Is there a drunk entity ruining your life?

Folks, I might have mentioned this before, but I highly, totally, absolutely recommend the book A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle. In it, you will find the ultimate secret for happiness, wealth and great sex.

Well, okay, maybe not that last one. (For that, you have to come to my secret underground seminar).

The main idea is that we all have an ego, and this ego is like a drunk man who is very unconscious of what he's doing. If you don't develop a keen awareness of your ego, it will destroy your life -- one moment at a time.

On the other hand, when you operate without an ego, you can achieve great things.

I speak from personal experience. In my youth, I was so "egoless" that everything came to me easily. I was able to get 4 standing ovations before I turned 18, and went to the prom with the most beautiful girl of the high school. She looked like Angelina Jolie, except she's much more naughty. I'm not kidding you.

Then, one day, something happened. I was sooooooo on top of the world that a mysterious entity appeared in my life -- in my consciousness, actually. I did not recognize it as the ego, but upon reading Eckhart Tolle now, it is clear to me that it was my (male) ego indeed.

This drunk entity crashed into my life party and proceeded to destroy EVERYTHING I had built so far, including a beautiful relationship with the most amazing, beautiful and angelic girl I have ever seen!

Anyways, after my life was thoroughly destroyed and I found myself flunking and dropping out of university and utterly confused about my life, I was lucky to stumble across the first book written by Dr Edward de Bono, called The Mechanism of Mind. I instantly recognized him as the genius he is, and proceeded to read and study ALL his books.

It's fair to say that Dr de Bono enabled me to rebuild the intellectual part of my life, since I learned awesome creativity techniques from him.

Today, it seems that Eckhart Tolle has the same effect on me, but at the spiritual level -- which is higher than the intellectual level.

As you read his book, think of what happened to young Anakin Skywalker. The Star Wars double trilogy is indeed a fantastic cinematic illustration of all the concepts explained by Eckhart.

I will write more about this topic in the upcoming days.

The greatest career advice

People often ask me for advice on choosing a career, and the following is what I offer to help them clarify their thinking about career matters.

1. Life is all about experience. That is, life is all about tasting and savoring, using your skillful consciousness, the content and structure of every moment.

2. There's "good" experience and there's "bad" experience (or "not so good"). Whether an experience is good or bad, totally depends on the person. That is, a good experience for one person can be a bad experience for another person. For example, I like to work alone for hours without being interrupted. But most people would rather work with other people.

3. Work that you look forward to, is good. Work that you do not look forward to, is not good.

4. Choose work that makes you feel good in the moment. Do NOT choose work that you think will make you feel good in the future (e.g. work that pays well so you can comfortably retire).

5. Do NOT think about money when you choose a career. This would be a severe mistake that will make you lose yourself.

Many people might argue against point #5, so let me clarify what I mean.

"Money" is a mental concept, it does not exist in one's experience. Nobody can "experience" money. However, money can buy certain experiences, although it does NOT and CANNOT guarantee the quality of such experiences.

The quality of an experience depends on the skill with which a person wields or directs her attention. This skill is similar to the skill of a good movie director. Attention is basically thoughts chosen and projected onto the screen of consciousness.

Okay, back to money and why it doesn't matter in the choice of a career.

Just imagine that money did not exist, and that you have the choice to either have a "good" experience 9 to 5, five days a week, or a "bad" experience.

Obviously, you would rather have a good experience 9 to 5, five days a week (no matter how you define "good").

So if you choose a career where you have a good experience for 40 hours every week, then you've won BIG in life. That's because after 5 PM every weekday and during week-ends, you can ALSO choose to have good experiences (since there is no boss telling you what to do).

Your life would be one GIANT good experience!

However, if you choose a career based on money considerations, then chances are, it will be work that you don't consider to be a good experience.

Therefore, you would have a bad experience 9 to 5, five days a week. And you would only be able to have good experiences after 5 PM every weekday and during week-ends.

The problem is that all your best energies have been dissipated every day by the bad job (usually involving a bad boss -- he's not "bad" per se, but he demands too much, offers too few resources, etc.). So in the evening, you don't have energy to create good experiences for yourself.

So what you would do, given this low level of energy, is BUY good experiences from others. As you spend money to buy good experiences, you get into debt, and are then forced to keep working in order to make money to finance those artificially created good experiences.

