Thursday, March 13, 2008

Become a teacher and you will master your life

Dear Peter,

Here's my advice for you. Carry an MP3 recorder with you at all times, and record your best ideas and knowledge as they occur to you. Then, email the audio file to a $6-an-hour transcription specialist in India so he/she can produce a PDF ebook for you.

Next, offer that ebook at $20 to your 800+ connections on Linkedin. Enable the first 50 buyers to get a BONUS: a 30-minute consulting session on the phone with you.

Notice that if 800 people buy your ebook at $20, then you've made $16,000. Through Lulu or Payloadz, that income is passive (that is, automated).

Since the generation of that income is automatic, you can spend most of your time every day just daydreaming or identifying the thoughts that are blocking you from imagining better and better things in life to experience. Indeed, you may not be aware of these thoughts, but they are present nevertheless in your conscious AND subconscious mind, and they preemptively stop you from thinking about the best things you can have and experience in life.

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The above fictitious letter which I wrote to myself, is a success secret I'd like to share with you.

Basically, the secret technique is about giving your best advice to yourself. As you write FOR yourself, you will realize that the information (the best information you have) is ALSO useful to other people.

I've been doing this for over two years with this blog. I write basically for myself, and as I focus relentlessly on "sharing" the best knowledge I have with myself, I naturally become useful to other people.

This is how I'm continually invited by people on Linkedin: I constantly provide useful answers on Linkedin Answers, and people write to me saying that they appreciate the knowledge and therefore would like to connect to me.

Developing and marketing one's knowledge is the EASIEST and FUNNEST way to financial freedom and true empowerment in life.

At this point, many people (and you are probably one of them) will say, "Well, Peter, I don't have much knowledge to share. What can I write about?"

First of all, let's backtrack. Let's not focus on the writing process per se. Let's take a look at how you view yourself.

Like most people, you've gone through the educational system (that's about 12 years of your life, at least) and so, you've been CONDITIONED to think that you know nothing, and that you're supposed to just sit there and "receive" the knowledge coming from a teacher.

So in your adult life, you have retained the same habit, except that the classroom has become your own living room (where the sofa, evidently, is much more comfortable than the wooden chairs in any classroom). Plus, you have the remote control so you feel a bit in control of what's coming to your mind.

But basically, you act like you're STILL a student whose mind is empty and who's waiting to be spoon fed bits and pieces of information.

The moment your entire life turns around is when you say, "Enough is enough! From now on, I will USE my knowledge and TEACH my knowledge! I will become a teacher and no longer a student!"

This is what happened to Eben Pagan, T. Harv Eker, Robert Kiyosaki and, of course, Anthony Robbins.

Indeed, the way to riches is to TEACH. When you teach, the most important person you are teaching is YOURSELF.

Teaching gives you a sort of self-confidence that is absolutely UNMATCHED by any other activity. It is this very self-confidence that allows you to think bold thoughts and pursue bold courses of action.

Of course, you can't switch from being a 100% student to a 100% teacher.

But you can change the mix, that is, become 95% student and 5% teacher. Then, 90% student and 10% teacher.

The worst case scenario, of course, is when a person is 0% student and 0% teacher!

This is the case with people who watch television or surf the Net (or Facebook) or shop around, without reading any non-fiction books. Magazines do not contain useful knowledge, although some business magazines contain ideas that can stimulate your thinking.

You cannot possibly be a student if you don't read books.

So without reading books or highly credible and informative blogs (like this one), you are 0% student and 0% teacher.

If this is your situation, then you know now the source of all your troubles in life.

Knowledge is indeed power, and if you're not a student who's gaining knowledge, then you go through life as a powerless person -- a victim to any circumstance coming his/her way.

By the way, this is why I created PowerKnowledge.net with my brother Joe: to empower people all over the world by sharing the BEST knowledge that I've come across from reading over 800 books. (And I continue to read about half a dozen books every week).