job obviously is a bigger container than a receptionist job. Not surprisingly, the executive makes more money than the receptionist, although the receptionist is probably more charming.

In other words, the REASON why employees are POOR is that the value they are allowed to create, is RESTRICTED by the job they took.

A free agent has a slightly different challenge: every contract he gets, is a container, and he is usually not very motivated to "pour more value" into that container. This is a mistake, of course, but one can hardly blame a person for not giving more value than he is paid in return.

Your mission impossible, should you choose to accept it, is to STOP thinking about "jobs" and start thinking about "value."

Value is similar to work, but sounds less stressful and seems to involve less effort!

If your goal is to make more money, you MUST create more value. One book that will open your eyes is Harv Eker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Read it once, read it twice, read it three times. Even a fourth time. Pick a principle in that book, and apply it for a whole week. Then, pick another principle and apply it the following week. Only then will you TRULY understand what Harv is REALLY talking about.

Millions of dollars are contained in that book, IF you consciously choose to apply its principles.

So how do you create MORE value? Think of how many MORE people you can serve.

First, who are you serving right now? Who's paying you right now for your services?

Picture that person, and then picture hundreds of people who look like, think like, behave like that person. In short, CLONE the clients you are currently serving.

If you currently don't have a job, no problem. Unless you're 11 years old, you DID hold a job before. WHO was the client at that time? Well, CLONE that person. Serve more people like that person. And you WILL get paid more.

Most people believe that money is a big deal when it isn't.

Money, wealth, financial freedom, etc. is only a big deal (and it gets more and more complicated as you read business books written by so-called gurus who confuse you even more) IF you are not interested in serving people, and IF you don't care about people.

If you TRULY care about people, then your wealth is guaranteed in this life. Why? Because there are 6.5 billion people on the planet!

The bottom line is that if you care about people and WANT passionately to serve them, they will throw money at you faster than you can count it!

This is called enlightened self-interest: in serving people well, you are in fact serving yourself!

But you've got to stop focusing on yourself, your problems, your constraints, your situation, your challenges, your whatever. Focus on helping other people.

Many seekers of financial freedom say they want to help other people, but can't really answer my simple question: "Who did you help yesterday?"

You see, the MORE people you help EVERY DAY, the MORE MONEY you will make in the long run.

That's because within every gesture of help, there is something valuable that EVERYBODY wants: love. Kids want love, teenagers want love, parents want love, senior people want love, politicians want love, aliens from planet Mars want love. Just kidding.

Your ultimate product is LOVE!

And you give it by talking, sharing, caring, teaching, guiding, helping, etc. And the more you give it, the more you will receive in return (in cash, goodwill, reputation, etc.).

People who are poor, are simply people who are withholding the love inside of them, and refuse to give it to others.

And to make matters worse, there are business books written that advocate the use of military principles from Sun Tzu or political (and diabolical) principles from Machiavelli.

In the end, wealth is very simple: it's about unleashing the natural wealth that you have within you, and that can only be love. If you don't love the people you are serving, and you don't empathize with them, then forget about wealth.

Wealth comes from spiritual knowledge, not business knowledge. Business knowledge gives you the HOW, but only spiritual knowledge (in particular, knowing that we are all one and that serving the other person is REALLY serving yourself) gives you the WHY. The WHY is the all-powerful force or Omniscience that flows into your being and whispers to you exactly what to say and what to do to enrich other people and yourself, and make the world a better place.

The wealth secret nobody told you about

My friends, the BMW audiobook CD currently sells for $100 (Canadian dollars), and you can read more details HERE. In this post, I will explain in detail what the BMW secret knowledge is about, and also offer you the opportunity to buy it for only $10. (This special offer is ONLY for subscribers of this blog and their friends).

Many people have bought my BMW audiobook already, and I congratulate them heartily because the secret knowledge contained in that single CD will save them YEARS of hard work, frustration, stress and totally misguided thinking about business, finance, economics and wealth.

Just take a look at what's going on in the U.S. and you'll have an idea of the enormous misunderstanding that most people have about money, work and wealth.

In a nutshell, people really DO NOT KNOW how to create value. If they did, they would NEVER accept to have a job, for they could create value from the comfort of their own home and then ship or deliver electronically that value to thousands of customers worldwide (as I am currently doing -- I have 998 connections on Linkedin in over 30 countries, and those connections are not just customers, they are distributors of my products to THEIR network of 500+ connections!).

In other words, the BMW knowledge clarifies people's mind about what, precisely, business is all about: innovation X marketing. It's really that simple.

And yet, if you don't get it, then you will be forced to work for someone else till age 65.

I retired from corporate America at age 31, and over the last 8 years, I've had nothing but fun. It was not always easy, of course, since I had to search long and hard for the SECRET of wealth, but I did it. I found the secret, and that is the secret I'm sharing with you in that BMW audiobook.

But that secret is not a sentence or a statement, it's a certain understanding of how value is created and then monetized. You've got to PRACTICE it in order to KNOW it.

To help people PRACTICE the BMW doctrine, I even created a FREE ecourse which all buyers of the BMW audiobook can receive, once a week, so they can apply what they've learned. Below is the curriculum of that ecourse (delivered by email).

But unless you buy the BMW audiobook, you cannot take that FREE ecourse, which I normally charge $300 for. Students get to do assignments and they receive my feedback, guidance and corrective comments.

Now, why would I offer both the BMW audiobook, now priced at $100, and this ecourse (value of $300) for the ridiculous price of $10?

Because I care about you.

And I know that you care about success, especially financial success. Otherwise, you would not have subscribed to this blog.

Sure, money doesn't buy happiness, but it certainly makes your life really, really, really comfortable and pleasant as you search for happiness.

And if you are a parent, you DEFINITELY and ABSOLUTELY must buy the BMW audiobook for if you don't have the knowledge, you cannot teach your kids. And trust me, they WILL suffer professionally and financially if they don't know the BMW secret.

I was the Valedictorian of my high school, and always a top student at college and university. In fact, at McGill University, several business professors told me I was one of their top students. I had an "A" average.

Yet, even I did not "get" business and had to figure it out for myself through a lot of readings (about 800 books) and countless hours of meditation and reflection.

Anyways, I strongly recommend that you get the BMW audiobook, for only $10. Just email me your mailing address at peter@powerknowledge.net and make the $10 payment at http://www.sureforms.net/peterswork.form (please make sure you enter the "$10.00" amount).

Forward this offer to all your friends and relatives, and they can benefit from the special offer too. Thank you.

FREE ECOURSE FOR BUYERS OF BMW AUDIOBOOK

Email 1: Explain in one page your understanding of the BMW system

Email 2: Create a template time sheet with only four codes: M, S, P and W (time wasted)

Email 3: Write one page describing your target client (probable client)

Email 4: Write a one-page procedure on how you create Marketing Campaigns

Email 5: Create an Excel spreadsheet listing potential clients, probable clients, contact info, solutions suggested, need inferred, need validated

Email 6: Create a one-page sales methodology

Email 7: Create a one-page description of how you produce value, both proactively without having any client and reactively (in response to client orders)

Email 8: Explain in one page all the things that could go wrong with your marketing system, and how you preemptively prevent or reduce those risks of process failure

Email 9: Explain in one page all the things that could go wrong with your selling system, and how you preemptively prevent or reduce those risks of process failure

Email 10: Explain in one page all the things that could go wrong with your producing system, and how you preemptively prevent or reduce those risks of process failure

Email 11: Create an Excel dashboard measuring your M, S and P performance every week

Email 12: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 13: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 14: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 15: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 16: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 17: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 18: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 19: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 20: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Barack Obama: his life is his message

I just finished listening to the televised speech of president-elect Barack Obama, and it was quite moving.

The story of this man is quite spectacular and inspiring. His life itself is his message, that we can do anything if we dare to hope.

The 1.5 million volunteers who joined his political organization were, no doubt, inspired by his charismatic leadership. But more importantly, something in them was activated by his example and his words, which flow smoothly from the core of his being.

This something is "hope," a most elusive concept and yet, perhaps the one thing the world needs the most today -- not only in America, but everywhere in the world.

That's because although America has become very powerful, it has also become extremely arrogant. The ego of what some people call the American empire, has expressed itself abroad, igniting fear and activating hate against America.

With the election of Barack Obama as the new president of the United States, there is hope that the American spirit will emerge, and that America will listen to its spirit more than its ego.

Through the example and words of Barack Obama, the American spirit speaks very clearly and it is such moral clarity that inspires so many people. Young people are especially inspired by his speeches as they are keenly aware of the enormous challenges facing them and thus they realize they need inspirational leadership.

In conclusion, this is a historical day for America and for the world. Barack Obama is such an inspiring figure that he is likely to influence many people to courageously pursue their dream in life. Indeed, he epitomizes and demonstrates the powerful line "Yes, we can!".

On that note, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that I'm running for Prime Minister of Canada! :-)

Free career consulting for you!

I created the blog www.idealcareerframework.com where I've written and will continue to write about how you can design and develop your ideal career. The best news is, it's free of charge!

I used to charge for that kind of information but I realized that this kind of knowledge is just too powerful and could REALLY help you to create an amazing career for yourself!

The Ideal Career Framework (ICF) is not the only method for finding one's ideal career, but I believe it's the best one. Just kidding.

It's the simplest and most direct way to get in touch with who you TRULY are, so you can build a fulfilling career based on your TRUE self.

So please visit the site when you get a chance, and ask me all the questions you want. Your career happiness is my mission! :-)

The source of real power

Everyone agrees that power is necessary to create a good life. Many believe that money brings power, or that power comes from connections ("friends in higher places"), or education (PhD, etc.), or experience.

However, what so few people understand is that real, lasting power comes from within, from ourselves. It comes from an evolved understanding of what life is all about, and what we are here to do and learn.

The reason why most do not suspect that power lies within them, is that in our everyday lives, we tend to focus exclusively on external things. We watch the news about what is going on in the world, in faraway places. We look at other people around us and, subconsciously or not, we compare ourselves to them. We seek "stuff" and buy "stuff" like as if material gratification could allow us to evolve personally and spiritually.

Continually comparing ourselves to others can only lead to misery, for every person is on a unique path of spiritual evolution. We are not "bodies" working hard on Earth to acquire more and more "stuff."

Yet "working hard every day to acquire more stuff or accumulate money in a bank account to retire and enjoy stuff" seems to be a dominant script for most humans on this planet.

This insane phase of "working", that is, exchanging one's life for dollars, occupies roughly a person's life between the ages of 23 and 65.

It would be all too easy to blame "corporate America" or the educational system for the empty lives we are leading. It is much harder to take responsibility and recognize the fact that if our lives are empty, it's simply because we have not put much thought into clarifying what it is that we really want out of life.

For example, Christmas is coming, so naturally, most people will begin to think -- to varying degrees -- about what their friends and relatives want as a gift. But the real question is, "What do YOU want in life?"

If you truly knew, exactly and precisely, what you TRULY wanted in life, then you could, right now, start to describe it in your Facebook profile or your Linkedin profile, so interested friends, relatives, coworkers, acquaintances, etc. could -- if they wish -- buy for you a gift that is aligned with your purpose in life.

Otherwise, you might just end up with one meaningless gift based on your friends' well-intentioned guess of what you want.

Here's an exercise that will drive home the whole point of this post.

Suppose you were to ask five friends or relatives, what your purpose in life is, or what dream you are pursuing in life, would they be able to come up with the same answer? If not, then it means your clarity of purpose needs further work.

Some may say, "I know exactly what my dream is, and I'm pursuing it relentlessly. But I don't feel I have to share that dream with other people, including friends and family."

That's fair enough. It is wise, however, to consider the possibility that

1. your dream is ego-based, and does not serve the collectivity. For if it did serve them, it would make much more sense for you to share what your dream is, so they can contribute and provide feedback.

2. you are still clinging onto your ego, which is afraid of criticism and negative feedback, so you try to protect yourself (or your ego, rather) from the negativity of other people (especially friends and family, who are always the best at providing well-intentioned negative thoughts)

I must stress that the above does NOT mean you should share with everyone your half-baked ideas and goals, or that it is necessary to talk about your goals and dreams with other people. Indeed, you may need to work on clarifying your purpose and dream for a while, and gather enough resolve and self-confidence BEFORE you share your intentions with others.

But let's get back to the point of this post: your personal power.

Any and all power comes from you, from your allowing yourself the time and the space to explore and exercise your power.

To do this, you need to quiet down all thoughts, and since most thoughts come to you through other people and from the mass media (magazines, books, TV, movies, ads, etc.), you need to create a specific time during the day when you can meditate without being interrupted.

I've been meditating in a library for the last few years, and have learned to listen to my inner voice. I don't think this could have been achieved without meditation and places, such as a library, where I can empty my mind of all thoughts.

Whether you're a mother, an entrepreneur, a careerist, a new parent, an investor, etc. does not matter, in the grand scheme of things, as much as the fact that you are here to experience and joyfully direct your own spiritual evolution.

"Success" therefore is best defined by how peaceful and joyful you are, compared to how peaceful and joyful you were a few months or years ago.

"Success" is not determined by how much your bank account has grown, nor how well your investment portfolio is performing, nor how many friends you have, nor how big your house is, nor how many cars you have, etc.

Material possessions are relatively important, not absolutely important. They can make you physically more comfortable while you seek true spiritual evolution. But they cannot replace spiritual evolution.

Women tend to seek, consciously or unconsciously, spiritual evolution more than men.

This is why I believe that as more and more women get involved in politics, business, academia, etc. we will see a shift in the world from an ego-based lifestyle to a spirit-based lifestyle.

Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth, is all about that inevitable shift from an egoic life philosophy to a Higher Self focus.

In other words, as you choose and commit to shifting your focus away from your ego and toward your Higher Self (or spirit), you will begin to feel powerful, and will be able to exercise your power over all aspects of your life.

This may sound strange to you, yet the very fact that you are reading this blog testifies to your readiness to receive information that most people are not ready (yet) to receive.

Indeed, those who seek knowledge, are necessarily creating within themselves the space to receive new knowledge.

As you receive this new knowledge, or this inner knowingness that you are -- through your thoughts -- continually creating and shaping your life, you will begin to feel powerful.

You will feel your sovereign power to direct and create your destiny, and you will feel that other people have no power over you. This in itself will bring great peace of mind, and will reverse radically the idea or thought, expressed by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, that "hell is other people."

Other people cannot bring "hell" into your life, in any way, shape or form, once you realize -- through diligent and sustained practice -- that heaven lies within you, waiting to be released through a simple decision to focus on your Higher Self and not your ego.

Allow your inner wealth to express itself

Check out this site: http://www.makerealmoneyontheinternet.com.

There are more and more sites like that, offering what seems like a miracle recipe to people who seek financial freedom and wealth.

And yet, most of these wealth "recipes" are only acting as placebo.

Here are two definitions of "placebo":

1. a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.

2. Something of no intrinsic remedial value that is used to appease or reassure another.

In both definitions, it's about a mental operation performed on the person, so she BELIEVES that a cause has been set in motion in order to produce an effect.

This belief is actually relief. It helps people to let go of their resistance, and this very resistance is what PREVENTS people from becoming rich.

In other words, when you study multimillionaire authors and teachers like Stephen Pierce above, or Rich Schefren, or anybody else, keep in mind that their psychological impact on you is immensely more important than their intellectual impact.

In short, their value is that they help you to BELIEVE that you CAN become a millionaire.

However, they cannot just reveal that intention, because it would defeat the purpose of creating a placebo effect.

Once you BELIEVE and KNOW that you are, deep inside, wealthier than you can possibly imagine, then wealth comes to you naturally. But to get to that point of absolute belief and knowing, is very difficult because we have all been trained to think that we are poor, and that we have to work for a living.

The masterful gurus are those who are able to "free your mind." They know very well that their tools and techniques are just props and equipment to help you get to a point where you totally accept and embrace your millionaire identity.

But they know that if they just told you what I told you, you would NOT believe them. So they create all kinds of fancy-sounding techniques and programs to convince you, one step at a time, that you are capable of becoming rich.

My approach could be called "Inner Wealth Consciousness" in that I strive to help my consulting clients to relax and access their natural wealth consciousness.

I tell my clients that "if you do not feel wealthy, you will not become wealthy." In other words, outer wealth comes from inner wealth.

So don't try to "make money" but strive to identify your strengths, your worth, your self-esteem, etc. and translate it into physical terms. Wealth creation then is a translation process.

Many people who seek wealth, have an attitude of poverty. They focus on their lack, on their weaknesses, on their constraints ("I don't have enough time; I have no money; I don't have the right education; I don't have business experience; etc."). This poverty-focused attitude will only bring more poverty into their lives. Not just financial poverty, but social poverty, psychological poverty, etc. Even their health will suffer.

My point is that EVERYBODY, including you, is immensely wealthy -- naturally. But we create resistance to this inner wealth, which is our natural birthright.

This resistance comes from our ego, which is a false self -- an illusion. This ego always wants to be right, even at the expense of being happy or rich. This ego defends itself and justifies everything it does.

So the key to wealth and happiness is simply to let go of your ego. Be like a child, and enjoy life every single moment. Allow your joy to flow forth from within, and you will then feel the power of the spirit inside of you.

Once this happens, wealth will come naturally to you. You will no longer resist your happiness and wealth and joy in life.

Everything that you want in life will naturally appear to you, in what appears to be coincidences. Yet, they are NOT coincidences; they are simply the result of your finally understanding that you create your own reality, and the best way to create the best reality is to cultivate a keen awareness of your infinite worth and to let go of all resistance stemming from the ego.

Reincarnation

WARNING: This post contains subject matter that is highly controversial, and might shake your beliefs. Please note that I offer my understanding with the purpose of helping you to clarify your thinking, and NOT to convince you of any new belief.

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Whether you believe in God or any particular religion such as Islamism, Hiduism, Christianity, etc. might matter less than whether or not you believe in reincarnation.

For example, Christians believe that if they lead a good life, they will be rewarded and go to Heaven. If not, well, Satan will be waiting for them.

Note: This is what I understand to be the mainstream or official doctrine of Christianity, although it might NOT be what Jesus himself was saying and teaching.

In other words, you get one shot at Heaven. If you screw up this life, well, you'll be spending Eternity in hell.

Reincarnation has a different twist; it's a cycle of birth and death, and until you are enlightened, you will keep going back to a physical existence in order to "learn your lessons."

Mother Teresa, for example, was a human being who became enlightened in her (last) lifetime, therefore she has freed herself from the perpetual birth and death cycle that most people are "trapped" in.

So reincarnation basically says that different souls are at different stages of evolution. Young souls that incarnate, don't understand much while older, more mature souls (who obviously have lived many more lifetimes) are wiser and understand more of life (although this understanding is subtle and unconscious).

This is why you might see a 30-year-old woman who is wiser than a 50-year-old man. It's not the number of years that counts, but the number of lifetimes they've incarnated (and the quality of learning during those lifetimes).

So it's likely that Mother Teresa was the incarnation of a soul that has lived many lifetimes before, and in THIS incarnation as Mother Teresa, she had enough wisdom and knowledge to be able to see through the body (of lepers) and see the reality of God. This enabled her to become enlightened.

So why does it matter whether or not you believe in reincarnation? There are two cases:

1. If you believe in reincarnation, then you would try to meditate in order to access the knowledge that has been learned and accumulated by your previous lifetimes.

2. If you do NOT believe in reincarnation, then you would try to read books and attend seminars to gain knowledge in THIS lifetime.

In other words, your belief or non-belief in reincarnation determines, to a certain extent, your learning strategy. Of course, meditating does not exclude reading books and attending seminars.

Perhaps more importantly, your position regarding reincarnation determines whether or not you fear death.

If you believe in reincarnation, then you necessarily believe that death doesn't exist because you are NOT your body. You are a soul that will survive the body and will reincarnate in another human body.

In other words, your body is like a shirt or dress that you take off, and then you wear another dress or shirt (and go to a different party).

So a person who died is simply a person who left a party, and is going to a different party.

For example, if a husband died and leaves behind his wife, then he simply went to another party and perhaps later on, his wife will go to that party too, and they'll be together once more.

Note: Of course, I wouldn't put it in those terms if I was talking to someone who just lost a dear relative or friend. Sensitivity to people's feelings is important.

So if you believe in reincarnation, you are more likely to NOT fear death, because you know the soul is eternal. Also, you are likely to focus on your spiritual evolution in this lifetime. Ultimately, if you are really serious, you want enlightenment so you really, really focus on your spiritual evolution.

However, if you do NOT believe in reincarnation, this means you believe that THIS life is all you got. So you would normally fear death more than the people who believe in reincarnation.

You would also focus more on having a pleasant physical experience because you believe that you will NOT come back to planet Earth. Once you die, you die forever.

What does all this have to do with "success"?

Well, success is defined by each person differently. Reincarnation believers might define success as "evolving spiritually" while reincarnation non-believers might define success as "accumulating riches and living a good, comfortable material life."

In short, reincarnation believers focus on "learning" while reincarnation non-believers focus on "earning" (money). The latter focus on earning money because only money can buy the stuff that makes for a pleasant physical life experience.

Of course, it's possible to learn and evolve spiritually WHILE creating prosperity, just as it's possible to focus on earning money while evolving spiritually.

My point is that reincarnation believers focus primarily on learning while reincarnation non-believers focus primarily on earning.

I wrote this post because up to this point, I talked about success secrets from the point of view of seeking abundance and wealth.

However, from now on, I will ALSO write about success secrets from the point of view of spiritual evolution. Yes, I care about your soul's evolution!

Obviously, spiritual evolution is far more important than financial wealth, because the spiritual knowledge and mastery than you gain in this lifetime, will positively affect your life experience in other lifetimes.

In other words, the spiritual treasure that you accumulate in this lifetime, will follow you in other lifetimes. The money you make in this lifetime, will NOT follow you in other lifetimes.

This doesn't mean money is not important. It is important, but it's critical to know that it's only relatively important, not absolutely important.

BMW audiobook CD for sale

I have great news! I just finished recording a 47-minute audiobook on the BMW workshop, which I've been teaching in various business schools and colleges since May 6, 2006.

Since many people from Asia, the U.S. (L.A., New York, etc.), Europe and other provinces in Canada, have been requesting the BMW material, I finally took the time to record, edit and produce an audiobook to share the BMW workshop with the rest of the world!

If you wish to purchase that audiobook, which is NOT available in any retail store, here are the prices:

If bought in October 2008: $30 (Canadian dollars)
If bought in November 2008: $50
If bought in December 2008: $100
If bought in January 2009: $200
If bought in February 2009: $300

Simply email me at peter@powerknowledge.net your mailing address (with postal code), and I will email you a Paypal invoice and ship the audiobook CD to you promptly.

The reason for the accelerating pricing schedule above, is that the BMW principles and concepts are truly revolutionary and will give an incredible edge in business to any person who uses them. So the early buyers will benefit from exclusivity, since as the price increases, fewer will be able to buy.

Also, this audiobook CD has content that will continuously evolve, and the value will reach equilibrium at around $300.

If you want to get rich in this life, I highly recommend that you invest $30 and get this audiobook as soon as you can. The BMW is the result of nearly 10 years of research and experimentation that I did, quite successfully. The secrets I share in the audiobook are simply NOT available anywhere else.

I'm using the BMW principles myself to become a millionaire. This is my objective: :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdWjgNmVT7Q

If you are a subscriber to this blog, let me congratulate you and give you a $10 discount, so the price for you will be $20 in October, $40 in November, $90 in December, etc.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Don't miss it! I wouldn't want you to look back, a year from now, and see all my students make tons of money while you're still struggling financially!

Details on the BMW workshop at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com

The key to wealth is to STOP being productive

No, folks, it's not a typo.

I really mean it: The key to wealth is to STOP being productive.

I call it the Art of Being Profitably Lazy.

With Facebook and Linkedin, this art is being democratized and becoming accessible to the masses.

Before I explain to you what I mean, let me ask you this question: "What do most people see when they look at the Niagara Falls?"

Answer: The Niagara Falls.

That is, they see an average of four million cubic feet of water fall at high speed. It's the most powerful waterfall in North America.

My point is that only a hydroelectric engineer looking at the Niagara Falls would see the economic potential of the waterfall.

This is because engineers understand how energy can be converted from one form to another. In this case, the kinetic movement of water downward could be captured and converted into mechanical, and then electric energy, which can be sold and delivered in a highly controlled manner.

Society is like the Niagara Falls, except that there are many forces in society, and they are often invisible and silent. So it's not that easy to detect those forces, let alone leverage them.

Yet, a trained business mind can SEE those forces everywhere and all the time. This enables the trained business person to leverage such powerful societal forces, and convert them into capital, which then produces value, which is converted into cash.

Unfortunately, the majority of mankind is NOT encouraged nor trained to detect, see and leverage those powerful forces in society. This is why most people are "forced" to be productive -- whether they are employees, free agents, small business entrepreneurs, etc.

The enlightened entrepreneur is rather lazy physically but very alert mentally. He (or she) can detect forces around him and guide those forces for productive purposes.

Although I agree with the old saying that "an idle man (without vision) is the devil's workshop," I would submit that an idle man with a vision can be an angel's studio.

In other words, the first step on the path toward wealth, is to STOP WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU ARE DOING. (Unless, of course, you are making millions of dollars from it).

In other words, stop trying to be (personally) productive. Rather, try to see the ecosystem of which you are a part, and try to see the forces around you. Look at the trends, study what is happening in society, seek opportunities and threats (a threat for a group of people, could become an opportunity for you if you have a solution that would neutralize that threat).

Most importantly, learn to make people respond to you. This is really the key behind all great Internet marketing success. Often, Internet marketers are former copywriters who simply use the Internet to dramatically magnify their reach and influence.

Basically, they put an offer on the table (or on a Web page, rather). Then, they wait for the response from the target market. A response rate of 1% or 2% is good, 5% is very good.

Also, they try different offers and tinker with all the components of their Internet marketing until they reach the highest response rate.

By the way, that is precisely what I will do for www.etalentelle.com.

I will share with you the secret business plan behind eTalentelle in a future post.

My point is that to get wealthy, you have to stop trying to be productive personally, and create tools for OTHER PEOPLE to be productive.

Here's a metaphor to drive my point home: Imagine that as an employee or free agent or small biz entrepreneur, you are in charge of baking a cake. This is what you are paid to do.

Eventually, you want more things in life, which cost more money. So you try to increase your productivity. Instead of baking ONE cake per hour, you try to bake TWO in the same hour. And so on and so forth.

Yet, this approach leads not to wealth.

To become wealthy, you have to remove yourself (your physical person) out of the value creation equation. And you have to inject ideas into your wealth building approach or formula.

$1 , 2 3 4 , 5 6 7 . 8 9

The above is what I call the Million-Dollar Secret Leverage Code.

To become wealthy, you have to work on the numbers on the left (1, 2, 3), not the numbers on the right.

And the numbers on the left can only be increased by clever leverage. Ideas, either from yourself or swiped from others, are the seeds of leverage.

Henry Ford, for example, copied the idea of an assembly line from the meat-packing industry. It enabled him to create car manufacturing plants that churned out a great number of T models, the original Ford car.

In other words, to become wealthy, stop being productive and start being INNOVATIVE.

Self-made billionaire Ross Perot put it this way: "It just takes a single idea to live like a king for the rest of your life."

He didn't mean a "product idea" or a "service idea." He meant an idea that is so revolutionary that it would give you TREMENDOUS POWER AND LEVERAGE.

Frank, the new CEO of Melaleuca in 1985, had one such idea: he created Marketing Executives at the company, in order to greatly motivate his marketing people to sell the product.

Jimmy Wales also had a great, high-leverage idea when he launched Wikipedia.

So did Steve and Chad, when they built Youtube.

The success secret here is that you've got to have an idea and and grow it and PUSH IT till it becomes a crazy and absolutely ridiculous idea!

Only then will it have a chance of giving you GREAT POWER AND LEVERAGE.

The Internet is truly the GREATEST ECONOMIC LIBERATOR OF MANKIND.

Let's get back to our baking example.

Rather than try to bake more cakes, it's much better if you capture your recipe on paper and SELL that recipe to millions of people through the Internet.

Better yet, give away that recipe for FREE in order to build a database of fans of your recipes, and then sell them future recipes that you develop.

In short, here's the secret to wealth: Stop being productive, and start capturing on paper or in a digital document the METHOD by which you produce a desired outcome. In other words, sell your productivity method. Sell your value-creation recipe. Sell any process or formula that you personally use to create desired outcomes.

But whatever you do, stop selling your personal time and your labor! Stop exchanging your life for dollars!

There is a much more intelligent way to generate an income (or multiple streams of income, for that matter!).

Revise your assumptions and beliefs about "work" and "value" and "money" and choose the easy, effortless path to wealth.

Learn to be "lazy profitably."

Learn to have ideas, lots of ideas, every day. Learn to discuss ideas, and evaluate them rigorously.

And before you know it, you will begin to see money everywhere around you. You will see the "money code" everywhere you go.

Why not franchise your success?

Here's a tough question for you: Are you successful in ANY area of life?

Chances are, you are successful in at least one area. I'm convinced of that. Sometimes, you just have to look carefully.

The next question is, Why not franchise your success? In other words, why not capture in the form of a book or a 20-page ebook the process or methodology you used to become successful in your field?

Here's the reason why I asked that question: If you cannot write a simple 20-page ebook to describe your "success process", then perhaps you do NOT have one.

Some people might counter, "Well, Peter, I'm not a writer." That's not a problem, you can hire a ghostwriter.

So what happens if you do not have a success process? What if you succeeded, but do not have a process?

Well, that would be like succeeding at baking a great cake, but not having the recipe to share it (or sell it) with other people.

In that case, you might be losing TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!

Here's an example in my case. I was successful at creating many workshops now being taught at Talentelle.com.

So a few weeks ago, I thought, "Why don't I capture the process I (intuitively) used to create such successful workshops, and then sell that ebook and make enough dollars to buy a Maserati?"

Needless to say, I was pretty excited at that idea!

Then I thought of PowerKnowledge.net, the portal I created with my brother and associate Joe. We're making money, Joe even took a snapshot of the first check we received from Google!

Why don't I capture all the emails, chats and phone conversations we had, as well as the process we used to plan and launch PowerKnowledge.net? CareerKnowledge.net too, why not?

My point is that if you succeed at something, that's great. You'll be making some money. But if you can CAPTURE the process you used to become successful, then you will BECOME RICH!

Why? Because success requires personal effort, while selling a process (in the form of a DVD, ebook, etc.) only requires a website. This means you'll be making PASSIVE INCOME! Yes, that means making money while you're sleeping!

The key is to ask yourself, "What is it that I'm doing in my life, that works for me and that produces GOOD, POSITIVE results?" Next, write down the process you use, and sell it to the entire world.

I'm available for consulting on this topic, at a rate of $100 for 2 hours by phone. Contact me if you want to further explore this incredible money-making opportunity.

Resellable ebooks so you can make lots of $$$

Check http://talentellenews.blogspot.com for details!

The most powerful secret, from Thomas Watson

A success secret is that by exercising courage, you can succeed faster than by reading dozens of books or attending seminars or even hiring a coach. (The courage to be, right now, your future self, as I explain below).

Take business, for example. You just have to know clearly what value you're offering to clients, and keep working hard to increase that value. Imagine your ideal business in five years, and start acting like your current business was that ideal business already.

Or take dating. There are many so-called "gurus" who give advice on how to approach and seduce women. I've read all of them (for research purposes, not for personal education!). They all propose some kind of verbal or psychological technique to make women feel comfortable, gain their trust, then do whatever.

Look, I've never had a beautiful woman say no to me, and I didn't use any special technique. I was just myself, truthful and sincere. "I like you, babe, so how about this Friday?" "But, Peter, I have a boyfriend..." "No problem, bring him along, I'll sit him in the corner while we talk."

I'm just kidding.

Truth is, I've never hesitated to do what I wanted to do, so there was very few success books that I needed to read or seminars that I need to attend.

My point: 95% of information, including information in books, is useless. Books are useful only if you have the courage to act, and stick to what you committed to. Also, books help if you have a clear goal.

Even gurus cannot help you. Take Rich Schefren, for example. He's certainly a prolific guru who writes a lot of reports and launches a lot of business coaching programs. Yet, business is really simple: focus on what you do best, and knock on every door.

Most people don't have the discipline to stick to something simple, and practice it until they become a master. If they did that, they'd be world-famous and very rich.

Here's a metaphor to drive home my point.

Imagine that you're digging the earth in search of oil and petroleum. But some guru says that you should dig elsewhere because there's more oil over there, so you believe him and go to that other place and start digging again. You actually abandon the original hole that you started digging!

But that's not the end of the story. A second guru comes along, and succeeds in convincing you that there's yet a third hole worth looking into.

You know what? To hell with all the gurus! They promote their books and tapes only to make money.

And here's the shocking part: NONE, absolutely NONE of all the financial freedom gurus (Randy Gage, Rich Schefren, Jay Abraham, Mike Filsaime, Mike Dillard, John Reese, etc.) ever talk about digging where it really matters: your true self.

In other words, they don't teach you how to discover the treasure within yourself, the infinite wealth within.

This inner wealth has to do with passion, talent, conviction, values, purpose, etc.

Stephen Covey and Richard Bolles do talk about finding your true self, but unfortunately, they don't mention anything about making a LOT of money from one's passion and talent. This is why I recently created a workshop and ebook called "Ideal & Profitable Career."

Don't get me wrong, those gurus DO offer good advice (as far as I can see) about business and marketing, but those are secondary, tactical issues. The ultimate strategy is to decide WHO you want to be.

IBM founder Thomas Watson probably gave the best advice: "Decide who you want to be in five years, and start acting, speaking, dressing, walking, eating, behaving, thinking, etc. PRECISELY like that ideal person you want to be."

