How a young graduate could make $100 per hour

I wrote previously that "to achieve financial FREEdom, focus on giving away valuable stuff for FREE to as many people as possible."

Here's an example that would work even for a young person who's 23 years old. Let's call her Jennifer.

Suppose Jennifer received from a consulting firm a highly valuable report written for HR directors at large corporations. This could be a special report on "How to attract and retain talents in the New Economy" or it could be "How to maximize a company's Employee Value Proposition so as to attract and retain talented professionals."

All she would have to do is email, every day, an invitation to hundreds of companies listed on Monster.com in order to get them to register and download the FREE report.

Why Monster.com? Obviously, a company that advertises a job vacancy on that site has LOST an employee and wants to replace that employee as soon as possible. This means the company could benefit from a report about how to attract and especially retain talented employees.

Out of 500 invitations every week, it's reasonable to predict that 50 HR directors will register in order to instantly download the FREE report. They have nothing to lose, and they're not committing to anything.

So Jennifer gets 50 marketing "options" per week, which means 2,500 options per year.

She could sell those options (also called "leads") to the consulting firm that gave her the free report as well as the permission to set up an email campaign targeting employers on Monster.com.

For instance, she could sell each option for $10, which means revenues for her of $500 per week.

Assuming that it takes her 5 hours to email an invitation to 500 employers, then it means she's making $100 per hour.

So what's happening here?

Jennifer got the report for free from the consulting firm, and she's giving it away for free to employers. Yet, she's making $500 per week!

Can you begin to see how the Internet can work magically for you to create income even when you have no product to sell and you're working from home?

No wonder futurist James Canton predicts that there will be one billion millionaires by 2025.

The Internet is truly a millionaire-making tool, assuming you understand basic business principles.

In this case, three "entities" got together to create value:

1. The consulting firm doesn't have time to run email marketing campaigns
2. Jennifer, a new graduate, doesn't have professional experience nor a product to sell
3. The thousands of employers on Monster don't have the knowledge to reduce employee turnover (which can be very costly)

The three get together and boom!, Jennifer's got a part-time business to run to pay for her designer shoes and fashion accessories because, of course, a young lady's got to look fabulous in society.

The ultimate wealth-creation insight! 0:11

If financial freedom is your goal, here's a POWERFUL insight to keep in mind. It just occurred to me a few minutes ago, so you guys are -- as usual! -- the first hundreds of lucky people to know about it.

In fact, this POWERFUL wealth-creation insight is SO VALUABLE that I don't know why I'm giving it away for free to you. ;-)

I'm just kidding. I appreciate your loyalty as subscribers, and I also appreciate the fact that you share this blog with all your friends and acquaintances.

Here's the insight or, dare I say it?, the ultimate wealth-creation DOCTRINE:

To achieve financial FREEdom, focus on giving away valuable stuff for FREE to as many people as possible.

A corollary is that you should focus on ways of creating value that cost you NOTHING, that is, that are FREE to you.

Example: Whateverlife.com was launched by a 17-year-old named Ashley Qualls, and she became a millionaire as a result. She even hired her mom as manager, and her best friends as "employees."

The founders of Hotmail became millionaire, through being purchased by Microsoft after they had built a user base of 30 million people within 30 months. They offered FREE email accounts to users.

The founders of Youtube became millionaires by giving to millions of people, for FREE, the ability to view and share videos.

Same with the founders of Skype, Google, Yahoo!, etc.

So how does this happen exactly? I haven't thought through this in great detail, but here's my theory: offering something valuable for FREE, enables a company to automatically multiply marketing "options."

Think of an "option" as the contact details (name, email address or phone number, and mailing address also) of each person who receives the product or service for free.

These contact details, or even the momentary and repeated attention of people, are worth money to marketers who buy them from the free-product or free-service provider (such as Hotmail, Youtube, etc.).

Even an ordinary person can set up this kind of free service. For example, a resume writer can create a website called Freeresumecritique.com and rapidly build a list of marketing options which he can then resell to another company.

I can't believe I'm giving away this valuable insight for free! So enjoy it and apply it asap to build your wealth!

Outprogramming your past self 0:11

The key to success lies in developing the capacity to mentally outprogram the past self that is no longer you.

Meditation is often very powerful in deprogramming oneself in order to become a new, better person.

That's because meditation, when done properly for 10-20 minutes per day, empties the mind of thoughts. You can actually count the number of thoughts you have per second (or TPS, for Thoughts Per Second).

As you reduce your TPS through practiced meditation, you'll be able to be FREE to create a new you, a new future, a new life.

I call it "deprogramming" and many authors refer to the same process, although they use different words. Anthony Robbins, in his book Awaken the Giant Within, for instance talks about one's life experiences, values, habitual questions and states. When you change these, you are on the path of self-transformation because they often act as hidden, yet powerful, levers and drivers of thoughts, speech and behavior.

Most people act in a certain way, or think in a certain way, because that is how they (subconsciously or consciously) programmed themselves to be.

