Real-time Success Secrets

Free 300-page ebook on Systematic Wealth for you

2011-08-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

http://systematicwealthcreation.wordpress.com/free-300-page-ebook-systematic-wealth-creation/

Enjoy!

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I will explain later on the site above that there is a CRITICAL reason why I used diagrams extensively in this book.

It's to impress on your neural network (in your brain) certain KEY distinctions that will enable you to think BETTER than most people, who are trapped in the employee mentality.

You see, most books are written in prose (that is, only text) and thus, readers don't retain what they've learned.

As a result, they don't change anything in their lives.

Most people read tons of non-fiction books, yet can't change anything in their lives.

The Systematic Wealth Creation product line I'm creating, is more training-oriented and will enable you to acquire REAL skills for systematically building your wealth in this life.

More to come!

Live in the world, work in Cyberworld

2011-06-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

When you go out with friends, you're usually going to a real restaurant or movie theatre or amusement park etc.

Because of this, most people naturally assume that "work" should also occur in the "real" world and not in cyberspace.

This is why people (automatically) assume that a job is a place you go to (e.g. a building or cubicle).

More and more, however, people will not "go to work."

Work will come to them! (No matter where they are on this planet).

In other words, people will still live in the physical world (and have a social life in the physical world), but they will work in CYBERSPACE.

In particular, people whose jobs are knowledge-intensive.

Broadly speaking, there will be 3 kinds of workers:

PROLETARIAT - Manual workers or workers doing mostly physical tasks (in a manufacturing plant, in retail stores, etc.)

PRODUCERS - Knowledge workers working in offices; white-collar workers like professionals, managers, etc.

PROGRAMMERS - Elite workers who don't "work" but create "labots" that work for them (labot = robotized labor)

You're probably thinking that I drank too much coffee today and the last type of worker doesn't exist yet. :)

Yet, by visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_de_Garis, you'll see that "brain building" is already an industry.

The basic thing to know about PROGRAMMERS is that they code. They don't work.

They then sell their source code and finished programmed products to the world.

This is how smart people will make a fortune in the Cyber Economy.

You might know the following "programmers": Rich Schefren, Katie Freiling, Eben Pagan, etc. They are known as Internet marketers, but one can also consider them to be "programmers" who program the Web to capture people's attention and then convert that attention into INTEREST, DESIRE AND FINALLY ACTION.

That's how you get rich: you convert attention into interest, then into desire, and finally into action (i.e. a purchase).

Notice that all of this is happening in the MIND of people.

So the Cyber Economy is, practically speaking, the "mental economy."

This means programmers are elite workers who program people's minds. More often than not, people cannot escape from those programs, which is why their lives are repetitive, not creative.

Facebook, TV news and advertisements, magazines, newspapers, etc. are various forms of programmings from which most people cannot escape.

The ONLY way to escape from such programmings, is to become a programmer yourself.

(to be continued)

Autoseminars -- The next big thing?

2011-06-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f60nUiTrMvU

Since the summer of 2010, I've been studying and playing with a programming language in order to create an "autoseminar."

As the word implies, this is a seminar that runs "automatically."

In the above Youtube link, you can see how it works.

Before I explain further, I must say that you can benefit GREATLY from learning about how to program (and it's quite easy, will tell you more about it) because information technology is a POWERFUL way to LEVERAGE your expertise, assets, career, experience, business, etc.

In other words, you can only choose between LABOR and LEVERAGE.

Most people are "labor", that is, they work for a living. Nothing wrong with that.

I worked hard in my 20s for Fortune 500 companies and learned everything I could from them.

But most people eventually realize that you can't get LEVERAGE when you're LABOR.

Leverage simply means "doing a little to accomplish a lot."

Employees (that is, "labor") experience the opposite: they do a lot but cannot accomplish as much.

In fact, in today's competitive economy, employers will force employees to work harder and harder -- all for the same pay.

No wonder that I read in the news yesterday that according to a survey by Mercer Consulting, half of employees (in Canada) are "disengaged" from their work. They are actually looking for job opportunities elsewhere.

Since capitalism is a global phenomenon, I assume the same proportion of people are dissatisfied from their work in other countries like the US or Europe.

Yet, looking for another job is not the solution since chances are, the new employer will apply the same pressure. It's not that bosses are evil or malevolent, it's just that under the rules of capitalism, BUSINESS OWNERS MUST EXPLOIT LABOR.

That is the only way to continually increase profits (which is what business owners and shareholders want).

If you're an employee, you want to shift from being "labor" to creating "leverage."

I understood this since June 2000, when I quit corporate Canada for good (I was 31 years old).

So during the following 10 years, I searched for ways to create LEVERAGE in order to ensure my economic survival.

I thought of talent (my own and other people's talent), knowledge, skills, etc.

But ultimately, in 2010, I discovered -- in large part thanks to Ray Kurzweil's ideas about exponential growth through information technology -- that artificial intelligence and expert systems and computer programming are THE ultimate leverage.

It is no accident that 7 out of the 10 biggest firms in the US are related to software: Oracle, Microsoft, etc.

Now, to get back to the Youtube video above, what I wanted to show you was that I used a simple scripting language to create an executable file.

Then, as you can see in the video, I opened that file (named "bmwseminar$20.exe").

Next, as if by magic, a stream of text, strategically timed, appears on the computer screen.

Notice that this streaming text is NOT like a page of static text: because the text is flowing continuously, you are driven to read fast and not read in a leisurely, idle manner.

This executable file is called an "autoseminar" because the seminar runs automatically on the client's computer screen.

This file is literally a product I created, which can be sold or given away. It took me one day to write it.

More details about the principles behind the BMW seminar can be found at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com.

What do I wonder whether "autoseminars" are the next big thing?

That's because the New Economy will be extremely competitive, and training/education will be products very much in demand.

So your ability to create or resell (other people's training products) will be key to your success.

Don't worry at all if you don't know how to program, I will teach you. It's quite simple, I learned in a few days.

Once you know how to program, you can create executable files of increasing sophistication and be able to sell them for up to $500 or even more (on sites like freemarket.com).

Do your passion (I can die in peace now)

2011-06-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/2DVkT50UOjc

If I had to summarize the nearly 1,000 posts written so far on this blog, it would be "Do your passion!"

In the above video, that's what I tried to explain.

The principle is that "passion is ALWAYS sustainable," financially and in other ways such as resources, people, encounters, luck, etc.

This is what I've been telling all my clients and workshop participants in the last 6 years since I co-founded Talentelle with my sister Zoonie: Do what excites you!

People often have a hard time believing that they can just DO WHAT THEY LOVE TO DO and be paid for it.

That's because they (unconsciously?) define "work" as "doing something you'd rather not do, so you get paid."

The NEW work is all about "doing what you LOVE to do and get paid good money for it."

If you disagree with the above statement and you believe that "work" is something you MUST do (in order to pay the bills, the mortgage, support your family, etc.), then THAT is precisely the experience you will have (till you retire at age 65).

But you will have that experience BECAUSE that is how you define things, how you hold certain beliefs.

Change your beliefs and your experience WILL change!

I did change my beliefs and my whole experience has shifted, so that now I do exactly what I love to do every day and get paid good money for it.

Things were not always like this since, as you might expect, I had doubts about "doing what I love to do and get paid good money."

So if you have doubts -- that is, you don't believe that you can do what you LOVE to do and get paid for it -- I totally understand you.

I've been there, I know what it feels like.

Now that I'm on "the other side" and have absolutely NO DOUBT about doing what I love and getting paid good money for it, I can help people who still have doubts.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that you suddenly quit your daytime job and forget about your financial obligations!

But I am suggesting that you start to do more often the things you LOVE to do.

The more you do things you LOVE to do, the more love you will feel for yourself. That is true wealth: to love oneself.

As you FEEL this wealth inside of you, you will naturally and effortlessly attract wealth opportunities into your life.

Here, a word of caution: opportunities WILL come to you but they will usually not have the label "opportunity" on them! So you gotta pay attention to what's coming to you!

Yes, I mean opportunities to make more money WHILE doing what you love to do.

The trick, and this is REALLY important, is always do what excites you.

So for example, at any moment of the day, you will have certain options available to you (about what you CAN do). Of all those options available, CHOOSE the option that feels most exciting to you.

Keep doing this as a matter of reflex, and it WILL lead you to your passion-based career.

This method has worked wonders for me, so that's why I'm recommending it to you.

For instance, in the last few weeks, I have suddenly become a Camtasia expert, creating and producing tons of training videos while also developing my expertise as a strategic AI specialist (I create executable software applications that will be sold worldwide).

These apps are not like Excel or Word, which do nothing for people.

These AI-based apps actually contain expert systems and artificial intelligence (including inference engines, which I'll explain in a future post) that DO something concrete for the user.

These apps will generate six-figure incomes not just for me, but for my affiliates and resellers as well -- of that, I'm pretty convinced.

All of this just because I "followed my passion."

The other "path" is to do what you think you're supposed to do. That is, repeat your daily routine more or less like what you've done yesterday.

If that works for you, keep doing that.

But I suspect that more and more people are awakening to the fact that today, they can do much more than what they used to do.

However, this insanely great life is reserved for people who follow their heart and who don't think too much.

As a society, we are overly rational, overly logical. We rarely listen to our hearts.

Our lives simply cannot change significantly and become better significantly unless we start listening to our hearts and start acting out of joy and passion and creativity.

A very powerful spiritual principle states that life is nothing but the mirror of your choices, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations.

So if you want your life to change for the better, you must choose AGAIN. Choose with your heart and your whole life will change.

It's taken me a couple of years to understand this, but now I fully understand it (I guess I'm a slow learner!).

But it doesn't have to take you so long. As you practice this habit of doing what excites you, it WILL lead you to your ideal career -- one based on your passion and natural talent.

And like me, you will discover how easy, natural and effortless the process is! You just have to let go of your logical mind and let Life guide you.

As Oprah said in her last show, "Embrace the life that has been calling you and use your life to serve the world."

Transcendent Man + Share and become rich

2011-06-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

If you wish to know what the future will look like, I highly recommend watching the Transcendent Man, an hour-long documentary on the life and ideas of futurist and inventor Raymond Kurzweil.

Kurzweil basically argues, in his book The Singularity, that as soon as 2029, technology and artificial intelligence will be so fast and sophisticated that it will "fold on itself" and dramatically accelerate its own development.

Bill Gates himself acknowledges that Kurzweil is the best at predicting technological trends, so it would be rather unwise to dismiss his ideas as being too farfetched.

From my own experience, having delved into artificial intelligence research since last summer (2010) and various technologies like video capture and editing (using Camtasia in particular), I tend to believe Kurzweil.

What does this mean for you, practically speaking?

How is Kurzweil related to success?

Well, no matter how you define "success" and in what areas you wish experience more success, one thing is for sure: you can benefit greatly by learning to use technology STRATEGICALLY.

Technology is, in the end, only an amplifier; an accelerator; a multiplier.

It must have something to amplify, accelerate, or multiply.

So if you concentrate your efforts, energies, ideas, abilities, strengths, etc. and create VALUE, then technology (which, as Kurzweil correctly mentions, will grow EXPONENTIALLY) will amplify, accelerate and multiply your VALUE.

Yes, this means you can become very rich very fast.

This is not something historically new: Henry Ford took a while to become rich through the automobile industry, Bill Gates took less time, Jeff Bezos (Amazon) took even less time, and pretty soon, smart teenagers can become super-rich by floating a new product or app via Facebook or similar social media.

Teenagers or young people in their 20s will be more fluent in the usage of cutting-edge technologies, thus they will only have to create some value (product or service) and be able to market it, technologically, to millions of people.

I say "market" but perhaps that word is no longer accurate. "Sharing" one's products (and of course giving away the early versions for free -- this is called beta testing) is a better term.

The current issue of Harvard Business Review has an interesting article on how making your product "shareable" (by inserting a Share button) will multiply marketing effectiveness by 400%!

This is incredible when you think about it, because business has traditionally been about "exploitation." A business owner exploits the labor (the services that workers provide) in order to maximize profits.

In the New Economy (which, again, will be run by and through continually evolving technologies and AI, as Kurweil points out), it is by SHARING that you will become rich.

Think about this for a minute.

It means that the more of a caring and generous person you are, the faster you will achieve financial freedom and wealth.

(to be continued)

Obliquity, by John Kay

2011-06-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Achieving success is what we all want. But are we going about it in the right way?

And what is the "right way", anyway?

In his book, Obliquity, John Kay explains that often, one can achieve one's goals by being INDIRECT.

The author argues that often the most profitable firms are not profit-driven; the happiest people do not (directly) seek "happiness" but engage in "flowful" activities (which totally absorb their mind).

Note: He refers to "flow," a body of work pioneered by Mihalyi and summarized succinctly in his book, Flow - the psychology of optimal experience. (It's the best book I ever read about DESIGNING fulfilling activities that lead to happiness in life. I've used the book to design experiences that totally engage my mind. This total loss of oneself in a flowful activity, enables a person to turn her passion into a talent. After 5-10 years, they become the best in their field.

That is, they have a talent that can now be turned into a career or a business.

Often, people have a passion but do not know how to design the environment (physical, psychological, social, material) that will drive them to "flowfully" develop this passion further and further. Thus, the passion fails to become a talent, and the talent fails to become a fulfilling career or small business.

The process I created to capture this all-important imperative of "following one's bliss", as famed mythologist Joseph Campbell put it, has four phases:

- Fear
- Freedom
- Flow
- Fortune

From the above, I tend to agree with Kay's premise, that our goals in life (or visions, dreams, objectives, no matter what we call the objects of desire that we aim for) can be best achieved INDIRECTLY.

So first, a person must acknowledge she is afraid. She feels, consciously or not, the fear of deviating from societal norms and even norms set by parents, consciously or not.

Then, she can be free to explore; free to be herself TRULY and AUTHENTICALLY.

Next, she learns how to design environments where she can experience "flow", almost by default.

For example, at home I have notebooks and pens everywhere, including calligraphy pens, so this deliberately designed environment enables me to practice the writer's craft (and my calligraphy) often. Every day, in fact.

Finally, and this is the easy part, she creates a FORTUNE for herself, having diligently gone through the previous phases.

Eat pill, get rich

2011-06-02T14:31:00.001-07:00

I just saw this movie yesterday, Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper and it just blew my mind!

The story is pretty interesting: a struggling writer is introduced to a "magic" pill that supposedly will enable him to use parts of his brain that he normally doesn't use.

This results in his being not only ultra-rational and lucid, but extremely creative and physically powerful in life-threatening situations.

The idea of a magic pill might be difficult to swallow (pardon the pun), but the logic behind how the process of cerebral enhancement is not farfetched: the person is pharmaceutically induced to become hyper-activated, neurologically speaking, and thus can access memories stored in the brain.

He's also able to "connect the dots" very fast, giving him the necessary background information to reach correct conclusions and make all the right decisions.

This magic pill enables our hero, Eddie Morra, to learn the finance game and turn $12,000 into $2.3M in 10 days!

Obviously, that part was highly interesting to me as I position myself as a wealth creation innovator.

I'm looking for ideas and technologies that can help people to create more wealth more effortlessly.

This movie gave me tons of ideas on how people can use their brain, as well as publicly available information in order to create value, products, services, wealth, etc.

The real-life person who comes closest to this ideal of being able to think extremely fast while making accurate judgments, is billionaire Charlie Munger, who often talked about his "secret": he continually creates new mental models and links them in what he calls a "lattice of mental models" which enables him to conjecture, think, conclude and validate his hypotheses, assumptions, and reasoning.

In the end, whether such a magic pill exists or not, and whether it can be invented one day, is not as relevant as the hope that it provides to viewers. The hope that we CAN become smarter every day, if only we spent some time to think consciously, and even think about how we think so we can correct ourselves all the time.

Note: If you like this post, share it with a friend! :)

Eat pill, get rich

2011-06-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

I just saw this movie yesterday, Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper and it just blew my mind!

The story is pretty interesting: a struggling writer is introduced to a "magic" pill that supposedly will enable him to use parts of his brain that he normally doesn't use.

This results in his being not only ultra-rational and lucid, but extremely creative and physically powerful in life-threatening situations.

He's also able to "connect the dots" very fast, giving him the necessary background information to reach correct conclusions and make all the right decisions.

This magic pill enables our hero, Eddie Morra, to learn the finance game and turn $12,000 into $2.3M in 10 days!

Obviously, that part was highly interesting to me as I position myself as a wealth creation innovator.

I'm looking for ideas and technologies that can help people to create more wealth more effortlessly.

This movie game me tons of ideas on how people can use their brain, as well as publicly available information in order to create value, products, services, wealth, etc.

Note: If you like this post, share it with a friend! :)

Success secrets ebook FREE for you!

2011-05-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

Friends, thank you for being a loyal susbcriber all these years! (Since 2004)

You're motivated me to share my success secrets in "real-time", as the blog name implies.

In sharing my and others' success secrets, I was able to build a blog of nearly 1,000 posts.

This blog now is ready to become an ebook as well as a home study program and an employee self-improvement manual, all sold worldwide.

To thank you, I thought I'd give you the ebook ($97) for free once it's finalized.

Just drop me a line at omnidigltabrain@yahoo.com and mention "Free RSS ebook please" and I'll send you the ebook once finalized.

You can also connect to my business account at Facebook at www.facebook.com/peter.consoultant (I'm a consultant helping people to connect to their true self, or "soul", where their true treasure (and financial wealth!) lies).

If I've met you personally as a client, a collaborator or during an ecstatic and mutually consented one-night stand (just kidding), feel free to connect to my personal Facebook account at www.facebook.com/superpeter.

In the next post, I'll write about how you can create an on-demand blog, which is pretty cool for generating leads, making friends, building a network of trusted collaborators, etc. while involving your readers in the knowledge development process.

8 ways to make credible promises

2011-05-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

In the last episode, I talked about how you can WIN in life by creating ASSURANCES and not PROMISES (which are difficult to believe, especially by new clients, employers or even... lovers!).

So succeed in life, in your career, in your business or even in your love life, depends on your ability to create assurances, that is, mechanisms that show to the other party that it will be VERY difficult for you to NOT keep your promise.

From my research, here are the 8 ways to make your promises credible, that is, to create ASSURANCES:

Small steps
Reputation
Contracts
Mandated agents
Cutting off bridges
Irreversible communications
Brinkmanship
Teamwork

Take #3, or contracts.

It can be very legal, or a simple agreement (in writing) between two people.

Let's say, for instance, that you're a smoker and you promise to your wife that you will stop smoking within a year.

Your (smart) wife is a subscriber to this (great) blog so she asks you, "Are you really serious about quitting cigarettes?"

You say YES.

Then, she writes up a one-page agreement which you will sign, and this agreement says that if you do not stop smoking within a year, you agree to donate $5,000 to a charity of your choice.

Of course, how this thing unfolds depends on the kind of relationship between you and your wife.

But my point is that a simple verbal promise is not enough: it doesn't really reassure the other person, nor does it compel or motivate you to keep your promise.

It is too easy, after one year has passed, for a person to say, "Well, I tried to stop smoking. I'll try again for another year."

Now, I know it is NOT easy for a person to stop smoking. So I empathize with those who try to stop, and I admire their courage for deciding to stop.

So you can take another example, like a boss promising to an employee that within 9 months, she will get a salary increase.

This female employee, also a smart woman who subscribes to my blog (LOL!), asks her boss to put down in writing that he will increase her salary by __ % within 9 months.

Not that this contract or agreement is legally binding, but it sure will motivate her boss to do his very best to keep his word.

I will talk more about the other 7 ways to create assurances, but my point is simply that to succeed in this world, you need to keep your word AND you need to trust that others will keep their word.

Good intentions are not enough; these 8 ways of creating credible promises (or assurances) will help you to keep your word and will motivate others, psychologically, to do their best to keep their word.

Please share this post with your friends if you found it useful. Share the love, share the wealth!

To succeed, create assurances, not promises

2011-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Success in life depends on "assurances" not "promises." (Both promises you make and promises that other people make to you).

An assurance, is a promise that has been programmed, in some way, to result in its fulfillment.

A promise, on the other hand, is just a promise; it's just a verbal statement of what you intend to do. You might, for various reasons, change your mind later on (in which case the other person loses, and you also lose your credibility).

So how do you create ASSURANCES rather than PROMISES?

The secret is to focus on PLEASURE and PAIN.

In other words, make sure that if you keep your promise (to your friends, family, clients, etc.), you will gain something valuable, and also that if you fail on your promise, you will SUFFER something significant.

For example, the two young founders of Notehall.com intiially "promised" to Dragon investors that within 24 months, they'd generate 10 million dollars in revenues (or a similar amount, I don't remember exactly).

The investors' reaction was, understandably, one of disbelief. They even thought these two kids were a bit arrogant.

But then came the punch line from the two entrepreneurs: "If we don't deliver on that promise, we both will give you our share of the business."

In other words, they would lose the business they founded if they did not deliver on the promise!

This time, the investors were very impressed! Ah, they thought, they're putting their money where their mouth is!

So guess what? They got their investment from some of those investors!

You can check out Notehall.com, they're successful.

Now, in your case, you might not be an entrepreneur seeking capital. You might be a job seeker or an entrepreneur seeking joint venture partners.

Regardless, this principle will still serve you well.

In other words, create assurances, not promises. Nobody believes in a promise, and those who do are not serious about the deal they are getting into.

Notice, by the way, that an assurance is not the opposite of a promise; it includes yet transcends the promise.

A promise is like an atom, an assurance then is the molecule: it includes yet transcends the atom.

A promise is like a body part (like your right hand) while an assurance is the entire body; it has more power.

In the end, when you look at success and how it happens, it usually depends on other people collaborating with you or buying from you or partnering with you.

Yet, they (the smart and rich ones) won't deal with you if you only offer promises. You've got to be creative and create assurances where, if you fail to deliver, you are penalized, but also you are rewarded if you perform.

Your clients and partners, therefore, know that you are likely to keep your promises.