It then becomes a vicious cycle, and you feel like a hamster running like mad on a spinning wheel.

You begin to experience stress, your body ages faster, you sense the meaninglessness of it all.

All of this happens because you chose a career based on money, rather than joy or quality of experience.

Your mind, which is conditioned by society ever since you were born, will often choose money while your heart will always choose a great experience.

Your heart will always choose "life", which is real whereas "money" is not.

The irony is that people who choose a career based on their passion or talent, will often make much more money than the average person. And work doesn't feel like work to them. Work, for such self-honest people, is a way to experience high-quality moments every day. They don't need "work/life balance" because they have a GREAT life at the office AND a GREAT life at home. It is more like "professional life/personal life harmony."

This harmonization enables their personal life to fuel their professional life, and vice versa. There is no conflict between the two, only synergy.

The above sounds simple enough that any teenager can understand it. However, many adults have a hard time believing that one should make a career choice based on one's heart or passion.

This is simply because their mind (or ego) is too strong, and has silenced their heart. The heart doesn't shout like the mind; it only whispers. So you have to make a real effort to hear what your heart is telling you.

If, as a child, your parents encouraged you to pursue your passion regardless of what society thinks, then it is likely that you will choose an occupation based on your true self. But if your parents placed a strong emphasis on "higher" education, getting a "good and secure job", etc. then you might have lost touch with your heart.

In choosing a career, most people do not need knowledge or guidance as much as courage. The courage to follow one's bliss, despite what society thinks or despite what your conditioned mind says you "should" do.

Buffett's 7 secrets for living a happy and simple life

I'm very grateful to have received from my sister Zoonie the following 7 secrets to a happy and simple life.

Since I'm an obsessive intellectual, I couldn't resist the temptation to rationally verify if these secrets were applicable to my own life. Feel free to go through the same exercise, and I guarantee that you will gain clarity regarding your own strategies for achieving happiness!

Secret # 1 : Happiness comes from within.

In my adult business life I have never had to make a choice of trading between professional and personal. I tap-dance to work, and when I get there it’s tremendous fun. - Warren Buffett

I would say that happiness, for most people, comes from a set of positive conditions in one's life. What those specific conditions are, depends on each person. Some people need to have children to be happy, others don't. Some need to have a creative job, others don't.

So I don't necessarily agree that happiness, as defined by society, comes from within. Peace, however, comes from within. Therefore, peace does NOT depend on external conditions.

Given the fact that most people are not happy at work, it may be better to seek peace within first. In other words, if you currently have a job that is not aligned with your passion or talent, it would be better to accept that job and develop a sense of peace and calm serenity about it.

This puts you in the BEST emotional position for planning and executing a move that will lead you to a better job or perhaps to launching your own company.

Secret # 2 Find happiness in simple pleasures.

I have simple pleasures. I play bridge online for 12 hours a week. Bill and I play, he’s “chalengr” and I’m “tbone”. — Warren Buffett

I don't agree with the premise behind this secret. Some people find happiness in simplicity, others find happiness in complexity.

For example, some people love to watch movies where the romantic story is clever yet simple to understand and there's a nice ending. For example, the movie Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts and Richard Geere.

But in my case, I love movies that offer a bit more "meat" or psychological sophistication such as Lune de fiel (Bitter Moon), starring Peter Coyote and Emmanuel Seigner.

Actually, I love both Pretty Woman and Bitter Moon.

My point is that the advice "Find happiness in simple pleasures" has to be verified personally by each person, according to his/her taste.

One should also distinguish between "pleasure" and "enjoyment." Pleasure is external, like eating food, drinking wine, etc. and has a physiological effect while enjoyment is internal, like intellectual analysis, creative writing, etc.

Buffett probably "enjoys" playing bridge with Bill Gates because the game involves strategy. Technically, he doesn't derive pleasure from it. (Unless they are both drinking alcohol or smoking cigars while playing!).

By the way, Buffett DEFINITELY enjoys his work as a capital allocator, for it involves a great deal of intellectual work. He reads tons of annual reports every year. Thus, his secret #1 could be rephrased as "Professional happiness comes from choosing the kind of work that you ENJOY doing."

This sounds more accurate -- and thus can be of greater practical guidance -- than "Happiness comes from within."

