The easy path might be the wrong path

It seems to me that all humans "suffer" from one inescapable fact: their budget is limited.

Therefore, how to strategically spend one's money is a main challenge.

Furthermore, it seems to me that a person can only spend his/her money to do one of three things:

• To look better (fashionable clothes, accessories, shoes, jewelry, etc.)
• To feel better (spa, massages, traveling, etc.)
• To become better (books, sports, seminars, coaching, etc.)

Of course, there are overlaps: playing a sport can make you feel good, while also improving you as a person (especially if you participate in a tournament, or have a sparring partner that helps you improve your performance).

I guess we all need to look better, feel better and become better.

The challenge, then, is to spend the right amount of time and money in each category.

It seems to me that spending money to look better or feel better is easy. Advertising agencies and companies will always be able to convince you that you deserve it, that you're "worth it." Of course, they are right: you work hard for your money, so you are totally entitled to rewards.

The problem is that few companies encourage people to buy stuff or do stuff that will make you a better person. Why? That's because change is hard. Companies know this. So they will always promote the easy way, the effortless path.

The Japanese have an interesting proverb: "When young, buy hardship."

I'm afraid this idea might not work in the West.

The likely response would be: "'What? You want ME to pay YOU money so you can make life harder for me? Are you on drugs or something?"

Yet, most people will intuitively understand, perhaps even agree, that the path without obstacles is the path that leads nowhere. It's only by doing difficult things and achieving difficult tasks that we build our self-esteem and our self-concept.

Your self-esteem does NOT depend on your childhood or whatever events that occurred years ago. Your self-esteem simply depends on what you did yesterday. Similarly, what you decide to do TODAY, will determine your self-esteem TOMORROW.

The idea (perhaps the success secret) is that by pursuing the difficult path, one becomes a better person. The difficult path contains a lot of adversity, and adversity has a way of forcing us to confront our weaknesses and shortcomings. Adversity is like a mirror showing us exactly as we are.

Perhaps the greatest reward in pursuing the difficult path, is that you come to know yourself better. You become acquainted with your weaknesses as well as your strengths. You are then in a much better position to plan and strategize, because you can consciously use your strengths to your advantage in all situations, while working actively to reduce your weaknesses.

From $1 to $1,000

"The intellectual distance from $0 to $1 is greater than from $1 to 1,000."

This success secret could make you rich, but you've got to believe it.

What the statement above -- an insight that came to me a few days ago -- means is that it takes much more ingenuity and intellectual discipline and intelligence and effort to create knowledge worth $1, than it takes to market that knowledge to 1,000 people who will each pay you $1.

Example: If you were to stop someone on the street, and ask him to pay you $1 for a piece of valuable knowledge that you can give him, right there and right then, would he give you a dollar?

If so, why? If not, why not?

If you can sell him a piece of knowledge you have, then all you have to do is find 1,000 people like him and repeat your selling process (your pitch). What you would have, then, is simply a marketing problem. (That is, going from $1 to $1,000).

However, if you cannot sell your knowledge to ANYONE for $1, then you would have a product development problem. (That is, going from $0 to $1).

Most people do NOT get rich either because they don't know how to go from $0 to $1, or how to go from $1 to $1,000.

To go from $0 to $1, you have to seriously observe what kinds of questions people have, and how you can help them with your knowledge. Yahoo! Answers is a good place to start (http://answers.yahoo.com).

To go from $1 to $1,000 (or even $10,000, for that matter) is just a matter of studying marketing and especially new technologies such as blogging or RSS, which enable you to distribute your knowledge to a limitless audience worldwide.

Money is visible credit. Credit is invisible money.

This is powerful stuff, think about it carefully. It might make you rich.

"Money is visible credit. Credit is invisible money."

If you have a five-dollar bill, then you KNOW for a fact that someone, somewhere, "owes" you a product or service worth five dollars. For example, if you walk into a convenience store and pull out a five-dollar bill, the person behind the counter will immediately go: "Can I help you?" (Meaning: "Can I suggest a product in our store worth five dollars, so your five-dollar bill can be in MY hand?")

Credit is a bit more subtle. It's when you help someone and so they "owe" you. How much they owe you is harder to evaluate or quantify. But they definitely owe you something.

If you help people by using your knowledge or expertise, then you can so so quite easily and even while having a good time (for example, during the course of a social conversation at a party or reception).

In other words, the more you share your valuable knowledge (hopefully, it's the kind of knowledge that requires education or experience), the more "invisible money" you get.

This means that:

The more you network, the more (invisible) money you print!!

This assumes, of course, that you only network with people who could benefit from your knowledge, expertise, wisdom. Then again, if your knowledge is specialized, it's a good bet that anyone you meet will be better off after a conversation with you.

For example, I know a significant bit about knowledge management, business and marketing. I'm pretty sure that most people I meet would / might appreciate my insights on these matters.

Unfortunately, we too often only focus on visible money (which most people earn by doing things, NOT sharing knowledge). We don't focus on the invisible money (that is, the credit that we build by helping others through knowledge-sharing).

For people who only focus on visible money, going to work every day and getting a paycheck every two weeks is good enough.

For people who understand the value of invisible money, it's necessary to go out there and network in order to "print" more and more invisible money. That is, they meet new people and try to be useful to them. They know for a fact that other people will reciprocate and try to be useful or helpful to them in turn.

This is why people who make the effort of reaching out to others, will always have a richer and more fulfilling life than people who just stay at home watching TV.

Sure, people are free to choose the lifestyle they want. But one has a profitable consequence, the other does not.

Who's your teacher?

I believe this is the right causal sequence for achieving good results in life:

Teacher ---> Knowledge ---> Actions ---> Results

Using this framework, you can easily see the cause of people's failures or successes.

