Are you economically mature?

Socially speaking, a young person becomes "mature" on his/her 18th birthday. Or at least, that's what the parents are hoping for!

Legally speaking, a young person becomes "legal" (i.e. no longer a minor) when he/she reaches 18 years of age.

Economically, however, it's difficult to say when a person becomes mature.

You are economically mature when you intellectually understand how "income depends on outcome." That is, when you can clearly link the amount of outcome you produce to the amount of income you receive from an employer, then you can be considered an "economically mature" person.

A salesperson paid partly or wholly on commission, understands very well the causal connection between outcome (or sales produced) and income (or commissions received).

When your job is structured like that of a salesperson, and you get paid a base salary PLUS commission -- that is, you're paid based on your performance -- then the sky's the limit in terms of how much money you can make.

It's important to note that "economic maturity" comes before "economic independence."

You cannot become economically independent (or financially independent) if you are not first economically mature.

This being said, a person can be economically mature WITHOUT being economically independent, because the latter requires courage and consistent efforts in training yourself to perform at a high level so as to earn maximum income.

For example, a person who understands that income depends on outcome, but sees that his job does not pay him more if he produces more desirable work outcomes, can be said to be economically mature but NOT economically independent.

He doesn't have the courage or the guts to go for a job that is performance-based. Nothing wrong with that. Courage is something you have or you don't. And every person acquires courage at a specific season in his/her life.

But if you see how income depends on outcome, and you are willing to work hard at training yourself so you can maximize your outcomes (as defined by your employer or client), then you can become economically independent and master your own financial destiny.

That's because you know how to create value, which is exchanged for cash. You also know how to create more and more value, resulting in more and more money coming to you.

The first step on the path to financial freedom, therefore, is to transcend this ridiculous concept called a "job." It's really a win-win business relationship, where you provide a certain value to the employer in return for cash. The more value you provide, the more cash you get.

Make money from the Internet revolution!

You can click HERE to access my latest blog -- "Linkedin Secrets" -- where I share secrets about how to monetize your Linkedin connections.

The great thing about "social monetization" (or making money by serving people in your social network) is that it encourages you to network more and make more new friends. You can have as many friends as you like, it's just a matter of sincerely and truly caring about what they need and how you can serve them.

An author said it best: "You can have everything you want in life, if you just help enough other people get what they want in life."

For readers who don't believe that "social monetization" is a real thing, let me share this story: a few years ago, I made more than $1,000 in commission simply from hooking up a buyer and a seller (of professional services). I did that several times, so I earned a couple of thousands of dollars just through emails and phone calls! Note: I was not selling anything, I just introduced people to one another. Easiest money I ever made! :-)

My point is, users of Facebook (there are 40 million of them) and Linkedin (there are 14 million of them) will be using social networks to generate automated cashflows and become rich, so it's up to you to start today so you can benefit financially from the Internet revolution.

Wordpress could help you blog for money

I was recently playing around with Wordpress, a free blogging software that seems to have several interesting features that Blogger does not have, such as:

- the ability to upload a picture into the header
- the ability to see how many people visit your blog (and even how many visit a specific post!)

You can see a sample blog I just created, at http://facebookmillionaire.wordpress.com

Apparently, the free version allows only 50 Mb per blog, so you would have to buy additional space.

The success secret I'd like to share is that it's possible for anyone to learn how to blog for money.

There are many business models to consider, but they fall into one of these two basic categories:

- Indirect business models, where you blog in order to attract visitors who then either click on a Google ad (AdSense program) or an affiliate link (such as those that lead to Amazon, where you earn about 4% of every book sale)

- Direct business models, where you also blog in order to attract readers, except that you actually have products to sell directly to them. For instance, you can create Payloadz links that readers can click on. Then, a purchase order form opens up and people can pay by credit card or Paypal in order to immediately download your digital file (which can be a PDF eBook, a video, an MP3 file, etc.).

Gen Y: think seriously about your economic options!

I'm a chess player and, like all chess players, I've learned that it's far easier to AVOID getting into a difficult position than to try to get out of one.

With this in mind, here's what I see as the main challenge of members of Generation Y (12-30 years of age).

They must decide whether to work for a corporate employer (or a small company, which may offer more flexibility but provide less corporate training and resources), OR become entrepreneurs and launch their own business.