Secret # 3 Live a simple life.

This is good advice. For people over 40!

For crying outloud, if you're under 40, seek novel experiences and experiment a little! I notice that many young people today are paralyzed by fear of some kind.

When I was in my 20s, I did everything! (Except drugs and orgies).

How can you have an exciting life if you only seek the "simple life"?

In Buffett's defense, I should say that he belongs to a previous generation so his taste for simplicity is eminently justifiable.

But there are SO MANY things to do today. I would not advise young people to "live a simple life."

Certainly, one must have simple and clear values, but beyond that, one should be open to new experiences.

Secret # 4 Think Simply.

“I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.” - Warren Buffett

He is totally correct. One's reasoning behind any decision should be defendable, not because one has to report to anyone, but because being able to defend one's decision or position will force a person to be ruthlessly rational.

Secret # 5 Invest Simply.

The best way to own common stocks is through an index fund. - Warren Buffett

I don't necessarily agree. The best way to create wealth for yourself is to use your imagination and creativity to create new value, and then distribute that value worldwide if possible.

I'm more in agreement with Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who created the Grameen Bank (micro-credit) and who believes that "entrepreneurship" is a fundamental aspect of every human being.

If that is true, then every person should create his/her own product, build a business around it, and invest all his/her available money into that business -- not an index fund since that would mean investing into other people's businesses.

Secret # 6 Have a mentor in life.

I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming. - Warren Buffett

Having ONE mentor may have been a good strategy 20 years ago, when the pace of change was relatively slow and technology or new ways of doing business did not develop so rapidly.

Today, one needs a network of advisors, teachers, coaches, trainers and experts. Linkedin, and especially Linkedin SENSE (http://linkedinsense.wordpress.com), is perfect for building one such strategic network.

I do agree with him that one needs to have heroes AND to follow the work of such heroes. My heroes are Hernando de Soto (author of The Mystery of Capital), Edwards Deming, Edward de Bono, Alvin Toffler, Eckhart Tolle and the late Ayn Rand.

Secret # 7 Making money isn’t the backbone of our guiding purpose; making money is the by-product of our guiding purpose.

If you’re doing something you love, you’re more likely to put your all into it, and that generally equates to making money. - Warren Buffett

I totally agree. When you do work that you love, you pour your entire BEING into your every DOING. There is such focus and power and creativity in one's being that when you inject it, with passion, into anything you do, the end result is invariably a masterpiece -- with the added benefit of your psychically growing through the experience into a more self-realized person.

"Pay what you can" business model

It's so fascinating that yesterday, I wrote a post about how to escape suffering and about the tyranny of the ego, and then today, for some mysterious reason, I searched for "free surveys" on Google and found Sureforms.net.

I then discovered something interesting: you can create a payment page so people can send you funds through Paypal. Example at http://www.sureforms.net/peterswork.form.

People can enter the amount they wish to contribute, and presto, you've got funds to support your work or fundraising, etc.

So today, I decided that I would give away my best work at http://peterswork.wordpress.com (operational in a few days) and people can donate whatever they can.

This "move" requires that I give up my ego, which I found -- surprisingly enough -- easy to do!

But it's not an entirely new idea. Wikipedia operates through donations, and so does the OCW from MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu).

Isn't it amazing that through the Internet, a person can benefit a huge number of people (who can instantly download digital content) and can be supported, financially, by a great number of people?

You can even offer a service and then let people donate what they can. Of course, this "business" model requires an egoless orientation toward your career or business. You have to sincerely want to help people with your product or service.

In other words, if your career or business is based on your ego, which wants everything for itself so it can grow in importance and power (thus making you lead an unconscious life), then it is very unlikely that you would adopt a "pay what you can" business model. This is because you would not trust other people.

In my case, I'm not at all worried about people not paying. I've been writing blogs for more than two years without being paid, because I enjoy it so much! I feel so blessed to be able to do this kind of work.

If you appreciate my blogs, please feel free to contribute what you can at http://www.sureforms.net/peterswork.form. If you can't contribute for any reason, don't worry about it. :-)

The key to escape suffering

Suffering is an unavoidable aspect of life. But here's a metaphor that can help you to deal with suffering.