Always, failure happens because the above process broke down at one point or another:

• Even with a good teacher, you might misunderstand and acquire the wrong knowledge
• Even with good knowledge, you might misinterpret and execute the wrong (or badly timed) actions
• Even with correct actions, you might get bad results because you misread the situation or failed to adapt your actions to the prevailing circumstances

Perhaps the most common failure is to try to act in a hurry BEFORE you fully understand yourself, or are fully in possession of the correct knowledge or know-how to guide you. It's useless to act or get busy if you don't have the right knowledge or skills.

A few exceptional people (Bruce Lee, Leonardo Da Vinci, etc.) are gifted; they are self-learners. They are their own teachers and masters. But for the rest of us, we all need good teachers.

Sometimes, even a movie can be a teaching tool.

George Lucas' Magnum Opus, the Star Wars bi-trilogy, is one such instructional tool. In his mythical story, he shows us how having a bad teacher can have catastrophic consequences for the galaxy.

Palpatine ---> Evil/bad knowledge ---> Evil/bad actions ---> Evil/bad results

(Notice that Anakin had two "masters" guiding him; unfortunately, Obi-Wan was less skilled linguistically than Palpatine, and also had less leverage (for example, he could not promise Anakin that he could save Padme from death).

On the other hand, he also shows the opposite:

Qui-Gon / Yoda ---> Good knowledge ---> Good actions ---> Good results

The ultimate good result is that Obi-Wan was able to achieve such self-mastery that he could decide to merge with the universe (that is, to go from life to death by merely closing his eyelids!). The even more amazing thing is that he did so at a moment when his two greatest apprentices (father and son) were watching him. Perhaps he wanted to teach them one last lesson before moving into the world of Spirit. Perhaps he wanted to teach them both the art of fearlessness, which is the key to mastering life. (Of course, at the end of the episode The Return of the Jedi, we see that his two former students actually became fearless).

Obi-Wan epitomizes the quintessential Jedi philosophy: that one acquires power through understanding. (The Sith, of course, espouse the opposite philosophy: that one acquires understanding through power).

Another movie that I found quite instructional is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Li Mu Bai, the enlightened master, tries to get the young, beautiful, aristocratic Jen to become his disciple.

Yet, she refuses to submit to his teaching. She only wants power, in the form of Green Destiny, the famed sword.

I guess the success secret is to realize that knowledge is power, and that the more we adopt an attitude of respect, reverence and obedience toward Knowledge, the more likely we will succeed in any worthy endeavour.

Knowledge is the new money

We live in the Knowledge Economy. Many gurus say that, but what does it mean exactly?

Specifically, what is the impact of this Knowledge Economy on your bank account? In other words, how can YOU get rich in this Knowledge Economy?

Four things:

1. Function
2. Understandability
3. Usability
4. Sensual feel and physical / intellectual control

1. Function. You have to figure out exactly WHAT is the function of knowledge in your profession or business. How do you acquire knowledge, and how does it work for you?

2. Understandability. What is the specific process through which you acquire knowledge, and what is the methodology you use to apply and market your knowledge?

3. Usability. How usable are the systems you interact with, in your work or business? How usable are YOU to others (collaborators, clients, coworkers, etc.) so that they can easily gain knowledge from you?

4. Feeling and Control. How in control do you feel regarding your knowledge processes, and how good do you feel when you use those systems?

The bottom line is, How do you use knowledge to create value (and, therefore, make money)?

If you're a consultant at a big consulting firm, it's easy: you use your education and training, as well as the knowledge database of the company, to acquire knowledge which you then customize and apply to a client's specific situation to produce a recommendation, a solution, etc.

What if you are a retail salesperson? Well, you could jot down in a notebook, every day, all the specific selling techniques or selling words that you tried, and separate what worked (i.e. resulted in a sale) and what did NOT work. This notebook ensures that you will constantly develop your selling skills, according to a quasi-scientific method of tracking results, interpreting them and formulating useful conclusions for future guidance.

There is not a single job out there that could not benefit from a greater awareness of the role of knowledge in creating value.

The success secret is to carefully answer the above 4 questions, so that eventually, you can become the master of your personal and professional knowledge. Only then will you be able to make money from systematically gathering knowledge (from quasi-infinite libraries like Google) and applying it to help clients/employers (and of course make a bundle in the process).

How to manage your job performance

Employees are usually evaluated once a year (or once every six months), during the often dreaded process known as Annual Performance Review.

In today's global economy, that might not be often enough. However, it would be unrealistic to expects managers to find the time to evaluate employees on a monthly or weekly basis. After all, every boss has his/her own job to do.

This puts the burden of self-evaluation and self-improvement squarely on the shoulders of every employee.

The problem is, most employees have never been taught how to manage themselves or their own performance.

This self-management problem has been mentioned by the late Peter Drucker (the management guru) as a major challenge that most people will have to face.

To make matters worse, many job descriptions do not clearly describe the main task to be accomplished.

If you're a salesperson, evidently you have to sell. If you're a project manager, you have to make sure that projects get done on time and within budget. But there are many jobs (especially staff jobs) that do not have clear goals or metrics, such as Communications Director or Manager of Human Resources.

The success secret is to clearly identify three main elements:

• What is the main task to be done? (If you're a nurse, for example, the main task is to take care of patients -- not doing administrative work)
• How much of your time, every day, is spent doing specifically that task?
• How do you (and your boss) evaluate your performance?

I borrowed the above from Peter Drucker. These three little questions can do wonders in helping a person focus on what really matters in her job, thereby giving her a significant degree of control over her job and, by extension, over her career.

What is success?

Success is not about being the best. Success is the ongoing process of becoming your best self.

- Sally Hogshead, author of Radical Careering

Well, there's not much I can add to that, so enjoy! :-)

Alien story

"Live wandering so you don't die wondering."

