Stop Wasting Your Life& Do Something

How To Live A Life Filled With

Happiness, Health, Wealth, and InnerPeace

First published in Great Britain in 2013

by OneHourTo.com

Copyright © 2013 by Simon SmithThe moral right of the author has been

asserted

All Rights Reserved

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Contents

Introduction You Can Change Your Life WheneverYou Want To!Paradigm ShiftsMentorsHabitsSelf DisciplineWhat Will You Accept For Your Life? Section 1 Happiness

RelationshipsMental StrengthDecision MakingKnowledge & ChoicesCuriositySelf Growth – Development & Learning Section 2 Health

Food ChoicesHabitsExerciseHealthy ThinkingHealthy AssociationsControlling Your Desires & ImpulsesSaving & Investing

Section 3 Wealth MoneyHabitsStrategyBuilding Your Cash FlowAsset AllocationSaving & InvestingPensionsInsuranceTimeWillsMultiple Sources Of IncomeReading – Find The Solutions Section 4

Inner Peace Inner PeaceExpectationsDo What You Love – Find A PassionSearch For The Answers – BooksHave FunContributionMaster The Only Thing You Can –Yourself Other Titles By Simon Smith Send Us Your Thoughts

Introduction

When I was 23 years old, somebodyrecommended a book to me. That bookwas “7 Strategies For Wealth &Happiness” By Jim Rohn. Up until this point in my life, mostpeople I knew (including myself) wereprogrammed to live life in the followingway: Go to schoolMess about at schoolLeave schoolGet a job that you don’t really like

Mess about at workEarn a lot less money than youpotentially couldGet drunk at the weekendRepeat the above for 40-50 yearsRetire brokeDie Luckily for me, I listened to, and tookaction on that recommendation, and Iordered the book on Amazon (I’d neverheard of Amazon at the time either; theperson that recommended the book,recommended that I buy the book onAmazon as well). That book changed mylife. I used to live in a garden shed, I used to

drink alcohol all the time (almost everynight), and I used to be a very angry,frustrated, confused, and negative youngman. Reading that book awakened in me aninsatiable curiosity to discover whatmade people tick, what made peoplesuccessful, what made people happy,what made people wealthy, and whatmade people enjoy their life. Until I’dread that book, I didn’t actually realisethat you could study these things, and bymaking different choices, you couldCREATE a different life. Jim Rohn’s book showed me a new wayto live.

“You mean that I don’t actually have tolive like this? I can change myself, andmy circumstances will change?” Looking back on those days, it is prettyamazing to me that I’d never thoughtabout these things myself. I knew peoplecould be happy, but not me? I knewpeople could become wealthy, but notme? I knew people could drive cars thatweren’t 15 years old, falling apart, andhad no TAX because they couldn’tafford it, but not me? Since that first enlightening book, overthe last fifteen years or so, I’ve probablyread over 300 books on self-

development. These books have rangedfrom books on building wealth, NLP,Taoism, communication skills, businessskills, sales skills, management,motivation, philosophy, spirituality andmany others that aren’t springing to mindright now. The person I am today is a totallydifferent character to the angry young ladof 15 years ago. I’m now happy, andhave inner peace. My income is morethan comfortable, and I pretty much havezero worries. Whilst life will alwaysthrow something at you that you neitherexpect, nor want, you can learnstrategies to deal with these curve balls,and continue moving ahead with joy in

your step. In essence, what I’m hoping for is thatthis book will do the same for somebodyelse, and if more than one person is ableto improve their life because of thisbook, it would make me very happyindeed. I hope it will open thefloodgates to learning, self-discipline,curiosity, hope, determination, andpeacefulness. I will say however, that I’m fully awarethat not everybody will agree with whatI’m writing. This is fine. If you enjoysome parts, and they make you thinkdifferently, but discard other parts, that’sthe beauty of people. We’re all different.

I might not even agree with some of thethings in here in ten years time myself!! I hope you enjoy the book as much asI’m about to enjoy writing it! Simon Smith January 2013

Chapter 1

You Can Change Your Life WheneverYou Want To! Right then, first things first. I havesomething to tell you that is veryimportant. Here it is. You can change your life whenever youwant to! Did you know that? You can stop smoking whenever youwant to

You can start exercising whenever youwant toYou can stop eating fatty junk foodwhenever you want toYou can move to a different townwhenever you want toYou can change jobs whenever you wanttoYou can quit taking abuse from peoplewhenever you want toYou can start building your fortunewhenever you want toYou can start your own businesswhenever you want toYou can start building your library andeducating yourself whenever you want toYou can start building a better marriagewhenever you want to

You can start having more fun with yourkids whenever you want toYou can start making better decisionswhenever you want to You don’t have to live tomorrow likeyou lived yesterday. If you’re fed up,and sick and tired, you can do somethingabout it right now. Literally right now.You don’t have to wait. When you actually realise this, it willchange your life. All you have to do issay to yourself (and mean it) “I’m goingto change my life!!” and then take someaction. When you do this, and you mean it, your

whole world can change. You don’thave to be negative any more. You don’thave to face the future with dread anymore. You can take charge and takeaction, and your life will never be thesame again. Let’s say you’ve gotten out of shape.You’ve been eating badly, you’ve notexercised in years, and you smoke.Within the next 3 minutes, you can throwyour cigarettes in the bin, throw out yourjunk food and go for a brisk walk or ajog. You CAN do this. The only questionis WILL YOU? Only you know.

Only you can decide. All I’m doing is giving you a choice.You can choose to continue on the samepath as you always have, or you can dosomething different. It doesn’t have to bedrastic or painful. You can start offsmall. You can start off by walking 50yards and completing 5 push-ups. That’senough. If you’ve squandered your wages for thelast ten years, you don’t have to do thatany more. You can do more sensiblethings with your money. What happenswhen you do more sensible things withyour money? Your financial situationchanges. How soon? Immediately.

You CAN do this. The only question isWILL YOU? Only you know. Only you can decide. Why did you buy this book? I’massuming it’s because you want tochange or improve something in yourlife. You CAN do this. The onlyquestion is WILL YOU? Only you know. Only you can decide.

Einstein once said that the definition ofinsanity was “Doing the same thing overand over again, and expecting differentresults”. He was pretty smart, so weshould probably listen to him!! I think I’ve made my point here but I’mgoing to say it one more time. You can change your life whenever youwant to!

Chapter 2

Paradigm Shifts Think of a paradigm shift as changingyour thinking from one way to another.This can happen in an instant. Imagine you’re a waiter at an exclusiverestaurant. A man walks in and he’s verydirty and unshaven. He looks like ahomeless person. As he walks in, hekeeps glancing behind his back as heenters. At this moment, you could bethinking many different things.

“I’m not letting this guy sit down, hewon’t be able to pay”“Poor guy looks like he needs a goodmeal. I’ll get him some soup”“He looks just like my old scienceteacher” Then when you approach him, he tellsyou in a very posh accent that he’s justescaped from kidnappers. He needs touse your phone immediately to call thepolice. He then tells you his name,which you immediately recognise as arecently abducted billionaire. Now you see the situation verydifferently from what you did literally afew seconds ago.

A paradigm shift is sometimes what weneed in order to make improvements inour lives. We are so accustomed todoing things the way we do them, thatwe often never question whether or notwe are doing the right thing. If somebodytold you that within one year you couldturn your annual income into a monthlyincome, would you believe them? Wellpeople have done it. If somebody told you that within oneyear you could regain your health, andbe fit and strong, would you believe it?Well people have done it. More often than not, the way we see the

world is what causes the world to be theway it is (in our own minds). As prettymuch all of our experience is subjective,the way you see the world will beslightly different from the way everyoneelse sees the world. If it wasn’t, peoplewould all agree on everything. As soon as you change your paradigm,your world will change. I know. I’vedone it. I used to see the world as ahorrible place where everybody was outto get one over on everyone else, andthere was no good and no altruism in theworld. I now know (through myspecially created paradigm) that theworld is actually amazing and thatpeople are amazing. My entire beliefs

about the world are now totallydifferent. Our outer world is also areflection of our paradigm. Here’s a little story I once heard WayneDyer tell: An old man is walking along a beachwhen he bumps into a middle-aged ladywalking her dog. He says hello, and thenstarts talking about the dog and duringthe conversation, he finds out that thelady has just moved to the town fromChicago. He asks her what the peoplewere like in Chicago and she says theywere all mean and only out forthemselves. After a few more minutes,they bid farewell to each other and walk

off. A few minutes later, he crosses thepath of another lady walking her dog. Asimilar conversation starts, and hediscovers that she too has recentlymoved to the town from Chicago. Heasks her what the people are like inChicago, and she replies that they werelovely, warm, kind-hearted people.Again, they part company a few minuteslater. Three months later, the man is walkingalong the beach again when he bumpsinto the first lady walking her dog.“How’s it going since you moved here?”He asks. “Terrible!” she says. “Thepeople in this town are awful. They’reunfriendly, and all out for themselves. I

wish I’d never left Chicago”. The sameday, he bumps into the second ladywalking her dog again. He asks the samequestion: “How’s it going since youmoved here?”“Wonderful” replies the lady. “Thepeople are so friendly, warm, and kind-hearted. We’re so glad we moved here”. Now these two ladies both lived in thesame town and whilst they may haveindeed met different people, the waythey looked at the world is what madethem see the world in this way. One sawthe world as positive and friendly, theother saw the world as negative andunfriendly. No matter where they lived,they would probably see the world in

this way. What paradigms are you carrying aroundwith you? How do you see the world?What paradigms do you need to change?Which ones would you like to change?Do you need a paradigm shift with howyou see your relationships? Yourfinances? Your job? Your children?Your boss? Here’s a paradigm shifter! Nothing in the world is negative.Everything just IS. What you see aspositive, another could see as negative.What you see as negative, another couldsee as positive.

Here’s another story to illustrate thepoint (I like stories): A farmer has a prize stallion. He’s awonderful horse that all the otherfarmers in the area admire. One day thehorse escapes. A neighbour, whenhearing of the horses escape tells thefarmer what bad luck it is. The farmerreplies, “Maybe, maybe not. Who cansay?” A couple of days later, the horse returnswith 3 wild mares. The neighbour thistime exclaims what great luck this is.The farmer again replies “Maybe, maybenot. Who can say?”

The farmer’s son, who is trying to breakone of the mares, is thrown from thehorse, and breaks his leg. The neighbourmentions to him what rotten luck this is,and the farmer once again says “Maybe,maybe not. Who can say?” Then the army comes through town,taking all of the able bodied males towar. The farmer’s son cannot go becauseof his injury. You never know whether something isgoing to be positive or negative in thelong run. Although this won’t actuallyshift your paradigm, this story in itself isa paradigm shift. If you’ve always

thought in terms of incidents beingpositive or negative, this new way ofthinking could change your paradigm sothat at least you realise that there is nosuch thing as a negative situation. How do you change your paradigms? Go and find someone that has anopposing paradigm to you, and speak tohim or her. Ask them what theirparadigm is. Ask them what evidencethey have that it’s true. You don’tnecessarily have to physically speak tothem to find out how they think; you maybe able to read a book that has anopposite viewpoint to yours. You maybe able to watch a program on DVD or

the TV. You may be able to read theirbook, or go to a seminar. If you reallyHAD to find the different paradigm, youcould. You just need to go out and findit! Is it possible for two people to have thesame experience and see it in a totallydifferent way? Yes. Is it possible for two people to have atragedy happen to them, and one use it(not deliberately) to shut off from theworld and live a life of sadness anddepression, and another to use it as areason to open up to life and enjoy every

minute? Your paradigms literally controleverything about your life. Your health,your relationships, your income, howyou spend your time. If you want tochange your life, you need to changeyour paradigms. How do you describe yourself? If youwere to close your eyes and imagineyourself, how would you look? This willtell you your paradigm about yourself. How do you describe your partner?What WORDS do you habitually use todescribe him or her? If you chosedifferent words, would you see them

differently? How do you describe your job? How doyou describe your boss? Is it possiblefor two people to have the same job anddescribe it in opposite ways? Yesabsolutely. Some people are “Layingthese damn bricks”, and some are“Building the greatest cathedral theworld has ever seen!”