This piece of advice is actually a SECRET whose immense power will only be revealed to you if you apply it -- every day.

Feminist and Masculinist

I met a friend a while back, and he asked me if the training company I co-founded, Talentelle.com, was a feminist organization.

I'd say that I'm a feminist but also a masculinist. I fight for the liberation of BOTH men and women.

We often hear the expression "it's a man's world," yet it's highly inaccurate. If it's really a world where men are winning at the expense of women, then how can one explain the fact that more men than women die in wars, or are imprisoned?

The challenges and indeed woes that men and women face, are different, but men struggle with their own issues and need help to find their "masculine" side. They need help and guidance to find their strength within, so they can live consciously and according to what they feel is right.

The minute a man decides to fearlesslt live the life he WANTS to live, regardless of the opinions of others and of society (by the way, "society" doesn't exist), then he becomes captain, and the men around him will recognize their leader and learn from his personal example of leadership. They might even follow in his footsteps and join the fight for the freedom of Man.

It is the same with women. It only takes ONE woman who lives consciously, courageously and boldly, for other women around her to raise their energy to her level, at which point they too will feel their eternal strength within. This is when they decide and commit to taking charge of their lives.

Most people delay living the life of their dreams, not because there are real obstacles, but because they hang on to their fear.

This reminds me of the technique that circus people use to control an elephant: at a very young age, the elephant's foot is attached to a big pole, so the elephant cannot go anywhere. It tries to, but it soon feels the chain. Over time, the elephant grows in size and strength and is indeed capable of breaking free from its chain, yet it DOESN'T! That's because it has been conditioned to think that it CANNOT break the chain.

In psychology, it's what they call "learned helplessness."

It's the same with people. They are intellectually capable of achieving financial freedom, but psychologically paralyzed.

In today's society, most people are helpless. But this helplessness and powerlessness is only an illusion. People indeed have enormous powers within themselves. They can do anything.

Unfortunately, they doubt themselves at every turn. For every new idea they have, they immediately think of 10 negative consequences, and this raises the specter of fear within them.

Fear is like the brake, while faith is like the gas pedal. You simply CANNOT press both the gas pedal and the brake!

Once you let go of your fear, and start pressing the gas pedal of faith, there is no limit to how far you can go.

This reminds me of the almost hallucinating experience I had, years ago, when I learned how to drive a car. I couldn't believe that by gently pressing the gas pedal, the whole car moved forward!

It is the same with your life. If you let go of fear and do, right now, what you've always wanted to do, your whole life will start moving forward. Learning how to "drive" one's life, is no more difficult than learning how to drive a car.

Here's another analogy to drive home the point that fear and faith are opposites: try to flex your biceps while ALSO flexing your triceps. You can't. The split second that you decide to flex one muscle, you are instantly paralyzing the other muscle.

The success secret is to realize that freedom is your eternal condition, and so you can choose fear or freedom at any point in time. It's up to you. Fear leads you to repeat the past, while faith leads you to create the future that you want.

Your learning strategy is critical to success

20 years ago, things did not change so fast. Change was even slower 30 years ago. In those times, one could reasonable study for 3-4 years at university, graduate and do a job for a fairly long time.

Today, however, things change so fast, not just at the superficial level but also structurally. There are deep changes sweeping across society and the economy, and the only people who will survive and prosper are those who have a clear, winning and strategic LEARNING STRATEGY.

You have a good learning strategy if you know EXACTLY what specific knowledge you must acquire and practice applying, and you know EXACTLY how you are going about, every day, acquiring, absorbing and assimilating that strategic knowledge.

The way to know, for sure, whether you are actually learning anything new every day, is to look at what you WROTE that day. Indeed, life is like a perpetual seminar and if you're not taking notes, then chances are, you are not learning anything new.

Not learning anything new is okay, if you are currently living the perfect life that you've always dreamt of living.

We both know that this is impossible or, at least, very unlikely.

It is part of human nature to want more, to experience more, to achieve more. This is why billionaire Richard Branson is launching Virgin Galactic, a space shuttle company for space tourism. After that, I suspect he will launch Virgin Time Travel in case you want to go back in time and do some "historical tourism."

If I were a billionaire, I would probably build a huge harem. Maybe a harem in space! :-)

Anyways, back to your life.

You probably want MORE. If so, the success secret is to craft a good, solid learning strategy.

Once you have a good learning strategy, the next step is to create an "automated learning system" or ALS.

The best ALS would be like the one in the movie The Matrix, where you sit down in a dentist chair, and somebody plugs a wire into the back of your head. Then, you'd be able to download, straight into your little cranium, all the strategic knowledge you need in order to -- no, not kick ass in a dojo -- perform spectacularly well at what you chose as a profession or career.

Of course, such an ultra-efficient teaching device doesn't yet exist, but one day, I suspect it will.

So for now, you'll have to learn the good old way: by actually reading books and taking notes.

Here's a relevant quote from Socrates: "I cannot teach a man anything, but I can make him think."

In other words, as you craft and develop your daily learning strategy, make sure that you insert in your life things and texts and books and objects that make you think. Any device or reminder or ritual etc. that make you stop and think, will help you to grow your cerebral capacity.

A good tip is to do like kids, and keep asking "Why?"

People who ask "Why?" a lot, eventually become bosses, presidents and captains of industry. Michael Dell probably asked himself, one day during his college years: "Why do I have to sell computers the way it's been done traditionally, via retail stores?"

Billionaire Charlie Munger, who had a great influence on the young Warren Buffett, also advises people to ask "Why?" often. Don't take anything for granted, ESPECIALLY the information that other people "prepare" for you. Society is an environment FULL of highly sophisticated deception, and that is because everybody wants your money. Including me. (I'm just kidding, this blog will remain free for the next 100 years, haha!).

Most people don't ask "Why?" They ask "What? When? Where?" They are party animals! LOL!

They go where things seem to be "happening", they go where there's a large crowd. People very much prefer the psychological comfort and apparent security provided by a herd, although everybody without exception believes himself/herself to be "special"!

It's important to understand that the What, When and Where are less important than the How, which is itself less important than the Why.

What/When/Where information are facts, How information are tactics or techniques, while Why information is all about principles and fundamental causes.

In other words, you get maximum leverage from Why knowledge, and least leverage (if at all) from What/When/Where information.

To acquire Why knowledge, read books.

Newspapers and TV news programs, for the most part, only contain What/When/Where information. They will not empower you.

When you have Why knowledge, you can also predict, explain and control (or influence) other people's behavior.

For example, I know WHY news media exist. I know WHY reporters write: to provide good stories, which will attract readers or viewers, increase ratings or circulation, and thus pay the reporter's salary.

So every time I wrote a press release for the news media, I write it in such a way that the reporter does NOT have to rewrite it or edit it. He can just use the story AS IS. I don't mind that he signs his name under the headline. I get the ink and media space, he gets a story and the credit. We both win.

My point is that the more strategic and systemic knowledge you have, the more results you can generate, even with a small amount of effort.

The key is to have in place a daily learning strategy where you learn more and more about how to INCREASE your leverage. Read Jay Abraham's books and tapes to learn more about leverage, or Eli Goldratt to learn about how to blast your constraints.

If you would just commit to read a book for only half an hour per day, or even one full hour, you will begin to see significant and positive changes in your life.

That's because knowledge is power, and this power drives your mind, resulting in your making finer and sharper distinctions whenever you have to make decisions. And as your decisions get better, so will your life.

Are you betraying yourself?

There are many reasons why more and more people today are thinking about, dreaming about, or planning for financial freedom:

1. There are more opportunities than ever to launch micro-businesses which can, via the Internet, access foreign markets. In fact, with globalization, one could even talk about there being only ONE giant Internet-based market. James Davidson talks extensively about this "cybereconomy" in his amazing book, The Sovereign Individual, published in 1997. I highly, highly recommend that book to those who want to acquire a deep understanding of the Internet-based economy.

2. There are more books offering advice, some sound, some not, on business, entrepreneurship, investment, etc.

3. There are more ideas being generated as a result of more people interacting online through sites like Linkedin, which has a questions and answer forum where people exchange views, ideas, resources and opinions

What is most important, in my opinion, is to understand what CREATES financial freedom.

To do that, I've created this strange story which I hope can entertain you as well.

Imagine that you went on a sea trip and somehow, your ship was wrecked to pieces by a storm. However, you are fortunate there was an island nearby, and you were able to swim to shore. One other survivor was also able to reach that island.

Let's say his name is John.

There's nobody else on the island. So you decide to work together to start over your life, on that isolated island. Indeed, together, both of you constitute a new "society."

You're a good hunter and a good cook, and you discover that John is great at creating temporary shelters to protect you both from the harsh weather on the island (rain, storm, etc.).

So naturally, you agree with John that he should build temporary shelters for both of you, while you go hunting and cook meals every day.

And so, you both go to "work" for one another.

Every day, you spend a total of 8 hours to hunt or gather fruits, vegetables, herbs, etc. in order to make three meals per day.

John, for his part, spends about 8 hours to build and maintain the shelters that keep you both protected from the weather. These shelters are not very solid, so they have to be maintained actively almost every day.

Both of you work 9 to 5 every day, and have time off in the evening.

Over time, you become better and more efficient at making meals -- it now takes you only 5 hours. John is even better: it takes him only 3 hours every day to make or maintain or repair the shelters, made from tree branches and various leafy materials from the island's jungle.

So it could be said that you have "achieved" 3 hours of freedom per day (8 minus 5), while John has achieved or created, through efficient work methods, 5 hours of freedom (8 minus 3).

This "freedom from work" is truly what financial freedom is all about.

Financial freedom is not an amount of money in the bank, nor is it your wealth relative to the Joneses or other people to whom you socially compare yourself.

In other words, financial freedom is the time freedom that you have. It is the number of hours, per day, where you are FREE to decide what to do, whom to do it with, where to go, etc.

So an employee who has to work 8 hours per day at the office, could be said to have 16 hours of freedom every day (24 minus 8). Of course, he has to sleep about 8 hours, so he really only has 8 hours of freedom every day.

If he's married and has kids, well then he has zero hours of freedom. I'm just kidding.

The question which few people ask themselves is, "During the hours where I have freedom, what am I doing to liberate myself from the hours where I do NOT have freedom?"

Instead, people watch TV, read fiction, waste time on gossiping, etc. This misuse of their freedom time, forces them to go back to work the following day!

To really illustrate my point, think about it this way: suppose you are not ONE person, but TWO.

There's a version of you that is NOT FREE. This is the you who has to show up at work every day, from 9 to 5.

Then, there's a version of you that is FREE every weekday, from 5 PM to 11 PM, and during week-ends.

The you that is FREE, must work hard, read books, attend seminars, etc. in order to LIBERATE the you that is NOT FREE!

That is the only way for both of you to be free -- only then would you achieve total freedom and total mastery of your life.

Brian Tracy put it this way: Every day in North America, we work 8 hours a day to survive. Every extra hour that we work, is an investment in our future and in our prosperity.

I read that line in 1993, and memorized it for life.

In other words, if the you that is free, is not working hard to liberate that you that is NOT free, then a part of you is BETRAYING the other part of you.

(to be continued)

Facebook Insider

I cordially invite you to subscribe to the newsletter Facebook Insider, at http://facebookinsider.blogspot.com, where I'll share valuable information for all Facebook users (just as I did for hundreds of subscribers of Linkedin User Manual HERE.)

I will use Facebook as a federal infrastructure through which I can distribute help, in the form of free instructional materials developed at Talentelle. You don't want to miss all of that value!

I say "federal" because I used to be a federal agent for the Justice Department. I can't talk about the nature of my work because it's classified. :-)

But it involved fraud and tracking potential terrorists.

Since I left the Justice Department in 1994, I began to set up my own operations and missions.

Wealth comes from programming, not doing

If you are a programmer, like Bill Gates, then you have a slight advantage when it comes to building a financial fortune.

That's because you naturally understand that programming is superior to execution.

By the way, this is what I don't understand about management authors, including Jack Welch and Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, who talk of the critical importance of "execution."

In business as in war, execution should be automatic. What ensures victory is the programmed plan on paper.

Yet, so few authors talk about the critical importance of programming, with the exception of James Martin in his book Cybercorp, and Larry Smith in his book At Internet Speed.

Programming is, indeed, superior to execution, as illustrated by the massive wealth built by entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang (Yahoo), Steve and Chad (Youtube), Marc Andreesson (Netscape), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and many more.

More and more, we'll see businesses being created in cyberspace literally at the speed of light (or electrons, rather).

And in cyberspace, business battles happen SO FAST that to talk of "execution" is to trap oneself in a time-space paradigm that is no longer valid.

On the Internet, time and space are instantly conquered. It is only the mind of one entrepreneur against the mind of another. And winner takes all.

To be more specific, it is the strategic business design of one entrepreneur against that of another.

In short, MyBusiness.exe will be competing against YourBusiness.exe.

Most small-time entrepreneurs have a company called "MyBusiness.doc." It's like a Word document. It does NOT execute. Just a bunch of words, perhaps some pictures.

Same with careers. The key to automatic wealth creation, is to convert MyCareer.doc into MyCareer.exe.

Take a look at the 25 million users of Linkedin, for instance. They do stuff like write to others or answer a question on Linkedin Answers, so people naturally visit their profile.

And what do they see? An unremarkable, quasi-bureaucratic description of the person. There is no call to action. So the reader just browses over the unremarkable words written, then moves on to something else.

That, to me, constitutes a huge BUG in the program called MyCareer.exe!

Of course, Linkedin users don't put much effort or strategic thought into their Linkedin profile or their Linkedin strategy for one simple reason: they have a full-time day job. And most feel relatively secure about it.

But the key to winning massive wealth in the age of the Internet is to imagine that you do NOT have a regular, physical job. Imagine that you had to rely on email, blogs and Linkedin to generate revenues. What would you do?

Ideally, you would strive to program the Internet to work for you.

If you succeed in programming the Internet, you would be able to also program people's "behavior" so that you both win.

I'll write more about this.

Financial freedom comes from systemic understanding

Financial freedom can be defined at three levels:

- system
- pattern or habitual behavior
- event

The system is a superior method, the pattern or behavior is the second best, and the event level is the most inferior.

People hoping to achieve financial freedom from an "event" usually buy lottery tickets. Or they "hope" that a rich uncle will soon reach Heaven!

Sometimes, you'll also see a gorgeous young woman marrying a wealthy old man in order to strike rich. I'm not passing any judgment at all. Just a fact.

Warren Buffett is a person who gets rich by thoroughly understanding systems. You see, the more you understand, the less you have to do. This is so because you can leverage powerful forces out there, and use them to your advantage.

People who strive to get rich via patterns or their own behaviors, are hard workers. This seems better than buying lottery tickets or marrying rich, since there is effort and self-discipline involved.

However, in my opinion, a systematic or systemic approach to getting rich is the best. It's about maximizing one's leverage. And it's all about continuously learning about the system, so as to gain incremental benefits from every leverage point.

This has been the success secret of Jay Abraham, the marketing guru's guru. If you read his books, you'll understand what I mean.

Most people are working hard at the pattern level, or the behavioral level. And usually, they work WITHIN a system created by others. They cannot win against the system unless they thoroughly understand HOW the system works.

Indeed, the technical definition of a "winner" (or alpha male, or whatever you want to call it) is someone who understands the social, economic, political, commercial and technological rules of society and, in a premeditated manner, plays by those rules to leverage them.

This is why lawyers make so much money. Society is like a game of Monopoly, and lawyers are the only people who read and understand the game rules!

Investors who understand the investment game, also make a lot of money because, to borrow the Monopoly metaphor, they know what to buy and where to park their assets.

My point is that wealth and financial freedom come from systemic understanding. Yes, you still have to "do things" in the right order at the right time. But understanding HOW things work, and how systems work, is probably 80% of wealth.

In other words, there is an inverse relationship between understanding and action required. The more you understand, the less you have to do or work.

Here's a stark example: The U.S President understands the most, the McDonald's worker understands the least. One uses maximum economic, social, technological and political leverage. The other is being leveraged.

This is why it is said that "effort defeats itself." In other words, "hard work" will not make you rich.

Jim Rohn put it this way: "Work hard at your job and you'll make a living. Work hard on yourself and you'll make a fortune."

Working on yourself (self-improvement, personal development, etc.) is not really "hard work." It's fun and it feels really good. You feel that you're growing, as a person. Personal development is what life is all about.

But you won't have time to actualize your true potential if you have to "work hard" every day, five days a week.

This is why it's so critical to understand business, capitalism, economics, finance, etc. as soon as possible, so you can generate income from your systemic understanding and not from your behavior.

Your Higher Self vs Your Ego

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuX2cULeZQ&feature=related

This video is pretty interesting, it talks about the REAL success secret. I invite you to watch it, and feel free to watch also the second part.

April Crawford, whom you see on the video, is channeling an entity called Veronica, who's supposed to be a wise teaching spirit.

It's not important, at this point, whether you believe or not in such spirits.

The actual content of what she says, however, can shed immense light on how you pursue "success". Her discussion about the ego vs the higher self, is particularly illuminating!

All my business workshops FREE FOR YOU!

I woke up this morning with a major insight: I have to share all my business knowledge with millions of people.

So armed with a cup of strong coffee, I uploaded a few videos on my Youtube BMW channel at http://www.youtube.com/bmwmaster.

Visit the site and watch all the videos, you will learn something valuable.

There's a lot of pseudo-gurus and legit gurus on the Internet, as I'm sure you've noticed.

But most of them just throw advertising and hypish sales copy at you.

I've decided to take a different route. I've decided to be your business teacher and actually teach you stuff. For free.

(Take the money you save and buy something nice for yourself. Or for your sweetheart.) :-)

My message is very simple; it's also my recipe for success:

1. Create something valuable to other people
2. Sell it to those people

In other words, spend 80% of your time CREATING something new (or renovating something old).

Next, spend 80% of your time SELLING that new thing, whether it's a product or a service.

I spent three long and hard years at McGill University, and received a nice business diploma as a result. Yet, they didn't even teach me those two simple steps! I spent THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to get a business degree, yet when I graduated, I did NOT know the above!

So you are far ahead of me, and you can save yourself a LOT of money by focusing on that simple recipe: Create, then Sell.

Time --> Value --> Money --> Financial Freedom!

My friends, the above is probably the most important diagram you will ever see in your life. That's because it represents your life!

This is your life, on a daily basis. And it keeps repeating itself over and over and over again.

So HOW you program your daily life, WILL determine whether you achieve financial freedom, as well as how fast you achieve it.

The most important message here is that you have to determine whether the time you spend on ANY activity is adding value, or NOT adding any value.

For most employees, value-adding time occurs from 9 AM to noon, and from 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM. I'm being very generous here because most likely, people are only productive 2 hours every day. That's right, experts estimate that out of 8 hours, only a maximum of 2 is actually spent producing actual value for the company.

It's also important to understand the following financial freedom sequence:

Time --> Value --> Money --> Financial Freedom

In other words, to achieve financial freedom (that is, to have enough money working for you to generate a return that allows you to live your favorite lifestyle without having to work), you first have to manage your time CAREFULLY and STRATEGICALLY so as to create as much value as possible per minute or per hour, and you have to convert that value into money as efficiently as possible.

Innovation = Converting time into value
Marketing = Converting value into cash

Take some time to examine the diagram above and look at your own daily life: what activities are you performing every day? What value are you creating? How are you converting that value into cash?

I will write more about this super-important issue.

I'm learning business from a Playboy playmate

It's a bit embarrassing, but I'm actually learning from the online business success of a Playboy playmate. Actually, not quite a playmate but a "cybergirl."

Her name: Tila Nguyen, also known as Ms Tila Tequila.
Her business: www.myspace.com/tilatequila

To appreciate her business "genius," you have to scroll all the way down on her MySpace page and read the paragraph she wrote about herself. This is a girl who definitely understands the concept of "Brand Me."

Now, you may or may not agree with her decision to take off her clothes for Playboy, but what's undeniable is that she knew, right from the start, how to leverage MySpace (and MySpace, in turn, leveraged her, er, shall we say, "popularity."

Here are the facts: In September 2003, about to be ousted by Friendster for her "in your face" attitude and behavior, she was approached by Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace. He presciently knew she would contribute significantly to MySpace.

She was among the very first people to sign up with MySpace. When she saw there was nobody, she decided to mass email 30,000 to 50,000 people, inviting them to join her on MySpace.

The rest is history.

She now has over 1.6 million friends. Well, the word "friend" is a highly plastic concept in the social networking scene, but nevertheless, she IS popular.

After I read about her success, I went to her MySpace page to look for some pictures, oops, I mean, to do some business research.

So I decided to create my own MySpace page, at http://www.myspace.com/superpetersworld.

My next move is to connect to Tila Nguyen, and pretend I'm a long-distant cousin so all her friends can hopefully become my friends, too. I'm just kidding.

In case you're a bit confused about all this social networking phenomenon, let me share with you an insight I recently had.

There are basically four major spaces:

1. Email (individual / objective)
   
2. Linkedin (systemic / objective)
   
3. MySpace (individual / subjective)
   
4. Facebook (social / subjective)

INDIVIDUAL / COLLECTIVE

Email and MySpace both focus on the individual. It's all about you.

MySpace, however, is subjective in that it allows you to express who you truly are, inside. Alternatively, it allows you to create or project a fictional or fantasy-based version of your identity.

Email, on the other hand, is more straightforward.

Facebook and Linkedin are collective, since it's all about the relationships (Facebook) and connections (Linkedin) you have with other people.

OBJECTIVE / SUBJECTIVE

Email and Linkedin are objective in that people usually stick to facts. There's little room for fantasy.

Linkedin, for instance, is more factual than Facebook. On Facebook, you don't have to state who your employer is, nor what previous jobs you've held.

Please note that a connection seems to be more objective than a relationship, which is an intersubjective phenomenon (where the subjective aspects of two people merge). This is why relationships are more complicated than business transactions or connections. At the same time, relationships offer more depth and are definitely more interesting.

My theory is that a complete and well-balanced person will use all the four tools above (email, Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace) to fully express himself or herself.

(Of course, you don't have to get naked like Tila!).

Here's another summary:

1. Email is for communicating
2. Linkedin is for connecting
3. Facebook is for communing
4. MySpace is for creating (videos, music, your fantastic self, etc.)

Here's how the above Internet tools correspond to tools before the advent of the Internet:

1. Email --> writing letters and mailing them
   
2. Linkedin --> professional and business associations
   
3. Facebook --> get-togethers with family and friends
   
4. MySpace --> artistic studios

Many people over the age of 35 or 40, tend to shy away from Linkedin and MySpace, while they seem to adopt Facebook more readily.

Are they right or wrong in ignoring the economic and business opportunities offered by MySpace and Linkedin? I will answer in an upcoming post.

Generate passive income from Linkedin

If you're a user of Linkedin (and I highly recommend everyone to create an account and start connecting -- it's MUCH MORE useful and profitable than Facebook), you can download a free map of how to make money from Linkedin here: http://linkedinmastermind.wordpress.com.

This is just an overview. To get the full map with all the details, please email that overview map to 10 people, using their work emails (as explained on the map). Thanks and good luck!

Get wealthy by generating new ideas

Wealth comes from ideas, and ideas come from the belief that you are creative.

Given the above, you can see why most people are not wealthy: they don't have ideas.

They also hang around with people who have no idea. Test my statement and verify by yourself: when was the last time a friend or relative shared an idea with you?

When was the last time you had a brainstorming session, either by yourself or in a group of people?

Indeed, wealth comes from ideas, and people who have no new idea, will never get wealthy.

You can DRAMATICALLY increase your creativity by reading Edward de Bono's books, especially Lateral Thinking and The Six Thinking Hats.

You can also just follow Brian Tracy's advice of stating a problem at the top of a blank sheet of paper, and then writing out -- without thinking -- 20 ideas or potential solutions.

I've been doing that for years, it truly works.

The above are techniques or tricks to improve or boost your creativity.

However, at the deeper level, here's why most people are NOT creative and spend an entire life with few new ideas. I call it the "Anti-Creative Vicious Cycle."

This vicious cycle is created by the educational system, which is CONTINUALLY "teaching" students NOT to come up with any new idea, but rather to memorize whatever the teacher is throwing at them. The message, throughout a young person's 12-year period of time spent at school, is: "Don't have any new idea, just memorize and regurgitate during exam time."

Indeed, young kids upon entering the educational system, have lots of ideas. Their imagination is quite fertile. By the time they graduate, they are unimaginative and obedient, ready to follow instructions issued by the news media, employers, the government, etc.

Okay, here's the actual vicious cycle:

1. You don't believe yourself to be a creative person
2. Therefore, you never carry a pen and notepad with you.
3. NOT carrying a notepad and pen with you, continually sends a signal to your subconscious that you are indeed NOT a creative person. This brings you to #1, and the cycle is perpetuated (perpetrated?) over and over again, thereby locking a person out of wealth.

You can break this cycle by buying a $1.00 (at any $1 store) notepad and carry it with you everywhere you go. The mere presence of this notepad will constantly remind you to have ideas and WRITE THEM DOWN. The more ideas you write down (like I do with blogging), the more easily and the faster ideas will come to you!

Ideas are SO IMPORTANT to becoming wealthy that I often say, "Fortune has a price, and the price is WRITE!" That is, write down all your ideas, even the ridiculous or stupid ones.

The truth is, you have to write down about 50 bad or ridiculous ideas BEFORE you stumble upon a good one. Quantity always precedes quality.

In other words, don't try to have "good ideas." Just write down, without judging them, ALL the ideas that come to your mind, and you can do the sifting and selection AFTERWARDS.

Notice that this process is similar to Darwin's Natural Selection phenomenon, which is responsible for our evolution: Lots and lots of mutations occur randomly and "mindlessly" in nature, and the GOOD ones are selected for which then results in evolution.

Let me share with you some of the crazy ideas I've had in the past. By the way, keep in mind that sometimes, an idea might not be good yet it might still serve as a stepping stone so your mind can move to a new idea that is right behind that bad idea.

1. Why not publish your hard drive? How much would you charge a person if he/she were to buy all the contents in your hard drive?

2. Writing a blog post in one minute (60 seconds). I actually implemented this idea three years ago, and was able to create a blog that had 1,000 posts (all written under one minute). The time constraint forced me to bypass my conscious process and just express the awesome ideas in my subconscious.

3. How rich would you be if you could package all your valuable knowledge into a PDF document, and were able to sell it to 6 billion people?

4. What if I created a one-page mind map that linked together all the key ideas from all the best non-fiction books out there?

5. What if I packed all my best knowledge onto a DVD, then put it in the mailbox of my neighbor along with a letter asking him to copy the contents onto his hard drive, and then put the DVD in the mailbox of the next neighbor down the street?

You see, my friends, a person's mind is basically just "space" for ideas. If you have a small mind, then you won't accept any new ideas, either from yourself or from others.

Small minds have small bank accounts -- and small lives.

By buying a $1.00 notepad, you are indeed creating "space" for new ideas to come into your life. You are giving yourself permission to accept new ideas, evaluate them, and create new solutions based on them. This can only make you richer and happier.

Hooray, I did it!

http://www.lulu.com/content/3975065

Folks, you're not going to believe this. I spent the entire day today (a Saturday!) trying to figure out this Lulu.com thing. Actually, I had time to watch the amazing Federer / Jokovic match (U.S. Open), but I spent the remainder of the day and evening "publishing" my book on Lulu.com.

This is really, really cool. I feel SO RICH already. In fact, after I finalized all the details and became a published author, I immediately opened a bank account in the Cayman Islands as well as one at Credit Suisse in Switzerland. Hey, you never know! :-)

Joking aside, it's just incredible what technology allows people to do to maximize their economic potential. Translation: Use the Internet right and you can become super rich.

However, as I've mentioned many times in this blog, the key is to acquire and master a specific type of knowledge. Once you do, then Lulu, Payloadz, Blogger, Wordpress, Audacity (a free sound editing software), Linkedin, Facebook, Skype, etc. all become useful to you ECONOMICALLY.

Until you do master a specific type of knowledge and are ready to teach it or share it, then the Internet will not have an impact on your bank account.

I will write more about Lulu and how professionals can capture their valuable expertise and sell it over the Web.

Selling = Talking with a clear aim in mind

Selling is the secret skill of all successful and wealthy people.

Selling simply means "talking intelligently."

Let me paraphrase, with slight modification, Rene Descartes: "I think therefore I aim."

Most people think without having an aim; they activate their emotional energy without having an aim; and they act without having an aim.

No wonder why so many people struggle to make it financially!

The more you prepare, aim, shoot and then readjust, the FASTER you will become the best.

And the best always get paid the best salary or income.

If you're afraid of selling or you avoid learning about selling or have some negative prejudice against selling, just remember that NOTHING happens in the economy until a sale is first made.

Salespeople are, indeed, national heroes for they activate the process of GDP creation!

If you have a negative perception of selling, think of it this way:

It's an intelligent, considerate conversation you have with someone, and then at the end of the conversation, you both end up with MORE value in your respective lives: you have more cash value, and the client has more economic value (in the form of a product or service).

Here's a fun exercise to determine how good you are at selling. Pick a product or service that you buy regularly. Then, try to sell that product or service to a friend. Or sell it to yourself by standing in front of a mirror.

If you want to read books on selling, I recommend Jeffrey Gitomer's books.

Sell your talent to their reason, part 2

I wrote previously that the secret to riches is to "sell your talent to their reason."

So assuming you've read Tom Rath's book, Strengths Finder 2.0, and discovered what your talent (or group of talents) is, and assuming you've read books on selling and know how to sell, then the next step is to learn HOW your clients reason.

By the way, the ultimate method for selling is made up of only three steps: Show them what you got. Show them what it will do for them. And tell them what the next step is. It's a bit embarrassing for me to admit that I had to read dozens of books on selling to know that! But hey, now you know the secret to selling! All you have to do is practice as often as you can.

Okay, back to your client's reason.

Note that their reason is NOT the same thing as logic. We all have our own individual "logic."

In other words, we all think very differently. Of course, it would be too time-consuming for you to learn how each and every one of your clients think. So this is where segmentation helps.

Segmentation simply means you create groups and put people in those groups. For example, you can look at the market and create a group like "people aged 40+." Or "people who bought a product similar to the one I"m selling." Any textbook on marketing will give you more details about various ways to segment your market (demographic segmentation, psychographic, benefits sought, synchrographic, sociotechnographic (e.g. how much they use social sites like Facebook, etc.), geographic, etc.).

Once you create such groups, you're in a much better position to learn HOW each group actually thinks. For instance, mothers, as a group, will think in similar ways. Obviously, they put their child's interests above all other things.

But even within the mothers group, you can segment further. For instance, mothers of young infants aged 0 to 2 years think very differently from mothers of teen kids.

Anyways, my point is that the more you segment your market, the more you can get to know each segment. As you begin to know them more, you will begin to develop the ability to predict, explain and influence their behaviors.

Indeed, if you can predict, explain and influence their behaviors, then you largely control their reason.

What I mean is that you begin to understand the fundamental truth about human beings: "People can do what they want, but they cannot want what they want."

So if you know what they want, then you are able to predict, explain and control their behaviors.

Therefore, "sell your talent to their reason" really means: "sell your talent to their MOST DESPERATE WANT."

For example, let's say you're a graphic designer. Graphic design is your talent. But you are unlikely to get rich UNLESS you can LINK your talent to your client's MOST DESPERATE WANT.

If your client is a business person, then most likely, he wants to MAKE MONEY. So your selling pitch to him must include constant and repeated, but differently formulated, appeals to that want. For example, you might tell him: "Look, my talent is design, and the bottom line is that I want to use my talent to help you to differentiate from your competitors. This is the easiest way for you to MAKE MONEY. In other words, after I design all your marketing collaterals, you'll be living on Easy Street and you will attract money to you. Effortlessly."

Unfortunately, most graphic designers are too "artistic." They focus on what they do, that is, logos, brochures, websites, etc. They rarely, if ever, mention the issue of making money for their clients. Hence, they fail to apply my success formula of "selling one's talent to their reason."

They fail because they don't know how their clients are actually reasoning. So they CANNOT influence that reasoning process.

Here's how powerful you can be if you learn HOW your clients actually reason. Their brain is like a car, and you're basically getting into that car and sitting right behind the wheel. You're actually driving that car (or their brain)!

In other words, you can become very powerful and very rich if you FORGET how YOU actually think and reason, and start studying how your clients actually think and reason.

If you can talk for two hours on HOW your clients actually perceive, think, reason, and thus behave, then you truly MASTER your target market -- as a result, you can sell them anything. You could sell them products that you have developed, or products that other people have developed (in this latter case, you'd be working as an affiliate or sales rep).

Let me get back to the previous example on graphic design.

I actually owned and ran a graphic design firm for three years. I used to charge $10,000 for a logo that was not bigger than a square of one inch by one inch!

That's because I knew exactly how my clients were thinking. I pushed all the right buttons.

The slogan I created for my company was, "We communicate your value."

This slogan appealed to my clients because they were in the professional services industry, and as a result, their value was mostly intangible. If they had been selling products like cell phones or furniture, they would be selling TANGIBLE VALUE.

So because their services had a highly intangible value, they needed a graphic design firm like mine.

The slogan, "We communicate your value" was a major pitch because I was basically telling clients, "Look, just talk to ME. And I will create a global communications program that will continually communicate your value to all stakeholders, including your investors, clients, employees, collaborators, suppliers, joint venture partners, etc."

I always made it my business to know more about how my clients were thinking than they themselves knew!

What do they know? What do they believe? What magazines or books do they read? What habits do they have? Who do they talk to? What are their habitual thoughts? etc.

So basically, when you look at the secret formula "Sell your talent to their reason," there are two parts: self-knowledge (sell your talent) and knowledge of your client (to their reason).