I distinctly heard a voice whispering that sentence to me a few days ago (fortunately, I didn't see any burning bushes for I would have panicked!).

Now I don't mean "wandering" in the Bohemian sense, but in the sense of letting one's thoughts freely go where they want to go.

Of course, society will have none of this. "No wandering please!" is the sagesse du jour. You MUST go to the office every weekday, then go back home and sit obediently on the couch for some entertainment. Then back to the office you go the following day. And so on and so forth until retirement.

This is precisely the scene that an extra-terrestrial would see, from his ship floating high above the city. He would see millions of people waking up every day, get dressed, go to the office, do something, then go back home.

The alien would wonder: "All these humans go from point A (home) to point B (office) five days a week. Yet the Earth is so big. Don't they ever get the urge to wander a little? Don't they want to explore this beautiful blue planet? They do have cars, yet they drive every day from point A to point B, then back to point A. What's the point really?"

Baffled, the alien then picks up what looks strangely like a Telus RAZR phone and calls an alien colleague. They agree to go to the newly renovated cantina inside the spaceship to figure out the logic underlying the daily behavior of millions of humans.

(This alien story will continue shortly. Oh, in case you were wondering, the success secret is coming up!).

Fear as a weapon of state

I just came back home from watching the movie V for Vendetta. It is quite brilliant.

It's all about fighting our fears which, of course, are manipulated and magnified by the mass media, as the movie trailer makes clear. Yann Martel, in his best-selling book The Life of Pi, wrote that fear is the main enemy in life. It seeps into our consciousness and paralyzes our willpower. As the saying goes, "you cannot defeat an enemy who has outposts in your head."

So what's the success secret? How does fear act as an obstacle to success?

"Fear is the mind-killer," wrote Frank Herbert in Dune, his celebrated novel. Indeed, fear is what prevents us from taking action. We fear failure and rejection and risk. So we do nothing.

Because we do nothing, we never learn and never grow. Worst of all, we reinforce our fear, making it stronger and stronger. We even come to a point where we can easily justify our lack of action. We live on automatic, relying on routine to carry us through the day, the week, the month, the year.

You can easily identify people who have fear. Just think about the people you know. Who doesn't try anything new? Who is relying on routine and keeps doing the same things in the same way?

In many ways, fear is like a virus. People may carry the HIV virus for years without knowing it. The difference, of course, is that fear is a (mental) virus transmitted not sexually, but socially and mediatically.

Why do the news media and governments use fear against citizens? In the case of the news media, it's quite obvious: to grab people's attention, boost ratings and keep advertisers happy. Advertisers, after all, are paying the salary of all the news personnel.

What about governments? Why do they use fear as a "weapon of state"?

The government is basically a specialist of violence, and they use violence against people OUTSIDE national borders and against people INSIDE national borders.

Since no government, unless it is fascist or communist, can use physical force against its own citizens without unleashing a bloody revolution in the streets, they have no choice but to use a different form of violence -- mental violence. Fear is preemptive mental violence. It kills your intention before your intention is fully formed in your mind.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with the government trying to make everyone respect the rule of law. Otherwise, it would be chaos. But the fear created in the minds of citizens can get to a point where it prevents them from trying new things.

Fearful people, who are often well educated and quite intelligent, rarely take risks or launch new ventures.

In a stable economy, such behavior might be excusable, even acceptable. But in today's global economy and with the rise of China and India, to be afraid of taking risks and boldly pursue opportunities seems to be a recipe for rapid economic obsolescence.

So what's the solution? How can normal citizens fight against fear (the weapon of state) in order to ensure their economic prosperity?

The answer is found in a book titled "The Sovereign Individual."

More on that later.

Investment method: Kelly's Optimal Growth Strategy equation

Every decision in life is a gamble. That's because you cannot predict the future nor any outcome resulting from your decisions or actions.If this is so, then how come some people always seem to make the best decisions?

Well, they do precisely the opposite of Han Solo, who said: "Never tell me the odds!"(This is probably why Captain Solo, although immensely talented, somehow owed a huge debt to Jabba the Hut!).

Successful people WANT to know the odds, and also want ANY information (hopefully impartial and hype-free) that will enable them to compute the odds of success of any project, decision, investment, etc.Unfortunately, most people think emotionally (which is an oxymoron!). They act or decide from fear or greed, not from rational analysis.

(If you're interested in learning more about rational analysis, I highly recommend any book written about Warren Buffett. The great thing is that not only will you make better investment decisions, but you can also use the same wisdom and analytical frameworks to make better decisions in life.)

Meanwhile, here's an interesting equation to contemplate: it's called the Kelly Optimal Growth Strategy equation.

Percentage of investment = 2P - 1where P is the probability of success.

Example: A friend of yours is an entrepreneur, and he asked you to consider investing in his business. You don't have a lot of money, so you want to think carefully about how much to invest.

Solution: First, carefully assess his business plan and figure out, with the help of financial advisors if necessary, the probability that he will succeed. Let's say it's 50%. Then:

Investment = 2(0.50) - 1 = 0

That is, you should NOT invest any money in the business.

But if the probability of success is 60%, then:

Investment = 2(0.60) - 1 = 0.20 or 20%

This means you should consider investing 20% of your money into his business (it's probably best to invest only half, or 10%, to ensure a margin of safety).

What should your salary be?

The person who asked me this question is smart, there's no doubt about that. But if an MBA doesn't know how to price his contribution to the employer, imagine how clueless the rest of the population is.

(Click on the picture above to see my answer to the gentleman).

"Marginal contribution" essentially is the amount of money that you bring into a company. Any employer, therefore, would be willing to pay you a salary below the amount of money that you will generate.