We are luminous beings. The perfect part of ourselves cannot suffer, it is only the imperfect part that is suffering. It's like gold: its impurities will burn (thus causing the suffering) but the gold itself is not affected by fire.

Eckhart Tolle says that for most people, suffering is their only spiritual teacher. This teacher is most present when the suffering is most intense.

However, the presence of this teacher does not guarantee that the student will learn. Indeed, the student who experiences intense pain might decide to run out of the "classroom" altogether.

But in such cases, what happens is that a bigger lesson will pursue the student and catch up with him and make him experience a deeper pain, one he cannot easily escape from.

You might wonder, "Peter, this is a blog about success secrets, why are we talking about suffering? Isn't success about AVOIDING suffering?"

I would not say "avoiding." I would say that one should accept, embrace and then transcend suffering.

How?

Through a spiritual understanding of the situation and, in fact, of one's entire life.

A friend often told me, "Everything happens for a reason." I would clarify further by saying that "everything happens for our evolvement."

Concretely, this means that whatever pain or suffering you are currently encountering in your life, they are there for your evolution. Trying to avoid your pain or suffering will only make it come BACK again, but with more strength and aggressivity.

The pain can be caused by people, especially close ones like family or friends. Or it can be caused by a particular situation (a job you hate, etc.).

But ultimately, you are the cause of your pain and suffering. That's because it is HOW you interpret a situation, in YOUR mind, that results in the emotions you feel in your body.

The key to transcend suffering, therefore, is to grow in awareness and rise ABOVE your mind and its thoughts.

The more you identify with your mind, the stronger your ego will be. And the ego is very negative and seeks a negative interpretation of everything. The ego is very defensive and very vulnerable. It will react to people and situations in a very unconscious manner, leading to more pain and suffering for all involved.

If, for any reason, you feel fear or anger, you know that it is your ego that is presently in control. Not your awareness, which is higher.

The ego, especially for men (and I'm guilty as charged!), is not easy to control. The world has evolved in a way that somehow rewards the ego, through material possessions (or obsessions?) like big houses, cars, status, priviledge, celebrity, etc.

There's nothing wrong with houses, cars, status, priviledge and celebrity, IF one does not identify with them.

Yesterday, I was watching the movie Batman - The Dark Knight when I had this insight: Society is structured to serve the male ego.

In other words, the more expression a man gives to his male ego, the more he will rise in the world. Of course, his progress in the world has little to do with his personal, spiritual progress.

Why is society serving the male ego? Because the male ego created society as we know it.

So rather than say that "it's a man's world," I would say that "it's a male ego's world."

Women are less tempted to let their ego rule their lives, for the simple reason that women "live in their bodies while men live in their heads."

I don't know why this is so. Perhaps because women experience, every month, the menstrual cycle which, in a way, forces them to "feel" what their body is going through.

The fact remains that I've met hundreds of women, and I'm surprised that I haven't seen any female ego in action. This is why I resonate with the statement I read a while ago, "men display their knowledge while women share their knowledge."

Another way to put it is that women are peer-oriented while men are pyramid-oriented: they seek to gain superiority over other men.

Once again, I must say that I'm guilty as charged!

But as I've discovered in my own life, by trying to control my ego and rising above its unconscious reactions to people, events and situations, I gain power.

Rather than reacting, I respond -- with full awareness.

"Respond", to me, means "rest & ponder." In other words, I "freeze" my mind and keep it at rest when confronted with negative people or emotions. And then I ponder on the appropriate response, from a place of deeper and higher awareness.

The more I practice this exercise, the more I understand what Seneca wrote centuries ago: "Powerful is the man who has himself within his control."

So if we get back to the subject of this post -- suffering -- we realize that suffering and pain offer opportunities to develop our power.

The power to transcend the unconscious reactions of the vulnerable and defensive ego, so that we can reach a place of tremendous serenity and power, where unlimited creativity lies.

Once a person can access this place of infinite creativity, success is virtually guaranteed even though -- paradoxically enough -- it is not obsessively pursued the way the ego usually does.

THIS IS AWESOME!

Steve and Chad might have received $1.65 billion from Youtube, but here's how you can get $100,000,000 from Youtube. I'm not kidding.

Now before I tell you the secret, I have to say that I've been a quasi-religious student of knowledge ever since I was a kid. I've read every book under the sun.