In a future post, I will talk about 8 secret methods for making your promises credible, that is, promises that will be instantly believed by other people.

How to use the "hypnotic" writing technique

2011-05-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

As promised in my last post, here's how I used the "hypnotic" writing technique to write an audiobook of 60 minutes, titled The Wimp and the Millionaire (you can read more about it in Joe Vitale's book, Hypnotic Marketing, although this post is informative enough for you to begin practicing that technique).

In fact, today, I wrote a 40-minute audiobook titled A Million Dollars in Your House. I'll share that audiobook with you later on.

As usual, this audiobook was completely spontaneous: I was preparing my coffee at 9 AM when that sentence, "a million dollars in your house", suddenly "came up" in my little head. I have NO CLUE where it came from, I guess it's some sort of inspiration.

Anyways, back to the making of The Wimp and the Millionaire.

I simply turned on my Audacity application (which you can download for free at http://audacity.sourceforge.net) and began to speak into my microphone.

The session went something like this:

"Okay, today I'm going to talk about an audiobook titled, The Wimp and the Millionaire. This book is about how each man has, within himself, BOTH a wimp aspect and a millionaire aspect.

Here, a reader might ask, "Oh, it's like Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad!"

Yes, I would answer, but in his case, it's about two EXTERNAL sources of influences: his Dad who was an educator and the Dad of his best friend, who was a multimillionaire entrepreneur.

This book is more about the INTERNAL entities within EACH man, without exception. So there's the wimpish entity, driven by fear, and the rich, abundant or "millionaire" entity driven by joy, love, service, creativity, etc.

So above is basically how the first few minutes went. Completely unscripted, pure spontaneous creativity flowing out of my mouth.

The technique is basically about how to just have a conversation, a very normal conversation with your readers. Of course, since you're likely to have MANY types of readers, any question can come from any of those readers.

For example, a reader of The Wimp and the Millionaire could be a free agent, another could be an entrepreneur, a third could be an employee, etc.

Here, you might say, "That's great, Peter, but I'm not an author or an expert. My goal is not to write a book."

True. But please remember that this is JUST a conversation that you're having with "imaginary" readers (however, to ground your questions in practical reality, imagine that your readers asking questions are people that you actually know -- your clients, boss, coworkers, family, friends, etc.).

So this conversation is an easy, fun way for you to make explicit what it is that you know, and what your experience has been.

The power of this technique is that it keeps you CONNECTED to the reader at all times, so you never lose his attention. Thus, he won't likely put down your book (or anything else you write, for that matter, whether it's a blog, a website, a report, etc.).

Today, with Facebook and Linkedin (which went public yesterday), we talk often about "connections" and "connectivity" but real, deep lasting "connection" only comes when you master the art of conversation (writing is just conversation, but on paper).

Here's a real-life example of how a job seeker was able to use this "hypnotic" technique to land a job.

She was interviewed by a manager, and he seemed preoccupied, like something else was on his mind. She was also a bit nervous as she felt she didn't have all the experience and credentials required.

So she told him frankly, "Sir, look, I know I'm probably not at the top of your list, but I can see that you could use a good employee who's willing to work hard. I can back you up any time you need me. I can help organize this office and even do overtime and work smart so you don't feel overloaded."

Obviously, he was impressed by her genuine offer of help, so he hired her on the spot.

You see, that is the power of connection.

And you can use that power when you write, when you apply for a job, when you sell, etc.

You just have to know (or predict as best you can) how the other person is THINKING and especially what she is FEELING.

Having 500 friends on Facebook or 1,000 connections on Linkedin will not help if you're not interested in getting to know the other person well enough to PREDICT her reaction to what you are saying or writing.

"Hypnotic writing technique" sounds fancy yet it's just about BEING INTERESTED in the other person's point of view, as well as her life, her struggles, her issues, etc.

Dale Carnegie talked extensively about this in his book How to win friends and influence people. He wrote, "To be interesting, be interested."

As you write (a blog, a book, etc.), be interested in your readers' lives, what they are going through which you can help them with.

Here, you might ask, "Why would I write a book or record an audiobook?"

Because it's the EASIEST way to create a product in 60 minutes or less! :)

Your next question might be, "Why would I want to create a product?"

Because the Internet exists to sell your product so you can generate passive income from it, and eventually achieve financial freedom. That is, you will no longer have to work for a living. You will only do work that you LOVE to do (in fact, it's more like play and not work!).

How I created an audiobook in 60 minutes!

2011-05-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

As I promised my brother, I'll share here something I did yesterday that will generate quite a bit of passive income.

It's a secret technique which I'll call NITRO, for Neural Inference Tension for Recurring Optimization.

I hope that this acronym sounds sophisticated enough to impress you. LOL!

Anyways, in exactly 60 minutes, I created an audiobook of... 60 minutes. This audiobook is titled The Wimp and the Millionaire, a sure best-seller.

The basic premise is that inside every man, there is a wimp and a millionaire -- so ladies, make sure you forward this post to your boyfriends, husbands, or any important male in your life! :)

The wimp is fear-driven while the millionaire is joy-inspired.

Again, no man should feel defensive because ALL men have BOTH the wimp and the millionaire inside of them.

So this audiobook explores the various issues that, if resolved, will enable men to think, feel, act and behave more like millionaires.

The main point of this post is that I woke up at 6 AM yesterday and had this insight of "mindlessly" writing (or recording, rather) a book in 60 minutes.

I intuitively created the NITRO approach, which is not entirely new. Many millionaire copywriters and Internet marketers are already using a form or a version of that technique.

NITRO basically enables you, as a writer, to create a threat of arousal so as to sustain both your writing the book and the customer reading the book.

What's the best analogy for this? Okay, it's like you're a belly-dancer. So you know all the sensual moves that will sustain male attention. And you continually MAKE those moves.

I hope this is not a sexist analogy cuz I respect women. :)

So the idea behind NITRO is that AS you write (or record your voice for an audiobook), you ALSO maintain an awareness of what and how the typical reader is thinking IN RESPONSE to your sentences and words.

In short, you can accurately predict what the reader is thinking so that you can EASILY write the next sentence. This is why I say that with NITRO, a book will write itself. You just have to write a provocative sentence, and let the rest flow smoothly from that first sentence.

This is probably how Isaac Asimov was able to write 300 books in his life. No, that's not a typo! 300 books! (both fiction and non-fiction).

He didn't use a word processor or computer, but the good old electric typewriter.

My point is that you can write an ebook or record an audiobook like I did yesterday, by simply using Audacity (a free sound editing application available at http://audacity.sourceforge.net).

In the next post, I'll give you a sample of my last audiobook, The Wimp and the Millionaire, so you see how the NITRO technique works.

Free newsletter to help your IDEAL career!

2011-02-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

More and more people are awakening to the fact that they are the CREATOR of their reality, and that they CAN create their own PERFECT career.

So I thought I'd release this powerful newsletter free of charge to all people, to help them in their pursuit of this ideal career.

Check it out here!

http://idealcareernews.wordpress.com

By the way, I'm writing and publishing that monthly newsletter just for fun! The more free stuff I give away, the more powerful I feel! It's really, really strange.

You can also download my 500-page ebook, Systematic Wealth Creaion, for free here:

http://systematicwealthsample.wordpress.com

One last thing (or piece of advice) just in case I get hit by the proverbial truck tomorrow:

The secret to wealth is to give to others, consistently. Doesn't matter how much you give, only that you give sincerely for their own good and that you do so consistently.

I just can't believe how many great ideas and projects come my way, just because I started implementing that idea of giving consistently.

It's like I'm playing a Jedi mind trick to the Universe. The Universe is going, 'Wait a minute, this Peter guy keeps on giving value to more and more people! What the, he must be really wealthy! Alright, then, we'll have to arrange his life circumstances to REFLECT his limitless wealth."

Friends, THAT is how it works! The Universe is just a reflection of what we believe about ourselves, and about each topic (ex. health, family, love, friendship, career, etc.) in our lives -- these topics being only an aspect of ourselves.

So a person might say, "I totally believe I am wealthy" yet Law of Attraction won't work because the Universe just doesn't believe it till it sees you ACTING like as if you were REALLY wealthy.

This is crazy, it's like as if you had to perform, like an actor, the role of a millionaire or rich person in order to really become rich!

You have to deliver an Oscar-winning performance in order to get the life you want!

In short, you have to ACT it out before you can have the reality you want.

I'll write more on this later.

Make money with a FREE business ebook

2011-01-17T17:35:00.001-08:00

As I explained in a previous post, 2011 is the year I'm giving my wealth away to people. I have been so blessed in life, so this "giving back" is quite normal.

Here's what it means:

I'm giving you a $97 ebook that you can resell to others (at any price you want) and you can pocket 100% of the profits.

You can view this ebook here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZNoczsv4A

To receive this resellable $97 ebook in PDF format, please send me an email at peter.talentelle@gmail.com with "Free ebook please" in the subject heading.

This offer expires in 72 hours, so please hurry!

To your financial success!

Peter Nguyen

Strategic consultant & business trainer
http://entrepreneuracademy.wordpress.com

Amazing secret for wealth, health and peace

2010-10-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

Boy, oh boy, oh boy!!

Friends, I can hardly contain my excitement as I just stepped out of Indigo Bookstore and quickly read Joe Vitale's latest book, Zero Limits.

There's a chapter in there (on the Shocking Truth About Intentions) that contains a MAJOR -- and I mean, MAJOR!! -- insight on how to create the perfect life for yourself AND for others.

I really encourage you to get the book.

Here's briefly what Dr Vitale discovered about "intentions":

There's Inspiration first, which happens at the subconscious level, and then we decide or not to FOLLOW that inspiration or idea or impulse.

The ego or rational intellect or physical mind is probably making the conscious decision whether or not to FOLLOW the idea, inspiration or intuition.

Rhonda Byrne, producer of the movie The Secret, for instance admitted she received the idea and, in 10 minutes, created the famous trailer.

She COULD have decided, upon receiving the idea, to not do it. Her ego or physical mind might have rationalized, "Oh, boy, that's just too crazy, it will never work! I don't even know HOW it could possibly work!"

Yet, tons of doors opened once she ACTED on her inspiration.

This happened to me particularly this summer, when I launched my new career in artificial intelligence. I ACTED on every idea I had, and I just can't believe the number of great and PROFITABLE ideas that are flowing into my little head!

At this pace, I have to hire hundreds of people to help me execute these ideas (and there's profit-sharing for everyone!).

Anyways, get a copy of Dr Vitale's book, it is BEYOND the Law of Attraction (although that's a great law of manifestation).

It's more like the Law of Divine Will, and once you align with it, you naturally do what is BEST for all human beings. Then, automatically, you are also doing what is BEST for yourself -- for you are an integral part of the whole.

Let me know your thoughts after you read the book!

I will write more on this subject later on.

Get the B.O.S.S. for FREE!

2010-09-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Just a quick note to invite you to save $1,200 by being among the 50 lucky ones to subscribe to my latest venture online: the Business Operating System for Success (B.O.S.S.).

About 20 people have joined already, and hundreds are about to read their emails, so be quick! :)

Whether you're an employee, a free agent (self-employed), an entrepreneur or a professional investor, you need B.O.S.S. in order to get rich.

Newsweek magazine did a study a while back and found that if you own a small business, you have a 1 in 1,000 chance of becoming a millionaire (having a net worth of $1,000,000).

BOSS will help you to dramatically REDUCE these odds to perhaps 1 in 100, or 1 in 20.

How? BOSS acts like a chess computer to guide your moves, so you don't have to think so much. The BOSS system thinks for you! It makes it easy for you to do the right thing(s), and difficult for you to do the wrong thing(s).

Anyways, check it out at http://tinyurl.com/makethebossworkforyou.

Success attracts success!

2010-08-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

Here's an easy way to attract success: focus on what you're currently doing that feels successful to you.

In other words, choose to do activities where you feel competent and successful. Then, pause once in a while and FEEL how amazing it is -- this feeling of being successful at something.

What is important is NOT the activity per se, or how "important" it is. For example, you could be cooking a favorite dish, or doing a hobby.

What IS important is that you FEEL successful.

In short, the secret is that success attracts success.

How do you apply this principle to solve a problem in life?

For example, suppose you're deep in debt (many people are, so don't worry about it).

Normally, most people would -- upon examining that topic of personal debt -- immediately feel BAD. They feel they have FAILED. They feel they LET THEMSELVES DOWN. They feel they lacked control in the past, or lacked discipline.

Can you see how the above BAD FEELINGS, cannot lead to success?

Only success leads to (or attracts) success.

You might say, "Well, Peter, how can I NOT feel bad about my personal debt? Isn't personal debt (say, you owe $20,000 in student loan or other loans) a bad thing?"

No, it's not. It is a fact, a neutral situation. It only becomes a "bad thing" if you assign a NEGATIVE MEANING to it.

Don't believe me? Think about Donald Trump's situation during the real estate crash, where he owed 2 billion dollars in debt. All his multimillionaire friends were panicking, losing their sleep and even begging the bankers to give them a chance.

Trump, for his part, slept quite well and never had to beg. He simply and calmly negotiated with bankers while encouraging his team to clearly see the future, the amazing future that he described in great detail for them.

Trump understands that he is more powerful than anything that happens to him. Most people who have achieved enormous success -- and become teachers to many -- have similarly understood that they are more powerful than anything that happens to them.

They understand that nothing is negative in itself. An event or fact becomes negative ONLY IF you assign a negative meaning to it.

So, getting back to our person debt example, yes of course acknowledge how much debt you owe, and write it on your balance sheet (beside your assets column).

But do NOT get emotionally down because of your debt.

Think of the money game as a video game.

Sure, people who have zero debt, start the game with a score of "0." You might start the game with a negative score of "-20,000" but you KNOW you can get back to zero, and then start having a positive score.

So WHERE you start playing the money game, is not that important.

In fact, if you start with a negative score (ie. you're deep into debt), then your glory will be all the greater once you come back and get your "financial revenge"!

My point is simply that one should never, ever feel bad about anything.

Yes, acknowledge INTELLECTUALLY where you are (whether it's your finance, weight, health, social life, love life, family life, career, etc.) but do NOT feel bad about any of it.

Feeling bad about being in a bad situation, WILL make things WORSE. It will attract MORE evidence that matches your feeling bad.

Even in a bad situation, there is a "fruit" that you can pick -- a lesson that you can learn.

Your job is not to "get out" of the bad situation but "get into it" deeper until you see the fruit or the lesson that's in there for you!

The fruit or the lesson WILL bring you out of the bad situation!!

Think of it this way: a bad situation is like cold syrup, a full glass of it. It might taste bad, but you MUST drink ALL of it in order to get the full benefit.

Now, I'm not saying that upon looking at your liabilities or debt, you should jump up and down with joy! You can't do that authentically, anyways. You know you'd be faking joy.

You would probably feel bad or guilty, but accept those feelings. Feel them fully, yet do not get attached to those emotions.

How can I explain this paradox, where you should FEEL the negative emotions yet NOT get attached to them?

Okay, I got it. Imagine that you're an actor, and you play out your role fully and FEEL all the emotions attached to the character. Yet, at the same time, you KNOW deep inside that you're an actor. You are NOT the character who is struggling with personal debt.

Friends, that is the true power of spirituality: it's the ability to remove yourself from the "stage of life" and embrace your identity as the witness, and not just the actor playing a role in life.

The character you are playing, might feel down and depressed because he has personal debt problems, but there IS an aspect of you that is also the detached observer or witness, and this entity CAN feel success.

So to FEEL successful even in the midst of a crisis or personal problem, you must practice the art of DETACHING yourself from your drama.

As you emotionally detach yourself from your drama, you gain a powerful, new and higher vantage point from which you can easily see many perspectives that make you feel successful.

And as you FEEL successful and acknowledge your courage and positive qualities, you will effortlessly attract situations, opportunties, resources, etc. that will REFLECT your state of feeling and being successful.

In short, success attracts success.

Make money by packaging Youtube videos into a DVD

2010-08-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

A columnist suggested that a person could create DVDs containing free applications (e.g. Audacity, Freemind, etc.) and sell those DVDs worldwide.

I thought it was a pretty good idea. Easy and simple.

I would go further: you could use www.keepvid.com to download Youtube videos onto your desktop or laptop, burn them into a DVD, and sell those DVDs worldwide also.

Create wealth by REUSING what you already have and are

2010-08-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a success secret that not too many people know. You'll see shortly why Einstein was totally right when he said that imagination is more important than intelligence.

Here's the secret principle for creating massive wealth:

Reuse what you already have and are.

When people seek wealth leading, of course, to financiall freedom (if your annual passive income surpasses the cost of sustaining your favorite lifestyle), they usually focus on acquiring MORE.

More assets, more clients, more products, more markets, etc.

Nothing wrong with that, except that it's arithmetic, not geometric.

Arithmetic, means 2 + 3 +4, etc.

Geometric, means 2 X 3 X 4!

Arithmetic gives you a score of 9, while geometric gives you 24.

Each number can refer to the value of each asset you have. So "2" could refer to the value of your cell phone, "3" could refer to the value of your laptop, etc.

So 2 + 3, means you're putting your cell phone beside your laptop. Together, they have -- on a balance sheet -- a combined value of 5.

2 X 3, however, means you use your cell phone IN CONJUNCTION with your laptop, so as to reuse both in a second way.

Reusing ANY asset in a DIFFERENT way, will AUTOMATICALLY increase its value (no matter what your accountant will say, since he focuses on the book value of an asset and NOT on its "use value").

This is why Swiss knives are so popular: you can use them for SO MANY DIFFERENT PURPOSES.

Okay, here's an example of how you might be using your cell phone IN CONJUNCTION with your laptop.

Your laptop is connected to the Web, and on your cell phone, you have a client. So you walk him through an online PowerPoint presentation that you've uploaded on Google Docs.

Your cell phone is used WITH your laptop, to create value (educational value in this case).

Specifically, your client gets audio and visual.

In such a case, your cell phone has a HIGHER value, and so does your laptop.

This HIGHER value is added on top of the initial value of a cell phone (talking) and the initial value of a laptop (working alone).

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify all your current assets and devise ways to use them DIFFERENTLY, either by themselves or in conjunction with other assets.

Notice that this geometric method of increasing your value, does NOT require that you spend cash on acquiring NEW assets (equipment, client list, prospect list, furniture, etc.).

However, it does require imagination. You must imagine what MORE your current assets CAN do for you (or for your client).

It requires right-brain thinking. It requires that you "unfocus" temporarily from what you THINK an object is designed to do, and then you give that object a NEW function or usage.

A rather extreme example of how a person has used his imagination to create massive wealth, is Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.

He used the Internet in a DIFFERENT way, to enable millions of people to anonymously do transactions with millions of other people.

Today, 50 million users use Craigslist every month.

My point is that wealth comes from your imaginative reuse of existing assets.

In the next post, I'll talk about how I use Audacity (a free sound editing software application) in conjunction with Windows Movie Maker (also free) to create instructional videos I upload at www.youtube.com/sensemontreal.

Notice that, once again, these apps by themselves don't offer as much value as when you use them TOGETHER.

It is by making assets work TOGETHER in capitalistic fashion, that you create massive wealth.

How I become rich...

2010-05-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

I wrote the post below for my 500 subscribers of Linkedin User Manual (http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com), I thought you might be interested too. Feel free to register to that blog, it is where I am training my 1,100 Linkedin associates to become Wise and Wealthy Warriors!

Have a great day!

Peter

===============

Friends, THIS is the email you have been waiting for all your life. This is the ONE email that reveals how to make money from Linkedin, or the Internet for that matter. So stop whatever you're doing, and read this carefully.

No, I'm not going to sell you anything. I don't want your money (not now, anyways!) LOL!

I'm going to GIVE YOU KNOWLEDGE from which you can make millions of dollars. Well, to be realistic, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As I'm writing this, my heart is pounding because I just discovered a powerful and easy way to "publish my mind" all over the Internet.

Now, I'm already CEO and cofounder of Talentelle Inc., a corporation that offers training solutions to career and business women (the women's market is worth trillions of dollars; women spend $20 trillions annually and earn $13 trillions per year. In this recession, they are likely to spend MORE than before on training and career and business).

So financially, I could do just fine with my training firm.

But the Internet... ahh, that's where I'll earn the kind of money that will buy me a private island!

Okay, enough about me. Let's talk about YOU.

You're currently making $107,000 (average household income of Linkedin users). Obviously, you want to make more. More money is always a good idea, right?

Especially if it doesn't involved more effort.

So anyways, I found this way to publish my mind IN REAL TIME on the Internet, and you could do the same.

I assume here that you are an experienced professional who has at least 10 years of solid experience. This is why I am writing this for Linkedin users: on average, they are 41 years old, so that's enough professional experience usually.

Now, what use is publishing one's mind on the Internet? Don't millions of bloggers already do this WITHOUT EARNING A PENNY?

Yes, it is true that most bloggers are not earning money by writing, but that's not because they are not smart. It's only because they have not structured their MIND to think of their intellectual content as CASH.

They're also lacking basic marketing and sales knowhow. For example, the principle is to INCREASE PEOPLE'S DESIRE for your knowledge BEFORE you reveal your knowledge.

A bit like stripteasing, but without using a dancing pole. Haha!

Let's call it "script teasing". You use words to excite people and increase their DESIRE until they go, "Okay, okay, Peter, enough teashing! I want whatever it is that you are offering! Stop the torture! I'll pay NOW! Give it to me!!"

Chances are, you never learned how to script tease at school. It's quite an art, I can tell you.

So anyways, you're smart and you want to make LOTS of money on the Internet. So my system is really about publishing your "mind's content" just enough to tease people, and then charge them for it.

This real-time publishing system, which reaches hundreds of thousands of people effortlessly (because you invite others to profitably collaborate), is a simple enough to set up. Takes no more than a day.

But your mind's content... ahh, that is where the money is! If you cannot turn your mind's content into salivating content (forgive my lurid choice of words), you ain't going nowhere -- financially speaking.

