The most powerful secret, from Thomas Watson

A success secret is that by exercising courage, you can succeed faster than by reading dozens of books or attending seminars or even hiring a coach. (The courage to be, right now, your future self, as I explain below).

Take business, for example. You just have to know clearly what value you're offering to clients, and keep working hard to increase that value. Imagine your ideal business in five years, and start acting like your current business was that ideal business already.

Or take dating. There are many so-called "gurus" who give advice on how to approach and seduce women. I've read all of them (for research purposes, not for personal education!). They all propose some kind of verbal or psychological technique to make women feel comfortable, gain their trust, then do whatever.

Look, I've never had a beautiful woman say no to me, and I didn't use any special technique. I was just myself, truthful and sincere. "I like you, babe, so how about this Friday?" "But, Peter, I have a boyfriend..." "No problem, bring him along, I'll sit him in the corner while we talk."

I'm just kidding.

Truth is, I've never hesitated to do what I wanted to do, so there was very few success books that I needed to read or seminars that I need to attend.

My point: 95% of information, including information in books, is useless. Books are useful only if you have the courage to act, and stick to what you committed to. Also, books help if you have a clear goal.

Even gurus cannot help you. Take Rich Schefren, for example. He's certainly a prolific guru who writes a lot of reports and launches a lot of business coaching programs. Yet, business is really simple: focus on what you do best, and knock on every door.

Most people don't have the discipline to stick to something simple, and practice it until they become a master. If they did that, they'd be world-famous and very rich.

Here's a metaphor to drive home my point.

Imagine that you're digging the earth in search of oil and petroleum. But some guru says that you should dig elsewhere because there's more oil over there, so you believe him and go to that other place and start digging again. You actually abandon the original hole that you started digging!

But that's not the end of the story. A second guru comes along, and succeeds in convincing you that there's yet a third hole worth looking into.

You know what? To hell with all the gurus! They promote their books and tapes only to make money.

And here's the shocking part: NONE, absolutely NONE of all the financial freedom gurus (Randy Gage, Rich Schefren, Jay Abraham, Mike Filsaime, Mike Dillard, John Reese, etc.) ever talk about digging where it really matters: your true self.

In other words, they don't teach you how to discover the treasure within yourself, the infinite wealth within.

This inner wealth has to do with passion, talent, conviction, values, purpose, etc.

Stephen Covey and Richard Bolles do talk about finding your true self, but unfortunately, they don't mention anything about making a LOT of money from one's passion and talent. This is why I recently created a workshop and ebook called "Ideal & Profitable Career."

Don't get me wrong, those gurus DO offer good advice (as far as I can see) about business and marketing, but those are secondary, tactical issues. The ultimate strategy is to decide WHO you want to be.

IBM founder Thomas Watson probably gave the best advice: "Decide who you want to be in five years, and start acting, speaking, dressing, walking, eating, behaving, thinking, etc. PRECISELY like that ideal person you want to be."

This piece of advice is actually a SECRET whose immense power will only be revealed to you if you apply it -- every day.

Feminist and Masculinist

I met a friend a while back, and he asked me if the training company I co-founded, Talentelle.com, was a feminist organization.

I'd say that I'm a feminist but also a masculinist. I fight for the liberation of BOTH men and women.

We often hear the expression "it's a man's world," yet it's highly inaccurate. If it's really a world where men are winning at the expense of women, then how can one explain the fact that more men than women die in wars, or are imprisoned?

The challenges and indeed woes that men and women face, are different, but men struggle with their own issues and need help to find their "masculine" side. They need help and guidance to find their strength within, so they can live consciously and according to what they feel is right.

The minute a man decides to fearlesslt live the life he WANTS to live, regardless of the opinions of others and of society (by the way, "society" doesn't exist), then he becomes captain, and the men around him will recognize their leader and learn from his personal example of leadership. They might even follow in his footsteps and join the fight for the freedom of Man.

It is the same with women. It only takes ONE woman who lives consciously, courageously and boldly, for other women around her to raise their energy to her level, at which point they too will feel their eternal strength within. This is when they decide and commit to taking charge of their lives.

Most people delay living the life of their dreams, not because there are real obstacles, but because they hang on to their fear.

This reminds me of the technique that circus people use to control an elephant: at a very young age, the elephant's foot is attached to a big pole, so the elephant cannot go anywhere. It tries to, but it soon feels the chain. Over time, the elephant grows in size and strength and is indeed capable of breaking free from its chain, yet it DOESN'T! That's because it has been conditioned to think that it CANNOT break the chain.

In psychology, it's what they call "learned helplessness."

It's the same with people. They are intellectually capable of achieving financial freedom, but psychologically paralyzed.

In today's society, most people are helpless. But this helplessness and powerlessness is only an illusion. People indeed have enormous powers within themselves. They can do anything.

Unfortunately, they doubt themselves at every turn. For every new idea they have, they immediately think of 10 negative consequences, and this raises the specter of fear within them.