Call the above Option E (for Employees) and Option B (for Business).

You might be thinking, "Which option is better, E or B?"

It's like me wondering, "Should I marry Kirsten Dunst, or Princess Leia?" The answer, of course, is neither one of them! One doesn't exist, the other does exist but is probably very hard to seduce.

Seriously, my point is that it's not a choice between Option E or Option B. Rather, it's a choice between Option E + Capabilities which are relevant to Option E + Plan E

vs

Option B + Capabilities which are relevant to Option B + Plan B

Note: Capabilities = Your attributes, attitude and aptitudes (skills, competencies)

Strangely enough, at the beginning of one's career (let's say you're 21 years old), a person usually doesn't have advanced capabilities and doesn't have significant planning abilities. In such a situation, Option E (to become an employee) seems to be the best choice.

Indeed, as has happened in my case, I learned a great deal about planning from working for Fortune 500 companies like IBM and American Express. They also trained me to develop capabilities that I could not have acquired on my own.

So throughout the 90s, I was able to increase my Capabilities and Planning Ability, which somehow increased the odds that I would succeed if I switched from Option E to Option B (launch a business).

Thus, in 1995, I launched a graphic design firm with two friends. After a few months, we failed. I had overestimated my planning ability!

So I went back to McGill University in 1996 in order to learn and master all the darn stuff on planning and management. I graduated in 1999 and began working for a consulting firm for 7 months before I quit and launched my own marketing firm in 2000 (and made a lot of money).

What I learned from all this is that unless you have a relative who has succeeded in business and is willing to teach you how business works, it is possible that the best option is to work for an employer in order to train yourself for future entrepreneurial endeavours.

You could also ignore my experience and decide to launch a business on your own, and pick up the training you need about business, planning and management as you go along.

Privatization of Professional Development

If you've watched the news recently, you might have heard of Blackwater, a private security firm that got immensely rich by being awarded security contracts from the CIA and the Pentagon.

Their contracts were worth $200,000 in 1997 and rose to $200,000,000 in the year following the Katrina hurricane devastation. Today, their yearly billings approach one billion dollars.

Strangely enough, on September 10, 2001 -- one day before the 9/11 attack -- Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech to an audience of top brass at the Pentagon, arguing that the main enemy of the U.S. was -- Pentagon bureaucracy.

He was arguing for a new doctrine, later called the Rumsfeld Doctrine, whereby the U.S. army and Department of Defense would be run, not by bureaucrats, but by "entrepreneurs and venture capitalists."

At this point, you might be wondering, "What does the Pentagon, the CIA, the U.S. army, 9/11 and Blackwater have to do with my personal success in life?"

Well, what I discern is a trend toward the privatization of everything, from warfare to education to professional development.

If you still rely on your employer or on an educational institution (university, college, etc.) to develop yourself as a professional, then you are not accessing the best resources and expertise available.

Same thing if you want to learn business or entrepreneurship: most of the so-called business schools and entrepreneurship centers are very bureaucratic and respond very slowly to what is happening in the new economy.

Even the U.S. army is not training its soldiers as well as it should. This observation by a former trainer of Erik Prince, the founder and CEO of Blackwater and himself a former Navy SEAL, was in fact the triggering insight that led the latter to create a private military training company.

If there's one thing we can learn from the 9/11 attack, it is that success in the war against terrorism or in every person's war for financial freedom, will be secured ONLY through extreme training, guerilla tactics and fast moves.

(Note: No, it's not a typo, I really did write "war for financial freedom," because unless a person is willing to train hard in order to learn and master "business warfare" principles and techniques, financial freedom will remain a dream; it will never become a reality).

More and more people want financial freedom. They can't explain why, but they have this growing feeling that it is possible. They know it's within reach. After all, there are more than 5 million millionaires in the U.S. alone.

However, not everybody can become financially free in life, because it requires knowledge and skills that, for some mysterious reasons, are NOT taught in any university -- including business schools!

I graduated with distinction (average grade of "A") from McGill University, but my degree was a "management" degree, not a "business" degree. I had to figure out the secret rules of business myself, by reading hundreds of books on the subject. The resulting system I created is described at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com, and has become a special workshop I teach at Tyark College (www.tyark.com) and other entrepreneurship schools.