In fact, I read about 500 books every year. Translation: I don't have much of a social life, and most of my friends probably think that I'm either dead or have been kidnapped by aliens.

But in all my readings, I have never come across a book as powerful as the one below.

If you've been watching the Oprah Show, you probably know what book I'm referring to. However, reading an author is not the same as watching him speak.

If you want to know the purpose of your life, I highly recommend watching the video below. Actually, start from Chapter 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v74oOe8f07Y&feature=related

I also recommend that you buy the book by the author.

To me, he's like a modern-day Yoda (and I'm like a young Luke Skywalker who just picked up a light saber, or a fountain pen to be more accurate -- both of which are lethal weapons).

I've been reading spiritual books for a while, so I "get" what he's saying. But many people might not, at least not immediately. Yet I encourage everyone to read and then STUDY this book, as if your life depended on it. Because your happiness certainly does depend on the teachings in this book.

What he teaches is worth more than gold (which is why I mentioned at the beginning that you'll get much more than $1.65 billion from these videos on Youtube).

What I got from his teachings:

- Either you are successful, now and forever, or you will never, ever be (these are not his words but my own interpretation)

- Desire without doubt and focus without force, and you will succeed without strain ("forceful" focus is often the training or conditioning that people get from corporations or personal development authors, who preach "goal setting." It is based often on the ego, who wants to "achieve.")

- Don't look for a job. Rather, realize that YOU ARE THE JOB! Work on yourself and success will follow you. Jim Rohn said something similar: "Success is what you attract by the person you become."

Enjoy his videos!

Wisdom is a function of knowledge more than experience

Old saying, heard on the street:

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."

Source: http://blog.timberry.com

I respect Tim Berry for he created a business planning software that helps entrepreneurs, and he seems to genuinely want to help entrepreneurs succeed.

However, his quote above simply doesn't make any sense.

It's one of those quotes that most people would readily agree with... until they think about it in a disciplined and lucid manner.

For instance, WHY would good judgment come from experience? There are women who keep attracting abusive men into a relationship. How does "experience" help them to improve their judgment and, hence, choose a better mate?

Here's a more shocking illustration to drive my point home. Suppose you're the father of a 17-year-old daughter. She comes to you asking for advice and clarification on the issue of sex.

Would you tell her, "Honey, it's all about developing good judgment, and good judgment comes from experience. So go out there and..."

Well, you get my point.

Okay, one last example. There are men who work as employees for 20 years. They still don't understand the business game, nor the capitalistic system in which business, the game, is played. So they never get rich. Their 20 years of "experience" did not teach them economic judgment.

To replace Berry's quote, I would suggest the following: "When you don't know, you don't know."

In other words, get the knowledge first. Then use experience to validate or invalidate your knowledge (that is, to TEST it).

Also, learn from experiments, not experience. An experiment is more scientific, and you have greater control over the experimental conditions. "Experience" is more chaotic and less structured.

In conclusion, let me share with you what the great Confucius had to say about learning. According to him, there are three main ways to learn:

1. Through trial and error

2. Through imitation (doing like the people who succeed in your field of endeavour)

3. Through meditation (learning through logic, analysis, thought, synthesis, mapping, etc.)

With #1, you learn through your own mistakes, and you often pay dearly for such learning.

With #2, you learn through others' mistakes (and successes, since success always leaves clues for you to study, reverse engineer, systematize, etc.). You pay nothing, since the price of learning has been paid by those who have succeeded.

#3 is best since you learn by THINKING, that is, by exercising that supreme faculty that distinguishes humans from animals.

The man who has developed a taste for thinking, has great power. He can invent anything, and by the simple and repeated act of mentally manipulating symbols and encoded knowledge, he creates wealth for himself and all those around him.

Acquire marketable skills for free!

I recently launched a free service for Linkedin users that is becoming quite popular: Linkedin SENSE.

SENSE stands for Skills Exchange Network for Strategic Empowerment.

If you are a Linkedin user (and every ambitious person should be!), you can join for free. Please visit http://linkedinsense.wordpress.com.

Feel free to subscribe to Linkedin Mastermind also: http://linkedinmastermind.wordpress.com. It's free for now, but will be passworded soon and cost $200 per year.

To your success!