I'm becoming a millionaire because I have this valuable content (I created 40 workshops for my firm, Talentelle Inc.) and I now have the real-time publishing system which broadcasts this training material via hundreds of affiliate channels.

These unmanned affiliate channels, can be manned -- the affiliate only pays a small participation fee, and will be earning passive income for the rest of his/her life.

So recap: to become rich from the Internet, you (a smart, professional Linkedin user) must:

1. Turn your mind's content into salivating content (worth cash)
2. Create a real-time publishing system that broadcasts your salivating content, and asks for payment (via Paypal, Payloadz, etc.)

That's how you become rich. You'll be earning more than $107,000 per year, for sure.

The third step, where you package the above system and sell it off as a franchised, turnkey system, is where you become a true multimillionaire.

STEP 1

This is the hardest step for people, but I've done it and I can help you to do it. Right now, you earn money from your personal services -- that's active income.

Your knowledge is attached to your body, so you cannot sell your knowledge WITHOUT being present (and preferably well shaven and nicely dressed).

I can sell my knowledge WITHOUT being present. I earn passive income from my "bodiless" knowledge. I achieve financial freedom because I can do this.

I can teach you HOW to separate your knowledge from your body. I know, I know, it sounds spooky, but it's a lot of fun.

Once again, I'm assuming that you're a professional (manager, specialist, freelancer, etc.) and that your knowledge has some value.

So once you get help (from me or some other guy speciaizing in Step 1), then you can go to Step 2 in order to share and SELL your knowledge. Like I do. Or you can hire another person to program the Web so you have that real-time publishing system that shares and sell your mind's content on the Internet (that is, worldwide!).

... TO BE CONTINUED ...

Program the Internet to generate wealth, Part 2

2010-02-21T20:14:00.000-08:00

In the last post, I wrote about how to program the Net to generate wealth. Here are two examples (of dozens) of how I code the Web to gather information leading to wealth:

http://www.sureforms.net/connectivity.form
http://www.sureforms.net/createyourjob.form

The first one is sent to my 1,100 connections on Linkedin, and those who fill it out will enable me to build a business relationship with them.

The second form (createyourjob.form) enables me to cocreate jobs with those who are interested in creating a perfect job for themselves within one of my ventures.

A third form, at http://www.sureforms.net/gift4women.form, has generated dozens of leads also, enabling me to start a business relationship with those women.

My point is that you can easily "code" or program the Web so as to have "cyber assets" working for you. Why not?

The cyber economy is going to be the next economy, so it makes sense to learn how to use the Web as soon as possible.

Indian workers are already using the Web, built largely by the Americans, to export their services, mostly in information technology.

Meanwhile, in Canada and the US, most people still work in those antiquated physical spaces we call "cubicles."

Nothing wrong with working in a physical office or cubicle, mind you.

But if your work is information-based or knowledge-based, then you should be working in the cyber economy, where your knowledge and information can be represented and then re-presented in MYRIAD ways. Every representation, of course, is a NEW product, serving NEW clients and NEW markets.

This is what I call Cyber Capitalism, and most people (99.9% of the population) do not yet know about the secret principles regulating the Cyber Capitalistic Economy.

If you want to read more about this Cyber Economy, read the book The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson. A bit technical, but worth to read, for the two authors are extremely knowledgeable about the new cyber economy.

But let's get practical and ask, "WHY would you want to program the Internet?"

Because the Internet is your business manager, your top talent, your employees, your suppliers, your partners, etc.

The Internet can be any of those entities, all working for you or with you.

In short, in your cyber career or cyber business, you don't need to have employees. You can have associates operating on a worldwide basis for you.

But you first need to create cyber assets that, like the two simple online forms above, will generate information for you. Once you have this information, you can work with it, and build relationships with people.

This is another secret I discovered on Linkedin. There are many people who have thousands of connections, yet they don't know how to build a relationship with their connections. It's like having a telephone directory: sure, you have thousands of names and phone numbers, but none of those people trust you, and you also have no reason to trust them.

It doesn't work.

The solution is to program forms online so those who are interested, can share more of their information, and you can share more of your information. The trust will be built over time, and lead to opportunities to collaborate and cocreate value.

One thing is for sure: if you want to make a lot of money from the Internet, you'll have to build relationships with hundreds, if not thousands of people.

This is mainly because it's much more difficult to trust people on the Web: you can't see them, can't sit down and have a coffee with them, can't really know whether what they are telling you is the truth.

So unless you find ways to build trust with people online (who may come from dozens of countries, some of which you may have never visited), you cannot create a sustainable business.

Even a highly successful Internet business guru like Rich Schefren, or Eben Pagan, has had to create videos to show their friendly faces in order to build trust.

There is, however, a social networking site where trust is, more or less, already built: Facebook.

(to be continued)

Program the Internet to generate wealth for yourself

2010-02-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

My specialty as an entrepreneur is KNOWLEDGE + INTERNET.

The breakthrough came to me when I realized that the famous "CEO" equation that Ram Charan describes (brilliantly) in his book What the CEO wants you to know, or R = MV, could be applied to Knowledge and Internet.

M refers to profit margin, while V refers to velocity (or sales / assets).

M is something that most professionals understand: your employer pays you a salary, but charges the client a price that is ABOVE your labor cost, and that's how companies make money.

The problem that you have, as an employee, is that although your salary is relatively secure and stable (although this is less and less the case), you do not have VELOCITY.

You can only sell your services to ONE employer, usually.

So that is the ceiling that is imposed on you, as you work within the "corporate" employment system.

Free agents, on the other hand, can offer their services to MORE than one employer or client.

Entrepreneurs go further: they hire people to deliver the services. They have basically taken themselves out of the equation.

This is when they get a chance to truly play the "CEO" game.

Okay, now that you have the background info in mind (and don't worry if you have to re-read the above many times, it is a bit technical), we can go back to the breakthrough that is turning me into a millionaire.

Rather than offer a service, I offer KNOWLEDGE (which can be delivered really, really fast, in any format -- audio, video, DVD, etc.).

And since I know how to program the INTERNET, that takes care of the velocity aspect.

In short, R = MV becomes R = Knowledge X Internet!!

Oh, R stands for Return on Assets.

The model that I use to license my specialized business knowledge to licensees, is not different from Edward de Bono's licensing program, where he offers training to trainers who then use his proprietary creativity workshops to teach and train their own clients.

What does this have to do with you?

The success secret here is 1. to move from offering a service, to offering specialized and valuable knowledge that people would pay for, and 2. to program the Internet to work for you, even when you are sleeping.

An example of "programming the Internet" is http://www.sureforms.net/connectivity.form, where I collect data from prospects in order to generate a report, free of charge, which nevertheless sells my expertise and products.

By the way, a big mistake that many entrepreneurs make is to spend thousands of dollars on a website that offers ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE to visitors!

It took me only 20 minutes to create the above form, which will enable me to create a customized report to help prospects. They are then much more likely to buy from me (if my report is good, that is).

In chess parlance (and I was a champion in my days!), this move is what is called "sacrificing one's rook to capture the opponent's king."

(to be continued)

How to share your knowledge on Youtube

2010-02-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en4ZViUh-Uc

Above is a quick training video I created, on selling. I used the free sound editing software Audacity, then saved it as an MP3 file which I inserted in Windows Movie Maker (also a free software app).

Then, I uploaded the resulting video on Youtube.

The bubble annotations were added after, using Youtube's annotation functionality.

So friends, there you have it, an easy and fun way to capture your valuable knowledge and share it with the world!

Youtube can become Youteach, and you can make lots of money by giving people a preview of what you know so they can either hire you, or buy your products (ideally hosted at Payloadz).

Master your mind to master your life

2010-02-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zzvVY-bTM4&feature=related

At around 2:10 in the above video, from the metaphysical movie The Shadow, you can learn a great spiritual lesson (while of course enjoying the cinematic effects).

Every person on this planet is on a spiritual journey of self-mastery, and Lamont Cranston (played by Alec Baldwin) is no exception.

Self-mastery means understanding experientially that the world is only an illusion, and that YOU have power over that illusion.

At 2:10, Cranston finally realizes that physically fighting the Purba (the sacred knife from the Tulku, his former master) is useless. He must concentrate his mind in order to control himself, that is, master his fear of death.

Once he achieves that state of mind, he is in a much better position to control the Purba.

Many of you have, or will experience moments in life when you are faced with a version of the Purba -- an instrument apparently external to you, which SEEMS to threaten you. This invokes great fear within your mind or psyche.

However, in your moment of greatest fear, lies your greatest opportunity for self-mastery.

Self-mastery enables you to grow and EXPAND the boundaries of what you thought was your complete self.

Your self is never complete, and you will always grow BEYOND the limits of what you thought was your definite identity.

But growth is not automatic, and requires consciously facing your fears and doubts. Eventually, you realize you created your fears and doubts, including the external symbols designed to TRIGGER your fears and doubts.

You created all of that, at a metaphysical level, in order to EXPERIENCE your own growth and savor the blissful experience of self-expansion.

My sister Zoonie is finalizing her autobiographical book, titled From Chaos To Zen, and it captures the idea that you must face your own fears and demons, and find peace within (or what she calls "zen").

Only then can you truly embark upon the creative path of creating yourself as you WANT yourself to be, without being at the mercy of fears of self-doubts.

In the video above, it is interesting that only when Cranston has the Purba knife cutting his throat does he finally realize the futility of trying to control things at the physical level. He closes his eyes, as if to force himself to ignore physical reality, and accesses the metaphysical realm where he effortlessly controls the Purba.

The principle here, uttered by many spiritual masters, is that "real mastery requires no effort."

Whatever you are trying to achieve in your life, if you feel that you're working too hard, it is probably not the correct method or path.

Are you working too hard to pay off your debt, or keep your job, or "save" your marriage, or find your soul mate? Then your method or technique might be too "physical" and action-oriented, and will not work in the long term.

There is always an effortless path, a path of least resistance. But first, as Cranston illustrates, one must quiet one's mind and eliminate one's fears.

Once you understand this principle whereby you must first calm your mind and control it before you can use it for creative purposes, you are well on your way to achieving anything you desire in life.

Create & Circulate in order to create wealth

2010-02-03T16:03:00.000-08:00

The wealth creation formula for creating wealth via the Internet, is very simple: CREATE & CIRCULATE.

I have over 1,000 connections on Linkedin, and no one has (yet) circulated to me something they created.

Sure, I receive business proposal letters, requests for help, etc.

But no creation.

Friends, my point is very simple: Linkedin is of no business or financial value until you've created a product (physical or digital) that you can offer to your Linkedin connections (and even to the connections of your connections -- in that case, a small fee should be given to your connections for forwarding your offer).

If you are a user of Facebook, the same truth applies: no product, no economic usefulness, no money.

If your definition of "success" includes having lots and lots of money, then please consider (seriously) ways of using the Internet to your own advantage.

How? By doing what I wrote above: Create and Circulate.

So how do you create a product?

This is an important question because if you are an employee, chances are, your employer has never trained you on creativity techniques like Edward de Bono's (I've read all his books, the man is a genius).

I can tell you how I created my information products, which are now sold worldwide.

The Ideal Career workshop was the first, created in 2005 and now taught as a special workshop at McGill University for management students.

The BMW workshop was my second "hit", details at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com

Remember, once you create information products or, in the two cases above, instructional products, YOUR FORTUNE IS MADE.

That's because you can offer your info products (at sites like Payloadz) to an INFINITY of buyers online.

Does this mean that a job is bad, since it doesn't really encourage you to create products that you legally own?

Not necessarily. A job is just "free, paid training."

I've always had that attitude, which is why during the 90s (in my 20s), I worked for corporations and learned everything I could from them.

I know all the secrets of IBM, American Express, a large law firm, CDI Corporate Education Services, etc.

Knowing all their secrets, has made me a fearless and lethal entrepreneur today (just kidding... I wouldn't harm a fly).

Anyways, a job is just paid training, and you should seriously consider "graduating" to become an entrepreneur.

Of course, if you're happy at your job and want to remain in it for a long time, hey, more power to you! Don't let me ruin your party.

I'm just saying that you could launch a startup based on your PASSION and make PROFITS from it.

About 10% of Canadians decide to leave the corporate workplace and launch their firm. Most fail.

Even those who build a business based on their passion?

So what's the problem?

WARNING: The following segment contains explicit adult material. If you're under 18, please get back to your homework or go chat on Facebook (just kidding).

The problem is that people don't understand how to use the concept of "orgasm" in business. Too many just fake it.

As for the rest who do not fake it, they are unable to achieve it for several reasons.

(to be continued)

Focus on ROI might limit your wealth creation

2010-01-17T16:58:00.000-08:00

I wrote a few days ago that a focus on ROI (return on investment) might actually LIMIT how much money you make, and how much wealth you build for yourself.

Let me explain.

The mindset of someone who calculates "strategically and rationally" where to invest his time, energy and/or money, will sometimes force him to overthink and over-analyze. That is, he will tend to be very, very cautious.

This doesn't mean he or she cannot get a good ROI on investments. In fact, people who understand investing and actually take the time to scrutinize the business and micro economics of the companies they invest in, will definitely earn a satisfactory return.

So please understand that I am not "bashing" people who are smart enough and courageous enough to delve into investment seminars, workshops and books in order to better manage their money (which, in most cases, was hard earned).

Indeed, anyone who uses her brain strategically, is to be commended. So few people actually use their intellectual faculties.

However, the secret I want to share with you is that often, in life, you've got to GIVE EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WITHOUT THINKING RATIONALLY. Just do it spontaneously.

When (or if) you are able to do this, you actually activate a certain vibration within you. The sacred vibration of wealth.

This is why the current Haiti disaster, at a higher level, is a strange blessing for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. They see the misery, feel compassion, then go to the Red Cross website to donate money.

I heard of a woman on welfare who gave forty bucks. I also heard of an old lady who used her $1,500, which she had saved for a vacation this year, to give to the Haiti relief.

The people who give their time, such as Roger Federer's excellent idea of organizing a exhibition tennis match called Hit for Haiti, or who give their money, are activating within themselves the wealth vibration.

And given the infallibility of the Law of Attraction, they will attract more wealth into their lives.

My point in this post is that when you give WITHOUT THINKING, then you create wealth WITHIN YOU.

Unlike smart investing decisions,which occur at the conscious level, giving without thinking (and doing so consistently) operates at an UNCONSCIOUS level.

The spiritual secret that I'm currently discussing, has been explained extensively by T. Harv Eker in his best seller, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Read that book over and over, it will change your life.

This spiritual secret is simple: you only give to yourself, and you only receive from yourself.

So if you want to receive a LOT of abundance, you must first give out a LOT of abundance.

Some people will wait until they are rich before they give to others. But that is like waiting for your reflection in the mirror to smile before you smile. It cannot work that way!

You must give before you can receive, in the same way that you must smile before you see a smiling reflection in the mirror!

Given that principle, how do you get wealthy? You must give, give, give, and then give some more.

Giving must become an unconscious reflex of every day.

This has been my secret in business: I never stop thinking about giving more, more, more, and more to my clients.

This principle of giving before receiving, explains why the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. The rich acquire capital or create businesses which enable them to give more to more people, hence they receive more wealth as a result.

Poor people often look at their conditions, and conclude that they are poor and have little to give. So they don't even give the little they have. Result? They get poorer and poorer.

In short, it's not that there are the haves and have nots. Rather, there are people who think of giving (business people) and there are people who don't think of giving (the poor).

Please understand I'm not passing judgment against poor people. I merely observe how the rich get richer.

Poor people don't understand how it works, so they unwittingly perpetuate the poverty cycle. Hence, it is said that "it is extremely expensive to be poor."

It is not the poor conditions surrounding a poor person that perpetuates the vicious cycle, but the poor thinking that the poor person has adopted and keeps sustaining.

Employees could also be considered "poor." In particular, employees who only do the minimum and who never create anything new at work, are destined to remain employees for a long time.

I was able to quit corporate America at age 31 because I read all of Edward de Bono's books and learned to be creative.

I created all sorts of value in the last 10 years, and am now well on my way to become rich.

Of course, it wasn't easy. But as a wealth teacher, it was necessary for me to make all the mistakes so I could properly teach other people. This way, they won't have to make the costly mistakes I made.

Here's a powerful secret I want to share with you: the path to wealth is sequential and includes the following steps (which I will discuss in more detail later on):

analysis --> value --> job --> business --> investment vehicle --> wealth

Exciting jobs for my subscribers only

2010-01-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of creating a Job Creation Program (JCP), where I help people to create their perfect job within one of my companies. Register here: www.sureforms.net/excitingjobs.form.

This offer is only for subscribers of this blog. There are about 450 of you. :)

Do or doubt + sexy girl in a bikini

2010-01-15T13:09:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I wrote about a success principle stating that you can choose to either DO or DOUBT, but never both.

Doing, is like pressing on the gas pedal. You're moving forward in whatever project you've undertaken.

Doubting, is like pressing on the brake. You will slow down until you completely stop.

This analogy will help to see how ridiculous or silly it is to do something while doubting that you will succeed at it. It's really like pressing on the gas pedal and, AT THE SAME TIME, pressing on the brake!

Some people might say, "Well, I'm not doubting myself, but there are people around me (well-meaning family and friends) who make me lose confidence. Then, I start doubting myself."

Not true. Only you can doubt yourself. The negative or pessimistic opinions and views of others, are like road signs. Concretely, it's like as if they were holding the red STOP sign.

You do NOT have to slow down or stop. If you do stop or slow down, it is because you choose to.

Given the above, it should be fairly clear that you can do anything in life -- one step at a time, of course.

Once again, an analogy will be useful for this principle of progressing "one step at a time."

When you drive a car and accelerate, you CANNOT go from 0 miles per hour to 90 mph instantly. You have to go through intermediate stages or speeds, such as 10 mph, then 20, etc.

Yes, your goal might be to get to a speed of 100 mph, but you can only do so one step or stage at a time.

This success philosophy is what I call "practical idealism."

It means you set an "ideal" vision or goal, but you take "practical" actions where you are right now, and you fully invest yourself into each step or action.

Oprah has a neat saying: "Doing my best right now, puts me in the best position for my next move."

Given the awesome success she has achieved, one would be wise to study what her statement means exactly.

It means that investing yourself 100% into whatever you do, is a reflex of mind and being that will inevitably lead to great success.

So whether you're cleaning the house or walking in the park, do it 100%, with your consciousness fully absorbed into what you do.

In short, "what" you do is not as important as "how" you do it -- with full concentration and focus.

Whatever success and excellence I have achieved in my life, I owe it totally to my ability -- developed early in life -- to focus 100% of myself on the task at hand.

For example, I'm so focused right now on writing this post. My mind is fully absorbed and I strive to share the best of what I know with you.

I'm so concentrated that if a sexy girl in a tiny bikini passed in front of my laptop right now, I wouldn't even notice her. Okay, I'm just kidding, hey I'm not gay and I'm not dead.

I would stop typing and would talk to her while thinking of a casual way to pull out my business card and give it to her, so she can see my title ("President") and be impressed enough to give me her phone number.

By the way, if you're a guy reading this, that is a cool secret you must know. Print business cards because that's an easy way to attract women's attention. Doesn't matter what your business is (women don't care about theh details anyways!).

But seriously, EVERYBODY on this planet will soon become entrepreneurs. "Jobs" will no longer exist, at least not for people who are seriously ambitious.

Here, we go back to my main idea for this post: you cannot DO and DOUBT at the same time, and then expect to succeed in life.

An employee is usually someone who does something (presumably of value) every day, but doubts herself so she stops every day at 5 PM.

This is why there is no "acceleration" in most jobs: by the time the clock shows "4 PM", employees start slowing down.

This is like accelerating from 0 mph to 40 mph, then STOPPING at 5 PM.

Entrepreneurs don't stop at 5 PM, they continue the acceleration. They never stop thinking and "obsessing" about their product or service or solution, and continually use their imagination to create more value -- more, more, more!

This is how they get rich. This is how they attract girls in tiny bikinis, like the one I mentioned a few paragraphs ago (hey, where did she go? Anybody seen her?).

(to be continued)

Focus on the process, not results

2010-01-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

To complement what I wrote yesterday regarding believing in yourself and ACTING on your inspired idea, I wish to make a clarification.

I wrote that you should implement an exciting idea without regard to other people's opinions, however do keep in mind that this idea should feel EXCITING to you.

Other people, including friends, family, coworkers, will tend to be cautious, conservative and, well, pessimistic.

Nevertheless, this does not mean you shouldn't consider their analysis.

Just keep in mind -- and this is really important as I have found out myself -- that people will evaluate your ideas based on the PAST.

Most importantly, they will not consider your feeling excited (about your idea) as a relevant factor in their analysis of whether your idea will work.

Yet that is precisely my point: if you truly feel excited about your idea, you should implement it right away. Why even talk to other people about it?

This doesn't mean you can FULLY implement your idea. It simply means you can take decisive steps (these steps should be irreversible, if possible) toward implementing your idea.

The secret is this: In life, in order to succeed, you either DO or you DOUBT. You cannot do both.

Yoda put it differently: "Do or do not. There is no try."

In other words, he's saying that when you "try" to do something, you implicitly acknowledge to yourself and others that there is the possibility of failure. In short, you doubt that you will succeed.

This doubt itself WILL attract to you all kinds of obstacles and difficulties that, had you been totally confident and secure and calm, would not have appeared.

In short, your doubts CREATE your difficulties.

Doubting oneself, is like driving a car down the road while focusing on the tree instead of focusing on the road. You will eventually run into the tree!

This may sound obvious to you, but trust me, I coach entrepreneurs and have noticed many times that they doubt themselves.

So how do you get rid of your doubts?

Here's a trick to put yourself into a supremely confident state of mind WHILE fully enjoying the process or the project you are doing.

Think of a movie that you've enjoyed watching before. In my case, it would be Fight Club.