But it is possible to deprogram oneself, or "change one's mind."

Frederick de Klerk did this, by saying yes whereas he was saying no before, and helped to end Apartheid in Africa. Gorbatchev did something similar and helped to bring down the Berlin Wall.

Do you HAVE to change your mind or deprogram yourself?

It all depends on the extent to which you are currently living the life you WANT to live. If you're not getting what you want out of life, it may be a good time to examine your mental programming (your beliefs, values, identity, habitual questions, etc.).

If you ARE living the life of your dream, maybe you should write a best-seller and become insanely rich! :-)

My point is, personal transformation requires brutal honesty. And this is hard to achieve.

But once you've decided to change and create a better life for yourself, then examining critically the content of your mind (and indeed your mental "programming" from your parents, culture, education, media, etc.) in order to keep the good ideas, thoughts, and beliefs -- and rejecting the rest -- may be the most important thing you do to ensure your wealth, success and happiness in this life.

To get rich, make 1,000 people rich 0:12

The best way to get rich is to (try to) make 1,000 people rich.

Microsoft, for instance, created 10,000 millionaires within 5 years.

Yes, I know. You're thinking, "Peter, you're talking about Bill Gates! And I'm just... me! I'm not special."

But think about this: Bill Gates was exactly in your situation until he DECIDED to create massive wealth through DOS and the deal he struck with IBM. More accurately, he was open-minded enough to imagine himself as a wealthy person.

So assuming that you're willing to open your mind and consider the POSSIBILITY that you could become immensely wealthy in this life, let's examine HOW you could achieve that by trying to make others rich.

Indeed, the thought of making 1,000 people rich will suddenly empower your imagination. That's because trying to make 1,000 people rich is 1,000 times more demanding than just trying to make YOURSELF rich. After all, you're just one person.

This kind of thinking probably crossed the mind of Dr Yunus Muhammad, the economics professor in Bangalore who invented micro-credit (and for which he received the Nobel Prize). He was teaching one day in Bangalore when the thought suddenly arose in his mind: "Why am I teaching economic theory when outside these walls, people are struggling with poverty?" So he experimented and then created micro-credit.

Notice that he did not think, "How can I use my knowledge of economics to enrich MYSELF?"

Bill Gates similarly thought about how to enrich the lives of millions of people through software applications, especially Windows. Same with Steve Jobs.

Now here's the REAL success secret which even Gates or Jobs did not know (or at least, if they did, they did not implement this secret). Jeff Bezos and the founders of Google, however, DO know this secret.

Actually, I won't tell you the secret of making massive wealth. It's just too powerful. You might not be able to handle it.

Just kidding. Here's the secret: Turn your buyers into sellers. Alternatively, turn your users into creators (or promoters).

Think about this, and how it applied to Hotmail, the company who gatherer 30 million users in 30 months. Think about how Youtube was able to get 65,000 video uploads PER DAY, and how it got 100,000,000 video views PER DAY (and was sold to Google for $1.65 billion).

My super success secret!

Recently, an awesome insight came to me regarding this blog and how it has affected my life.

More than an ordinary insight, it is actually a powerful success secret that I want to share with you. It's a concrete example of the Law of Attraction.

Here's what I mean. Over two years ago, I had the idea of writing a blog about success principles, techniques, methods, etc. I wanted all my best knowledge, culled from books, magazines, my own experience, etc. to be in one place.

I didn't know what name to give this blog, so I thought about "success secrets." Next, I added "Real-time" because I wanted to share knowledge with people as soon as I got hold of it.

So the blog name became "Real-time Success Secrets."

So far, nothing really extraordinary. It's just a name.

But here's the incredibly mysterious part that baffles me even now.

This blog's name has two key elements (the "real-time" part and the "success secrets" part) that continually focused my mind and even my life.

The "real-time" imperative drove me to immediately share with readers the information and knowledge I came across. This indeed drove me to write EVERY DAY! I had never written every day before in my entire life!

The "success secrets" imperative structured my mind so that I never just read a book. I would penetrate deeply into the author's brain and try to extract his master ideas, his secret concepts, his supreme frameworks.

Not only that, I would also constantly cross-fertilize ideas from a book with ideas from another book I had read, in order to generate new knowledge and insights.

Today, there are more than 780 posts on this blog, and I find that it gets easier and easier to write or come up with new ideas. In fact, I have dozens of notepads in which I've scribbled over 500 ideas that I want to write about on this blog.

In my Palm pilot, I have over 1,000 ideas that I jotted down and that can easily become posts on this blog.

My point is that somehow, quite mysteriously, this very blog has been an incredible focuser of my mind and has enabled me to fully leverage, albeit unconsciously at first, the powerful Law of Attraction.

Indeed, because I write every day about "success secrets," my mind is constantly and necessarily focusing on "success" and so, as a result, I have been experiencing more and more success in my life.

How can you apply this insight in your own life?

I would recommend that you create a daily activity that you like to do, and that focuses your mind on something valuable or profitable or enlightening. This will guarantee that the Law of Attraction work for you.