My point is that if you work for a company, you're like a soldier. You could also become an "officer" (captain, colonel, etc.) as you rise up the corporate hierarchy. However, financial freedom requires that your skill level be of the same caliber as a Special Forces operative.

In fact, most of Blackwater's military contractors are former Special Ops personnel from the U.S. or other army around the world. These guys are paid close to $1,000 every day, more than double the salary for U.S. officers. They are also more heavily armed, and are more fit than 99% of active-duty U.S. army personnel.

Not surprisingly, when the U.S. sends diplomats or high-level intelligence officers in the Middle East region, they call upon Blackwater to provide security detail and body guards.

The success secret here is to realize that training is key to excellence, wealth and financial freedom, and that you won't find training programs of elite caliber at traditional schools or at your employer organization. They are way too bureaucratic to be effective at equipping you for success in the ultra-fast economy of today.

They can provide foundational training, that is, the very basics. But afterwards, if you want to succeed big time, you need to have your own private trainers and coaches.

You can be Jason Bourne

In cyberspace, you can become Jason Bourne -- that is, acquire the same super-fast reflexes (to create value and wealth, not kill people!).

You can have superhuman reflexes in cyberspace because it's an entirely different world, where the laws of physics don't apply. It's like the computer-generated world depicted by the blockbuster movie The Matrix: time and space barriers are demolished, only mental barriers remain.

"Free your mind, Neo!" says Morpheus.

I guess through this blog, I've been saying the same thing to readers (although I'm no Morpheus since I'm missing Lawrence Fishburne's deep voice and way cool sunglasses). :-)

My point is that most people have not yet realized how powerful the Internet really is.

Some view the Net as a social tool, whereas others see it as an economic tool -- that is, a way to create value and monetize it. (By the way, there IS a way to make money from Facebook, which gets 150,000 new members every day. More on this later).

Many money-making bloggers understand how the Internet can act as a powerful economic value multiplier. They write one article yet leverage it thousands of time, across time, space and minds. One blogger reportedly makes $40,000 per month from his site.

My brother Joe and I also get it (after only two days of being operational, CareerKnowledge.net has attracted over 1,000 visitors and has generated more money than the best bloggers make after six months). And I haven't yet started any marketing campaign nor launched any affiliate program! :-)

All of this unlimited money-making sounds great, and you're probably wondering, "How do I get started?"

My advice is to learn basic business principles first. And then master them.

I created a workshop called Maximum Business Learning (MBL), as well as a special workshop for entrepreneurs called BMW (for Business Model Workout -- details at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com).

If you'd like to get those two workshop manuals for a ridiculously low price, please contact me at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com with "Request info on MBL and BMW" and I will gladly empower you so you can become an unstoppable Jason Bourne on the Internet and make money fast.

Your friends and family may rob millions of dollars from you

Most cases of sexual assault and date rape occur when a woman is assaulted by a man she knows. Children are also abused by people in the family or someone they know well.

Psychologically, intellectually and economically, the situation might also be the same: those who are close to us often do us great harm. The only difference is that unlike cases of overt physical or sexual abuse, this "milder" sort of assault is not intentional -- in most cases. Even if it may seem intentional, it is often so only at the subconscious level.

Yes, I am indeed saying that loved ones CAN damage your self-esteem as well as your hopes and dreams.

For instance, friends, relatives and even parents might have such negative mindsets that everything coming out of their mouths will hurt people around them. If you share your dream with someone who's negative, that person might be "skillful" enough to destroy your dream and hope -- after only five minutes of conversation. Never underestimate the power of negative thinking and speaking, especially when it comes from someone you think cares about you.

In my case, I'm rarely "abused" by other people's opinion because I don't value it so much. I socially respect other people's opinions, but not intellectually. There are about only 3 or 4 people whose intellectual judgment I respect.

The people who have the greatest influence on a person's psychological and intellectual development are parents. In 99.9% of cases, parents truly have at heart the psychological health and intellectual growth of their children. What is admirable is that parents who have not gone through university, are often more determined than university-educated parents in encouraging their kids to complete university studies. They will make the required sacrifices to give their children the best chances for achieving happiness in life.