For example, if you're a sales rep, and you can prove to the company that you can generate $200,000 in revenues per year, then that is your marginal contribution. You then have the right to ask for a salary of $60,000 to $80,000.

Even if the "average salary" for a sales rep, according to surveys, says that you should only get $50,000, you can still negotiate for a higher amount IF you can prove to the employer that you can generate the marginal contribution of $200,000.

I have personally always found salary surveys to be ridiculous. Yes, they can give you a basic idea of the range in which you should negotiate your salary, but ultimately, it's your negotiation skills that will secure the salary you want.

Here's an example to illustrate what I mean.

Imagine a husband coming home to his wife. He goes: "Honey, I read a survey on marital bliss in GQ magazine, and they found that wives about your age usually make love to their husbands at least 4 times a week. So could you please get rid of that apron and join me in the bedroom so we can, you know...?"

I don't know much about women, but I don't think such a wife would respond positively! (Unless the husband is Brad Pitt. But then again, Brad Pitt wouldn't have to cite any survey!).

We all have to sell

Everybody has to sell for a living. Whether you're a job seeker, an employee seeking a promotion, a business person trying to persuade a new customer, an entrepreneur wooing private investors, a headhunter recruiting an executive, etc. you have no choice but to sell.

Indeed, we all need other people's cooperation, money, time, skills, talents or resources, at one point or another.

The above diagram shows that persuasion depends on three critical elements: credibility, clarity (of the message) and customization.

It makes sense: we only decide to listen to someone if he/she is credible (knows what he's talking about and is able to PROVE it). Next, we evaluate his message (we retain the facts, we ignore the hype or any anecdote or story that cannot be verified). Finally, we think about how the message or the proposition applies to our specific situation.

Dr. Wayne Dyer's You Inspire Me show

"Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into."

- Wayne Dyer

=====

I just finished watching Dr. Wayne Dyer's You Inspire Me show on PBS and, once again, he left me filled with a strange spiritual glow and renewed wonder for the mystery that life is.

Of course, the first thing I did afterward is go on the Internet and find all the quotes penned by this spiritual master. The above quote summarizes aptly, I believe, a major and recurring idea in his work.

The following passage, however, is what he talked about extensively in his show. It is marvelously poetic and inspiring, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be."

- Patanjali

Bienvenue aux lecteurs francophones !

Nous avons récemment invité tous les professionnels de l'industrie des communications au Québec à visiter ce blogue sur les secrets du succès. Nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue !

Ayant oeuvré moi-même dans l'industrie du branding et des communications graphiques, j'apprécie beaucoup la créativité ainsi que l'esprit innovateur des créatifs d'ici. Après tout, j'ai beaucoup appris en travaillant et en parlant avec des gens chez Epoxy, Orangetango, Marketel et Cossette.

Je ferai mon possible pour traduire le plus rapidement possible les quelque 100 articles rédigés précédemment. Si vous avez des questions ou commentaires, n'hésitez pas à me contacter !

Peter Nguyen, B.A.A.
Rédacteur en chef
omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com

The more problems you have, the richer you will be

Most people don't become rich because wealth comes from creating solutions to problems, yet the primary reflex of most people is to avoid problems (as well as "problem" people). By avoiding problems, we also make sure -- unfortunately -- that we miss opportunities for becoming rich.

Zig Ziglar said that you can have everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. In other words, if you help them solve their problems.

Of course, we also avoid thinking about our own problems. It's much easier to pick up the remote control and watch some artificial drama or mindless sitcom.

Yet, the key to becoming wealthy is first to FIND problems, then to SOLVE problems. The more problems you are confronted with, the better you become at problem-solving (i.e. at making money). Professionals like dentists, doctors, consultants, etc. all have a practice through which they meet, every day, people with all kinds of problems.

Stan Davis, in his marvelous little book titled Blur - The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, suggests that companies and professionals should create "offers" (or solutions) and just let them loose in the market and see which ones attract customers' attention.

But how can you create a solution if you can't see what the problem is? Worse yet, how can you find problems if you don't actively look for them?

(In a future posting, I'll discuss how you can set up your own problem-solving practice on the Internet, using free Web applications).

Coaching

Managers today have to become coaches in order to help their people improve individual and team performance in a global -- hence super-competitive -- economy.

The above diagram shows my coaching approach. The idea is to help performers expand their green zone by training them, helping them develop self-awareness and accept personal responsibility for results, while also guiding them to identify obstacles (mental, biographical, psychological, etc.) that might block their performance.

How do consultants make money?

Consultants basically help clients identify a BIG problem (or root problem). Next, they apply their significant knowledge to the client's problem in order to find a solution.

In today's Google era, anybody can rapidly become a consultant making a lot of money. However, there is a catch: you have to be able to APPLY the information to a client's situation or problem, in order to help him/her SOLVE that problem.

How does that work actually?

Imagine you have 16 black cards, and the client has 3 red cards. You can only make money IF and only IF you can find the three black cards you have which MATCH the three red cards the client has.

For example, if the client has the following three cards: 2, 7 and Queen of Hearts, then you must pull out your three corresponding cards: 2, 7 and Queen.

In this case, we would say that the client has 3 problems. If you pull out the corresponding black cards, then you are able to solve those 3 problems. Sometimes, you might only be able to solve only 1 or only 2 problems.

(Don't forget, you don't have 26 black cards; you only have 16 black cards. That's because no consultant has ALL the solutions).

For you to maximize your revenues, you would have to find a client that has PRECISELY the 16 problems to which you have 16 solutions. Of course, no single client has so many problems. More likely, you would have a group of clients who, together, would have those 16 problems.

Notice that there will be 10 problems to which you do not have solutions. This is why it's often good to find consultants whose skill sets and solutions complement your own; you can then swap clients.