To become rich in this world, you've got to master both parts.

By the way, notice that most people have a hard time selling -- often, they even hate selling. But actually, "selling" is not really the problem. The real problem is NOT knowing enough about the prospect.

As I alluded to previously, selling is very much like driving your prospect's car. All you have to do is get into their car (which represents their mind) and start driving that car.

It's not that your clients are not able to drive their own car (or mind). It's just that in a buying situation, there are many complex issues and factors, so the client often needs help to make decisions. He also needs a lot of relevant data.

This is why companies like Progressive.com go out of their way to provide relevant data, including data on competitive offerings!

Your job, when applying the secret wealth formula "Sell your talent to their reason," is to show prospects how to actually make buying decisions. Indeed, you are temporarily taking over their decision-making process. You are teaching them how to make effective decisions. You are showing them how to make positive decisions that will positively change their lives for the better. How can anyone, in their right mind, say no to that?

Once you understand that, you immediately understand that the question is not "Who will let me become rich?" but "Who can stop me from becoming rich?"

The answer is, "No one." Absolutely no one can stop you from becoming rich. But you've got to understand and fully master the formula, "Sell your talent to their reason."

Sell your talent to their reason

There's a LOT of marketers out there (especially Internet marketers or network marketers) trying to sell you something. Sometimes, they even try to teach you something.

Some are good, like Eben Pagan, Yaro Starak, Mike Filsaime, Rich Schefren, etc.

But most are not so good. However, it is not my place to judge anyone. Everybody has the right to pursue wealth in the way that they deem appropriate, as long as it's legal and legit.

It is really caveat buyer, that is, the buyer or consumer is the one who has to be careful -- or else, he/she will suffer the consequences.

Here's my six-word response to all the people who are trying to sell you the dream of financial freedom. Please don't be deceived by the apparent simplicity of these six words, for if you apply them carefully and in a masterful manner, you will be RICH beyond your wildest dreams.

In fact, out of the 865 posts written so far on this blog, this post is easily among the Top Ten best posts!

So pay attention. What I'm about to teach you is worth GOLD.

I'm creating a bit of suspense and drama before revealing my success secret because I want you to treat the following secret like a gift from the Gods, and I want you to NEVER forget that secret.

Whether you're looking for a job, or a contract (as a free agent), or you're trying to start a business, KEEP IN MIND and NEVER FORGET these six words I'm about to share with you.

Heck, if you want to seduce a beautiful woman, these six words could even be pretty useful.

Okay, enough suspense! Even I am beginning to find this suspense unbearable! :-)

Here's my secret, or my ultimate advice to you for getting RICH:

Sell Your Talent To Their Reason.

Please notice that it's not "Sell someone else's talent..." or "Offer your talent..." or "Sell your talent to their emotions," etc.

It is:

Sell Your Talent To Their Reason.

One of my advisors a few years ago offered this similar piece of advice: "Only do what you do best, and knock on every door."

What does all of this mean exactly?

First, find out what your talent is. Most people don't know, hence they are going through life without ever tapping that huge source of wealth within themselves. They could have been MILLIONAIRES. Instead, they live paycheck to paycheck, doing boring work which offers no recognition or opportunities for self-actualization.

Second, sell your talent. Indeed, having a talent is not enough. You must also possess the mini-talent of being able to display and demonstrate your talent. That's how you sell your talent. By providing PROOF that you've got the talent you claim to have.

The "to their reason" is a bit more complicated, so I will cover that in the next post.

Don't work. Create!

Can you manually calculate (i.e. without using a calculator) the following equation in less than 5 minutes?

1,455 + (400 X 256) - 455 + (4532 X 93842) - 500 + 4532 - (20 X 20 X 256) - 500 - 4,000 - 532 - (93842 X 4532) + 5 = ?

Okay, maybe you've had a tough day so you might ask, "Peter, why do I have to do this, it looks like a lot of work!"

But suppose you HAD to calculate the above equation in order to become successful or rich or happy in life?

After all, winning in life requires strategy and strategy requires the exercise of much intelligence. This is so because human beings are not born with instincts; we rarely know what is the right thing to do, unless we take the time to calculate and make decisions based on careful calculations.

The good news is that human beings don't have to know a lot in order to be successful or happy or rich. Indeed, many things or events in life CANCEL ONE ANOTHER. This is sometimes referred to as the Law of Duality: where there's black, there's white. Where things can go up, they can also go down. And so on and so forth.

So the way to calculate the above equation is to step back and see the variables that cancel one another out. The answer is, of course, 5.

1,455 + (400 X 256) - 455 + (4532 X 93842) - 500 + 4532 - (20 X 20 X 256) - 500 - 4,000 - 532 - (93842 X 4532) + 5 = ?

In other words, when you step back and look at the BIG PICTURE, you can save yourself a lot of work.

Often, hard work is necessary in order to become successful at anything. But it is equally true that a lot of hard work is unnecessary, IF (and this is a big IF) you are capable of stepping back and looking at the big picture in order to discern patterns that cancel one another out.

Here's a concrete example: if you make a mistake, you will learn. The more painful the mistake, the more memorable the lesson learned.

But here's the great news: you can actually step back and look at all the human beings who are struggling for success, and then LEARN from their mistakes. That way, you gain wisdom WITHOUT having to pay for the mistake!

This is as good as robbing a bank, except that you won't get arrested (or shot by security guards).

So how can you apply the above to your own life?

First, realize that your life is made up of endless cycles. That is, every day, you do things in a routine kind of way. It often would not occur to you that those routines are not helping you to reach your goals, yet you do them anyways. This is how society has conditioned you to behave.

In fact, these are more than routines. They are what I call SERCs or Self-Enforcing Reality Cycles.

That is, the more you do something, the more it seems to become real so that you cannot imagine life without it. It becomes "real" in the sense that it becomes neurologically integrated into how you think, perceive, feel and act.

It's like an addiction. The programming is more powerful than your willpower, so your addiction keeps growing and growing while your will gets weaker and weaker.

Smoking is one such addiction. Eating unhealthy foods is another.

But perhaps the most invisible and insidious addiction of all is --- are you ready? -- work.

By "work," I mean the "execution of a prescribed routine." In that sense, I distinguish "working" from "creating."

People are addicted to work, yet they don't realize that many things cancel each other out. For instance, a person works to make money, then spends that money here and there, and so is forced to come back to work the following day. Meanwhile, their lives are going nowhere. That is, there's no personal growth and no moving toward the realization of a dream.

It's like the long equation above. People tend to get into the "work" and do the mental efforts WITHOUT stepping back to see the self-canceling patterns, and then only focus on the critical work.

For example, if you want financial freedom, then create a product, market it, build a business around it, and sell like hell! Just like Michael Dell did. Or Bill Gates. Or Jeff Bezos. Or Steve and Chad, the Youtube founders.

Why would you read the classifieds, apply for a job, get the job, get a mortgage, get into debt (car, house, etc.) -- then one day realize it's the wrong path?

It's because that's how society and the educational system "trains" and "conditions" people to think. No university graduate, upon graduating, ever thinks about "creating a product"! Yet, it would be a mistake not to do so, especially now that the Internet enables anyone to sell and ship a product to practically anywhere else on planet Earth!

Creating a product is like focusing on the number 5 in the above equation. However, by building a business around that product, you're multiplying that "5" by 10, 20, or even 50. That, my friends, is how a person becomes rich! NOT by calculating the little variables that society or employers throw at you.

A lot of very smart people perform complex intellectual calculations in order to enrich their employers and shareholders. My question is, "Why?!" Why do people work so hard at enriching others? Why not use your brainpower to create a product and then market it yourself in order to build YOUR fortune?

This is what I realized in June 2000. I brought in over $100,000 for an employer, from zero. That was done in about 4 months. I had NO additional resources. So I thought, "Hmm, I'd be a sucker if I stayed in this job!"

It's not that I was exploited. Everybody was VERY nice to me. But I felt I could do MORE on my own.

To me, it's about self-respect. If you respect yourself, then work for yourself. Enrich yourself first.

But to do that, you have to step back and see the big picture. And above all, you must admit to yourself that it's possible that you're addicted to work.

The important shift is to move from being a "worker" to being a "creator." Only then will you become really successful and rich.

Do only ONE thing until you become rich

Basically, I'm a "success scientist." I read and observe and study successful people, then I extract underlying principles and strategies they use and apply it in my own life in order to TEST those principles and strategies. Next, I keep those that work and share them with you.

One powerful success principle is the concept of "compounding," which I discuss in the PowerKnowledge article HERE.

This compounding concept is all about doing only ONE thing, and focus on doing it until you grow exponentially through it.

Some people might say that this is hard to do and requires self-discipline. True, it does require self-control and the ability to say No to a great many things and activities that are NOT relevant to your goal.

On the other hand, focusing on doing only ONE thing is a lot like digging. If you dig deep enough, you'll soon find yourself in a "tunnel" and this makes it easy to ignore all the things and events and information that are simply irrelevant to your goal.

Many people think that the Olympians who participated in the recent Beijing Games made a lot of sacrifices to get there, but I don't think so. "Sacrifice" means you give up something of higher value in order to get something of lower value.

That is not the case with Olympians. In fact, it's the opposite. They CHOSE a lifestyle that is of higher value to them, so there is no sacrifice whatsoever. Even those Olympians who did not win medals, have been happy during the last four years. It's the journey that counts and that makes us feel alive, not the destination.

Olympians are a good example of self-mastered people who focus on doing only ONE thing until they get it supremely right.

Now, if you're a parent, then it gets even more interesting, and more challenging too. You have a Dharma or a responsibility toward your kids. So you will naturally feel that you've got to be there for them.

But keep in mind you have other roles to play. The key is to play fully your role while you're playing it, and then to play your other roles equally fully, putting your entire being into them.

This sounds easy enough, yet people often make mistakes and mix up their various roles. I have fathers contacting me and looking for jobs, and they make the mistake of mentioning their kids and family situation.

This is an unfortunate mix-up of roles, since it is much more effective to play the role of a worker WITHOUT also playing the role of a parent. Similarly, when a father plays with his kids, I don't think he mentions to them what's going on at work.

The success secret is really about knowing, precisely, what role you are playing, and to play that role fully and with your whole being invested in it.

How to get free money?

Last time I saw my 9-year-old nephew, I asked him if he would consider teaching me karate and I would teach him business. I thought it was a good win-win deal.

However, he totally surprised me by getting straight to the point and asking this blunt question: "How can I get free money?"

Since the truth often comes out of the mouth of children, I decided to think seriously about his question. Interestingly, he asked this question with a very serious face!

Upon examining this question deeply (as only my penetrating mind can do!), I realized that it is in fact a profoundly philosophical question. Indeed, my nephew realizes that life has infinite value and that, therefore, the "money problem" should be solved as soon as possible and without any cost of life.

What is "cost of life"?

Well, it means that if you have to work for 40 years in order to retire and live as you wish upon retiring from the workforce, then such freedom cost you 40 years of your life (except for the evenings and week-ends during those 40 years).

In short, my nephew wants to know how he can "retire" immediately and live the life he wants to live. This is what, I presume, he means by "free money."

In other words, the key question is, "How can I get lots and lots of money to support my favorite lifestyle, WITHOUT having to work for that money?"

You probably think it's impossible.

Allow me to prove you wrong. :-)

Two college dropouts from Chicago had an idea in 2000. They created a website called Threadless.com. Then, they invited people to submit T-shirt designs, and also invited people to vote on the best designs. They'd then print the T-shirts and offer it for sale (of course, the winning designers got T-shirts for free).

It cost them $5 to produce a T-shirt, and sold it for $12 to $25. Revenues for 2006? $17 million.

Yup, that's revenues of $17,000,000 for DOING NOTHING. Remember, this company was founded by two college dropouts.

And what about the 17-year-old Ashley Quall who became a millionaire by launching the website Whateverlife.com?

Because of stories like that, I tend to listen carefully to what kids today are saying. They have a way of thinking that escapes older folks (like me). Fortunately, I think a lot like a kid since I've always believed, to the dismay of my girlfriends, that "maturity is a sure sign of aging, and I'm against aging!"

Let's get back to Threadless.com. Today, they get 1,000 designs submitted EVERY WEEK. They have a community of 600 voters. And they pay the winners $2,000 in cash, and a $500 store credit. Sure, their design cost is $1,000,000/year, but they make much more money by -- oh, need I remind you? -- DOING NOTHING!!

So to get back to my nephew's question, my answer would be: "You can get free money by getting the world to work for you!"

I have a few ideas as to how this can be done, and will write more in a few days.

Are you having an exciting life?

Before I turned 18, I had already received 4 standing ovations (for two literary contests I won, for being Valedictorian of my high school, and for winning the Excellence and Leadership Award from the Montreal Catholic School Board.

I've been surprisingly successful in many other areas as well, such as calligraphy, business, innovation and journalism.

I'm not mentioning this to brag, because I have a very small ego. In fact, I believe that every person is capable of achieving great things if only he/she knew the few secrets about how excellence happens.

In the ebook The Secret Sequence of Success, available at http://peterswork.wordpress.com, I explain via diagrams HOW excellence happens. This sequence is "secret" because it is neither published nor taught in any school or university.

If you are a parent, I strongly urge you to buy this ebook. Without it, your kids cannot possibly become the best in their chosen field.

It is sad but true that the majority of people live through life without ever achieving eminence in anything worthwhile. They have never heard of Baltasar Gracian's admonition to "be the best at what matters most."

In fact, human beings go through life believing that they are NOT special, and that they should just do what everybody else is doing: live a completely unremarkable life.

This morning, I woke up with an insight and immediately knew that such an insight would shock many people. But since I've always told you the truth as I saw it, here goes:

If you can't imagine your life being captured in the form of a biography or movie that people would want to read or watch, then you have NOT lived.

The good news is, it's never too late for your exciting life to start!

My autobiography is called "The Super Peter Identity." This is not to be confused with the Matt Damon movie The Bourne Identity. I don't go around killing people. Not yet, anyways!

There's one part of my book where I talk about how I once dated a foreign spy from a Montreal-based embassy. This is a true story, I'm not making this up!

There's another part where I talk about how two breathtakingly beautiful girls decided to date me on the same evening! They're both extremely sensual dancers. The following day, I had back problems. Just kidding.

A lot of strange, exotic, memorable things happen in my life because I'm open to new experiences. There's nothing I hate more than routine.

One of my mottos is, "Don't happen to live. Live to happen!"

An old saying goes, "Youth is wasted on the young." It would be equally true to say that "Life is wasted on most people!"

Please don't take offense if your life is boring. Like I said, it's never too late for your exciting life to start.

The key is to stop thinking so much, and to start being spontaneous. Just feel what it is that you are feeling, and go with the flow. Don't resist the unexpected. Embrace it, and charge with it -- full steam ahead!

Here's another memorable thing I remember a few years ago. I was dating this ultra-gorgeous redhead and we were in a restaurant, when I said something a bit shocking and she just stood up and walked toward the exit. However, rather than walk out the door, she suddenly turned around and walked toward me. I thought, "Okay, Peter, she'll apologize. Be generous and magnanimous! Bestow your forgiveness on her!"

It turned out that she just wanted to pay for her dinner! She put some money on the table and walked out the door.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, let me just say that she's an actress. She loves to create this sort of drama. I was able to tame her eventually, but that's another story.

Enough about me, what about you? What is the most incredible thing that happened to you? And how can you make sure that similar events happen again and again in your life?

How to get maximum benefits from this blog

There are over 850 posts on this blog, so recently, I began thinking about how you can get maximum benefits from my writings.

As a result, I created a "diagram ebook" that will allow you to ORGANIZE all the ideas and techniques that I write about.

This ebook costs $97, but you can download it for only $17 (Canadian dollars) at http://peterswork.wordpress.com.

In fact, you can even download for FREE a partial version of the ebook!

The great thing about this diagram ebook is that it allows you to also organize ideas and information from other personal development books, by well-known authors like Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Robert Kiyosaki, etc.

Enjoy!

Make money from Linkedin

If you're using Linkedin, then know that you can make money from it. Check it out HERE.

Even if you have less than 500 connections on Linkedin, realize that you CAN get as many connections as you want. I did it, so I can show you how. (I've a little over 900 connections in more than 30 countries -- there are countries that I can't even locate on a world map!).

Linkedin is THE place to be, trust me on that. If you're not busy building connections on Linkedin, you're making a very costly mistake.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Here are the facts.

Linkedin now has over 24 million users, and the average user is 39 years old and makes about $70,000 per year (U.S. dollars).

Linkedin is valuated at one billion dollars, since venture capitalists estimate that each user is worth $50.

Unlike other networking sites like Facebook, hi5, ecademy, viadeo, etc. Linkedin is built and structured around capitalistic rules and principles. This means it's the perfect online space to build business connections and to buy/sell stuff.

Since the average Linkedin user makes $70,000 per year, one can assume they are professionals. And they are very competitive.

You can easily see that they are very smart and well reasoned, from their answers on Linkedin Answers.

So trust me, you'll be doing yourself a favor by creating an account on Linkedin and start making connections.

The new economy, indeed, is rapidly moving into cyberspace where business opportunities are limitless.

Are you there for yourself?

Success is when opportunity meets preparation.

When I read the above quote a few years ago, I thought it was quite true. You probably agree also that it sounds like good advice.

However, it was only recently that I began to delve deeply into what it really means.

Take the current Beijing Olympics, for instance.

The success of the few Olympians who get medals, come from the Olympic Games "opportunity" AND the 4+ years of (intense) preparation they went through.

That's something we can all learn from!

So how do we learn, exactly, from the above Olympic-caliber behavior?

First, visualize and describe (on paper preferably) your ideal "opportunity."

Next, create a training program so as to prepare yourself -- intellectually, emotionally, physically -- for successfully tackling all the challenges that you will face once your "opportunity" comes.

An opportunity could be:

- Meeting Mr or Ms Right
- Meeting the ideal business partner
- Meeting a big client
- Meeting the brilliant business teacher you have always dreamed of learning from (by the way, I'm available for hire. Just kidding.)
- Coming across a perfect business opportunity

Whatever the ideal opportunity is for you, it is never too early to start preparing and training for it.

Please note that an opportunity is not the same as a goal.

A goal is like a destination, whereas an opportunity is a challenge that, if successfully tackled, would move you dramatically closer to your goal.

For instance, becoming the greatest Olympian of all times might have been Michael Phelps' goal. And each swimming competition at the Beijing Olympic Games was an opportunity for him to move dramatically closer to his goal.

Similarly, becoming the number one tennis player in the world is Rafael Nadal's publicly stated goal. And every tournament match is an opportunity that, so far, he has successfully tackled in order to move dramatically closer to that goal.

The key thing to remember (and which most people forget) is that success is made up of 90% preparation and 10% opportunity.

In fact, the MORE you prepare and train yourself EVERY DAY, the sooner the opportunity will come to you. It's the Law of Attraction. It's quite inevitable.

Here's the best news: no opportunity is ever wasted.

For instance, even if your opportunity comes and you fail, then you can still consider that opportunity as being part of your training for a better opportunity!

That's how champions think: every failure is treated as a great lesson on the path to an even bigger success!

Therefore, champions don't get emotionally or psychologically disturbed by failure. They use it as an opportunity to take a closer look at their own training, and to improve it. Of course, it doesn't mean they don't feel bad or disappointed. But they face reality, take responsibility, and then rise above it.

The key question you have to ask yourself are:

1. What is the ideal opportunity that I am looking for?
2. What is it that I'm doing, every day, to prepare and train for successfully capitalizing on that opportunity?

The above questions are similar to the two decisions that a Texas oil billionaire recommended that people make, in order to succeed in life:

1. Decide what it is that you really want in life
2. Decide that you will pay the price IN ADVANCE in order to get what you want

The above questions, when examined carefully, reveal an important underlying truth: the universe, and all the smart and ingenious people in it, is there for you.

The only question is, "Are you there for yourself?"

Are you taking your life, success and happiness seriously enough to decide WHAT you want from life, and then to PREPARE every day in order to get it?

In an upcoming post, I'll further apply the above principles to how a person can get the job that he/she wants.

My best advice: start teaching

This post will be very short, yet it's one of the BEST pieces of advice I can give you.

Stop reading and start teaching.

In other words, pick one of the best business or non-fiction books you've read, jot down the key ideas, and start teaching the contents of that book. Teach for free if you have to. But start teaching.

Teaching means "talking with a clear aim in mind." The aim is to be understood clearly, so that your students or seminar participants walk away with valuable knowledge that they did not have prior to the seminar.

Since knowledge is power, teaching therefore means "empowering other people."

Teaching also empowers yourself, since you gain the confidence that comes from mastering the information you've read in books.

The person who reads ten books, and picks one book to reread and study thoroughly in order to teach it, is FAR AHEAD of the person who read 100 books but doesn't teach.

Wrestling vs Olympics

I was flipping through the channels and saw the coverage of the Olympics in Beijing, and then saw on another channel a wrestling match.

Suddenly, I had this insight: Most working people in society are either "wrestlers" or "Olympians."

The differences between the two are huge and, in fact, can determine whether a person becomes rich or not. Just take the case of Shawn Johnson, the 16-year-old American gymnast who is already a millionaire thanks to her many sponsorships and endorsements.

You see, wrestling matches are fake. They appear real, and they feel very, very realistic with all the massive bodies being thrown up, down and sideways. It's just a show to allow people in the audience to vicariously experience some intense emotions.

The Olympics are different. You have judges to evaluate each performance, and all performers are ranked according to their performance.

What I'm about to say will shock many people, especially office workers. But I owe you the truth:

Many office workers are like wrestlers; they put on a show and "pretend" to work. Of course, they do "real" work, but usually for only 3 hours every day. The rest is spent doing insignificant things.

It's not entirely their fault, since the corporation is NOT structured for people to work and perform like Olympians. For instance, employees don't know how well (or badly) they're doing until they get their performance review -- every six months!

Things are slowly changing, however, with companies like SuccessFactors.com which enable managers to track their team members' performance almost in real-time.

In other words, the workplace is becoming more and more transparent, and it will become increasingly easier to separate the REAL performers from those who are only putting on a show.

The funny thing is that not only is it more profitable, in the long term, to work as an Olympian, but it's also more gratifying psychologically since you are always growing as a person and are continually reaching out for excellence. This is very different from wrestling where, fundamentally, it's all about throwing bodies around for the sake of entertaining the audience.

There is no doubt that the New Economy is becoming more and more like the Olympics, with the best in each country competing against the best in other countries.

China and India, for instance, are using the Internet to compete for jobs that are located in North America and Europe. Nobody's job is safe.

The only security lies in your decision to become an Olympic worker or creator, and to leave behind the "wrestling" show business where everybody is only pretending to work.

To be an Olympic worker or creator means you are constantly, and obsessively, tracking your performance every hour. You understand what you are supposed to do, and you manage yourself, your time, your skills, and your resources so as to deliver, always, the very best performance you are capable of.

Business ideas for sale!

The MAIN reason why most people are not financially independent is that they do not have a product to sell. Most of us have been conditioned by the educational system and society/culture to think of ourselves as "services providers."

So to help people think more like "product developers and marketers," I've created a free service offering tons and tons of business ideas. It's free to subscribe, but it costs a small fee to get the details on each idea.

To receive the list below, which is updated every day, just send a blank email to businessideasforsale@gmail.com. Good luck!

===

1. $50 idea: Offer copywriting services to all users of Linkedin.

2. $50 idea: Create a skills exchange group with your hundreds of Linkedin connections, and charge each member $30 per year to join this group where they can acquire all the skills they need to rapidly advance in their career.

3. $100 idea: There's a free piece of software you can download from the Web, and using it, you can organize the ideas and principles from ANY non-fiction book. You can then sell the resulting document to a worldwide audience for $10-20 a piece, the way that Summaries.com does
it.

4. $50 idea: Manage relationships with members of an association for a company or services provider or free agent. You'd be like the CRM manager (Customer Relationship Manager).

5. $50 idea: Manage the NPP (New Product Process) consulting division for Peter Nguyen. Clients come from all over the world.

6. $50 idea: Organize brainstorming sessions to discuss these business ideas, and charge participants $30 to participate.

7. $50 idea: Create posters from the Ideal Career Framework or the BMW workshop and sell them worldwide.

8. $100 idea: Create a workshop from a book, with Peter's help, and teach it in person or through FreeConferenceCall.com to a worldwide audience

9. $50 idea: Take snapshots of job ads on Monsters, write a review on each in terms of appeal to talents, and sell the final report (ranking all companies) to the companies themselves for $300

10. $50 idea: Contact all free agents on Linkedin or AgentSolo.com or other free agent sites, and develop a catalog of services where all free agents would appear, to make it easy for corporate buyers to decide WHO to hire. Charge free agents $50 to be included, and sell the catalog of services to corporate buyers for $300

More ideas coming up! All ideas are properly analyzed using a proprietary process, and rewards/risks are discussed in detail.

--

Contact me at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com for all the details on any of these profitable business ideas.

Grameen Telecom success story

http://www.grameenphone.com/index.php?id=79

Check out the above link to read about the Grameen Village Phone Program. It's just amazing how ordinary people can, together, do extraordinary things.

Grameen Bank is the bank created by Dr Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winner of 2006 for Peace and the creator of the micro-credit concept.

The huge success of the Grameen Village Phone Program inspires me to create a similar program, where any person can sell my knowledge-packed DVD to others so everybody can be empowered!

Notice, as you read more about this success story, how the poor women in that country focus on "economic value" and not on "jobs." The women who borrow from the Grameen Bank are entrepreneurs and salespeople, not employees.

As a result, they have direct control over the outcome they produce and, therefore, over the amount of income they receive.

Serenity of heart precedes wealth of mind

A lot of people, especially in today's society where there are so many opportunities for becoming wealthy, WANT to get rich or, at least, become financially independent so they can enjoy life.

Now, financial independence means different things for different people.

Some only need net passive income of $50,000 per year (aftertax) to live their favorite lifestyle while others need $200,000. The exact number really depends on each person.

Yet, no matter what the "magic" number is, most people (19 out of 20) are NOT financially independent. They have to work hard for a living. That is, if they don't show up for work Monday morning (and every other weekday morning), their finances will take a plunge leading, ultimately, to destitution.

It is of UTMOST importance for everybody to first calm down. Second, it is important to learn how to STAY CALM at all times. This means developing a serene and peaceful attitude toward life.

It is helpful, whenever you feel negative emotions, to stop thinking and start focusing on your breathing. Feel the diaphragm (underneath your lungs) moving up and down, thereby enabling you to inhale and exhale.

Focusing on your breathing will automatically empty your thoughts, and bring a sense of calmness to you. You will be focused on the present moment, without thinking about the past (regrets) or the future (fears).

Only when you are in such a state of peacefulness, can you concentrate your energies and imagination toward the creation of solutions which, eventually, will liberate you financially.

The challenge for most people seeking financial independence is that they have not yet learned how to master their mind. And it's not people's fault at all, since there is no course in high school or college called Spirituality 101!

Yet, learning how to master your mind from a higher level -- the spiritual level -- will give you TREMENDOUS POWERS. You don't need a formal business education, nor an MBA, nor a university degree, to achieve financial independence. But you need to master your mind and your emotions.

Fear, self-doubt, feelings of unworthiness, low self-esteem, etc. have no place in your life nor in your mind.

All of those negative, disturbing emotions arise because you focus on your ego. Your ego is like a shadow, and every person on this planet, by virtue of having a physical body, has a shadow.

The good news is that there is also the sun. So at any given point in time, you can either look up and face the sun, or you can look down and focus on your shadow (or ego).

Notice that your ego or shadow is always on the floor, so if you focus on it, you will be at the lowest level possible!

But if you focus on the sun and let its light shine on your face, you will feel serene, peaceful, grateful -- to be alive!

One thing you cannot do is focus on BOTH your shadow and the sun at the same time. It's simply impossible.

My point is that at every moment, you can choose to focus on a positive emotion or a negative emotion.

If, for any reason, a negative emotion like fear or doubt or frustration arises, just let it pass by. Smile. Remember what the famous Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh wrote: "The source of a smile is a truly awakened mind."

(Just don't smile too much in public or people might think you're crazy!).

So the strategy for spiritual empowerment is quite simple: if you feel negative emotions, let them pass by until you get to a point where you feel zero emotions. If you feel positive emotions (joy, enthusiasm, excitement, contentment, love, friendship, etc.) then express those emotions through art, poems, a gift, a nice compliment to someone, etc. You will then enhance the positive emotions, and they will propagate throughout your being and will be transmitted to people around you.

Why do I talk about emotions so much?

Because you can't use your mind properly, no matter how smart or educated you are, unless you learn to master your emotions first.

We live in a world that is unstable and dangerous because the elite is mind-smart but heart-dumb. We are evolved intellectually but unevolved emotionally.

We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the planet several times over, yet emotionally and spiritually, we have so much to learn.

But let's get back to your financial independence.

You can only begin to use your mind strategically, in a way that benefits you and your family, after you have learned how to master your emotions.

When we look at great people who have positively impacted millions of lives, we notice how they were in control of their emotions: Pope John Paul II (who engineered the liberation of the Soviet people from communism), Mickael Gorbatchev, Gandhi, etc.

My point is that once you learn to calm yourself, in any situation, you will be able to access powers within that you never knew existed. Your imagination and creativity will be enhanced, and you will be able to create lots and lots of solutions that other people will pay good money for.

But you've got to learn how to move from negative emotions to "no emotion", and from "no emotion" to positive emotions.

Some of you will say, "Well, I'm a positive person but there are so many negative people around me!" I will handle that in an upcoming post since it's not simple to explain, although there ARE specific techniques to handle negative people that you simply cannot avoid.

Look at it this way: Success (or happiness or wealth or well-being) = Potential - Interference.

The interference here is your negative emotions, which arise due to your ego.

The potential is the sun I was talking about. You can either focus on your unlimited potential, or you can focus on the interference within you.

I say "within you" because the interference is not external to you. It's not your husband, your kids, your unsupportive friends, your siblings, etc. It's not the government, politicians, the news media, etc. You are the only one who creates your reality. Nobody else.

Life, as you experience it, is like a dish.

It's not how many ingredients you have that matters most, but how good your cooking skills are.

In the same way that cooking requires basic skills and lots of practice, spiritual/emotional mastery (which creates a good, positive life) also requires basic knowhow and lots of practice.

The only difference between cooking a dish and creating your life experience is that in the case of cooking, you turn external ingredients into a dish that you then ingest.

In the case of creating a life, you take both external ingredients (circumstances, opportunities, people, events, etc.) and internal ingredients (emotions, intellect) to create your life experience, which is then "tasted" by you.

The bottom line is that only by training yourself to master your emotions will you achieve peace. And peace is the foundation upon which you learn to wield your mind masterfully in order to create wealth in all of its forms: products, services, solutions, happiness, goodwill, positive and harmonious relationships with other human beings, generosity, friendship, etc.

You cannot get more in life than what you think you are worth

Money is not just colored paper; it represents the amount of pleasant experiences you can have in life. Indeed, an author once wrote that "money is the sixth sense that enables a better use of the other five."

So it may be worth it to examine the issue of wealth and how it relates to your self-worth or sense of identity.

There are rich people and poor people. The poor people can be classified in one of two groups:

1. a poor person who's trying to do things in order to become a rich person
2. a rich person who's blocking wealth from coming out of himself/herself

In case #1, action is perceived to be the solution.

In case #2, action is not the problem. The challenge is internal and has to do with self-worth and the sense of one's identity.

You probably have met or know people in group #2: they have talent or have lots of creativity, yet they are not getting rich. In other words, they create a lot of value, but fail somehow to convert that value into wealth (i.e. cash).

People in group #1 have a different sort of problem: they are not blocked externally and seem to be better at taking action. But they also have an internal problem that has to do with self-worth.

In other words, #1 people have not yet found the source of wealth within them while #2 people may have found the source of (infinite) wealth, but have not "unclogged" the channels through which this inner wealth can manifest as external wealth (i.e. products, solutions, cash, assets, etc.).

In short, #1 people could benefit from "being" more; that is, they should not act so much or get busy so much. Rather, they should calm down, do nothing, sit quietly and learn to center themselves and align with the source of wealth within.

#2 people could benefit from "acting" more; that is, just get out there and make things happen. Don't think too much. Learn the "no-mind" technique of implementing ideas really, really fast WITHOUT thinking (that is, without prejudgment and prejudice as to what will work and what will not work).

The key to wealth and happiness and peace is to realize that you are here, on Earth, to fully express your divine creative powers.

Indeed, all the teachers in the world, all the books and knowledge in the world, all the technologies in the world will NOT help unless you first realize that you are a divine entity who is here to fully express your powers. Your life is nothing but your dream, where you can do anything.

This is why my brother/associate Joe and I came up with the slogan "Live a life without limits" for the portal PowerKnowledge.net.

Most people impose limits on themselves and allow others to impose limits on what they can think, say, write, do or achieve.

In fact, other people cannot -- ever -- impose limits on you. All they can do is talk to you about the limits THEY are dealing with, and then through contagion, you pick up those limits yourself.

It is unfortunate that often, friends and family members will do that to a person. The sentence to watch out for is, "I don't want to discourage you, but..." And then they begin a long line of argumentation to COMPLETELY discourage you!

Love your friends and love your family for they (usually) have your best interests at heart, but realize that you are totally responsible for the limits you put on yourself. They may suggest limits but you are ultimately responsible for accepting or rejecting those limits.

Ultimately, wealth is self-determined. It's all about how you feel about yourself.

If you create the psychological and physical conditions that help you to feel wealthy, then wealth will flow into your life.

You won't have the problem of people in group #1, who often get busy taking actions that do not lead to wealth. You also won't have the problem of people in group #2, since your wealth will flow naturally to other people who will naturally reward you with financial wealth.