Assuming that you're an adult who's rational and can independently make decisions about your life, is it possible for loved ones to hurt you psychologically, intellectually or economically?

Well, if you read a few books on psychology (by Dr Phil or Abraham Maslow, etc.), you can easily figure out why people say what they say or behave as they do toward you. As Marianne Williamson wrote in her book A Return to Love, people who express themselves either offer love or ask for help.

People who offer love, are rarely the problem. They praise, encourage and support anyone who comes within earshot! Now, with Facebook, Skype, email, etc. they can praise, encourage and support people anywhere on the planet!

They are generally nice to be with, and they have a lot of friends on Facebook. Important note: I don't have a lot of friends on Facebook BUT that's because I just started and don't know how to use it properly! (In my own defense, may I mention I have over 570+ connections on Linkedin). :-)

The problem, alas, lies with people who ask for help. They need help and attention from others, and their way of "asking for help" is to be negative, nasty, manipulative.

They are not bad people. Even if they really were bad people, let's remember what Oscar Wilde once wrote: "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

In other words, let's not judge people. Even God will wait till the end of a life before He makes a judgment!

However, not judging people doesn't mean that one should let other people judge us.

In general, other people are as non-judgmental as you are. If they were really judgmental, you would find out fairly quickly, because you would painfully feel their "glaring light of disapproval" in regards to your choice of a lifestyle or job or girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse. As a result, you would not hang around very often with them.

However, there is one case where other people (who are close to you) will judge you, and neither you nor them will be aware that this judgment is taking place.

This is the covert, intangible, invisible judgment that people have about your intellectual capabilities which directly determine your financial future.

Oftentimes, people's judgment of your intellectual capabilities reflects their own self-evaluation rather than a rigorous evaluation of your true capabilities.

Concretely, what this means is that to the extent that someone has successfully "convinced" you that you are not smart enough to become a millionaire, then that person might have robbed you of millions of dollars. Perhaps this is why they say that "no one is a prophet in his own country." Perhaps this is also why people from small towns who move to the big city experience success that totally baffles people in their hometown!

(to be continued)

Opinion vs knowledge

Every person on this planet has an opinion. Some people, and I'm sure you can think of some, just have too many opinions! They have an opinion on every issue!

However, while everybody has an opinion, not everybody has knowledge. Very few people have knowledge (best defined as "the capacity for effective action").

We can't choose our parents, but we CAN choose our friends, and if you happened to choose friends who have more opinions than they have knowledge, then life will be hard for you. (The good news, of course, is that you can always make new friends).

Brian Tracy wrote that a person will usually earn within 20% of the average salary of his five closest friends. Such is the power of social norms.

Research also shows that if a person knows a successful entrepreneur, the odds of his going into business is TWICE the odds of someone who does not know an entrepreneur.

I submit that the same principle applies to one's media habits. A media (TV, websites, magazines, newspapers, etc.) is a friend that talks all the time, the minute it sees you. Unlike a friend, a mass/cultural media will NEVER listen to you!

The media is the message, and the message in this case is that you cannot be smarter than the media you chose to read (and believe).

Take the six o'clock news. It's designed to cater to every person, from the teenager to the 65-year-old man in retirement. Even the highschool drop-out will watch the six o'clock news. So if you are a professional who has 20 years of experience, then by watching the evening news, you basically lower your IQ to the level of that news program. (Notice that ALL news programs have exciting music, bright colored headlines, vivid images and graphics, etc. -- all these effects are designed to switch off your rationality and appeal to your "lower" brain, which is more responsive to sensory stimuli).

Another example: go to the nearest bookstore in the magazine section, and you will usually see one section filled with magazines like Stuff, FHM, etc. designed to cater to a certain type of superficially oriented men, while the adjacent section (which is clearly separated) is filled with magazines such as Strategy, Economist, Harvard Business Review, etc.

The superficially oriented man care more about other people's opinion of him, whereas the ambitious, power-seeking) man cares more about how fast he can acquire knowledge in order to grow in capacity and achieve bigger things in life.

Creativity vs Rationality

I say that "creativity is the mother of wealth while rationality is the father of the same sweet wealth."

A person can have a lot of (amazing, fabulous, original) ideas, and that would be creativity in action. However, without business knowledge and rational economic thinking, such a person will be poor.