If writing is not your thing, perhaps you can use an MP3 recorder and record your thoughts every day. You could also draw or meditate or do anything that will enable and allow your mind to focus on what you REALLY want in life.

Any activity can serve as a "daily mental focuser."

I spend about 10-15 minutes per day writing posts for this blog, so it doesn't really take a lot of my time. What's powerful is the regularity with which I do it. This regularity or consistency creates a kind of compounding power that I can't explain, but I feel its power through the continually increasing ease and pleasure that I feel every time I write.

Success and failure are just programs you create

Here's a success secret few people know: "Success is something you program into being."

An equally unknown principle is that "failure is something others program into your life."

Let's examine success first. Why do I say that it's something you program into being?

Because success, if it is to be sustainable, must be based on a system of some kind. A system is always superior to a pattern or a behavior, and these in turn are superior to an event.

If we use a professional tennis player as a metaphor, it would look like this:

• System: the way he trains, his coach(es), his secret methodologies and technologies
• Pattern: how he plays a tournament match
• Event: he wins or loses

In other words, millions of people can see Federer or Nadal play a match, and some people can even discern patterns in their strategies as they fight it out on the court. And everybody, of course, can see who's winning or losing at any particular moment in time.

But what nobody sees is the secret system which tennis champions use to train themselves to become "winning machines."

Few people know, for example, that Andre Agassi's father reengineered a ball-shooting machine to mimic all kinds of spins so that Agassi would be able to practice hitting all kinds of balls.

My point is that success comes from a system that you create, which works for you and prepares you so that success is the natural, inevitable result.

And we all have the ability to program that sort of system. A few examples of systems: franchising, talent, habit, addiction, society, culture, peer pressure, psychology, etc.

Of course, some systems work for you while others (like bad habits, addictions, peer pressure, social conformism, etc.) work against you.

The important thing to remember is that the more systems you create which work for you, the faster and sooner you will be successful.

The Internet, in fact, is one gigantic system that most people have not yet learned how to program so that it works for them.

However, a few people have cracked the code, including the founders of Yahoo!, Hotmail, Youtube, eBay, Skype, etc. And more recently, a girl -- Gina Bianchini -- has joined the gang so she might prove very soon that girls can make a fortune from the Web too. Bianchini is the hot-looking founder of Ning, which is backed by Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape and Opsware (which he sold to HP for $1.5 billion).

This secret -- that at the heart of great success is a great system -- was in fact intuited by Archimedes centuries ago when he said: "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world."

Only two follies; fears and regrets

I think there are only two follies: fears about the future, and regrets about the past (whether these are regrets about what we did or did not do).

There is so much possibility in the present moment, and this present moment is so vast when one's consciousness is truly free of past and future.

The (spiritual) trick is to realize that this works like a vicious (or virtuous) cycle: the more one feels fear or regret, the less one is grounded in the present moment where true power lies. Therefore, the more likely one is to do things that will generate more regrets in the future.

By focusing, slowly at first, in the present moment and making decisions right here and right now, one can free oneself from past and future and "live happily ever after in the present moment."

Of course, this is easier said than done because we live in society where other people will constantly try to gain control of our minds through advertising, government propaganda, the news, even self-oriented parental influences and self-interested peer influences.

It would, in fact, be easier to "focus on the present moment" if one were to live alone on an island, protected from the attempts of other people to influence one's mind.

However, it is possible, through spiritual and psychological training, for one's mind to become impenetrable to others' influences and attempts at control.

Indeed, one can train oneself to become the spiritual equivalent of a Steven Seagal - that is, an 8th-Dad aikido master - who can gently subdue any incoming external disturbance and quiet it down into peaceful harmony.

Fears and regrets, in the end, are just disturbances that a spiritually trained person can, with relative ease, control by removing awareness from them.

Learn how to use Linkedin strategically

Below is a letter I just sent to all my 850 Linkedin connections. Feel free to subscribe to Linkedin User Manual at http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com

Dear Linkedin Friends,

May I invite you to visit Linkedin User Manual, the blogzine I’ve been religiously writing for over two years to help Linkedin users strategize and leverage their professional network advantageously and profitably. (Note: There are over 400 posts written so far.)

It’s completely FREE to subscribe so that you can receive new posts conveniently in your email box. The most valuable posts are deleted within a few days, so subscribing will ensure that you don’t miss any important information.

I currently have over 230 subscribers yet have not done any marketing to promote the blogzine.

Please feel free to ask me questions about how to use Linkedin strategically, and I will do my best to help you.

As for myself, my long-term strategy is beginning to bear fruit: I currently have 850 Linkedin connections in over 30 countries, which puts me in the best possible position to export my instructional materials worldwide.

Should you be interested in becoming an affiliate, associate or reseller, I would gladly consider your application.

To your success!