Chapter 3

Mentors Mentors can come in all shapes andsizes (that was mentors, not minotaur’s). A mentor can be described as someonethat imparts knowledge or wisdom to,and shares knowledge with a colleagueor friend. Basically, it’s someone that gives youadvice and helps you to developyourself.

I have had many mentors. I can stronglysuggest you get some good ones as theycan totally change your life for thebetter. Now this doesn’t mean youactually have to go out and meet them,although if you can, this is a good idea!A mentor could be an author of a book, amovie character, a famousbusinessperson, a character from a book.It could be an archetypal figure fromhistory that you admire. It could be a work colleague or boss. Asuccessful friend, or someone you wantto emulate. Mentors can help you in lots of differentways. They can inspire you, they can

motivate you, they can show you aneasier path to tread, they can give youcourage when you feel like giving up,they can let you know when you’remaking mistakes, they can give you ahard time when you’re slacking, they canpat you on the back when you’ve donewell, they can teach you, they caneducate you, they can make you a betterperson. Who do you admire? How can you learnfrom them? Who is in the public eye thatyou can learn from? Who has made a lotof mistakes that you can learn from inorder to know what NOT to do? Who doyou know or admire that just seems toget it right all the time? What do they

do? There are so many excellent people inthe world that you can learn from andsometimes we just need one little nudgeto get us back on track. If you could change one area of your life,what would it be? I bet you could find amentor for that one area. I bet someonehas had a similar experience to you, andwritten a book about how they overcamethe challenge. Could you learn something from thatbook? One of my favourite mentors was the

American business and personaldevelopment philosopher Jim Rohn. Thethings he said touched me and changedme forever. Fortunately for me, a lot ofhis seminars and programs wererecorded onto cassette (I know someyounger readers won’t know what thisold word means), CD, and now sit onmy IPod as MP3 files. This means thatevery time I’m in my car, I can listen tohis words of wisdom. As well as Jim, I have probably 150other audio books that I listen to and Iget more every month. I subscribe to anaudio-book membership website, whereevery month I receive a new book of mychoice. You can spend hundreds of hours

a year in your car, so why not use thattime for your self-education, rather thanlisten to the radio?

Chapter 4

Habits As well as your paradigms, your life isalso controlled by your habits. In someways, your paradigms create your habits,and your habits create your paradigms. You have habits for pretty mucheverything you do. From how you brushyour teeth, to how you put your trouserson. From how you drive to work, to howyou make a cup of tea or coffee. The part of your brain that controls your

behaviour kicks in as soon as it spots ahabit approaching, and puts you onautopilot. Ever cleaned your teeth andafterwards had no recollection of it?Ever driven to work and when youarrived you can’t remember any part ofyour journey? That’s your habits runningthe show! The good thing about habits is that theyallow you to concentrate on other thingswhilst they do their work. The problemwith this is that sometimes we have anegative or destructive habit and we’renot even aware that we have it. Habitssuch as smoking and drinking too muchalcohol are the obvious ones, but thereare many other subtle habits that lead us

away from a life of happiness that wedon’t even spot. How many negative habits do you thinkyou have? Here are a few that you cancheck against to see if you need tochange some of your habitual routines: Spending more than you earn each monthbecause you just have to have a certainthing Reacting aggressively or defensively tocriticism Going to bed too late Eating the wrong foods

Not drinking enough water Drinking too many fizzy drinks or coffee Speaking negatively about yourself/yourpartner/your kids/your job Watching too much TV Spending too much time surfing the web Spending too much time playing videogames Not spending enough time with lovedones such as your partner or children,and spending too much time on work

Slacking off at work because you can getaway with it Not saving or investing any of yourmoney Not exercising frequently Making excuses for why you’re notdoing as well as you’d like to be Not taking care of your vehicles You get the idea. There are a millionbad habits we could pick up and noteven notice. The question is; are yougoing to transform your negative habits

into positive ones? If you do, your lifewill change dramatically. If you don’t, itwill stay the same. As well as eliminating negative habits,you can also start to cultivate new,positive habits. Once these positivebehaviours actually become habits, yourlife will move forward on autopilot.Think of your habits as a cup of water.The negative habits would be brown,dirty water, and the positive habitswould be clean, clear water. If you keeppouring clean, clear water into a cup ofdirty brown water, what happens? Thedirty brown water filters out, and youend up with clean, clear water. Thesame can happen for your life. If you

keep pouring in positive, healthy habits,and erase your negative, unhealthy habits(and I mean unhealthy in all ways, notjust in the domain of health), then yourlife becomes better, clearer, andcleaner!

Chapter 5

Self-Discipline How do you set up new habits and erasethe old? Self-discipline How do you go out and change yourparadigms? Self-discipline Self-discipline (according to Jim Rohn)is the bridge between thought andaccomplishment, and I think that’sprobably the best definition I’ve everheard. It’s great to have some new ideas,and get motivated, but then you have to

have the self-discipline to actually takeaction and do it. This is the part thatoften, people don’t have. The reasonmost people’s new years resolutionsdon’t happen is a lack of self-discipline. If someone said to you that they wouldgive you ten thousand pounds/dollars atthe end of the year, and all you had to dowas two things. Eat an apple, andcomplete 20 push-ups every single dayfor the whole year; do you think youcould do it? If you miss one single dayyou don’t get the money. Most peoplewould say that yes, they would do it, butthe reality is that most people wouldn’tbe able to maintain the discipline. It’seasy to forget to do something small.

You can’t eat two apples on thefollowing day and complete 40 push-ups. You’ve missed it. The other thing with habits and self-discipline is that you don’t have to startbig to make a big difference. You couldstart one very small discipline, which inturn becomes a habit, and this could leadto much greater things. If you started a new financial habit byjust putting away £20/$20 per month,this would inspire you to see if youcould put away even more money. You’dwatch the numbers grow and getmotivated. This could then lead togetting a better paid job, or starting a

small business to make more money. If for your health, you started walkinground the block three times a week, thismay motivate you to start jogging. Thiscould then lead to a total change in yourfitness and health. You may stop eatingfatty and sugary foods, and as your bodychanges in line with your newdisciplines, you get even more motivatedand set more fitness goals. You never know where your positivechanges will take you. Unfortunately,neglecting to do your disciplines has thesame compounding effect; only theoutcomes will be negative. If youDON’T implement the positive changes,

things can only get worse. Rarely dothings stay static. One thing I alwayskeep in mind is something I heard manyyears ago, but can’t remember where Iheard it. Here it is: You’re either climbing, or you’resliding. If you’re making the positive changes,and implementing the disciplines youwill find your life is climbing. It’sgetting better. If you neglect to do them, you will findyourself sliding and things will getworse.

Rarely do people remain exactly thesame weight for their whole life.Normally, you’ll fluctuate betweengaining weight and losing weight.You’re either climbing or you’re sliding. Rarely does a financial situation remainstatic. You’re either increasing yourwealth, or getting further behind. You’reeither climbing, or you’re sliding. Rarely do people’s relationships staystatic. You’re either improving it, or it’sdeteriorating. You’re either climbing oryou’re sliding. Rarely does a person’s health stay thesame forever, even if the changes are

very subtle. You’re either gettinghealthier, or you’re getting sicker.You’re either climbing or you’re sliding. The only difference between whetheryou’re climbing or sliding is what youDO. This comes down to your habits, butin order to form the habit and hard wireit into your brain, you need to have theself-discipline to start it and then carry iton until it’s a habit. If you could just start one very smallhabit this week, what would it be? Whatone area would you like to improve justthe smallest bit? If you could just take one action, and do

it often, and make it consistent, whatwould you do? Here’s another thing about discipline.Every positive discipline has an impacton every other discipline. Think ofdiscipline like a muscle. The more youuse your self-discipline, the stronger itgets in ALL areas. To become stronger in your arms youmust exercise your arms. To becomestronger in discipline, you must exerciseyour discipline. The only way toBECOME disciplined is to actually dothe things you know you should. Youcannot become disciplined by thinkingabout doing things. You can only do it by

actually taking actions, and taking themconsistently. You can’t build a reputation on what youare going to do! – Henry Ford

Chapter 6

What Will You Accept For Your Life? What do you want for your life? I meanwhat do you REALLY want? What will you accept? Will you acceptmediocrity? Will you only acceptexcellence? Will you accept peoplepushing you around? Will you accept alife of being less than what you want? I have friends that are very intelligent.They are smart. Yet they have been stuckin the same job for 30 years and they

hate it. They are always telling me thatthey want to change their job, and theirlife, but they won’t do it. They tell me they are unhappy, but theydon’t do anything about it. This upsets me because what I want formyself, I want for everyone. I wanteveryone to walk the path of self-actualisation and self growth. I wanteveryone to be happy. This doesn’t mean that I want them to behappy in the same way that I achievehappiness as everyone is different, but Iwant them to be happy. It also frustratesme when people won’t take the actions

that THEY know will improve theirlives. The problem is that there are MILLIONSof people like that in the world. TheyWANT a better life, but not if it meansthey have to actually make it betterthemselves. Some are scared of change.Some are too cynical to change. Somebelieve they cannot change. None of these things would hold youback if you had decided that you wouldno longer accept a life that you do notenjoy. That is all you have to do.Decide. I will no longer accept (fill inthe blanks)…………. In my life.

When you get to the end of this book, I’dlike you to come back to this chapter andmake a list of the things you will nolonger accept in your life. These couldbe small things such as never acceptingan untidy car again, or they could be bigthings such as never accepting alcohol inyour body again. When you actually decide, write themdown and commit to them. Make thempublic to give them strength, and seeyour life change.

Section 1

Happiness

Chapter 7

Relationships

If your relationships are good andthey’re strong, then you are more likelyto be happy than if your relationships arestrained and full of stress and tension. This is obvious, but what a lot of peopledon’t realise is that they are 100%responsible for their relationships. Most people would assume that if theywere relating to one other person, thenthey would both be 50% responsible for

the relationship. This is inaccurate, andI’ll repeat it: You are both 100%responsible for your relationships. How come you ask? Let’s say that I am in a relationship withyou. I am 100% responsible for how Itreat you. I am 100% responsible forhow kind I am, how loving I am, howpresent I am in your company. I am also100% responsible for how I respond toyou. Likewise, you are 100% responsible forhow you treat me, how kind you are tome, and how you communicate with me.

If you say something to me that I don’tlike I have 100% responsibility forwhether I get mad, or respond in ahealthy way. However, as you are 100%responsible for how you treat me, youcan have a positive or negative effect onme by how you treat me and how youcommunicate with me. The words we use. When we relate to others, we need tochoose our words very carefully. Theactual words we use have a massiveimpact on the response we are likely toreceive. For example: If I say to you “What’s wrong with you?”

that sounds very different to “What’stroubling you?” or “What’s on yourmind?” Although I MEANT the same thing witheach question, the interpretation of itcould be very different. Think about the last time you had anargument with a significant person inyour life. Can you remember the wordsyou used? Can you remember the wordsthey used? Could you have used different words butgot your point across nevertheless? Sometimes we need to pause before we

speak. Don’t say things that are hurtful just totry and win an argument. It’s better to behappy than to be right. If you usepersonal, critical, hurtful words whencommunicating with important people inyour life, don’t be surprised if thoserelationships break down. Time for another story. A young man had a terrible argumentwith his wife and sorely regretted hiswords. He said some terrible things, andbrought up incidents that had long past inorder to win the argument. The next day,he went to a wise old man and sought his

advice. The old man told him to go out, and get asack full of feathers. The man did as hewas asked, and returned to the wise manthe next day. The sage told the man to go about town,and spread the feathers on the floor inthe streets and empty the sack offeathers. When this was done, he was toreturn the next day. The man returned the following day andsat opposite the wise man. The oldfellow told the man that he should nowgo out with his sack and collects all ofthe feathers up. The young man said that

this was impossible as they had blownaway all over the town and he wouldnever be able to find them. “Those feathers are just like your words.Once they have been scattered, they cannever be returned”. You need to be ascareful with your words as you are withyour feathers. Blame is another thing that can causeproblems in relationships. If you’realways blaming people for what theyhave done wrong then it makes themdefensive, and they will put barriers up.Likewise if someone you’re in arelationship with is always blaming you,it will make you defensive. Instead, try

to look at the situation as it is, askWHAT happened, not WHOSE fault isit. If someone is always doing somethingthat upsets you, you do need to tell himor her, but tell them in a constructiveway that won’t cause a problem betweenyou both. Here are my rules for a positiverelationship: One – Always listen to each other. Imean really listen. Not the “I’m justsurfing the web, so I’ll kind of grunt ananswer” type listening. Two – Try putting yourself in theirshoes. What’s important to them? What

are they worried about or concernedabout? What do they need help with? Three – Make time for each other. Youcan’t have a relationship if you’re toobusy for each other. Four – Set aside time with nodistractions such as IPhones, laptops,and the TV. Five – If you disagree, don’t let thedisagreement turn into an argument. Tryto reach a compromise or agree todisagree without being disagreeable Six – Have rules. If somebody breaksone of your rules, tell them in a

constructive way. Seven – Make time for yourself. Don’tlive in each other’s pockets 24/7 or youmay just drive each other mad. Eight – Have fun. Doesn’t matter if yourrelationship is with your partner, yourkids, your friends, or your co-workers.Try to have fun and not take things tooseriously all of the time. Nine – Avoid blame and don’t bring upthe past. If you’re disagreeing, then justdisagree on the point in hand. Don’tbring up something that happened sevenmonths ago.