7 supreme laws of happiness

Ah, this is such a sweet moment! After writing 831 posts, I finally came across an insight that I wanted to share with you immediately. It's about how the 7 key areas of life impact one another.

In the colorful diagram above, I capture those 7 key areas. Notice that the "Creative Career" box is a little bit bigger since I wanted to suggest that it's important to choose a career that allows one to grow.

Indeed, a good, creative career can impact all the other areas of life, as I describe on the arrows.

For example, if you choose a career purely for the sake of money and you're not really passionate about it, it will have negative repercussions on your health. Also, you won't earn as much money for the time and effort that you put in.

On the social front, you are likely to be less confident since people at cocktail parties or at any get-together will often ask: "So John, what do you do?"

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for young people in their 20s, choosing a career that doesn't allow your true self to express itself, will negatively impact your "performance"on the dating scene and in love relationships. The reason is simple: If you don't know your true self, you cannot know true love.

I don't mean "true self" in the big sense, but in the humble sense of consciously choosing, always, to do what feels right to you. This is about self-honesty. And if you don't have it, then it's impossible to be involved meaningfully with another person.

Indeed, if you respect yourself so much that you give yourself the BEST career possible and don't settle for anything less, then you are likely to be capable of giving your lover the BEST attention, care and affection possible.

I will write more about the above diagram, which should be included in an upcoming ebook titled: "Total Happiness -- What it is and Why You Totally Deserve it!"

Note: I'm just kidding about the diagram title, "Peter's 7 Supreme Laws of Happiness." I was so happy after I finished drawing that diagram that I decided to stroke my self-esteem a little bit!

Farrah Gray, Reincarnation, Spiritual Beliefs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f1TNgJ5mF0

At the video above, you can catch a glimpse of the breathtaking life of Dr Farrah Gray, who became a millionaire by the age of... 14!

I became aware of his existence only today, as I was browsing through his latest book, Get Real Get Rich.

"Millionaire at 14." I thought it was a typo. Nope. The kid made a million dollars when he was 14. (I made $3.54 an hour when I was 16. Life is so unfair! To compensate for my ridiculously low minimum wage, I shamelessly flirted with the two cashiers at the fast food joint where I was working -- Jasmine and France). :-P

Enough whining, let's get back to the main story.

It's quite inspiring how he explained the word "Reallionaire," which he coined. It's somebody who became rich from the inside, by being REAL.

Watching this video, I remembered a conversation over supper with my brother and his wife two days ago. We were talking about reincarnation.

I suggested that it's possible that as spiritual beings (or souls), we have many lives. Furthermore, we carry in our subconscious memory the knowledge, skills and qualities developed in prior lives.

So it's quite possible that when Farrah Gray was born, he already had in his memory the knowhow, qualities and talents -- developed in past lives -- which enabled him to succeed so quickly, despite the fact that he came from a poor family.

Reincarnation also explains how Mozart and other geniuses had such extraordinary gifts at a young age.

These beings came into Life with a very firm and very specific intention. In the case of Farrah, it is obvious that he wanted to be a teacher who would inspire others, especially Black boys and girls who, for historical reasons, have had a hard time believing in themselves.

But as a teacher, he is only as credible as his biography. So it was necessary for him to be born in a poor family, so that he could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that ANYONE can succeed and become a reallionaire.

Had he been born with a silver spoon and to wealthy parents, with all the associated priviledges, he would not have been as effective nor as credible as a teacher.

Many who come into Life with the firm intention of becoming teachers, have often had a very hard life. Yet the harsh life and the adversity are only testing conditions designed and calculated so that the greatness of the person would emerge.

Indeed, one can only teach strength if one has had the opportunity to develop it from within, as as result of adversity. Well-known examples of teachers include Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, etc.

This is why I think spiritual beliefs are important. If you're going through a tough time, it's probably calculated so that a good quality will emerge from your situation. You will become a stronger person. A more sensitive person. A more caring person.

If you're going through smooth sailing and everything is fine and dandy, then enjoy your life for it's also probable that your abundance and joy and happiness came as a result of efforts that you made earlier in this life or in a previous life.

What is Twitter?

See what Twitter is all about HERE, HERE, and especially HERE.

Most reporters will describe what Twitter obviously is all about, but not what it could strategically be for.

Similarly, 99.99% of people will use Twitter the way it was designed to be used, NOT the way it could strategically be used for, to advance one's personal, professional or business agenda.