Peter Nguyen

CEO and co-founder

Talentelle.com

&

Principal and Editor in Chief

CareerKnowledge.net

PowerKnowledge.net

Prepare to win in order to win - Law of Conditionality 0:06

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFHiTQz264

At the above video clip, you'll hear Roger Hamilton mention a powerful success principle that few people know about. He says that the "role of an entrepreneur is not to create success, but to create the environment that allows success to happen."

Another way to put it is this: "Everybody wants to win, but very few people want to PREPARE to win."

Essentially, Hamilton is talking about an extremely important and POWERFUL principle governing the universe, called "Conditionality."

This principle says that success will happen when all the conditions for success have been met.

In other words, success is not something you get by doing something specific. It's not a linear cause-effect chain of events.

Same with wealth or financial freedom or the realization of your dream.

Your role is really to create, in your life, all the conditions that allow success to happen.

Prove yourself wrong and you're heading toward greath wealth

Most people don't have the reflex that both Warren Buffet and Bill Clinton have: to prove themselves wrong.

U.S. President Bill Clinton would often play this game: he would have his entire staff argue for a particular policy while he tried to demolish its merits.

Similarly, Warren Buffet (the second richest man in the world) would always try to logically demolish his own reasoning so as to prove that his decision is wrong. Of course, if he cannot demolish his rationale, then that would be proof to him that his decision is correct.

Most people (including myself) tend to think that we are right. Very few of us ever go to any great lengths to demolish or disprove our own reasoning. This is why most people never get rich.

The debate is not really between the Haves and Have nots, but the Think and Think nots. In other words, people who don't think, will never get rich.

Here's another interesting fact: if you read the extensive diaries of Ayn Rand, you'll notice one oft-repeated line that she writes repeatedly: "Think this through."

This is why her arguments and reasoning and intellect are so formidable: she's always trying to destroy her own arguments even before any other person gets a chance to hear them! No wonder Alan Greenspan (former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve) considered her his mentor.

So the success secret here is quite simple: Don't trust your own intellect or reasoning. Develop the habit of constantly trying to argue AGAINST yourself and your decisions.

Some people call it the Revolving Door technique. Here's how it works if you own a company and are running it.

Imagine that you're walking out of your business through a revolving door, but instead of stepping out into the street, you go right back into your business -- but as a new CEO.

In other words, you are NOT emotionally attached to any decisions or commitments taken previously by the other "you." You're a new CEO and you mean business.

This mindset will enable you to see clearly what is going on in your business, and to make the appropriate changes if necessary.

In other words, the Revolving Door technique gives you a pair of FRESH eyes so you can see things CLEARLY.

I used a business as an example, but it could be your career, or a romantic relationship you're in, or any other situation.

The game of politics

Someone on Linkedin asked, "Is office politics good or bad?"

Today, the Internet enables an increasing number of people to connect both online and offline, so mastering politics will become a key ingredient of success.

I'm happy to share with you my answer below.

Note: I would add that even when a person is alone in a room by himself or herself, there IS a "political struggle" or at least some political maneuvering being played out. Indeed, the future you is always playing a game of chess or poker against the present you (and sometimes, the past you). This struggle between the future you and the present you is often most apparent when a person decides to radically change her life, such as becoming an entrepreneur or engaging in a new career.

As if that was not enough, there are also various parts of you (called "agents of mind") who are struggling to gain what I call "prominence of consciousness." This happens because a person often plays different roles, such as: wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, etc. Each role is played by a different "agent of mind" with its own rules, values, memory, heuristics, etc. Each agent is trying to occupy the central spot of consciousness so that it can grow in complexity through experience.

This is very complicated although quite fascinating. I will write more about it.

---

As soon as two people gather, there is a political balance. The fact that one of the two persons, or both of them, are not aware of this, does not remove the political balance since it could be observed by a third person.

In other words, when two people get together, the game of politics begin. Even between wife and husband, parent and child, or two best friends.

This game of politics begins even before any word is exchanged.

This is so because it is impossible for two people to be at the same power level. One person will always be at a higher level; that is, the political balance will tend to favor him or her, rather than the other person.

The book The Art of Worldly Wisdom, by Baltasar Gracian, contains all the secrets of office politics (or politics in any other competitive arena). The principles he describes are simple, yet it may take a person a few years to master them.

Politics is a tool, so it is good or bad depending on how skillfully we use them. It's like a knife: nobody would give a sharp knife to a child. Similarly, politics should not be played by the novice.

Although it does take much practice to master the art of covert influence (also known as politics), the payoff can be tremendous since other political players will instantly recognize a person's skill at getting things done through skillful and oblique influence, and will seek to partner with such a person.

I know, therefore I aim

Descartes, the philosopher, famously wrote: "I think, therefore I am."

What he meant is that you can doubt all you want, but you cannot doubt that there is a doubter -- that is, you cannot doubt that you exist.

Here's my humble contribution: "I know, therefore I aim." More specifically: "I know that I am thinking, therefore I aim."

"I am" is about existence. "I aim" is about essence.

What do you want the essence of your life to be? Then AIM for THAT.

In other words, to AIM for something means to THINK about it. As Brian Tracy, the well-known motivational author and speaker often said, "What you think about, you bring about."