Fear is like the brake, while faith is like the gas pedal. You simply CANNOT press both the gas pedal and the brake!

Once you let go of your fear, and start pressing the gas pedal of faith, there is no limit to how far you can go.

This reminds me of the almost hallucinating experience I had, years ago, when I learned how to drive a car. I couldn't believe that by gently pressing the gas pedal, the whole car moved forward!

It is the same with your life. If you let go of fear and do, right now, what you've always wanted to do, your whole life will start moving forward. Learning how to "drive" one's life, is no more difficult than learning how to drive a car.

Here's another analogy to drive home the point that fear and faith are opposites: try to flex your biceps while ALSO flexing your triceps. You can't. The split second that you decide to flex one muscle, you are instantly paralyzing the other muscle.

The success secret is to realize that freedom is your eternal condition, and so you can choose fear or freedom at any point in time. It's up to you. Fear leads you to repeat the past, while faith leads you to create the future that you want.

Your learning strategy is critical to success

20 years ago, things did not change so fast. Change was even slower 30 years ago. In those times, one could reasonable study for 3-4 years at university, graduate and do a job for a fairly long time.

Today, however, things change so fast, not just at the superficial level but also structurally. There are deep changes sweeping across society and the economy, and the only people who will survive and prosper are those who have a clear, winning and strategic LEARNING STRATEGY.

You have a good learning strategy if you know EXACTLY what specific knowledge you must acquire and practice applying, and you know EXACTLY how you are going about, every day, acquiring, absorbing and assimilating that strategic knowledge.

The way to know, for sure, whether you are actually learning anything new every day, is to look at what you WROTE that day. Indeed, life is like a perpetual seminar and if you're not taking notes, then chances are, you are not learning anything new.

Not learning anything new is okay, if you are currently living the perfect life that you've always dreamt of living.

We both know that this is impossible or, at least, very unlikely.

It is part of human nature to want more, to experience more, to achieve more. This is why billionaire Richard Branson is launching Virgin Galactic, a space shuttle company for space tourism. After that, I suspect he will launch Virgin Time Travel in case you want to go back in time and do some "historical tourism."

If I were a billionaire, I would probably build a huge harem. Maybe a harem in space! :-)

Anyways, back to your life.

You probably want MORE. If so, the success secret is to craft a good, solid learning strategy.

Once you have a good learning strategy, the next step is to create an "automated learning system" or ALS.

The best ALS would be like the one in the movie The Matrix, where you sit down in a dentist chair, and somebody plugs a wire into the back of your head. Then, you'd be able to download, straight into your little cranium, all the strategic knowledge you need in order to -- no, not kick ass in a dojo -- perform spectacularly well at what you chose as a profession or career.

Of course, such an ultra-efficient teaching device doesn't yet exist, but one day, I suspect it will.

So for now, you'll have to learn the good old way: by actually reading books and taking notes.

Here's a relevant quote from Socrates: "I cannot teach a man anything, but I can make him think."

In other words, as you craft and develop your daily learning strategy, make sure that you insert in your life things and texts and books and objects that make you think. Any device or reminder or ritual etc. that make you stop and think, will help you to grow your cerebral capacity.

A good tip is to do like kids, and keep asking "Why?"

People who ask "Why?" a lot, eventually become bosses, presidents and captains of industry. Michael Dell probably asked himself, one day during his college years: "Why do I have to sell computers the way it's been done traditionally, via retail stores?"

Billionaire Charlie Munger, who had a great influence on the young Warren Buffett, also advises people to ask "Why?" often. Don't take anything for granted, ESPECIALLY the information that other people "prepare" for you. Society is an environment FULL of highly sophisticated deception, and that is because everybody wants your money. Including me. (I'm just kidding, this blog will remain free for the next 100 years, haha!).

Most people don't ask "Why?" They ask "What? When? Where?" They are party animals! LOL!

They go where things seem to be "happening", they go where there's a large crowd. People very much prefer the psychological comfort and apparent security provided by a herd, although everybody without exception believes himself/herself to be "special"!

It's important to understand that the What, When and Where are less important than the How, which is itself less important than the Why.

What/When/Where information are facts, How information are tactics or techniques, while Why information is all about principles and fundamental causes.

In other words, you get maximum leverage from Why knowledge, and least leverage (if at all) from What/When/Where information.

To acquire Why knowledge, read books.

Newspapers and TV news programs, for the most part, only contain What/When/Where information. They will not empower you.

When you have Why knowledge, you can also predict, explain and control (or influence) other people's behavior.

For example, I know WHY news media exist. I know WHY reporters write: to provide good stories, which will attract readers or viewers, increase ratings or circulation, and thus pay the reporter's salary.

So every time I wrote a press release for the news media, I write it in such a way that the reporter does NOT have to rewrite it or edit it. He can just use the story AS IS. I don't mind that he signs his name under the headline. I get the ink and media space, he gets a story and the credit. We both win.

