Why should you keep track of how you spend your time?

I can predict fairly easily a person's economic destiny if I take a look at her timesheet.

However, recording the use of one's time does not come naturally to most people, unless you work as a consultant for a firm (e.g. lawyers, accountants, consultants, etc.).

Yet, keeping track of where one's time is going, is THE most important economic task in the new economy, where EVERYONE has to manage their own productivity.

The important is not to record exactly when you start working, since some people work better in the morning while others perform better in the evening. The important thing is to accurately report how long it takes you (in blocks of 15 minutes) to accomplish an important task.

To help you to strategize as to how and where to spend your time, I highly recommend the book by Richard Bach, titled The 80/20 Individual.

Master language to master men

Confucius, the revered master of wisdom from China, once said that "without the mastery of words, one cannot master men."

The one who is skilled at the craft of language can project definite power and shape other people's perceptions, which determine their psychological reality. As a result, he can influence their thinking and, ultimately, their decision-making.

This is why, for instance, lawyers command so much power. Above and beyond their masterful grasp of the law, they have also refined their language skills way above the level of ordinary citizens. In short, they use language as a political weapon.

Perhaps that is why most people a negative perception of lawyers. But then again, people tend to have negative perceptions of people who use words to seduce or convince the masses: politicians and reporters, for instance, don't command much respect in the general population.

In fact, the professional who is most respected by people is the fireman -- a man of few words but of selfless and heroic action.

Be that as it may, Confucius is still right: people who aim for greatness MUST learn to master language.

The powerful secret about language is that "language speaks." More on that later.

For now, my point is that once a person masters language (that is, learns how to write logically and concisely), she can use the power of the Web to magnify a hundredfold or even a thousandfold her message.

"But why should one communicate with so many people?" you might ask.

Because it is impossible to become wealthy without a media-leveraged platform of communication with the masses. In other words, to become wealthy, a person needs to "talk" to one device, which is connected to thousands of people.

As you've probably guessed, the ultimate device to talk to millions of people has been invented, it's called the Internet.

Conclusion: the success secret is to 1. master language, and 2. master Internet.

"What if I'm wrong?"

One secret of wealthy people that I share in the book Systematic Wealth is that they often -- sometimes obsessively -- ask themselves, "What if I'm wrong?"

As a result, they tend to be modest yet self-assured.

Warren Buffett, for instance, constantly seeks to "correct" himself and his thinking. George Soros, the billionaire investor, also admits he finds it easy to recognize his mistakes.

In contrast, most people (and I'm the first to be guilty as charged!) tend toward the opposite. We tend to believe, most of the time, that we are correct in our thinking.

We absolutely do not doubt the validity of our way of thinking. We may say we are "open-minded", but the truth is, once new information enters our mind, our subconscious (which is driven by our life experiences, our values, our rules and our states of mind) will swiftly reject or ignore those ideas that do not fit with our current understanding of the world or that do not fit our traditional thinking patterns.

Yet, if we are correct about our thinking, especially in economic and financial matters, how come we still have to work for somebody else five days a week? And how come we do not see the end in sight? That is, we foresee having to work for somebody else for the next few decades. Few people indeed have a clear career exit strategy.

This drama of financial entrapment is intensified even more when you read Edward de Bono, who laments that we, in the West, have been brought up to think argumentatively. In other words, we argue and seek to be "right" rather than to create value. We spend our time trying to prove the other party or person wrong, more than we spend time learning about business and economics so we can actually build our value and our wealth.

It seems obvious to me now that unless a person changes his thinking, he/she can simply NOT become successful and rich. Jim Rohn indeed writes that "your wealth is not a function of the economy, but of your philosophy."

Systematic Wealth

"The fruit of success cannot be grabbed from another person's tree. It must come from your own tree. That is, success will naturally come to you as effortlessly and predictably as a ripe apple falling into your hand."

On April 16, 2002 I wrote in my diary: "A tool can be something that clarifies your mental processes." I also wrote on that day that "I am putting the full weight of my ideological conviction behind startup services."

Since then, I began to consciously study business and entrepreneurship in order to penetrate the secrets behind every great and successful business.