In the following example, one guy uses Twitter to write a book, probably a best-seller soon:

www.twitter.com/lazymillionaire

Ahem, as I was saying, most people do not have the strategic imagination to develop NEW ways to use a specific Internet application to serve their specific goals.

The most important feature perhaps of Twitter is that you can read a 140-character post by someone, and ask that person a question about it. That person can reply to you (and can choose to make that reply visible to all or not).

I wrote in a previous post that one of the best ways to get rich is to TEACH.

Twitter enables precisely that, although I would call it "micro-teaching" since you can't write more than 140 character per post (although you can post as often as you like).

A few well known Internet marketers, such as John Reese, have publicly recommended the use of Twitter so anyone who is seeking Internet wealth would be well advised to study Twitter and learn how to leverage it.

Twitter is so exciting that I feel like writing a User Manual about it, just like the Linkedin User Manual I wrote several years ago (http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com).

Before I forget, feel free to open an account at Twitter and to follow the Lazy Millionaire at http://www.twitter.com/lazymillionaire. This guy is onto something big, and you definitely don't want to miss out on the secrets he shares every day.

Secret for achieving excellence

If you took a piece of paper and folded it, its thickness would go from 0.1 mm to 0.2 mm.

If you repeated this process of folding 23 times, then the "thickness" of the resulting paper would exceed the height of the Empire State Building in New York!

Don't believe me? Do the math yourself. The ESB is 1260 feet high (remember that a foot is 12 inches, and an inch is 25.4 mm).

That is truly the secret of excellence in anything. You've got to identify the most important thing to practice, and then practice that very thing every day.

The thing that is compounding exponentially -- as in the case of the paper's thickness in the example above -- is your mind. To be more specific, your mind develops, at an exponential rate, distinctions that enable you to make sharper and sharper evaluations. Tony Robbins talks about those distinctions in his book Awaken the Giant Within.

This is why multitasking, which afflicts almost all white-collar jobs, is not a good thing. Using our paper-folding example, multitasking is like folding once or twice 20 or 30 sheets of paper every day. Your career cannot advance or make progress that way.

The only way your career or your business will grow EXPONENTIALLY is if you FOCUS on doing only one thing, and keep doing it EVERY DAY.

Yanik Silver, the highly successful (and awesomely innovative) Internet guru, advises people to do just one thing and make it a huge success before moving on to the next thing.

It's important to carefully choose the ONE THING that you practice daily. Don't try something too complicated, or try something too easy. The one thing you choose to do, should challenge you enough, yet be feasible.

The secret to striking a delicate balance between what is challenging and feasible, is revealed in the book Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Basically, if you try something that is TOO challenging, you will be stressed. If you try something that is TOO easy, you will be bored (and that's when your mind stop growing; it stops creating the distinctions mentioned above).

Take my case, for example. If, two years ago, I had tried to write a book on "success secrets," it would have been extremely hard. I've never written a book before in my whole life.

Instead, I decided to start a blog. Writing a few paragraphs a day sounds more feasible, although it is challenging of course.

Today, there are 829 posts written, and I only need to package all that stuff into a book to sell on Lulu.com.

Same story with Linkedin User Manual (http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com). It has 449 posts, and could easily become a book of 449 pages.

The best part is not even the amount of work you can accomplish by focusing on doing only ONE THING. It's the ease and grace that comes from such focused practice.

For example, many of my posts today come from my recording my voice using an MP3 recorder as I walk outside (sometimes in a park) and enjoy the nice weather.

So blogging is definitely my thing. What is YOUR thing? What do you love to practice every day?

Unless you know the ONE THING that you like or love to practice EVERY DAY, you cannot possibly become the best in your field. Without becoming the best, it is not possible to earn the best income.

But beyond the money aspect, not striving to become the best at one thing will deprive you of happiness.

Indeed, it is happiness that brings about success. Not the other way around.

If you could find the ONE THING that you're happy doing EVERY DAY and that you love to practice EVERY DAY, your life will be transformed. I guarantee it.

The mistake most people make is to "do things" instead of "practicing one thing."

Of course, when I say "practice one thing," I mean focus all your efforts and mental energy on accomplishing one specific result. There may be many things that you do to support you in that goal. But you have to be crystal clear about the ONE result that you strive to achieve.