The important thing to remember is that every time you think about your goal or aim, you should have something written down on paper as a RESULT of your thinking.

Here's a concrete example of good thinking: Take a blank sheet of paper and write, at the top, a specific goal you would like to achieve.

Then, underneath, write 20 ideas rapidly. Do not take more than 15 minutes to do this. I call it "subconscious brainstorming," and the purpose of this exercise is to bypass your cultural-rational inhibitions so that you can access the power of your subconscious, which is like a Super Cosmic Computer which knows much, much more than you consciously know.

Let's get back to "I know, therefore I aim."

This is a breathtaking revelation that I could write a whole book about, but for now, consider this simple analogy: the personal computer or PC. It doesn't think much, yet it knows a lot.

Consider Deep Blue, IBM's supercomputer which beat the world chess champion Kasparov years ago. No matter how fast or how intuitively Kasparov is "thinking", he could not beat the computer because it "knows."

Indeed, the purpose of thinking is to get to knowing. This is why I wrote earlier that the best competition is computation. It is also why Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm pilot, equates memory with intelligence.

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

Well, the more you KNOW, the more easily you will succeed. If you're working hard right now to make money, then there's something you don't know.

If you're an employee working for somebody else, then there's something you don't know about capitalism, business, entrepreneurship, innovation, marketing, selling, production, intellectual capital, procedures, quality control, systems thinking, process design and engineering, knowledge productivity, etc.

To make the transition from "employee" to "entrepreneur", you need to fill that knowledge gap (which is the difference between what you currently know and what you MUST know if you are to succeed in business). Most entrepreneurs make the common mistake of jumping into action mode without knowing much, so it's not surprising that they fail.

The knowledge gap MUST be filled before the competence gap can be filled, and before the execution gap can be filled. (The competence gap is the difference between what you are currently capable of doing/performing vs what you MUST be capable of doing/performing; the execution gap is the difference between what you are currently and recurringly doing vs what you MUST currently and recurringly be doing if you are to succeed).

So our opening statement, "I know, therefore I aim" now becomes "I know my gaps, therefore I aim at reducing them so I can succeed."

Often, people need a coach to tell them the truth -- that is, to tell them specifically about the size of the gaps (the knowledge gap, the competence gap and the execution gap).

If you want to succeed, get a teacher to bluntly and honestly tell you about your knowledge gap; get a trainer to help you bridge your competence gap; and get a coach to help you reduce your execution gap.

In other words, the teacher must come into your life BEFORE the trainer, who in turn must come into your life BEFORE the coach.

The teacher is the most important person because, as you know, "Knowledge is power."

Even ignorance is power, if you are aware of what it is that you are ignorant about and you are aware that you can learn ANYTHING that you want to learn.

The powerful statement "I know, therefore I aim" also applies to goal-setting. If you know your goals, it is then easy to take aim. If you don't, you can't.

I will write more on this important topic of goal-setting.

The Lazy Millionaire doctrine

I started writing a book called The Lazy Millionaire because I really think that "laziness" is a powerful doctrine that can enrich you BEYOND YOUR WILDEST IMAGINATION.

Some people will ask, "What about work ethics? What about hard work?"

My answer is, "Those are wonderful and noble concepts, and I promise you that I will fully explore their meaning in my next life. But for now -- that is, in THIS life -- I want to do the least while earning the most!"

What do I mean by that? Why do I say that?

Because 99% of mankind is misled intellectually. We have been conditioned to think that hard work leads to wealth and financial freedom.

Not so. In fact, if you pick up the current issue of the Economist, you'll read an article discussing the "civil-rights issue of the 21st century": financial literacy.

The article mentions this: 4 out of 10 credit card holders do not pay the full amount due on their card, and one third do not even know the rate charged by the credit card company.

I would even say that "business education" is the key to wealth in the 21st century.

Business can be neatly summarized by this principle: Do what it takes so you earn more and more while working less and less.

This is EXACTLY what The Lazy Millionaire doctrine is all about.

In other words, wealth will NOT come to you through anything you DO, but through what you THINK. And HOW you think.

By the way, pick up a copy of Larry Winget's latest book, called "You are broke because you want to be." It's like the movie The Secret, but without the sugar-coating! The book will stimulate your thinking most productively.

Okay, back to the Lazy Millionaire. What this doctrine says is that you've got to use your MIND, not your BODY, if you want to become wealthy.

Please note that the mind is not the same as the brain. Your brain is being used every day, and it is being used more by other people than by you. In other words, the more reflexively you react, the more your brain is being used by others.

If you respond (instead of react), then perhaps your mind has intervened and it is using your brain, rather than let your brain be used by others who have their own agenda.

The Lazy Millionaire is a "mental master." He is aware. He is also aware that he is aware.

Rene Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am."

I submit: "I am aware that I am thinking, therefore I am a mini-god."

Think about that for a minute. If you can understand that statement, you'll be able to access tremendous powers within you.