Ten – Think about the words you’rechoosing. Pick your words carefully, andpause before you speak if you have to.

Chapter 8

Mental Strength "Now if you are going to win any battleyou have to do one thing. You have tomake the mind run the body. Never letthe body tell the mind what to do. Thebody will always give up. It is alwaystired in the morning, noon, and night.But the body is never tired if the mindis not tired."- George S. Patton, U.S. Army General,1912 Olympian A few days ago I was listening to the

audio version of Thomas Stanley’s“Stop Acting Rich”, and one of thethings he mentions about how thewealthy became wealthy was that nearlyall of them had to overcome some formof adversity in order to becomesuccessful. Now I know we’re not talking aboutmoney yet, but this is very relevant tohappiness as well as finances so I’mgoing to discuss it now. Plus, it’s MYbook so I can talk about what I like! In order to be happy or successful, youneed to be able to overcome challenges.If every little set back gets you down,then you will never get anywhere.

People that get handed everything on aplate don’t develop the mental strength,tenacity, determination, persistence, orlearn the skills and mindsets that arerequired to overcome challenges. Here’s a great saying that I think sumsthis up perfectly: Good timber doesn’t come with ease.The stronger the wind, the stronger thetrees. Some of you may have already learnedthis lesson in life. I learned it when Iwas so broke I was eating stuffing mix,and gravy granules with hot water in a

cup 5 nights a week. I was in a placewhere I had ZERO money. I had to learnpretty quickly to go out and make it. Ihad to sell my stuff, I had to start a littlebusiness, and I had to tighten my belt andstop spending money I didn’t have. I had to work harder in my job to makemore money, and learn some strategiesto handle the money I did actually makeso that I didn’t lose it all again. Whilst I was going through this stage (itlasted about 6 months) I hated everyminute of it, but now, looking back, Ithink it was probably the best thing thatcould have happened to me (paradigmshifts sometimes take a while to gain

perspective). If I hadn’t gone through that pain, Iwould have been happy to plod alongthrough life with no ambition and nodesire to have a better life, but when youget to the stage where you’re so fed upwith how things are that you’ll doANYTHING you can to get past it, youlearn some very valuable lessons. Many people in the world haveovercome massive challenges to succeedin their personal lives, their health, theirbusiness, and their relationships. Peoplesuch as that will immediately know thatthis is true. When you’ve overcome amassive obstacle in your life, you don’t

see normal day-to-day challenges asbeing difficult any more and you just geton with things. So with this in mind, what can you do todevelop mental strength? Set yourself a series of increasinglydifficult challenges. Start small andgradually build it up. This will not onlyallow you to grow as a human being interms of skills and abilities, but the veryact of doing this will improve your self-esteem and self worth. People that have the fewest worries arethe people that know that they can dealwith challenges that come their way.

That’s why they’re not worried. Ok, back to setting yourself challenges. Let’s assume that you want to setyourself an extreme challenge such asrunning a marathon, but you’re unfit,overweight, and currently do noexercise. Would you set yourself the challenge torun a marathon in a month’s time? Icertainly wouldn’t recommend it. However, could you set the challenge torun a marathon in a year’s time? Yes. You would now need to break down this

challenge into a series of minichallenges. Walk your first mile Jog your first mile Jog your first 2 miles Jog your first 3 miles Etc… Each one of these milestones will feelgood. Each one will make you realisethat you can accomplish more than youthought you could.

Each one will force you to becomebetter than you were before, and eachone will show you that you are the kindof person that can overcome difficultchallenges. Let’s say you have a goal of having£100,000/$100,000 dollars in the bank,and at the moment you have zero moneysaved. Likewise, you wouldn’t set this goal fora month’s time and you will need toexercise discipline and patience in orderto achieve it. You’ll also have somemilestones to achieve along the way. Save your first £10/$10

Save your first £100/$100 Save your first £1,000/$1,000 Each of these milestones again, willmake you feel good and will make yourealise that you can be more disciplinedand overcome challenges. Have a fear that you’d like to conquer?Well set yourself the challenge ofovercoming it. There are so manytechniques for overcoming fears thesedays from NLP, Hypnosis, EFT,Journaling, and Therapy… Why not set yourself the challenge of

getting rid of your biggest fear. That willtake some courage, some discipline, andsome sweat!! You’ll have to grow, andhow much happier would you be withoutthat fear? My guess is that you’d be a lot happier!

Chapter 9

Decision Making Indecision can cause you stress. Often,when people are finding it difficult todecide between two courses of action, itcan send them into a state of panic, orworry. Making a decision (cutting off thealternative course of action)immediately helps. Sometimes we makethe wrong decision, but this happens toall of us and there are no guarantees inlife unfortunately. There are a lot of different models for

the decision making process, but as withmost things in life, I like to break thingsdown to their simplest form. All of our decisions will come in twocategories. Conscious decision making,and unconscious decision making. Conscious Vs Unconscious DecisionMaking Conscious decision making is where wereally think about the available optionsand then decide. A good example here iswhen you are in a restaurant. You lookthrough the menu, and make a decisionon what you’ll choose to eat by lookingat the different meals.

Your decision may be made up by avariety of contributing factors: How hungry you areHow much money you haveHow many calories each meal containsWhether you have any special dietaryrequirements (e.g. vegetarian)Whether you’ll be eating again later thatday or notWhether you’re a “Savoury Person” or a“Sweet Person”Whether you’re eating alone or withcompany Your brain takes all of this informationand then you decide on what you are

going to eat. Another example could be whenpurchasing a new car. You look at themake, the model, the mileage, theeconomy of the car, and the price. Youmay look at the colour, the interior, theaccessories etc. You then decide whichcar to buy. These are the type of decisions I wouldcall our conscious decisions. However, even though we’re makingthese decisions consciously, and wethink we’re making them rationally,based on logic, many of our decisionsare actually unconscious and emotional

and have nothing to do with logic. Our unconscious mind is much morepowerful than our conscious mind, andwill normally override our conscious.For example, when choosing your meal,your conscious mind KNOWS that youshould have something light and healthy.However, your unconscious mind wantssomething high-calorie, tasty, and not toogood for your waistline. This is whymany people’s diets don’t work. Theyaren’t making CONSCIOUS decisionsand their unconscious is overriding theirconscious mind. Even though this can seem quiteannoying, especially when you’re trying

to work towards a goal, it’s a good jobwe do have the unconscious mind tomake decisions for us. If we didn’t,we’d have to make hundreds moreconscious little decisions every day. Driving to work, you’d have toconsciously decide every turning tomake, rather than letting yourunconscious decide for you. When eatingyour dinner, you’d have to consciouslydecide which piece of pie to cut up andeat first rather than just eat your dinner. How can you move from unconsciousdecision making to conscious decisionmaking?

Here are a few tips: One – Pre-decide and commit Let’s say you’re going to a restaurant,and you know that once you’re in therestaurant and you’re smelling the food,and enjoying the atmosphere, you willcrumble and order the big tasty steak,with cheesy fries, and the cheesecake fordessert. To avoid this, phone therestaurant before you leave and preorder. If you can’t do this, decide whatyou’re going to have before you leave,write it down and take it with you.DON’T deviate from it. If you’re going shopping and you know

you have a tendency to stack your trolleywith stuff you don’t need, then write ashopping list out and again DON’Tdeviate. Follow it. If you’re giving something up and youknow you’re going to be in anenvironment where you’ll struggle withyour self-discipline, then picture in yourmind before you leave, how you willattack the unconscious urge in themoment. Two – Take immediate action If you’re looking to buy a new car(because your unconscious mind can justimagine you behind the wheel, driving

around town) but you know you don’tactually NEED a new car, you just feellike you want a change, then yourconscious mind could be saying to you“Don’t get this car. You will have to buyit on credit, and it will cost you a lot ofmoney”. Your unconscious mind stillwants it however, so you may befluctuating between buy it, don’t buy it,buy it, and don’t buy it. If this is happening then you need to takeaction during the “Don’t buy it” phase. Ifyou’ve been test-driving cars, phone thedealer straight away and tell themyou’ve changed your mind and will notbe purchasing the car.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll breathe asigh of relief, as you’ll know you’vemade the right decision and just savedyourself a fortune. Three – Weigh up the pro’s and con’s If you’re having a job deciding onsomething and you don’t just want toleave yourself open to your unconsciousmind choosing for you, then take a blanksheet of paper and draw a vertical linedown the centre of the page. One the lefthand side, make a list of the pro’s, andon the right hand side, make a list of thecon’s. When you’ve done this, yourdecision may be obvious. If not, you canscore each of the pro’s and con’s out of

ten. Score the pro’s for how positivethey are, and the con’s how negative theyare. You will then have a pro/con scorewhich will help your decision. Four – Pause your thinking If you just stop thinking for a moment byfocussing on your breathing, you willfind that your unconscious mind shuts up.This is a good opportunity for you totake stock and make a decision from aplace of calmness, rather than a place ofexcitement or apprehension. Does it feel right?

When you’ve made your decision, youshould ask yourself the above question.Does it feel right? If it doesn’t, thenthere may be flaw in your decision. Ifyou know that logically it is right, then itcould just be your emotions taking over,but I always listen to my gut whenmaking important decisions. Yourintuition is often a good judge. Indecisiveness can cause you to waste alot of time. It can cause you to toss andturn at night. It can cause you stress andit can send your head in a spin. Making adecision causes you to move forward.

Chapter 10

Knowledge & Choices One of the presuppositions of NLP isthat it is better to have choice than not tohave choice. Let’s say that you lose your job. Wouldit better to have no other job vacanciesin your area, or to have a lot ofvacancies for you to choose from? Theanswer is obvious. If you were to find yourself in a difficultsituation at home, would it be better to

have more choices and strategies toovercome the problem or less? Againthe answer is obvious. So how do you give yourself morechoices in all areas of your life? The answer is to educate yourself.Never rely on others to do it for you. Itwon’t happen. In many ways I owe everything I nowhave to books. Books taught me how tomanage my money. They taught me howto communicate with people moreeffectively. Books taught me how tomanage my mind. Books opened up thepathways to knowledge and choices.

They led me to seminars, businessmeetings, and self-action. I would not bewriting this book today if it weren’t forbooks. Here are just a few things you can learnfrom books: How to be a better parentHow to be happyHow to become wealthyHow to have a great relationship withyour partnerHow to get a promotionHow to start a businessHow to learn a foreign languageHow to get fitHow to control a disease

How to networkHow to take apart an engineHow to communicate more effectively In fact, there isn’t much that you CAN’Tlearn from books. Yet people don’t readthem. I find that very strange. Whensomeone I know and care about isstruggling with their life, I recommend abook to them. Do they normally read it?No. Jim Rohn used to call the fact thatpeople don’t read these books“Mysteries of the mind” and I agree. Some people don’t like to read (asyou’re reading this, I’m assuming you’renot one of them). No problem. Get anaudio book. You can listen to it in the

car. If you’re just starting out on your‘Library Building’, here are a few ideasthat may help you. Decide what’s important to you and buybooks in that genre. For example, let’ssay you sit down and make a list of the 6key areas in your life that are the mostimportant to you, and you come up withthe following list: parenting, career,health, relationships, self developmentand increasing your net worth. Get yourself a bookshelf, and put asticker with each of these headings onthe edge of your shelves. Just buy (or

borrow from the library as it’s free) onebook from each of these categories.Want to know what books to get? Have alook on Amazon. What sort of reviewsdo the books have? Look online at bookrecommendations and reviews. Peopleall over the world write up on how goodthese books are, so you shouldn’t haveany trouble finding a good book for eachof your categories. The next step is to actually read them. Iwould recommend reading for at least30 minutes per day. Read in the bath, onyour lunch break, on the train. If youstruggle for time, get the audio-book andlisten to it when it’s convenient.