Both creativity and rationality are required. Women are more creative and open-minded than men, who in turn tend to be more rational and narrow-minded than women. (Narrow-minded in the sense of "only trusting what has worked before."). Not surprisingly, women vote liberal whereas men vote conservative. Well, it's possible also, of course, that women voted for Bill Clinton because he's such a charmer!

Specifically, creativity enables the envisioning of bold, big and ambitious goals. Next, creativity enables the generation of ideas that are so original that they cut across conventional paths to success (think of ideas as shortcuts).

Rationality, for its part, enables the systematic acquisition of knowhow. In business, for instance, if you don't know how to do something, you will be swiftly eliminated and killed by the competitor who does know. This is why Lee Iacocca wrote that "business is just a bunch of guys sharing notes." He meant "proprietary, confidential, strategic notes."

Rationality also enables the design of systematic escalatory actions, otherwise known as planning.

An exercise in economic reasoning

I wrote previously about the importance of reason and rationality. Let's go through an exercise to see how it works.

1. You work in order to receive money.
2. Money is necessary in order to live in society. However, you don't spend all your income, but do save a certain amount which you invest (in bonds or stock or revenue-generating real estate) in order to "make money work for you."
3. The more money you have which "works for you" (this type of money is sometimes called "capital"), the more passive income you get.
4. If you had enough money working for you, it would generate an amount of passive income that would cover all your living expenses. You would no longer have to work.
5. Let's call this the "magical amount of money." To be clear, this is the amount of money that, if invested in a reasonable portfolio of investments, would generate passive income that would cover your living expenses, so you no longer have to work. For instance, your portfolio could bring a return of 10% on $300,000, or $30,000. With 30K per year, you estimate that you can live comfortably. $300,000 therefore is the magical amount of money.
   
6. The key to financial freedom, therefore, is to work in order to accumulate this "magical amount of money."
7. This magical amount is different for different people, since it depends on your particular lifestyle. Some people live extravagantly, others live frugally.
8. It might take a person 40 years to accumulate this "magical amount of money."
9. So a person who has been working for 10 years might think: "In the next five years, I want to generate 75% of the magical amount of money. This way, I won't have to work for 25 years."
10. This means that he has to earn 6 times more what he is currently earning every week.
    
11. The only way for him to do this is to give his current employer 6 times more value than he is currently giving. (Assuming that the employer rewards productivity and that the compensation system is fair; that is, an increase in productivity results in a proportional increase in salary).
12. But to do this, he has to clearly identify the value he is currently providing to his employer.
    
13. He also has to negotiate and capture, in the form of a contract, the agreement whereby his sixfold increase in productivity will result in a sixfold increase in salary.
14. However, there is one problem: there are only 8 hours in a day. Our man -- let's call him John -- cannot work five times more per day, since that would require 40 of work per day!
15. His only solution, therefore, is to increase his productivity per hour.
16. For instance, if he is currently earning $30 per hour, he must somehow find a way to earn $180 per hour.

(to be continued)

"Lecture" by Warren Buffett

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

I recommend viewing the above amazing set of video clips of Warren Buffett.

There are some segments where he talks about technical finance, which I skip through. However, he does offer quite a bit of wisdom, especially in the video clip #1 and #10. Enjoy!

Why people fear reason

Let me know if you've also observed this, but I notice that people who are rational tend to become more and more rational, while people who are irrational are inclined to act and behave more and more irrationally.

It's as if reason, or unreason, were a virus that propagated itself in the mindspace of a person.

Or maybe thinking rationally (or irrationally) is just a habit. As Warren Buffet said, "the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."

My point is that it seems many people fear reason. To be more precise, it seems as though they avoid reasoning or logic. Perhaps it's because there was no course called Logic 101 or Reasoning 101 at university or in college. Perhaps it's because we are too proud to admit that we often don't think logically and could use some help. Or perhaps it's simply because we don't know what reasoning or logic is all about.

A philosopher once wrote: "A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking."

I wonder how many people can honestly say, "You know what, I've been thinking about this subject for the last two hours. I'm exhausted!"

More likely, most people use shortcuts whenever possible to avoid thinking. In short, most people jump to conclusions; they don't jump to analysis!