In other words, if your brain is doing the thinking, and you are aware of that thinking, it means you are OUTSIDE your brain! But then, where are you?! You are an entire universe.

This is why the Lazy Millionaire doctrine makes sense. You do not need to "do" anything, you only need to gently and subtly "guide" your universe so it becomes EXACTLY like the universe you want manifested in your life.

People who work hard don't get wealth. They get stress. And there's a recent medical theory called "Life-Course Perspective" which says that you accumulate ALL the stress you experience into your body, and one day, you will have to pay for it.

All of this discussion sounds like the Law of Attraction, yet I would like to add a distinction: your life experience is manifested according to what I would call the Law of Preemptive Sensitivity (LPS).

In other words, if you think of yourself as a millionaire already, then your mind is programmed to preemptively favor or notice things, events, information, people, etc. that ONLY a millionaire would be sensitive to. You would naturally ignore anything or anyone that a millionaire would normally ignore.

So when I talk about the Lazy Millionaire, I specifically refer to "physical laziness," not mental laziness.

Most people do not achieve financial freedom because they are mentally lazy and physically over-active.

Albert Einstein said it best: "If you feed your mind as often as you feed your stomach, you will never have to worry about your stomach or a roof over your head or clothes on your back."

The Lazy Millionaire

Check out my new book, The Lazy Millionaire, at http://thelazymillionaire.wordpress.com.

I will reveal many secrets about how the rich get rich while the poor keep complaining about how the rich get rich without making any effort to learn the game of business!

Go to that site often and understand clearly the principles, and I guarantee you that wealth is yours in this life.

There are many levels of wealth (will write more about this later on):

The mass affluent: net worth of 100K - $1,000,000 (excluding value of residence home)
Millionaire: net worth of $1,000,000 - $ 5,000,000 (excluding value of residence home)
Mega-millionaire: net worth of $5,000,000 or more (excluding value of residence home)

There are, in the U.S., about one million mega-millionaires, 8 million millionaires and 33 million "mass affluent" people.

What are we really afraid of?

Many people talk about the fear of public speaking or the fear of failure, but I think that ultimately, we fear only one thing: the judgment of other people.

This is why people fear public speaking: the judgment of others is instantaneous and very direct.

It's why a teenage boy is afraid of asking a pretty girl out: he's afraid of rejection, that is, being judged by the girl.

It's why people are afraid of selling: they run the risk of being rejected by potential clients, that is, of being judged as "not offering enough quality or value."

The funny thing is that every person is a blend of soul and ego, so the more we focus on our fears, the bigger the ego grows, and since the ego is the part of ourselves which feels the fear, this leads to a vicious cycle.

Often, it will take a while and certainly much self-training under the guidance of a mentor or coach in order to get out of this vicious cycle (where perceived fear leads to inflated ego which feels more fear, and so on). But once a person has seen the truth, she is liberated permanently from this bondage to fear.

Hence, the saying "the truth shall set you free."

What we seek is freedom from other people's judgment. What we fail to realize, however, is that it is not so much other people judging us, but our THINKING that other people are judging us.

Once we fully understand that spiritual insight, we are then free to do anything in life. We no longer fear anyone nor anything, for we know that they all exist in our consciousness, which we totally control.

The proof of this is that when we sleep, all people and events and fears and doubts become "dead." They no longer exist. In other words, they only existed through the "grace" of our consciousness.

Your consciousness is like a flashlight: whatever it focuses on, becomes perceivable to your senses and becomes real to you.

The cosmic fact is that we are truly, in every moment, the creator of our own unique life experience.

All it takes, then, to have a magnificent life of limitless growth is a certain spiritual training of the mind.

All forms of spiritual training contain the following tenet: "Understanding leads to power."

If you truly understand that you have spiritual power over your physical life experience, nothing and no one can possibly stand in your way. In such an enlightened state of mind, making 50 million dollars takes about as much effort as making one million dollars.

The money being made is not nearly as important as the fact that you have understood something incredibly important in life: Imagination is the power of the spirit over the possibilities of things.

But you can't imagine anything if you proceed from a position where you are afraid of other people's judgment. This is why it is said that freedom is the basis for life. Without this freedom from others, one cannot imagine creatively or create new things. Indeed, the way to AVOID being judged by others is to do... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. (Watching TV and going through the same routine every day at the office are equivalents of doing nothing new in life).

On the other hand, people who constantly try new ideas and do new things, will continually gain possession of their spirit and will have absolutely NO FEAR of anything or anyone. These are people who have achieved a "limitless" state of mind and they are powerful indeed.

This is why it is said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Indeed, fear is the only enemy in life. Once you've mastered it, you can create heaven on Earth -- that is, you can create your own little heaven in your own life experience.

Wealth is not necessarily immoral

The value of clear, documented and independently verified thinking is quite valuable. It can even be worth millions of dollars. This is why Jim Rohn wrote and said that "to make a fortune, change your philosophy."

Here's a simple example of how deep thinking can clarify one's understanding.

Many believe that "materialism" is bad, that accumulating material possessions is somehow immoral. But is it, really?