My point is that the more strategic and systemic knowledge you have, the more results you can generate, even with a small amount of effort.

The key is to have in place a daily learning strategy where you learn more and more about how to INCREASE your leverage. Read Jay Abraham's books and tapes to learn more about leverage, or Eli Goldratt to learn about how to blast your constraints.

If you would just commit to read a book for only half an hour per day, or even one full hour, you will begin to see significant and positive changes in your life.

That's because knowledge is power, and this power drives your mind, resulting in your making finer and sharper distinctions whenever you have to make decisions. And as your decisions get better, so will your life.

Are you betraying yourself?

There are many reasons why more and more people today are thinking about, dreaming about, or planning for financial freedom:

1. There are more opportunities than ever to launch micro-businesses which can, via the Internet, access foreign markets. In fact, with globalization, one could even talk about there being only ONE giant Internet-based market. James Davidson talks extensively about this "cybereconomy" in his amazing book, The Sovereign Individual, published in 1997. I highly, highly recommend that book to those who want to acquire a deep understanding of the Internet-based economy.

2. There are more books offering advice, some sound, some not, on business, entrepreneurship, investment, etc.

3. There are more ideas being generated as a result of more people interacting online through sites like Linkedin, which has a questions and answer forum where people exchange views, ideas, resources and opinions

What is most important, in my opinion, is to understand what CREATES financial freedom.

To do that, I've created this strange story which I hope can entertain you as well.

Imagine that you went on a sea trip and somehow, your ship was wrecked to pieces by a storm. However, you are fortunate there was an island nearby, and you were able to swim to shore. One other survivor was also able to reach that island.

Let's say his name is John.

There's nobody else on the island. So you decide to work together to start over your life, on that isolated island. Indeed, together, both of you constitute a new "society."

You're a good hunter and a good cook, and you discover that John is great at creating temporary shelters to protect you both from the harsh weather on the island (rain, storm, etc.).

So naturally, you agree with John that he should build temporary shelters for both of you, while you go hunting and cook meals every day.

And so, you both go to "work" for one another.

Every day, you spend a total of 8 hours to hunt or gather fruits, vegetables, herbs, etc. in order to make three meals per day.

John, for his part, spends about 8 hours to build and maintain the shelters that keep you both protected from the weather. These shelters are not very solid, so they have to be maintained actively almost every day.

Both of you work 9 to 5 every day, and have time off in the evening.

Over time, you become better and more efficient at making meals -- it now takes you only 5 hours. John is even better: it takes him only 3 hours every day to make or maintain or repair the shelters, made from tree branches and various leafy materials from the island's jungle.

So it could be said that you have "achieved" 3 hours of freedom per day (8 minus 5), while John has achieved or created, through efficient work methods, 5 hours of freedom (8 minus 3).

This "freedom from work" is truly what financial freedom is all about.

Financial freedom is not an amount of money in the bank, nor is it your wealth relative to the Joneses or other people to whom you socially compare yourself.

In other words, financial freedom is the time freedom that you have. It is the number of hours, per day, where you are FREE to decide what to do, whom to do it with, where to go, etc.

So an employee who has to work 8 hours per day at the office, could be said to have 16 hours of freedom every day (24 minus 8). Of course, he has to sleep about 8 hours, so he really only has 8 hours of freedom every day.

If he's married and has kids, well then he has zero hours of freedom. I'm just kidding.

The question which few people ask themselves is, "During the hours where I have freedom, what am I doing to liberate myself from the hours where I do NOT have freedom?"

Instead, people watch TV, read fiction, waste time on gossiping, etc. This misuse of their freedom time, forces them to go back to work the following day!

To really illustrate my point, think about it this way: suppose you are not ONE person, but TWO.

There's a version of you that is NOT FREE. This is the you who has to show up at work every day, from 9 to 5.

Then, there's a version of you that is FREE every weekday, from 5 PM to 11 PM, and during week-ends.

The you that is FREE, must work hard, read books, attend seminars, etc. in order to LIBERATE the you that is NOT FREE!

That is the only way for both of you to be free -- only then would you achieve total freedom and total mastery of your life.

Brian Tracy put it this way: Every day in North America, we work 8 hours a day to survive. Every extra hour that we work, is an investment in our future and in our prosperity.

I read that line in 1993, and memorized it for life.

In other words, if the you that is free, is not working hard to liberate that you that is NOT free, then a part of you is BETRAYING the other part of you.

(to be continued)

Facebook Insider

I cordially invite you to subscribe to the newsletter Facebook Insider, at http://facebookinsider.blogspot.com, where I'll share valuable information for all Facebook users (just as I did for hundreds of subscribers of Linkedin User Manual HERE.)

I will use Facebook as a federal infrastructure through which I can distribute help, in the form of free instructional materials developed at Talentelle. You don't want to miss all of that value!