Now, you KNOW how it ends. It does end well.

So the second time you watch it, you no longer worry or wonder about the ending. You just fully enjoy the movie.

It's the same whenever you do a new project. Imagine that it ends well. Then, you only have to enjoy the process of "getting it done."

What makes it hard for us to enjoy the process, is society's obsession with "results."

As long as a person obsesses about results, he/she is not fully invested in the process (or the game being played). Ironically, the result therefore cannot be good.

On the other hand, when you focused on HAVING FUN right here and right now, the results will take care of themselves.

Think this is farfetched? Consider the advice that Tony Hsieh gave on Oprah. Hsieh is the founder and CEO of Zappos.com. He's only 26 years old.

He said, you should choose work that you are totally passionate about, even if you don't make money for 10 years.

In other words, he's saying that process (or the game being played) is more important than results.

In the next post, I go even further. I will explain why a focus on "return on investment" can actually be detrimental in business and investing.

How I made $1,000 per hour

2010-01-13T16:03:00.001-08:00

In my other blog, http://linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com, I wrote in December 2008 about making $1,000 an hour and in 2009, I did... precisely that!

I earned about $1,000 an hour while working on contract for a university.

The secret I want to share with you, is that you can earn ANY amount of money per hour. You just have to set your intention and learn to believe it. By this, I mean you have to think OBSESSIVELY about making $1,000 an hour (or whatever amount you aim for).

That is the power of the Law of Attraction!

I spent two years studying the teachers of the Law of Attraction, mostly Esther Hicks.

A similar law is described in the book The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace Wattle, written precisely 100 years ago, in 1910. I highly recommend that you get a free copy on the Internet and read it and study it. It will make you fabulously rich.

In short, they are too logical.

They often reject an idea because their rational mind cannot see HOW the idea can be implemented, or how the goal can be achieved "realistically."

The HOW will be provided by the Universe; you only have to set clear intentions about WHAT you want.

The HOW, that is, the specific ideas as to how you can make a large sum of money (or achieve any goal you want), is like a song being broadcast over radio waves. Your job is only to TUNE IN and receive those ideas.

Your next challenge is to TRUST the idea and implement it RIGHT AWAY. Implement it confidently like as if you could not fail!

Even if a survey of 1,000 people revealed that 999 people (except for your mom, of course!) believed you would fail. DO IT ANYWAYS!

If you invest 100% of your energy and faith in your idea, it will not fail. Even in cases where it doesn't show the results desired, you will be at the right place for the next idea which usually is BIGGER and more BEAUTIFUL than the first one.

I will write more about the LOA, stay tuned!

Why employees are losers

2008-11-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

If you're an employee, you probably want to crucify me for writing a headline that is, well, quite insulting.

But wait! Put down the cross, the hammer and the nails, and hear me out. I might be able to "ressuscitate" your genius so that you, too, can create wealth as easily as you breathe.

Here's my main idea for today: A job is a container, and work is the content.

An executive job obviously is a bigger container than a receptionist job. Not surprisingly, the executive makes more money than the receptionist, although the receptionist is probably more charming.

In other words, the REASON why employees are POOR is that the value they are allowed to create, is RESTRICTED by the job they took.

A free agent has a slightly different challenge: every contract he gets, is a container, and he is usually not very motivated to "pour more value" into that container. This is a mistake, of course, but one can hardly blame a person for not giving more value than he is paid in return.

Your mission impossible, should you choose to accept it, is to STOP thinking about "jobs" and start thinking about "value."

Value is similar to work, but sounds less stressful and seems to involve less effort!

If your goal is to make more money, you MUST create more value. One book that will open your eyes is Harv Eker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Read it once, read it twice, read it three times. Even a fourth time. Pick a principle in that book, and apply it for a whole week. Then, pick another principle and apply it the following week. Only then will you TRULY understand what Harv is REALLY talking about.

Millions of dollars are contained in that book, IF you consciously choose to apply its principles.

So how do you create MORE value? Think of how many MORE people you can serve.

First, who are you serving right now? Who's paying you right now for your services?

Picture that person, and then picture hundreds of people who look like, think like, behave like that person. In short, CLONE the clients you are currently serving.

If you currently don't have a job, no problem. Unless you're 11 years old, you DID hold a job before. WHO was the client at that time? Well, CLONE that person. Serve more people like that person. And you WILL get paid more.

Most people believe that money is a big deal when it isn't.

Money, wealth, financial freedom, etc. is only a big deal (and it gets more and more complicated as you read business books written by so-called gurus who confuse you even more) IF you are not interested in serving people, and IF you don't care about people.

If you TRULY care about people, then your wealth is guaranteed in this life. Why? Because there are 6.5 billion people on the planet!

The bottom line is that if you care about people and WANT passionately to serve them, they will throw money at you faster than you can count it!

This is called enlightened self-interest: in serving people well, you are in fact serving yourself!

But you've got to stop focusing on yourself, your problems, your constraints, your situation, your challenges, your whatever. Focus on helping other people.

Many seekers of financial freedom say they want to help other people, but can't really answer my simple question: "Who did you help yesterday?"

You see, the MORE people you help EVERY DAY, the MORE MONEY you will make in the long run.

That's because within every gesture of help, there is something valuable that EVERYBODY wants: love. Kids want love, teenagers want love, parents want love, senior people want love, politicians want love, aliens from planet Mars want love. Just kidding.

Your ultimate product is LOVE!

And you give it by talking, sharing, caring, teaching, guiding, helping, etc. And the more you give it, the more you will receive in return (in cash, goodwill, reputation, etc.).

People who are poor, are simply people who are withholding the love inside of them, and refuse to give it to others.

And to make matters worse, there are business books written that advocate the use of military principles from Sun Tzu or political (and diabolical) principles from Machiavelli.

In the end, wealth is very simple: it's about unleashing the natural wealth that you have within you, and that can only be love. If you don't love the people you are serving, and you don't empathize with them, then forget about wealth.

Wealth comes from spiritual knowledge, not business knowledge. Business knowledge gives you the HOW, but only spiritual knowledge (in particular, knowing that we are all one and that serving the other person is REALLY serving yourself) gives you the WHY. The WHY is the all-powerful force or Omniscience that flows into your being and whispers to you exactly what to say and what to do to enrich other people and yourself, and make the world a better place.

The wealth secret nobody told you about

2008-11-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

My friends, the BMW audiobook CD currently sells for $100 (Canadian dollars), and you can read more details HERE. In this post, I will explain in detail what the BMW secret knowledge is about, and also offer you the opportunity to buy it for only $10. (This special offer is ONLY for subscribers of this blog and their friends).

Many people have bought my BMW audiobook already, and I congratulate them heartily because the secret knowledge contained in that single CD will save them YEARS of hard work, frustration, stress and totally misguided thinking about business, finance, economics and wealth.

Just take a look at what's going on in the U.S. and you'll have an idea of the enormous misunderstanding that most people have about money, work and wealth.

In a nutshell, people really DO NOT KNOW how to create value. If they did, they would NEVER accept to have a job, for they could create value from the comfort of their own home and then ship or deliver electronically that value to thousands of customers worldwide (as I am currently doing -- I have 998 connections on Linkedin in over 30 countries, and those connections are not just customers, they are distributors of my products to THEIR network of 500+ connections!).

In other words, the BMW knowledge clarifies people's mind about what, precisely, business is all about: innovation X marketing. It's really that simple.

And yet, if you don't get it, then you will be forced to work for someone else till age 65.

I retired from corporate America at age 31, and over the last 8 years, I've had nothing but fun. It was not always easy, of course, since I had to search long and hard for the SECRET of wealth, but I did it. I found the secret, and that is the secret I'm sharing with you in that BMW audiobook.

But that secret is not a sentence or a statement, it's a certain understanding of how value is created and then monetized. You've got to PRACTICE it in order to KNOW it.

To help people PRACTICE the BMW doctrine, I even created a FREE ecourse which all buyers of the BMW audiobook can receive, once a week, so they can apply what they've learned. Below is the curriculum of that ecourse (delivered by email).

But unless you buy the BMW audiobook, you cannot take that FREE ecourse, which I normally charge $300 for. Students get to do assignments and they receive my feedback, guidance and corrective comments.

Now, why would I offer both the BMW audiobook, now priced at $100, and this ecourse (value of $300) for the ridiculous price of $10?

Because I care about you.

And I know that you care about success, especially financial success. Otherwise, you would not have subscribed to this blog.

Sure, money doesn't buy happiness, but it certainly makes your life really, really, really comfortable and pleasant as you search for happiness.

And if you are a parent, you DEFINITELY and ABSOLUTELY must buy the BMW audiobook for if you don't have the knowledge, you cannot teach your kids. And trust me, they WILL suffer professionally and financially if they don't know the BMW secret.

I was the Valedictorian of my high school, and always a top student at college and university. In fact, at McGill University, several business professors told me I was one of their top students. I had an "A" average.

Yet, even I did not "get" business and had to figure it out for myself through a lot of readings (about 800 books) and countless hours of meditation and reflection.

Anyways, I strongly recommend that you get the BMW audiobook, for only $10. Just email me your mailing address at peter@powerknowledge.net and make the $10 payment at http://www.sureforms.net/peterswork.form (please make sure you enter the "$10.00" amount).

Forward this offer to all your friends and relatives, and they can benefit from the special offer too. Thank you.

FREE ECOURSE FOR BUYERS OF BMW AUDIOBOOK

Email 1: Explain in one page your understanding of the BMW system

Email 2: Create a template time sheet with only four codes: M, S, P and W (time wasted)

Email 3: Write one page describing your target client (probable client)

Email 4: Write a one-page procedure on how you create Marketing Campaigns

Email 5: Create an Excel spreadsheet listing potential clients, probable clients, contact info, solutions suggested, need inferred, need validated

Email 6: Create a one-page sales methodology

Email 7: Create a one-page description of how you produce value, both proactively without having any client and reactively (in response to client orders)

Email 8: Explain in one page all the things that could go wrong with your marketing system, and how you preemptively prevent or reduce those risks of process failure

Email 9: Explain in one page all the things that could go wrong with your selling system, and how you preemptively prevent or reduce those risks of process failure

Email 10: Explain in one page all the things that could go wrong with your producing system, and how you preemptively prevent or reduce those risks of process failure

Email 11: Create an Excel dashboard measuring your M, S and P performance every week

Email 12: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 13: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 14: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 15: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 16: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 17: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 18: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 19: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Email 20: PERSONALIZED CONSULTING (if needed)

Barack Obama: his life is his message

2008-11-04T21:27:00.001-08:00

I just finished listening to the televised speech of president-elect Barack Obama, and it was quite moving.

The story of this man is quite spectacular and inspiring. His life itself is his message, that we can do anything if we dare to hope.

The 1.5 million volunteers who joined his political organization were, no doubt, inspired by his charismatic leadership. But more importantly, something in them was activated by his example and his words, which flow smoothly from the core of his being.

This something is "hope," a most elusive concept and yet, perhaps the one thing the world needs the most today -- not only in America, but everywhere in the world.

That's because although America has become very powerful, it has also become extremely arrogant. The ego of what some people call the American empire, has expressed itself abroad, igniting fear and activating hate against America.

With the election of Barack Obama as the new president of the United States, there is hope that the American spirit will emerge, and that America will listen to its spirit more than its ego.

Through the example and words of Barack Obama, the American spirit speaks very clearly and it is such moral clarity that inspires so many people. Young people are especially inspired by his speeches as they are keenly aware of the enormous challenges facing them and thus they realize they need inspirational leadership.

In conclusion, this is a historical day for America and for the world. Barack Obama is such an inspiring figure that he is likely to influence many people to courageously pursue their dream in life. Indeed, he epitomizes and demonstrates the powerful line "Yes, we can!".

On that note, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that I'm running for Prime Minister of Canada! :-)

Free career consulting for you!

2008-11-03T21:52:00.001-08:00

I created the blog www.idealcareerframework.com where I've written and will continue to write about how you can design and develop your ideal career. The best news is, it's free of charge!

I used to charge for that kind of information but I realized that this kind of knowledge is just too powerful and could REALLY help you to create an amazing career for yourself!

The Ideal Career Framework (ICF) is not the only method for finding one's ideal career, but I believe it's the best one. Just kidding.

It's the simplest and most direct way to get in touch with who you TRULY are, so you can build a fulfilling career based on your TRUE self.

So please visit the site when you get a chance, and ask me all the questions you want. Your career happiness is my mission! :-)

The source of real power

2008-11-02T10:33:00.001-08:00

Everyone agrees that power is necessary to create a good life. Many believe that money brings power, or that power comes from connections ("friends in higher places"), or education (PhD, etc.), or experience.

However, what so few people understand is that real, lasting power comes from within, from ourselves. It comes from an evolved understanding of what life is all about, and what we are here to do and learn.

The reason why most do not suspect that power lies within them, is that in our everyday lives, we tend to focus exclusively on external things. We watch the news about what is going on in the world, in faraway places. We look at other people around us and, subconsciously or not, we compare ourselves to them. We seek "stuff" and buy "stuff" like as if material gratification could allow us to evolve personally and spiritually.

Continually comparing ourselves to others can only lead to misery, for every person is on a unique path of spiritual evolution. We are not "bodies" working hard on Earth to acquire more and more "stuff."

Yet "working hard every day to acquire more stuff or accumulate money in a bank account to retire and enjoy stuff" seems to be a dominant script for most humans on this planet.

This insane phase of "working", that is, exchanging one's life for dollars, occupies roughly a person's life between the ages of 23 and 65.

It would be all too easy to blame "corporate America" or the educational system for the empty lives we are leading. It is much harder to take responsibility and recognize the fact that if our lives are empty, it's simply because we have not put much thought into clarifying what it is that we really want out of life.

For example, Christmas is coming, so naturally, most people will begin to think -- to varying degrees -- about what their friends and relatives want as a gift. But the real question is, "What do YOU want in life?"

If you truly knew, exactly and precisely, what you TRULY wanted in life, then you could, right now, start to describe it in your Facebook profile or your Linkedin profile, so interested friends, relatives, coworkers, acquaintances, etc. could -- if they wish -- buy for you a gift that is aligned with your purpose in life.

Otherwise, you might just end up with one meaningless gift based on your friends' well-intentioned guess of what you want.

Here's an exercise that will drive home the whole point of this post.

Suppose you were to ask five friends or relatives, what your purpose in life is, or what dream you are pursuing in life, would they be able to come up with the same answer? If not, then it means your clarity of purpose needs further work.

Some may say, "I know exactly what my dream is, and I'm pursuing it relentlessly. But I don't feel I have to share that dream with other people, including friends and family."

That's fair enough. It is wise, however, to consider the possibility that

1. your dream is ego-based, and does not serve the collectivity. For if it did serve them, it would make much more sense for you to share what your dream is, so they can contribute and provide feedback.

2. you are still clinging onto your ego, which is afraid of criticism and negative feedback, so you try to protect yourself (or your ego, rather) from the negativity of other people (especially friends and family, who are always the best at providing well-intentioned negative thoughts)

I must stress that the above does NOT mean you should share with everyone your half-baked ideas and goals, or that it is necessary to talk about your goals and dreams with other people. Indeed, you may need to work on clarifying your purpose and dream for a while, and gather enough resolve and self-confidence BEFORE you share your intentions with others.

But let's get back to the point of this post: your personal power.

Any and all power comes from you, from your allowing yourself the time and the space to explore and exercise your power.

To do this, you need to quiet down all thoughts, and since most thoughts come to you through other people and from the mass media (magazines, books, TV, movies, ads, etc.), you need to create a specific time during the day when you can meditate without being interrupted.

I've been meditating in a library for the last few years, and have learned to listen to my inner voice. I don't think this could have been achieved without meditation and places, such as a library, where I can empty my mind of all thoughts.

Whether you're a mother, an entrepreneur, a careerist, a new parent, an investor, etc. does not matter, in the grand scheme of things, as much as the fact that you are here to experience and joyfully direct your own spiritual evolution.

"Success" therefore is best defined by how peaceful and joyful you are, compared to how peaceful and joyful you were a few months or years ago.

"Success" is not determined by how much your bank account has grown, nor how well your investment portfolio is performing, nor how many friends you have, nor how big your house is, nor how many cars you have, etc.

Material possessions are relatively important, not absolutely important. They can make you physically more comfortable while you seek true spiritual evolution. But they cannot replace spiritual evolution.

Women tend to seek, consciously or unconsciously, spiritual evolution more than men.

This is why I believe that as more and more women get involved in politics, business, academia, etc. we will see a shift in the world from an ego-based lifestyle to a spirit-based lifestyle.

Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth, is all about that inevitable shift from an egoic life philosophy to a Higher Self focus.

In other words, as you choose and commit to shifting your focus away from your ego and toward your Higher Self (or spirit), you will begin to feel powerful, and will be able to exercise your power over all aspects of your life.

This may sound strange to you, yet the very fact that you are reading this blog testifies to your readiness to receive information that most people are not ready (yet) to receive.

Indeed, those who seek knowledge, are necessarily creating within themselves the space to receive new knowledge.

As you receive this new knowledge, or this inner knowingness that you are -- through your thoughts -- continually creating and shaping your life, you will begin to feel powerful.

You will feel your sovereign power to direct and create your destiny, and you will feel that other people have no power over you. This in itself will bring great peace of mind, and will reverse radically the idea or thought, expressed by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, that "hell is other people."

Other people cannot bring "hell" into your life, in any way, shape or form, once you realize -- through diligent and sustained practice -- that heaven lies within you, waiting to be released through a simple decision to focus on your Higher Self and not your ego.

Allow your inner wealth to express itself

2008-11-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

Check out this site: http://www.makerealmoneyontheinternet.com.

There are more and more sites like that, offering what seems like a miracle recipe to people who seek financial freedom and wealth.

And yet, most of these wealth "recipes" are only acting as placebo.

Here are two definitions of "placebo":

1. a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.

2. Something of no intrinsic remedial value that is used to appease or reassure another.

In both definitions, it's about a mental operation performed on the person, so she BELIEVES that a cause has been set in motion in order to produce an effect.

This belief is actually relief. It helps people to let go of their resistance, and this very resistance is what PREVENTS people from becoming rich.

In other words, when you study multimillionaire authors and teachers like Stephen Pierce above, or Rich Schefren, or anybody else, keep in mind that their psychological impact on you is immensely more important than their intellectual impact.

In short, their value is that they help you to BELIEVE that you CAN become a millionaire.

However, they cannot just reveal that intention, because it would defeat the purpose of creating a placebo effect.

Once you BELIEVE and KNOW that you are, deep inside, wealthier than you can possibly imagine, then wealth comes to you naturally. But to get to that point of absolute belief and knowing, is very difficult because we have all been trained to think that we are poor, and that we have to work for a living.

The masterful gurus are those who are able to "free your mind." They know very well that their tools and techniques are just props and equipment to help you get to a point where you totally accept and embrace your millionaire identity.

But they know that if they just told you what I told you, you would NOT believe them. So they create all kinds of fancy-sounding techniques and programs to convince you, one step at a time, that you are capable of becoming rich.

My approach could be called "Inner Wealth Consciousness" in that I strive to help my consulting clients to relax and access their natural wealth consciousness.

I tell my clients that "if you do not feel wealthy, you will not become wealthy." In other words, outer wealth comes from inner wealth.

So don't try to "make money" but strive to identify your strengths, your worth, your self-esteem, etc. and translate it into physical terms. Wealth creation then is a translation process.

Many people who seek wealth, have an attitude of poverty. They focus on their lack, on their weaknesses, on their constraints ("I don't have enough time; I have no money; I don't have the right education; I don't have business experience; etc."). This poverty-focused attitude will only bring more poverty into their lives. Not just financial poverty, but social poverty, psychological poverty, etc. Even their health will suffer.

My point is that EVERYBODY, including you, is immensely wealthy -- naturally. But we create resistance to this inner wealth, which is our natural birthright.

This resistance comes from our ego, which is a false self -- an illusion. This ego always wants to be right, even at the expense of being happy or rich. This ego defends itself and justifies everything it does.

So the key to wealth and happiness is simply to let go of your ego. Be like a child, and enjoy life every single moment. Allow your joy to flow forth from within, and you will then feel the power of the spirit inside of you.

Once this happens, wealth will come naturally to you. You will no longer resist your happiness and wealth and joy in life.

Everything that you want in life will naturally appear to you, in what appears to be coincidences. Yet, they are NOT coincidences; they are simply the result of your finally understanding that you create your own reality, and the best way to create the best reality is to cultivate a keen awareness of your infinite worth and to let go of all resistance stemming from the ego.

Reincarnation

2008-10-29T00:41:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This post contains subject matter that is highly controversial, and might shake your beliefs. Please note that I offer my understanding with the purpose of helping you to clarify your thinking, and NOT to convince you of any new belief.

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Whether you believe in God or any particular religion such as Islamism, Hiduism, Christianity, etc. might matter less than whether or not you believe in reincarnation.

For example, Christians believe that if they lead a good life, they will be rewarded and go to Heaven. If not, well, Satan will be waiting for them.

Note: This is what I understand to be the mainstream or official doctrine of Christianity, although it might NOT be what Jesus himself was saying and teaching.

In other words, you get one shot at Heaven. If you screw up this life, well, you'll be spending Eternity in hell.

Reincarnation has a different twist; it's a cycle of birth and death, and until you are enlightened, you will keep going back to a physical existence in order to "learn your lessons."

Mother Teresa, for example, was a human being who became enlightened in her (last) lifetime, therefore she has freed herself from the perpetual birth and death cycle that most people are "trapped" in.

So reincarnation basically says that different souls are at different stages of evolution. Young souls that incarnate, don't understand much while older, more mature souls (who obviously have lived many more lifetimes) are wiser and understand more of life (although this understanding is subtle and unconscious).

This is why you might see a 30-year-old woman who is wiser than a 50-year-old man. It's not the number of years that counts, but the number of lifetimes they've incarnated (and the quality of learning during those lifetimes).