It's interesting to note that often, clients don't know exactly what their problem is. They might tell you, "I have a Jack of Hearts problem." However, upon closer examination, you see that they actually have a King of Hearts problem. It is then your job to gently guide the client to "see" his real problem, BEFORE you propose your King of Spades solution.

You might think that your job doesn't require consulting skills, yet I submit that in today's knowledge economy, everybody does consulting work. It's all about finding problems and helping employers solve those problems.

The more problems you can solve (for an employer or a client), the more money you can make. Of course, the size of the problem you are solving, determines how big your paycheck is.

The secret to building wealth

I created this little (yet powerful) diagram to teach entrepreneurs about how wealth is actually created. If you've ever built a company from scratch and sold it to another person, you are possibly already familiar with this curve.

I've written over 100 postings on this blog, and I easily consider THIS posting to be among the top 5 success secrets articulated by my quill.

The secret explanations for the above diagram will be sent only to subscribers.

Balancing learning and thinking

A philosopher once wrote that "a man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access."

Does this mean we can only learn through experience?

The answer came to me a few years ago, when I read that Confucius separated learning into three main categories:

1. Learning through trial and error
2. Learning through imitation
3. Learning through meditation

If we look at people who are very, very successful, we will immediately realize that they've done a lot of meditation or thinking, based on their readings: Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Joseph Campbell, etc.

If you've ever read these authors, you know that they have "unrivalled range of reference and formidable powers of rhetoric."

Their vast range of reference (i.e. they can quote from a vast number of authors) comes from the fact that they've read so many books.

Their formidable powers of rhetoric come from the fact that they obviously THOUGHT a great deal about what they've read, and have DOCUMENTED their thoughts and thinking process on paper. They spent an enormous amount of time to make sure their logic (i.e. their message, the evidence backing it up, etc.) is airtight and can withstand public scrutiny. This is how they become best-selling authors.

In short, they did what Confucius recommended: they learned and they thought. To learn alone is not enough, since there are lots of people who get an education at university without ever thinking or questioning what they've learned. To think a lot without learning new things is also not good. There are many experts in the world who think continuously about their field, but are quite close-minded when it comes to other fields.

From the above, we might borrow from Napoleon Hill and suggest that the key to success is to "Learn, think and then grow rich."

All the verbs in that sentence are at the right place: you cannot think unless you learn first. And you cannot become rich unless you think first. (In a future posting, I will show how these verbs relate to wealth creation, in terms of the effort-performance-payoff sequence).

In the end, learning requires that other people SUPPLY you with information (or you have to go out there and get it), whereas thinking requires that you APPLY the information to a specific case or problem. Growth (personal, professional, etc.) is based on balancing learning and thinking in one's life.

Success is about mastering knowledge

Why is success so difficult? It's because success depends chiefly on mastering strategic and useful knowledge. (This is one area that Google has not yet covered; this being said, one should not underestimate these guys -- they're probably working on it as we speak!).

Generally speaking, the following lists the main obstacles to overcome for mastering knowledge:

1. Decision to read books (most people don't read non-fiction books that provide useful and relevant knowledge).
2. People who read books, don't always understand what the author means exactly.
3. People who understand don't create maps and diagrams (or any other user-friendly knowledge tool or performance aid) that would allow them to apply the principles and knowledge to the specific situations and challenges in their lives.
4. Those who apply the principles and knowledge, don't keep track of the results they get and don't document the way they conduct experiments.
5. Those who keep track of results, don't interpret them correctly.
6. Those who interpret correctly, don't integrate the findings and new knowledge into their habitual way of thinking, evaluating and decision-making.

Whether one is a careerist or an entrepreneur, the above process applies.

As we can see from the description of the six steps, the "journey" to success looks very much like a scientific experiment: there is method, measurement and mindfulness. Yes, a bit of money helps too, but it is not critical to success.

We can also see that if success is a journey, then that journey requires a journal.

Only by keeping a journal (of ideas, observations, diagrams, tips, encounters, experiences, thoughts, etc.) can one person continually improve the working of his/her mind.

Leonardo Da Vinci kept a journal, so did Pablo Picasso (well, more like a sketch book) and Charles Darwin.

In future postings, we'll explore how a person can proceed from step 1 to step 6.

Failproof self-management trick

Now that communism is gone, capitalism is the only viable economic system. Of course, capitalism is not perfect. But the great thing is, it doesn't HAVE to be perfect.

That's because it contains mechanisms for self-correction. Transparency, for example. Well, yes, there are firms like Enron, but by and large, most companies and most managers benefit from greater transparency, which is conducive to detecting errors and adjusting systems where necessary to keep everything functioning smoothly.

So what is the success secret here? How is this relevant to self-managing for greater success?

Here, I have to credit a consultant friend who shared with me a critical management insight: "To improve your peformance, improve your stats."

(This is common ground for people who are familiar with Edward Deming's work on statistical process control, which he introduced to Japan and launched their spectacular post-war economic revival).

The success secret we can learn from capitalism, is to make your career or business so transparent that ANYBODY can see your vital stats and know precisely how well you are doing.

Of course, this is not easy. Most people won't even reveal their salary.

Ten years ago, I even developed a clever response to people who inquired about my salary. "So Peter, how much do you make a year?"

Instead of responding, "Well, it's none of your business", which is a bit impolite, I would reply: "How much money I make? Less than I expect, more than you imagine."

(Try to figure out what I mean. I will explain in a future posting).

Once again, the success secret is to make YOUR performance THEIR business. Whether you want to improve your career stats or your business stats, the failproof self-management trick is to get somebody else to ask you "blunt" questions about your performance.

Of course, self-honesty is really hard. It's easy to say the truth, but quite difficult to hear it. Yet, self-honesty, once achieved, can remove all obstacles in one's life.