I say "federal" because I used to be a federal agent for the Justice Department. I can't talk about the nature of my work because it's classified. :-)

But it involved fraud and tracking potential terrorists.

Since I left the Justice Department in 1994, I began to set up my own operations and missions.

Wealth comes from programming, not doing

If you are a programmer, like Bill Gates, then you have a slight advantage when it comes to building a financial fortune.

That's because you naturally understand that programming is superior to execution.

By the way, this is what I don't understand about management authors, including Jack Welch and Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, who talk of the critical importance of "execution."

In business as in war, execution should be automatic. What ensures victory is the programmed plan on paper.

Yet, so few authors talk about the critical importance of programming, with the exception of James Martin in his book Cybercorp, and Larry Smith in his book At Internet Speed.

Programming is, indeed, superior to execution, as illustrated by the massive wealth built by entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang (Yahoo), Steve and Chad (Youtube), Marc Andreesson (Netscape), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and many more.

More and more, we'll see businesses being created in cyberspace literally at the speed of light (or electrons, rather).

And in cyberspace, business battles happen SO FAST that to talk of "execution" is to trap oneself in a time-space paradigm that is no longer valid.

On the Internet, time and space are instantly conquered. It is only the mind of one entrepreneur against the mind of another. And winner takes all.

To be more specific, it is the strategic business design of one entrepreneur against that of another.

In short, MyBusiness.exe will be competing against YourBusiness.exe.

Most small-time entrepreneurs have a company called "MyBusiness.doc." It's like a Word document. It does NOT execute. Just a bunch of words, perhaps some pictures.

Same with careers. The key to automatic wealth creation, is to convert MyCareer.doc into MyCareer.exe.

Take a look at the 25 million users of Linkedin, for instance. They do stuff like write to others or answer a question on Linkedin Answers, so people naturally visit their profile.

And what do they see? An unremarkable, quasi-bureaucratic description of the person. There is no call to action. So the reader just browses over the unremarkable words written, then moves on to something else.

That, to me, constitutes a huge BUG in the program called MyCareer.exe!

Of course, Linkedin users don't put much effort or strategic thought into their Linkedin profile or their Linkedin strategy for one simple reason: they have a full-time day job. And most feel relatively secure about it.

But the key to winning massive wealth in the age of the Internet is to imagine that you do NOT have a regular, physical job. Imagine that you had to rely on email, blogs and Linkedin to generate revenues. What would you do?

Ideally, you would strive to program the Internet to work for you.

If you succeed in programming the Internet, you would be able to also program people's "behavior" so that you both win.

I'll write more about this.

Financial freedom comes from systemic understanding

Financial freedom can be defined at three levels:

- system
- pattern or habitual behavior
- event

The system is a superior method, the pattern or behavior is the second best, and the event level is the most inferior.

People hoping to achieve financial freedom from an "event" usually buy lottery tickets. Or they "hope" that a rich uncle will soon reach Heaven!

Sometimes, you'll also see a gorgeous young woman marrying a wealthy old man in order to strike rich. I'm not passing any judgment at all. Just a fact.

Warren Buffett is a person who gets rich by thoroughly understanding systems. You see, the more you understand, the less you have to do. This is so because you can leverage powerful forces out there, and use them to your advantage.

People who strive to get rich via patterns or their own behaviors, are hard workers. This seems better than buying lottery tickets or marrying rich, since there is effort and self-discipline involved.

However, in my opinion, a systematic or systemic approach to getting rich is the best. It's about maximizing one's leverage. And it's all about continuously learning about the system, so as to gain incremental benefits from every leverage point.

This has been the success secret of Jay Abraham, the marketing guru's guru. If you read his books, you'll understand what I mean.

Most people are working hard at the pattern level, or the behavioral level. And usually, they work WITHIN a system created by others. They cannot win against the system unless they thoroughly understand HOW the system works.

Indeed, the technical definition of a "winner" (or alpha male, or whatever you want to call it) is someone who understands the social, economic, political, commercial and technological rules of society and, in a premeditated manner, plays by those rules to leverage them.

This is why lawyers make so much money. Society is like a game of Monopoly, and lawyers are the only people who read and understand the game rules!

Investors who understand the investment game, also make a lot of money because, to borrow the Monopoly metaphor, they know what to buy and where to park their assets.

My point is that wealth and financial freedom come from systemic understanding. Yes, you still have to "do things" in the right order at the right time. But understanding HOW things work, and how systems work, is probably 80% of wealth.

In other words, there is an inverse relationship between understanding and action required. The more you understand, the less you have to do or work.

Here's a stark example: The U.S President understands the most, the McDonald's worker understands the least. One uses maximum economic, social, technological and political leverage. The other is being leveraged.

This is why it is said that "effort defeats itself." In other words, "hard work" will not make you rich.