If you listen to or read for 30 minutesper day, this will equate to 182.5 hoursof reading a year. You can read a lot ofbooks in 182.5 hours. Doing this will give you two things.Knowledge and choices. Knowledge forthe sake of it isn’t necessarily beneficial,but knowledge in an area that’simportant to you is invaluable. The nexttime a problem comes up, you have a lotmore references to draw from and use tohelp you solve it. The next time someone you know needssome help, you’re in a better position togive it to them as you have morereferences. You cannot believe what this

will do for your life!

Chapter 11

Curiosity Curiosity is a blessing. To be able tofind all things interesting makes life ajoy. When you’re fascinated byeverything that’s going on around you,there’s no time to be bored, and there’sno time to feel down. Have you ever wondered what makes aplanet stay in space? What makes asnowflake have six points? Why thereare so many circles and spheres innature?

Ever been curious as to how they getfresh lettuce into your sandwich whenyou live in the middle of a big city? Everwonder why some creatures can live insub-zero temperatures, and others canlive in scorching deserts? Have you ever asked yourself how youcan think a thought, and think ABOUTthat thought at the same time? Why is everyone so different? Why dosome people like oranges and somepeople hate them? Why do people likesuch different styles of music, and dress,and food, and sex?

Why is two plus two always four? Howcome zero never existed before it wasinvented, but every other number did? There are so many interesting things outthere in the world, and there are so manyquestions, and so many mysteries. Howcould anybody ever be bored? Therewill never be a time when you can’t findsomething else to be fascinated by. Become curious. Become inquisitive.Become interested. If you’re interested,people find you interesting… People sometimes tell me that I’m reallyinteresting, but I’m actually not. I’m justinterested in everything. I want to find

out all the stuff of the world. Ifsomething comes up and I find itinteresting, I want a book, or a course,or a video, or a story about it. I want toknow. I’m lucky, because I have a naturalcuriosity, but anybody can cultivate hisor her curiosity. Make a list of ten thingsyou’ve always wondered about and goand find out some of the answers. If youdon’t understand some of them, itdoesn’t matter, as you’ll understandsome of the others. Who do you know that does interestingthings? Why not go over for a coffee andfind out about it. I bet they’d love to tell

you about it. I remember when I was young and I wasreally into heavy metal music. Nobodyever asked me about it (my family allhated it), but one night my cousin cameover and was genuinely interested inwhy I liked it. She asked about thebands, the lyrics, the music, and I had agreat time sharing it with her. Hercuriosity made me enthusiastic. Howcould your curiosity bring out another’senthusiasm? Being curious is fun. Try it!

Chapter 12

Self Growth – Development &Learning When Abraham Maslow came up withhis hierarchy of needs pyramid back inthe 1940’s, his top spot was “SelfActualisation”. This is where you reacha place of harmony and understanding,and you are engaged in reaching yourfull potential. Notice that this isn’t thesame as reaching your full potential, asyou can always do a little bit more, butbeing engaged in reaching it will makeyou feel great.

In order to continue to reach for your fullpotential though, you will need to bringout the best of what you have. This canonly be done by developing yourselfmentally, physically, emotionally, andspiritually (if you believe inspirituality). The thing with personal development isthat it is personal. I have always takenthis to mean that it is up to me to developmyself. Nobody can do it for me, andnobody can do it for you. It would begreat if we could program our brains asthey do in the movie “The Matrix”.We’d plug ourselves into a computer,and upload new software, and hey

presto, we’re developed! Unfortunately, there’s a bit more workinvolved, but this is one of those“challenges” we spoke about earlier. Todevelop yourself takes work, takes time,takes effort, and may take some moneyas well. It’s worth it however. To get from whereyou are to where you want to be, youwill need to BECOME a new person.You will need to evolve, and becomebetter at what you do. You will need tobecome wiser, and have better answersand better skills. You will need tobecome stronger, and able to cope withbigger challenges.

In order to grow and developconsistently, you will need to beconsistent. If you only develop yourselfevery now and then, you can still grow,but it will be at a much slower pace.This is fine if that’s what you want, butwhy grow slowly if you can growquickly? Never underestimate the benefits ofpersonal development, but don’t worryif you’re not too sure about how todevelop yourself at the start of theprocess. It’s ok to just have a general idea ofwhat you want, and where you want to

be, and then start moving towards it.When you’re climbing a mountain, andstanding at the bottom, you may not beable to see the peak. That doesn’t matter.Take the first step, and then the second,and keep going. Pretty soon you’ll seethe top of the mountain. Self development is like this. You take astep, and then the second. Then you see anew path, and you move towards it.Then take another step, and then another,and then another. All of a sudden, you’relooking back on your old self, andwondering how you managed to surviveas that old individual. When I look back to what I was like

when I was in my early twenties, I can’tbelieve I got through. It’s like going for along run, and looking back. You can’tsee where you started any more, but youknow you did start somewhere backthere, and you know you’ve gone througha lot to get to where you are now. This isa great feeling. A feeling of “I did it, andI’m still going strong!” You can’t beat it for happiness! Here are a few pointers for you to startyour personal development journey: Books – I’ve said a lot about booksalready, so I won’t go on here.

Audio books – learn as you drive, learnas you exercise, learn as you sit on thetrain or bus. Courses – These could be night courses,weekend courses, online courses,correspondence courses, one off lecturesat your local university, etc. Use themall. A lot of them may be free as well. Online – Look at forums, blogs,webinars etc. There are lots of ways oflearning today, so you should be able tofind something that suits you. Clubs – Books clubs, running clubs,sport clubs, singles clubs, debatingclubs, mentoring clubs; there are all

sorts of clubs and associations out therethat can help you. Gyms – There are lots of healthy peopleat gyms. There may be some people thatyou’d want to associate with there. Associate with people you want to belike. Pick their brains. Borrow theirideas and philosophies. Find a mentor – Who can you ask forsome tips and some help? Who do youknow that’s doing what you want to do?How can you get in touch with them?How can they help you or inspire you?

Section 2

Health

Chapter 13

Food Choices

100 years ago, people didn’t really havethe knowledge of what was good foodand what was bad food. There were noprograms on TV to educate you, andthere weren’t thousands of books writtenon healthy eating. There was no internet,and there were no iPhone apps to trackyour eating, track your calories, trackyour fat and exercise either. Today, there is little excuse for notknowing what to eat. I don’t mean this in

the sense of knowing in minute detail ofwhat every food does and doesn’t do,but in the general sense of what ishealthy and what is unhealthy. Everyone knows that if you stuff yourface with burgers, pizza, and junk food,you will get fat. You will also be at riskof heart disease and other illnesses.Everyone also knows that if youconsume plenty of healthy fruit,vegetables, nuts, seeds, water, andvitamin supplements, you will beslimmer and healthier. This is commonknowledge, and very obvious. So why don’t people do what they knowthey should?

It comes down to habits, choices,programming, and convenience. Again,this is all down to how we think. Let’s look at each of these one at a time. Our Food Habits Shopping When we go shopping, do we always putinto our trolley what is good for ourbodies? I always look at people’strolley’s when I’m in the supermarket,and most of the time, just looking at thecontents of someone’s trolley will tellyou what that person’s state of health is

likely to be. If their trolley is filled withbottles of Coke, crisps (chips), cakes,biscuits (cookies), chocolate, sweets,pizza’s, and ready meals, what wouldyou imagine this person to be like healthwise? If someone’s trolley is filled up withvegetables, fruit, salad, nuts, and organicjuice, what would you imagine thatperson’s general state of health to belike? When we shop, we mainly shop by habit.What we bought two hours ago, willprobably be very much like what webought two weeks ago. Our shoppinghabits don’t really change that much

unless we make a conscious effort tochange them. How can you change your habits? Decide what you are going to buy beforeyou leave and write a list. Don’t deviatefrom the list. If you walk down thecookie aisle, check your list. If cookie’saren’t on the list, don’t buy them! Pre-prepare one simple question to askyourself whenever you walk into a placeto either eat or buy food. Here is thequestion: “What is the healthiest thing I can putinto my body in this place?”

If you ask this question then your brainwill automatically find the right answerfor you. If you walk into a restaurant andask the question: “What is the healthiestthing I can put into my body in thisplace?”, will the answer be steak,cheesy fries, and beer? Nope! You brain will give you the answerssalad, vegetables, grains, water, juiceetc. The next thing you have to do islisten to the answer and take action on it. This is the difficult part. Asking thequestion is easy. Listening to the answeris easy. Taking action and actually doingit is far from easy and will take a lot of

discipline and determination. Thequestion is, will you do it? Convenience Another thing that makes us eat all thewrong foods is convenience. If you havea choice between a pizza in the freezer,and getting in your car, driving to theshop, and buying a healthy meal, orhealthy ingredients, which one would95% of people choose? Right, the pizza. This is why it’s important to beprepared. If you don’t have pizza in thefreezer, you can’t choose it. If you havehealthy food in the fridge or freezer, itmakes it MUCH easier to eat healthily.

Make it more convenient to eat healthily,than unhealthily and you will start to gethealthier. One thing I learned from Perry Marshall(a marketing guru), is that if you wantsomething to succeed, CHANGE THESYSTEM. The example he gave was thatif he wanted to exercise more, ratherthan try to force himself to go running, orgo to the gym, he’d change his system.He’d move his home office from theground floor into the attic so that hewould have to walk up and down thestairs 20 times per day. This way, theexercise becomes automatic. You don’thave to “Force” it.

You can do the same with your eating.Want to avoid the temptation of buyingcakes, cookies, pies, pizza? Shop onlyonline so you’re not surrounded by thesmells and sights of all of those gloriousfoods that have been designed to temptyou. Alternatively, get someone else todo your shopping for you. Think about ways you can change yoursystem to make your healthy eating moreautomatic. Programming If you’ve been eating junk food, crisps,chips, fizzy drinks etc since you were a

kid, it’s going to be pretty tough tochange it overnight. However, there aretwo things you need to know. One – You CAN change yourconditioningTwo – You MUST change yourconditioning to lead a healthier life Your programming will fight your newhealthy way of eating at the start. This isnormal. It’s to be expected. But don’t letyour programming beat you! YOU’RE incharge, not the program. They say it takes between 20 and 30days to change a habit or program, sogive yourself a month. I’d start it at the

beginning of a new month, so it’s easierto track and see your progress. Create your new program. This meansyou’re going to have to set up newroutines, and new habits. These couldinclude. Shopping online Throwing away all of your ‘junk’ foodso there’s no temptation Writing shopping lists and sticking tothem Asking yourself the “What’s the mosthealthy thing…” question when you are

out Drinking water instead of soda or coffee Keeping a food diary/journal so you cansee exactly what you are eating anddrinking. This one thing could changeyour life. For it to work though, youMUST complete it every time you eat ordrink. Avoiding your regular eating haunts So to sum up this chapter then, if youwant to change your eating habits, thenyou need to actually do it. Your eatinghabits won’t change unless you do. Willyou do it? Are you committed?

Chapter 14

Exercise Before I start this chapter, I stronglysuggest that before you begin anytraining or exercise regimen, you getyour doctor to check you out and tell youthat it’s ok. Ok, now I’ve got that out of the way,let’s talk about exercise. Exercise is one of those things that youeither like or don’t like! I’m lucky, as Ilove it. I love the buzz, I love the

challenge, I love the feeling of beingphysically fit and active. I also knowhowever, that a lot of people DON’Tlike to exercise. This makes it ten timesharder to actually do it. So if you’re not an exercise lover, howdo you do it? Well my first suggestion would be to tryand do something you enjoy. If thatmeans dancing instead of lifting weights,then so be it. If it means skipping in thegarden instead of running, then do it! If you have to force yourself to exercise,you should try and make it as much funas you can. Have a friend that wants to

get fit as well? Can you train together?Can you challenge each other? This year, I decided that I was going toset myself some fitness and activitytargets. I told a couple of my friends, andthey bet me that they would beat me inhow many miles I run this year, and howmany push-ups and sit-ups I do this year.I LOVED this as it made me sodetermined to beat them (I am way aheadand it’s only the 1st week of Feb) andI’ve done double what I would havedone just to make sure I win the bet. Can you compete with a friend or familymember? Can you make it competitive?