I will write more on this important topic.

Why are you working?

Someone asked an interesting question on Linkedin: "What do you think of the statement, 'Everything a man does in life, he does for his ideal woman.'"

I offered the following answer:

Ayn Rand, who inspired and mentored Alan Greenspan, was of the view that all women -- subconsciously or not -- engaged in "hero worship." She herself admitted she was into hero worship, and this is reflected in her novels.

One could then surmise that all men -- subconsciously or not -- want to become heroes. That is, strong, reliable, heroic, self-sacrificing, for the sake of a loved one, whether it's a woman or a baby.

I say "self-sacrificing" but in fact, the small self is abandoned for a higher, bigger Self.

It may be true that a man will be driven to become his very best for the particular woman he's madly in love with, and most men who have been in love will recognize the truth of that statement.

But there's something more subtle at play here. The "best" woman -- and usually, this type of woman is adored by all men -- is the one who can invoke emotions in a man. Men in society are not very encouraged nor supported in their quest for feeling and expressing emotions, so this is why men tend to like and love women who are passionate and can invoke their often deep-seated emotions.

In other words, a man feels alive around a woman who is passionate and is emotionally intelligent enough to activate and sustain his emotional vitality. This emotional vitality is, incidentally, what he needs in order to become a great creator and create amazing and surprising things in life.

So although one can say that a man does great things FOR his ideal woman, one could also say that without his ideal woman, he would not be able to do great things.

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The success secret here is to understand that by basing one's work on something "ideal" or of great value (to oneself and/or to society), one's senses and intellect become dramatically sharpened.

This heightened sensitivity or awareness or capability, enable the person to do things that ordinary people cannot.

For example, Hernando de Soto, the great economist who wrote the book The Mystery of Capital, is probably very driven in his work BECAUSE he realizes how important this theories and methodologies are in helping millions of people get out of poverty.

There are many examples, such as Dr Yunus Muhammed, who won the Nobel Prize for his micro-credit innovation. Al Gore is yet another example.

How does all this apply to you? After all, you're probably not trying to win the Nobel Prize!

The key question here is to ask yourself WHY what you're doing is so important. To whom is it important to?

Most people make the mistake of looking for a job, that is, they focus on the WHAT, not the WHY.

Why should an employer hire you? Why is your work so important? Whom does it impact?

When I created a marketing firm called Major Force in 2000, I created a slogan that captured WHY our work (I had an associate who specialized in graphic design) was so important.

"Major Force. We communicate your value."

Our work was super important because we helped clients to clearly communicate their value to the marketplace, to clients, to investors, to employees, to all stakeholders in fact. If they did not clearly communicate their value to clients, they would be extremely vulnerable to price wars.

We charged $5,000 to $10,000 for a logo that was as small as two inches by two inches!

Today, I run Talentelle.com, and my philosophy is similar: our work is super important because our mission is to "help women discover and develop their talent into a fulfilling career or exciting business."

Talentelle started out in February 2006 as a local training firm, but is now becoming a global player offering ALL women on this planet the opportunity to connect to our various systems and benefit from our online, digital or virtual solutions.

We used to offer workshops accommodating a maximum of 20 people in a physical classroom, but now have moved to the Internet and can potentially serve 3 billion women. Of course, only about one billion people are currently connected to the Internet, so we can only realistically serve 500 million women -- which is still a big market!

Anyways, my point is that the secret of success is to think big and to imagine WHY your work is so important.

I browse through profiles of Linkedin users and boy, I can tell you that most people don't feel very important at their job. Every job has the potential to change the world, it's just that people don't view things that way.

Instead, they think, "Ah, it's just a job. I get excited in the evenings or during week-ends, when I have the freedom to do what I love."

That's a huge mistake and a big error of judgment because one's job is actually the BIGGEST part of one's life. It's forty years times 250 days, or 10,000 days of work. That's 100,000 hours of work!

So basically, you can have 100,000 hours of happiness and joy, or 100,000 hours of silent pain, mind-numbing drudgery and muted suffering. It's really up to you.

To sum it up, let me share with you the title of a book by the overcommercialized guru Ashram, played by Mike Myers in the movie The Love Guru: "Does it hurt when you do that? Don't do that."