Jim Rohn put it this way: "Work hard at your job and you'll make a living. Work hard on yourself and you'll make a fortune."

Working on yourself (self-improvement, personal development, etc.) is not really "hard work." It's fun and it feels really good. You feel that you're growing, as a person. Personal development is what life is all about.

But you won't have time to actualize your true potential if you have to "work hard" every day, five days a week.

This is why it's so critical to understand business, capitalism, economics, finance, etc. as soon as possible, so you can generate income from your systemic understanding and not from your behavior.

Your Higher Self vs Your Ego

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuX2cULeZQ&feature=related

This video is pretty interesting, it talks about the REAL success secret. I invite you to watch it, and feel free to watch also the second part.

April Crawford, whom you see on the video, is channeling an entity called Veronica, who's supposed to be a wise teaching spirit.

It's not important, at this point, whether you believe or not in such spirits.

The actual content of what she says, however, can shed immense light on how you pursue "success". Her discussion about the ego vs the higher self, is particularly illuminating!

All my business workshops FREE FOR YOU!

I woke up this morning with a major insight: I have to share all my business knowledge with millions of people.

So armed with a cup of strong coffee, I uploaded a few videos on my Youtube BMW channel at http://www.youtube.com/bmwmaster.

Visit the site and watch all the videos, you will learn something valuable.

There's a lot of pseudo-gurus and legit gurus on the Internet, as I'm sure you've noticed.

But most of them just throw advertising and hypish sales copy at you.

I've decided to take a different route. I've decided to be your business teacher and actually teach you stuff. For free.

(Take the money you save and buy something nice for yourself. Or for your sweetheart.) :-)

My message is very simple; it's also my recipe for success:

1. Create something valuable to other people
2. Sell it to those people

In other words, spend 80% of your time CREATING something new (or renovating something old).

Next, spend 80% of your time SELLING that new thing, whether it's a product or a service.

I spent three long and hard years at McGill University, and received a nice business diploma as a result. Yet, they didn't even teach me those two simple steps! I spent THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to get a business degree, yet when I graduated, I did NOT know the above!

So you are far ahead of me, and you can save yourself a LOT of money by focusing on that simple recipe: Create, then Sell.

Time --> Value --> Money --> Financial Freedom!

My friends, the above is probably the most important diagram you will ever see in your life. That's because it represents your life!

This is your life, on a daily basis. And it keeps repeating itself over and over and over again.

So HOW you program your daily life, WILL determine whether you achieve financial freedom, as well as how fast you achieve it.

The most important message here is that you have to determine whether the time you spend on ANY activity is adding value, or NOT adding any value.

For most employees, value-adding time occurs from 9 AM to noon, and from 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM. I'm being very generous here because most likely, people are only productive 2 hours every day. That's right, experts estimate that out of 8 hours, only a maximum of 2 is actually spent producing actual value for the company.

It's also important to understand the following financial freedom sequence:

Time --> Value --> Money --> Financial Freedom

In other words, to achieve financial freedom (that is, to have enough money working for you to generate a return that allows you to live your favorite lifestyle without having to work), you first have to manage your time CAREFULLY and STRATEGICALLY so as to create as much value as possible per minute or per hour, and you have to convert that value into money as efficiently as possible.

Innovation = Converting time into value
Marketing = Converting value into cash

Take some time to examine the diagram above and look at your own daily life: what activities are you performing every day? What value are you creating? How are you converting that value into cash?

I will write more about this super-important issue.

I'm learning business from a Playboy playmate

It's a bit embarrassing, but I'm actually learning from the online business success of a Playboy playmate. Actually, not quite a playmate but a "cybergirl."

Her name: Tila Nguyen, also known as Ms Tila Tequila.
Her business: www.myspace.com/tilatequila

To appreciate her business "genius," you have to scroll all the way down on her MySpace page and read the paragraph she wrote about herself. This is a girl who definitely understands the concept of "Brand Me."

Now, you may or may not agree with her decision to take off her clothes for Playboy, but what's undeniable is that she knew, right from the start, how to leverage MySpace (and MySpace, in turn, leveraged her, er, shall we say, "popularity."

Here are the facts: In September 2003, about to be ousted by Friendster for her "in your face" attitude and behavior, she was approached by Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace. He presciently knew she would contribute significantly to MySpace.

She was among the very first people to sign up with MySpace. When she saw there was nobody, she decided to mass email 30,000 to 50,000 people, inviting them to join her on MySpace.

The rest is history.

She now has over 1.6 million friends. Well, the word "friend" is a highly plastic concept in the social networking scene, but nevertheless, she IS popular.

After I read about her success, I went to her MySpace page to look for some pictures, oops, I mean, to do some business research.

So I decided to create my own MySpace page, at http://www.myspace.com/superpetersworld.

My next move is to connect to Tila Nguyen, and pretend I'm a long-distant cousin so all her friends can hopefully become my friends, too. I'm just kidding.