So it's likely that Mother Teresa was the incarnation of a soul that has lived many lifetimes before, and in THIS incarnation as Mother Teresa, she had enough wisdom and knowledge to be able to see through the body (of lepers) and see the reality of God. This enabled her to become enlightened.

So why does it matter whether or not you believe in reincarnation? There are two cases:

1. If you believe in reincarnation, then you would try to meditate in order to access the knowledge that has been learned and accumulated by your previous lifetimes.

2. If you do NOT believe in reincarnation, then you would try to read books and attend seminars to gain knowledge in THIS lifetime.

In other words, your belief or non-belief in reincarnation determines, to a certain extent, your learning strategy. Of course, meditating does not exclude reading books and attending seminars.

Perhaps more importantly, your position regarding reincarnation determines whether or not you fear death.

If you believe in reincarnation, then you necessarily believe that death doesn't exist because you are NOT your body. You are a soul that will survive the body and will reincarnate in another human body.

In other words, your body is like a shirt or dress that you take off, and then you wear another dress or shirt (and go to a different party).

So a person who died is simply a person who left a party, and is going to a different party.

For example, if a husband died and leaves behind his wife, then he simply went to another party and perhaps later on, his wife will go to that party too, and they'll be together once more.

Note: Of course, I wouldn't put it in those terms if I was talking to someone who just lost a dear relative or friend. Sensitivity to people's feelings is important.

So if you believe in reincarnation, you are more likely to NOT fear death, because you know the soul is eternal. Also, you are likely to focus on your spiritual evolution in this lifetime. Ultimately, if you are really serious, you want enlightenment so you really, really focus on your spiritual evolution.

However, if you do NOT believe in reincarnation, this means you believe that THIS life is all you got. So you would normally fear death more than the people who believe in reincarnation.

You would also focus more on having a pleasant physical experience because you believe that you will NOT come back to planet Earth. Once you die, you die forever.

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

Well, success is defined by each person differently. Reincarnation believers might define success as "evolving spiritually" while reincarnation non-believers might define success as "accumulating riches and living a good, comfortable material life."

In short, reincarnation believers focus on "learning" while reincarnation non-believers focus on "earning" (money). The latter focus on earning money because only money can buy the stuff that makes for a pleasant physical life experience.

Of course, it's possible to learn and evolve spiritually WHILE creating prosperity, just as it's possible to focus on earning money while evolving spiritually.

My point is that reincarnation believers focus primarily on learning while reincarnation non-believers focus primarily on earning.

I wrote this post because up to this point, I talked about success secrets from the point of view of seeking abundance and wealth.

However, from now on, I will ALSO write about success secrets from the point of view of spiritual evolution. Yes, I care about your soul's evolution!

Obviously, spiritual evolution is far more important than financial wealth, because the spiritual knowledge and mastery than you gain in this lifetime, will positively affect your life experience in other lifetimes.

In other words, the spiritual treasure that you accumulate in this lifetime, will follow you in other lifetimes. The money you make in this lifetime, will NOT follow you in other lifetimes.

This doesn't mean money is not important. It is important, but it's critical to know that it's only relatively important, not absolutely important.

BMW audiobook CD for sale

2008-10-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

I have great news! I just finished recording a 47-minute audiobook on the BMW workshop, which I've been teaching in various business schools and colleges since May 6, 2006.

Since many people from Asia, the U.S. (L.A., New York, etc.), Europe and other provinces in Canada, have been requesting the BMW material, I finally took the time to record, edit and produce an audiobook to share the BMW workshop with the rest of the world!

If you wish to purchase that audiobook, which is NOT available in any retail store, here are the prices:

If bought in October 2008: $30 (Canadian dollars)
If bought in November 2008: $50
If bought in December 2008: $100
If bought in January 2009: $200
If bought in February 2009: $300

Simply email me at peter@powerknowledge.net your mailing address (with postal code), and I will email you a Paypal invoice and ship the audiobook CD to you promptly.

The reason for the accelerating pricing schedule above, is that the BMW principles and concepts are truly revolutionary and will give an incredible edge in business to any person who uses them. So the early buyers will benefit from exclusivity, since as the price increases, fewer will be able to buy.

Also, this audiobook CD has content that will continuously evolve, and the value will reach equilibrium at around $300.

If you want to get rich in this life, I highly recommend that you invest $30 and get this audiobook as soon as you can. The BMW is the result of nearly 10 years of research and experimentation that I did, quite successfully. The secrets I share in the audiobook are simply NOT available anywhere else.

I'm using the BMW principles myself to become a millionaire. This is my objective: :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdWjgNmVT7Q

If you are a subscriber to this blog, let me congratulate you and give you a $10 discount, so the price for you will be $20 in October, $40 in November, $90 in December, etc.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Don't miss it! I wouldn't want you to look back, a year from now, and see all my students make tons of money while you're still struggling financially!

Details on the BMW workshop at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com

The key to wealth is to STOP being productive

2008-10-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

No, folks, it's not a typo.

I really mean it: The key to wealth is to STOP being productive.

I call it the Art of Being Profitably Lazy.

With Facebook and Linkedin, this art is being democratized and becoming accessible to the masses.

Before I explain to you what I mean, let me ask you this question: "What do most people see when they look at the Niagara Falls?"

Answer: The Niagara Falls.

That is, they see an average of four million cubic feet of water fall at high speed. It's the most powerful waterfall in North America.

My point is that only a hydroelectric engineer looking at the Niagara Falls would see the economic potential of the waterfall.

This is because engineers understand how energy can be converted from one form to another. In this case, the kinetic movement of water downward could be captured and converted into mechanical, and then electric energy, which can be sold and delivered in a highly controlled manner.

Society is like the Niagara Falls, except that there are many forces in society, and they are often invisible and silent. So it's not that easy to detect those forces, let alone leverage them.

Yet, a trained business mind can SEE those forces everywhere and all the time. This enables the trained business person to leverage such powerful societal forces, and convert them into capital, which then produces value, which is converted into cash.

Unfortunately, the majority of mankind is NOT encouraged nor trained to detect, see and leverage those powerful forces in society. This is why most people are "forced" to be productive -- whether they are employees, free agents, small business entrepreneurs, etc.

The enlightened entrepreneur is rather lazy physically but very alert mentally. He (or she) can detect forces around him and guide those forces for productive purposes.

Although I agree with the old saying that "an idle man (without vision) is the devil's workshop," I would submit that an idle man with a vision can be an angel's studio.

In other words, the first step on the path toward wealth, is to STOP WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU ARE DOING. (Unless, of course, you are making millions of dollars from it).

In other words, stop trying to be (personally) productive. Rather, try to see the ecosystem of which you are a part, and try to see the forces around you. Look at the trends, study what is happening in society, seek opportunities and threats (a threat for a group of people, could become an opportunity for you if you have a solution that would neutralize that threat).

Most importantly, learn to make people respond to you. This is really the key behind all great Internet marketing success. Often, Internet marketers are former copywriters who simply use the Internet to dramatically magnify their reach and influence.

Basically, they put an offer on the table (or on a Web page, rather). Then, they wait for the response from the target market. A response rate of 1% or 2% is good, 5% is very good.

Also, they try different offers and tinker with all the components of their Internet marketing until they reach the highest response rate.

By the way, that is precisely what I will do for www.etalentelle.com.

I will share with you the secret business plan behind eTalentelle in a future post.

My point is that to get wealthy, you have to stop trying to be productive personally, and create tools for OTHER PEOPLE to be productive.

Here's a metaphor to drive my point home: Imagine that as an employee or free agent or small biz entrepreneur, you are in charge of baking a cake. This is what you are paid to do.

Eventually, you want more things in life, which cost more money. So you try to increase your productivity. Instead of baking ONE cake per hour, you try to bake TWO in the same hour. And so on and so forth.

Yet, this approach leads not to wealth.

To become wealthy, you have to remove yourself (your physical person) out of the value creation equation. And you have to inject ideas into your wealth building approach or formula.

$1 , 2 3 4 , 5 6 7 . 8 9

The above is what I call the Million-Dollar Secret Leverage Code.

To become wealthy, you have to work on the numbers on the left (1, 2, 3), not the numbers on the right.

And the numbers on the left can only be increased by clever leverage. Ideas, either from yourself or swiped from others, are the seeds of leverage.

Henry Ford, for example, copied the idea of an assembly line from the meat-packing industry. It enabled him to create car manufacturing plants that churned out a great number of T models, the original Ford car.

In other words, to become wealthy, stop being productive and start being INNOVATIVE.

Self-made billionaire Ross Perot put it this way: "It just takes a single idea to live like a king for the rest of your life."

He didn't mean a "product idea" or a "service idea." He meant an idea that is so revolutionary that it would give you TREMENDOUS POWER AND LEVERAGE.

Frank, the new CEO of Melaleuca in 1985, had one such idea: he created Marketing Executives at the company, in order to greatly motivate his marketing people to sell the product.

Jimmy Wales also had a great, high-leverage idea when he launched Wikipedia.

So did Steve and Chad, when they built Youtube.

The success secret here is that you've got to have an idea and and grow it and PUSH IT till it becomes a crazy and absolutely ridiculous idea!

Only then will it have a chance of giving you GREAT POWER AND LEVERAGE.

The Internet is truly the GREATEST ECONOMIC LIBERATOR OF MANKIND.

Let's get back to our baking example.

Rather than try to bake more cakes, it's much better if you capture your recipe on paper and SELL that recipe to millions of people through the Internet.

Better yet, give away that recipe for FREE in order to build a database of fans of your recipes, and then sell them future recipes that you develop.

In short, here's the secret to wealth: Stop being productive, and start capturing on paper or in a digital document the METHOD by which you produce a desired outcome. In other words, sell your productivity method. Sell your value-creation recipe. Sell any process or formula that you personally use to create desired outcomes.

But whatever you do, stop selling your personal time and your labor! Stop exchanging your life for dollars!

There is a much more intelligent way to generate an income (or multiple streams of income, for that matter!).

Revise your assumptions and beliefs about "work" and "value" and "money" and choose the easy, effortless path to wealth.

Learn to be "lazy profitably."

Learn to have ideas, lots of ideas, every day. Learn to discuss ideas, and evaluate them rigorously.

And before you know it, you will begin to see money everywhere around you. You will see the "money code" everywhere you go.

Why not franchise your success?

2008-10-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a tough question for you: Are you successful in ANY area of life?

Chances are, you are successful in at least one area. I'm convinced of that. Sometimes, you just have to look carefully.

The next question is, Why not franchise your success? In other words, why not capture in the form of a book or a 20-page ebook the process or methodology you used to become successful in your field?

Here's the reason why I asked that question: If you cannot write a simple 20-page ebook to describe your "success process", then perhaps you do NOT have one.

Some people might counter, "Well, Peter, I'm not a writer." That's not a problem, you can hire a ghostwriter.

So what happens if you do not have a success process? What if you succeeded, but do not have a process?

Well, that would be like succeeding at baking a great cake, but not having the recipe to share it (or sell it) with other people.

In that case, you might be losing TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!

Here's an example in my case. I was successful at creating many workshops now being taught at Talentelle.com.

So a few weeks ago, I thought, "Why don't I capture the process I (intuitively) used to create such successful workshops, and then sell that ebook and make enough dollars to buy a Maserati?"

Needless to say, I was pretty excited at that idea!

Then I thought of PowerKnowledge.net, the portal I created with my brother and associate Joe. We're making money, Joe even took a snapshot of the first check we received from Google!

Why don't I capture all the emails, chats and phone conversations we had, as well as the process we used to plan and launch PowerKnowledge.net? CareerKnowledge.net too, why not?

My point is that if you succeed at something, that's great. You'll be making some money. But if you can CAPTURE the process you used to become successful, then you will BECOME RICH!

Why? Because success requires personal effort, while selling a process (in the form of a DVD, ebook, etc.) only requires a website. This means you'll be making PASSIVE INCOME! Yes, that means making money while you're sleeping!

The key is to ask yourself, "What is it that I'm doing in my life, that works for me and that produces GOOD, POSITIVE results?" Next, write down the process you use, and sell it to the entire world.

I'm available for consulting on this topic, at a rate of $100 for 2 hours by phone. Contact me if you want to further explore this incredible money-making opportunity.

Resellable ebooks so you can make lots of $$$

2008-10-02T14:47:00.001-07:00

Check http://talentellenews.blogspot.com for details!

The most powerful secret, from Thomas Watson

2008-09-29T02:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-26T20:01:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-09-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T00:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-09-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-09-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

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:

Email (individual / objective)
Linkedin (systemic / objective)
MySpace (individual / subjective)
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:

Email is for communicating
Linkedin is for connecting
Facebook is for communing
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:

Email --> writing letters and mailing them
Linkedin --> professional and business associations
Facebook --> get-togethers with family and friends
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

2008-09-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-09-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

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."

Sell your talent to their reason

2008-08-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

There's a LOT of marketers out there (especially Internet marketers or network marketers) trying to sell you something. Sometimes, they even try to teach you something.

Some are good, like Eben Pagan, Yaro Starak, Mike Filsaime, Rich Schefren, etc.

But most are not so good. However, it is not my place to judge anyone. Everybody has the right to pursue wealth in the way that they deem appropriate, as long as it's legal and legit.

It is really caveat buyer, that is, the buyer or consumer is the one who has to be careful -- or else, he/she will suffer the consequences.

Here's my six-word response to all the people who are trying to sell you the dream of financial freedom. Please don't be deceived by the apparent simplicity of these six words, for if you apply them carefully and in a masterful manner, you will be RICH beyond your wildest dreams.

In fact, out of the 865 posts written so far on this blog, this post is easily among the Top Ten best posts!

So pay attention. What I'm about to teach you is worth GOLD.

I'm creating a bit of suspense and drama before revealing my success secret because I want you to treat the following secret like a gift from the Gods, and I want you to NEVER forget that secret.

Whether you're looking for a job, or a contract (as a free agent), or you're trying to start a business, KEEP IN MIND and NEVER FORGET these six words I'm about to share with you.

Heck, if you want to seduce a beautiful woman, these six words could even be pretty useful.

Okay, enough suspense! Even I am beginning to find this suspense unbearable! :-)

Here's my secret, or my ultimate advice to you for getting RICH:

Sell Your Talent To Their Reason.

Please notice that it's not "Sell someone else's talent..." or "Offer your talent..." or "Sell your talent to their emotions," etc.

It is:

Sell Your Talent To Their Reason.

One of my advisors a few years ago offered this similar piece of advice: "Only do what you do best, and knock on every door."

What does all of this mean exactly?

First, find out what your talent is. Most people don't know, hence they are going through life without ever tapping that huge source of wealth within themselves. They could have been MILLIONAIRES. Instead, they live paycheck to paycheck, doing boring work which offers no recognition or opportunities for self-actualization.

Second, sell your talent. Indeed, having a talent is not enough. You must also possess the mini-talent of being able to display and demonstrate your talent. That's how you sell your talent. By providing PROOF that you've got the talent you claim to have.

The "to their reason" is a bit more complicated, so I will cover that in the next post.

Don't work. Create!

2008-08-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Can you manually calculate (i.e. without using a calculator) the following equation in less than 5 minutes?

1,455 + (400 X 256) - 455 + (4532 X 93842) - 500 + 4532 - (20 X 20 X 256) - 500 - 4,000 - 532 - (93842 X 4532) + 5 = ?

Okay, maybe you've had a tough day so you might ask, "Peter, why do I have to do this, it looks like a lot of work!"

But suppose you HAD to calculate the above equation in order to become successful or rich or happy in life?

After all, winning in life requires strategy and strategy requires the exercise of much intelligence. This is so because human beings are not born with instincts; we rarely know what is the right thing to do, unless we take the time to calculate and make decisions based on careful calculations.

The good news is that human beings don't have to know a lot in order to be successful or happy or rich. Indeed, many things or events in life CANCEL ONE ANOTHER. This is sometimes referred to as the Law of Duality: where there's black, there's white. Where things can go up, they can also go down. And so on and so forth.

So the way to calculate the above equation is to step back and see the variables that cancel one another out. The answer is, of course, 5.

1,455 + (400 X 256) - 455 + (4532 X 93842) - 500 + 4532 - (20 X 20 X 256) - 500 - 4,000 - 532 - (93842 X 4532) + 5 = ?

In other words, when you step back and look at the BIG PICTURE, you can save yourself a lot of work.

Often, hard work is necessary in order to become successful at anything. But it is equally true that a lot of hard work is unnecessary, IF (and this is a big IF) you are capable of stepping back and looking at the big picture in order to discern patterns that cancel one another out.

Here's a concrete example: if you make a mistake, you will learn. The more painful the mistake, the more memorable the lesson learned.

But here's the great news: you can actually step back and look at all the human beings who are struggling for success, and then LEARN from their mistakes. That way, you gain wisdom WITHOUT having to pay for the mistake!

This is as good as robbing a bank, except that you won't get arrested (or shot by security guards).

So how can you apply the above to your own life?

First, realize that your life is made up of endless cycles. That is, every day, you do things in a routine kind of way. It often would not occur to you that those routines are not helping you to reach your goals, yet you do them anyways. This is how society has conditioned you to behave.

In fact, these are more than routines. They are what I call SERCs or Self-Enforcing Reality Cycles.

That is, the more you do something, the more it seems to become real so that you cannot imagine life without it. It becomes "real" in the sense that it becomes neurologically integrated into how you think, perceive, feel and act.

It's like an addiction. The programming is more powerful than your willpower, so your addiction keeps growing and growing while your will gets weaker and weaker.

Smoking is one such addiction. Eating unhealthy foods is another.

But perhaps the most invisible and insidious addiction of all is --- are you ready? -- work.

By "work," I mean the "execution of a prescribed routine." In that sense, I distinguish "working" from "creating."

People are addicted to work, yet they don't realize that many things cancel each other out. For instance, a person works to make money, then spends that money here and there, and so is forced to come back to work the following day. Meanwhile, their lives are going nowhere. That is, there's no personal growth and no moving toward the realization of a dream.

It's like the long equation above. People tend to get into the "work" and do the mental efforts WITHOUT stepping back to see the self-canceling patterns, and then only focus on the critical work.

For example, if you want financial freedom, then create a product, market it, build a business around it, and sell like hell! Just like Michael Dell did. Or Bill Gates. Or Jeff Bezos. Or Steve and Chad, the Youtube founders.

Why would you read the classifieds, apply for a job, get the job, get a mortgage, get into debt (car, house, etc.) -- then one day realize it's the wrong path?

It's because that's how society and the educational system "trains" and "conditions" people to think. No university graduate, upon graduating, ever thinks about "creating a product"! Yet, it would be a mistake not to do so, especially now that the Internet enables anyone to sell and ship a product to practically anywhere else on planet Earth!

Creating a product is like focusing on the number 5 in the above equation. However, by building a business around that product, you're multiplying that "5" by 10, 20, or even 50. That, my friends, is how a person becomes rich! NOT by calculating the little variables that society or employers throw at you.

A lot of very smart people perform complex intellectual calculations in order to enrich their employers and shareholders. My question is, "Why?!" Why do people work so hard at enriching others? Why not use your brainpower to create a product and then market it yourself in order to build YOUR fortune?

This is what I realized in June 2000. I brought in over $100,000 for an employer, from zero. That was done in about 4 months. I had NO additional resources. So I thought, "Hmm, I'd be a sucker if I stayed in this job!"

It's not that I was exploited. Everybody was VERY nice to me. But I felt I could do MORE on my own.

To me, it's about self-respect. If you respect yourself, then work for yourself. Enrich yourself first.

But to do that, you have to step back and see the big picture. And above all, you must admit to yourself that it's possible that you're addicted to work.

The important shift is to move from being a "worker" to being a "creator." Only then will you become really successful and rich.

Do only ONE thing until you become rich

2008-08-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

Basically, I'm a "success scientist." I read and observe and study successful people, then I extract underlying principles and strategies they use and apply it in my own life in order to TEST those principles and strategies. Next, I keep those that work and share them with you.

One powerful success principle is the concept of "compounding," which I discuss in the PowerKnowledge article HERE.

This compounding concept is all about doing only ONE thing, and focus on doing it until you grow exponentially through it.

Some people might say that this is hard to do and requires self-discipline. True, it does require self-control and the ability to say No to a great many things and activities that are NOT relevant to your goal.

On the other hand, focusing on doing only ONE thing is a lot like digging. If you dig deep enough, you'll soon find yourself in a "tunnel" and this makes it easy to ignore all the things and events and information that are simply irrelevant to your goal.

Many people think that the Olympians who participated in the recent Beijing Games made a lot of sacrifices to get there, but I don't think so. "Sacrifice" means you give up something of higher value in order to get something of lower value.

That is not the case with Olympians. In fact, it's the opposite. They CHOSE a lifestyle that is of higher value to them, so there is no sacrifice whatsoever. Even those Olympians who did not win medals, have been happy during the last four years. It's the journey that counts and that makes us feel alive, not the destination.

Olympians are a good example of self-mastered people who focus on doing only ONE thing until they get it supremely right.

Now, if you're a parent, then it gets even more interesting, and more challenging too. You have a Dharma or a responsibility toward your kids. So you will naturally feel that you've got to be there for them.

But keep in mind you have other roles to play. The key is to play fully your role while you're playing it, and then to play your other roles equally fully, putting your entire being into them.

This sounds easy enough, yet people often make mistakes and mix up their various roles. I have fathers contacting me and looking for jobs, and they make the mistake of mentioning their kids and family situation.

This is an unfortunate mix-up of roles, since it is much more effective to play the role of a worker WITHOUT also playing the role of a parent. Similarly, when a father plays with his kids, I don't think he mentions to them what's going on at work.

The success secret is really about knowing, precisely, what role you are playing, and to play that role fully and with your whole being invested in it.

How to get free money?

2008-08-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

Last time I saw my 9-year-old nephew, I asked him if he would consider teaching me karate and I would teach him business. I thought it was a good win-win deal.