Keep in mind that wealth itself is only a small part of the reward. The real reward is a life where, at every moment, you feel that you can DO ANYTHING and that there are NO LIMITS to what you can achieve, if you can conceive it and believe it.

Economic clarity precedes financial security

The next time you go to McDonald's or Harvey's or any other fast-food joint, observe what the teenage cooks are doing in the back of the room: they're usually making hamburgers or any variation thereof.

According to what I could see, they usually can make a complete hamburger or cheeseburger in about 3-5 minutes. Let's round it off to 5 minutes.

So if a hamburger costs $3.00, then the fast-food cook can create value worth 12 X $3.00, or $36.00. That's per hour.

My point in doing the above exercise (which obviously ignore many technical details such as fixed costs, perishability of the product, demand, etc.) is to show that even a teenage cook can, if he wants to, learn about business.

For example, to make his job more intellectually challenging, he could time himself while preparing a hamburger. If he takes only 3 minutes to make one hamburger, then that's 60 / 3, or 20 hamburgers produced per hour. That's value of $60.00 per hour.

He might learn more about business than the typical office worker who is only "pushing paper."

Indeed, most office professionals do not have a clear idea of how they create value, or even how much value they create. This is a very risky position to be in, because you will always feel vulnerable.

Economic clarity is what is needed. It simply means that you've got to know, clearly, what product you are creating, for whom (i.e. who is the client), and how fast you are creating such a product.

You simply cannot trust the boss, or the employer, or HR, or anybody in the organization. The only thing you can trust and rely on, is your own productivity. Incidentally, that's what your boss is focused on also.

In the end, there is no "job security," there's only "economic security." Economic security means knowing, precisely and clearly, HOW much value you produce per hour, and being in control of the process whereby you create value.

Feel free to reread and memorize the above paragraph, because it is truly the secret to succeeding professionally and financially, whether you are an employee, a free agent or an entrepreneur.

Free business course for you

In the previous post, I wrote about the FREE BMW course, which normally costs hundreds of dollars. You can now get it for free by sending a blank email to bmwcourse@gmail.com. Please note that this offers ends on September 1st, 2008 so please register today and let all your friends know about it!

Why is the BMW course important?

Because it teaches something that even business schools are not teaching: how to create value and build wealth.

In other words, it teaches people how to become financially free.

However, it is very much like a martial art: the principles are simple, but the practice is not. It takes practice, practice, practice, and more practice.

Aristotle said that excellence is a habit, but I would rather say that excellence is a habitual practice. A little bit like what Olympian athletes are doing every day for four years, so they can compete internationally.

The great thing about the BMW teachings is that it grows with you. Whether you have a small business or a big one, you can apply the BMW principles to serve you at the level you're at.

Even if you have only ONE product or service, the BMW teachings will still be useful to you.

However, if you think like an employee (who only does what his job description says he should do -- that is, he is not creating new products or services), then the BMW teachings will not be useful to you. And you will not likely become wealthy in this life.

Now, "wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean that you become a millionaire. It simply means, in my book, that you generate enough passive income to live your favorite lifestyle without depriving yourself of anything you desire.

For instance, some people need passive income per year of $300,000 while others only need $80,000. It totally depends on your lifestyle.

The important thing is NEVER to think that you cannot achieve the wealth you want. The minute that you THINK that wealth is not for you, then it becomes IMPOSSIBLE for you to achieve wealth.

This is because your life goes where your mind is. So if you THINK that you're not the kind of person who can become wealthy, then you are basically MAKING SURE that you will NEVER become wealthy.

On the other hand, if you truly think of yourself as "millionaire material," then mysteriously enough, you will begin to see opportunities everywhere for making lots and lots of money. I'm not kidding. I don't joke about millions of dollars.They can change your life.

It sounds strange, but people do shoot themselves in the foot by rejecting, mentally, the wealth that is theirs. You don't have to do that. Wealth is yours in this life if you want it.

Free BMW course!

In May 2006, I created a business workshop for entrepreneurs called the BMW workshop (details at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com).

I've decided to give it away for free in the form of a series of emails. You can get it by sending a blank email to bmwcourse@gmail.com. You will receive the first lesson immediately since I programmed the auto-responder accordingly.

Please let all your friends know about this incredible offer, so you can productively discuss the lessons with them. This will dramatically accelerate your understanding and mastery of the BMW course.

Several lessons will be uploaded every week. May the BMW teachings help you to become wealthy in this life!

To predict your future, invent it

A famous entrepreneur once said: "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

I would contribute this clarification: "The best way to create YOUR future is to PROGRAM it."

In other words, your life is like a software application that you write -- or code, rather.

Yes, you write EVERY SINGLE LINE OF CODE of this self-running application called "Your Life."

If you watch Donald Trump carefully, you'll notice that he's always writing his future life -- except that he does it by talking (some would say "boasting") about it publicly, in every media interview.

But just ignore the "boasting" part and focus on what he's saying; he's always describing how great this hotel or that resort will be. He is continually programming his mind, which manifests into actual wealth in his life.

He is one who thoroughly understands the cosmic truth that "each life is nothing but a dream dreamt -- and created -- by the dreamer."

People who have self-doubts, are shy, are not motivated or feel overwhelmed by obstacles, simply do not yet understand that they create their own reality. Of course, we're all humans so those negative emotions will inevitably come. I've had some of those self-denying emotions myself. (Just don't tell anybody, please).

But eventually, we have to realize that we totally create the life that we're having. So if your life-movie is not going the way you want, then you should talk to the movie director -- that is, YOURSELF!

If you feel that you don't have emotional energy in your words or actions, then talk to the main actor -- YOURSELF! Learn acting skills, learn body language, learn to play -- convincingly -- the role you wrote for yourself.

Here's a little trick: if you wrote a role and don't know how to act it out, then study great actors. A few years ago, I wanted to be CEO but didn't know how to "act" like one. So I began to study Anthony Hopkins' role in the movie Meet Joe Black. Hopkins plays the role of a media mogul and billionaire called Bill Parrish.

He also played a billionaire role in another movie with Alec Baldwin and Elle McPherson.

Let's get back to programming your future.

How do you do that? By living, right now, EXACTLY like how you would live if your future was your present, right now.

I'm not kidding. Think, speak, walk, talk, plan, eat, sleep, daydream, invent, debate, etc. EXACTLY like the ideal you -- the you that you want to become.

The more you create space in your life, right now, for the future you or your future life to come in and establish itself, the sooner you manifest that future into your life.

Of course, this space creation means you've GOT to "kick" your past out of your present moment.

It's like a cup of tea: if it's currently filled with bitterness, then throw it out so a sweeter drink can be poured into it!

This is not easy, because people LOVE to talk about their past and their pain and their previous experiences. The best way is to write a book and make money from it! And then focus on your future.

What's important, as mentioned before, is to create the space in which your future can happen right now, right here.

There are many ways to do that:

1. Throw out from your house all the things you currently do not use

2. Give away to your friends all the books you've read, to create space on your bookshelf for new books

3. Write on a piece of paper all the negative feelings you might have about people or events, and then burn that piece of paper (be careful not to set the house on fire!) or flush it down the toilet

4. Write on a piece of paper all the things you might not like about yourself, then rewrite them in a way that is pleasant to you and that is positive. For example, if I view myself as a "loner," then that's not very positive. So I would rather view myself as "a person with tremendous mental power who can sit alone and engage in piercing contemplative thought, leading to brilliant insights." I'm having fun with this, of course. But my point is, make sure that ALL your thoughts about yourself are the VERY BEST THOUGHTS possible!

How to create an amazing life for yourself

I wrote earlier that "Reality only exists in your mind. Therefore, your mind creates your reality."

Here's a good metaphor to illustrate what I meant: Your life is a play, and you are the main actor, the director, the writer and the producer!

Once you realize that this metaphor is true, you will gain TREMENDOUS power over YOUR life.

But until you do, you will not feel fulfilled. You'll go through life thinking (and actually believing honestly) that someone else is writing your lines, someone else is directing your life, someone else is producing your life, etc.

Realize that other people in your life (family, friends, boss, coworkers, etc.) are only SECONDARY actors. YOU are the main actor, and they will act according to your lead.

In other words, you teach other people how to treat you. Always.

If you act like a victim, everybody you meet will feel "compelled" (subconsciously, without being able to explain why) to treat you like one. Thus, it will seem to you like as if they are "oppressing" you. Yet, you created their roles by thinking and acting like a victim!

If you think like a poor person, life will bring you all the evidence that will SUPPORT your decision to be poor. Poor-thinking people will come into your life and ensure that you stay a poor person. This becomes a vicious circle.

Anthony Robbins' life is a good example of someone who realized the above, that he is indeed the writer, director, producer and main actor in the movie called "My Life."

One day, his life was at an all-time low, so he went to the beach, sat down, and began to write -- hectically -- all the things he wanted to have and be. He refused to compromise. He wrote down absolutely EVERYTHING that he wanted to have and be in life.

If tomorrow, all of Anthony Robbins' books and tapes and courses were erased from the face of the Earth, you STILL would have greatly benefited from Tony Robbins if you do EXACTLY what he did: buy a notepad and start writing out ALL THE THINGS YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE.

To write a diary is good, but it's about the past. Even more important is to write a "future" diary: that is, write the life that WILL become true. And make sure you write out all the feelings you WOULD feel in every moment of this future life.

The reason why people don't have an amazing life is that their notebook (or the main script of their lives) is filled with lines which they wrote unconsciously, without much thought or skill.

Also, they did not learn how to act, direct or produce their own life-movie.

Yes, everybody's life IS a movie. It can be a very boring movie, or a very exciting one.

Note, however, that "boring" and "exciting" are arbitrary judgments. What's exciting to you might be very boring to another person, and vice versa.

Before he became famous, Albert Einstein's life might have seemed very boring to most people. Yet, to him, it was precisely the kind of life he wanted to have.

The only question is, "Are YOU living the life of your dream?"

If not, it is not too late to do so.

All you have to do is buy a $1.00 notepad (at any $1 store) and start writing out the amazing and awesome life that you WANT to have. Be detailed and clear and write as much as you want.

Remember that life is a movie, and that ALL movies started out with a screenwriter sitting down and imagining a great story, and then writing it out (complete with dialogues and scene descriptions).

Next, show your script to others and get their feedback. And then, it will be up to you to audition for the main role, hire other supportive actors, learn directorial skills, and become the producer of your life-movie.

THE MOST POWERFUL SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE!

Okay, folks, I have to issue a little WARNING. I have never written anything more powerful or more dangerous than this post.

In fact, if I had been writing this a few centuries earlier, I would have been burned alive by the Inquisition.

Alright, here's the MOST DANGEROUS AND MOST POWERFUL truth you will ever hear about in this life! Are you ready?!

Here goes, ready or not:

"Reality only exists in your mind. Therefore, your mind creates your reality."

Those 12 words express a powerful truth that should never be forgotten.

The Law of Attraction, popularized by the movie The Secret, has to do with the last 5 words, or "your mind creates your reality."

In other words, the movie The Secret actually shares only HALF of the secret!

The other half is that "reality only exists in your mind."

The proof is very simple: when you put your mind to sleep, reality no longer exists. In other words, reality REQUIRES your consciousness. No mind, no reality!

Notice that I could have said that "YOUR reality only exists in your mind." However, that would be inaccurate because you can never experience another person's reality. Therefore, the ONLY reality is YOUR reality. Thus, "your" is superfluous.

In other words, your mind is like a projector and your reality is like the movie you see on a giant screen.

Let me put it this way: your mind is the cause, and reality is the effect of your mind.

James Allen, in his century-old book As A Man Thinketh, says that "as within, so without."

In other words, your life as you know it, is nothing but the reflection of how you feel about the thoughts you have.

That is, if you have definite thoughts and you put your emotions into them, then they will become reality.

Napoleon Hill put it differently: "What a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve."

I prefer to say: "What a man can conceive and believe, the Universe will bring it to him."

If you've read the three books written by Esther Hicks, under the divine influence of Abraham (a group of spiritual guides existing in the non-physical plane), then you know about the REAL Law of Attraction (of which the movie The Secret is just a dumbed down version for the masses).

And if you've tried the Law of Attraction and it doesn't work, then it is likely that you've visualized from an ego (or false self) point of view and not from a true self or Source point of view.

The ego is full of fear, so it doesn't have the ability to create reality. It can only defend its own reality. It defends its own past, which may be full of trauma, abuse, "bad" experiences, etc. You have to release your past before you can create your future. This is so because as long as you're focused on the past, then you are NOT in the present. And the future can only be created in the Present Moment -- what Eckhart Tolle calls the "spacious Now."

There is no fear or regrets in the Now, so if you feel afraid or regretful, then you are NOT in the Now. This means you are not in a position to create the future.

For instance, a woman who "visualizes" a husband, might do so because she is AFRAID of being alone. In that case, the Law of Attraction doesn't work.

Another thing about the Law of Attraction is that it requires a great deal of mental and spiritual self-discipline. It's NOT about having thoughts in your mind, and then expecting those thoughts to become reality.

If that were so, then any morally irresponsible person could just "imagine" and visualize something bad and that bad thing would become a reality. What kind of world would we live in!

So what kind of mental and spiritual self-discipline am I talking about?

Mostly, it's about mastering FIVE key disciplines: faith, alertness, mindfulness, concentration and insight.

I will write more about them later on. Right now, I have to get back to visualizing my date with Kirsten Dunst.

To search for riches is to make sure you never find it

If you search for riches externally and in the world, that is, outside of yourself, then that is a sure way never to find it.

Whether the business model is Internet marketing, direct sales, network marketing, traditional entrepreneurship, real estate, or any other model, your efforts will be fruitless unless you first learn how to "feel" wealthy.

Think wealth, talk about wealth, be wealth. Only then will you attract wealth into your life. And this kind of wealth, unlike the millions of dollars that one might win in a lottery, can never be taken away.

So what's the trick to "feeling" wealthy?

Give away everything you've got. This is one of the tricks I've used for more than two years. I give away all my knowledge and ideas via blogs, including this one.

People who don't give to others, but always think and calculate (explicitly or in the background of their thinking mind) the "return" on what they do, will not achieve wealth. They may achieve it at the material level through diligent planning and doing, but there is no "being" in what they do, and much stress will come from such doing.

True wealth doesn't come from planning and doing, no matter how flawless your execution. True wealth comes effortlessly, through being centered and focused on feeling the wealth you ARE. If that moment is achieved, then wealth flows out without effort, through spontaneous and breathtaking ideas that capture your imagination and inspire your actions.

The above is based on the universal principle that says, "Giving starts the process of receiving."

The more you give, the more you activate the universal process whereby you receive from the universe.

The rich get richer because they are thinking, all the time, about how to give MORE to the world, while the poor get poorer because they have a "poor" mindset and only think of "getting" or hiding and hoarding the few resources and assets they have.

My ultimate point is that wealth is self-determined. If you decide, right now, to think and talk and feel only "wealth," then it is inevitable that the universe will deliver wealth into your life. Nobody can stop this process because nobody is as powerful as the universe, and the universe will only do what it is programmed to do.

Through your thoughts and the feeling you put into them, and the being you put into everything you're doing, you are indeed programming the universe to deliver massive wealth into your life.

Youtube, for instance, was an ingenious device by Chad and Steve to not only give to the world (even while both were sleeping), but to also allow countless others to give to countless others. It is not surprising that Steve and Chad have become so wealthy.

The lesson to learn from them has less to do with technology, than it has to do with the principle of becoming wealthy by enabling the GREATEST number of people to become wealthy and share their wealth.

This is one of the secrets behind my "nuclear entrepreneurship" technology, where I enable every customer, client and employee to become wealthy by sharing the wealth with as many people as they casually interact with.

Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of Ning, has also understood this powerful principle. She has gone beyond Facebook and Linkedin since Ning allows people not only to connect to others, but also to create the special space (that is, their own social network) within which connections between like-minded people can be made.

The bottom line is that you CANNOT become wealthy unless you abandon all selfish thoughts and calculations. Give away what you know and what you have selflessly, and only THEN will you feel truly wealthy. As a result, wealth will flow into your life effortlessly.

For example, forward this blog to all your friends. If you keep it to yourself, then the "scarcity" mindset will plague you and prevent you from becoming wealthy. If you share it with friends and acquaintances, then you will "unblock" the inner obstacles that prevent wealth from flowing to you.

Keep in mind that whether you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset, both of them are highly infectious and viral, in that they tend to reproduce themselves in everything you see, touch, think about, perceive and sense.

In other words, one thought of scarcity (which often arises out of fear) will easily escalate into MORE thoughts of scarcity through the Law of Attraction. And before you know it, your whole being is full of thoughts of scarcity which prevent you from having any useful, productive or wealth-unleashing ideas.

The good news is that the reverse works as well: one thought or act of generosity, flowing from a feeling of abundance, will easily escalate into MORE thoughts and acts of generosity, leading you to a place within yourself where wealth is your natural state of being and indeed your legitimate inheritance in this world.

Once you learn to follow the path to such a place within yourself, where an incredible feeling of wealth and well-being takes over your entire being and feeling, anything you want in this life is yours.

Is there a drunk entity ruining your life?

Folks, I might have mentioned this before, but I highly, totally, absolutely recommend the book A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle. In it, you will find the ultimate secret for happiness, wealth and great sex.

Well, okay, maybe not that last one. (For that, you have to come to my secret underground seminar).

The main idea is that we all have an ego, and this ego is like a drunk man who is very unconscious of what he's doing. If you don't develop a keen awareness of your ego, it will destroy your life -- one moment at a time.

On the other hand, when you operate without an ego, you can achieve great things.

I speak from personal experience. In my youth, I was so "egoless" that everything came to me easily. I was able to get 4 standing ovations before I turned 18, and went to the prom with the most beautiful girl of the high school. She looked like Angelina Jolie, except she's much more naughty. I'm not kidding you.

Then, one day, something happened. I was sooooooo on top of the world that a mysterious entity appeared in my life -- in my consciousness, actually. I did not recognize it as the ego, but upon reading Eckhart Tolle now, it is clear to me that it was my (male) ego indeed.

This drunk entity crashed into my life party and proceeded to destroy EVERYTHING I had built so far, including a beautiful relationship with the most amazing, beautiful and angelic girl I have ever seen!

Anyways, after my life was thoroughly destroyed and I found myself flunking and dropping out of university and utterly confused about my life, I was lucky to stumble across the first book written by Dr Edward de Bono, called The Mechanism of Mind. I instantly recognized him as the genius he is, and proceeded to read and study ALL his books.

It's fair to say that Dr de Bono enabled me to rebuild the intellectual part of my life, since I learned awesome creativity techniques from him.

Today, it seems that Eckhart Tolle has the same effect on me, but at the spiritual level -- which is higher than the intellectual level.

As you read his book, think of what happened to young Anakin Skywalker. The Star Wars double trilogy is indeed a fantastic cinematic illustration of all the concepts explained by Eckhart.

I will write more about this topic in the upcoming days.

The greatest career advice

People often ask me for advice on choosing a career, and the following is what I offer to help them clarify their thinking about career matters.

1. Life is all about experience. That is, life is all about tasting and savoring, using your skillful consciousness, the content and structure of every moment.

2. There's "good" experience and there's "bad" experience (or "not so good"). Whether an experience is good or bad, totally depends on the person. That is, a good experience for one person can be a bad experience for another person. For example, I like to work alone for hours without being interrupted. But most people would rather work with other people.

3. Work that you look forward to, is good. Work that you do not look forward to, is not good.

4. Choose work that makes you feel good in the moment. Do NOT choose work that you think will make you feel good in the future (e.g. work that pays well so you can comfortably retire).

5. Do NOT think about money when you choose a career. This would be a severe mistake that will make you lose yourself.

Many people might argue against point #5, so let me clarify what I mean.

"Money" is a mental concept, it does not exist in one's experience. Nobody can "experience" money. However, money can buy certain experiences, although it does NOT and CANNOT guarantee the quality of such experiences.

The quality of an experience depends on the skill with which a person wields or directs her attention. This skill is similar to the skill of a good movie director. Attention is basically thoughts chosen and projected onto the screen of consciousness.

Okay, back to money and why it doesn't matter in the choice of a career.

Just imagine that money did not exist, and that you have the choice to either have a "good" experience 9 to 5, five days a week, or a "bad" experience.

Obviously, you would rather have a good experience 9 to 5, five days a week (no matter how you define "good").

So if you choose a career where you have a good experience for 40 hours every week, then you've won BIG in life. That's because after 5 PM every weekday and during week-ends, you can ALSO choose to have good experiences (since there is no boss telling you what to do).

Your life would be one GIANT good experience!

However, if you choose a career based on money considerations, then chances are, it will be work that you don't consider to be a good experience.

Therefore, you would have a bad experience 9 to 5, five days a week. And you would only be able to have good experiences after 5 PM every weekday and during week-ends.

The problem is that all your best energies have been dissipated every day by the bad job (usually involving a bad boss -- he's not "bad" per se, but he demands too much, offers too few resources, etc.). So in the evening, you don't have energy to create good experiences for yourself.

So what you would do, given this low level of energy, is BUY good experiences from others. As you spend money to buy good experiences, you get into debt, and are then forced to keep working in order to make money to finance those artificially created good experiences.

It then becomes a vicious cycle, and you feel like a hamster running like mad on a spinning wheel.

You begin to experience stress, your body ages faster, you sense the meaninglessness of it all.

All of this happens because you chose a career based on money, rather than joy or quality of experience.

Your mind, which is conditioned by society ever since you were born, will often choose money while your heart will always choose a great experience.

Your heart will always choose "life", which is real whereas "money" is not.

The irony is that people who choose a career based on their passion or talent, will often make much more money than the average person. And work doesn't feel like work to them. Work, for such self-honest people, is a way to experience high-quality moments every day. They don't need "work/life balance" because they have a GREAT life at the office AND a GREAT life at home. It is more like "professional life/personal life harmony."

This harmonization enables their personal life to fuel their professional life, and vice versa. There is no conflict between the two, only synergy.

The above sounds simple enough that any teenager can understand it. However, many adults have a hard time believing that one should make a career choice based on one's heart or passion.

This is simply because their mind (or ego) is too strong, and has silenced their heart. The heart doesn't shout like the mind; it only whispers. So you have to make a real effort to hear what your heart is telling you.

If, as a child, your parents encouraged you to pursue your passion regardless of what society thinks, then it is likely that you will choose an occupation based on your true self. But if your parents placed a strong emphasis on "higher" education, getting a "good and secure job", etc. then you might have lost touch with your heart.

In choosing a career, most people do not need knowledge or guidance as much as courage. The courage to follow one's bliss, despite what society thinks or despite what your conditioned mind says you "should" do.

Buffett's 7 secrets for living a happy and simple life

I'm very grateful to have received from my sister Zoonie the following 7 secrets to a happy and simple life.

Since I'm an obsessive intellectual, I couldn't resist the temptation to rationally verify if these secrets were applicable to my own life. Feel free to go through the same exercise, and I guarantee that you will gain clarity regarding your own strategies for achieving happiness!

Secret # 1 : Happiness comes from within.

In my adult business life I have never had to make a choice of trading between professional and personal. I tap-dance to work, and when I get there it’s tremendous fun. - Warren Buffett

I would say that happiness, for most people, comes from a set of positive conditions in one's life. What those specific conditions are, depends on each person. Some people need to have children to be happy, others don't. Some need to have a creative job, others don't.

So I don't necessarily agree that happiness, as defined by society, comes from within. Peace, however, comes from within. Therefore, peace does NOT depend on external conditions.

Given the fact that most people are not happy at work, it may be better to seek peace within first. In other words, if you currently have a job that is not aligned with your passion or talent, it would be better to accept that job and develop a sense of peace and calm serenity about it.

This puts you in the BEST emotional position for planning and executing a move that will lead you to a better job or perhaps to launching your own company.

Secret # 2 Find happiness in simple pleasures.

I have simple pleasures. I play bridge online for 12 hours a week. Bill and I play, he’s “chalengr” and I’m “tbone”. — Warren Buffett

I don't agree with the premise behind this secret. Some people find happiness in simplicity, others find happiness in complexity.

For example, some people love to watch movies where the romantic story is clever yet simple to understand and there's a nice ending. For example, the movie Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts and Richard Geere.

But in my case, I love movies that offer a bit more "meat" or psychological sophistication such as Lune de fiel (Bitter Moon), starring Peter Coyote and Emmanuel Seigner.

Actually, I love both Pretty Woman and Bitter Moon.

My point is that the advice "Find happiness in simple pleasures" has to be verified personally by each person, according to his/her taste.

One should also distinguish between "pleasure" and "enjoyment." Pleasure is external, like eating food, drinking wine, etc. and has a physiological effect while enjoyment is internal, like intellectual analysis, creative writing, etc.

Buffett probably "enjoys" playing bridge with Bill Gates because the game involves strategy. Technically, he doesn't derive pleasure from it. (Unless they are both drinking alcohol or smoking cigars while playing!).

By the way, Buffett DEFINITELY enjoys his work as a capital allocator, for it involves a great deal of intellectual work. He reads tons of annual reports every year. Thus, his secret #1 could be rephrased as "Professional happiness comes from choosing the kind of work that you ENJOY doing."

This sounds more accurate -- and thus can be of greater practical guidance -- than "Happiness comes from within."

Secret # 3 Live a simple life.

This is good advice. For people over 40!

For crying outloud, if you're under 40, seek novel experiences and experiment a little! I notice that many young people today are paralyzed by fear of some kind.

When I was in my 20s, I did everything! (Except drugs and orgies).

How can you have an exciting life if you only seek the "simple life"?

In Buffett's defense, I should say that he belongs to a previous generation so his taste for simplicity is eminently justifiable.

But there are SO MANY things to do today. I would not advise young people to "live a simple life."

Certainly, one must have simple and clear values, but beyond that, one should be open to new experiences.

Secret # 4 Think Simply.

“I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.” - Warren Buffett

He is totally correct. One's reasoning behind any decision should be defendable, not because one has to report to anyone, but because being able to defend one's decision or position will force a person to be ruthlessly rational.

Secret # 5 Invest Simply.

The best way to own common stocks is through an index fund. - Warren Buffett

I don't necessarily agree. The best way to create wealth for yourself is to use your imagination and creativity to create new value, and then distribute that value worldwide if possible.

I'm more in agreement with Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who created the Grameen Bank (micro-credit) and who believes that "entrepreneurship" is a fundamental aspect of every human being.

If that is true, then every person should create his/her own product, build a business around it, and invest all his/her available money into that business -- not an index fund since that would mean investing into other people's businesses.

Secret # 6 Have a mentor in life.

I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming. - Warren Buffett

Having ONE mentor may have been a good strategy 20 years ago, when the pace of change was relatively slow and technology or new ways of doing business did not develop so rapidly.

Today, one needs a network of advisors, teachers, coaches, trainers and experts. Linkedin, and especially Linkedin SENSE (http://linkedinsense.wordpress.com), is perfect for building one such strategic network.

I do agree with him that one needs to have heroes AND to follow the work of such heroes. My heroes are Hernando de Soto (author of The Mystery of Capital), Edwards Deming, Edward de Bono, Alvin Toffler, Eckhart Tolle and the late Ayn Rand.

Secret # 7 Making money isn’t the backbone of our guiding purpose; making money is the by-product of our guiding purpose.

If you’re doing something you love, you’re more likely to put your all into it, and that generally equates to making money. - Warren Buffett

I totally agree. When you do work that you love, you pour your entire BEING into your every DOING. There is such focus and power and creativity in one's being that when you inject it, with passion, into anything you do, the end result is invariably a masterpiece -- with the added benefit of your psychically growing through the experience into a more self-realized person.

"Pay what you can" business model

It's so fascinating that yesterday, I wrote a post about how to escape suffering and about the tyranny of the ego, and then today, for some mysterious reason, I searched for "free surveys" on Google and found Sureforms.net.

I then discovered something interesting: you can create a payment page so people can send you funds through Paypal. Example at http://www.sureforms.net/peterswork.form.

People can enter the amount they wish to contribute, and presto, you've got funds to support your work or fundraising, etc.

So today, I decided that I would give away my best work at http://peterswork.wordpress.com (operational in a few days) and people can donate whatever they can.

This "move" requires that I give up my ego, which I found -- surprisingly enough -- easy to do!

But it's not an entirely new idea. Wikipedia operates through donations, and so does the OCW from MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu).

Isn't it amazing that through the Internet, a person can benefit a huge number of people (who can instantly download digital content) and can be supported, financially, by a great number of people?

You can even offer a service and then let people donate what they can. Of course, this "business" model requires an egoless orientation toward your career or business. You have to sincerely want to help people with your product or service.

In other words, if your career or business is based on your ego, which wants everything for itself so it can grow in importance and power (thus making you lead an unconscious life), then it is very unlikely that you would adopt a "pay what you can" business model. This is because you would not trust other people.

In my case, I'm not at all worried about people not paying. I've been writing blogs for more than two years without being paid, because I enjoy it so much! I feel so blessed to be able to do this kind of work.

If you appreciate my blogs, please feel free to contribute what you can at http://www.sureforms.net/peterswork.form. If you can't contribute for any reason, don't worry about it. :-)

The key to escape suffering

Suffering is an unavoidable aspect of life. But here's a metaphor that can help you to deal with suffering.

We are luminous beings. The perfect part of ourselves cannot suffer, it is only the imperfect part that is suffering. It's like gold: its impurities will burn (thus causing the suffering) but the gold itself is not affected by fire.

Eckhart Tolle says that for most people, suffering is their only spiritual teacher. This teacher is most present when the suffering is most intense.

However, the presence of this teacher does not guarantee that the student will learn. Indeed, the student who experiences intense pain might decide to run out of the "classroom" altogether.

But in such cases, what happens is that a bigger lesson will pursue the student and catch up with him and make him experience a deeper pain, one he cannot easily escape from.

You might wonder, "Peter, this is a blog about success secrets, why are we talking about suffering? Isn't success about AVOIDING suffering?"

I would not say "avoiding." I would say that one should accept, embrace and then transcend suffering.

How?

Through a spiritual understanding of the situation and, in fact, of one's entire life.

A friend often told me, "Everything happens for a reason." I would clarify further by saying that "everything happens for our evolvement."

Concretely, this means that whatever pain or suffering you are currently encountering in your life, they are there for your evolution. Trying to avoid your pain or suffering will only make it come BACK again, but with more strength and aggressivity.

The pain can be caused by people, especially close ones like family or friends. Or it can be caused by a particular situation (a job you hate, etc.).

But ultimately, you are the cause of your pain and suffering. That's because it is HOW you interpret a situation, in YOUR mind, that results in the emotions you feel in your body.

The key to transcend suffering, therefore, is to grow in awareness and rise ABOVE your mind and its thoughts.

The more you identify with your mind, the stronger your ego will be. And the ego is very negative and seeks a negative interpretation of everything. The ego is very defensive and very vulnerable. It will react to people and situations in a very unconscious manner, leading to more pain and suffering for all involved.

If, for any reason, you feel fear or anger, you know that it is your ego that is presently in control. Not your awareness, which is higher.

The ego, especially for men (and I'm guilty as charged!), is not easy to control. The world has evolved in a way that somehow rewards the ego, through material possessions (or obsessions?) like big houses, cars, status, priviledge, celebrity, etc.

There's nothing wrong with houses, cars, status, priviledge and celebrity, IF one does not identify with them.

Yesterday, I was watching the movie Batman - The Dark Knight when I had this insight: Society is structured to serve the male ego.

In other words, the more expression a man gives to his male ego, the more he will rise in the world. Of course, his progress in the world has little to do with his personal, spiritual progress.

Why is society serving the male ego? Because the male ego created society as we know it.

So rather than say that "it's a man's world," I would say that "it's a male ego's world."

Women are less tempted to let their ego rule their lives, for the simple reason that women "live in their bodies while men live in their heads."

I don't know why this is so. Perhaps because women experience, every month, the menstrual cycle which, in a way, forces them to "feel" what their body is going through.

The fact remains that I've met hundreds of women, and I'm surprised that I haven't seen any female ego in action. This is why I resonate with the statement I read a while ago, "men display their knowledge while women share their knowledge."

Another way to put it is that women are peer-oriented while men are pyramid-oriented: they seek to gain superiority over other men.

Once again, I must say that I'm guilty as charged!

But as I've discovered in my own life, by trying to control my ego and rising above its unconscious reactions to people, events and situations, I gain power.

Rather than reacting, I respond -- with full awareness.

"Respond", to me, means "rest & ponder." In other words, I "freeze" my mind and keep it at rest when confronted with negative people or emotions. And then I ponder on the appropriate response, from a place of deeper and higher awareness.

The more I practice this exercise, the more I understand what Seneca wrote centuries ago: "Powerful is the man who has himself within his control."

So if we get back to the subject of this post -- suffering -- we realize that suffering and pain offer opportunities to develop our power.

The power to transcend the unconscious reactions of the vulnerable and defensive ego, so that we can reach a place of tremendous serenity and power, where unlimited creativity lies.

Once a person can access this place of infinite creativity, success is virtually guaranteed even though -- paradoxically enough -- it is not obsessively pursued the way the ego usually does.

THIS IS AWESOME!

Steve and Chad might have received $1.65 billion from Youtube, but here's how you can get $100,000,000 from Youtube. I'm not kidding.

Now before I tell you the secret, I have to say that I've been a quasi-religious student of knowledge ever since I was a kid. I've read every book under the sun.

In fact, I read about 500 books every year. Translation: I don't have much of a social life, and most of my friends probably think that I'm either dead or have been kidnapped by aliens.

But in all my readings, I have never come across a book as powerful as the one below.

If you've been watching the Oprah Show, you probably know what book I'm referring to. However, reading an author is not the same as watching him speak.