There are spiritual masters who live in abject poverty but there are also spiritual masters and teachers who live amidst material abundance. How can we explain that? Are the second kind of spiritual teachers "fake" or insincere?

The key issue here is not whether "material abundance" is good or bad in itself, but the extent to which the person IDENTIFIES with his/her material possessions.

So a spiritual master / teacher who lives in a big mansion and drives expensive sports cars, might not be so immoral after all, if he/she does NOT identify with those luxurious objects but merely honors them as objects of beauty worth contemplating and using and having.

(Some people here might suggest that the rich person give some of his materials possessions to poor people, but that would reveal a misunderstanding of the nature of human experience. Poor people have the fundamental right to make efforts and to strive to obtain what they desire. A rich person who gives money or resources to a poor person, would basically be saying: "I don't think that on your own, you can make it. So I will give you what you cannot obtain through your own personal efforts." Indeed, such giving would harm -- albeit at a very unconscious level -- the very self-esteem of the poor person. A few intellectuals have fully understood these psycho-dynamics and have striven to create legal structures and democratic reform that enable poor people to lift themselves out of poverty through their own efforts. Hernando de Soto is one such intellectual. You can read all about his heroic work to lift millions of poor people out of poverty in his book The Mystery of Capital.)

Another person, in the same situation, might identify with those objects of luxury and use them to build his/her ego by, for example, ostentatiously displaying them in the public view. Such a person could be said to be attached to her material possessions.

This discussion about material wealth and abundance is important because in my business workshops, I often encounter people who have a strong, often unconscious resistance to the idea of wealth. They somehow believe that wealth is somehow evil and that a person should not be wealthy or even rich.

This misunderstanding can cause a lot of suffering because whether we want to or not, money is the sixth sense which enables a better use of the other five. There's nothing wrong with money or wealth or material possessions as long as you don't identify with them and don't let them boost your ego (which is only a false self-image created by the mind).

I truly believe that if a person has a brain, he/she could become a millionaire.

So what is stopping people from becoming rich and financially free? Their own unexamined beliefs about wealth and money and material possessions. I recommend T. Harv Eker's book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, for anyone who wishes to clearly examine their own beliefs about wealth and money. If your beliefs are not clear, then your mind is clouded and you cannot possibly become rich or financially free in this life.

In other words, no matter now much you DESIRE wealth and financial freedom, your (mistaken) BELIEF will always stop you. It's like driving a car and having one foot on the gas pedal while the other foot is firmly pressing the brake! In such a situation, the car ain't going forward!

I say "mistaken belief" but in fact, there are no right or wrong beliefs. A person's beliefs is of her own choosing, so it is totally up to her. It's her prerogative to believe what she wants to believe.

However, it might be wise to examine one's beliefs and see whether they are helping one to reach one's goals or are, instead, hindering and blocking one's way forward.

Here's the success secret: Clearly examine your beliefs and refine them so that they become aligned with your desire. This is better than reducing your desire so that it "fits" your current belief system.

Desire is rarely the problem. People do know what they want (even if they may not always be able to verbally describe it). What's stopping most people from getting what they want in life, is the covert, unconscious, unexamined beliefs they have ABOUT what they want.

Prime Indicator of Evolution (PIE)

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Everybody defines "success" differently, but no matter how one defines it, it's always good to have a clear indicator to show one's progress in life.

This is that I call the "Prime Indicator of Evolution" or PIE.

It's a simple measure of how you progress in life, how you evolve as a human being. If you don't have one, please don't panic. It's never too late to come up with a prime indicator of evolution.

It's always more fun to feel that one is moving forward and making progress.

The key question to ask yourself is, "Am I growing as a person?"

This is a question I asked myself in the summer of 2000, and the answer was "No." So I quit my corporate job and began a soul-searching journey that led me to who I am today: that is, an obsessive serial entrepreneur intent on world domination.

Just kidding.

Sometimes, one's ego may be growing but that is not the same as the person growing. Our ego are often attached to material things like money or a house or a car or even a wife (or what they call a "trophy wife").

As our material possessions grow, our ego also grows. But the problem with the ego is that it is unconscious and quite incapable of focusing in any meaningful direction. All it wants is "more." More, more, more.

This ego keeps growing until one day, the mid-life crisis occurs (at around age 42). This is when people begin to question their assumptions about work, life, society and their very identity. This intense period is often painful psychologically, but the pain itself is not necessarily bad. It's just a sign that some change is needed. Some drastic change.

However, there's no need to wait until one is 42 to question oneself.

You just have to ask yourself, "What is a good indicator that tells me I'm growing as a person?"

Here are a few indicators of "evolution":

• You're meeting new people and making new friends
• You're reading non-fiction books in order to expand your knowledge and horizons
• You're practicing and perfecting an art or craft or hobby of yours
• You're blogging obsessively every day, hoping to achieve world domination through the written word (that would be me) :-)
• You're dating people (usually, members of the opposite sex) and are getting to know yourself more through the process (and of course, getting to know the other person)
• You're taking courses or are attending seminars/workshops

The above is obviously not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. Activities where you create something or where you experience something new, usually leads to personal evolution. Please notice that watching TV or reading superficial magazines is not in the list!