However, he totally surprised me by getting straight to the point and asking this blunt question: "How can I get free money?"

Since the truth often comes out of the mouth of children, I decided to think seriously about his question. Interestingly, he asked this question with a very serious face!

Upon examining this question deeply (as only my penetrating mind can do!), I realized that it is in fact a profoundly philosophical question. Indeed, my nephew realizes that life has infinite value and that, therefore, the "money problem" should be solved as soon as possible and without any cost of life.

What is "cost of life"?

Well, it means that if you have to work for 40 years in order to retire and live as you wish upon retiring from the workforce, then such freedom cost you 40 years of your life (except for the evenings and week-ends during those 40 years).

In short, my nephew wants to know how he can "retire" immediately and live the life he wants to live. This is what, I presume, he means by "free money."

In other words, the key question is, "How can I get lots and lots of money to support my favorite lifestyle, WITHOUT having to work for that money?"

You probably think it's impossible.

Allow me to prove you wrong. :-)

Two college dropouts from Chicago had an idea in 2000. They created a website called Threadless.com. Then, they invited people to submit T-shirt designs, and also invited people to vote on the best designs. They'd then print the T-shirts and offer it for sale (of course, the winning designers got T-shirts for free).

It cost them $5 to produce a T-shirt, and sold it for $12 to $25. Revenues for 2006? $17 million.

Yup, that's revenues of $17,000,000 for DOING NOTHING. Remember, this company was founded by two college dropouts.

And what about the 17-year-old Ashley Quall who became a millionaire by launching the website Whateverlife.com?

Because of stories like that, I tend to listen carefully to what kids today are saying. They have a way of thinking that escapes older folks (like me). Fortunately, I think a lot like a kid since I've always believed, to the dismay of my girlfriends, that "maturity is a sure sign of aging, and I'm against aging!"

Let's get back to Threadless.com. Today, they get 1,000 designs submitted EVERY WEEK. They have a community of 600 voters. And they pay the winners $2,000 in cash, and a $500 store credit. Sure, their design cost is $1,000,000/year, but they make much more money by -- oh, need I remind you? -- DOING NOTHING!!

So to get back to my nephew's question, my answer would be: "You can get free money by getting the world to work for you!"

I have a few ideas as to how this can be done, and will write more in a few days.

Are you having an exciting life?

2008-08-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

Before I turned 18, I had already received 4 standing ovations (for two literary contests I won, for being Valedictorian of my high school, and for winning the Excellence and Leadership Award from the Montreal Catholic School Board.

I've been surprisingly successful in many other areas as well, such as calligraphy, business, innovation and journalism.

I'm not mentioning this to brag, because I have a very small ego. In fact, I believe that every person is capable of achieving great things if only he/she knew the few secrets about how excellence happens.

In the ebook The Secret Sequence of Success, available at http://peterswork.wordpress.com, I explain via diagrams HOW excellence happens. This sequence is "secret" because it is neither published nor taught in any school or university.

If you are a parent, I strongly urge you to buy this ebook. Without it, your kids cannot possibly become the best in their chosen field.

It is sad but true that the majority of people live through life without ever achieving eminence in anything worthwhile. They have never heard of Baltasar Gracian's admonition to "be the best at what matters most."

In fact, human beings go through life believing that they are NOT special, and that they should just do what everybody else is doing: live a completely unremarkable life.

This morning, I woke up with an insight and immediately knew that such an insight would shock many people. But since I've always told you the truth as I saw it, here goes:

If you can't imagine your life being captured in the form of a biography or movie that people would want to read or watch, then you have NOT lived.

The good news is, it's never too late for your exciting life to start!

My autobiography is called "The Super Peter Identity." This is not to be confused with the Matt Damon movie The Bourne Identity. I don't go around killing people. Not yet, anyways!

There's one part of my book where I talk about how I once dated a foreign spy from a Montreal-based embassy. This is a true story, I'm not making this up!

There's another part where I talk about how two breathtakingly beautiful girls decided to date me on the same evening! They're both extremely sensual dancers. The following day, I had back problems. Just kidding.

A lot of strange, exotic, memorable things happen in my life because I'm open to new experiences. There's nothing I hate more than routine.

One of my mottos is, "Don't happen to live. Live to happen!"

An old saying goes, "Youth is wasted on the young." It would be equally true to say that "Life is wasted on most people!"

Please don't take offense if your life is boring. Like I said, it's never too late for your exciting life to start.

The key is to stop thinking so much, and to start being spontaneous. Just feel what it is that you are feeling, and go with the flow. Don't resist the unexpected. Embrace it, and charge with it -- full steam ahead!

Here's another memorable thing I remember a few years ago. I was dating this ultra-gorgeous redhead and we were in a restaurant, when I said something a bit shocking and she just stood up and walked toward the exit. However, rather than walk out the door, she suddenly turned around and walked toward me. I thought, "Okay, Peter, she'll apologize. Be generous and magnanimous! Bestow your forgiveness on her!"

It turned out that she just wanted to pay for her dinner! She put some money on the table and walked out the door.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, let me just say that she's an actress. She loves to create this sort of drama. I was able to tame her eventually, but that's another story.

Enough about me, what about you? What is the most incredible thing that happened to you? And how can you make sure that similar events happen again and again in your life?

How to get maximum benefits from this blog

2008-08-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

There are over 850 posts on this blog, so recently, I began thinking about how you can get maximum benefits from my writings.

As a result, I created a "diagram ebook" that will allow you to ORGANIZE all the ideas and techniques that I write about.

This ebook costs $97, but you can download it for only $17 (Canadian dollars) at http://peterswork.wordpress.com.

In fact, you can even download for FREE a partial version of the ebook!

The great thing about this diagram ebook is that it allows you to also organize ideas and information from other personal development books, by well-known authors like Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Robert Kiyosaki, etc.

Enjoy!

Make money from Linkedin

2008-08-19T20:37:00.001-07:00

If you're using Linkedin, then know that you can make money from it. Check it out HERE.

Even if you have less than 500 connections on Linkedin, realize that you CAN get as many connections as you want. I did it, so I can show you how. (I've a little over 900 connections in more than 30 countries -- there are countries that I can't even locate on a world map!).

Linkedin is THE place to be, trust me on that. If you're not busy building connections on Linkedin, you're making a very costly mistake.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Here are the facts.

Linkedin now has over 24 million users, and the average user is 39 years old and makes about $70,000 per year (U.S. dollars).

Linkedin is valuated at one billion dollars, since venture capitalists estimate that each user is worth $50.

Unlike other networking sites like Facebook, hi5, ecademy, viadeo, etc. Linkedin is built and structured around capitalistic rules and principles. This means it's the perfect online space to build business connections and to buy/sell stuff.

Since the average Linkedin user makes $70,000 per year, one can assume they are professionals. And they are very competitive.

You can easily see that they are very smart and well reasoned, from their answers on Linkedin Answers.

So trust me, you'll be doing yourself a favor by creating an account on Linkedin and start making connections.

The new economy, indeed, is rapidly moving into cyberspace where business opportunities are limitless.

Are you there for yourself?

2008-08-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Success is when opportunity meets preparation.

When I read the above quote a few years ago, I thought it was quite true. You probably agree also that it sounds like good advice.

However, it was only recently that I began to delve deeply into what it really means.

Take the current Beijing Olympics, for instance.

The success of the few Olympians who get medals, come from the Olympic Games "opportunity" AND the 4+ years of (intense) preparation they went through.

That's something we can all learn from!

So how do we learn, exactly, from the above Olympic-caliber behavior?

First, visualize and describe (on paper preferably) your ideal "opportunity."

Next, create a training program so as to prepare yourself -- intellectually, emotionally, physically -- for successfully tackling all the challenges that you will face once your "opportunity" comes.

An opportunity could be:

- Meeting Mr or Ms Right
- Meeting the ideal business partner
- Meeting a big client
- Meeting the brilliant business teacher you have always dreamed of learning from (by the way, I'm available for hire. Just kidding.)
- Coming across a perfect business opportunity

Whatever the ideal opportunity is for you, it is never too early to start preparing and training for it.

Please note that an opportunity is not the same as a goal.

A goal is like a destination, whereas an opportunity is a challenge that, if successfully tackled, would move you dramatically closer to your goal.

For instance, becoming the greatest Olympian of all times might have been Michael Phelps' goal. And each swimming competition at the Beijing Olympic Games was an opportunity for him to move dramatically closer to his goal.

Similarly, becoming the number one tennis player in the world is Rafael Nadal's publicly stated goal. And every tournament match is an opportunity that, so far, he has successfully tackled in order to move dramatically closer to that goal.

The key thing to remember (and which most people forget) is that success is made up of 90% preparation and 10% opportunity.

In fact, the MORE you prepare and train yourself EVERY DAY, the sooner the opportunity will come to you. It's the Law of Attraction. It's quite inevitable.

Here's the best news: no opportunity is ever wasted.

For instance, even if your opportunity comes and you fail, then you can still consider that opportunity as being part of your training for a better opportunity!

That's how champions think: every failure is treated as a great lesson on the path to an even bigger success!

Therefore, champions don't get emotionally or psychologically disturbed by failure. They use it as an opportunity to take a closer look at their own training, and to improve it. Of course, it doesn't mean they don't feel bad or disappointed. But they face reality, take responsibility, and then rise above it.

The key question you have to ask yourself are:

1. What is the ideal opportunity that I am looking for?
2. What is it that I'm doing, every day, to prepare and train for successfully capitalizing on that opportunity?

The above questions are similar to the two decisions that a Texas oil billionaire recommended that people make, in order to succeed in life:

1. Decide what it is that you really want in life
2. Decide that you will pay the price IN ADVANCE in order to get what you want

The above questions, when examined carefully, reveal an important underlying truth: the universe, and all the smart and ingenious people in it, is there for you.

The only question is, "Are you there for yourself?"

Are you taking your life, success and happiness seriously enough to decide WHAT you want from life, and then to PREPARE every day in order to get it?

In an upcoming post, I'll further apply the above principles to how a person can get the job that he/she wants.

My best advice: start teaching

2008-08-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

This post will be very short, yet it's one of the BEST pieces of advice I can give you.

Stop reading and start teaching.

In other words, pick one of the best business or non-fiction books you've read, jot down the key ideas, and start teaching the contents of that book. Teach for free if you have to. But start teaching.

Teaching means "talking with a clear aim in mind." The aim is to be understood clearly, so that your students or seminar participants walk away with valuable knowledge that they did not have prior to the seminar.

Since knowledge is power, teaching therefore means "empowering other people."

Teaching also empowers yourself, since you gain the confidence that comes from mastering the information you've read in books.

The person who reads ten books, and picks one book to reread and study thoroughly in order to teach it, is FAR AHEAD of the person who read 100 books but doesn't teach.

Wrestling vs Olympics

2008-08-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through the channels and saw the coverage of the Olympics in Beijing, and then saw on another channel a wrestling match.

Suddenly, I had this insight: Most working people in society are either "wrestlers" or "Olympians."

The differences between the two are huge and, in fact, can determine whether a person becomes rich or not. Just take the case of Shawn Johnson, the 16-year-old American gymnast who is already a millionaire thanks to her many sponsorships and endorsements.

You see, wrestling matches are fake. They appear real, and they feel very, very realistic with all the massive bodies being thrown up, down and sideways. It's just a show to allow people in the audience to vicariously experience some intense emotions.

The Olympics are different. You have judges to evaluate each performance, and all performers are ranked according to their performance.

What I'm about to say will shock many people, especially office workers. But I owe you the truth:

Many office workers are like wrestlers; they put on a show and "pretend" to work. Of course, they do "real" work, but usually for only 3 hours every day. The rest is spent doing insignificant things.

It's not entirely their fault, since the corporation is NOT structured for people to work and perform like Olympians. For instance, employees don't know how well (or badly) they're doing until they get their performance review -- every six months!

Things are slowly changing, however, with companies like SuccessFactors.com which enable managers to track their team members' performance almost in real-time.

In other words, the workplace is becoming more and more transparent, and it will become increasingly easier to separate the REAL performers from those who are only putting on a show.

The funny thing is that not only is it more profitable, in the long term, to work as an Olympian, but it's also more gratifying psychologically since you are always growing as a person and are continually reaching out for excellence. This is very different from wrestling where, fundamentally, it's all about throwing bodies around for the sake of entertaining the audience.

There is no doubt that the New Economy is becoming more and more like the Olympics, with the best in each country competing against the best in other countries.

China and India, for instance, are using the Internet to compete for jobs that are located in North America and Europe. Nobody's job is safe.

The only security lies in your decision to become an Olympic worker or creator, and to leave behind the "wrestling" show business where everybody is only pretending to work.

To be an Olympic worker or creator means you are constantly, and obsessively, tracking your performance every hour. You understand what you are supposed to do, and you manage yourself, your time, your skills, and your resources so as to deliver, always, the very best performance you are capable of.

Business ideas for sale!

2008-08-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

The MAIN reason why most people are not financially independent is that they do not have a product to sell. Most of us have been conditioned by the educational system and society/culture to think of ourselves as "services providers."

So to help people think more like "product developers and marketers," I've created a free service offering tons and tons of business ideas. It's free to subscribe, but it costs a small fee to get the details on each idea.

To receive the list below, which is updated every day, just send a blank email to businessideasforsale@gmail.com. Good luck!

===

1. $50 idea: Offer copywriting services to all users of Linkedin.

2. $50 idea: Create a skills exchange group with your hundreds of Linkedin connections, and charge each member $30 per year to join this group where they can acquire all the skills they need to rapidly advance in their career.

3. $100 idea: There's a free piece of software you can download from the Web, and using it, you can organize the ideas and principles from ANY non-fiction book. You can then sell the resulting document to a worldwide audience for $10-20 a piece, the way that Summaries.com does
it.

4. $50 idea: Manage relationships with members of an association for a company or services provider or free agent. You'd be like the CRM manager (Customer Relationship Manager).

5. $50 idea: Manage the NPP (New Product Process) consulting division for Peter Nguyen. Clients come from all over the world.

6. $50 idea: Organize brainstorming sessions to discuss these business ideas, and charge participants $30 to participate.

7. $50 idea: Create posters from the Ideal Career Framework or the BMW workshop and sell them worldwide.

8. $100 idea: Create a workshop from a book, with Peter's help, and teach it in person or through FreeConferenceCall.com to a worldwide audience

9. $50 idea: Take snapshots of job ads on Monsters, write a review on each in terms of appeal to talents, and sell the final report (ranking all companies) to the companies themselves for $300

10. $50 idea: Contact all free agents on Linkedin or AgentSolo.com or other free agent sites, and develop a catalog of services where all free agents would appear, to make it easy for corporate buyers to decide WHO to hire. Charge free agents $50 to be included, and sell the catalog of services to corporate buyers for $300

More ideas coming up! All ideas are properly analyzed using a proprietary process, and rewards/risks are discussed in detail.

--

Contact me at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com for all the details on any of these profitable business ideas.

Grameen Telecom success story

2008-08-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.grameenphone.com/index.php?id=79

Check out the above link to read about the Grameen Village Phone Program. It's just amazing how ordinary people can, together, do extraordinary things.

Grameen Bank is the bank created by Dr Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winner of 2006 for Peace and the creator of the micro-credit concept.

The huge success of the Grameen Village Phone Program inspires me to create a similar program, where any person can sell my knowledge-packed DVD to others so everybody can be empowered!

Notice, as you read more about this success story, how the poor women in that country focus on "economic value" and not on "jobs." The women who borrow from the Grameen Bank are entrepreneurs and salespeople, not employees.

As a result, they have direct control over the outcome they produce and, therefore, over the amount of income they receive.

Serenity of heart precedes wealth of mind

2008-08-14T18:55:00.000-07:00

A lot of people, especially in today's society where there are so many opportunities for becoming wealthy, WANT to get rich or, at least, become financially independent so they can enjoy life.

Now, financial independence means different things for different people.

Some only need net passive income of $50,000 per year (aftertax) to live their favorite lifestyle while others need $200,000. The exact number really depends on each person.

Yet, no matter what the "magic" number is, most people (19 out of 20) are NOT financially independent. They have to work hard for a living. That is, if they don't show up for work Monday morning (and every other weekday morning), their finances will take a plunge leading, ultimately, to destitution.

It is of UTMOST importance for everybody to first calm down. Second, it is important to learn how to STAY CALM at all times. This means developing a serene and peaceful attitude toward life.

It is helpful, whenever you feel negative emotions, to stop thinking and start focusing on your breathing. Feel the diaphragm (underneath your lungs) moving up and down, thereby enabling you to inhale and exhale.

Focusing on your breathing will automatically empty your thoughts, and bring a sense of calmness to you. You will be focused on the present moment, without thinking about the past (regrets) or the future (fears).

Only when you are in such a state of peacefulness, can you concentrate your energies and imagination toward the creation of solutions which, eventually, will liberate you financially.

The challenge for most people seeking financial independence is that they have not yet learned how to master their mind. And it's not people's fault at all, since there is no course in high school or college called Spirituality 101!

Yet, learning how to master your mind from a higher level -- the spiritual level -- will give you TREMENDOUS POWERS. You don't need a formal business education, nor an MBA, nor a university degree, to achieve financial independence. But you need to master your mind and your emotions.

Fear, self-doubt, feelings of unworthiness, low self-esteem, etc. have no place in your life nor in your mind.

All of those negative, disturbing emotions arise because you focus on your ego. Your ego is like a shadow, and every person on this planet, by virtue of having a physical body, has a shadow.

The good news is that there is also the sun. So at any given point in time, you can either look up and face the sun, or you can look down and focus on your shadow (or ego).

Notice that your ego or shadow is always on the floor, so if you focus on it, you will be at the lowest level possible!

But if you focus on the sun and let its light shine on your face, you will feel serene, peaceful, grateful -- to be alive!

One thing you cannot do is focus on BOTH your shadow and the sun at the same time. It's simply impossible.

My point is that at every moment, you can choose to focus on a positive emotion or a negative emotion.

If, for any reason, a negative emotion like fear or doubt or frustration arises, just let it pass by. Smile. Remember what the famous Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh wrote: "The source of a smile is a truly awakened mind."

(Just don't smile too much in public or people might think you're crazy!).

So the strategy for spiritual empowerment is quite simple: if you feel negative emotions, let them pass by until you get to a point where you feel zero emotions. If you feel positive emotions (joy, enthusiasm, excitement, contentment, love, friendship, etc.) then express those emotions through art, poems, a gift, a nice compliment to someone, etc. You will then enhance the positive emotions, and they will propagate throughout your being and will be transmitted to people around you.

Why do I talk about emotions so much?

Because you can't use your mind properly, no matter how smart or educated you are, unless you learn to master your emotions first.

We live in a world that is unstable and dangerous because the elite is mind-smart but heart-dumb. We are evolved intellectually but unevolved emotionally.

We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the planet several times over, yet emotionally and spiritually, we have so much to learn.

But let's get back to your financial independence.

You can only begin to use your mind strategically, in a way that benefits you and your family, after you have learned how to master your emotions.

When we look at great people who have positively impacted millions of lives, we notice how they were in control of their emotions: Pope John Paul II (who engineered the liberation of the Soviet people from communism), Mickael Gorbatchev, Gandhi, etc.

My point is that once you learn to calm yourself, in any situation, you will be able to access powers within that you never knew existed. Your imagination and creativity will be enhanced, and you will be able to create lots and lots of solutions that other people will pay good money for.

But you've got to learn how to move from negative emotions to "no emotion", and from "no emotion" to positive emotions.

Some of you will say, "Well, I'm a positive person but there are so many negative people around me!" I will handle that in an upcoming post since it's not simple to explain, although there ARE specific techniques to handle negative people that you simply cannot avoid.

Look at it this way: Success (or happiness or wealth or well-being) = Potential - Interference.

The interference here is your negative emotions, which arise due to your ego.

The potential is the sun I was talking about. You can either focus on your unlimited potential, or you can focus on the interference within you.

I say "within you" because the interference is not external to you. It's not your husband, your kids, your unsupportive friends, your siblings, etc. It's not the government, politicians, the news media, etc. You are the only one who creates your reality. Nobody else.

Life, as you experience it, is like a dish.

It's not how many ingredients you have that matters most, but how good your cooking skills are.

In the same way that cooking requires basic skills and lots of practice, spiritual/emotional mastery (which creates a good, positive life) also requires basic knowhow and lots of practice.

The only difference between cooking a dish and creating your life experience is that in the case of cooking, you turn external ingredients into a dish that you then ingest.

In the case of creating a life, you take both external ingredients (circumstances, opportunities, people, events, etc.) and internal ingredients (emotions, intellect) to create your life experience, which is then "tasted" by you.

The bottom line is that only by training yourself to master your emotions will you achieve peace. And peace is the foundation upon which you learn to wield your mind masterfully in order to create wealth in all of its forms: products, services, solutions, happiness, goodwill, positive and harmonious relationships with other human beings, generosity, friendship, etc.

You cannot get more in life than what you think you are worth

2008-08-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Money is not just colored paper; it represents the amount of pleasant experiences you can have in life. Indeed, an author once wrote that "money is the sixth sense that enables a better use of the other five."

So it may be worth it to examine the issue of wealth and how it relates to your self-worth or sense of identity.

There are rich people and poor people. The poor people can be classified in one of two groups:

1. a poor person who's trying to do things in order to become a rich person
2. a rich person who's blocking wealth from coming out of himself/herself

In case #1, action is perceived to be the solution.

In case #2, action is not the problem. The challenge is internal and has to do with self-worth and the sense of one's identity.

You probably have met or know people in group #2: they have talent or have lots of creativity, yet they are not getting rich. In other words, they create a lot of value, but fail somehow to convert that value into wealth (i.e. cash).

People in group #1 have a different sort of problem: they are not blocked externally and seem to be better at taking action. But they also have an internal problem that has to do with self-worth.