If you want to know the purpose of your life, I highly recommend watching the video below. Actually, start from Chapter 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v74oOe8f07Y&feature=related

I also recommend that you buy the book by the author.

To me, he's like a modern-day Yoda (and I'm like a young Luke Skywalker who just picked up a light saber, or a fountain pen to be more accurate -- both of which are lethal weapons).

I've been reading spiritual books for a while, so I "get" what he's saying. But many people might not, at least not immediately. Yet I encourage everyone to read and then STUDY this book, as if your life depended on it. Because your happiness certainly does depend on the teachings in this book.

What he teaches is worth more than gold (which is why I mentioned at the beginning that you'll get much more than $1.65 billion from these videos on Youtube).

What I got from his teachings:

- Either you are successful, now and forever, or you will never, ever be (these are not his words but my own interpretation)

- Desire without doubt and focus without force, and you will succeed without strain ("forceful" focus is often the training or conditioning that people get from corporations or personal development authors, who preach "goal setting." It is based often on the ego, who wants to "achieve.")

- Don't look for a job. Rather, realize that YOU ARE THE JOB! Work on yourself and success will follow you. Jim Rohn said something similar: "Success is what you attract by the person you become."

Enjoy his videos!

Wisdom is a function of knowledge more than experience

Old saying, heard on the street:

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."

Source: http://blog.timberry.com

I respect Tim Berry for he created a business planning software that helps entrepreneurs, and he seems to genuinely want to help entrepreneurs succeed.

However, his quote above simply doesn't make any sense.

It's one of those quotes that most people would readily agree with... until they think about it in a disciplined and lucid manner.

For instance, WHY would good judgment come from experience? There are women who keep attracting abusive men into a relationship. How does "experience" help them to improve their judgment and, hence, choose a better mate?

Here's a more shocking illustration to drive my point home. Suppose you're the father of a 17-year-old daughter. She comes to you asking for advice and clarification on the issue of sex.

Would you tell her, "Honey, it's all about developing good judgment, and good judgment comes from experience. So go out there and..."

Well, you get my point.

Okay, one last example. There are men who work as employees for 20 years. They still don't understand the business game, nor the capitalistic system in which business, the game, is played. So they never get rich. Their 20 years of "experience" did not teach them economic judgment.

To replace Berry's quote, I would suggest the following: "When you don't know, you don't know."

In other words, get the knowledge first. Then use experience to validate or invalidate your knowledge (that is, to TEST it).

Also, learn from experiments, not experience. An experiment is more scientific, and you have greater control over the experimental conditions. "Experience" is more chaotic and less structured.

In conclusion, let me share with you what the great Confucius had to say about learning. According to him, there are three main ways to learn:

1. Through trial and error

2. Through imitation (doing like the people who succeed in your field of endeavour)

3. Through meditation (learning through logic, analysis, thought, synthesis, mapping, etc.)

With #1, you learn through your own mistakes, and you often pay dearly for such learning.

With #2, you learn through others' mistakes (and successes, since success always leaves clues for you to study, reverse engineer, systematize, etc.). You pay nothing, since the price of learning has been paid by those who have succeeded.

#3 is best since you learn by THINKING, that is, by exercising that supreme faculty that distinguishes humans from animals.

The man who has developed a taste for thinking, has great power. He can invent anything, and by the simple and repeated act of mentally manipulating symbols and encoded knowledge, he creates wealth for himself and all those around him.

Acquire marketable skills for free!

I recently launched a free service for Linkedin users that is becoming quite popular: Linkedin SENSE.

SENSE stands for Skills Exchange Network for Strategic Empowerment.

If you are a Linkedin user (and every ambitious person should be!), you can join for free. Please visit http://linkedinsense.wordpress.com.

Feel free to subscribe to Linkedin Mastermind also: http://linkedinmastermind.wordpress.com. It's free for now, but will be passworded soon and cost $200 per year.

To your success!

7 supreme laws of happiness

Ah, this is such a sweet moment! After writing 831 posts, I finally came across an insight that I wanted to share with you immediately. It's about how the 7 key areas of life impact one another.

In the colorful diagram above, I capture those 7 key areas. Notice that the "Creative Career" box is a little bit bigger since I wanted to suggest that it's important to choose a career that allows one to grow.

Indeed, a good, creative career can impact all the other areas of life, as I describe on the arrows.

For example, if you choose a career purely for the sake of money and you're not really passionate about it, it will have negative repercussions on your health. Also, you won't earn as much money for the time and effort that you put in.

On the social front, you are likely to be less confident since people at cocktail parties or at any get-together will often ask: "So John, what do you do?"

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for young people in their 20s, choosing a career that doesn't allow your true self to express itself, will negatively impact your "performance"on the dating scene and in love relationships. The reason is simple: If you don't know your true self, you cannot know true love.

I don't mean "true self" in the big sense, but in the humble sense of consciously choosing, always, to do what feels right to you. This is about self-honesty. And if you don't have it, then it's impossible to be involved meaningfully with another person.

Indeed, if you respect yourself so much that you give yourself the BEST career possible and don't settle for anything less, then you are likely to be capable of giving your lover the BEST attention, care and affection possible.

I will write more about the above diagram, which should be included in an upcoming ebook titled: "Total Happiness -- What it is and Why You Totally Deserve it!"

Note: I'm just kidding about the diagram title, "Peter's 7 Supreme Laws of Happiness." I was so happy after I finished drawing that diagram that I decided to stroke my self-esteem a little bit!

Farrah Gray, Reincarnation, Spiritual Beliefs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f1TNgJ5mF0

At the video above, you can catch a glimpse of the breathtaking life of Dr Farrah Gray, who became a millionaire by the age of... 14!

I became aware of his existence only today, as I was browsing through his latest book, Get Real Get Rich.

"Millionaire at 14." I thought it was a typo. Nope. The kid made a million dollars when he was 14. (I made $3.54 an hour when I was 16. Life is so unfair! To compensate for my ridiculously low minimum wage, I shamelessly flirted with the two cashiers at the fast food joint where I was working -- Jasmine and France). :-P

Enough whining, let's get back to the main story.

It's quite inspiring how he explained the word "Reallionaire," which he coined. It's somebody who became rich from the inside, by being REAL.

Watching this video, I remembered a conversation over supper with my brother and his wife two days ago. We were talking about reincarnation.

I suggested that it's possible that as spiritual beings (or souls), we have many lives. Furthermore, we carry in our subconscious memory the knowledge, skills and qualities developed in prior lives.

So it's quite possible that when Farrah Gray was born, he already had in his memory the knowhow, qualities and talents -- developed in past lives -- which enabled him to succeed so quickly, despite the fact that he came from a poor family.

Reincarnation also explains how Mozart and other geniuses had such extraordinary gifts at a young age.

These beings came into Life with a very firm and very specific intention. In the case of Farrah, it is obvious that he wanted to be a teacher who would inspire others, especially Black boys and girls who, for historical reasons, have had a hard time believing in themselves.

But as a teacher, he is only as credible as his biography. So it was necessary for him to be born in a poor family, so that he could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that ANYONE can succeed and become a reallionaire.

Had he been born with a silver spoon and to wealthy parents, with all the associated priviledges, he would not have been as effective nor as credible as a teacher.

Many who come into Life with the firm intention of becoming teachers, have often had a very hard life. Yet the harsh life and the adversity are only testing conditions designed and calculated so that the greatness of the person would emerge.

Indeed, one can only teach strength if one has had the opportunity to develop it from within, as as result of adversity. Well-known examples of teachers include Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, etc.

This is why I think spiritual beliefs are important. If you're going through a tough time, it's probably calculated so that a good quality will emerge from your situation. You will become a stronger person. A more sensitive person. A more caring person.

If you're going through smooth sailing and everything is fine and dandy, then enjoy your life for it's also probable that your abundance and joy and happiness came as a result of efforts that you made earlier in this life or in a previous life.

What is Twitter?

See what Twitter is all about HERE, HERE, and especially HERE.

Most reporters will describe what Twitter obviously is all about, but not what it could strategically be for.

Similarly, 99.99% of people will use Twitter the way it was designed to be used, NOT the way it could strategically be used for, to advance one's personal, professional or business agenda.

In the following example, one guy uses Twitter to write a book, probably a best-seller soon:

www.twitter.com/lazymillionaire

Ahem, as I was saying, most people do not have the strategic imagination to develop NEW ways to use a specific Internet application to serve their specific goals.

The most important feature perhaps of Twitter is that you can read a 140-character post by someone, and ask that person a question about it. That person can reply to you (and can choose to make that reply visible to all or not).

I wrote in a previous post that one of the best ways to get rich is to TEACH.

Twitter enables precisely that, although I would call it "micro-teaching" since you can't write more than 140 character per post (although you can post as often as you like).

A few well known Internet marketers, such as John Reese, have publicly recommended the use of Twitter so anyone who is seeking Internet wealth would be well advised to study Twitter and learn how to leverage it.

Twitter is so exciting that I feel like writing a User Manual about it, just like the Linkedin User Manual I wrote several years ago (http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com).

Before I forget, feel free to open an account at Twitter and to follow the Lazy Millionaire at http://www.twitter.com/lazymillionaire. This guy is onto something big, and you definitely don't want to miss out on the secrets he shares every day.

Secret for achieving excellence

If you took a piece of paper and folded it, its thickness would go from 0.1 mm to 0.2 mm.

If you repeated this process of folding 23 times, then the "thickness" of the resulting paper would exceed the height of the Empire State Building in New York!

Don't believe me? Do the math yourself. The ESB is 1260 feet high (remember that a foot is 12 inches, and an inch is 25.4 mm).

That is truly the secret of excellence in anything. You've got to identify the most important thing to practice, and then practice that very thing every day.

The thing that is compounding exponentially -- as in the case of the paper's thickness in the example above -- is your mind. To be more specific, your mind develops, at an exponential rate, distinctions that enable you to make sharper and sharper evaluations. Tony Robbins talks about those distinctions in his book Awaken the Giant Within.

This is why multitasking, which afflicts almost all white-collar jobs, is not a good thing. Using our paper-folding example, multitasking is like folding once or twice 20 or 30 sheets of paper every day. Your career cannot advance or make progress that way.

The only way your career or your business will grow EXPONENTIALLY is if you FOCUS on doing only one thing, and keep doing it EVERY DAY.

Yanik Silver, the highly successful (and awesomely innovative) Internet guru, advises people to do just one thing and make it a huge success before moving on to the next thing.

It's important to carefully choose the ONE THING that you practice daily. Don't try something too complicated, or try something too easy. The one thing you choose to do, should challenge you enough, yet be feasible.

The secret to striking a delicate balance between what is challenging and feasible, is revealed in the book Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Basically, if you try something that is TOO challenging, you will be stressed. If you try something that is TOO easy, you will be bored (and that's when your mind stop growing; it stops creating the distinctions mentioned above).

Take my case, for example. If, two years ago, I had tried to write a book on "success secrets," it would have been extremely hard. I've never written a book before in my whole life.

Instead, I decided to start a blog. Writing a few paragraphs a day sounds more feasible, although it is challenging of course.

Today, there are 829 posts written, and I only need to package all that stuff into a book to sell on Lulu.com.

Same story with Linkedin User Manual (http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com). It has 449 posts, and could easily become a book of 449 pages.

The best part is not even the amount of work you can accomplish by focusing on doing only ONE THING. It's the ease and grace that comes from such focused practice.

For example, many of my posts today come from my recording my voice using an MP3 recorder as I walk outside (sometimes in a park) and enjoy the nice weather.

So blogging is definitely my thing. What is YOUR thing? What do you love to practice every day?

Unless you know the ONE THING that you like or love to practice EVERY DAY, you cannot possibly become the best in your field. Without becoming the best, it is not possible to earn the best income.

But beyond the money aspect, not striving to become the best at one thing will deprive you of happiness.

Indeed, it is happiness that brings about success. Not the other way around.

If you could find the ONE THING that you're happy doing EVERY DAY and that you love to practice EVERY DAY, your life will be transformed. I guarantee it.

The mistake most people make is to "do things" instead of "practicing one thing."

Of course, when I say "practice one thing," I mean focus all your efforts and mental energy on accomplishing one specific result. There may be many things that you do to support you in that goal. But you have to be crystal clear about the ONE result that you strive to achieve.

I will write more on this important topic.

Why are you working?

Someone asked an interesting question on Linkedin: "What do you think of the statement, 'Everything a man does in life, he does for his ideal woman.'"

I offered the following answer:

Ayn Rand, who inspired and mentored Alan Greenspan, was of the view that all women -- subconsciously or not -- engaged in "hero worship." She herself admitted she was into hero worship, and this is reflected in her novels.

One could then surmise that all men -- subconsciously or not -- want to become heroes. That is, strong, reliable, heroic, self-sacrificing, for the sake of a loved one, whether it's a woman or a baby.

I say "self-sacrificing" but in fact, the small self is abandoned for a higher, bigger Self.

It may be true that a man will be driven to become his very best for the particular woman he's madly in love with, and most men who have been in love will recognize the truth of that statement.

But there's something more subtle at play here. The "best" woman -- and usually, this type of woman is adored by all men -- is the one who can invoke emotions in a man. Men in society are not very encouraged nor supported in their quest for feeling and expressing emotions, so this is why men tend to like and love women who are passionate and can invoke their often deep-seated emotions.

In other words, a man feels alive around a woman who is passionate and is emotionally intelligent enough to activate and sustain his emotional vitality. This emotional vitality is, incidentally, what he needs in order to become a great creator and create amazing and surprising things in life.

So although one can say that a man does great things FOR his ideal woman, one could also say that without his ideal woman, he would not be able to do great things.

===

The success secret here is to understand that by basing one's work on something "ideal" or of great value (to oneself and/or to society), one's senses and intellect become dramatically sharpened.

This heightened sensitivity or awareness or capability, enable the person to do things that ordinary people cannot.

For example, Hernando de Soto, the great economist who wrote the book The Mystery of Capital, is probably very driven in his work BECAUSE he realizes how important this theories and methodologies are in helping millions of people get out of poverty.

There are many examples, such as Dr Yunus Muhammed, who won the Nobel Prize for his micro-credit innovation. Al Gore is yet another example.

How does all this apply to you? After all, you're probably not trying to win the Nobel Prize!

The key question here is to ask yourself WHY what you're doing is so important. To whom is it important to?

Most people make the mistake of looking for a job, that is, they focus on the WHAT, not the WHY.

Why should an employer hire you? Why is your work so important? Whom does it impact?

When I created a marketing firm called Major Force in 2000, I created a slogan that captured WHY our work (I had an associate who specialized in graphic design) was so important.

"Major Force. We communicate your value."

Our work was super important because we helped clients to clearly communicate their value to the marketplace, to clients, to investors, to employees, to all stakeholders in fact. If they did not clearly communicate their value to clients, they would be extremely vulnerable to price wars.

We charged $5,000 to $10,000 for a logo that was as small as two inches by two inches!

Today, I run Talentelle.com, and my philosophy is similar: our work is super important because our mission is to "help women discover and develop their talent into a fulfilling career or exciting business."

Talentelle started out in February 2006 as a local training firm, but is now becoming a global player offering ALL women on this planet the opportunity to connect to our various systems and benefit from our online, digital or virtual solutions.

We used to offer workshops accommodating a maximum of 20 people in a physical classroom, but now have moved to the Internet and can potentially serve 3 billion women. Of course, only about one billion people are currently connected to the Internet, so we can only realistically serve 500 million women -- which is still a big market!

Anyways, my point is that the secret of success is to think big and to imagine WHY your work is so important.

I browse through profiles of Linkedin users and boy, I can tell you that most people don't feel very important at their job. Every job has the potential to change the world, it's just that people don't view things that way.

Instead, they think, "Ah, it's just a job. I get excited in the evenings or during week-ends, when I have the freedom to do what I love."

That's a huge mistake and a big error of judgment because one's job is actually the BIGGEST part of one's life. It's forty years times 250 days, or 10,000 days of work. That's 100,000 hours of work!

So basically, you can have 100,000 hours of happiness and joy, or 100,000 hours of silent pain, mind-numbing drudgery and muted suffering. It's really up to you.

To sum it up, let me share with you the title of a book by the overcommercialized guru Ashram, played by Mike Myers in the movie The Love Guru: "Does it hurt when you do that? Don't do that."

Success with women

*** WARNING: This post contains adult material not suitable for minors. If you're a minor, then young man, get back to your homework RIGHT NOW! ***

A blog about success is not quite complete without specific, proven and brilliant advice about how to succeed with women.

So here's my advice to all men out there.

NOTE 1: This advice has been kept secret so far, only revealed to my close disciples who are so loyal to me that if someone shot at me with a pistol, they would jump out and try to catch the bullet (at least, that's what I'm hoping for). So because it is so original, you might be shocked when reading it. SO PLEASE, DO NOT HOLD IN YOUR HAND ANY HOT BEVERAGE OR YOU MIGHT SPILL HOT LIQUID ON YOURSELF AND BURN YOUR SKIN!

NOTE 2: If you are a woman, please consider carefully the fact that what women say and how they respond are not always the same. What women say often has to do with what they THINK they're supposed to say in civilized society. What they feel, especially subconsciously, is beyond society and culture and other external artifacts which exert an influence on the mind. In other words, women publicly speak with their intellect and act as "social beings" whereas they privately feel and situationally react with their heart, as "female entities." No woman can escape the biological implications, constraints and drives of her female apparatus. Another way to put it is that "women can do what they want, but they cannot want what they want." This line is so brilliant that I'll be writing a best-selling book about it!

Okay, let's get straight to the heart of the matter: How to pick up women? Because if you can't even do that, then you'll be spending the evening alone.

My secret about how to pick up women is that... I don't. I create situations where they are dying for me to "pick them up."

The secret sauce has to do with what I mentioned earlier: "Women can do what they want, but they cannot want what they want."

And most women want a superior male. A high-value male. A male that offers them what they are most desperate for, subconsciously. Of course, this depends a great deal on what their current stage of life is.

A simple implementation of the above, is to make sure every information you release about yourself to the woman, constructs -- one step at a time -- a "high-value image" that she has of you. This means you have to focus on yourself as you speak, move around, express facial expressions, etc.

In other words, do NOT focus too much on her. She's "just" like the audience in a movie theatre. You are the movie director, so focus on making the movie one that will entertain her, and excite her imagination.

Fortunately, women have a lower threshold of excitability when it comes to their imagination, and that's the great thing about them. They will easily let their mind wander into MagicLand, if (and this is a big "if") the story-teller is good enough.

Before I forget, keep in mind that story-telling skills are important because women are seduced through the ears and not through the eyes (as with men).

So let's get back to the movie metaphor. It's easy enough to go to the movies with a girl, but it's much harder to CREATE a movie in real life that she can experience and feel good about. Speaking of "feeling", here's how women feel about "feeling":

The good: Feeling good
The bad: Not feeling good (or feeling bad)
The ugly: Not feeling anything

So guys, whatever you do, do NOT bore her! Do NOT be predictable!

Understanding the above can help you create conversations and tactics that will make women feel TRULY GREAT.

For instance, you could flatter her on something, and she will feel good.

But even better is when she feels bad about something, and you say something or do something to make her feel good. (But to do this, she's got to trust you enough to share with you, as a friend, times when she feels bad. This is why it's a good idea to be a friend and don't let the famous "John, I like you as a friend" be a deterrent to further romantic advances).

Indeed, the "emotional distance" from feeling bad to feeling good is much greater than feeling okay to feeling good.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Another example about "emotional distance" is when men compliment women. If a normal-looking guys compliments a woman, she will feel good. But if a highly successful guy (who looks like he's highly successful) compliments a woman, she will feel EVEN BETTER.

This brings us to the topic that I call "social exaltation." Women ALWAYS appreciate the presence or attention (preferably both) of men who have distinguished themselves from the crowd of undifferentiated, look-alike men. No offense to the latter, but they just all look the same. The elite always stands out from the crowd and actually stands OUTSIDE the crowd!

Thus, superior males are what I call "socially exalted entities." They exercise what I call "masterful seduction." Their mastery IS their seduction. Thus, they don't have to engage in many seductive ploys. They show up and all women turn their attention to them.

Look at Tiger Woods, for instance. He's the master of golf, a game I really don't understand. He's making millions of dollars and married a former Playboy playmate. Women, especially beautiful women, dig mastery.

Keep in mind that "se-duce" comes from the Greek, and it means "to draw to self."

However, it is far easier to obtain attention than to sustain it. Only a person who has achieved eminence or superiority, in some way, is able to sustain the attention of women.

This is another reason why success is important: it draws the attention of beautiful women.

Okay, here's something I don't get: SeekingMillionaire.com (this website was advertised by Google on PowerKnowledge.net, a site I created to help men succeed). If you're a millionaire, why would you need a "dating site" to attract beautiful women?

My theory is that those men succeeded at something that is not really their passion. Anyways, I will write a separate post on it, where I'll discuss the issue of "holistic happiness" - that is, how to make ALL the various areas of one's like work together, and not "tackle success" in each area separately.

Where was I? Yes, I was talking about seduction as "drawing attention to oneself."

Every man must strive to become excellent at what he does, for that is the only way to achieve a "socially exalted status."

Most men I know are too boring or too predictable. So even if they paid me $10,000 to find them a date, I wouldn't know where to start BECAUSE I do NOT know what they're excellent at! I can't sell what is not sellable!

In the past, I've introduced beautiful models and actresses to male friends of mine who stood out as entrepreneurs or investors. But these men are the rare exception.

That being said, you don't have to be a business man or even a rich man to attract women's attention. You just have to be darn good at what you do.

How do you become the best at what you do? Focus definitely helps.

But what could help even more is to STOP caring about what society thinks or how it dictates that a man live his life. You know, study hard, get a job, buy a house, start a family, etc.

That's boring stuff. I'm not saying it's not good. Those are things you want and deserve in your life.

But you gotta be more daring and take more risks if you are to attract women's attention. The ultimate risk perhaps is to be who you truly are, inside, and to live the life that you KNOW you were meant to live.

Many men believe that by having a car or house, they can attract more women. Perhaps a women will be attracted to your material possessions, sure, but she is as likely to be interested, later on, by another man with a bigger car or a bigger house.

By being truly yourself, and pursuing a career that reflects who you truly are, it might take longer to attract women but when you find your soul mate, she will love you for who you are, not what you have.

Most men care more about what they have than who they are, and there are reasons for that. I will write about this in a separate, upcoming post.

The funny thing is that by focusing on who you are, you incur a great deal of risk. Yet, it is the "risk" element that is exciting to women, especially young, beautiful women. Risk is titillating, predictability is not. Risk makes women feel alive, predictability makes them feel they don't even exist.

There's actually a part in the brain of a woman (and all human beings) called Broca's area, where unpredictability plays a role in exciting the whole brain.

Speaking of the female brain, there are also two areas that are closely linked: the area that regulates humor or laughter, and the area that regulates sexual receptivity.

In concrete terms, a women is more sexually receptive after she's had a good laugh.

In other words, a successful joke is part of foreplay. I'm not kidding you! After I learned about this from my own research, I began to buy and memorize LOTS of joke books!

Just kidding.

By the way, women often say that they like guys who have a sense of humor, but that is not accurate. What they want are men who have a sense of comedy, because comedic skills are pre-erotic skills. Women want to laugh because that predisposes them to, well, you know.

(This post is getting SO HOT that I'm really, really afraid that one day, my Mom will read about this and whack the back of my Catholic boy's head!. My only excuse is that I'm only trying to help fellow men find romantic happiness. I can't help it, I care about other people's happiness. Sometimes, more than I care about my own happiness.)

Okay, back to business.

If you doubt the link between laughter and sex, then notice the structure of jokes: there's the setup, where the tension is built, and there's the punch line, where the tension is explosively released. In short, setup = foreplay, and punch line = climax.

Am I saying that by studying comedy, you can become a great lover? Yes, absolutely.

It's not just the tension/climax insights you will get, but also the sharper linguistic abilities you will gain. It takes a great deal of literary and/or linguistic mastery to become a good comedian. Indeed, if brevity is the soul of wit, then linguistic skill is the heart of brevity.

Best part is, comedy is something you can study by yourself. Anytime. Anywhere.

This reminds me of the Woody Allen movie where he makes love to a Dutchess, and she says afterward: "You are the greatest lover I have ever had!!" He replies: "Yes, well, I practice a lot when I'm alone."

The lesson is that if your goal is to attract the women you want, you have to practice techniques of seduction and especially techniques that will inevitably make women FEEL GOOD about THEMSELVES.

Let me share with you, in my next post, my own romantic success stories, some of which were complete disasters and some of which were masterpieces -- yet I learned from both types of experience, for there is no "failure" per se, there is only a path of evolvement toward greater understanding and appreciation of women.

Mike Dillard & Magnetic Sponsoring

WHO IS MIKE DILLAR?

Mike Dillard, once a surgeon recruiter for many hospitals quit his job and became a table waiter in order to pursue his career in network marketing. After discovering the proper use of positioning, and "sellucation" his term for the art of self-selling through education, sponsored 35 personal reps. and grew his organization to over 500 within just months and averaged over $500,000 dollars per year in volume sales.

Today he spends his time and efforts teaching network marketers the proper strategies of marketing and magnetic sponsoring, as well as serving as a marketing consultant to industry leaders.

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ABOUT MAGNETIC SPONSORING

One of the biggest problems with network marketing is that the reps who are supposed to be marketing the products and the opportunity are not very clear what marketing is all about.

They go everywhere pitching their offers to all sorts of people around them but they wind up annoying, irritating or pushing these prospects. After awhile, these network marketing reps give up because their 'name list' runs out or they get discouraged because nobody wants to buy their products or join their downline.

Magnetic Sponsoring strives to change the way network marketing reps go about building their business by tapping into a familiar concept called attraction marketing.

What Magnetic Sponsoring does is that it teaches the reps how to develop the posture of a true leader and to become a sought-after expert in their field. What this does is that it turns the rep from being the hunter to being the hunted.

That is the way attraction marketing works, because human beings are naturally attracted to leaders and people who are better than them. They prefer to listen to an expert and turn a deaf ear towards people who do not promise them value (what most network marketers are like). In other words, attraction marketing teaches the rep to 'magnetically sponsor' downlines by attracting them by the charisma of their leadership.

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I resonate with Dillard's master philosophy and in fact, I would even go further: Become a black belt master at what you do, and you will never have troubles attracting clients, leads, employers, even women!

All women want an alpha male, that is, a socially elevated male who has achieved some distinction in his field.

Clients and employers are no different: they want the very best out there.

And so, we see here that Jim Rohn's advice is eminently on target: "Success is something you attract by the person you become."

In other words, don't pursue success because you won't get it. Rather, aim to be TRULY excellent at what you do, and success will pursue you!

Everybody will be naked

In the New Economy, nobody can hide anymore. Everybody's productivity will be in full view. In short, everybody will be "naked."

In other words, income will be solely determined by outcome -- that is, by what you actually produce.

To put it more bluntly, it will be useless to show up at the office. Rather than show up, you have you show results.

A new book by Cali Ressling and Jody Thomson drives this point home:
http://www.culturerx.com/downloads/ROWE_Overview.pdf

This is a RADICAL change in how people normally view "work."

Indeed, in the past, all you had to do was compete for a job, get it, and then do whatever was on your job description. You didn't have to "manage yourself" since that was, essentially, the job of your boss.

Today, however, there are no bosses. You are your own boss, and you have to manage your own productivity, whether you're a receptionnist or a VP of marketing.

All employees, in effect, have to learn to operate as "business units of one."

Ressling and Thomson, in their book, reveal an unconscious formula that most corporations seem to operate under:

Time + Physical Presence = Results

That equation might have been true in the previous era where "labor" did not know much, and where the central management paradigm was "command and control." Sort of like an army. Workers were soldiers who MUST execute the procedures as written by higher-ups.

Today, however, there are more and more knowledge workers who work with their brains, not their hands. And creativity is a funny thing: it follows its own schedule.

For instance, you can't tell a programmer or a marketing planner to be creative next Monday morning at 9:00 AM sharp. All an employer can do is create the right conditions for such talented professionals to be creative.

Beyond the time aspect, there is also the space aspect. Forcing workers to show up at the SAME place, every day, five days a week, is NOT a recipe for boosting creativity.

So what will replace the Time + Physical Presence = Results formula?

Mind X Passion X Talent X Values X Desire to serve = Business Outcome = Personal Income

I will write more about that.

Tell me what you want me to write about

The following are posts that I plan to write in the next few weeks. If you see one that particularly excites your imagination, please feel free to email me while writing the number (e.g. 505) in the subject heading, and I will write that post first. No need to write anything in the email.

This is what I call "on-demand blogging" and it enables me to write about what you want to read. Thanks for participating!

501 - An imperfect product is better than a perfect job. This is because only a product can be distributed worldwide through Internet, thereby enriching you so you can become financially free.

502 - Income depends on outcome, and outcome depend on process design, the right talent and the right environment.

503 - The first step to wealth is to email all your knowledge, tacit and explicit, to all your friends and connections. You can also use the PKI format (professional knowledge index, in mind map format).

504 - "Work Once Liquidate Forever" economic doctrine. This doctrine says that you should only do work that you can reuse or leverage the following day. "To do" lists therefore are not as useful as "to create" lists. It's best to create "digital currencies" which you can trade or sell to others. A digital currency is any digital document that has value and that you can email to others.

505 - Compounding intellectual capital doctrine. This doctrine is about how to create intellectual capital (i.e. valuable and marketable knowledge) in a way that allows this capital to grow almost automatically, so that you can get rich in a seemingly automatic way.

506 - The richness of your life depends on the degree to which you have mastered the art of seduction. It's about seducing others, but mostly about seducing oneself. Se-duce means "to draw to oneself," and it is best to first have a keen awareness of one's best or highest self. One can then allow oneself to be drawn to this ideal self.

What is failure?

Someone asked this interesting question on Linkedin Answers. I thought I'd share my answer with you.

Failure - An important factor to build success?

Failure is part of success, and certainly makes life more interesting. Indeed, most people will admit that they have learned more from failure than from success.

The concept of "failure" itself might be misleading, since it has a negative connotation and is something that most people try to avoid. This avoidance limits the richness of experience that life offers.

Men, for obvious cultural reasons, are more "afraid" of failure than women. The male ego has something to do with it, but it would be inaccurate to blame men for having this ego since it arises in a culture that overvalues performance -- often at the expense of authentic experience.

Women, for reasons that I have not yet fully understood, value experience more than men. They are willing to step outside the familiar path in order to experience life. However, I believe both experience and performance are possible and lead to a rich life.

I mean "performance" in the sense that we make progress in controlling ourselves and achieving self-mastery. Not performance in the sense of satisfying some external or societal standard, and winning medals or awards as a result.

For example, it is possible for a person to "fail" in his career or business, yet this apparent failure gives him a great opportunity to evolve by understanding more things about himself, his life and his ultimate purpose on Earth. Indeed, nothing starts a serious reflection and serious self-examination than failure.

Some people need to have a serious medical crisis before they sit down and think seriously about their lives. Others only require a certain non-threatening illness to halt the mindless momentum of their hectic career, and begin the process of self-examination and contemplative inquiry.

In most cases, it is quite useful to adopt the following attitude toward failure: "Oh, I now have the opportunity to explore another dimension of life and of myself! Great!"

Those who take advantage of such opportunities for meditation and for re-examining the meaning and purpose of their lives, often re-emerge into society with a powerful sense of alignment with who they truly are. It is as if they were born again, and were given a second chance at life. Many such people are destined to become teachers, for they have gone through the experience and can speak about it with credibility.

But back to the concept of "failure." At the mere thought of possible failure, many people recoil and take the beaten and familiar path -- they seek security instead of experience and adventure.
The ultimate success might be to realize that failure doesn't exist in reality, and is only a concept we have been conditioned to focus on in our society and culture. A second illusion is the fear of failure, and this fear often paralyzes people who otherwise might have expressed or exercised their natural talents.

Let's not forget that even Pablo Picasso, the great artist, feared how the world would react to his first cubist painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. He hid that painting in a closet for two years before finally showing it.

Indeed, every person is engaged on a personal path of evolution, and cannot fail. If he is moving forward on that path, he is then evolving. If not, then he needs time to reflect and absorb earlier lessons and experiences. In either cases, he is not failing at all. He is simply deciding, consciously or subconsciously, to evolve on his own timetable, without comparing himself to others at the material level.

It is useful to remember that life is a school and that the same lesson, in different yet fundamentally similar forms, will keep coming to us until we absorb and master the lesson. This is necessary for our own personal growth and evolution. Yet there is no "failure" at all. Life is a process of self-perfection, and we are already perfect on the spiritual plane. Our "higher self" is already perfect. It's just that in this physical life, we have the extraordinary opportunity to taste and experience this exquisite process of perfecting ourselves.

Peter Nguyen
Principal and editor in chief
PowerKnowledge.net

Finally, here's the ultimate wealth secret!

I wrote several posts before on The Ultimate Wealth Secret, and have challenged you to come up with one word to summarize that wealth secret.

Well, here it is. Are you ready? It's...

SELL.

Indeed, sales ability is a secret art that most people have not been taught at school or at home.

Not only that, but we have been conditioned to view "selling" negatively. This is perhaps due to several bad experiences with "pushy" salespeople.

Yet, when you understand the proper function of selling and master the art of selling, you will know why some people get richer while others do not.

It's because selling is a certain strategic mindset. The savvy and skillful sales star is always thinking strategically and speaking strategically. Since thinking and talking are activities that we do almost all the time, then this accounts for the fast rise to success of people who are skillful at selling.

In other words, people who are trapped in poverty (i.e. can't find a good job or can't succeed in business), usually do not think very strategically nor do they speak strategically. It doesn't occur to them, in a conversation, to help the other person figure out his or her precise need and to help that person fulfill that need.