During the 1995-2001 dot com craze, a great many smart and educated people make the mistake of investing in companies that generated revenues, but no earnings. Over one trillion dollars (that's $1,000,000,000,000) was invested (and lost) into dot coms and IPOs before the crash in 2001. And that's not even including the $1.247 trillion made by financial brokers and attorneys and investment bankers on the back of the ordinary investor.

People let their emotional side take over their rational side. Whenever this happens, a person can expect a lot of trouble to come her way.

The secret is to realize that one's reasoning skills create a kind of "Bubble of Rationality" inside one's mind. The more this bubble grows, the more the Bubble of Emotionality will shrink.

The key is to realize that reason CAN be learned, and that the more skillful you become at reasoning, the more wealth and happiness will flow into your life.

You have no reason to fear

The message that I reinforce in my career and business workshops and consulting interventions, is that "you have no reason to fear, unless you fear reason."

You may ask, Why would anybody fear reason? Oh, there are tons of reasons. More on those later on.

For now, think of life as a battle (private or public) between Fear and Reason.

Fear attracts the fearful, and creates mindless masses of people who do what the herd is doing. No more, no less. If everybody is reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, well, they just have to read it too. If everybody is investing in dot com companies (from 1995 to 2001), well, they just have to do the same. Herd psychology is an extremely powerful driver of human behavior.

This is one of the main reasons why "the rich get richer while the poor get poorer." The rich think more and more originally all the time, while the poor think more and more the same.

The people who are trapped in such mindless herds, are paralyzed by their fears, and are incapable of original, independent thinking. Even when they do generate original ideas from independent reasoning, they are too afraid to take action. Their individual minds are fused -- welded! -- with the unthinking, uncritical mind of the masses. To step outside the herd is to face danger. So in mind as in deed, they stay (lock themselves) in the warm yet illusory security of the herd.

Reason, on the other hand, is usually possessed and mastered by independent people who are not afraid of public perception or conventional norms. Reason-empowered people also seek out knowledge by reading books, whereas most people would rather read fiction. Please note that I'm not putting down fiction books, since they can often stimulate our imagination or help us to relax or plunge us into worlds that are dramatically different from our everyday environment. The problem is that often, people read fiction books and no longer have time to read useful, practical non-fiction books on management, psychology, self-help, etc.

Here's an interesting illustration of the differences between Fear and Reason, from the world of cinema.

In George Lucas' famous Star Wars trilogy, Obiwan Kenobi is characterized as a luminous being filled with reason, whereas his pupil, Anakin Skywalker, is a dark being filled with fear. His fear is carefully nurtured by the sly and malicious Palpatine so that it grows until it overcomes the young Jedi disciple. As Anakin's life escalates into the Dark Side, the entire galaxy is plunged into an abyss of pain and suffering.

The proof that Anakin let his fear overcome his reason, is when he begins to believe that Palpatine actually has the power to bring back Padme from the dead. A second proof of fear shutting down his rational faculties, is that he believes his nightmare (where he sees Padme dying) will become reality.

If anything, his fear actually created his reality! This reminds me of a line by Bodhi (played magnificently by Patrick Swayze) in the movie Pointbreak: "Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will make your worst fears come true."

Coming up: Why people fear reason.

People who waste your time and people who build your life

There are two kinds of people: those who waste your time and those who make your time productive.

This distinction has little to do with whether the people in question are your friends or relatives; whether they entertain you; whether they are smart or not; whether they have institutional credentials; or whether they know you personally or have met you in person.

Here are some of the people who waste your time: news anchors; trendy magazine writers; friends who like to gossip; unambitious and unfocused coworkers; uncaring and/or incompetent bosses; news reporters; ad agencies and the media people; fiction writers.

Here are the people who are likely to make your time productive: authors of non-fiction books; seminar leaders; smart friends; ambitious, focused coworkers and colleagues; fellow members of the professional or business association you belong to.

Please note that the people who "waste" your time are not "bad" people. You might enjoy their company very much, because they entertain you or make you feel good. It's just that they don't bring you information, knowledge or resources that can help you to build a better life.

Of course, if they're your friends, it doesn't mean you should abandon them just because they don't make your time productive. But one good idea to consider is to share your goals with them, so they can help you reach them.