In other words, #1 people have not yet found the source of wealth within them while #2 people may have found the source of (infinite) wealth, but have not "unclogged" the channels through which this inner wealth can manifest as external wealth (i.e. products, solutions, cash, assets, etc.).

In short, #1 people could benefit from "being" more; that is, they should not act so much or get busy so much. Rather, they should calm down, do nothing, sit quietly and learn to center themselves and align with the source of wealth within.

#2 people could benefit from "acting" more; that is, just get out there and make things happen. Don't think too much. Learn the "no-mind" technique of implementing ideas really, really fast WITHOUT thinking (that is, without prejudgment and prejudice as to what will work and what will not work).

The key to wealth and happiness and peace is to realize that you are here, on Earth, to fully express your divine creative powers.

Indeed, all the teachers in the world, all the books and knowledge in the world, all the technologies in the world will NOT help unless you first realize that you are a divine entity who is here to fully express your powers. Your life is nothing but your dream, where you can do anything.

This is why my brother/associate Joe and I came up with the slogan "Live a life without limits" for the portal PowerKnowledge.net.

Most people impose limits on themselves and allow others to impose limits on what they can think, say, write, do or achieve.

In fact, other people cannot -- ever -- impose limits on you. All they can do is talk to you about the limits THEY are dealing with, and then through contagion, you pick up those limits yourself.

It is unfortunate that often, friends and family members will do that to a person. The sentence to watch out for is, "I don't want to discourage you, but..." And then they begin a long line of argumentation to COMPLETELY discourage you!

Love your friends and love your family for they (usually) have your best interests at heart, but realize that you are totally responsible for the limits you put on yourself. They may suggest limits but you are ultimately responsible for accepting or rejecting those limits.

Ultimately, wealth is self-determined. It's all about how you feel about yourself.

If you create the psychological and physical conditions that help you to feel wealthy, then wealth will flow into your life.

You won't have the problem of people in group #1, who often get busy taking actions that do not lead to wealth. You also won't have the problem of people in group #2, since your wealth will flow naturally to other people who will naturally reward you with financial wealth.

Keep in mind that wealth itself is only a small part of the reward. The real reward is a life where, at every moment, you feel that you can DO ANYTHING and that there are NO LIMITS to what you can achieve, if you can conceive it and believe it.

Economic clarity precedes financial security

2008-08-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

The next time you go to McDonald's or Harvey's or any other fast-food joint, observe what the teenage cooks are doing in the back of the room: they're usually making hamburgers or any variation thereof.

According to what I could see, they usually can make a complete hamburger or cheeseburger in about 3-5 minutes. Let's round it off to 5 minutes.

So if a hamburger costs $3.00, then the fast-food cook can create value worth 12 X $3.00, or $36.00. That's per hour.

My point in doing the above exercise (which obviously ignore many technical details such as fixed costs, perishability of the product, demand, etc.) is to show that even a teenage cook can, if he wants to, learn about business.

For example, to make his job more intellectually challenging, he could time himself while preparing a hamburger. If he takes only 3 minutes to make one hamburger, then that's 60 / 3, or 20 hamburgers produced per hour. That's value of $60.00 per hour.

He might learn more about business than the typical office worker who is only "pushing paper."

Indeed, most office professionals do not have a clear idea of how they create value, or even how much value they create. This is a very risky position to be in, because you will always feel vulnerable.

Economic clarity is what is needed. It simply means that you've got to know, clearly, what product you are creating, for whom (i.e. who is the client), and how fast you are creating such a product.

You simply cannot trust the boss, or the employer, or HR, or anybody in the organization. The only thing you can trust and rely on, is your own productivity. Incidentally, that's what your boss is focused on also.

In the end, there is no "job security," there's only "economic security." Economic security means knowing, precisely and clearly, HOW much value you produce per hour, and being in control of the process whereby you create value.

Feel free to reread and memorize the above paragraph, because it is truly the secret to succeeding professionally and financially, whether you are an employee, a free agent or an entrepreneur.

Free business course for you

2008-08-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

In the previous post, I wrote about the FREE BMW course, which normally costs hundreds of dollars. You can now get it for free by sending a blank email to bmwcourse@gmail.com. Please note that this offers ends on September 1st, 2008 so please register today and let all your friends know about it!

Why is the BMW course important?

Because it teaches something that even business schools are not teaching: how to create value and build wealth.

In other words, it teaches people how to become financially free.

However, it is very much like a martial art: the principles are simple, but the practice is not. It takes practice, practice, practice, and more practice.

Aristotle said that excellence is a habit, but I would rather say that excellence is a habitual practice. A little bit like what Olympian athletes are doing every day for four years, so they can compete internationally.

The great thing about the BMW teachings is that it grows with you. Whether you have a small business or a big one, you can apply the BMW principles to serve you at the level you're at.

Even if you have only ONE product or service, the BMW teachings will still be useful to you.

However, if you think like an employee (who only does what his job description says he should do -- that is, he is not creating new products or services), then the BMW teachings will not be useful to you. And you will not likely become wealthy in this life.

Now, "wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean that you become a millionaire. It simply means, in my book, that you generate enough passive income to live your favorite lifestyle without depriving yourself of anything you desire.

For instance, some people need passive income per year of $300,000 while others only need $80,000. It totally depends on your lifestyle.

The important thing is NEVER to think that you cannot achieve the wealth you want. The minute that you THINK that wealth is not for you, then it becomes IMPOSSIBLE for you to achieve wealth.

This is because your life goes where your mind is. So if you THINK that you're not the kind of person who can become wealthy, then you are basically MAKING SURE that you will NEVER become wealthy.

On the other hand, if you truly think of yourself as "millionaire material," then mysteriously enough, you will begin to see opportunities everywhere for making lots and lots of money. I'm not kidding. I don't joke about millions of dollars.They can change your life.

It sounds strange, but people do shoot themselves in the foot by rejecting, mentally, the wealth that is theirs. You don't have to do that. Wealth is yours in this life if you want it.

Free BMW course!

2008-08-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

In May 2006, I created a business workshop for entrepreneurs called the BMW workshop (details at http://businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com).

I've decided to give it away for free in the form of a series of emails. You can get it by sending a blank email to bmwcourse@gmail.com. You will receive the first lesson immediately since I programmed the auto-responder accordingly.

Please let all your friends know about this incredible offer, so you can productively discuss the lessons with them. This will dramatically accelerate your understanding and mastery of the BMW course.

Several lessons will be uploaded every week. May the BMW teachings help you to become wealthy in this life!

To predict your future, invent it

2008-08-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

A famous entrepreneur once said: "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

I would contribute this clarification: "The best way to create YOUR future is to PROGRAM it."

In other words, your life is like a software application that you write -- or code, rather.

Yes, you write EVERY SINGLE LINE OF CODE of this self-running application called "Your Life."

If you watch Donald Trump carefully, you'll notice that he's always writing his future life -- except that he does it by talking (some would say "boasting") about it publicly, in every media interview.

But just ignore the "boasting" part and focus on what he's saying; he's always describing how great this hotel or that resort will be. He is continually programming his mind, which manifests into actual wealth in his life.

He is one who thoroughly understands the cosmic truth that "each life is nothing but a dream dreamt -- and created -- by the dreamer."

People who have self-doubts, are shy, are not motivated or feel overwhelmed by obstacles, simply do not yet understand that they create their own reality. Of course, we're all humans so those negative emotions will inevitably come. I've had some of those self-denying emotions myself. (Just don't tell anybody, please).

But eventually, we have to realize that we totally create the life that we're having. So if your life-movie is not going the way you want, then you should talk to the movie director -- that is, YOURSELF!

If you feel that you don't have emotional energy in your words or actions, then talk to the main actor -- YOURSELF! Learn acting skills, learn body language, learn to play -- convincingly -- the role you wrote for yourself.

Here's a little trick: if you wrote a role and don't know how to act it out, then study great actors. A few years ago, I wanted to be CEO but didn't know how to "act" like one. So I began to study Anthony Hopkins' role in the movie Meet Joe Black. Hopkins plays the role of a media mogul and billionaire called Bill Parrish.

He also played a billionaire role in another movie with Alec Baldwin and Elle McPherson.

Let's get back to programming your future.

How do you do that? By living, right now, EXACTLY like how you would live if your future was your present, right now.

I'm not kidding. Think, speak, walk, talk, plan, eat, sleep, daydream, invent, debate, etc. EXACTLY like the ideal you -- the you that you want to become.

The more you create space in your life, right now, for the future you or your future life to come in and establish itself, the sooner you manifest that future into your life.

Of course, this space creation means you've GOT to "kick" your past out of your present moment.

It's like a cup of tea: if it's currently filled with bitterness, then throw it out so a sweeter drink can be poured into it!

This is not easy, because people LOVE to talk about their past and their pain and their previous experiences. The best way is to write a book and make money from it! And then focus on your future.

What's important, as mentioned before, is to create the space in which your future can happen right now, right here.

There are many ways to do that:

1. Throw out from your house all the things you currently do not use

2. Give away to your friends all the books you've read, to create space on your bookshelf for new books

3. Write on a piece of paper all the negative feelings you might have about people or events, and then burn that piece of paper (be careful not to set the house on fire!) or flush it down the toilet

4. Write on a piece of paper all the things you might not like about yourself, then rewrite them in a way that is pleasant to you and that is positive. For example, if I view myself as a "loner," then that's not very positive. So I would rather view myself as "a person with tremendous mental power who can sit alone and engage in piercing contemplative thought, leading to brilliant insights." I'm having fun with this, of course. But my point is, make sure that ALL your thoughts about yourself are the VERY BEST THOUGHTS possible!

How to create an amazing life for yourself

2008-08-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier that "Reality only exists in your mind. Therefore, your mind creates your reality."

Here's a good metaphor to illustrate what I meant: Your life is a play, and you are the main actor, the director, the writer and the producer!

Once you realize that this metaphor is true, you will gain TREMENDOUS power over YOUR life.

But until you do, you will not feel fulfilled. You'll go through life thinking (and actually believing honestly) that someone else is writing your lines, someone else is directing your life, someone else is producing your life, etc.

Realize that other people in your life (family, friends, boss, coworkers, etc.) are only SECONDARY actors. YOU are the main actor, and they will act according to your lead.

In other words, you teach other people how to treat you. Always.

If you act like a victim, everybody you meet will feel "compelled" (subconsciously, without being able to explain why) to treat you like one. Thus, it will seem to you like as if they are "oppressing" you. Yet, you created their roles by thinking and acting like a victim!

If you think like a poor person, life will bring you all the evidence that will SUPPORT your decision to be poor. Poor-thinking people will come into your life and ensure that you stay a poor person. This becomes a vicious circle.

Anthony Robbins' life is a good example of someone who realized the above, that he is indeed the writer, director, producer and main actor in the movie called "My Life."

One day, his life was at an all-time low, so he went to the beach, sat down, and began to write -- hectically -- all the things he wanted to have and be. He refused to compromise. He wrote down absolutely EVERYTHING that he wanted to have and be in life.

If tomorrow, all of Anthony Robbins' books and tapes and courses were erased from the face of the Earth, you STILL would have greatly benefited from Tony Robbins if you do EXACTLY what he did: buy a notepad and start writing out ALL THE THINGS YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE.

To write a diary is good, but it's about the past. Even more important is to write a "future" diary: that is, write the life that WILL become true. And make sure you write out all the feelings you WOULD feel in every moment of this future life.

The reason why people don't have an amazing life is that their notebook (or the main script of their lives) is filled with lines which they wrote unconsciously, without much thought or skill.

Also, they did not learn how to act, direct or produce their own life-movie.

Yes, everybody's life IS a movie. It can be a very boring movie, or a very exciting one.

Note, however, that "boring" and "exciting" are arbitrary judgments. What's exciting to you might be very boring to another person, and vice versa.

Before he became famous, Albert Einstein's life might have seemed very boring to most people. Yet, to him, it was precisely the kind of life he wanted to have.

The only question is, "Are YOU living the life of your dream?"

If not, it is not too late to do so.

All you have to do is buy a $1.00 notepad (at any $1 store) and start writing out the amazing and awesome life that you WANT to have. Be detailed and clear and write as much as you want.

Remember that life is a movie, and that ALL movies started out with a screenwriter sitting down and imagining a great story, and then writing it out (complete with dialogues and scene descriptions).

Next, show your script to others and get their feedback. And then, it will be up to you to audition for the main role, hire other supportive actors, learn directorial skills, and become the producer of your life-movie.

THE MOST POWERFUL SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE!

2008-08-01T23:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, I have to issue a little WARNING. I have never written anything more powerful or more dangerous than this post.

In fact, if I had been writing this a few centuries earlier, I would have been burned alive by the Inquisition.

Alright, here's the MOST DANGEROUS AND MOST POWERFUL truth you will ever hear about in this life! Are you ready?!

Here goes, ready or not:

"Reality only exists in your mind. Therefore, your mind creates your reality."

Those 12 words express a powerful truth that should never be forgotten.

The Law of Attraction, popularized by the movie The Secret, has to do with the last 5 words, or "your mind creates your reality."

In other words, the movie The Secret actually shares only HALF of the secret!

The other half is that "reality only exists in your mind."

The proof is very simple: when you put your mind to sleep, reality no longer exists. In other words, reality REQUIRES your consciousness. No mind, no reality!

Notice that I could have said that "YOUR reality only exists in your mind." However, that would be inaccurate because you can never experience another person's reality. Therefore, the ONLY reality is YOUR reality. Thus, "your" is superfluous.

In other words, your mind is like a projector and your reality is like the movie you see on a giant screen.

Let me put it this way: your mind is the cause, and reality is the effect of your mind.

James Allen, in his century-old book As A Man Thinketh, says that "as within, so without."

In other words, your life as you know it, is nothing but the reflection of how you feel about the thoughts you have.

That is, if you have definite thoughts and you put your emotions into them, then they will become reality.

Napoleon Hill put it differently: "What a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve."

I prefer to say: "What a man can conceive and believe, the Universe will bring it to him."

If you've read the three books written by Esther Hicks, under the divine influence of Abraham (a group of spiritual guides existing in the non-physical plane), then you know about the REAL Law of Attraction (of which the movie The Secret is just a dumbed down version for the masses).

And if you've tried the Law of Attraction and it doesn't work, then it is likely that you've visualized from an ego (or false self) point of view and not from a true self or Source point of view.

The ego is full of fear, so it doesn't have the ability to create reality. It can only defend its own reality. It defends its own past, which may be full of trauma, abuse, "bad" experiences, etc. You have to release your past before you can create your future. This is so because as long as you're focused on the past, then you are NOT in the present. And the future can only be created in the Present Moment -- what Eckhart Tolle calls the "spacious Now."

There is no fear or regrets in the Now, so if you feel afraid or regretful, then you are NOT in the Now. This means you are not in a position to create the future.

For instance, a woman who "visualizes" a husband, might do so because she is AFRAID of being alone. In that case, the Law of Attraction doesn't work.

Another thing about the Law of Attraction is that it requires a great deal of mental and spiritual self-discipline. It's NOT about having thoughts in your mind, and then expecting those thoughts to become reality.

If that were so, then any morally irresponsible person could just "imagine" and visualize something bad and that bad thing would become a reality. What kind of world would we live in!

So what kind of mental and spiritual self-discipline am I talking about?

Mostly, it's about mastering FIVE key disciplines: faith, alertness, mindfulness, concentration and insight.

I will write more about them later on. Right now, I have to get back to visualizing my date with Kirsten Dunst.

To search for riches is to make sure you never find it

2008-08-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

If you search for riches externally and in the world, that is, outside of yourself, then that is a sure way never to find it.

Whether the business model is Internet marketing, direct sales, network marketing, traditional entrepreneurship, real estate, or any other model, your efforts will be fruitless unless you first learn how to "feel" wealthy.

Think wealth, talk about wealth, be wealth. Only then will you attract wealth into your life. And this kind of wealth, unlike the millions of dollars that one might win in a lottery, can never be taken away.

So what's the trick to "feeling" wealthy?

Give away everything you've got. This is one of the tricks I've used for more than two years. I give away all my knowledge and ideas via blogs, including this one.

People who don't give to others, but always think and calculate (explicitly or in the background of their thinking mind) the "return" on what they do, will not achieve wealth. They may achieve it at the material level through diligent planning and doing, but there is no "being" in what they do, and much stress will come from such doing.

True wealth doesn't come from planning and doing, no matter how flawless your execution. True wealth comes effortlessly, through being centered and focused on feeling the wealth you ARE. If that moment is achieved, then wealth flows out without effort, through spontaneous and breathtaking ideas that capture your imagination and inspire your actions.

The above is based on the universal principle that says, "Giving starts the process of receiving."

The more you give, the more you activate the universal process whereby you receive from the universe.

The rich get richer because they are thinking, all the time, about how to give MORE to the world, while the poor get poorer because they have a "poor" mindset and only think of "getting" or hiding and hoarding the few resources and assets they have.

My ultimate point is that wealth is self-determined. If you decide, right now, to think and talk and feel only "wealth," then it is inevitable that the universe will deliver wealth into your life. Nobody can stop this process because nobody is as powerful as the universe, and the universe will only do what it is programmed to do.

Through your thoughts and the feeling you put into them, and the being you put into everything you're doing, you are indeed programming the universe to deliver massive wealth into your life.

Youtube, for instance, was an ingenious device by Chad and Steve to not only give to the world (even while both were sleeping), but to also allow countless others to give to countless others. It is not surprising that Steve and Chad have become so wealthy.

The lesson to learn from them has less to do with technology, than it has to do with the principle of becoming wealthy by enabling the GREATEST number of people to become wealthy and share their wealth.

This is one of the secrets behind my "nuclear entrepreneurship" technology, where I enable every customer, client and employee to become wealthy by sharing the wealth with as many people as they casually interact with.

Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of Ning, has also understood this powerful principle. She has gone beyond Facebook and Linkedin since Ning allows people not only to connect to others, but also to create the special space (that is, their own social network) within which connections between like-minded people can be made.

The bottom line is that you CANNOT become wealthy unless you abandon all selfish thoughts and calculations. Give away what you know and what you have selflessly, and only THEN will you feel truly wealthy. As a result, wealth will flow into your life effortlessly.

For example, forward this blog to all your friends. If you keep it to yourself, then the "scarcity" mindset will plague you and prevent you from becoming wealthy. If you share it with friends and acquaintances, then you will "unblock" the inner obstacles that prevent wealth from flowing to you.

Keep in mind that whether you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset, both of them are highly infectious and viral, in that they tend to reproduce themselves in everything you see, touch, think about, perceive and sense.

In other words, one thought of scarcity (which often arises out of fear) will easily escalate into MORE thoughts of scarcity through the Law of Attraction. And before you know it, your whole being is full of thoughts of scarcity which prevent you from having any useful, productive or wealth-unleashing ideas.

The good news is that the reverse works as well: one thought or act of generosity, flowing from a feeling of abundance, will easily escalate into MORE thoughts and acts of generosity, leading you to a place within yourself where wealth is your natural state of being and indeed your legitimate inheritance in this world.

Once you learn to follow the path to such a place within yourself, where an incredible feeling of wealth and well-being takes over your entire being and feeling, anything you want in this life is yours.

Is there a drunk entity ruining your life?

2008-07-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-07-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-07-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

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.

===

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."

Success with women

2008-06-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

*** WARNING: This post contains adult material not suitable for minors. If you're a minor, then young man, get back to your homework RIGHT NOW! ***

A blog about success is not quite complete without specific, proven and brilliant advice about how to succeed with women.

So here's my advice to all men out there.

NOTE 1: This advice has been kept secret so far, only revealed to my close disciples who are so loyal to me that if someone shot at me with a pistol, they would jump out and try to catch the bullet (at least, that's what I'm hoping for). So because it is so original, you might be shocked when reading it. SO PLEASE, DO NOT HOLD IN YOUR HAND ANY HOT BEVERAGE OR YOU MIGHT SPILL HOT LIQUID ON YOURSELF AND BURN YOUR SKIN!

NOTE 2: If you are a woman, please consider carefully the fact that what women say and how they respond are not always the same. What women say often has to do with what they THINK they're supposed to say in civilized society. What they feel, especially subconsciously, is beyond society and culture and other external artifacts which exert an influence on the mind. In other words, women publicly speak with their intellect and act as "social beings" whereas they privately feel and situationally react with their heart, as "female entities." No woman can escape the biological implications, constraints and drives of her female apparatus. Another way to put it is that "women can do what they want, but they cannot want what they want." This line is so brilliant that I'll be writing a best-selling book about it!

Okay, let's get straight to the heart of the matter: How to pick up women? Because if you can't even do that, then you'll be spending the evening alone.

My secret about how to pick up women is that... I don't. I create situations where they are dying for me to "pick them up."

The secret sauce has to do with what I mentioned earlier: "Women can do what they want, but they cannot want what they want."

And most women want a superior male. A high-value male. A male that offers them what they are most desperate for, subconsciously. Of course, this depends a great deal on what their current stage of life is.

A simple implementation of the above, is to make sure every information you release about yourself to the woman, constructs -- one step at a time -- a "high-value image" that she has of you. This means you have to focus on yourself as you speak, move around, express facial expressions, etc.

In other words, do NOT focus too much on her. She's "just" like the audience in a movie theatre. You are the movie director, so focus on making the movie one that will entertain her, and excite her imagination.

Fortunately, women have a lower threshold of excitability when it comes to their imagination, and that's the great thing about them. They will easily let their mind wander into MagicLand, if (and this is a big "if") the story-teller is good enough.

Before I forget, keep in mind that story-telling skills are important because women are seduced through the ears and not through the eyes (as with men).

So let's get back to the movie metaphor. It's easy enough to go to the movies with a girl, but it's much harder to CREATE a movie in real life that she can experience and feel good about. Speaking of "feeling", here's how women feel about "feeling":

The good: Feeling good
The bad: Not feeling good (or feeling bad)
The ugly: Not feeling anything

So guys, whatever you do, do NOT bore her! Do NOT be predictable!