How else can you get some motivation? Here are a few tips: Get yourself a personal trainer. Thesecost a few pounds/dollars, but are wellworth the investment. Join a fitness club where you can meetlike-minded individuals. Make a public declaration. Why not starta YouTube fitness/fat loss diary withdaily/weekly uploads of your progress.You can make it into a money-spinner aswell. Make outrageous bets with your

friends/colleagues. Have a forfeit if youdon’t do your exercises. Keep a reminder in your smart phone togo off every day at a certain time toremind you that you have to do it! Get yourself a heart-rate monitor andkeep a spreadsheet of all of yourworkouts, runs, how many caloriesyou’ve burned off etc. It’s verymotivational to see the numbers come upthrough the course of your workout plan. Create a folder of photo’s of your weightloss progress. Take a daily photo andcompare them one week/month apart.You’ll see a big difference if you keep it

up. No Excuses There are no excuses to NOT exercise.It’s so easy to do. You could get on thefloor right now and have a go at somepush-ups. How long does it take to get tothe floor (provided you’re a fit andhealthy individual)? About 1 second.How long does it take to do 20 push-ups? About 20 seconds. So if it takesyou 21 seconds out of your 24 hour day,can anyone do this? The problem with things that are easy todo, is that they are also easy NOT to do(got that concept from Jim Rohn). It’s

easy to do the push-ups, but it’s eveneasier not to do them. Again, it comesdown to choices, and self-discipline. If you’ve told everyone that you’re goingto get fit, you’ve started a photo journalof your progress, and you’ve put areminder in your phone/calendar to do itevery day, and you’re STILL not doingit, then what’s stopping you? It’s yourmind……..

Chapter 15

Healthy Thinking Here’s a concept you may not be awareof…. You are not your mind. Ever had a thought you didn’t want? Ifyou’re like most people, this probablyhappens all the time. So if you don’twant it, and didn’t request this thought,why are you having them? Because you’re not your mind! Thoughts

pop in and out of your head all of thetime, whether you want them to or not.Don’t believe me? Then try and stopthinking for one whole minute. The thing about your thoughts is that youcan look at them, realise what they are,and then either be affected by them, orignore them. If you WERE your thoughts,then you wouldn’t be able to do thiswould you! So now that you know this, how doesthis help you to enjoy healthy thinking? This is one of those things that fall intothe ‘Simple, but not necessarily easy’category. By that I mean that the process

is simple, but to actually follow itstrictly and consistently takes practiceand discipline. As James Allen says in ‘As A ManThinketh’, your mind is like a garden. Ifyou allow it to do as it wishes, and runwild, it will become a mess of tangledweeds. If you tend it, and look after it, itwill become a beautiful garden. Here’s an example: You’re at home doing the washing upand a thought comes into your head.You’re thinking about your day at work,and a difficult conversation you had withyour boss. You’re thinking about how

you’d like to tell your boss where to go,and stick his job up his ‘You knowwhat’. You feel yourself getting tense andwound up as you think about it. Now if you were to stop time and realisewhat is actually going on here, you areletting your mind control you. Just as theweeds will take your garden, your mindhas taken you over. Negativity isspreading through your body and makingyou feel bad. The reality of the situation is that you’rewashing up, and probably in a nice,warm homely environment, but your

mind is twisting your body up andmaking you feel awful. This happens to us so naturally, that 99%of the time, you won’t even be awarethat it is happening. Because you are soused to being attached to the contents ofyour mind, and being associated withyour thoughts, you won’t normallyrealise that this is happening. It’sautomatic. The first step is to be AWARE of yourthoughts. A great way of doing this is topractice mindful meditation. Allow yourself ten minutes for thisexercise.

Sit down at a table, and put your handsdown flat in front of you. Now just relaxyour body and try to clear your mind. Dothis for a minimum of ten minutes. Everysingle time a thought involuntarily comesinto your head, observe it (but don’tbecome attached to it) and then let it go. What happened? If you’re like most people, you probablystarted thinking after about 2 seconds.You may have started thinking aboutwhat you’re doing, and thinking that youshouldn’t be thinking. Then, after awhile, other random thoughts poppedinto your head. Some of them you could

just observe, and some of them youbecame attached to. You then probably realised that youwere becoming attached, and quickly gotrid of the thought. How did it feel? Did you find that for thefirst time ever, you were aware of yourthoughts without BECOMING yourthoughts? This is something you can practice at anytime. You don’t need to close your eyes,you don’t need to be sat down, and youdon’t need a table. You can just pauseyour hectic mind, and become aware ofwhat is happening in your mind.

When you practice this more and morefrequently, you will find it becomessecond nature to be more in control ofyour mind. This frees your mind up fromnegative thinking, and allows you to justBE. You can then decide on your thoughts. This is healthy thinking. You can choosethe thoughts you have. You can choosethe thoughts you wish to get attached to.You can decide whether or not to allowyourself to become attached to a thoughtyou deem negative. The trick here is to practice this every

day. Sitting at your desk at work,become aware of your thoughts. Drivingdown the street, become aware of yourthoughts. Standing in a queue at a shop,become aware of your thoughts. Practice, practice, practice!! How else can you have healthy thinking? Well you need to think in a healthy wayabout yourself. If you struggle with this, Irecommend One Hour To Positive SelfEsteem, as that book is purely dedicatedto this topic, and will help youmassively. Here are a few ideas though.

Your thoughts are made up of images,sounds, feelings, and inner dialogue. Ifyou can control, or at least start tocontrol these, it will have a massiveimpact on you. The images and moviesyou hold in your mind and your innerdialogue will control your emotions.Your emotions will control how youfeel, and this will control how you actand behave! As it can be the mostdestructive way of thinking, let’s look atinternal dialogue! Internal Dialogue This is the voice in your head. Don’tpretend you don’t have one, as we’ve all

got one. It’s turned on pretty much all ofthe time, and is always there. The voiceyou’re hearing in your mind as you readthis page is your internal dialogue. As described above, you also need tobecome aware of what you are hearingin your head, as well as the images andscenes you play out in your mind. Does your internal dialogue ever put youdown? Does it say things like; “You’resuch an idiot sometimes!”, “It’s notworth going for that promotion, you’llnever get it!”, “Why would a person likethat be interested in you?” If it does, this is not healthy. You can

train your internal dialogue to be morepositive by being aware of what it’ssaying. If you can stop yourselfbecoming attached to the content of whatit’s saying, then this will stop it having anegative effect on you. As soon as you catch it saying somethingyou don’t like, stop it, tell the voice inyour head to be quiet, and then replacethe negative comment with somethingpositive. Over time, this will act likepouring clean water into a glass of dirtywater. The unclean water (thoughts) willeventually make way for clean water(thoughts), and you will no longer havethis problem.

Does your internal dialogue silentlyberate or criticise others? If it does, theprocess is exactly the same. Stop thethought as soon as you become aware ofit, and replace it with another thoughtthat is positive. You will be amazed athow different you begin to feel aboutyourself and others when you stoplistening to everything your mind comesup with!

Chapter 16

Healthy Associations By healthy associations, I am talkingabout people. The people you spendtime with to be more accurate. This includes your friends, your family,your spouse, your children, and yourwork colleagues. We all have people we spend time with.The question you have to ask yourself is:Are they a healthy person to be around?

If, whenever you see a certainindividual, you end up getting drunk, doyou think that’s a healthy association? If, whenever you see another individual,you have great discussions aboutphilosophy and business, do you thinkthat’s a healthy association? If, whenever you see another individual,you take drugs and go out to nightclubs,would you describe that as healthy? If, whenever you see a differentindividual, you go exercising andtraining, would you say that one isbetter?

If you want to know if an association ishealthy or not, just ask yourself thesequestions: One – What you do when you’re withthat person?Two – How do you feel when you leavethat person?Three – How does that person like tospend their time?Four – How does that person treat otherpeople? If the answers to those questions arepositive (and you’ve answered themtruthfully) then it may be a very positiverelationship.

If the answers to those questions arenegative (and you’ve answered themtruthfully), then it may be a destructiverelationship. If it’s a destructive relationship, you maywant to limit your exposure to thatperson. This doesn’t mean that you haveto point out their impact on you and tellthem that you can never see them again.This simply means that you spend lesstime with them. If they invite out to thebar, tell them you have something on andcan’t make it. If the relationship is a positive one, howcan you increase your exposure to thisperson?

Ok, so that’s your current associations.What about associations you’d LIKE tohave? Who would you like to get around thatyou don’t currently know? Is there alocal business club you could join forinspiration and friendship of the positivevariety? Is there a book club where youcould find some friends of like minds? Could you create associations withpeople at work that you admire? Could you find a group online that holdswebinars or teleconferences?

Could you find a mentor? Anyway, you get the picture. Think aboutit, and make a list of your top ten closestacquaintances. Write down how muchtime you spend with them, and how theyaffect you. If it’s positive, then great. Ifit’s negative, then you know what to do!!

Chapter 17

Controlling Your Desires & Impulses So to finish off on Health, let’s look atour desires and impulses. I don’t mean our natural desires, such asfood, water, shelter, love etc. I’m talking about our desires andimpulses for things such as unhealthyfood, alcohol, spending too much moneyon things we don’t need in order to treatourselves etc…

I always think of our desires andimpulses like the cartoon where there’sa devil on one shoulder telling us to goahead and do something we know weshouldn’t, and an angel on the othershoulder, telling us to be good. Which one do we listen to? How do wecontrol these? Well one technique I use is to ask myselfwho’s in control! I know that this isbasically talking to yourself, but becausewe KNOW we’re talking to ourselves,it’s not a sign of madness! When I feel the urge to stray from thepath, and have a cheesecake, or miss my

exercises, or eat some meat instead of anice healthy vegetarian meal, I askmyself the question ‘Who’s in controlhere? Me, or my desires?’ And although my desires do win fromtime to time, normally I win. I canoverride the desire to have/do what Iknow I shouldn’t (cheesecake is thehardest battle). This happened just this evening. It wasnice and warm in my house, and it wasfreezing cold outside. I have set myselfsome exercise goals this year, and one ofthem is to run a certain number of miles.I needed to run tonight, but because itwas so cold, my mind (the devil side),

was telling me not to go out. ‘It’s toocold, you can go tomorrow’. As soon asI became aware that my mind was tryingto trick me out of my run, I got mytrainers on, and went for it. Again, you have to remember to use thistrick which is the difficult part, but themore you practice being aware of yourthoughts, the easier it will get to becomemore and more in control of your(negative) desires. Another method of controlling yourdesires and impulses, is to becomepresent. When you feel yourself reallywanting to do something that you knowyou either shouldn’t, or is self

destructive, you can try this. Just stop where you are, stop whatyou’re doing, and concentrate on yourbreathing. Just become aware of your‘in’ breath, and then aware of your ‘out’breath. Don’t think about your breathing,just become aware of it. This willimmediately interrupt the desire, andallow you the time to start thinking froma place of no desire. When you do this, you will stop thenoise and internal chatter in your head,and immediately gain control of yourselfonce more. This should give you a fewseconds to then make a choice from aplace of calmness, instead of a place of

excited impulsiveness.

Section 3

Wealth

Chapter 18

Money What is money? Money is a means of exchange. It is areward for service rendered. It is alsovery important. Have you ever had a time when you’vehad no money? It wasn’t much fun wasit? I know I’ve certainly experiencedthese times and I didn’t enjoy it verymuch. I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t buyany food. I couldn’t put petrol (gas) in

my car to get to work so had to walk. Whilst money isn’t as important ashealth or happiness, it’s certainly one ofthe most important things in modernsociety. Without it, we cannot pay forhospitals. We cannot go on luxuryholidays. We cannot pave the streets.We cannot buy cars to drive on thestreets. We cannot buy food or water. I think we’d all agree that it’s prettyimportant, but what is it? Well in times of old, money was goldand silver. You would use real money tobuy goods and services. These days,money isn’t made of gold and silver; it’s

made of paper. If you went into a shoptoday and tried to pay for something withgold coins, they’d probably think youwere a bit mad. Money is basically acommon means of exchange that can beused by all people. Because money is regulated and comesin standardised formats (you can’t spenda £17/$17 note), it can be used byeveryone and understood easily. Money is neutral. It doesn’t care whoyou are or what you do. It will come tothe housekeeper just as easily as it willcome to the CEO if you follow thesimple rules of making, and growingyour money.