This is why they say that "Honesty is the first chapter of the book of Excellence."

So if the success secret is to make YOUR performance SOMEBODY ELSE'S business, then where do you find this person? It can be a coach, a friend, an investor, etc. It has to be someone who cares about your success, because your success will help him/her succeed as well.

The winner's reflex

The great thing about success is that it is quite visible. Successful people (in art, business, politics, etc.) usually gain prominence in society and attract media reporters or publishers, who interview them and sometimes ask them bluntly: "So how did you do it?!"

Usually, successful people would generously share their "secrets." Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, etc. all shared their knowledge. So how come so few people succeed in life?

That's because success principles are so... simple. Because they are so simple, it doesn't take much time to teach them. What DOES take an enormous amount of time is practicing those success principles.

We all want perfection, but we would rather order it by credit card from a TV infomercial than actually doing the hard work ourselves.

From my own experience, I've found that success is very simple: you have to figure out what is the most important thing you can do every day, and find a creative way to make sure you DO IT.

Coming up next: How to create failproof measures that will MAKE SURE you do what you're supposed to, every day.

Obstacles to becoming wealthy in publishing

Newsletter publishing is one of the top 10 millionaire occupations. Maybe it's because there is a big need for specialized information, coupled with the fact that publishing a newsletter is relatively easy.

The secret diagram above shows how publishing information is EVEN EASIER in today's Internet economy. The key is to figure out where your "weak link" is, and to remedy the situation as soon as possible.

Let's take a look at the following situations:

1. Here, the person knows a lot, and can write decently well. But he/she doesn't master blogging techniques and related innovations, such as RSS.
2. This person knows more about blogging, but unfortunately doesn't have good writing skills.
3. Finally, this "well-rounded" person is about to make a lot of money, mainly because he/she apparently has no weak link.

A weak link is basically anything that acts as a bottleneck to your capacity to generate revenue.

In other words, a weak link (or a "master constraint") is anything that limits your ability to create value, or your ability to deliver value to millions of people.

The greatest (and perhaps most invisible) obstacle to one person becoming immensely wealthy, is his/her very self-concept.

This is why it is said that "the man who thinks that ten million dollars is a lot of money, is not the kind of man who can make that kind of money."

Happen-ness vs Happiness

"Don't happen to live. Live to happen!"

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There are 6 billion people on Earth. And it's a fair bet that they all want happiness.

You want happiness. I want happiness.

Can I help you achieve happiness? Can you help me?

The problem, of course, is that we don't define "happiness" in the same way. This is why it's often hard for people -- even among friends and family -- to help one another achieve happiness.

Perhaps a better, more practical concept is "happen-ness." The verb "to happen" means "to come into being."

To help someone become happier, then would mean to help that person become who he/she truly is.

Focusing on "happen-ness" as opposed to "happiness" would also drive people to pay attention to the moment: nothing happens in the past or in the future. If anything happens at all, it happens right here, right now.

In other words, at every single moment in your life, you have a chance to be happy. You can be happy one hundred times in the course of a week, if you make sure something "happens" that makes you feel good, that makes someone else feel good, or that brings you closer to your goal.

In the end, happen-ness is a specific form of happiness, whereas happiness is a vague form of happen-ness. Focusing on what is specific is usually better.

This reminds me of what the comedian Lily Tomlin once said: "I always wanted to be somebody. I guess I should have been more specific."

Mark the hit to hit the mark

All motivational authors and speakers talk about goal-setting.

Yet, for some reason, most people somehow don't quite believe in it. The proof is that most people don't have goals written down on a piece of paper.

(By the way, my goal is to become "the most daring, influential and prolific intellectual of Generation X." My previous goal, since age 7, was to become "the most famous Victoria's Secret photographer," but I quickly realized I would'n't be able to explain this properly to my future wife, so...).

So why is goal-setting so important? I think it's because it allows you to USE and LEVERAGE the most powerful technology in the universe: your mind.

Without a goal, your mind will simply not work. Sure, it would go through familiar routines every day, like driving to the office, pushing paper, then coming back home to watch the news and a couple of sitcoms. But your mind would not work.

Without a goal that motivates you, your mind will refuse to get out of bed. Sure, your body will get out of bed every morning and grab a cup of coffee. But mentally speaking, you're still in bed.

It's like as if your mind was going: "Look, John, you don't really have a goal in your career and in your life. Now I don't know if Peter told you, but I really AM the most powerful technology in the universe. I ain't getting out of bed unless you have a big goal that could use my rather fabulous powers and incredible genius. By the way, is coffee ready yet?"

The ultimate success secret, therefore, seems to be: Awaken the genius that sleeps in your mind.

How? By marking the hit (i.e. setting a goal). Then, your mind will get out of bed and help you to hit the mark.

T H / I N K I N G

TH/INKING is a new word I coined, to capture two incredibly important activities:

1. thinking
2. inking (or writing down one's thoughts)

One without the other is not worth much. For example, a lot of people "think" but never put down on paper what they're thinking about. So they keep having the same thoughts over and over again (and, of course, this kind of thinking quickly becomes "worrying").

On the other hand, there are 20 million bloggers who write and write and write, without ever thinking strategically about the value of their writing.

Perhaps the best teacher of thinking is Dr Edward de Bono. One of his recurring ideas is that in our culture, we usually do not think. We merely argue against one another. Who's right? Who's wrong? Who's to blame?

In other words, we focus on explaining the past. We don't focus on designing the future.

This is probably why "thinking" has such a bad reputation. Most people would prefer "action."

We often hear the following pieces of popular pseudo-wisdom: "Ah, don't think too much" ... "Just do it!" ... "We need results-oriented people!" ... "You have to try it! Or you'll never know!"