For instance, you might think of the salesperson as a selfish person who is always "pushing" his products in order to get someone to buy something. But in fact, a professional salesperson acts according to "enlightened self-interest": he will ask skillful questions in order to find out what the other person really needs, and then will try to help that person fulfill that need through a product or service that he offers, or that another company offers.

In other words, the professional salesperson doesn't sell as much as he is buying. Buying what? Trust.

Trust is the holy platform upon which your fortune is built.

A great salesperson shows so much care, concern and compassion that everybody instantly trusts him -- and will buy whatever he's selling.

Everything I share with you here is only 0.0000001 % of this vast field of selling.

Yet, most people do NOT explore this field because they have negative perceptions and feelings about selling. These negative perceptions and feelings KEEP THEM POOR.

Indeed, there are few activities that are more enjoyable and profitable than selling, because basically, it's just a conversation where, at the end, the other person hands over his money to you!

Some people are skillful conversationalists, so they can sell by simply talking. Most people, however, will succeed only if they complement their words with real, concrete actions. If you want to master the art of selling, read the book The Trusted Advisor, by David Maister. (I read it several times).

Jeffrey Gitomer is also a great author to read on the art of selling.

The bottom line is that selling is simply a skill -- not a talent. And the extent to which you master that skill, and turn it into an art, will determine your level of financial success.

This is so because (economic) power comes from your talent, and selling ability MULTIPLIES that power.

It is because employees lack selling ability that they are trapped and are forced to work for someone else. An employee may be the best in his field, yet if he cannot sell, he will not likely achieve financial freedom.

Let's take a mathematical look at this to fully understand how selling ability MULTIPLIES your economic power.

Imagine John and Jane, two professionals. John has a greater talent than Jane, so let's say his talent has a value of 9 whereas Jane's talent has a value of only 6.

However, Jane is better at selling than John and has a selling ability of 3 while John has a selling ability of 1.

So the score is:

John: 9 X 1 = 9

Jane: 6 X 3 = 18

Jane gets more opportunities or contracts because her selling ability multiplies the power of her talent. She is also more balanced than John in that she can both CREATE value and SELL that value. Hence, she is more likely to be able to launch her own business and achieve financial independence while John will be forever stuck in an office or cubicle (unless he learns how to sell).

Private Strategic Education and Training

0:09

I was reading yesterday in the newspaper that there is a significant rise in the number of private schools in Quebec, Canada. Parents are now willing to pay up to $20,000 a year so their child can attend 100% privately funded schools.

This trend will also happen in workplaces, where employees will seek coaches and trainers who will train them so they get an edge in the job market. Same thing with entrepreneurs: they will seek the best coaches and trainers to give them the skills they need to succeed.

It's a trend I call "private strategic education and training."

This is happening because the world has become an incredibly competitive place. The new economy is, in fact, the "Olympic" economy, where the best in any one country will have to compete against the best in other countries. The Internet indeed eliminates geographic, temporal and spatial barriers.

At GM and Ford, managers have on their computer screens two dashboards, one showing the wages and productivity of their own workforce, and another showing the wages and productivity of workers from China, India, etc. As soon as the second dashboard looks more profitable than the first, the decision to lay off workers will be made.

Unfortunately, most people work at their jobs without knowing the above. Until, of course, they get the pink slip.

Then, there are people who are looking for a "home business," and the reasons are quite obvious: they want flexibility, freedom, etc. They want to be their own boss.

Yet, the very expression "home business" is misleading. As mentioned earlier, what is important to survive economically is excellence. So whether you work at home or not, doesn't matter.

What matters is whether you work "at hone": that is, are you honing your skills and competencies all the time? Clients really don't care where the provider is, physically speaking. They only care about results.

And the best results -- that is, the ones that will enrich you -- are produced by your mind, your imagination, your creativity.

Yet, these are not exactly what we have been taught at school. So because there is this huge gap in what the educational system is teaching us, and what the new economy requires of us, there is the emergence of institutions or companies that provide "strategic education and training."

The recipe for success, then, seems to be: 1. Choose a line of work where you want, desperately, to become the VERY BEST. 2. Practice daily until you DO become the best at it.

You have the right to remain silent (and poor, alas!)

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, recently said that there are about 120 million blogs on the Internet, and that the average blog has a readership of... one.

It's not only funny, it's true!

Most people get excited, create a blogging account, and then find out that they don't have anything interesting, let alone valuable, to share.

I have exactly 264 subscribers, and although that is a very small number, may I share with you some of the practices that have worked for me.

1. Life is short. Start with the dessert. In plain English, give your readers MAXIMUM VALUE and give it NOW! Don't hold any information back. Who knows, you might get hit by a truck tomorrow and your valuable information will be lost to the world forever! You don't want people to go to your funeral and say something like: "He was a really nice and smart guy, and it's just a pity he didn't share his valuable information. It's a tragedy, really."

2. Write your blog like as if your family and closest friends were reading it, every day. In other words, write for people you really care about, and give them maximum value.

3. Many people hesitate to start a blog because they think they are not good writers. The trick is very simple: write ONE sentence per day. I really mean it: write ONE sentence. Not a paragraph. Not a post. Just ONE sentence. You will soon pick up steam and ideas, and you'll be writing prolifically like me. I don't know how to explain that phenomenon, but it's like compound interest: the more there is, the faster it grows. Effortlessly.

The bottom line is that a blog is truly your "mini media empire." You won't become Rupert Murdoch any time soon, but the blog does give you visibility (or audibility, rather).

In other words, with a blog, you can begin a relationship with a lot of people, and you can then sell stuff to them later on.

Of course, as I mentioned in the heading, you have the right to remain silent. That is, you have the right to refuse to blog.

But keep in mind that rich people are those that keep selling ALL THE TIME, and poor people are those that NEVER SELL ANYTHING.

Rich people sell all the time by acquiring and developing mass media like television. Oprah, for instance, last year made $275 million (compared to Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's $300 million). Notice that Rowling is using a different format (book) and is selling to a different audience (kids mostly).

So why do so many people resist the idea of selling? Probably because we all had bad experiences with pushy sales people in the past.

But that was then, this is now. The Internet enables you to sell, whether it's your own products or somebody else. The Internet REALLY exists so you can sell MORE and make MORE money.

Here's my take on selling. Selling means giving $100 worth of value to people, and asking them $10 in return. Sounds fair, doesn't it? Selling is really that simple.

Once you understand and master that concept (that selling means giving $100 and asking for $10), becoming wealthy will be a piece of cake. In other words, if 10 out of 10 people accept that deal (and who wouldn't, really!), then you can use a mass media to reach 100,000 people and make 100,000 X $10, or $1 million.

Can you see that wealth is just a mathematical formula, once you get the value/cost ratio right?

If the value/cost ratio is 100/1, then it's even better. Your products will sell even faster. In such cases, the value is often intangible.

you must become You in order to become wealthy

I'm not sure if all readers will understand the following, but for those who are ready to receive this knowledge, it might make a huge difference in their lives.

Here's the secret: "you" have to become "You" before you can access extraordinary powers.

In other words, you have to reconsider your true identity. You have to re-examine who you TRULY are.

Put differently, you are only a role that you're playing out on this planet. Life is a stage, and you are currently only playing a role. You're an actor.

Roosevelt, the former U.S. president, thoroughly understood this. He once said to Orson Welles: "We are the two greatest actors in America!"

Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM and perhaps one of the greatest capitalists of the 20th century, also said: "You should clearly visualize the ideal person you want to be in five years, and start, RIGHT NOW, to act precisely like that person."

In other words, play the role of the person you want to become. Play that role with enough authenticity so that you -- and not only the audience -- will truly feel it.

So when I say, "Become You," I mean become the writer and director of your life-movie. Your life is very much like a movie or a theatrical performance.

In other words, if you don't like your current role, write another one. And this time, write it with precise details so you know EXACTLY how you're going to act it out.

This reminds me of a question that my sister Zoonie once asked me. "Do you ever feel doubt or uncertainty when you make decisions?" Almost as a reflex, as CEO of Talentelle, I immediately replied: "No. I always feel supremely confident."

I meant that as a joke, but in truth, that's precisely how I feel. You can't lead an organization, whether it's a small business or a large multinational consortium, if you don't realize that the top executive must play his role with overflowing conviction and unquestionable authority.

And this is not testosterone talking. Women like Martha Stewart or Oprah or the late Mother Teresa, play their role with utmost conviction. Like any good actor.

Angelina Jolie plays her role as Lara Croft, the aristocratic heroine, with unquestionable authenticity.

Similarly, it would help if you could write out, in detail, the leading role you wish to play in your life, and then start rehearsing that role so you can deliver a performance, every day, worthy of an Oscar!

Now, I have to tell you that there are good news and bad news.

The good news is that there are 6.5 billion people on this planet, therefore there are 6.5 billion plays or movies. This means there are 6.5 billion heroes or heroines who are the stars in their own movies.

The bad news is that most people have not yet realized this.

They haven't yet realized that they ARE the star in their own movie! They are also the writer, director, producer and audience!

So as a woman, you are the star in your own movie. As a mother, you are "only" a supporting actor in your child's life. As a wife, you are "only" a supporting actor in your husband's life.

But as a woman who has her own dreams and aspirations, you are THE star in your own life.

Many women do not realize this, and play a supporting role for 10 or 20 0r even 30 years, before they finally realize, one day, that they've got to life their own life. Oprah calls it "the disease to please."

Many men also have not realized this. They have become "organization men" and sacrifice themselves for the benefit and success of their employing organizations.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with playing a supportive role. They even give out Oscars for best supporting actors!

But the whole point of each life is that it be lived from the point of view of the star, that is, from YOUR point of view.

And to achieve this, you have to move from a "you" identity (which is just a role that, somehow, almost by accident, you fell into) and a "You" identity (which is a powerfully creative identity composed of a talented actor, writer, director, producer and audience).

The "you" identity is, in most cases, a victim identity: you find yourself in an environment that conditions your responses and "forces" you to think and act in certain ways. Most of the time, you don't know exactly which lines to deliver with conviction.

The "You" identity, on the other hand, is one where you have supreme control over your life experience, because you KNOW that you can create it exactly as you fantasize it to be.

Since wealth is a matter of economic creativity, then shifting to a "You" identity will give you the immense powers you need to create value which, once compounded, will result in enormous wealth.

In plain English, it means you have to grow aware of the fact that you are the creator, instigator, driver, writer, initiator, etc. of everything in your life. You have to take responsibility for everything that happens in your life.

Even a wife who's being, say, abused verbally by her husband, has to acknowledge that she bears some responsibility in creating that situation. In other words, as long as she thinks of herself as a victim and plays out that role, the situation will continue exactly as before.

Same thing with an employee who feels that his boss is exploiting him. He has to stop thinking of himself as an "exploited employee" and rewrite his new role.

Duality exists everywhere. There cannot be an oppressor if there is no oppressed. There cannot be black if there is no white.

Similarly, if you want to receive ideas from the universe, you've GOT to start acting and behaving like creative people. For example, creative people ALWAYS carry a notepad and pencil everywhere they go. Picasso carried a notepad, Leonard Da Vinci carried a notepad, and I also carry a notepad.

(Notice how I elegantly inserted myself into such distinguished company, haha!).

So my number one advice to people who want to become wealthy is: "Generate ideas!"

Every day. Next, test your ideas. Create a prototype and put it in people's hands. I often do this on Linkedin Answers. I reveal a LOT of product or service ideas, and get instantly feedback from dozens of very smart people.

In other words, stop intellectualizing. Stop thinking. Stop complaining. Stop justifying why you're doing something or not doing something. Stop watching the news.

Just generate ideas so that eventually, you can select a good idea and develop a product from it.

A product is absolutely critical if you want to become rich.

I will write more about it, I call it the Productism Doctrine. Briefly, this doctrine predicts that all professionals will, one day, become Product Managers. And this "product" will be created through the strategically orchestrated reengineering of their human capital.

My strange yet powerful secret, part 2

A reader asks the following questions, after reading my post titled "My strange yet powerful secret."

PETER: Here's what I want to tell you: I have the incredible feeling that this year, I'll be getting super rich. Just as I wanted and actually predicted at the beginning of this year. Things just happen so fast. The manifestation process is truly working.

READER: Are you really going to become a millionaire this year?

PETER: It looks like it. Here's a clue to how I will do it: Iron Man. Just watch that movie, and you'll understand.

READER: What do you mean by "manifestation process"?

PETER: Read the three books written by Esther Hicks. Read also Harv Eker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. They're talking about the conscious (and unconscious) design and engineering of the manifestation process. The process whereby your feelings, thoughts and actions turn into reality.

READER: You wrote: "My fortune will happen in the information and advice publishing industry, although I plan to launch businesses outside of that industry." Why did you choose the information and advice industry?

PETER: Information is what publishers or teachers supply. Advice is when the information is APPLIED to a specific client situation. That is PRECISELY where the value of the information comes out. In other words, advice is what clients pay for, while information is what customers pay for. Another way to put it is that clients pay for solutions while customers pay for products.

READER: So customers buy a book, which is a product, but clients don't want to buy a book. They want to buy an actual recipe or an actual solution, like a step-by-step process that they can use to get RESULTS and solve their problems.

PETER: You totally understand it, hombre!

READER: You wrote that "There is a mysterious flow of incredible, powerful and highly profitable business ideas that keep coming to my little brain!" How did you achieve that?

PETER: A person can only look in ONE direction at a time. Try, for instance, to look at the sky while looking down at your feet. You can't, right? Same thing with your mind. You CANNOT point your mind in two directions at the same time. Wherever you point your mind, that is where your life is going. Let me repeat that super important principle: WHEREVER YOU FOCUS YOUR MIND, THAT IS WHERE YOUR LIFE IS GOING. And since what we focus on expands, then it becomes harder and harder to change direction once our mind is set in one direction. This is why it will be much harder for baby boomers to become entrepreneurs than for members of Gen Y. But don't cry for the boomers, they have enough money to take care of themselves! Gen Y may have less capital, but once they get into business -- and trust me, they WILL -- they will financially accelerate faster than anything imaginable. Just look at how the Youtube founders did it, or what the teenager Ashley Qualls did it with Whateverlife.com.

READER: Aren't they rather exceptional? I mean, can we really use those extreme examples when it comes to ordinary people?

PETER: Any person has the capacity to create enormous wealth. We are born wealthy. Before I forget, grab a free copy of Bob Proctor's book, You Were Born Rich, on the Internet. Email me if you can't find it. He's giving it away for free.

READER: If we all have the capacity to create enormous wealth, how come most people haven't achieved it?

PETER: They are stopping themselves. They are psychologically resisting the idea that they are truly millionaires inside, even 8- or 9-figure multimillionaires. I'm coaching many people, and I can feel it when my clients have internal resistance. I can't help them much on that score. At the same time, I'm also consulting for entrepreneurs that have absolutely NO resistance to the idea that they deserve to get super rich. They're really fun to work with.

READER: You talked about your having "a simple digital product which can sell for as little as $10 and can be sold worldwide via Internet." Here's what I don't understand: how do you actually reach all those people on the Internet? The fact that they CAN be reached, doesn't mean they WILL be reached, right? Unless you have a huge database of millions of emails?...

PETER: I don't have such a database, you're right. But we live in a world where Facebook has over 70 million users, and Linkedin has over 21 million users. So the key is simply to create an affiliate program whereby people who sell your products, will get a big reward -- at least 30% in commission. Some people even give away 100% of the commission. Why? Because afterwards, they are in touch directly with the customers, and can sell back-end products. Back-end is where fortunes are made. Remember, "Give up the rook to capture the king." I will write more later on about that strategy, which is based on the game of chess.

READER: You mentioned the portal PowerKnowledge.net. What is your big goal for that portal?

PETER: Are you sure you want to know? Okay, here goes: The goal is to make the content on PowerKnowledge.net as easily accessible as electricity. That is, every household and organization will be able to "plug" into the PowerKnowledge... warehouse, or whatever the name will be when we get that big.

READER: You think really big...

PETER: As I mentioned before, all humans can think big and thus access an inner world FULL of millionaire ideas. Most people just don't do it. They turn their gaze outward, they watch the news about what is going on in countries they've never visited and will most likely never visit in their lifetime. People forget that real power lies within, inside of us. Most people read or watch the news, and are filled with fear. If a person is serious about becoming wealthy, I recommend that he/she watch TV no more than one hour per day. He/she should also read at least one book per week. You don't even have to read the WHOLE book. Just browse through a book, jot down the best idea that you can implement, and then go implement it! If the results are not good, the book is probably not worth reading in its entirety. In other words, use things and objects and technologies to reach YOUR goal. Don't read a whole book just because the author says you should! Same with Linkedin. Most people use it for networking, which is a very unprofitable use of that social networking site. I use it to discover leads. Once again, we go back to people's resistance to making money and getting rich. It's quite ridiculous, because you cannot get rich unless you provide value to people. So resisting the idea of getting rich, basically means you refuse to help as many people as you can.

READER: Wow, a lot of valuable material here! I'll stop and reflect on it. Thanks!

PETER: You're welcome.

Selling ability is key to success

http://www.markschnitzer.com/

I came across the site above, so I thought I'd offer you my analysis of its marketing strategy. There are many important things to be learned here about business strategy, and if you are serious about achieving financial freedom, it's critical to understand basic strategy.

Strategy means "doing what you have to do to win." It's really that simple. I subscribe more to George Stalk's school of thought (he wrote the book Hardball) than Henry Mintzberg's approach, although I recognize that the latter may offer useful insights for large corporations.

In other words, when I'm hired as a strategy consultant by startups -- and I prefer startups that are aiming at high six- or seven-figure sales, I tell them what they need to know to WIN.

The most important thing to remember in business is that it's a risky environment, and that to DERISK that environment (thereby maximizing one's chances of success), one MUST be close to the client and give him EVERYTHING THAT IS IN OUR POWER TO GIVE HIM.

Do not hold back. I even recently hired "Mad Max," a VP whose sole concern is to push me to give AS MUCH VALUE AS POSSIBLE to my clients for FREE. I will write more about that uber-strategy later on.

So let's take a look at the site above, where they are trying to recruit networking marketing people.

First, they seem like nice people, and they are courageous. You have to be courageous to embark on any business. Most people are too scared to do that.

Their main mistake is that there is a lot of promise on the page, but not a lot of evidence. The key in recruiting is to show evidence of success -- proofs, testimonials, arguments, facts, case studies, demonstrations, diagrams, stats, etc.

In other words, don't sell to people. Serve them.

How? Give them USEFUL and CREDIBLE information so they can make up their own mind about the business opportunity. Treat them as intelligent adults. Don't use emotionally charged words. Speak in a calm, controlled, composed manner. This shows self-mastery.

In my life of work, many people do ask me my opinion about network marketing. I believe it's really about selling. "Network marketing" is an expression that conceals the real task, which is to sell.

I recommend Jeffrey Gitomer's books if you're interested in mastering the art of selling. He's the real deal. We're talking about corporate sales, the tough kind.

Whether you're looking for a job, a promotion, or a first client for your new business, you need to learn about selling. And selling is really serving. It's really that simple.

Another way to put it is that selling is a conversation with a win-win goal in mind.

So from that perspective, you can basically practice your selling skills every time you talk to another person. If you have nothing to sell, then practice by selling that person to herself. That is, encourage her to do something that is clearly in her interest.

Another great book I recommend is Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people." His idea of getting people to talk about themselves is not as innocent as it sounds, because the more people talk, the more they reveal their hot buttons. It becomes much easier to sell to them afterwards. In other words, it becomes easier to gently move them in a direction where BOTH parties will win.

Find the seed of WEALTH within you

People seeking financial wealth and freedom often -- and I mean, most of the time! -- think that wealth is something external that is "out there" and so, they venture forth into the world to seek "opportunities."

But the outer world is only a reflection of the inner world. If you feel wealthy inside, and are deeply grateful for the (amazing) wealth that you ALREADY possess, there will be more wealth in your life. Opportunities will come to you effortlessly, as if by magic.

Concretely, it's important to search within and find, within oneself, the "seed of wealth."

This seed could be your irrepressible passion for something (what Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute, calls your "field of fascination"). For instance, some are passionate about cars, others are passionate about jewelry, yet others are passionate about graphic design or interior design or, in my case, calligraphy (Western calligraphy).

Your seed of wealth could also be a talent that you have. Read Tom Rath's Strengths Finder 2.0 book, to find your five top talents. Then, make them work together synergistically to create your "super-talent."

Also, your seed of wealth could be a type of client that you feel a really, really, really great connection to, and want to work with absolutely. I feel a strong connection to graphic designers because I like the way they think. They always try to make the world a more beautiful place. Being a calligrapher, I also understand some of their visual language.

I can't really say whether your seed of wealth is about your passion, your talent or your connection to a certain kind of people, but I DO know that whatever it is, this seed of wealth lies within you.

But it is hidden. You cannot easily find it. Sometimes, people find it by accident but then ignore it, dismissing it as just some seed. Of course, they don't understand that great things grow and flourish from a single seed! They don't understand that with the exception of the lottery, all wealth is first created in a very small way, but that it grows effortlessly and in a compounding fashion, like the compound interest on a savings bank account.

The tragedy is that most people go out in the world looking for wealth while completely ignoring their major source of wealth, which lies within.

By careful introspection, one can find this seed of wealth within, and begin the exciting process of cultivating this seed until one becomes extremely rich.

If you are currently working as an employee, you can be sure that a person, a long time ago, did find his or her seed of wealth. That's how your employing organization was born.

There's nothing wrong with being an employee while you are searching for your own seed of wealth, because you can learn from your employer how business is built, developed, refined. Everything that you learn as an employee, will be useful to you as an entrepreneur -- should you choose to become one later on.

Sometimes, it can be greatly beneficial to work for free for an entrepreneur that you believe will make it big. This way, you learn from the entrepreneur how to align with your true self -- this alignment is where incredible power is found and unleashed.

In fact, Robert Kiyosaki did precisely that. In his formative years, he worked in Hawaii as a volunteer for Anthony Robbins, and learned as much as he could from the famous personal development guru.

Once you've found your seed of wealth, the next step will be to "plant" it in a fertile environment where it can grow.

My strange yet powerful secret

This post will sound a little strange, so I just thought I'd warn you ahead of time. But don't worry, it won't be too weird! (I've been weirder before in my life, haha!).

Here's what I want to tell you: I have the incredible feeling that this year, I'll be getting super rich. Just as I wanted and actually predicted at the beginning of this year. Things just happen so fast. The manifestation process is truly working.

My fortune will happen in the information and advice publishing industry, although I plan to launch businesses outside of that industry.

How do I know for sure that I'll be a millionaire soon? Simple: There is a mysterious flow of incredible, powerful and highly profitable business ideas that keep coming to my little brain!

If you came to my place, you'd see boxes and boxes containing notebooks and notepads all FILLED WITH MILLION-DOLLAR IDEAS. I'm not kidding.

I don't mean "million-dollar ideas" in the sense of an invention like Google or a similar technology, but rather, a simple digital product which can sell for as little as $10 and can be sold worldwide via Internet.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'd like to encourage you to review all the posts I've written so far. Some of them contain the secrets that have enabled me to create such powerful fortune-making ideas.

Also visit PowerKnowledge.net, where I share many more ideas and will keep sharing until I die (at around age 120). :-)

Another thing I want to say is that if you want to learn the MAXIMUM from me, I invite you to email me all your questions. As a guide and teacher, I simply cannot give answers when the question has not been asked.

It would be like a parent ramming food down the throat of a child who is screaming, "But... but... I'm not hungry!!"

People who don't ask questions, are not curious. That is, their minds are NOT open (even though they may say that are "open-minded"). They really get nowhere in life, because they somehow think they already know everything.

Obviously, as a subscriber to this blog, you value knowledge. And you know that I freely share my knowledge as soon as I get it (hence, the blog name "real-time success secrets").

So go ahead and ask me anything about new product creation, entrepreneurship, marketing, business, finance, management, women. Wait, don't ask me about women, I'm still clueless! Women are fabulous creatures who also happen to be blissfully complex. Give me ten more years of studying them! :-)

Anyways, my strange yet powerful secret is that I act like as if every thought I have will become reality, and that nothing in this world can stop me. If you act the same, you will realize -- as I did -- that you have vast and incredible powers to create any life you want.

FreeConferenceCall.com

I wrote previously that by teaching valuable stuff, one can become rich.

Now, there's a FREE service on the Web where you can have free conference calls: FreeConferenceCall.com.

Many people on Linkedin have provided positive testimonials, so I guess it works.

You can have up to 96 people participating on any given conference call, and the maximum duration of each call is 6 hours.

FreeConferenceCall.com is part of a "free Web services" trend where technologies enable human beings to communicate with one another with greater ease and convenience. Skype, Youtube, Slideshare.net, Blogger, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. are part of such free Web-based communication services.

The success secret therefore lies in having knowledge worth sharing.

Indeed, you can be connected to 6.5 billion people via the Internet, yet if you don't have valuable knowledge to share, you won't receive a dime.

How do you start to capture your valuable knowledge?

One way is to complete this sentence: "If I only had 48 hours to live, then I would like to tell the entire world about one thing that I discovered in life, and that is ............................"

In my case, I would write in that blank something like: "In order to succeed, you have to decide what activity to become excellent at, and then practice it every single day without fail."

And from that one statement, I would try to write a 2-page article. From the article, I would try to write a chapter of a book, and then write the whole book.

My point is that sharing valuable knowledge is one of the easiest ways to become rich.

But writing out your knowledge won't be easy at the beginning. However, I can guarantee you that it will get easier and easier over time. But you've got to start now.

Just buy a notepad and carry it with you everywhere you go. And start writing down all your ideas.

Before you know it, you'll have enough material to set up a workshop and charge people for it.

The important thing to understand is that most of your powerful and valuable ideas will not come from you, the conscious you, but from a mysterious, universal Subconscious that somehow communicates with your local subconscious AFTER you have activated your subconscious to be receptive to new ideas.

This is precisely what happened to me in the last few years. I decided to write down ALL the ideas that come to me, and I usually get dozens of powerful ideas every day! And it's not because I'm smarter than other people. It's just that I understand that ideas are the foundations of wealth.

That is, an idea could very well be the seed of your multimillionaire empire.

Of course, not all ideas will result in riches, but still, you've got to plant those ideas in actual environments and watch them grow while taking care of them.

The success secret is quite simple: the more ideas you have every day, the faster you will get to financial freedom.

A person who has no idea, will always be forced to work for someone who has ideas.

Yet, nobody has a monopoly on imagination. Everybody, without exception, has imagination. It's just that so few actually use their imagination.

Why? Because school taught us to value intellect, not imagination.

Yet, without imagination, there can be no new ideas. And without new ideas, there can be no new value created. And without new value created, there can be no wealth.

So the rich and poor should not be called the "haves" and have nots", but "those who imagine" and "those who don't imagine."

Reconceptualize your fears to overcome them!

In the mid 90s, I was studying management at McGill University and had to do several oral presentations of group projects.

I've never been afraid of public speaking, but it was not exactly an activity that I enjoyed doing. So one day, I stumbled upon an insight: what if I "conceptually reengineered" this activity and turned it into something that I love doing?

This is when I decided to treat oral presentations as opportunities to use my comedy writing skills and to launch my mini-career as a standup comic.

For instance, during a presentation in my Services Marketing course, I talked about a dental clinic: "You know, a dental clinic is not exactly a destination resort. Nobody looks forward to the experience of going to the dentist because it might involve PAIN! You just want to go in there, get the job done, and get out as fast as you can. It's basically like university."

Not only did I enjoy the laughter I got from the audience (and, of course, there are many pretty girls in all my classes), but I also enjoyed the process of precisely scripting the presentation so as to properly set up the joke and powerfully deliver the punch line.

I mention this example because public speaking seems to be Fear #1 for most people.

Unless a person masters this fear, which is quite irrational, she will always fail to realize her full potential.

No matter what you fear is, there is always a way to mentally reengineer a way to look at it so that you enjoy the activity.

Indeed, in life, the fear never comes from other people or situations or events or objects. It comes from you. From your own mind. Fear is created by a certain way of thinking.

In short, your thoughts -- when mismanaged -- are creating the fears that resonate all over your body and make you tremble. Master your thoughts and the fear disappears.

Anthony Robbins came up with this acronym to explain what F.E.A.R. really is: False Evidence Appearing Real.

Fear appears real because our minds make it real! Fear doesn't exist per se, it's just a projection of a person's mind onto a screen.

Selling is another activity that most people, somehow, are afraid of.

So a good way to "conceptually repackage" selling is to view it as "helping someone to buy."

Give the prospect detailed, accurate and factual information. Make her feel good about herself. Show support for her goals. Give her options. Casually demonstrate your capabilities while gently proposing ideas that could help her experience more out of life -- more fun, more pleasure, more money, more satisfaction, more fulfillment.

Wait a minute, this sounds A LOT like what I usually do on a date! ;-)

Come to think of it, selling is a lot like dating. When a woman accepts to have dinner with me, she is implicitly saying: "Peter, you're very persuasive so I accept to go out with you but you realize, of course, that my sharing food with you in an atmosphere obviously designed to put me in the right mood, does not in any way, shape or form, imply that we'll necessarily end up naked in bed at the end of the evening."

It is thus my "job" to build up momentum so that she, well, ahem, you know. :-)

Anyways, my point is that there is always a way to reconsider and reengineer how you view life, and specific situations in life, so that you feel empowered -- not fearful.

In an upcoming post, I'll talk about "conscious fears" vs "unconscious fears."

Reasons for business failure

I am sometimes asked for the reasons why a new business would fail, and the answer is quite simple: the person only has to look in the mirror.

Strangely enough, the main reason for failure is also the main reason for success: the person in the mirror!

This is what Jim Rohn meant when he said, "Success is something you attract by the person you become."

Here's how I put it: "The main reason for failure is the failure to reason."

In other words, the population is not divided between the "haves" and "have nots." Rather, it's the "thinks" and "think nots."

Those who do not think for themselves, are forced to follow the train of thought of someone else. And usually, that someone else doesn't have your interest at heart. Why should he? He has his own goals, and he has a plan to achieve them. If you don't have goals and are not interested in thinking for yourself, then you will have to follow his orders until you retire at age 65.

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh. After all, children are not really taught how to think for themselves at school. They are "taught" the right answers which should be regurgitated during examination periods.

One movie I highly recommend, if you are serious about success, is The Great Debaters, starring Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah.

The acting is superb, and the main message I got is, "Learn how to think and how to argue. Be ruthless in your reasoning and you will succeed."

Most people's thinking is quite vague, and this is why they do not succeed. I have friends who are CEOs of small companies and large companies, and I can tell you that their reasoning is quite ruthless.

To achieve financial freedom, you've got to prepare your arguments, and then be willing to share them in a (friendly) debate with an opponent whose sole mission is to DESTROY all your arguments.

A few months ago, I was invited to sit on a panel of investors and entrepreneurs in order to evaluate the business plan of men and women who had just completed 12 weeks of intensive entrepreneurial training.

About 1 person out of 20 did a rational presentation. The other 19 were so vague and so unfocused in the presentation of their business project that I felt they would do better as employees in the corporate world.

It seems strange to me that most people have not yet realized that the only thing they need to become wealthy, is that little round thing that sits on their shoulders!

So few people use their brains. In fact, children and young people who are at school or university, use their brains more than working adults!

Of course, they are engaged in superficial learning because there is no context in which they can apply, verify and thus integrate their learning into a permanent and habitual way of thinking. But at least, there is much activity in their brains.

Deep learning, as opposed to superficial learning, means "reflection in action." It means you are doing things, and are at the same time reflecting on what you are doing. It means "learning in context."

In short, the following sequence seems to capture what happens to many, if not most, entrepreneurs:

Business failure --> Reasoning --> Business success

For example, I failed in business in 1995. I learned from it. And have succeeded in business ever since.

Sometimes, you don't need to fail in business in order to succeed. But you definitely need to learn how to reason. How to argue and win arguments. And the best way to do that is to share your plans and arguments and sales pitches with friends and associates, and ask them explicitly to DESTROY your argumentation.

If you have the courage the expose your thinking and reasoning to ruthless criticism from others, then you will learn and improve. And as you learn and improve, you will maximize your odds of success.

Eventually, you will be so good at reasoning that you will succeed at ANY venture you undertake.

Such is the awesome power of reason, yet most people have not yet realized this. So now, you are way ahead of most people. But only for a short time.

Update your beliefs to improve your decisions

Evidence and changing beliefs

Bayesian inference uses aspects of the scientific method, which involves collecting evidence that is meant to be consistent or inconsistent with a given hypothesis. As evidence accumulates, the degree of belief in a hypothesis ought to change. With enough evidence, it should become very high or very low. Thus, proponents of Bayesian inference say that it can be used to discriminate between conflicting hypotheses: hypotheses with very high support should be accepted as true and those with very low support should be rejected as false.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference

The above excerpt from Wikipedia seems like knowledge that would interest only math nerds, yet let me assure you that if you master Bayesian inferencing, you can make very precise and very powerful decisions that will affect, positively, your entire life.

Bayesian inference is the missing ingredient in Anthony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within, where he talks about "distinctions" that enable elite people to make elite-caliber decisions.

Bayesian inference is what rich people use to make superior business decisions. Of course, it requires a sophisticated intelligence-gathering system which will update their beliefs and, hence, their decisions.

If you want to build such a system for yourself, read George Friedman's book The Intelligence Edge. Friedman is founder and chairman of Stratfor.com, also known as the "shadow CIA" because many people in the intelligence community want Friedman's take on issues.

My point is that in life, we make decisions all the time. If you want to get rich, every decision you make must be "commercially or capitalistically optimal."