Money is worthless in and of itself. It isonly the things you can DO with moneythat make it valuable. Money is a game. You either win, or youlose. If you can accumulate more money,you are winning. If you are getting intodebt, you are losing. Money cannot be fooled, but you canfool yourself about how you are doingwith your money. It’s easy to kidyourself that you’re making progresswhen you’re actually getting further intodebt. So you can kid yourself, but youcan’t kid money.

Money is a choice giver. If you havemoney you have choices. Where can Igo? What can I buy? Who can I treat?What charities can I contribute to? Whatexperiences can I enjoy? If you have nomoney you can’t choose where to go outto eat. You can’t choose where to shop,or what experiences you’d like to enjoy. Money is nice to have. If you’ve gotmoney in the bank, you have a feeling ofsecurity. It gives you a sense of safety asyou know that you could handle theemergencies of life. Money is easily lost. Protect it. Protect itfrom yourself and your own poor habits.Protect it from those that would take it

from you, either legally or illegally. Money is abundant. We won’t run out ofmoney, and you can always make more.Money can be created out of an idea, soin essence, money can come to you outof thin air (kind of)! Money is time. If you have ten yearsworth of income in a safe investment,this means that you could lose yoursource of income and survive ten years. Money is good. People that say thatmoney is the root of all evil are verymuch mistaken. You can only createmoney by offering a product or serviceto others. 99 times out of 100 this

product or service is a positive one. Iwould say that poverty is the root of allevil, which is a lack of money. Peopledon’t tend to burgle houses when theyare wealthy. Poor people are far morelikely to do this.

Chapter 19

Habits

Your money habits will either make orbreak you financially. Your financialfuture is determined by how much youearn, and then what you do with thatmoney. People that earn millions everyyear can soon go bankrupt if they spendmillions every year. People that earntwenty thousand a year can becomewealthy if they spend less than they makeand invest the difference. People that have won tens of millions on

the lottery that weren’t financiallyliterate have become broke within a fewshort years. This is because of theirhabits. What are your money habits? Do yousave ten percent of what you earn everymonth? Do you spend over your meansevery month because you have to havethe latest gadget? Do you invest in soundinvestments? Do you gamble all of yourmoney at the casino or bookmakers? Here’s one habit you should start: Keepstrict accounts every month so that youknow where all of your money is going. Here’s one habit you should stop:

Spending money on credit cards. I knowthis one is difficult, especially if you’reused to treating yourself all of the time,but you have to stop it. Creating habits takes time, but if yousincerely want to change your financiallife, you must do it. What are the habitsof people that are broke? Let’s have alook (I used to be one of them so I knowthese pretty well). Broke People’s Habits Spending more than they earn. If youearn £20,000 a year, and spend £24,000a year, how much money can youaccumulate? The answer is zero. Also,

not only can you accumulate zero, youwill be in debt for the rest of your life ifyou don’t change this habit. Having unnecessary expenses. Forexample, cable or satellite TV,expensive gym or club memberships,owning cars they can’t really afford withmassive monthly payments, going out forexpensive meals. You get the picture. Not keeping accounts. If you don’t knowhow much you’re spending onrent/mortgage, gas/electric, utilities,food, petrol, taxes, paying off debt, etc,then how will you know what to cut outor reduce?

Trying to look rich. This is a big one.Did you know that most of the expensivewatches are sold to people that aren’twealthy? The most popular watch forAmerican millionaires is a Seiko. Sowho’s buying all of the Rolex’s? Thepeople that are trying to look rich that’swho. Don’t be one of them (unless youare rich!) Not planning. If you want something,then plan and save for it. Set yourself agoal of when you want it, then work outhow you can afford it and start planningand saving. Relying on their sole source of incomefor all of their income. If you only get

paid from your job, you’re risking all ofyour income from one place. Createsome more sources of income! Wasting time. This is the biggest one. Ifyou’re wasting your time, you can neverget it back. Are you going to the pubinstead of working on a business idea?Are you sat in front of the TV instead oflearning new skills? Are you spendingall of your time socialising, instead ofplanning your future and beingproductive? If you are, you will staywhere you are. You’re either climbingor you’re sliding. You can’t waste timeAND move forward. You have to useyour time productively to move youtowards your goals.

Wealthy People’s Habits Planning where they are going to puttheir money, and what they are going todo with their money. Allocating ittowards things that will improve theirlife situation, and making sure they knowwhere their money is going. Being productive with their time. Youwon’t find many wealthy peoplewatching soap operas four nights aweek. They will be doing something tomake their life better. This could becreating or working on a business. Itcould be exercising. It could beinventing a new way of doing business,

or finding new customers. This doesn’tmean that wealthy people never relaxand never have fun; it just means thatthey don’t spend major time on minorthings. Spending less than they earn. Mostwealthy people will have a savings plan,and save a minimum of 10% of theirincome on a monthly/weekly basis. Not using credit unless it’s to buy assets.Most wealthy people like to spend cashrather than credit. They know that if youuse credit, everything you buy costsmore money as you’re paying interest onit. A TV that costs £500 costs £500 ifyou pay cash. If you buy it on credit over

3 years at a 20% interest rate, it willcost you £668. Same TV, different price. They buy assets instead of liabilities. Anasset is something that can provide anincome or provide capital growth orboth. If you buy a car, that is a liabilityas it costs you money. If you buy a taxi,that is an asset as it makes you money. Ifyou buy a holiday home, it is a liabilityas it costs you money. If you buy a buy-to-let home, that is an asset as it makesyou money. They control their expenses. Even thoughthey can afford the best, they don’t feelas though they have to join the bestclubs, or drive the most expensive cars,

or wear the most expensive clothes.They are more focussed on becoming,and staying wealthy, than lookingwealthy. Paying themselves first. This means thata part of all they earn they keep. Keep insavings, or investments. This shouldnormally be 10% or more. This alsomeans that you do it EVERY time youget money, whether it’s earned, given,inherited, won etc. Keeping strict accounts. Wealthy peopleknow what they are doing with theirmoney, and where it’s going. That’s whythey’re wealthy.

Which of your habits do you need tochange? Let’s create a strategy!

Chapter 20

Wealth Strategy Ok, so let’s start where you are rightnow. The most important thing for you todo is to get out of debt. Debt is a siphonhose on your income. If you earn £2,000a month, and have to pay £750 a monthout to your creditors, your life will behard. If you earn £2,000 a month, andyou have to pay zero money out to yourcreditors, life will be so much easier. Let’s look at your financial situationright now.

Take a sheet of paper, and draw avertical line down the centre of the page.Now cross it with a horizontal lineacross the centre of the page. You shouldnow have four squares or rectangles ofapproximately the same size. In the top left hand square, at the top, andin the centre, write the word Income, andunderline it. In the top right hand square, at the top,and in the centre, write the wordExpenses, and underline it. In the bottom left hand square, at the top,and in the centre, write the word Assets.

In the bottom right hand square, at thetop, and in the centre, write the wordLiabilities. In the Income grid, make a list of all ofyour monthly income that you are due forthe month following this one. Thisshould include any income from yourmain source (job), any part time work,any sales you make on eBay forexample, and any other money that youare due to receive. This includes thingssuch as benefits or child support forexample. In the Expenses column, write a list ofeverything you are due to pay out next

month. This should include everything.Mortgage, rent, taxes, credit cardpayments, loan payments, insurances,satellite TV, gas and electric, utilities,mobile phone. Now total up the sums from these gridsand you should have two totals. 1 –Income total. 2 – Expenses total. Nowwork out the balance. Deduct your totalExpenses from your total Income. Thisshould be a positive number (forexample £500). If it’s a negativenumber, you’re in real trouble. Now in your assets grid, make a list ofeverything you have that is an asset. Anasset can only be something that you own

that either makes you money, or can besold quickly for money. Your own homeshould not go into this grid, as youcannot sell your home as you’d behomeless. Now total them up. Now do exactly the same thing with yourliabilities. A liability is anything that canbe paid off. A mortgage can be paid offso should go in there. Rent cannot bepaid off, so shouldn’t go in there. Carloans, bank loans, credit cards, paydayloans. All of these should go into thisgrid. Now total these up.

Now deduct your liabilities from yourassets as you did earlier. This is yourtotal net worth (we’re only speakingeconomically here). Your worth as ahuman being is unlimited, but you needto know where you’re at financially. This is your starting point. Now you need a strategy to turn thesenumbers into your favour. There are twothings to look at. Cash flow, and networth. Cash flow is how your money flows inand out each month. This needs to bepositive if you are to get ahead.

Net Worth is what you are actuallyworth from a financial point of view. Get your cash flow up first, and thenbuild your net worth. This is the gamethat you need to play for the rest of yourlife.

Building Your Cash Flow

There are two ways to increase yourcash flow (making your income higherthan your expenses). One is to increase your income, and theother is to decrease your expenses. Myadvice is to do both at the same time. There are many ways to increase yourincome. Without going into too muchdetail, as there are many books aboutstarting a home-based business, I’mgoing to give you some suggestions. Theidea of this section is just to wake your

mind up to the possibilities One – Go for a promotion in your job. Ifthis means you need some more skills,then go and get them. If it means youneed to move out of your comfort zone,then do it. If it means you need to buildsome new relationships, then go for it! Two – Build an online business. Thiscould be selling something. It could bebuilding an online blog. It could mean aneBay business. It could be creating awebsite that pays you throughadvertising. Three – Sell some of your unwantedstuff on eBay or Gumtree. Give yourself

a goal of selling £100 worth a month forexample. I’m sure you’ve got stuff youdon’t need any more. Somebody outthere will buy it from you. You couldalso set yourself a goal of buying andselling from car boot sales on eBay,with a profit of £100 per month just toget you started. Four – Reduce your debts. If you can payoff some of your debts (or better still allof them), then will have a massiveimpact on your expenses, and thus yourcash flow. If you’re currently paying£600 a month on loan/car/credit cardrepayments, doing this will make you£600 a month better off. This is justsimple maths.

Five – Invent something and license it toa company. If you can create a solutionto an everyday problem, someone willpay you for that idea. If you license it tothem, they will pay you a royalty. Thiscould be a monthly royalty, a quarterlyroyalty, or an annual one. Either way, itwill help your cash flow. Sell information. What do you know alot about? I bet you have someknowledge or skills that other peoplewould pay to get their hands on. Createan ebook/CD/MP3/Podcast/DVD on it,and sell it. Advertise it in industryspecific magazines or websites. With thequality of free software available today,

anyone can create a product fromscratch. The only limit to the ideas is yourimagination. I currently have severalwebsites that make me small sums ofmoney each month. But the beauty of itis, I don’t have to work to get thatmoney. I’ve done the work, and nowthey pay me whether I’m sat at mycomputer, sleeping, or out having fun.This can take a bit of time to learn, but ithas to be better than watching crappy TVright? Decreasing Your Expenses Again, this, if done correctly will pay

big dividends. I see a lot of people thatare broke within a week of getting paid.When I ask what they’ve been up to, theytell me about the wild weekend they hadwhere they spent hundreds of pounds onshopping, clothes, and going out. Do youdo this? If so, you’re eroding your futurewealth. Every penny you spend onunimportant things doesn’t just cost youwhat the item/experience cost. It alsocosts you the interest you could haveearned if you had invested that money. Here are some things you can do todecrease your expenses. Keep a strict budget. If you know whereevery pound or dollar you spend goes,

you are more likely to be frugal withyour purchases. Try this: For one month,take a little note book out with youeverywhere you go. Every time youspend any money at all (even 50p on acup of tea), write it down. This willaccomplish two things. One, you willsee exactly where all of your money isgoing. Two, it will stop you spending onthings you don’t need as you will have totake your notebook out every time, andthis will put you off. The trick to this is to make sure you do itconsistently. If you have a joint account,then you need to both do it, otherwiseone of you could end up continuing tocause financial difficulties, and the other

could be trying to make things better.You can’t fix what you can’t see. The next thing you need to do, is gothrough your bank account/accounts, andsee where you can cut back. Are youstill paying for breakdown insurance onthe TV you bought eight years ago, andjust haven’t gotten around to cancelling?Are you paying £100/$100 for satelliteTV when you could cut down on some ofyour channel subscriptions and pay£40/$40 instead? Do you shop around for things likeinsurance, or do you just renew withyour current company? If so, you couldbe paying a lot more than you need to.