The main reason why people prefer action to thinking, is that they have never been trained to think logically or strategically. So because they are not good thinkers, they prefer not to think. Watching TV or going to the movies is so much easier: all the "thinking" has been done by the writer, director and actors. One only has to "enjoy" the experience without thinking much (unless, of course, you happen to watch a foreign movie, where sometimes nothing seems logical!).

Yet, the truth is that it is the thinkers who create wealth and rule society.

And as in any important discipline, you have to be bad at something before you can become good at it.

The key is to start now. The success secret is to start thinking systematically (by, for example, using de Bono's six thinking hats), and start inking your thoughts onto paper (or on a blog).

As a person becomes a better thinker, he/she will be able to create MORE value. Inevitably, he/she will earn more.

Choosing one's friends

A standup comedian was saying that during his university years, he wanted to join the Debating Society, but his friends talked him out of it!

The truth is that other people's opinion, especially those who are close to us, exerts an enormous influence on how we think. Their opinion even preemptively selects the KINDS of thinking we do, and the ISSUES we think about.

If your friends are employees, they will mostly talk about consumption, culture, movies, etc. If your friends are business people, they will mostly talk about opportunities, deals, trends to capitalize on, etc.

Over time, you begin to think exactly like the group you hang around with. This is why it's so important to choose one's friends carefully.

I've had friends who had no goals in life, so every time we met, I grew more and more confused.

On the other hand, I've met new friends who shared with me, in the first 30 minutes of our conversation, their ultimate goal in life! It's VERY inspiring to meet that kind of people. They establish high standards, and we naturally feel inspired by their determination and lofty mindset.

Statistically speaking, only one person in 20 will ever become financially independent. It means that if you have 20 friends, then you should perhaps spend most of your time with the one or two friends who seems to head toward the top.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that one ignores the other 19 friends. One should always be there for support and be available to help them as needed.

It also means that out of 20 new people you meet, there's probably only one or two people worth partnering with.

The faster you read, the more they work (for you)

1. Peter Drucker has been saying since the early 90s that knowledge is now the ultimate resource, more important than capital, machinery or equipment
2. The best knowledge from books, websites, white papers, etc. is now available on the Web, easily found via search engines
3. If you can create knowledge products, you can offer them to a virtually limitless market worldwide (especially via syndicated blogs to which people can subscribe -- for free or for a small fee)

From the above three unassailable facts, here's what I submit: The faster you can read, the greater the number of smart people who work for you (mostly for free).

That's right: if you're in the business of creating knowledge products (and we all are, to a certain extent), then the faster you read, the MORE knowledge you acquire from best-selling authors like Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Gary Hamel, Shoshana Zuboff, Stephen Covey, etc.

Under what circumstances do these authors "work" for you?

Well, if their output (ideas, insights, methodologies, analytical frameworks, etc.) become input that you need to do your work, then they are indeed working for you! (In the same way that a subordinate's output (e.g. a report) becomes input for her boss, who then makes decisions based on that report).

Success secret from my former boss

My former boss was quite successful in launching and running her company. So naturally, I memorized the piece of advice she gave me in 2000, when I decided to launch my marketing communications firm.

She said: "Focus on what you do best and knock on every door."

Obviously, the "focus on what you do best" refers to maximizing one's profit margin by thoroughly exploiting what strategy guru Gary Hamel calls a company's "core competency."

The "knock on every door" refers to velocity (or sales / assets). In short, offer your product or service to EVERY SINGLE BUYING ENTITY in your target market.

Strangely enough, I never heard a better piece of business advice, even during my 3 years in business school (unless I skipped class the day they talked about it!).

Interestingly, her advice applies also to careerists, and not just entrepreneurs. In fact, in today's global economy where the Internet allows knowledge workers from foreign countries to compete directly with workers in North America, it is more critical than ever to "focus on what you do best."

After all, isn't that exactly what China is doing, by focusing on manufacturing? Isn't that precisely what India is doing, by focusing on IT services?

Mastering one book vs reading 200 books

When I was a teenager, my father came into my room and saw so many books lying around.

He said: "The man who masters one book, is more dangerous than the man who reads a hundred books."

Since my father became very wealthy before the age of 30, I took his advice seriously and memorized it -- although, at the time, I had absolutely NO IDEA what he meant!

It is only today, some 20 years later, that I'm beginning to understand what he was trying to get at.

It's about mastering knowledge. If you master knowledge, it becomes a part of you, like a reflex. You become more powerful. You can achieve more.

Perhaps best of all, you will have learned the art of integrating others' knowledge (their very biography!) into your habitual way of thinking, seeing, being.

You are no longer a mere reader "reading" another person's book. You are a life devouring and feeding on another life. You are a mind drawing strength from another mind.

From dream to reality

I give workshops on career management, and I always encourage people to build a career or a business around their heart.

The above diagram is a secret sequence used by great achievers. First, they used their heart to believe that something is possible. A person who uses only his brain to choose a career, is not leveraging the magic that can only come from the heart.

The famed mythologist Joseph Campbell put it this way: "Follow your bliss." He explained that if a person chooses a career based on money, he might miss his calling. But if he chooses a career based on bliss -- on what makes him feel truly alive -- then he will end up also with the money.

Of course, after the heart has spoken, the brain must be used to turn the "possibility" into a "probability."

Afterward, it's just a matter of hard work and discipline to turn the "probability" into a "certainty." The following saying is applicable: "Those who don't believe in luck, have mastered fate."

In the end, the above diagram shows the process of going from dream to reality. Each step requires a very different skill. First, a person needs a lot of emotional and social support.

Next, he/she will need a lot of intellectual support and training. Finally, he/she will require discipline and a supportive operational environment.

At every step of the way, one key ingredient is needed: courage. Lots of it.