That being said, I can't really say that TV is bad or that magazines are bad. Sometimes, we need something to stimulate our imagination or just to relax.

It's all relative, in the sense that it's up to each person to decide whether he/she wants to evolve or not.

But assuming that a person has decided to engage on the path of personal evolution, then it helps to have a Prime Indicator of Evolution. This indicator could be the number of books you read per month, the number of hours you spend on your art/craft/hobby, the number of new people you meet, the number of friends you hang around with and have meaningful conversations with, etc.

Desire without doubt + Focus without force

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgO4UDrwm8

If you haven't read the book A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, I highly recommend it. It's the kind of book that can be read in 3 hours, but might take 3 years to fully understand, master and apply in one's life.

Above is the link where you can see and hear the author himself talk about the apparent paradox or dilemma of "wanting something intensely while being detached from the outcome, because you are already where you want to go."

Here's how I would summarize his paradox (of "doing nothing" while "intensely focusing" in the present moment):

Desire without doubt
+ Focus without force
= Success without strain

Along with spiritual teachers like Abraham-Hicks and Deepak Chopra, Eckhart is revealing thought-provoking spiritual teachings that could transform human lives and perhaps even civilization itself in a few decades.

Of course, these spiritual teachings have not yet become a spiritual technology (by "technology," I mean "crystallized knowhow").

Interestingly, such spiritual technologies are highly developed in India where spiritual traditions and practices -- also known as "inner sciences" -- have begun thousands of years ago.

In the West, we may be advanced in terms of "outer sciences" -- think, for example, of how NASA has been able to land a man on the moon. We might even, within two decades, be able to land a man on Mars.

But in terms of "inner sciences," we are still fumbling our way around, still groping in the dark.

So why are spiritual teachings so important for success in life?

I submit that success requires power (over self), and power comes from spiritual practice. Spirituality, by the way, should not be confused with religion.

In fact, spirituality is to religion what learning is to education. Religion and educational systems do provide benefits in the sense of creating stable structures and basic teachings to guide a young person, but it is only through personal effort and sincere striving that true spirituality and true learning occurs.

If power comes from spiritual practice, then how do we jumpstart this spiritual practice?

One simple way is to create your own daily ritual through which you can recharge your spirits at will. Mythologist Joseph Campbell advised that one create a special, "magic" place in one's home where this ritual can take place.

Some people engage in meditation for 10-20 minutes, others (like me) obsessively blog for half an hour! The important thing is to engage in an activity that somehow raises your level of awareness and helps you to experience "flow." (I highly recommend the book Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience, if you want to fully understand the intricate yet exciting dynamics of happiness in the moment).

What are the limits of rational decision-making?

Making good decisions in life is critical to happiness as well as prosperity.

A Linkedin user asked the question, "What are the limits of rational decision-making?"

I thought I'd share with you my answer.

The short summary is that to make good decisions in life, you have to know:

1. what kind of information is IMPORTANT given the decision you have to make
2. HOW to access that information before decision time.

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There are 4 areas in life where decisions are made: SUBJECTIVE, OBJECTIVE, SOCIAL/CULTURAL AND SYSTEMIC.

However, since your question mentions "business," let's first examine the OBJECTIVE sphere where humans make decisions.

The limits of rational decision-making are set by information that is important and that is knowable. The dot com crash, where one trillion dollars was lost by overly emotional investors (many of whom are university-educated!) is an example of focusing on information that is NOT important (at least, not for investment purposes): revenues. Earnings should have been the information to look at.

At the same time, knowing what information is important, is not enough. That information must be KNOWABLE and one must FIND it before the time at which the decision is to be made.

If the information is published in annual reports or in market research reports, then one can find it. But if the important information is in the head of an executive, then getting access to that information might require a few tricks.

The key is to get to that important information BEFORE decision time, and that is the field of business intelligence. George Friedman wrote the best book on that subject: The Intelligence Edge - how to profit from the information age.

But over and beyond those two requirements (1. the information must be important, 2. the information must be knowable and known before decision time), there seems to be a third critical aspect of rational decision-making: the structuredness of the mind making the decision.

Billionaire Charlie Munger is a good example of someone who disciplines his mind continually so as to organize it for effective deployment during decision-making. For instance, he reads extensively and constructs what he calls a "lattice of mental models", that is, a continuously evolving configuration composed of the operating principles culled from various disciplines such as stats, biology, astronomy, business, psychology, etc.

So that's for rational decision-making in the OBJECTIVE sphere of business.

"Falling in love" belongs to the SUBJECTIVE sphere of life, where feelings are more important. These feelings are valid and, in a way, "rational" for one person but cannot be verified nor validated by external instruments or by other people. The expression "love is blind" could be instructively upgraded to "love can feel what the eye cannot see."