Remember, you CAN make a decision every hour. Or even every 10 minutes.

Most people are "stuck" in a lifestyle, minute by minute, that was decided a while ago -- often, several years ago.

In other words, even though new information has come to them every day, they have NOT changed their decisions. They are, in fact, not making decisions. They are living on "automatic."

A smart entrepreneur is always making decisions, is always gathering feedback on his decisions in order to improve his decision-making, and is always searching for information that will update his beliefs so he can improve his odds of success.

I know this is quite a mouthful, so let me give you a visual metaphor that illustrates how decision-making impacts wealth creation (assuming you want wealth!).

Imagine that you're in the cockpit of a plane, and your intention is to fly that plane toward a mountain called Everest. Everest represents $10,000,000.

Here are possible scenarios:

1. You see Mount Everest in front of you, but you're not heading straight toward it. So you constantly try to steer the plane so you DO head toward it.

2. You do NOT see Mount Everest in front of you, but you know it exists. You rely on someone else with a GPS system to guide you. That person might say something like "You're off course! Turn 80 degrees West."

3. When you took off from the airport, you were heading toward Mount Everest, but two hours later, for some reason, somebody started a party in that plane and you're so drunk you're no longer flying the plane (which is now flying on automatic).

Most people are stuck in Scenario #3: they might be having some fun on week-ends, but they are not heading toward Mount Everest -- or financial freedom. They're too busy working to be able to make a fortune.

From a Bayesian perspective, one could say that unlike the people in Scenarios 1 and 2, they are not gathering relevant information that would help them to steer their plane toward financial freedom.

So if you're in Scenario #3, what do you have to do to "correct your course" and head toward financial freedom?

First, you have to pull out your credit card and pay me $500 so I can properly coach you. I'm just kidding.

You have to create a dashboard that gives you relevant information so you can make better and better decisions.

For example, if you're running a business, you need a dashboard that gives you information on how many leads you generate per week, how many sales you closed per week, and how many products or services you delivered per week.

If you're currently holding a job, there's still hope, but keep in mind what Jim Rohn said: "Profits are better than wages."

I say that with a job, you make a living. With your imagination, you make a fortune.

But like I said, even with a job, you can have a dashboard which gives you information on how your market value is increasing. Your market value depends on the number of skills you have, the quality of those skills, the extent to which companies need those skills, etc.

(to be continued)

Success comes from SYSTEMS!

I wrote previously that "wealth comes from systems" but actually, success also comes from systems. Success in any of the following key areas of life:

• health
• career
• finances
• love relationships
• social life
• spirituality
• family

Remember, a system is simply something that works well automatically. The "automaticity" can be achieved through various means, like habits, social expectations, norms, etc.

Take health, for example. Studies have shown that if your friends are obese, chances are that you will be obese too. It's a system that "works well": your friends eat a lot, so you don't feel any guilt to eat a lot too.

Same with finances. If most of your friends are focused on financial freedom (e.g. they are starting their own businesses), then you are likely to launch your own business too. This is a proven fact: research has shown that if a person knows someone who is a successful entrepreneur, she is TWICE as likely to launch a business.

Why? Because she can see, in her entrepreneur friend, concrete evidence that it CAN be done, so she will willingly do it also.

If you hang around with employees who complain all the time about how bad or boring their job is, but have no intention to quit, you will be the same. You will all wallow in a sea of self-pity and not raise a finger to change the situation. This is why friends must be chosen carefully.

By the way, this is why Napoleon Hill, in his best-selling book Think and Grow Rich, recommends that people start a Mastermind Group where members, carefully chosen for their success orientation and attitude, will meet once a month and discuss their progress and success strategies. This "meeting" is a system in itself!

Even in one's love life, there IS a way to create a system that multiplies opportunities to meet members of the opposite sex. I have developed one such highly sophisticated system where I get to meet the most beautiful and gorgeous women you can imagine, but I'm not going to tell you because it's my trade secret. :-)

Just kidding, I will write about it soon.

My point is that in these 7 areas of life, a system is needed to help you to succeed. Sure, you can persevere and exert great personal effort, but hey, let's face it: we do have a brain, so we can use our brain to create systems that work for us, right?

The bottom line is that pursuing success is something to seriously think about, and here are some of the levels at which people think:

• Technology or System
• Strategy
• Ability
• Effort
• Luck

As you go down the list, the system (yours or other people's) becomes much less effective and reliable.

For instance, if you want success in your finances and you buy lottery tickets every week, well, that's LUCK (the last level).

Better to stop dreaming about winning the lottery, and start working hard (EFFORT).

But even people who work hard, don't achieve financial nirvana. They have to "graduate" to the next level and build their abilities (business, marketing, sales, finance, etc.).

The next higher level is strategies, where you can devise your own or shadow (reverse engineer) the strategies of someone who is successful.

The last level is where you totally understand, at the global and local levels, how things and people feel, work and behave, so you're able to create systems that effortlessly create wealth for yourself even while you're sleeping. This is my level. ;-)

This is what I refer to as the level of the Lazy Millionaire.

For instance, billionaires Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have both reached this level. Buffet, by totally mastering the principles and levers behind the capitalist system. Gates, by totally mastering the software game and waging a war of "standards" to establish Windows as the "default" operating system in 90% of computers.

In the case of Bill Gates, he intuitively understood and recognized a second system in November 1995, when he woke up one day and suddenly decided to orient all of Microsoft toward the Internet. The following years were some of the most profitable for Microsoft. This testifies to his genius.

But as human beings operating WITHOUT a system, Buffet and Gates would not have achieved the level of success that they did. Buffet admitted this himself.

Or look at Oprah Winfrey. Where would she be without the broadcast system that introduces her into the homes of people in 150 countries?

Or look at Frank, the CEO of Melaleuca who created a radically new marketing system for the company in 1985 where employees could become Marketing Executives and share in the profits created (read more about that fascinating story on Wikipedia).

One last comment about the five levels of system effectiveness (luck, effort, ability, strategy, system). Imagine that they refer to the following activities and you will immediately understand the power of systems:

• flying by jet
• driving by car
• riding on a bike
• running
• walking

In other words, there's a kind of "system evolution" that people go through.

Babies learn to crawl, then walk, then run. As teens, they learn how to ride a bike, then how to drive a car (God helps anyone who's on their path!).

Finally, of course, a few people reach financial mastery level and have their own corporate jet. This is the level that I wish for all subscribers of this blog!

Wealth comes from SYSTEMS!

People often say "work smart, don't work hard."

That's true, but for people who are seriously seeking success and/or financial freedom, it's important to get a little bit more technical.

What does "working smart" really mean? If someone is not working "smart," does it mean he's stupid? If he is NOT stupid, how come someone advised him to "work smart"? Does that mean he could be smart, but he's working in a stupid way?

Hmm, this is all very confusing.

Here's an elegant acronym that will save the day and clarify things for us: S.Y.S.T.E.M.

It stands for "Save Your Self Time, Energy, Money."

So what is a "system"? Essentially, it's something complex that works automatically.

Think of your digestive system. The minute you put food in your mouth, chew it and swallow it, your digestive system gets to work immediately. It knows PRECISELY what to do in order to break down the nutrients from the ingested food and convert it into energy for your body.

On the other hand, a "job" is NOT something that works automatically. It requires your attention, 9 to 5, five days a week. In a way, a job is a broken system since it requires your attention to "repair" it constantly. (Notice that your stomach rarely requires your conscious attention. You could just eat something and take a nap on a beach, and your stomach (or your digestive system, at the higher level) will work flawlessly for you.

So if a "job" is a "broken system," why are university graduates so eager to get one after graduation?

Simple answer: They need the money. To buy stuff. To spend happily. To sustain a decent social life. And, of course, to buy gifts for the girlfriend!

Once a person embarks on that path, where he/she gets used to the idea that a job is something that is needed, and that everybody's got to have one, then such a person is getting further and further from financial freedom.

Why? Because wealth comes from systems, and as we discussed earlier, a job is a "broken" system.

In short, WORK DOES NOT WORK. (Hey, this sounds really catchy, maybe I should write a book with that catchy title!).

Larry King (CNN): So, Peter, you recently came out with this provocative book titled "Work does not work!" That's a pretty controversial statement and, some critics have argued, a little irresponsible. Can you explain your theory?

Peter: Well, thanks for having me. What I mean is, have you ever known an employee who worked for a salary and got rich? It's impossible. His salary is part of a company's expenses, and so it must remain fixed. Meanwhile, the company's revenues are increasing. The growing difference between the two is called the "profit rate." That is why the rich get richer and the poor (or the salaried folks) get poorer.

Larry King: So "work does not work" because..?

Peter: Because it does not enrich workers.

Larry King: But workers are not taking risks. The business owners are the ones taking risks. So it's normal that they reap greater rewards.

Peter: It's true that business owners are taking risks with their financial capital, which they use to invest in buying equipment, assets and capital in order to create value and generate a satisfactory return on their invested financial capital. BUT... employees are the ones who are investing their human capital. Human capital -- especially talent -- is becoming more and more important than financial capital.

Larry King: Okay, I get what you're saying, but what choice do employees have? The employment system is structured in a way that gives power to business owners or shareholders because legally, they own the means of production without which value cannot be created.

Peter: Employees, especially the talented and experienced ones, can create systems that replace the employer, and so they can set up a business by themselves.

Larry King: What do you mean by "system"?

Peter: Well, as I wrote a few paragraphs earlier, a system is something that works automatically. Youtube is an example, so is Ning, the Internet company that allows people to create their own social networks online. AsSense, by Google, is another example.

Larry King: Ok, we'll take a commercial break and then we'll continue this interview with Peter Nguyen, best-selling author of Work Does Not Work, a highly controversial book that is sparking heated debate and discussions in boardrooms and classrooms throughout the nation.

---

I hope that flight of fancy was as good for you as it was for me! :-)

I will write more about wealth creation systems.

Systematic Wealth newsletter

My friends, you are looking (above) at the prototype of a millionaire instrument! Indeed, newsletter publishing is one of the ten most common millionaire occupations!

You can subscribe for FREE by sending me an email at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com with "Systematic Wealth subscription please" in the subject heading. No need to write anything else. This offer is valid ONLY for subscribers of this blog.

To your fabulous success!

Create a bigger goal to have a bigger life!

Anthony Robbins wrote that most people don't have a motivation problem. It's just that their goals are not big enough to motivate them.

I totally agree. The size of your goal or vision, will instantly expand your mind as well as boost your motivation.

The big secret that so few people know, is that you will achieve your goal, whether it's a big one or a small one.

For example, if you have a big goal, then your subconscious mind will summon great ideas and great energies that will allow you to achieve it.

If you have a small goal, then your subconscious mind will summon small ideas and small energies so you can achieve it.

Wouldn't it be crazy and tragic, at the end of your life, when you die and go to meet God and He says: "You could have had ANYTHING you wanted on Earth. Why didn't you have bigger goals?"

And it's not like we don't have examples to follow. Just look at Donald Trump or Richard Branson. These guys think BIG. And they achieve BIG. And they don't look like they're more stressed than other people.

And what about Martha Stewart or Oprah. These ladies think BIG. And they seem to have a fabulous time.

For me, big goals work as emotional energizers. Whenever I have big goals, I feel a tremendous surge of energy and creativity, as if a mysterious but benevolent spirit had just entered my mind and body!

Look at the business cards above. They capture part of my vision for Talentelle. I can't help but feel incredibly good when I look at them.

The success secret is really to think as big as you can. Because you really can have everything you want in this life.

Opportunity for you: resellable business ebooks

I'm currently in the process of writing several business ebooks that I plan to sell WITH reseller rights.

This means, for example, that if you buy one of my ebooks for $50, you get the ebook but also the right to resell it as is and pocket ALL the profits.

For example, if you resell my ebook to 100 people for $30 (which is great because there's a $20 discount from the original price), then you make $3,000. And you get to keep ALL of that money.

If you are interested, please write to me at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com with "Request info on resellable biz ebooks" in the subject heading. No need to write anything. Thanks.

The Lazy Millionaire doctrine, part 2

I wrote previously in a post titled "The Lazy Millionaire doctrine" that "99% of mankind is misled intellectually. We have been conditioned to think that hard work leads to wealth and financial freedom."

I was, of course, referring to physical work -- the kind that most people are engaged in.

But work is rarely 100% physical or 100% mental. It's usually a mixture of the two. A salesperson who is always on the road because he has to meet clients, obviously is involved in physical work. However, his work is also mental and even emotional since he has to prepare for the sales call, plan his activities, etc.

If your work is more mental than physical, then you most likely have a very good job, because mental work usually does not wear the body down. You will feel less tired at the end of the day.

It's even better if your knowledge work is creative, like that of graphic designers, writers, consultants, etc.

What does this have to do with the Lazy Millionaire doctrine?

Well, this doctrine says that one of the ideal paths to wealth is to use your imagination, emotion and intellect to create a knowledge product, and then let the Internet do the marketing of that product for you. Result? You serve, even as you sleep, millions of people who, of course, pay you for it.

To be accurate, it is not YOU who are serving people but your knowledge products (which, of course, evolve all the time since you keep refining it all the time).

In other words, the Lazy Millionaire doctrine says, "Use your mind to create Web-distributable value, do NOT use your body."

Of course, your body is always involved in the creation of value. For instance, you could be walking on a beach or jogging since during those activities, you might feel inspired to have ideas for new knowledge products.

However, your body will not feel the stress of having to show up at the office and work within a stringent corporate setting that does not give you the freedom to create.

All this sounds fabulous, except for one important principle: The physically lazy millionaire must be intellectually active.

In other words, if your goal is financial freedom, you will have to learn how to use your mind skillfully and imaginatively.

This is not easy, since the educational system has not really taught us how to think. It has only "forced" us to memorize answers to regurgitate during exam time. In the case of fields like science or engineering, universities only "force" students to memorize standardized problem-solving methodologies. There is no creative activity involved in most schools and most curriculums.

As a result, we graduate from university with a nice diploma, but we still don't know how to create value by using our (now educated) minds.

Since we cannot create new value, we are "forced" to work for employers who have the means of production which, coupled with skilled labor, can create value.

As I mentioned in the first part of this post, "wealth will NOT come to you through anything you DO, but through what you THINK. And HOW you think."

The good news is that creativity is not difficult. Once you start voicing new ideas and -- this is REALLY IMPORTANT -- jotting them down on paper, preferably in a notepad, then the ideas will keep coming at a rate that will surprise you!

This is because ideas or inspiration come from your subconscious, which is a very, very powerful supercomputer. But this supercomputer which generates tons and tons of ideas, will only work for you IF you clearly signal to it that you are READY to receive new ideas.

Some people say that this powerful, cosmic supercomputer is God or the Universe or All That Is. Regardless of what you believe and the specific name you give to it, this supercomputer does work and has served people such as Wayne Dyer and Brian Tracy.

This is why I talk so much about the Lazy Millionaire: it's someone who understands that physical work is NOT the way to wealth, nor is it a sensible way to spend one's life.

The best and most enjoyable way to wealth is to just relax, open your mind and signal to your subconscious that you are READY to receive all the money-making idea and all the wealth creation ideas that are "out there."

Please understand that I'm not speaking as an academic researcher, but as a practical entrepreneur who has used this method for years!

Most of the time, I have NO IDEA where or how ideas come to me. But they do. Several flashes of insight suddenly appeared in my mind for no reason at all.

But don't take my word for it. Try it. You'll see for yourself.

Maintain your strategic focus with one word

I wrote previously that there are 7 key areas in life where a person can strive to become successful. Here they are again, along with a word that represents the success secret in that area:

• Finance: To be revealed soon
• Health: Choose
• Spirituality: Seek
• Love relationships: Share
• Social life: Support
• Family: Serve
• Career: Create

Why use one word to capture the success principle or strategy in those areas?

Well, because success in anything depends on 1. clarity, and 2. execution.

Clarity refers to your objective or goal or what you're aiming for. Execution refers to doing the right things in the right way to accomplish your goal.

Take the career arena, for instance. From my perspective, if you're not creating something every day that you're proud of, then you don't have a career. Having a job, even if you've held it for 10 years, does not constitute a career.

A career is about building a body of knowledge, skills and tangible objects or projects that you are proud of.

So it makes sense to use the word "create" to summarize, in one word, the essence of one's strategic focus in order to succeed in the career arena.

Of course, you can choose a different word, one that resonates with you. For example, a person can use the word "shine" to remind herself of the strategic focus she must maintain in order to succeed in her career as a, say, actress.

Same thing with the Social Life arena. If you want to have lots of friends, then be a SUPPORTIVE person. Encourage others. Guide them or motivate them or give them resources so they can achieve their goals.

I will write more about the other areas.

Post #800 - Super secret about reality manifestation!

This is post #800, so I decided to make an extra effort to give you a success secret that, if applied properly, can transform your life!

In the diagram above, you can see a man (purple) and a woman (yellow). They both experience the same negative situation, represented by a red square surrounding them.

Because they experience this negative present reality, their thinking (represented by the dotted line square) is shaped by their circumstances. This negative present reality could be: loneliness, poverty, stress, divorce, family conflicts, etc.

However, the woman (yellow) is trained by a Law of Attraction teacher and, through much practice, has been able to shift her red thinking (which is reactive thinking, that is, a mindless reflex generated by her life circumstances) outside of her predominant thinking and feeling. Instead, she consciously focused on mentally imagining and viscerally basking in a positive future situation, represented by the dotted blue line circle.

The man (purple) has also tried to apply the Law of Attraction, however, he mentally clings to his reactive thinking, so as a result, he predominantly maintains a mental expectation of getting more of the same negative situation he is currently experiencing. There is, however, a bit of hope since he does think, sometimes, about a positive future (represented by the dotted blue line circle).

So what happens is that when the future comes, the woman will find herself in a blue circle which represents a positive situation, one which she consciously created, while the man will find himself in a predominantly negative situation which resembles the past.

The woman will not only feel good, but she will understand something critically important in life: that she is able, through mental focus and power, to create her own life experience! She understands that reality, as she experiences it, is servant to her superior willpower.

The man, for his part, will look at her results and although he might not acknowledge it, he will nevertheless silently notice that she is doing something unusual that seems to work. He may or may not seek to understand what she is doing. The amount of time it will take him to figure out her "secret power" will depend on the amount of resistance he brings to the process of self-evolution that is the birthright of all human beings. This resistance is often born of ego and pride, and thus cannot be removed easily.

And so, here you have a powerful secret explained via a visual diagram. This secret is not understood by most people, although more and more people are growing aware of it in these times of global and accelerated change.

The key is to always remember that you do NOT have to face reality, if the reality you are living in does not please you. Just turn away from it and imagine a better future for yourself. Imagine it vividly, in all its glorious little details. And that future WILL come to you.

This may sound crazy, and many people will object, saying that one should be "realistic." You only have to look at the results obtained by "realistic" people and you will know right away whether their "method" works or not.

The people who succeed are those who are strong enough to create a mental reality that is different from their negative or unwanted physical reality. They allow their mind to transcend their physical circumstances and in doing so, they are able to create an ideal life experience for themselves.

If you wish to read more about this powerful Law of Attraction technology, read the three books written by Esther Hicks. James Allen's As a Man Thinketh is also excellent.

7 areas where you can achieve success

I wrote previously that there are 7 key areas in life where success is worth pursuing. I've listed them below, along with a key word to stimulate your thinking as to what is required to succeed in that sphere of human existence:

Finance: I can't reveal the word here because it's the ultimate success secret
Health: Choose
Spirituality: Seek
Love relationships: Share
Social life: Support
Family: Serve
Career: Create

Try to think about what each word means, in each area of life.

I selected each of these 7 words to represent the "success secret" in those areas, but those words obviously come from my own experience and knowledge. Your words might be different.

My intention is only to challenge you to come up with ONE word, in each area, so that all your efforts can be aligned (within one area) and work synergistically toward the full expression of that word or success secret.

More on the ultimate success secret...

Nobody so far has figured out the one word that summarizes the ultimate success secret for achieving financial wealth. So please feel free to keep trying! :-)

Any person who comes up with the right answer, will receive for FREE my $50 ebook on the BMW workshop which I teach in entrepreneurship schools and charge $500 for.

Another hint: There seems to be, in our culture, a negative perception regarding this success secret. But soon, people will abandon culturally based notions that have little to do with reality. As a result, more and more people will achieve financial freedom and will do so more easily, especially with the opening up of "worldwide" markets via the Internet.

Thomas Friedman, in his best-seller The World is Flat, talks about how the Internet is allowing three billions people (mostly from India, China, the Russian Federation, etc.) to join the global workforce and compete for jobs that traditionally were "protected" in North America.

As a result, many people fear for their jobs. And they have reason to fear: an engineer paid a yearly salary of $100,000, could easily see his job being outsourced to an Indian engineer paid only $20,000.

Even if the North American engineer was able to keep his job, his and his employer's awareness of the "Indian option" would dramatically diminish his bargaining power vis-a-vis the employing organization. As a result, as an employee, he will do whatever his employer asks -- thus, he will feel more and more stress at work. This is not a good situation.

What is important to understand is that a job is simply the result of the failure to understand the ultimate success principle I'm talking about.

In short, if you have the right education and the right skills, you normally would go out there and get a job.

However, if you know, appreciate and master the ultimate success principle, you do NOT go out there to get a job -- rather, you go out there to receive the money! And over time, more and more money will flow to you.

This is precisely why I created this little game where I challenge you, dear reader, to think hard about this mysterious success secret. This secret is truly a pearl that will change your life, yet it has no power unless a person WANTS to know what it is.

As a guide, I offer valuable knowledge, but people will only integrate this knowledge into a permanent knowingness (or dynamic awareness) if they seek it and want to know it.

In other words, knowledge is like food. I can't force someone to eat something if he's not hungry. Similarly, I could have just revealed to you the ultimate success secret, but your mind would have reacted indifferently. Your mind would say, "Hmm, interesting idea you got there, Peter." Then, five minutes later, you would resume whatever you were doing prior to reading the email containing that ultimate success secret. And in that very instant of turning AWAY from the ultimate success secret, you would have lost millions of dollars without knowing!

So my little contest was designed to create a certain tension in your mind, also known as "suspense." This tension will ensure that when you finally KNOW what the ultimate success secret is, you will NOT forget it.

Of course, knowing the secret doesn't mean you will become rich. There's also the implementation or execution or practice part.

But don't worry, I have another contest for that too!

More about the ultimate success secret!

"Networking" has been submitted twice, along with "passion, emotion, desire, acceptance."

Certainly, desire, passion and networking are important and necessary for success, but not sufficient.

Children have a lot of desire and passion, yet we don't see rich children.

Regarding networking, there are people who have over 500 connections on Linkedin who are still employees, that is, working for someone else. If they were financially independent, they would have their own business or live off their financial returns.

You see, the ultimate success secret has to do with a principle that is very, very broad, yet it can be implemented in very, very specific ways to enrich you.

As I mentioned earlier, it can cover a broad spectrum with abstract ideas and concepts at one end and specific mechanisms, processes, techniques and tools on the other end.

The ultimate success secret is not easy to masterfully understand nor is it easy to masterfully apply it.

But as with everything else, perfection comes with practice. Once you know what the ultimate success secret is, life itself will become a perpetual, non-stop seminar where you pick up more and more distinctions and knowledge which will allow you to increase your mastery of this success secret.

By the way, at the end of this month, I'll be presenting my BMW workshop (http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com) in a hotel to about 200 people who belong to a Chamber of Commerce in Montreal. I'll ask them the same question I asked you: What is the one word that summarizes the ultimate success secret so that one can become financially wealthy? I'll keep you posted on their answers.

Please keep trying again. Think really hard, it will really pay off! Ask your friends, relatives and coworkers. If there is one person in your network who knows the correct answer, I would recommend that you hang around with that person because there's a lot to be learned from people who know!

This blog itself, which I began writing more than two years ago, is one illustration of the ultimate success secret, but in a small, quiet way.

One last thing: have you ever seen those Ultimate Fighting Championships, where fighters from many martial arts get together to kill one another? Well, not kill exactly, but they fight savagely until one is completely knocked out or taps the floor to capitulate.

The ultimate success secret is a bit savage and raw like that; it's really all out. No holds barred. If you want financial success, you've got to do what you've got to do. No excuses. Only results. And those results must keep improving.

In the end, it might be true that some people are born to suffer in poverty or to struggle financially, because often, it is through adversity that we find hidden forces within and learn to evolve emotionally and spiritually.

But for the majority of people, and this probably includes you, money is a good thing, right?

As Woody Allen once said, "Wealth is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."

So if wealth is the key to financial success (and there are six other areas where success can be achieved, such as career, family, love, social life, health and spirituality), then it makes sense to know the ultimate secret leading to wealth!

If you ask your friends and they don't know, then trust me, you will have stimulated their thinking and they will bug you until you tell them the ultimate success secret (which I'll only reveal to the people who have answered the question since I assume the others don't want to know).

Once your friends also know the secret, you can then bounce ideas off one another and make fast progress so that you end up enriching one another.

The ultimate success secret?

Kudos to the brave subscribers who ventured an answer to my question about the single word that captures the ULTIMATE SUCCESS SECRET.

I wish to add a clarification. I mean "success" in the financial sense, and not success in the following areas of life:

Health
Spirituality
Love relationships
Social life
Family
Career

Each of these 7 areas of life have their own "logic" and require a different skill set, so to speak. Of course, certain skills or qualities can help a person to succeed in several areas.

For example, if you're a very honest person and you seek out the truth even if you know it will disturb you or make you uncomfortable, then you are likely to succeed in many areas, including Career, Family, Love, etc.

I encourage all subscribers to send me (at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com) the one word that they think summarizes the ultimate success secret. If you are correct, you will feel really good about yourself and begin to develop ways to implement that success secret to enrich yourself.

If you are incorrect (and don't worry, most people do not know it), then you can learn it and think about it and try to implement it in your own life.

I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of Linkedin users (there are about 21 million of them) do NOT know this success secret.

Yet, they are fairly smart and could be considered high-income earners (average age is 39 and average household income is US$140,000).

The great thing about this success secret is that once you know it, you can use it to structure your habits, way of operating, lifestyle, speech, thinking, planning, etc. to make sure that you apply it properly. The result -- INVARIABLY -- is more wealth in your life.

The ultimate success secret, Part 2

Many people are rightly intrigued by my previous post about "the ultimate success secret" which can be summarized in one word. Here are the words suggested by a few subscribers: perspiration, happiness, financial education, smiling, creativity.

They are part of the ultimate success secret, but they do not point precisely to the ultimate financial success principle or activity.

This secret can be manifested at different levels, which is why it can be a principle, a concept, an idea, a process, an activity, a mechanism, even an outcome.

This is why I wrote that "financial success comes when you master this one principle, and illustrate it in as many ways as possible in all the facets of your human experience." In other words, this success secret is also a theme that must permeate all of your mind so that you think about it as often as possible.

Hints:

- George Bush senior could not master this skill or activity, so he lost to Bill Clinton by a highly embarrassing margin.

- Donald Trump masters this principle or skill

- So does Dr Phil, but in a different way

- This principle or success secret lies at the heart of movie The Secret

Big hint: This is the one skill that MULTIPLIES the outcome produced by your other skills. It's what they call the wealth-multiplier skill!

I will reveal the secret in a few days, so please send me what you think is the ultimate success secret; it's a great way to test yourself!

The secret of success in ONE word!

In my search for the ULTIMATE success secret which will benefit the lives of fellow mortals, I have come up with this single word which TRULY captures the one principle that unleashes success on planet Earth.

But before I reveal it to you, try to divine what this word is. Send to me the word which you think illustrates the ONE principle for success on Earth. Email me at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com with the word in the subject heading, no need to write anything. I will reply to you with the one principle that will unleash your success on this planet.

This word reveals the one activity that will enrich you, and the extent to which you engage in this skillful activity will show you how much you will earn in this lifetime. If you don't do this activity, you will remain poor. Nothing wrong with being poor, because there are certain lessons to be learned when one has to struggle with financial issues. But ultimately, most human beings prefer to be rich.

However, you CANNOT become rich without this ONE activity.

This one word is so powerful that I could write 10 books on it. Or any other author could write a couple of books on it, and indeed, many have!

Because this one word or principle is so critical to success, I don't reveal it here because it would be too easy for you and you would forget it five minutes later. This is why I ask that those who are interested in wealth, write to me with what they think is the one word that unleashes success.

Many people know this word or principle or activity, but they psychologically resist the idea; as a result, they remain poor.

Financial success comes when you master this one principle, and illustrate it in as many ways as possible in all the facets of your human experience. Once you do this, wealth will flow to you faster than you can imagine right now.

So if you are interested in financial freedom, please trust me and don't waste time. Send me an email at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com with the one word you think will unleash success. I will correct you if need be, or validate your proposition. I can also help you to implement this one principle in all facets of your life so that you can become RICHER than you can possibly imagine.

To have more, aim for more!

In a previous post titled "Prove yourself wrong and you're heading toward great wealth," I argued that "most people (including myself) tend to think that we are right. Very few of us ever go to any great lengths to demolish or disprove our own reasoning. This is why most people never get rich."

Here are a few statements which capture the same idea:

"Aim for more if you want to have more."

"Whatever you are looking for, is looking for you."

"Whatever you are ready for, is ready for you."

Einstein once said that we only use 5% of our intellectual capacity. (If professor Einstein used 5% of his intelligence, that means I'm probably using only 0.00001% of mine!).

In other words, here's the distinction I would add to my previous post about striving to prove yourself wrong. Try to to think BIGGER than you previously thought.

Indeed, the size of your thinking will expand the realm of possibilities and the number of opportunities that you notice in your life.

The best book by far about "thinking big" is The Magic of Thinking Big, by David Schwartz, published in 1959. This book is definitely among my top 10 best books for personal development.

If, like many normal people, you tend to think "cautiously" and are not really comfortable with "big thinking," then may I suggest this thought experiment: Imagine that after a long life, you pass away (peacefully and surrounded by family and friends). You go to Heaven and God asks you, "So? How was your vacation? Did you get EVERYTHING you wanted?"

Like the majority of people, you might answer something like: "Er, well, I got a few things, yes, and I had a moderate amount of success..."

God: "What?! But we agreed prior to your going into physical existence that you could have EVERYTHING you wanted! You even asked me to sign a contract whereby I would release to you EVERYTHING you wanted, if you asked for it. Don't you remember that I thought you were so courageous for being willing to venture forth on planet Earth in order to evolve spiritually that I agreed to give you EVERYTHING you asked for? So why did you settle for a "moderate" amount of success?"

You: "My Lord, once I got to planet Earth, I kinda forgot about that agreement. I forgot that I could have EVERYTHING I wanted... So I did like other folks around me, I asked for a "moderate" amount of success..."

God: "But that's why Peter was sent on Earth and a scenario was developed so he would cross your path. Peter's job was to remind people that they could have EVERYTHING they wanted. Didn't you subscribe to Peter's highly popular blog titled "Real-Time Success Secrets"? In his usual irrepressible drive to do a perfect job, Peter even created the knowledge portal PowerKnowledge.net and explicitly used the slogan "Live a life without limits."

Of course, I'm being facetious about this because humor is often a great pathway to understanding, but you get my point: You can be, do or have anything you want, but you first have to decide to BE the kind of person who wants to do and have everything.

You have to remove all the limits that you've imposed on yourself, on your thinking, on your imagination, on your creativity, on your capacity to create value and to earn money, etc.

This is probably what Einstein meant when he said that imagination is more important than intelligence.

An "intelligent" person knows what he knows, while an "imaginative" persons knows when he's not supposed to know. In other words, he opens up his mind to receive insights from the Universe.

Unlike the intelligent person, he doesn't have to think much; he just "allows" cosmic intelligence to "pour" into his mind!

Some people call it "infused knowledge," that is, knowledge that suddenly and mysteriously appears in a person's mind without that person knowing HOW or WHY it got there!

It does take some spiritual training to get to that point where you just tap into some Universal Consciousness in order to receive powerful insights, some of which could make you a millionaire or allow you to create a fabulous invention or enable you to seduce beautiful women. Just kidding.

So when I say "aim for more," ultimately I mean "expand the size of your thinking, because ultimately your life is as big as your mind." A small mind will have a small life, but a big and expanding mind will have a big and expanding life.

The secret to becoming a millionaire

If you're pursuing financial freedom, then it means you are considering the *possibility* that you might become a millionaire. Yes, in this lifetime.

Not many people have the courage to hold such a thought. After all, you might be wondering, “Who am I to be so preposterous as to consider myself ‘millionaire material’?”

Most of you might not even earn a six-figure salary right now. So why would I suggest that you are “millionaire material” and could be making a seven-figure income?

First of all, I totally understand if you have doubts about your ability to become a millionaire.

Indeed, how can you be confident about something if you've never done it?

I remember my first business deal of $10,000 years ago. I was still a "virgin" and a bit nervous with the client. He invited me for lunch and I was hectically thinking, in my little head, "How can I close this deal?!"

Suddenly, he reached into his leather suitcase and pulled out the 3-page proposal I had sent him a few days before. He then quickly read the proposal, asked me a question (which I don't remember), and then signed the contract.

Needless to say, I had a wonderful afternoon. In fact, I took the afternoon off and went to see the Star Wars movie, Attack of the Clones, which had just come out.

I mentioned the word "virgin" before, and my point is that often, we've got to accept that we don't know how things will work yet at the same time, we have to trust that the universe functions perfectly, assuming that all the conditions are right. (This principle is called Conditionality, and I will write more about it later).

I basically created all the right conditions for this deal to happen, and so I made $10,000 in about 4 hours.

But prior to creating those conditions, I had to BELIEVE that I was capable to close such a deal.

The secret is this: You’ve got to get used to the idea of your being the ideal person you want to be.