If you're one of the 14 million users of Linkedin, you might also consider sharing your professional or business goals with your connections. Furthermore, you could tell them what information or knowledge or resources you need the most, so they could -- if they wish -- help you out if they come across such information, knowledge or resources.

This is what Peter Drucker called "information literacy." He said a person should act responsibly by forwarding to coworkers precisely the information they need, and by requesting from other people the information that she needs.

Every day, there are 150,000 new users of Facebook. Every week, there are 60,000 new users of Linkedin. It's great that people are becoming more and more connected.

The critical and strategic question is, "Do these connected people know what their connections need, in terms of information, to become more productive in life and to succeed?"

Get rich by distinguishing between "job" and "work"

A job is evil whereas work is noble (and super-profitable).

Here's what I mean: a job is an invention from capitalists (business owners) so they can secure the fruits of your labor without you EVER owning those fruits.

Work, on the other hand, is the activity whereby you create value. In our free market, capitalist society, you are free to sell that value to anyone you want, or you can also choose NOT to sell that value.

Work has no limitations, no bottlenecks, no "speed limits": you can work as fast as you can, to create as much value as you can, so you can EARN as much as you can.

A job, however, has mental, temporal and spatial limits:

- An employee is not allowed to use his mind in a way that trespasses his pay grade (or his job description)

- An employee is not allowed to work before 9 AM or after 5 PM (of course, you CAN work outside of official office hours, but they won't pay you for it)

- An employee is not allowed to bring work home; he/she must work while at the office or manufacturing plant

If you choose a line of work that you love and are naturally driven to become the best at it, there is NO LIMIT to how much value you can create for others and, therefore, to how much money you can make.

Let me repeat that:

If you choose a line of work that you love and are naturally driven to become the best at it, there is NO LIMIT to how much value you can create for others and, therefore, to how much money you can make.

That, my friends, is the true secret leading to great wealth. It's a secret that your parents probably did not share with you, for the simple reason that they themselves don't know the secret.

It's a secret your friends -- even your closest friends -- did not share with you, for the same reason. Your friends, like most people, have been brainwashed by the educational, media and corporate employment systems to believe that being an obedient, conforming and unthinking employee is the only viable economic option.

Like most people, I've been brainwashed too. Not only are we all brainwashed, but they also use a cheap detergent!

My point is that you can free yourself from the system by learning and mastering the differences between a "job" and "work."

People who understand the differences and exude their understanding in their everyday thinking process and working methodology, will increasingly achieve control of their economic lives. They will, in time, learn to master their vast mental powers so as to create value and capital that THEY own (not employers or business owners).

They will ultimately achieve the Ayn Randian ideal of becoming economically sovereign individuals who take orders from no one and who are masters of their fate.

Take your career public and face the truth!

Here's a secret that is really, really powerful, but that not many people know:

Take your career public. That is, issue shares of My Career Inc. and see how much money you can raise.

This exercise will allow you to see the true worth of your career, that is, the discounted cashflows that investors can expect for the remainder of your career.

There are two extreme scenarios: a lot of investors will buy shares of your Career Inc., and you will have a lot of cash on hand which you can inject into career development projects.

Or, nobody will invest in your Career Inc. because they see the glaring holes and weaknesses of your professional capabilities and career plan.

Please note that I'm not talking about "pretending" to take your career public. I mean, do it for real. Approach real investors and sell them $100 shares in your Career Inc. Try with friends and family first.

What will happen is that investors (the good ones, those who think rationally) will grill you with questions. At first, you won't know how to respond. But as you hear the same questions come back over and over, you will eventually come up with an answer. And it will be the wrong answer.

But with practice and guidance, you will ultimately come up with the right answer.

For instance, here are some common questions you will be asked:

Who is your client? How many of them are there? What is the size of the market you're serving? Is that market growing or shrinking? What makes you different from your career competitors? Are you leveraging Google? What technologies are you using to deploy your core competencies? What are the substitutes for your services? How do you manage the finances for your career? How do you plan and execute professional development activities? Who are your partners? What career processes do you use and why? What are the risks in your industry or profession, and how do you face and mitigate those risks (derisking strategies)?

In the end, a career is really a business concern. So it must be run like a business, and you must assume the role of CEO.