In case you're a bit confused about all this social networking phenomenon, let me share with you an insight I recently had.

There are basically four major spaces:

1. Email (individual / objective)
   
2. Linkedin (systemic / objective)
   
3. MySpace (individual / subjective)
   
4. Facebook (social / subjective)

INDIVIDUAL / COLLECTIVE

Email and MySpace both focus on the individual. It's all about you.

MySpace, however, is subjective in that it allows you to express who you truly are, inside. Alternatively, it allows you to create or project a fictional or fantasy-based version of your identity.

Email, on the other hand, is more straightforward.

Facebook and Linkedin are collective, since it's all about the relationships (Facebook) and connections (Linkedin) you have with other people.

OBJECTIVE / SUBJECTIVE

Email and Linkedin are objective in that people usually stick to facts. There's little room for fantasy.

Linkedin, for instance, is more factual than Facebook. On Facebook, you don't have to state who your employer is, nor what previous jobs you've held.

Please note that a connection seems to be more objective than a relationship, which is an intersubjective phenomenon (where the subjective aspects of two people merge). This is why relationships are more complicated than business transactions or connections. At the same time, relationships offer more depth and are definitely more interesting.

My theory is that a complete and well-balanced person will use all the four tools above (email, Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace) to fully express himself or herself.

(Of course, you don't have to get naked like Tila!).

Here's another summary:

1. Email is for communicating
2. Linkedin is for connecting
3. Facebook is for communing
4. MySpace is for creating (videos, music, your fantastic self, etc.)

Here's how the above Internet tools correspond to tools before the advent of the Internet:

1. Email --> writing letters and mailing them
   
2. Linkedin --> professional and business associations
   
3. Facebook --> get-togethers with family and friends
   
4. MySpace --> artistic studios

Many people over the age of 35 or 40, tend to shy away from Linkedin and MySpace, while they seem to adopt Facebook more readily.

Are they right or wrong in ignoring the economic and business opportunities offered by MySpace and Linkedin? I will answer in an upcoming post.

Generate passive income from Linkedin

If you're a user of Linkedin (and I highly recommend everyone to create an account and start connecting -- it's MUCH MORE useful and profitable than Facebook), you can download a free map of how to make money from Linkedin here: http://linkedinmastermind.wordpress.com.

This is just an overview. To get the full map with all the details, please email that overview map to 10 people, using their work emails (as explained on the map). Thanks and good luck!

Get wealthy by generating new ideas

Wealth comes from ideas, and ideas come from the belief that you are creative.

Given the above, you can see why most people are not wealthy: they don't have ideas.

They also hang around with people who have no idea. Test my statement and verify by yourself: when was the last time a friend or relative shared an idea with you?

When was the last time you had a brainstorming session, either by yourself or in a group of people?

Indeed, wealth comes from ideas, and people who have no new idea, will never get wealthy.

You can DRAMATICALLY increase your creativity by reading Edward de Bono's books, especially Lateral Thinking and The Six Thinking Hats.

You can also just follow Brian Tracy's advice of stating a problem at the top of a blank sheet of paper, and then writing out -- without thinking -- 20 ideas or potential solutions.

I've been doing that for years, it truly works.

The above are techniques or tricks to improve or boost your creativity.

However, at the deeper level, here's why most people are NOT creative and spend an entire life with few new ideas. I call it the "Anti-Creative Vicious Cycle."

This vicious cycle is created by the educational system, which is CONTINUALLY "teaching" students NOT to come up with any new idea, but rather to memorize whatever the teacher is throwing at them. The message, throughout a young person's 12-year period of time spent at school, is: "Don't have any new idea, just memorize and regurgitate during exam time."

Indeed, young kids upon entering the educational system, have lots of ideas. Their imagination is quite fertile. By the time they graduate, they are unimaginative and obedient, ready to follow instructions issued by the news media, employers, the government, etc.

Okay, here's the actual vicious cycle:

1. You don't believe yourself to be a creative person
2. Therefore, you never carry a pen and notepad with you.
3. NOT carrying a notepad and pen with you, continually sends a signal to your subconscious that you are indeed NOT a creative person. This brings you to #1, and the cycle is perpetuated (perpetrated?) over and over again, thereby locking a person out of wealth.

You can break this cycle by buying a $1.00 (at any $1 store) notepad and carry it with you everywhere you go. The mere presence of this notepad will constantly remind you to have ideas and WRITE THEM DOWN. The more ideas you write down (like I do with blogging), the more easily and the faster ideas will come to you!

Ideas are SO IMPORTANT to becoming wealthy that I often say, "Fortune has a price, and the price is WRITE!" That is, write down all your ideas, even the ridiculous or stupid ones.

The truth is, you have to write down about 50 bad or ridiculous ideas BEFORE you stumble upon a good one. Quantity always precedes quality.