Understanding the above can help you create conversations and tactics that will make women feel TRULY GREAT.

For instance, you could flatter her on something, and she will feel good.

But even better is when she feels bad about something, and you say something or do something to make her feel good. (But to do this, she's got to trust you enough to share with you, as a friend, times when she feels bad. This is why it's a good idea to be a friend and don't let the famous "John, I like you as a friend" be a deterrent to further romantic advances).

Indeed, the "emotional distance" from feeling bad to feeling good is much greater than feeling okay to feeling good.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Another example about "emotional distance" is when men compliment women. If a normal-looking guys compliments a woman, she will feel good. But if a highly successful guy (who looks like he's highly successful) compliments a woman, she will feel EVEN BETTER.

This brings us to the topic that I call "social exaltation." Women ALWAYS appreciate the presence or attention (preferably both) of men who have distinguished themselves from the crowd of undifferentiated, look-alike men. No offense to the latter, but they just all look the same. The elite always stands out from the crowd and actually stands OUTSIDE the crowd!

Thus, superior males are what I call "socially exalted entities." They exercise what I call "masterful seduction." Their mastery IS their seduction. Thus, they don't have to engage in many seductive ploys. They show up and all women turn their attention to them.

Look at Tiger Woods, for instance. He's the master of golf, a game I really don't understand. He's making millions of dollars and married a former Playboy playmate. Women, especially beautiful women, dig mastery.

Keep in mind that "se-duce" comes from the Greek, and it means "to draw to self."

However, it is far easier to obtain attention than to sustain it. Only a person who has achieved eminence or superiority, in some way, is able to sustain the attention of women.

This is another reason why success is important: it draws the attention of beautiful women.

Okay, here's something I don't get: SeekingMillionaire.com (this website was advertised by Google on PowerKnowledge.net, a site I created to help men succeed). If you're a millionaire, why would you need a "dating site" to attract beautiful women?

My theory is that those men succeeded at something that is not really their passion. Anyways, I will write a separate post on it, where I'll discuss the issue of "holistic happiness" - that is, how to make ALL the various areas of one's like work together, and not "tackle success" in each area separately.

Where was I? Yes, I was talking about seduction as "drawing attention to oneself."

Every man must strive to become excellent at what he does, for that is the only way to achieve a "socially exalted status."

Most men I know are too boring or too predictable. So even if they paid me $10,000 to find them a date, I wouldn't know where to start BECAUSE I do NOT know what they're excellent at! I can't sell what is not sellable!

In the past, I've introduced beautiful models and actresses to male friends of mine who stood out as entrepreneurs or investors. But these men are the rare exception.

That being said, you don't have to be a business man or even a rich man to attract women's attention. You just have to be darn good at what you do.

How do you become the best at what you do? Focus definitely helps.

But what could help even more is to STOP caring about what society thinks or how it dictates that a man live his life. You know, study hard, get a job, buy a house, start a family, etc.

That's boring stuff. I'm not saying it's not good. Those are things you want and deserve in your life.

But you gotta be more daring and take more risks if you are to attract women's attention. The ultimate risk perhaps is to be who you truly are, inside, and to live the life that you KNOW you were meant to live.

Many men believe that by having a car or house, they can attract more women. Perhaps a women will be attracted to your material possessions, sure, but she is as likely to be interested, later on, by another man with a bigger car or a bigger house.

By being truly yourself, and pursuing a career that reflects who you truly are, it might take longer to attract women but when you find your soul mate, she will love you for who you are, not what you have.

Most men care more about what they have than who they are, and there are reasons for that. I will write about this in a separate, upcoming post.

The funny thing is that by focusing on who you are, you incur a great deal of risk. Yet, it is the "risk" element that is exciting to women, especially young, beautiful women. Risk is titillating, predictability is not. Risk makes women feel alive, predictability makes them feel they don't even exist.

There's actually a part in the brain of a woman (and all human beings) called Broca's area, where unpredictability plays a role in exciting the whole brain.

Speaking of the female brain, there are also two areas that are closely linked: the area that regulates humor or laughter, and the area that regulates sexual receptivity.

In concrete terms, a women is more sexually receptive after she's had a good laugh.

In other words, a successful joke is part of foreplay. I'm not kidding you! After I learned about this from my own research, I began to buy and memorize LOTS of joke books!

Just kidding.

By the way, women often say that they like guys who have a sense of humor, but that is not accurate. What they want are men who have a sense of comedy, because comedic skills are pre-erotic skills. Women want to laugh because that predisposes them to, well, you know.

(This post is getting SO HOT that I'm really, really afraid that one day, my Mom will read about this and whack the back of my Catholic boy's head!. My only excuse is that I'm only trying to help fellow men find romantic happiness. I can't help it, I care about other people's happiness. Sometimes, more than I care about my own happiness.)

Okay, back to business.

If you doubt the link between laughter and sex, then notice the structure of jokes: there's the setup, where the tension is built, and there's the punch line, where the tension is explosively released. In short, setup = foreplay, and punch line = climax.

Am I saying that by studying comedy, you can become a great lover? Yes, absolutely.

It's not just the tension/climax insights you will get, but also the sharper linguistic abilities you will gain. It takes a great deal of literary and/or linguistic mastery to become a good comedian. Indeed, if brevity is the soul of wit, then linguistic skill is the heart of brevity.

Best part is, comedy is something you can study by yourself. Anytime. Anywhere.

This reminds me of the Woody Allen movie where he makes love to a Dutchess, and she says afterward: "You are the greatest lover I have ever had!!" He replies: "Yes, well, I practice a lot when I'm alone."

The lesson is that if your goal is to attract the women you want, you have to practice techniques of seduction and especially techniques that will inevitably make women FEEL GOOD about THEMSELVES.

Let me share with you, in my next post, my own romantic success stories, some of which were complete disasters and some of which were masterpieces -- yet I learned from both types of experience, for there is no "failure" per se, there is only a path of evolvement toward greater understanding and appreciation of women.

Mike Dillard & Magnetic Sponsoring

2008-06-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

WHO IS MIKE DILLAR?

Mike Dillard, once a surgeon recruiter for many hospitals quit his job and became a table waiter in order to pursue his career in network marketing. After discovering the proper use of positioning, and "sellucation" his term for the art of self-selling through education, sponsored 35 personal reps. and grew his organization to over 500 within just months and averaged over $500,000 dollars per year in volume sales.

Today he spends his time and efforts teaching network marketers the proper strategies of marketing and magnetic sponsoring, as well as serving as a marketing consultant to industry leaders.

---

ABOUT MAGNETIC SPONSORING

One of the biggest problems with network marketing is that the reps who are supposed to be marketing the products and the opportunity are not very clear what marketing is all about.

They go everywhere pitching their offers to all sorts of people around them but they wind up annoying, irritating or pushing these prospects. After awhile, these network marketing reps give up because their 'name list' runs out or they get discouraged because nobody wants to buy their products or join their downline.

Magnetic Sponsoring strives to change the way network marketing reps go about building their business by tapping into a familiar concept called attraction marketing.

What Magnetic Sponsoring does is that it teaches the reps how to develop the posture of a true leader and to become a sought-after expert in their field. What this does is that it turns the rep from being the hunter to being the hunted.

That is the way attraction marketing works, because human beings are naturally attracted to leaders and people who are better than them. They prefer to listen to an expert and turn a deaf ear towards people who do not promise them value (what most network marketers are like). In other words, attraction marketing teaches the rep to 'magnetically sponsor' downlines by attracting them by the charisma of their leadership.

---

I resonate with Dillard's master philosophy and in fact, I would even go further: Become a black belt master at what you do, and you will never have troubles attracting clients, leads, employers, even women!

All women want an alpha male, that is, a socially elevated male who has achieved some distinction in his field.

Clients and employers are no different: they want the very best out there.

And so, we see here that Jim Rohn's advice is eminently on target: "Success is something you attract by the person you become."

In other words, don't pursue success because you won't get it. Rather, aim to be TRULY excellent at what you do, and success will pursue you!

Everybody will be naked

2008-06-22T11:46:00.001-07:00

In the New Economy, nobody can hide anymore. Everybody's productivity will be in full view. In short, everybody will be "naked."

In other words, income will be solely determined by outcome -- that is, by what you actually produce.

To put it more bluntly, it will be useless to show up at the office. Rather than show up, you have you show results.

A new book by Cali Ressling and Jody Thomson drives this point home:
http://www.culturerx.com/downloads/ROWE_Overview.pdf

This is a RADICAL change in how people normally view "work."

Indeed, in the past, all you had to do was compete for a job, get it, and then do whatever was on your job description. You didn't have to "manage yourself" since that was, essentially, the job of your boss.

Today, however, there are no bosses. You are your own boss, and you have to manage your own productivity, whether you're a receptionnist or a VP of marketing.

All employees, in effect, have to learn to operate as "business units of one."

Ressling and Thomson, in their book, reveal an unconscious formula that most corporations seem to operate under:

Time + Physical Presence = Results

That equation might have been true in the previous era where "labor" did not know much, and where the central management paradigm was "command and control." Sort of like an army. Workers were soldiers who MUST execute the procedures as written by higher-ups.

Today, however, there are more and more knowledge workers who work with their brains, not their hands. And creativity is a funny thing: it follows its own schedule.

For instance, you can't tell a programmer or a marketing planner to be creative next Monday morning at 9:00 AM sharp. All an employer can do is create the right conditions for such talented professionals to be creative.

Beyond the time aspect, there is also the space aspect. Forcing workers to show up at the SAME place, every day, five days a week, is NOT a recipe for boosting creativity.

So what will replace the Time + Physical Presence = Results formula?

Mind X Passion X Talent X Values X Desire to serve = Business Outcome = Personal Income

I will write more about that.

Tell me what you want me to write about

2008-06-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

The following are posts that I plan to write in the next few weeks. If you see one that particularly excites your imagination, please feel free to email me while writing the number (e.g. 505) in the subject heading, and I will write that post first. No need to write anything in the email.

This is what I call "on-demand blogging" and it enables me to write about what you want to read. Thanks for participating!

501 - An imperfect product is better than a perfect job. This is because only a product can be distributed worldwide through Internet, thereby enriching you so you can become financially free.

502 - Income depends on outcome, and outcome depend on process design, the right talent and the right environment.

503 - The first step to wealth is to email all your knowledge, tacit and explicit, to all your friends and connections. You can also use the PKI format (professional knowledge index, in mind map format).

504 - "Work Once Liquidate Forever" economic doctrine. This doctrine says that you should only do work that you can reuse or leverage the following day. "To do" lists therefore are not as useful as "to create" lists. It's best to create "digital currencies" which you can trade or sell to others. A digital currency is any digital document that has value and that you can email to others.

505 - Compounding intellectual capital doctrine. This doctrine is about how to create intellectual capital (i.e. valuable and marketable knowledge) in a way that allows this capital to grow almost automatically, so that you can get rich in a seemingly automatic way.

506 - The richness of your life depends on the degree to which you have mastered the art of seduction. It's about seducing others, but mostly about seducing oneself. Se-duce means "to draw to oneself," and it is best to first have a keen awareness of one's best or highest self. One can then allow oneself to be drawn to this ideal self.

What is failure?

2008-06-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

Someone asked this interesting question on Linkedin Answers. I thought I'd share my answer with you.

Failure - An important factor to build success?

Failure is part of success, and certainly makes life more interesting. Indeed, most people will admit that they have learned more from failure than from success.

The concept of "failure" itself might be misleading, since it has a negative connotation and is something that most people try to avoid. This avoidance limits the richness of experience that life offers.

Men, for obvious cultural reasons, are more "afraid" of failure than women. The male ego has something to do with it, but it would be inaccurate to blame men for having this ego since it arises in a culture that overvalues performance -- often at the expense of authentic experience.

Women, for reasons that I have not yet fully understood, value experience more than men. They are willing to step outside the familiar path in order to experience life. However, I believe both experience and performance are possible and lead to a rich life.

I mean "performance" in the sense that we make progress in controlling ourselves and achieving self-mastery. Not performance in the sense of satisfying some external or societal standard, and winning medals or awards as a result.

For example, it is possible for a person to "fail" in his career or business, yet this apparent failure gives him a great opportunity to evolve by understanding more things about himself, his life and his ultimate purpose on Earth. Indeed, nothing starts a serious reflection and serious self-examination than failure.

Some people need to have a serious medical crisis before they sit down and think seriously about their lives. Others only require a certain non-threatening illness to halt the mindless momentum of their hectic career, and begin the process of self-examination and contemplative inquiry.

In most cases, it is quite useful to adopt the following attitude toward failure: "Oh, I now have the opportunity to explore another dimension of life and of myself! Great!"

Those who take advantage of such opportunities for meditation and for re-examining the meaning and purpose of their lives, often re-emerge into society with a powerful sense of alignment with who they truly are. It is as if they were born again, and were given a second chance at life. Many such people are destined to become teachers, for they have gone through the experience and can speak about it with credibility.

But back to the concept of "failure." At the mere thought of possible failure, many people recoil and take the beaten and familiar path -- they seek security instead of experience and adventure.
The ultimate success might be to realize that failure doesn't exist in reality, and is only a concept we have been conditioned to focus on in our society and culture. A second illusion is the fear of failure, and this fear often paralyzes people who otherwise might have expressed or exercised their natural talents.

Let's not forget that even Pablo Picasso, the great artist, feared how the world would react to his first cubist painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. He hid that painting in a closet for two years before finally showing it.

Indeed, every person is engaged on a personal path of evolution, and cannot fail. If he is moving forward on that path, he is then evolving. If not, then he needs time to reflect and absorb earlier lessons and experiences. In either cases, he is not failing at all. He is simply deciding, consciously or subconsciously, to evolve on his own timetable, without comparing himself to others at the material level.

It is useful to remember that life is a school and that the same lesson, in different yet fundamentally similar forms, will keep coming to us until we absorb and master the lesson. This is necessary for our own personal growth and evolution. Yet there is no "failure" at all. Life is a process of self-perfection, and we are already perfect on the spiritual plane. Our "higher self" is already perfect. It's just that in this physical life, we have the extraordinary opportunity to taste and experience this exquisite process of perfecting ourselves.

Peter Nguyen
Principal and editor in chief
PowerKnowledge.net

Finally, here's the ultimate wealth secret!

2008-06-18T21:23:00.001-07:00

I wrote several posts before on The Ultimate Wealth Secret, and have challenged you to come up with one word to summarize that wealth secret.

Well, here it is. Are you ready? It's...

SELL.

Indeed, sales ability is a secret art that most people have not been taught at school or at home.

Not only that, but we have been conditioned to view "selling" negatively. This is perhaps due to several bad experiences with "pushy" salespeople.

Yet, when you understand the proper function of selling and master the art of selling, you will know why some people get richer while others do not.

It's because selling is a certain strategic mindset. The savvy and skillful sales star is always thinking strategically and speaking strategically. Since thinking and talking are activities that we do almost all the time, then this accounts for the fast rise to success of people who are skillful at selling.

In other words, people who are trapped in poverty (i.e. can't find a good job or can't succeed in business), usually do not think very strategically nor do they speak strategically. It doesn't occur to them, in a conversation, to help the other person figure out his or her precise need and to help that person fulfill that need.

For instance, you might think of the salesperson as a selfish person who is always "pushing" his products in order to get someone to buy something. But in fact, a professional salesperson acts according to "enlightened self-interest": he will ask skillful questions in order to find out what the other person really needs, and then will try to help that person fulfill that need through a product or service that he offers, or that another company offers.

In other words, the professional salesperson doesn't sell as much as he is buying. Buying what? Trust.

Trust is the holy platform upon which your fortune is built.

A great salesperson shows so much care, concern and compassion that everybody instantly trusts him -- and will buy whatever he's selling.

Everything I share with you here is only 0.0000001 % of this vast field of selling.

Yet, most people do NOT explore this field because they have negative perceptions and feelings about selling. These negative perceptions and feelings KEEP THEM POOR.

Indeed, there are few activities that are more enjoyable and profitable than selling, because basically, it's just a conversation where, at the end, the other person hands over his money to you!

Some people are skillful conversationalists, so they can sell by simply talking. Most people, however, will succeed only if they complement their words with real, concrete actions. If you want to master the art of selling, read the book The Trusted Advisor, by David Maister. (I read it several times).

Jeffrey Gitomer is also a great author to read on the art of selling.

The bottom line is that selling is simply a skill -- not a talent. And the extent to which you master that skill, and turn it into an art, will determine your level of financial success.

This is so because (economic) power comes from your talent, and selling ability MULTIPLIES that power.

It is because employees lack selling ability that they are trapped and are forced to work for someone else. An employee may be the best in his field, yet if he cannot sell, he will not likely achieve financial freedom.

Let's take a mathematical look at this to fully understand how selling ability MULTIPLIES your economic power.

Imagine John and Jane, two professionals. John has a greater talent than Jane, so let's say his talent has a value of 9 whereas Jane's talent has a value of only 6.

However, Jane is better at selling than John and has a selling ability of 3 while John has a selling ability of 1.

So the score is:

John: 9 X 1 = 9

Jane: 6 X 3 = 18

Jane gets more opportunities or contracts because her selling ability multiplies the power of her talent. She is also more balanced than John in that she can both CREATE value and SELL that value. Hence, she is more likely to be able to launch her own business and achieve financial independence while John will be forever stuck in an office or cubicle (unless he learns how to sell).

Private Strategic Education and Training

2008-06-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

0:09

I was reading yesterday in the newspaper that there is a significant rise in the number of private schools in Quebec, Canada. Parents are now willing to pay up to $20,000 a year so their child can attend 100% privately funded schools.

This trend will also happen in workplaces, where employees will seek coaches and trainers who will train them so they get an edge in the job market. Same thing with entrepreneurs: they will seek the best coaches and trainers to give them the skills they need to succeed.

It's a trend I call "private strategic education and training."

This is happening because the world has become an incredibly competitive place. The new economy is, in fact, the "Olympic" economy, where the best in any one country will have to compete against the best in other countries. The Internet indeed eliminates geographic, temporal and spatial barriers.

At GM and Ford, managers have on their computer screens two dashboards, one showing the wages and productivity of their own workforce, and another showing the wages and productivity of workers from China, India, etc. As soon as the second dashboard looks more profitable than the first, the decision to lay off workers will be made.

Unfortunately, most people work at their jobs without knowing the above. Until, of course, they get the pink slip.

Then, there are people who are looking for a "home business," and the reasons are quite obvious: they want flexibility, freedom, etc. They want to be their own boss.

Yet, the very expression "home business" is misleading. As mentioned earlier, what is important to survive economically is excellence. So whether you work at home or not, doesn't matter.

What matters is whether you work "at hone": that is, are you honing your skills and competencies all the time? Clients really don't care where the provider is, physically speaking. They only care about results.

And the best results -- that is, the ones that will enrich you -- are produced by your mind, your imagination, your creativity.

Yet, these are not exactly what we have been taught at school. So because there is this huge gap in what the educational system is teaching us, and what the new economy requires of us, there is the emergence of institutions or companies that provide "strategic education and training."

The recipe for success, then, seems to be: 1. Choose a line of work where you want, desperately, to become the VERY BEST. 2. Practice daily until you DO become the best at it.

You have the right to remain silent (and poor, alas!)

2008-06-12T22:56:00.001-07:00

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, recently said that there are about 120 million blogs on the Internet, and that the average blog has a readership of... one.

It's not only funny, it's true!

Most people get excited, create a blogging account, and then find out that they don't have anything interesting, let alone valuable, to share.

I have exactly 264 subscribers, and although that is a very small number, may I share with you some of the practices that have worked for me.

1. Life is short. Start with the dessert. In plain English, give your readers MAXIMUM VALUE and give it NOW! Don't hold any information back. Who knows, you might get hit by a truck tomorrow and your valuable information will be lost to the world forever! You don't want people to go to your funeral and say something like: "He was a really nice and smart guy, and it's just a pity he didn't share his valuable information. It's a tragedy, really."

2. Write your blog like as if your family and closest friends were reading it, every day. In other words, write for people you really care about, and give them maximum value.

3. Many people hesitate to start a blog because they think they are not good writers. The trick is very simple: write ONE sentence per day. I really mean it: write ONE sentence. Not a paragraph. Not a post. Just ONE sentence. You will soon pick up steam and ideas, and you'll be writing prolifically like me. I don't know how to explain that phenomenon, but it's like compound interest: the more there is, the faster it grows. Effortlessly.

The bottom line is that a blog is truly your "mini media empire." You won't become Rupert Murdoch any time soon, but the blog does give you visibility (or audibility, rather).

In other words, with a blog, you can begin a relationship with a lot of people, and you can then sell stuff to them later on.

Of course, as I mentioned in the heading, you have the right to remain silent. That is, you have the right to refuse to blog.

But keep in mind that rich people are those that keep selling ALL THE TIME, and poor people are those that NEVER SELL ANYTHING.

Rich people sell all the time by acquiring and developing mass media like television. Oprah, for instance, last year made $275 million (compared to Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's $300 million). Notice that Rowling is using a different format (book) and is selling to a different audience (kids mostly).

So why do so many people resist the idea of selling? Probably because we all had bad experiences with pushy sales people in the past.

But that was then, this is now. The Internet enables you to sell, whether it's your own products or somebody else. The Internet REALLY exists so you can sell MORE and make MORE money.

Here's my take on selling. Selling means giving $100 worth of value to people, and asking them $10 in return. Sounds fair, doesn't it? Selling is really that simple.

Once you understand and master that concept (that selling means giving $100 and asking for $10), becoming wealthy will be a piece of cake. In other words, if 10 out of 10 people accept that deal (and who wouldn't, really!), then you can use a mass media to reach 100,000 people and make 100,000 X $10, or $1 million.

Can you see that wealth is just a mathematical formula, once you get the value/cost ratio right?

If the value/cost ratio is 100/1, then it's even better. Your products will sell even faster. In such cases, the value is often intangible.