Are you paying high interest rates on anycards/loans? Can you reduce them? You can write to your creditors andrequest a reduced monthly payment.Quite often, they will do this for you. Ihad to do this in my early twenties, andevery single one of the financialinstitutions I contacted agreed to reducemy payments. Most of them also agreedto suspend the interest temporarily aswell. Write a list of all the things you HAVEto buy each month. This should includemortgage/rent, gas/electric, phone, food,transport, clothing (the ones you need,not £300 jeans), taxes, etc. Anything that

isn’t on the list, create a small budget forand try to stick to it. Make sure thatpaying yourself first to create futurewealth is on this list. Stop “Treating” yourself. Just becauseyou’ve had a bad day or a bad week,doesn’t mean you need to go out andspend a load of money to make yourselffeel better. Make yourself feel betterwith a nice hot bath, and some relaxingmusic. If you go and spend a load ofmoney that you can’t afford to lose, (oreven worse, put it on the credit card),you will actually feel worse because youKNOW you shouldn’t have done it! Formen, this often means spending time atthe pub drowning your sorrows with

your mates. All you’re really doing isdrowning your future wealth. Ok, so now you’ve built up a bit of cashflow, what are you going to do with it? You’re going to save it. Your goalshould be to save no less than 10% ofyour net income each month. If yourmonthly income is £1,500 after tax, youshould aim to save £150. If your incomeis £5,000, you should aim to save £500.Put this money somewhere that you can’tjust take it out as soon as you get theurge to go on holiday or something. Ifyou can find an account where you haveto give 7 days notice, then perfect. Youcan’t just take it out because you fancy a

night out on the town. I appreciate that not everybody will beable to do this straight away. If you can’tthen that’s fine. If you have to start withsaving 1% and build it up, then at leastyou have started. You’re on your way! The aim of this exercise is to startincreasing your net worth. Every timeyou put a little bit of money aside; yournet worth is going up. Every time youpay off a portion of your debt, your networth is going up. If you have a computer, keep all of thisinformation on a simple spreadsheet sothat you can track your progress. It gets

very exciting when you start to see yourassets increase, your debts decrease, andyour net worth going up. It motivates youto keep going and keep building.

Chapter 21

Asset Allocation Asset allocation is just a fancy way ofsaying “Where I’m keeping my money”. If you imagine taking all of your savingsand investment money, and dividing itinto two pots. Pot one is your safety pot.This is where your money grows slowly,but is safe. A Cash ISA (UK) is anexample of a safe investment. Theinterest is low, but your money isprotected.

The other pot is your growth pot. This iswhere your money can grow a lot faster,but is higher risk. You can lose yourmoney in this pot. You need to decide on your attitude torisk, but my advice is to never keep lessthan 40% of your money in the SAFEpot. If you have £1,000 to invest, keep£400 minimum in a safe, low interest(high interest if you can find it) account.The other £600 you can invest ininvestments that can pay you a muchhigher return. Before I discuss where to invest, I amNOT giving you investment advice. Ifyou go and put all your money into a

poor investment and lose it all, don’tcontact me and ask me to cough up,asit’s not going to happen! � Here are some of the things I recommendyou do when investing your money. One – Only invest in things youunderstand. If you don’t understandsomething, how can you know it willreturn your money? If you choose toinvest in stocks, find out everything youcan about the company. Who runs it?What do they do? What sort of businessis it? How do they make their money?Who are their customers? How do theyinvest their profits? Are they likely to bearound in ten years? If not, why not?

Two – Only invest what you can afford,or are comfortable losing. All growthinvestments carry some risk. If thethought of losing your money makes youfeel sick, put it somewhere safer. Three – Know the difference betweeninvesting and gambling. Putting all ofyour money into a stock because yourmate told you it was going to be good isnot investing. It’s gambling. I know allabout this as I’ve done exactly thatmyself. There was a great oil companythat were about to make it big time. I putseveral hundred pounds into it, only towatch that money slowly shrink by theweek. It still hasn’t recovered.

Four – Invest in things that you can exitquickly. If you invest in a buy-to-letproperty, it can take you years to sell it.If you invest in a stock, it takes a coupleof days or so to get out of the deal. Five – Invest for the long term. Anotherone of my (many) mistakes was gettinginto day trading. Again, I lost my money.Put your money where it will grow overtime, rather than trying to make a killingin two hours. Six – Compound your money. If you findsomething that is working, reinvest yourprofits. If you’re always moving yourmoney about, you won’t be able to take

advantage of the compound interest. Seven – Watch your investments, butdon’t stress about them. Keep an eye onthem and make sure they’re doing whatthey should be, but if the market dipsevery now and then, this is normal anddon’t panic.

Chapter 22

Savings & Investing The root of your investments will besavings. I’ve said this already, but inorder for you to be able to invest, youneed some money. In order for you tohave some money, you need to savesome. In order for you to save somemoney, you need to not spend it. Thismeans that you need to spend LESS thanyou MAKE. Once you’ve sorted out your expensesand are able to put some money aside,

you need to do this. You want to aim forten percent, but if it’s less, at leastyou’ve started. So stage one is to actually start. If youdon’t take this first step, your financialfuture is unlikely to ever change. I’d suggest you set up a standing order ora direct debit so that on payday, yourmoney goes straight out of your account.If you don’t see the money, you A)Won’t miss it, and B) Won’t be temptedto spend it. If you just leave the money inyour account for a week or two, I canguarantee that something will come upthat needs that money. The washingmachine will break down, or you’ll see

some gadget that you just have to have. Save yourself £1,000/$1,000 and thenstart putting your money into yourallocated finance pots. Remember, keepa minimum of 40% in your safety pot. Set up an online or telephone stockbroker account and start investing.You’ll soon learn the ropes of how toplace trades, how to purchase funds, andhow to sell them. Now watch them grow or shrink invalue, and make your decisions based onwhat you’re seeing, and how you’refeeling. Remember, just because yourshare/fund is going down in value, it

doesn’t mean the company/fund isbecoming less investable. You need todo your research before making buyingand selling decisions. There are otherbooks a lot more specific than this one todo this, so I won’t go into too muchdetail now, but I would just like toexplain the concept of dollar costaveraging, as it’s a useful one tounderstand. Dollar Cost Averaging Let’s say that you decide that you willinvest £100/$100 every month into afund on the stock market. Every month you take your £100/$100

and invest it in the same fund. Somemonths, the stock market likes your fundso says that each share in your fund isworth £1/$1. This means that on thatparticular month, you purchase 100shares. The following month, there is a nationaldip in stock prices, but your fund is stilljust as valuable as it was last month.However, due to the dip in stock prices,your fund is now valued at £0.50/$0.50.That means that this month you havebeen able to purchase 200 shares in thatfund. You now have 300 shares. The following month there is a bullmarket, and the shares are up to £2/$2

each. So unfortunately, your £100/$100only buys you 50 shares this month. This is the concept of dollar coastaveraging. Your money will purchasedifferent quantities of shares each month,depending on the price of your shares.So if the market is lower (providingyour fund is still good) you will simplybuy more shares in that month. This isone of the ways your holdings will growover time as over the months and years,the stock should increase in value.

Chapter 23

Pensions When I was young, I wasn’t reallyinterested in setting up a pension. Ithought I was too young, and was nevergoing to get to retirement age. However,that soon changes. Now I wouldn’t bewithout a pension fund for myretirement. If you work for a medium to large sizecompany, there is a very good chancethat they will have a company pensionscheme. Most companies will contribute

to your pension, whether or not you putanything in yourself. What this means in layman’s terms is:THEY WILL GIVE YOU FREEMONEY FOR YOUR RETIREMENT.What a bonus!! All you have to do issign a few pieces of paper, and they willput a percentage of everything you earninto a pension fund for your future. The way pensions work (at the time ofwriting and in the UK) is this: Most pensions operate with fundssimilar to the pot theory I describedearlier. They will allocate your moneyinto low risk/low return, medium

risk/medium return, and high risk/highreturn pots. You can also choosedifferent types of funds such as realestate, retail, or international funds thatinvest in companies from othercountries. You normally get a choice offunds/risk levels. There is normally a management fee thatthe company that runs your pension willcharge, but it’s normally so small thatit’s not worth worrying about. When you reach retirement age, you caneither take your pension fund as a fullpension that is paid monthly, or you cantake a proportion of your fund as a tax-free lump sum, and a smaller monthly

pension. The choice is up to you. I would strongly recommend that youalso contribute to your pension fund ifyou have the option. A lot of firms willmatch your contribution up to a certainamount, so if for example, you put 7% ofyour wages into a pension, your firmwill match that 7%. This means that 14%of your wages goes into your pensionfund, and it only costs you 7%. Soundslike a good deal to me! The other benefit of contributing is thatyour contributions are deductedBEFORE tax. So you’re not paying taxon that portion of your income. Also,they take the money out at source, so you

won’t miss it, as it’s never hit your bankaccount. Obviously, this is an overly simplifieddescription of how a pension works, butit gives you the gist of it without havingto read a lot of boring brochures orworkbooks.

Chapter 24

Insurance Insurance is designed to protect youfrom the pitfalls that can naturally befallus all. Home insurance protects yourhome, car insurance protects your car,and financial insurance protects yourfinances. You should always make sure you haveenough insurance to put you back into thesame position you are in now. If you own gold – insure it.

If you own properties – insure them.If you own jewellery or stamps – insurethem.If you own ideas – insure them. Get themprotected.If you own shares in companies – you’llneed to be your own insurance agent andkeep an eye on them. You can’t insurethem unfortunately. Life insurance is one of the mostimportant things you can do for yourfamily. I’ve known of two men that werethe parents of friends that died with zerolife insurance. Their families werealready devastated that they had losttheir husband and father, so having noincome, or way to pay the mortgage

added to the woe and heartache. Losinga loved one is the worst thing that canhappen, but being forced out of yourhome because there was no insurance inplace just compounds it. Life insurance can be purchased fairlycheaply, and you should always haveenough to look after your family and payoff your mortgage if you have one. If youdon’t, you should make sure you haveenough insurance to pay your family’sbills for several years. Whilst insurance can be seen as boring,you can’t underestimate how valuable itis in the event of a loss. Unless you’re sowealthy you could just replace anything

you own out of your bank balance, youneed to get some!

Chapter 25

Time Time is something we all have in equalamounts. There are 24 hours in the dayfor the wealthy, and there are 24 hours inthe day for the poor. You cannot get anymore, and once you’ve spent it, it’sgone. This is why it’s important to start theprocess of building your future securityTODAY! Don’t wait and put things offlike I did at the start of my adulthood. Ifyou’re 16 years old and just started out

making money, and if you follow thesimple steps in this book, you could bewealthy and debt free by 40. If you’re 40and reading this book and you haven’tstarted yet, you need to get on with it. Just as a couple of examples, let’s lookat how money compounds over time. If you’re 16 years old, and you startsaving £150/$150 per month now, andinvest it at a return of 6%, by the timeyou’re 40 years old, you’d have£96,167. You’d have only actuallysaved £43,200, so you’re getting£53,000 interest on your money. If you carried on investing that

£150/$150 per month until age 65, you’dhave £533,333. Your actual savingswere £88,200, so £445,000 wasinterest! How good is that? If you started investing at 16, andstopped investing at age 40, and left your£96,167 in the bank and forgot about ituntil you retired at age 65, how much doyou think you would have? £429,382.Now can you see why you should startimmediately? If you’re 40 years old and you startinvesting £150/$150 per month nowuntil retirement age of 65, you’d have£103,949. £45,000 was the value of theactual money that you put aside yourself.