A good little book to read is What The CEO Wants You To Know, by Ram Charan. It's the best book for non-business people, to know and master the fundamentals of how a CEO thinks and decides.

The important thing to understand is that "managing a career" essentially means "managing the business aspects of a career." A career, indeed, is worth more than 2 million dollars over the course of some 40 years (do the math yourself, it's really true!).

To properly manage a career, therefore, requires sharp business thinking. It may take some time before you truly master the business aspects of your career, but trust me, business is really not hard to understand.

The hardest part is to begin to treat yourself as the CEO of your career, and courageously begin to make decisions yourself, and not rely on your employer (who absolutely doesn't care about your career, only about your productivity on the job while you're on their payroll).

My Amazing Career

In a previous post, I wrote about the importance of showing yourself to the world. That is, to bluntly share your performance stats and track record (good or bad) with the world.

In an effort to practice what I preach, I wrote out my biographical record in chronological order HERE, where I share some of my achievements but also my failures, such as in 1995 when I tried to launch a graphic design firm. I look back now and I'm laughing, but let me tell you, at the time we (two partners and I) flopped in business, I really felt like crying.

It's always a good idea to pause and contemplate the key influential events in one's life. It's the only way to get to know oneself better, in order ti size up one's strengths and one's weaknesses.

Being aware of your strengths will help you to capitalize on them relentlessly in order to go get further ahead, while being aware of your weaknesses will help you avoid getting into situations where your weaknesses will have a negative impact.

Do you choose agency or transparency?

Success in any field requires honesty, and honesty requires transparency.

In other words, a person who wants to succeed must have the intellectual honesty to face facts, especially the facts about his current performance.

Most people don't naturally have this sort of honesty. It's not that people are intellectually "dishonest." They just haven't been trained to monitor, document and analyze their performance data.

Okay, here's a blunt question to illustrate my point: How would you feel if the whole world, via the Internet, could see EXACTLY how you spent your time yesterday, from 9 to 5 PM? Would you feel proud of all the things you were able to achieve in 8 hours, or would you be embarrassed that people will see how you misspent your precious time?

Would you even be able to show your timesheet? Most people, except for lawyers, consultants and executives who have an assistant, don't fill out timesheets, so they literally don't know in detail how they spent their days.

Some people might say, "Well, it's not the time you spend at the office that counts, it's what you actually produce in terms of results."

That sounds fair enough. So imagine if you had to describe to the world, every day, the one thing you were able to achieve on that day.

My point is that the world is moving toward greater transparency. Individuals, companies, governments, etc. all want and need transparency from other individuals, companies and governments.

If "the truth shall set you free," then you must first make sure that if people knew the truth about you, you would feel proud, not embarrassed!

The fact is, most people are afraid to show or reveal the truth about themselves. Job seekers, for instance, hide behind "great looking" resumes and "impressive, persuasive" cover letters.

(What does the letter "cover" exactly? What is the job seeker trying to hide?)

The success secret is really to abandon the widespread "agency" mentality, where people are trying to hide behind intermediaries like a website, a resume, a cover letter, or well-rehearsed job interview answers.

Everybody is trying to look good, instead of training hard in order to actually be good!

The success secret is to follow the example of great professional athletes, who accept to have their performance stats published every day in newspapers. They are not afraid of the truth, because they work and train hard, every day, to improve their performance.

The world of work, in today's global economy, is rapidly becoming like professional sports: your performance shall be known to everyone, and your performance stats will make or break your career.

In the end, we have to be 100% honest about our performance and be willing to do what it takes to improve it. Every day.

This won't be easy. Especially when you consider the fact that most companies do a performance review only twice a year!

In his memoirs The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan wrote that the underlying dynamics of capitalism are characterized by "unforgiving market competition" and that they clash with the human desire for stability and certainty.

Employee who work for a big corporation may feel they have job stability, but that is a mere illusion. The economy is moving toward capitalism and away from corporatism.

Nobody's job or economic security is safe, and this is why it's so critical to carefully and honestly monitor one's performance every day in order to improve all the time. The drive for excellence is the only guarantee of a stable financial future.

New career portal to empower all working people!

I'm launching next Monday with a partner (my brother Joe) a new, revolutionary portal to empower all working people: www.careerknowledge.net!

You can visit it now to see the important message about how the world has changed.