In other words, don't try to have "good ideas." Just write down, without judging them, ALL the ideas that come to your mind, and you can do the sifting and selection AFTERWARDS.

Notice that this process is similar to Darwin's Natural Selection phenomenon, which is responsible for our evolution: Lots and lots of mutations occur randomly and "mindlessly" in nature, and the GOOD ones are selected for which then results in evolution.

Let me share with you some of the crazy ideas I've had in the past. By the way, keep in mind that sometimes, an idea might not be good yet it might still serve as a stepping stone so your mind can move to a new idea that is right behind that bad idea.

1. Why not publish your hard drive? How much would you charge a person if he/she were to buy all the contents in your hard drive?

2. Writing a blog post in one minute (60 seconds). I actually implemented this idea three years ago, and was able to create a blog that had 1,000 posts (all written under one minute). The time constraint forced me to bypass my conscious process and just express the awesome ideas in my subconscious.

3. How rich would you be if you could package all your valuable knowledge into a PDF document, and were able to sell it to 6 billion people?

4. What if I created a one-page mind map that linked together all the key ideas from all the best non-fiction books out there?

5. What if I packed all my best knowledge onto a DVD, then put it in the mailbox of my neighbor along with a letter asking him to copy the contents onto his hard drive, and then put the DVD in the mailbox of the next neighbor down the street?

You see, my friends, a person's mind is basically just "space" for ideas. If you have a small mind, then you won't accept any new ideas, either from yourself or from others.

Small minds have small bank accounts -- and small lives.

By buying a $1.00 notepad, you are indeed creating "space" for new ideas to come into your life. You are giving yourself permission to accept new ideas, evaluate them, and create new solutions based on them. This can only make you richer and happier.

Hooray, I did it!

http://www.lulu.com/content/3975065

Folks, you're not going to believe this. I spent the entire day today (a Saturday!) trying to figure out this Lulu.com thing. Actually, I had time to watch the amazing Federer / Jokovic match (U.S. Open), but I spent the remainder of the day and evening "publishing" my book on Lulu.com.

This is really, really cool. I feel SO RICH already. In fact, after I finalized all the details and became a published author, I immediately opened a bank account in the Cayman Islands as well as one at Credit Suisse in Switzerland. Hey, you never know! :-)

Joking aside, it's just incredible what technology allows people to do to maximize their economic potential. Translation: Use the Internet right and you can become super rich.

However, as I've mentioned many times in this blog, the key is to acquire and master a specific type of knowledge. Once you do, then Lulu, Payloadz, Blogger, Wordpress, Audacity (a free sound editing software), Linkedin, Facebook, Skype, etc. all become useful to you ECONOMICALLY.

Until you do master a specific type of knowledge and are ready to teach it or share it, then the Internet will not have an impact on your bank account.

I will write more about Lulu and how professionals can capture their valuable expertise and sell it over the Web.

Selling = Talking with a clear aim in mind

Selling is the secret skill of all successful and wealthy people.

Selling simply means "talking intelligently."

Let me paraphrase, with slight modification, Rene Descartes: "I think therefore I aim."

Most people think without having an aim; they activate their emotional energy without having an aim; and they act without having an aim.

No wonder why so many people struggle to make it financially!

The more you prepare, aim, shoot and then readjust, the FASTER you will become the best.

And the best always get paid the best salary or income.

If you're afraid of selling or you avoid learning about selling or have some negative prejudice against selling, just remember that NOTHING happens in the economy until a sale is first made.

Salespeople are, indeed, national heroes for they activate the process of GDP creation!

If you have a negative perception of selling, think of it this way:

It's an intelligent, considerate conversation you have with someone, and then at the end of the conversation, you both end up with MORE value in your respective lives: you have more cash value, and the client has more economic value (in the form of a product or service).

Here's a fun exercise to determine how good you are at selling. Pick a product or service that you buy regularly. Then, try to sell that product or service to a friend. Or sell it to yourself by standing in front of a mirror.

If you want to read books on selling, I recommend Jeffrey Gitomer's books.

Sell your talent to their reason, part 2

I wrote previously that the secret to riches is to "sell your talent to their reason."

So assuming you've read Tom Rath's book, Strengths Finder 2.0, and discovered what your talent (or group of talents) is, and assuming you've read books on selling and know how to sell, then the next step is to learn HOW your clients reason.

By the way, the ultimate method for selling is made up of only three steps: Show them what you got. Show them what it will do for them. And tell them what the next step is. It's a bit embarrassing for me to admit that I had to read dozens of books on selling to know that! But hey, now you know the secret to selling! All you have to do is practice as often as you can.

Okay, back to your client's reason.

Note that their reason is NOT the same thing as logic. We all have our own individual "logic."

In other words, we all think very differently. Of course, it would be too time-consuming for you to learn how each and every one of your clients think. So this is where segmentation helps.