Perhaps this is why the late Peter Drucker said, "Whenever you see a successful business, it means someone once made a very courageous decision."

Artificial Success Intelligence (ASI)

Wouldn't it be great if we could all rely on a PDA (personal digital assistant) that contains Artificial Success Intelligence (ASI)? This ASI would provide precisely the advice we need, at the time we need it, so we can always make the right decision (in one's career, in business, in love, etc.).

This ASI would have to contain two key elements: processing power and memory.

(Interesting diagram HERE.)

The processing power would enable it to rapidly analyze any situation (challenge, problem, etc.) we find ourselves in, and the memory would allow it to draw from a repertoire of "successful moves" the best response to the situation at hand.

Realistically, in order to achieve success in any field, we all have to make our own decisions. Teamwork is great for DOING stuff, but when it comes to DECIDING, we are all alone.

Yet, it doesn't mean that the repertoire of decisions HAS to be built by the decision-maker alone. It could be a collective project, and any person who contributes to it can freely take advantage of it.

It's like a public library. Taxpayers provide funding, and they all have the right to borrow books.

Here's my insight for today: Why can't people from one profession pool their knowledge and create a virtual bank of "success secrets" and professional know-how, so that junior members of that profession can rapidly acquire the key knowledge, skills and experience required to succeed?

Without the Internet and technologies like RSS and push-button blogging, this idea would be farfetched and ridiculous. But given today's enormous power conferred to us by information and communications technologies (ICT), it would be crazy NOT to pool our knowledge. After all, the open-source movement doesn't have to be restricted to software development. It can be extended to "professional knowledge development."

How would it work?

If we have 100 professionals in a room, then perhaps 30 of them can launch this Virtual Professional Knowledge Bank, and the remaining 70 professionals can be users (who pay a small fee of $100 a year to access the Bank).

This Bank, then, would have a value of $7,000. This value would grow over time as the items in the Bank are refined, and as feedback from users guide the development of more useful forms of knowledge.

Of course, if you've ever worked for a Big Six consulting firm or any law firm with more than 100 attorneys, you are already familiar with this sort of knowledge management.

The main idea is simply that ordinary people can and should pool their knowledge, so that all contributing (or paying) users can withdraw valuable knowledge (from the comfort of their Net-connected home).

The necessity for this sort of Bank of Success Secrets is even more evident given the rise of China and India as two economic powers that are likely to dominate the global economy by the middle of the 21st century.

Why professionals are poor, part I

Every CEO masters the equation R = MV (return = margin X velocity).

For non-financial people, let's say that Earnings = Quality of Value X Quantity of Value.

Quantity of Value refers to the number of people who actually use one's services.

Most professionals are good are creating value. At the same time, most professionals have only ONE employer.

For a professional earning $60,000 a year, the equation then becomes:

$60,000 = $60,000 X 1

Obviously, to borrow from Eli Goldratt's "Theory of Constraints" jargon, the bottleneck is the number of employers (which is 1 in this case).

To make more money, a professional only has to offer his services to a second employer, or:

$120,000 = $60,000 X 2

The problem, of course, is that providing professional services requires physical presence, and a professional can simply NOT be at two different locations at the same time.

So how does one solve this problem? After all, this is a problem worth solving because, as illustrated above, it could DOUBLE one's income!

The success secret lies in a concept called "service inventory."

(more to come)

Mental breakthrough precedes economic breakthrough

In an interview today with Charlie Rose, Ajim Premji, the Chairman of Wipro, one of the six largest IT firms in the world, said that India underwent a mental breakthrough -- a quantum innovation -- to become a global player.

He said they succeeded in reinventing the services business model through trial and error.

In short, they used the Net to get rich.

After 3,000 years of poverty, Indian people finally see their golden opportunity to achieve prosperity. It would be a mistake for anyone to underestimate their resolve and determination to capitalize on this historical opportunity.

Meanwhile, sadly enough, I see people in North America still going about their business without much concern about how globalization is affecting their careers and livelihood.

Tom Friedman in fact wrote a book called The World is Flat to alert Americans to the coming "storm." The pragmatic summary HERE.

My point here is that if Indian people are smart enough to leverage the Web as a services delivery platform to create wealth for themselves individually and as a nation, why can't we do the same in North America?

I suspect one of the main challenges could be a historically based mental block. Indeed, we are so used to equating "work" with the "office." How can anyone work at home? To work, you have to get up in the morning, shave (or put on makeup), grab a cup of coffee and drive to the office. That's where work gets done.

Yet, India has fundamentally subverted that way of thinking. And they are getting rich doing it!

Infosys, for example, has gone from revenues of one billion to two billions, in only two years!

What can we learn from India?

(More in the next posting).

Inspirational quotes website

www.thinkexist.com is an amazing website full of powerful quotes. You can register for free in 3 minutes, then start building your personal collection of inspiring quotes.

Jim Rohn is quite inspirational!

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"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is, discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”

- Jim Rohn

Secret understanding of knowledge vs intellectual capital

Most professionals cannot become rich UNLESS they make the switch from being someone who "applies knowledge" to someone who "designs intellectual capital."

A knowledge applier can be anyone, from the minimum-wage teenage hamburger flipper to the $400-an-hour management consultant.

The critical difference is that the consultant is actually creating intellectual capital (K$) as he works on a client case. This K$ can be in various forms: new methodologies, new ways of working or thinking, new solutions (which can be partly reused to serve a future similar client in a similar industry facing a similar problem).

But what's the difference between "knowledge" and "intellectual capital"?

Knowledge is gun powder: potentially powerful, but presently useless.

Intellectual capital is ammunition: powerful, but useless without a gun.

Structural capital (procedures, systems, methodologies, etc.) is a weapons system: powerful, but useless without ammunition.

(to be continued)