The book above, to be published in May of this year, is the culmination of my (exciting yet tremendously exhausting) search for the secret principles regulating every successful commercial enterprise.

In the next few postings, I'd like to share with you some of my findings in that book.

But right now, the success secret I want to leave you with is something Napoleon Hill wrote in his best-seller Think and Grow Rich. He said that great success and great wealth doesn't come from hard work or honesty although, of course, both are desirable. Rather, wealth comes from the correct application of principles.

In the book Systematic Wealth, I also explore the reasons why millions of people work hard every day, yet they do not get rich nor do they build tools that will allow them to achieve financial freedom. Why? Because they do every day what they have to do, but they don't think every day what they have to think.

In other words, their actions are good, but their thinking is not.

To borrow a line from Peter Drucker, I would say that they are doing things right, but they are not doing the right things.

Stairway to Stardom

Everybody wants to win, but few people have the COURAGE to prepare and train themselves to win.

The above is just an illustration of the kinds of skills and knowledge required to climb up the ladder of success. It assumes that people are willing to learn and acquire the needed skills to "graduate" to the next level.

Of course, not everybody wants to become a stellar executive making 400 times the salary of the average worker. This is okay, you can still strive to become a stellar professional (who, sometimes, make more money than managers and executives).

But it's really not about the money. It's about becoming the BEST professional you can be.

I will write more in detail about the skills mentioned in the above diagram.

New book summary blog to empower you

Based on the positive response from my Linkedin connections (about 250), I decided to launch a blog that would share valuable knowledge from the best books. Check it out at www.knowmoretoearnmore.blogspot.com

In our society, there is SO MUCH junk information and even deceptive knowledge masquerading as good knowledge, that I hope this new blog will help readers clarify their thinking so they can win in life.

The Info-War has begun a long time ago, and those who win are those who pay attention to the right information sources and use the right information-processing methods to turn information into knowledge, knowledge into action, and action into desired results.

The success secret is to focus on ideas, not books. Every important book contains 3-5 powerful ideas that can CHANGE your life. Those are the ideas I want to share with you, through the new blog www.KnowMoreToEarnMore.blogspot.com Enjoy! :-)

To succeed, talk about your past performance, NOT about your future potential

Peter Drucker advises managers, when they evaluate employees, to look at what the person has done well in the past. That is a good indication of how the person will do in the future, for a particular task or position.

In life, whenever we want something -- whether we are salespeople, entrepreneurs, job seekers, etc. -- we have to be willing to submit to evaluation by others. And smart decision-makers always look at what a person has done well in the past.

The success secret, therefore, is to try to succeed at something as soon as possible. Success is the ultimate credential. Everybody goes for success. Everybody believes success. This is why they say that "nothing succeeds like success."

The more you succeed, the more opportunities will come your way.

Many people ask for something big when they can't succeed at something small. This shows a profound misunderstanding of how the universe works.

The key is to develop one's self-knowledge, so that one attempts only tasks where one can reasonably expect to beb successful at. Once that little success is achieved, then one can aim a bit higher, and repeat this "compounding" success sequence over time.

Blogging secrets shared

I created a new blog to help people think strategically about blogging HERE. :-)

The Price is Write

The price of fortune is to write what you know.

Steve Pavlina, whom I've recommended before, makes $40,000 a month from his website (www.stevepavlina.com). Like me, Steve is a Generation X fellow, so I'm always happy to promote a generational peer. :-)

Another amazing success story is Matt Morris, the young millionaire founder and president of SuccessUniversity.com, which made a million dollar in sales in its first year.

I will write more later about the hardship these men have had to overcome early in life, but for now, let me just share with you what Peter Drucker once said: "Every time you see a successful business, it's because a courageous decision was once made."

I will also discuss later how you can embed a commitment mechanism into a decision to make sure you stick to it. Indeed, making a decision is not hard. When difficulties arise, most people will also easily "undecide" and that second decision to quit has enormous consequences on how they view themselves and their self-esteem, so this is an important issue I will write more about.

Success story of young millionaire

Inspiring news piece by Fox News on millionaire Matt Morris HERE.