Segmentation simply means you create groups and put people in those groups. For example, you can look at the market and create a group like "people aged 40+." Or "people who bought a product similar to the one I"m selling." Any textbook on marketing will give you more details about various ways to segment your market (demographic segmentation, psychographic, benefits sought, synchrographic, sociotechnographic (e.g. how much they use social sites like Facebook, etc.), geographic, etc.).

Once you create such groups, you're in a much better position to learn HOW each group actually thinks. For instance, mothers, as a group, will think in similar ways. Obviously, they put their child's interests above all other things.

But even within the mothers group, you can segment further. For instance, mothers of young infants aged 0 to 2 years think very differently from mothers of teen kids.

Anyways, my point is that the more you segment your market, the more you can get to know each segment. As you begin to know them more, you will begin to develop the ability to predict, explain and influence their behaviors.

Indeed, if you can predict, explain and influence their behaviors, then you largely control their reason.

What I mean is that you begin to understand the fundamental truth about human beings: "People can do what they want, but they cannot want what they want."

So if you know what they want, then you are able to predict, explain and control their behaviors.

Therefore, "sell your talent to their reason" really means: "sell your talent to their MOST DESPERATE WANT."

For example, let's say you're a graphic designer. Graphic design is your talent. But you are unlikely to get rich UNLESS you can LINK your talent to your client's MOST DESPERATE WANT.

If your client is a business person, then most likely, he wants to MAKE MONEY. So your selling pitch to him must include constant and repeated, but differently formulated, appeals to that want. For example, you might tell him: "Look, my talent is design, and the bottom line is that I want to use my talent to help you to differentiate from your competitors. This is the easiest way for you to MAKE MONEY. In other words, after I design all your marketing collaterals, you'll be living on Easy Street and you will attract money to you. Effortlessly."

Unfortunately, most graphic designers are too "artistic." They focus on what they do, that is, logos, brochures, websites, etc. They rarely, if ever, mention the issue of making money for their clients. Hence, they fail to apply my success formula of "selling one's talent to their reason."

They fail because they don't know how their clients are actually reasoning. So they CANNOT influence that reasoning process.

Here's how powerful you can be if you learn HOW your clients actually reason. Their brain is like a car, and you're basically getting into that car and sitting right behind the wheel. You're actually driving that car (or their brain)!

In other words, you can become very powerful and very rich if you FORGET how YOU actually think and reason, and start studying how your clients actually think and reason.

If you can talk for two hours on HOW your clients actually perceive, think, reason, and thus behave, then you truly MASTER your target market -- as a result, you can sell them anything. You could sell them products that you have developed, or products that other people have developed (in this latter case, you'd be working as an affiliate or sales rep).

Let me get back to the previous example on graphic design.

I actually owned and ran a graphic design firm for three years. I used to charge $10,000 for a logo that was not bigger than a square of one inch by one inch!

That's because I knew exactly how my clients were thinking. I pushed all the right buttons.

The slogan I created for my company was, "We communicate your value."

This slogan appealed to my clients because they were in the professional services industry, and as a result, their value was mostly intangible. If they had been selling products like cell phones or furniture, they would be selling TANGIBLE VALUE.

So because their services had a highly intangible value, they needed a graphic design firm like mine.

The slogan, "We communicate your value" was a major pitch because I was basically telling clients, "Look, just talk to ME. And I will create a global communications program that will continually communicate your value to all stakeholders, including your investors, clients, employees, collaborators, suppliers, joint venture partners, etc."

I always made it my business to know more about how my clients were thinking than they themselves knew!

What do they know? What do they believe? What magazines or books do they read? What habits do they have? Who do they talk to? What are their habitual thoughts? etc.

So basically, when you look at the secret formula "Sell your talent to their reason," there are two parts: self-knowledge (sell your talent) and knowledge of your client (to their reason).

To become rich in this world, you've got to master both parts.

By the way, notice that most people have a hard time selling -- often, they even hate selling. But actually, "selling" is not really the problem. The real problem is NOT knowing enough about the prospect.

As I alluded to previously, selling is very much like driving your prospect's car. All you have to do is get into their car (which represents their mind) and start driving that car.

It's not that your clients are not able to drive their own car (or mind). It's just that in a buying situation, there are many complex issues and factors, so the client often needs help to make decisions. He also needs a lot of relevant data.

This is why companies like Progressive.com go out of their way to provide relevant data, including data on competitive offerings!

Your job, when applying the secret wealth formula "Sell your talent to their reason," is to show prospects how to actually make buying decisions. Indeed, you are temporarily taking over their decision-making process. You are teaching them how to make effective decisions. You are showing them how to make positive decisions that will positively change their lives for the better. How can anyone, in their right mind, say no to that?

Once you understand that, you immediately understand that the question is not "Who will let me become rich?" but "Who can stop me from becoming rich?"

The answer is, "No one." Absolutely no one can stop you from becoming rich. But you've got to understand and fully master the formula, "Sell your talent to their reason."