Many motivational authors and speakers exhort people to “believe in themselves” and that is certainly a good exhortation.

But the key is to proceed incrementally so that you get comfortable with your new beliefs one step at a time. In other words, get more and more familiar with thoughts of you being the ideal person you want to be. This is much easier than to “suddenly” believe that you are a millionaire.

It’s like the old riddle, “How do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time.”

In other words, I’m NOT asking you to “believe” in the extraordinary thought of your being a millionaire. For most people, such a belief is impossible.

I’m just asking you to think about yourself like as if you were a millionaire, and to think about it a little bit every day. Get used to the idea of your being immensely rich.

Here's what will happen to you: your mind, now that it is greatly expanded by your new identity as a millionaire, will begin to notice details and information and opportunities that you did NOT notice before.

You will also begin to take your ideas seriously and start writing them down. You will think about your ideas and play with them in your mind. You will develop them on paper.

Someone will enter your life and help or guide you in further developing your idea(s).

And before you know it, you are actually contemplating the possibility of your creating a product that is worth $10 or $20.

Since you have a millionaire mindset, you naturally think about offering your product to (at least) a million people, so that's 1,000,000 X $20, or $20,000,000.

This quick mental sales projection now makes you FEEL like a real millionaire (whereas before, you only THOUGHT of yourself as a millionaire).

As you begin to FEEL more like a millionaire, all your previous fears and (self-)doubts begin to melt away and fade out of your life forever. You begin to feel invincible, as if you could do anything and nobody could stop you.

You begin to feel like a true leader, and you propose deals to people in such a self-confident manner that even your mother doesn't recognize you anymore. "You, over there, yes you! Would you like to make $200,000 a year? Then join my global sales team!" You are surprised, just a little bit, at how you can hypnotically persuade people through sheer self-confidence and supreme self-mastery.

You don't even have to recruit sales or business associates. They feel your power, and they want some of it. So they keep chasing you until you finally accept them on your team.

Anyways, I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. A destiny starts with a single thought.

Do you DARE to think of yourself as a millionaire? if you do, you will soon be able to create a product worth about $10 or $20, and you will easily imagine yourself (or your sales army) distributing your products door to door or email to email, and from that point on, you're on Easy Street.

What's your life theme?

I was reading the biography of well-known psychic and spiritual advisor Sylvia Browne, titled Adventures of a Psychic, and was completely fascinated by her story.

There's a practical chapter where she describes 45 life themes that seem to characterize people's lives.

According to her, prior to being born, we sat down and "planned" a detailed life experience (which I call a "karmic curriculum"!) through which we would learn, understand and evolve spiritually. Life, then, is a sort of school for the soul.

Apparently, we even chose every person in our lives, from our parents to our siblings, best friends, "enemies," and lovers.

I find this a little hard to believe, because if I could choose who would be in my romantic life, Kirsten Dunst would be my wife by now. But anyways! :-)

Her themes are quite accurate in describing what people's lives are all about.

Here are some themes:

Catalyst: people with this life theme tend to make things happen. Without them, nothing much would them. I thought of my sister Zoonie right away! Everywhere she goes, things begin to happen. Her energy is like a spark that ignites people's motivation and desire to do new stuff.

Intellectuality: people with this theme are "professional students." They love knowledge and they are reading and learning all the time. Sounds like the guy I see in the mirror when I shave! Often, people with this theme are "loners" so they sometimes need other people to help them bring their knowledge to the world. Without other people to extract them from their solitary study, their knowledge (acquired painfully and through much effort) would not serve a need in the world. Wow, I thought, Mrs Browne is really describing my biography!

There's actually a life theme called "Loser." I thought it was a typo and that she meant "Lover" (as in Casanova). But it was not a typo.

For some reason, these people chose this kind of life before they were born, in order to learn something. Often, they incarnate with this life theme to help someone else to express THEIR life theme (as helper or teacher, etc.).

Infallability: This is an interesting theme, it's about people who are born with every advantage imaginable: handsome, rich, surrounded by family, friends, etc. However, even these people have a challenge to overcome in life, for we are all born to evolve spiritually.

This book is amazing for parents, because parents often can discern a theme in their child's life.

But even if you are not a parent, going through the 45 themes can help you to identify at least one theme that seems to characterize your life so far, or your dominant personality.

Once you understand what you were meant to experience on Earth, the heightened clarity of mind will simplify your life and enable you to achieve joy more easily.

Anyways, that's what I think, and remember: my life theme is "intellectuality," meaning I'm gifted with knowledge! :-)

Be your own creator in order to be your own boss

I came across a few words of wisdom on a blog, so I thought I'd share them with you.

---

Certainly making oneself more employable is a great strategy, but it's only one strategy. Creating value is the key; and those who educate themselves on how to run a business (for example) have the freedom to create value on their own scale. Now, it's the market who decides the value you create, and you're compensated justly every time (I see a LOT of blog posts concerning "fairness" of salary, etc. Fairness is based upon what parties agree upon).

Prosperity implies creation of value. Creation implies original thought; whether applied to a job or one's own 'thang'. Either way, it would be a great challenge and exercise to discover one's own path of creativity instead of only seeking one's greatest advantage within someone else's creative infrastructure.

Source: http://www.appliedprosperity.com/

7 areas where you can have success in life 0:06

I don't know about you, but I want EVERYTHING from life! So here's my little acronym to remind myself of the important areas of life where "success" is worth pursuing: F.L.A.S.H.X.S.

Think of X.S. as "excess," so FLASHXS reminds me that success in every area requires "light" or knowledge. Knowledge is the power that will illuminate my path in each of the following 7 areas:

FAMILY
LOVE RELATIONSHIPS
ABUNDANCE (or FINANCES)
SOCIAL LIFE
HEALTH
XPLORATION (or CAREER)
SPIRITUALITY

The great secret for living a successful, fulfiling, amazing, exhilarating life is to balance the 7 areas above.

If you evaluate your life based on those 7 dimensions, you'll most likely see areas where you did well, and areas where you could use some guidance in order to evolve.

It's the same with your friends or members of your family.

The great thing is that you can partner with people who are doing well in areas where you could use help, and who are doing not so well in areas where you are doing great. This results in a win-win partnership.

Try not to partner with people who have the same difficulties you're having, because what would be the point? It would be like the blind leading the blind!

I will write more on this. For now, I need some sleep (am working on my Health!). :-)

FREE strategic reminder service

This is amazing! Memotome.com offers a free service you can use to remind yourself of your goals.

You can program it to remind yourself on a daily or weekly basis.

Success truly depends on having clear and written goals, and on being REMINDED of such goals as often as possible.

Wealth secrets from Abraham Hicks

There are many, many, many wealth secrets revealed in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GoVSbTphuY&NR=1

Apply the principles in your own life, and you will be amazed at the results!

Keep in mind that the path to wealth is always the path of least resistance.

How a young graduate could make $100 per hour

I wrote previously that "to achieve financial FREEdom, focus on giving away valuable stuff for FREE to as many people as possible."

Here's an example that would work even for a young person who's 23 years old. Let's call her Jennifer.

Suppose Jennifer received from a consulting firm a highly valuable report written for HR directors at large corporations. This could be a special report on "How to attract and retain talents in the New Economy" or it could be "How to maximize a company's Employee Value Proposition so as to attract and retain talented professionals."

All she would have to do is email, every day, an invitation to hundreds of companies listed on Monster.com in order to get them to register and download the FREE report.

Why Monster.com? Obviously, a company that advertises a job vacancy on that site has LOST an employee and wants to replace that employee as soon as possible. This means the company could benefit from a report about how to attract and especially retain talented employees.

Out of 500 invitations every week, it's reasonable to predict that 50 HR directors will register in order to instantly download the FREE report. They have nothing to lose, and they're not committing to anything.

So Jennifer gets 50 marketing "options" per week, which means 2,500 options per year.

She could sell those options (also called "leads") to the consulting firm that gave her the free report as well as the permission to set up an email campaign targeting employers on Monster.com.

For instance, she could sell each option for $10, which means revenues for her of $500 per week.

Assuming that it takes her 5 hours to email an invitation to 500 employers, then it means she's making $100 per hour.

So what's happening here?

Jennifer got the report for free from the consulting firm, and she's giving it away for free to employers. Yet, she's making $500 per week!

Can you begin to see how the Internet can work magically for you to create income even when you have no product to sell and you're working from home?

No wonder futurist James Canton predicts that there will be one billion millionaires by 2025.

The Internet is truly a millionaire-making tool, assuming you understand basic business principles.

In this case, three "entities" got together to create value:

1. The consulting firm doesn't have time to run email marketing campaigns
2. Jennifer, a new graduate, doesn't have professional experience nor a product to sell
3. The thousands of employers on Monster don't have the knowledge to reduce employee turnover (which can be very costly)

The three get together and boom!, Jennifer's got a part-time business to run to pay for her designer shoes and fashion accessories because, of course, a young lady's got to look fabulous in society.

The ultimate wealth-creation insight! 0:11

If financial freedom is your goal, here's a POWERFUL insight to keep in mind. It just occurred to me a few minutes ago, so you guys are -- as usual! -- the first hundreds of lucky people to know about it.

In fact, this POWERFUL wealth-creation insight is SO VALUABLE that I don't know why I'm giving it away for free to you. ;-)

I'm just kidding. I appreciate your loyalty as subscribers, and I also appreciate the fact that you share this blog with all your friends and acquaintances.

Here's the insight or, dare I say it?, the ultimate wealth-creation DOCTRINE:

To achieve financial FREEdom, focus on giving away valuable stuff for FREE to as many people as possible.

A corollary is that you should focus on ways of creating value that cost you NOTHING, that is, that are FREE to you.

Example: Whateverlife.com was launched by a 17-year-old named Ashley Qualls, and she became a millionaire as a result. She even hired her mom as manager, and her best friends as "employees."

The founders of Hotmail became millionaire, through being purchased by Microsoft after they had built a user base of 30 million people within 30 months. They offered FREE email accounts to users.

The founders of Youtube became millionaires by giving to millions of people, for FREE, the ability to view and share videos.

Same with the founders of Skype, Google, Yahoo!, etc.

So how does this happen exactly? I haven't thought through this in great detail, but here's my theory: offering something valuable for FREE, enables a company to automatically multiply marketing "options."

Think of an "option" as the contact details (name, email address or phone number, and mailing address also) of each person who receives the product or service for free.

These contact details, or even the momentary and repeated attention of people, are worth money to marketers who buy them from the free-product or free-service provider (such as Hotmail, Youtube, etc.).

Even an ordinary person can set up this kind of free service. For example, a resume writer can create a website called Freeresumecritique.com and rapidly build a list of marketing options which he can then resell to another company.

I can't believe I'm giving away this valuable insight for free! So enjoy it and apply it asap to build your wealth!

Outprogramming your past self 0:11

The key to success lies in developing the capacity to mentally outprogram the past self that is no longer you.

Meditation is often very powerful in deprogramming oneself in order to become a new, better person.

That's because meditation, when done properly for 10-20 minutes per day, empties the mind of thoughts. You can actually count the number of thoughts you have per second (or TPS, for Thoughts Per Second).

As you reduce your TPS through practiced meditation, you'll be able to be FREE to create a new you, a new future, a new life.

I call it "deprogramming" and many authors refer to the same process, although they use different words. Anthony Robbins, in his book Awaken the Giant Within, for instance talks about one's life experiences, values, habitual questions and states. When you change these, you are on the path of self-transformation because they often act as hidden, yet powerful, levers and drivers of thoughts, speech and behavior.

Most people act in a certain way, or think in a certain way, because that is how they (subconsciously or consciously) programmed themselves to be.

But it is possible to deprogram oneself, or "change one's mind."

Frederick de Klerk did this, by saying yes whereas he was saying no before, and helped to end Apartheid in Africa. Gorbatchev did something similar and helped to bring down the Berlin Wall.

Do you HAVE to change your mind or deprogram yourself?

It all depends on the extent to which you are currently living the life you WANT to live. If you're not getting what you want out of life, it may be a good time to examine your mental programming (your beliefs, values, identity, habitual questions, etc.).

If you ARE living the life of your dream, maybe you should write a best-seller and become insanely rich! :-)

My point is, personal transformation requires brutal honesty. And this is hard to achieve.

But once you've decided to change and create a better life for yourself, then examining critically the content of your mind (and indeed your mental "programming" from your parents, culture, education, media, etc.) in order to keep the good ideas, thoughts, and beliefs -- and rejecting the rest -- may be the most important thing you do to ensure your wealth, success and happiness in this life.

To get rich, make 1,000 people rich 0:12

The best way to get rich is to (try to) make 1,000 people rich.

Microsoft, for instance, created 10,000 millionaires within 5 years.

Yes, I know. You're thinking, "Peter, you're talking about Bill Gates! And I'm just... me! I'm not special."

But think about this: Bill Gates was exactly in your situation until he DECIDED to create massive wealth through DOS and the deal he struck with IBM. More accurately, he was open-minded enough to imagine himself as a wealthy person.

So assuming that you're willing to open your mind and consider the POSSIBILITY that you could become immensely wealthy in this life, let's examine HOW you could achieve that by trying to make others rich.

Indeed, the thought of making 1,000 people rich will suddenly empower your imagination. That's because trying to make 1,000 people rich is 1,000 times more demanding than just trying to make YOURSELF rich. After all, you're just one person.

This kind of thinking probably crossed the mind of Dr Yunus Muhammad, the economics professor in Bangalore who invented micro-credit (and for which he received the Nobel Prize). He was teaching one day in Bangalore when the thought suddenly arose in his mind: "Why am I teaching economic theory when outside these walls, people are struggling with poverty?" So he experimented and then created micro-credit.

Notice that he did not think, "How can I use my knowledge of economics to enrich MYSELF?"

Bill Gates similarly thought about how to enrich the lives of millions of people through software applications, especially Windows. Same with Steve Jobs.

Now here's the REAL success secret which even Gates or Jobs did not know (or at least, if they did, they did not implement this secret). Jeff Bezos and the founders of Google, however, DO know this secret.

Actually, I won't tell you the secret of making massive wealth. It's just too powerful. You might not be able to handle it.

Just kidding. Here's the secret: Turn your buyers into sellers. Alternatively, turn your users into creators (or promoters).

Think about this, and how it applied to Hotmail, the company who gatherer 30 million users in 30 months. Think about how Youtube was able to get 65,000 video uploads PER DAY, and how it got 100,000,000 video views PER DAY (and was sold to Google for $1.65 billion).

My super success secret!

Recently, an awesome insight came to me regarding this blog and how it has affected my life.

More than an ordinary insight, it is actually a powerful success secret that I want to share with you. It's a concrete example of the Law of Attraction.

Here's what I mean. Over two years ago, I had the idea of writing a blog about success principles, techniques, methods, etc. I wanted all my best knowledge, culled from books, magazines, my own experience, etc. to be in one place.

I didn't know what name to give this blog, so I thought about "success secrets." Next, I added "Real-time" because I wanted to share knowledge with people as soon as I got hold of it.

So the blog name became "Real-time Success Secrets."

So far, nothing really extraordinary. It's just a name.

But here's the incredibly mysterious part that baffles me even now.

This blog's name has two key elements (the "real-time" part and the "success secrets" part) that continually focused my mind and even my life.

The "real-time" imperative drove me to immediately share with readers the information and knowledge I came across. This indeed drove me to write EVERY DAY! I had never written every day before in my entire life!

The "success secrets" imperative structured my mind so that I never just read a book. I would penetrate deeply into the author's brain and try to extract his master ideas, his secret concepts, his supreme frameworks.

Not only that, I would also constantly cross-fertilize ideas from a book with ideas from another book I had read, in order to generate new knowledge and insights.

Today, there are more than 780 posts on this blog, and I find that it gets easier and easier to write or come up with new ideas. In fact, I have dozens of notepads in which I've scribbled over 500 ideas that I want to write about on this blog.

In my Palm pilot, I have over 1,000 ideas that I jotted down and that can easily become posts on this blog.

My point is that somehow, quite mysteriously, this very blog has been an incredible focuser of my mind and has enabled me to fully leverage, albeit unconsciously at first, the powerful Law of Attraction.

Indeed, because I write every day about "success secrets," my mind is constantly and necessarily focusing on "success" and so, as a result, I have been experiencing more and more success in my life.

How can you apply this insight in your own life?

I would recommend that you create a daily activity that you like to do, and that focuses your mind on something valuable or profitable or enlightening. This will guarantee that the Law of Attraction work for you.

If writing is not your thing, perhaps you can use an MP3 recorder and record your thoughts every day. You could also draw or meditate or do anything that will enable and allow your mind to focus on what you REALLY want in life.

Any activity can serve as a "daily mental focuser."

I spend about 10-15 minutes per day writing posts for this blog, so it doesn't really take a lot of my time. What's powerful is the regularity with which I do it. This regularity or consistency creates a kind of compounding power that I can't explain, but I feel its power through the continually increasing ease and pleasure that I feel every time I write.

Success and failure are just programs you create

Here's a success secret few people know: "Success is something you program into being."

An equally unknown principle is that "failure is something others program into your life."

Let's examine success first. Why do I say that it's something you program into being?

Because success, if it is to be sustainable, must be based on a system of some kind. A system is always superior to a pattern or a behavior, and these in turn are superior to an event.

If we use a professional tennis player as a metaphor, it would look like this:

• System: the way he trains, his coach(es), his secret methodologies and technologies
• Pattern: how he plays a tournament match
• Event: he wins or loses

In other words, millions of people can see Federer or Nadal play a match, and some people can even discern patterns in their strategies as they fight it out on the court. And everybody, of course, can see who's winning or losing at any particular moment in time.

But what nobody sees is the secret system which tennis champions use to train themselves to become "winning machines."

Few people know, for example, that Andre Agassi's father reengineered a ball-shooting machine to mimic all kinds of spins so that Agassi would be able to practice hitting all kinds of balls.

My point is that success comes from a system that you create, which works for you and prepares you so that success is the natural, inevitable result.

And we all have the ability to program that sort of system. A few examples of systems: franchising, talent, habit, addiction, society, culture, peer pressure, psychology, etc.

Of course, some systems work for you while others (like bad habits, addictions, peer pressure, social conformism, etc.) work against you.

The important thing to remember is that the more systems you create which work for you, the faster and sooner you will be successful.

The Internet, in fact, is one gigantic system that most people have not yet learned how to program so that it works for them.

However, a few people have cracked the code, including the founders of Yahoo!, Hotmail, Youtube, eBay, Skype, etc. And more recently, a girl -- Gina Bianchini -- has joined the gang so she might prove very soon that girls can make a fortune from the Web too. Bianchini is the hot-looking founder of Ning, which is backed by Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape and Opsware (which he sold to HP for $1.5 billion).

This secret -- that at the heart of great success is a great system -- was in fact intuited by Archimedes centuries ago when he said: "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world."

Only two follies; fears and regrets

I think there are only two follies: fears about the future, and regrets about the past (whether these are regrets about what we did or did not do).

There is so much possibility in the present moment, and this present moment is so vast when one's consciousness is truly free of past and future.

The (spiritual) trick is to realize that this works like a vicious (or virtuous) cycle: the more one feels fear or regret, the less one is grounded in the present moment where true power lies. Therefore, the more likely one is to do things that will generate more regrets in the future.

By focusing, slowly at first, in the present moment and making decisions right here and right now, one can free oneself from past and future and "live happily ever after in the present moment."

Of course, this is easier said than done because we live in society where other people will constantly try to gain control of our minds through advertising, government propaganda, the news, even self-oriented parental influences and self-interested peer influences.

It would, in fact, be easier to "focus on the present moment" if one were to live alone on an island, protected from the attempts of other people to influence one's mind.

However, it is possible, through spiritual and psychological training, for one's mind to become impenetrable to others' influences and attempts at control.

Indeed, one can train oneself to become the spiritual equivalent of a Steven Seagal - that is, an 8th-Dad aikido master - who can gently subdue any incoming external disturbance and quiet it down into peaceful harmony.

Fears and regrets, in the end, are just disturbances that a spiritually trained person can, with relative ease, control by removing awareness from them.

Learn how to use Linkedin strategically

Below is a letter I just sent to all my 850 Linkedin connections. Feel free to subscribe to Linkedin User Manual at http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com

Dear Linkedin Friends,

May I invite you to visit Linkedin User Manual, the blogzine I’ve been religiously writing for over two years to help Linkedin users strategize and leverage their professional network advantageously and profitably. (Note: There are over 400 posts written so far.)

It’s completely FREE to subscribe so that you can receive new posts conveniently in your email box. The most valuable posts are deleted within a few days, so subscribing will ensure that you don’t miss any important information.

I currently have over 230 subscribers yet have not done any marketing to promote the blogzine.

Please feel free to ask me questions about how to use Linkedin strategically, and I will do my best to help you.

As for myself, my long-term strategy is beginning to bear fruit: I currently have 850 Linkedin connections in over 30 countries, which puts me in the best possible position to export my instructional materials worldwide.

Should you be interested in becoming an affiliate, associate or reseller, I would gladly consider your application.

To your success!

Peter Nguyen

CEO and co-founder

Talentelle.com

&

Principal and Editor in Chief

CareerKnowledge.net

PowerKnowledge.net

Prepare to win in order to win - Law of Conditionality 0:06

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFHiTQz264

At the above video clip, you'll hear Roger Hamilton mention a powerful success principle that few people know about. He says that the "role of an entrepreneur is not to create success, but to create the environment that allows success to happen."

Another way to put it is this: "Everybody wants to win, but very few people want to PREPARE to win."

Essentially, Hamilton is talking about an extremely important and POWERFUL principle governing the universe, called "Conditionality."

This principle says that success will happen when all the conditions for success have been met.

In other words, success is not something you get by doing something specific. It's not a linear cause-effect chain of events.

Same with wealth or financial freedom or the realization of your dream.

Your role is really to create, in your life, all the conditions that allow success to happen.

Prove yourself wrong and you're heading toward greath wealth

Most people don't have the reflex that both Warren Buffet and Bill Clinton have: to prove themselves wrong.

U.S. President Bill Clinton would often play this game: he would have his entire staff argue for a particular policy while he tried to demolish its merits.

Similarly, Warren Buffet (the second richest man in the world) would always try to logically demolish his own reasoning so as to prove that his decision is wrong. Of course, if he cannot demolish his rationale, then that would be proof to him that his decision is correct.

Most people (including myself) tend to think that we are right. Very few of us ever go to any great lengths to demolish or disprove our own reasoning. This is why most people never get rich.

The debate is not really between the Haves and Have nots, but the Think and Think nots. In other words, people who don't think, will never get rich.

Here's another interesting fact: if you read the extensive diaries of Ayn Rand, you'll notice one oft-repeated line that she writes repeatedly: "Think this through."

This is why her arguments and reasoning and intellect are so formidable: she's always trying to destroy her own arguments even before any other person gets a chance to hear them! No wonder Alan Greenspan (former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve) considered her his mentor.

So the success secret here is quite simple: Don't trust your own intellect or reasoning. Develop the habit of constantly trying to argue AGAINST yourself and your decisions.

Some people call it the Revolving Door technique. Here's how it works if you own a company and are running it.

Imagine that you're walking out of your business through a revolving door, but instead of stepping out into the street, you go right back into your business -- but as a new CEO.

In other words, you are NOT emotionally attached to any decisions or commitments taken previously by the other "you." You're a new CEO and you mean business.

This mindset will enable you to see clearly what is going on in your business, and to make the appropriate changes if necessary.

In other words, the Revolving Door technique gives you a pair of FRESH eyes so you can see things CLEARLY.

I used a business as an example, but it could be your career, or a romantic relationship you're in, or any other situation.

The game of politics

Someone on Linkedin asked, "Is office politics good or bad?"

Today, the Internet enables an increasing number of people to connect both online and offline, so mastering politics will become a key ingredient of success.

I'm happy to share with you my answer below.

Note: I would add that even when a person is alone in a room by himself or herself, there IS a "political struggle" or at least some political maneuvering being played out. Indeed, the future you is always playing a game of chess or poker against the present you (and sometimes, the past you). This struggle between the future you and the present you is often most apparent when a person decides to radically change her life, such as becoming an entrepreneur or engaging in a new career.

As if that was not enough, there are also various parts of you (called "agents of mind") who are struggling to gain what I call "prominence of consciousness." This happens because a person often plays different roles, such as: wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, etc. Each role is played by a different "agent of mind" with its own rules, values, memory, heuristics, etc. Each agent is trying to occupy the central spot of consciousness so that it can grow in complexity through experience.

This is very complicated although quite fascinating. I will write more about it.

---

As soon as two people gather, there is a political balance. The fact that one of the two persons, or both of them, are not aware of this, does not remove the political balance since it could be observed by a third person.

In other words, when two people get together, the game of politics begin. Even between wife and husband, parent and child, or two best friends.

This game of politics begins even before any word is exchanged.

This is so because it is impossible for two people to be at the same power level. One person will always be at a higher level; that is, the political balance will tend to favor him or her, rather than the other person.

The book The Art of Worldly Wisdom, by Baltasar Gracian, contains all the secrets of office politics (or politics in any other competitive arena). The principles he describes are simple, yet it may take a person a few years to master them.

Politics is a tool, so it is good or bad depending on how skillfully we use them. It's like a knife: nobody would give a sharp knife to a child. Similarly, politics should not be played by the novice.

Although it does take much practice to master the art of covert influence (also known as politics), the payoff can be tremendous since other political players will instantly recognize a person's skill at getting things done through skillful and oblique influence, and will seek to partner with such a person.

I know, therefore I aim

Descartes, the philosopher, famously wrote: "I think, therefore I am."

What he meant is that you can doubt all you want, but you cannot doubt that there is a doubter -- that is, you cannot doubt that you exist.

Here's my humble contribution: "I know, therefore I aim." More specifically: "I know that I am thinking, therefore I aim."

"I am" is about existence. "I aim" is about essence.

What do you want the essence of your life to be? Then AIM for THAT.

In other words, to AIM for something means to THINK about it. As Brian Tracy, the well-known motivational author and speaker often said, "What you think about, you bring about."

The important thing to remember is that every time you think about your goal or aim, you should have something written down on paper as a RESULT of your thinking.

Here's a concrete example of good thinking: Take a blank sheet of paper and write, at the top, a specific goal you would like to achieve.

Then, underneath, write 20 ideas rapidly. Do not take more than 15 minutes to do this. I call it "subconscious brainstorming," and the purpose of this exercise is to bypass your cultural-rational inhibitions so that you can access the power of your subconscious, which is like a Super Cosmic Computer which knows much, much more than you consciously know.

Let's get back to "I know, therefore I aim."

This is a breathtaking revelation that I could write a whole book about, but for now, consider this simple analogy: the personal computer or PC. It doesn't think much, yet it knows a lot.

Consider Deep Blue, IBM's supercomputer which beat the world chess champion Kasparov years ago. No matter how fast or how intuitively Kasparov is "thinking", he could not beat the computer because it "knows."

Indeed, the purpose of thinking is to get to knowing. This is why I wrote earlier that the best competition is computation. It is also why Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm pilot, equates memory with intelligence.

What does all this have to do with "success"?

Well, the more you KNOW, the more easily you will succeed. If you're working hard right now to make money, then there's something you don't know.

If you're an employee working for somebody else, then there's something you don't know about capitalism, business, entrepreneurship, innovation, marketing, selling, production, intellectual capital, procedures, quality control, systems thinking, process design and engineering, knowledge productivity, etc.

To make the transition from "employee" to "entrepreneur", you need to fill that knowledge gap (which is the difference between what you currently know and what you MUST know if you are to succeed in business). Most entrepreneurs make the common mistake of jumping into action mode without knowing much, so it's not surprising that they fail.

The knowledge gap MUST be filled before the competence gap can be filled, and before the execution gap can be filled. (The competence gap is the difference between what you are currently capable of doing/performing vs what you MUST be capable of doing/performing; the execution gap is the difference between what you are currently and recurringly doing vs what you MUST currently and recurringly be doing if you are to succeed).

So our opening statement, "I know, therefore I aim" now becomes "I know my gaps, therefore I aim at reducing them so I can succeed."

Often, people need a coach to tell them the truth -- that is, to tell them specifically about the size of the gaps (the knowledge gap, the competence gap and the execution gap).

If you want to succeed, get a teacher to bluntly and honestly tell you about your knowledge gap; get a trainer to help you bridge your competence gap; and get a coach to help you reduce your execution gap.

In other words, the teacher must come into your life BEFORE the trainer, who in turn must come into your life BEFORE the coach.

The teacher is the most important person because, as you know, "Knowledge is power."

Even ignorance is power, if you are aware of what it is that you are ignorant about and you are aware that you can learn ANYTHING that you want to learn.

The powerful statement "I know, therefore I aim" also applies to goal-setting. If you know your goals, it is then easy to take aim. If you don't, you can't.

I will write more on this important topic of goal-setting.

The Lazy Millionaire doctrine

I started writing a book called The Lazy Millionaire because I really think that "laziness" is a powerful doctrine that can enrich you BEYOND YOUR WILDEST IMAGINATION.

Some people will ask, "What about work ethics? What about hard work?"

My answer is, "Those are wonderful and noble concepts, and I promise you that I will fully explore their meaning in my next life. But for now -- that is, in THIS life -- I want to do the least while earning the most!"

What do I mean by that? Why do I say that?

Because 99% of mankind is misled intellectually. We have been conditioned to think that hard work leads to wealth and financial freedom.

Not so. In fact, if you pick up the current issue of the Economist, you'll read an article discussing the "civil-rights issue of the 21st century": financial literacy.

The article mentions this: 4 out of 10 credit card holders do not pay the full amount due on their card, and one third do not even know the rate charged by the credit card company.

I would even say that "business education" is the key to wealth in the 21st century.

Business can be neatly summarized by this principle: Do what it takes so you earn more and more while working less and less.

This is EXACTLY what The Lazy Millionaire doctrine is all about.

In other words, wealth will NOT come to you through anything you DO, but through what you THINK. And HOW you think.

By the way, pick up a copy of Larry Winget's latest book, called "You are broke because you want to be." It's like the movie The Secret, but without the sugar-coating! The book will stimulate your thinking most productively.

Okay, back to the Lazy Millionaire. What this doctrine says is that you've got to use your MIND, not your BODY, if you want to become wealthy.

Please note that the mind is not the same as the brain. Your brain is being used every day, and it is being used more by other people than by you. In other words, the more reflexively you react, the more your brain is being used by others.

If you respond (instead of react), then perhaps your mind has intervened and it is using your brain, rather than let your brain be used by others who have their own agenda.

The Lazy Millionaire is a "mental master." He is aware. He is also aware that he is aware.

Rene Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am."

I submit: "I am aware that I am thinking, therefore I am a mini-god."

Think about that for a minute. If you can understand that statement, you'll be able to access tremendous powers within you.

In other words, if your brain is doing the thinking, and you are aware of that thinking, it means you are OUTSIDE your brain! But then, where are you?! You are an entire universe.

This is why the Lazy Millionaire doctrine makes sense. You do not need to "do" anything, you only need to gently and subtly "guide" your universe so it becomes EXACTLY like the universe you want manifested in your life.

People who work hard don't get wealth. They get stress. And there's a recent medical theory called "Life-Course Perspective" which says that you accumulate ALL the stress you experience into your body, and one day, you will have to pay for it.

All of this discussion sounds like the Law of Attraction, yet I would like to add a distinction: your life experience is manifested according to what I would call the Law of Preemptive Sensitivity (LPS).

In other words, if you think of yourself as a millionaire already, then your mind is programmed to preemptively favor or notice things, events, information, people, etc. that ONLY a millionaire would be sensitive to. You would naturally ignore anything or anyone that a millionaire would normally ignore.

So when I talk about the Lazy Millionaire, I specifically refer to "physical laziness," not mental laziness.

Most people do not achieve financial freedom because they are mentally lazy and physically over-active.

Albert Einstein said it best: "If you feed your mind as often as you feed your stomach, you will never have to worry about your stomach or a roof over your head or clothes on your back."

The Lazy Millionaire

Check out my new book, The Lazy Millionaire, at http://thelazymillionaire.wordpress.com.

I will reveal many secrets about how the rich get rich while the poor keep complaining about how the rich get rich without making any effort to learn the game of business!

Go to that site often and understand clearly the principles, and I guarantee you that wealth is yours in this life.

There are many levels of wealth (will write more about this later on):

The mass affluent: net worth of 100K - $1,000,000 (excluding value of residence home)
Millionaire: net worth of $1,000,000 - $ 5,000,000 (excluding value of residence home)
Mega-millionaire: net worth of $5,000,000 or more (excluding value of residence home)

There are, in the U.S., about one million mega-millionaires, 8 million millionaires and 33 million "mass affluent" people.

What are we really afraid of?

Many people talk about the fear of public speaking or the fear of failure, but I think that ultimately, we fear only one thing: the judgment of other people.

This is why people fear public speaking: the judgment of others is instantaneous and very direct.

It's why a teenage boy is afraid of asking a pretty girl out: he's afraid of rejection, that is, being judged by the girl.

It's why people are afraid of selling: they run the risk of being rejected by potential clients, that is, of being judged as "not offering enough quality or value."

The funny thing is that every person is a blend of soul and ego, so the more we focus on our fears, the bigger the ego grows, and since the ego is the part of ourselves which feels the fear, this leads to a vicious cycle.

Often, it will take a while and certainly much self-training under the guidance of a mentor or coach in order to get out of this vicious cycle (where perceived fear leads to inflated ego which feels more fear, and so on). But once a person has seen the truth, she is liberated permanently from this bondage to fear.

Hence, the saying "the truth shall set you free."

What we seek is freedom from other people's judgment. What we fail to realize, however, is that it is not so much other people judging us, but o