Can you see why it’s better to startyoung? For a 40 year old to accumulate£533,333 by retirement age, they’d needto invest £770 per month at 6% interestuntil they retire. The other thing about time is how youspend it. I’ve already mentioned in thissection that wealthy people don’t wastetime. They spend it wisely. What if,instead of watching TV for six hours perweek, you used that time to find somegood investments? If you could turn your6% interest to 9%, your £150/$150invested over 49 years would grow to£1,598,535. Would that extra millionpounds be worth spending a few hours a

week on? What if you spent those few hours perweek making, and investing £100 extraper month? Still investing at the lower6%, your pot would now be £888,889.It’d be worth an additional £350,000 toyou. So here are the key messages from thischapter on time: Start NOWUse your time wisely to maximise yourreturns.

Chapter 26

Wills Here’s another boring but importantsubject. Wills. Approximately 55% of people in the USdie without a will. I would imagine thatthe numbers in the UK are fairly similar. If you die without a will, the governmentwill decide who gets your money. Howdo you feel about that?

If your parents have died, and you’re notmarried, and have no children, yoursiblings will get your money. If you haveno siblings, and nobody legally hasclaim to your estate, the government cantake the lot. Does this sound like an ideal situation toyou? If not, I recommend getting a will. You can actually purchase legallybinding wills in the newsagents for afew pounds. Solicitors offer will-writing services for very low fees thesedays as well.

If you go onto Google, and type in will-writing services in “your home town”,you will find countless solutions. I’vejust found one for £36, which is less thanit costs for a decent meal out for twopeople. Again, this is a small fee, butcould save your loved ones a lot ofhassle and pain later on down the road.

Chapter 27

Multiple Sources Of Income One of the habits of the wealthy is tocreate, or have, multiple sources ofincome. If you have one job, and that is whereyou earn all of your money, there areonly a few ways you can increase yourearning capacity. One – Work more hours. Do youREALLY want to do that?Two – Get a promotion. This is a good

idea, but the extra money could comewith more pressure and more timecommitment.Three – Earn bonuses or commissions. All three of these require you to be atwork in order for you to make moremoney. If you’re not there, you won’t bemaking more commissions, you won’t begetting paid for more hours, and you’reless likely to get that promotion. What if you had a website that made youmoney whilst you slept? You wake upevery morning and discover that you’vemade more money. What if you had abook out that was selling copies all overthe world whilst you were out having fun

with your family? Would that be a goodidea? What if you had inventedsomething that paid you a commissionevery time it was used or sold. Wouldthat be useful? There are so many ways to makeadditional income these days that I’m notgoing to list them here. Needless to saythat once you decide to do it, you justneed to get on and find out how. I’ve built several websites and I didn’thave a clue how to do it. So I learned.I’ve written several books. Before Iwrote my first book, guess what… Iwasn’t an author and had no idea whatpeople would think of my writing. Now I

sell books every day whilst I’m asleep,and I don’t even think twice about it.What was once the unknown soonbecomes the common place. If you’re scared of the unknown, youhave to move past the fear and takeaction. If you want to create things thatmake you money, then you have toSTART. If you don’t start, then you’llnever do it. Also, you have to accept the fact that alot of what you’re going to do won’twork. But that’s normal. That’s how it’ssupposed to happen. If it can be fixed,then fix it. If not, just say “Next”, andmove on to the next idea. Get some help,

get some coaching, and keep working onit until you find something you can besuccessful at. If you find a way to make£0.10 in passive income you’re on yourway to growing that number. Most people will never do these things.Here’s a quote that I saw on twitter theother day, and it sums up everything inthe last two sections. “Today I will do what others will not,so that tomorrow I can do what otherscannot”. Memorise this and make it your mantra.Most people won’t take the action. Theywon’t take the failures and learn from

them. They won’t take the pain ofspending hours or days on a project tosee it not work. They won’t spend thehours building something worthwhile,instead of sitting in front of the TV. Areyou one of them? I didn’t think you were! One word of warning. Be careful ofscams that promise you’ll get rich quick.If they offer a ready made website, guesshow many other people have that exactsame website? If they say that theirsystem involves no work, then itprobably involves no income either.Always check reviews of opportunitiesyou find online. My advice is to createyour own opportunity by using yourawesome mind!

Chapter 28

Reading – Find The Solutions

The information I’ve provided here isjust the tip of the iceberg. There are somany different strategies to becomingwealthy, prosperous, or whatever termyou prefer to name your financialfreedom. And here’s what’s interesting; Hundredsof wealthy or financially successfulpeople have written their stories downin books. All you have to do is go andread them. Would a book that cost

£10/$10 be a good investment if readingit helped you to make £10,000/$10,000? I’d say that it would. Here are a few books I’d start with: 7 Strategies For Wealth And Happiness– Jim RohnRich Dad Poor Dad – Robert KiyosakiThe Richest Man In Babylon – GeorgeClasonThe Millionaire Next Door – ThomasStanley & William DankoThe Millionaire Mind – Thomas StanleyHow To Get Rich – Felix DennisOne Hour To Managing Your Money –Simon Smith

Risky Is The New Safe – Randy GageThe Snowball – Warren BuffettThe Real Deal – James CaanAnyone Can Do It – Duncan BannatyneWhat You See Is What You Get – AlanSugarAnything You Want – Derek SiversOne Simple Idea – Stephen Key Above are 14 books. If you read one permonth, do you think you may have a fewmore ideas next year? I think you wouldhave lots! Could you pick these books upfairly cheaply? I’m going to go ontoAmazon right now and find out! Be backin a minute. Whoops, shouldn’t have done that, I’ve

just purchased another 8 books, for thegrand sum of £2.32 plus shipping for thelot. So here is what you would pay today forthe books I’ve just mentioned (today isthe 9th March 2013) 7 Strategies For Wealth And Happiness– Jim Rohn - £2.99Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki -£0.01The Richest Man In Babylon – GeorgeClason £0.33The Millionaire Next Door – ThomasStanley & William Danko - £0.03The Millionaire Mind – Thomas Stanley- £0.01

How To Get Rich – Felix Dennis £0.01One Hour To Managing Your Money –Simon Smith £2.97Risky Is The New Safe – Randy Gage -£8.20The Snowball – Warren Buffett - £1.50The Real Deal – James Caan - £0.01Anyone Can Do It – Duncan Bannatyne£0.01What You See Is What You Get – AlanSugar - £0.01Anything You Want – Derek Sivers -£4.32One Simple Idea – Stephen Key - £7.45 So for the grand sum of £27.85 (plusshipping) you could have a years worthof books that are written by people with

a collective wealth of over 30 billiondollars. In these books, they tell youexactly what they did, and do to makemoney. Two of the books are written bya professor that spent 15 years surveyingmillionaires to see exactly how theythink, and what they do. Could that be agood exchange? 30 Billion dollars worthof ideas for less than £30? Start building your library!

Section 4

Inner Peace

Chapter 29

Inner Peace Inner peace comes to those that arehappy with who they are, what they do,and what they have. This can be summed up in one word.Gratitude. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’tstrive to have, become, and do more asthat is what the majority of this book isabout, but what I AM saying is thatHOW you go about this is what’s

important. The Buddha said that inner peace wouldonly come about when we could get ridof desire, as desire leads to craving, andcraving leads to dissatisfaction andworry. If you’re grateful for what youhave, whilst working positively towardswhat you want, then you may alsoachieve inner peace. If you’re workingto achieve more but stressing out aboutit, hurting people in the process, andworrying about not getting what youwant to, you will never have innerpeace. If you worry about money, you willnever have inner peace. Work to create

your streams of income, but don’t worrythat they may not work. Concentrate onthe process of DOING and LEARNING,not of getting. If you worry that you’re not losingweight quickly enough, you will neverhave inner peace. Concentrate on theprocess of exercising (doing) and theprocess of saying NO (being presentenough to realise that you are making achoice) to the things you know youshould. If you worry that yourhusband/wife/children aren’t exactlyhow you want them to be, then you willnever have inner peace. Concentrate on

the things you love about them. Thinkabout how loving they are, how kind,how appreciative, how fun. If you focus on how you’re not perfect,you will never have inner peace. Thereis no such thing as perfection in aperson, so why should you be anydifferent? Everybody makes mistakes,and everybody has things aboutthemselves that they don’t particularlylike. Just focus on your positives. Makea list of them, and refer to themwhenever you feel yourself feeling downabout yourself. Read One Hour ToPositive Self Esteem for more ideas. Here’s one way to gain inner peace.

Always be present in the moment. Thistakes massive practice, especially whenyou’re completing tasks on autopilotsuch as driving, washing up, hanging outthe washing. If you focus 100% on the task you arecompleting, there is no room in yourmind to be worrying about things thatmight happen/might not happen/didhappen/didn’t happen/should havehappened/shouldn’t have happened. Did you notice the language in the lastsentence? Might happen/might not happen/didhappen/didn’t happen/should have

happened/shouldn’t have happened. What do you notice about this list? Every one of them is happening in yourmind. Even the ones that DID happen arestill happening again IN YOUR MIND.If you don’t think about them, they aren’thappening any more. Your mind is verycreative, and can conjure up all sorts ofdisasters, but is this the best use of yourtime and mind? I think we’d both agreethat it’s not. How do you stop it fromhappening then? There’s a simple (but not always easy)three-step process for doing this. Here itis:

One – Become aware of your thoughts.The easiest way to do this is to be awareof your feelings. If you’re feelingnervous, anxious, worried, angry, bitter,guilty, or any of these negative feelingsthen you’re more than likely focussed onone of these areas (might happen/mightnot happen/did happen/didn’thappen/should have happened/shouldn’thave happened). As soon as you becomeaware of this, move onto step two. Two – As soon as you’re aware of whatyou’re doing, focus on your breathing.Focus on your in breath, and then onyour out breath, and focus on the fewseconds of space in between your in and

out breaths. This will immediately stopyour awareness from being on yourthoughts, and put your awareness intoyour body. You will immediately feelbetter. Three – Once you’ve stilled your mindand put your focus back into your body,become fully aware of whatever taskyou are completing. Concentrate on eachaction and nuance of it for as long as youcan. This is it. The more often you practice,the more rapid the results will be, andthe negative feelings/thoughts willbecome less frequent.

Chapter 30

Expectations I remember reading a great book severalyears ago called “Expect Nothing: A ZenGuide” by Clarice Bryan. The basic premise of the book is that youcan avoid disappointment in your life bylearning to remove your expectations. Let’s have a real life example. Let’s sayyou invite a friend over for dinner.You’ve spent hours making it andpreparing it, and you’ve tasted it and it

tastes amazing. One thing that isconcerning you however is that yourfriend is ALWAYS late. You find it veryfrustrating. They are late when you pickthem up for an engagement, they are latewhen they are picking you up for anengagement, and they are late when theyarrange to meet you somewhere. So you have this dilemma. You arelooking forward to your friend comingover and enjoying dinner with you, but ifthey are late it could put a dampener onthe evening as in your map of the world,being late demonstrates a lack ofrespect. Now you have several things you can do

here. First, you could let your mind do itsnormal thing and worry about it. This isnot ideal and won’t help you achieveinner peace at this moment in time. Second, you can use the techniquelearned in the previous chapter tocontrol your state. Three, you can alter your expectations. Ifyou decide in advance that your friendwill probably be late, you can decideright now how to feel about it when ithappens. You could say to yourself thatit doesn’t matter. You can say to yourselfthat the dinner will taste just as good no

matter what time they arrive. You couldtell yourself that no matter what timeyour friend arrives, you will love heranyway. This removes your inner turmoil. Thisstops you having negative thoughts abouther. You can decide that you will startreading a book or doing something elsethat you enjoy at the time they aresupposed to arrive. This way, the laterthey are, the more time you get to enjoywhatever it is you’re doing. Here’s another example. Let’s say thatyour idea of motherhood is to spend lotsof time with your children, visit themevery week, offer to babysit whenever

they want to, and generally be around allthe time for them. But YOUR motherwants to go on holiday, wants to spendtime with her friends, and doesn’t popround every week and offer to babysit.Where is the problem here? It’s with your expectations. Anexpectation is simply another word for adesire. And as we know, unsatisfieddesire is the root of dissatisfaction, anddissatisfaction will always lead youaway from inner peace. If you allowed your mother to be herself,it would be a lovely surprise when shevisits, rather than something you justexpect of her all of the time. Rather than

hold bitterness towards her because shedoesn’t act like you would as a mother,you would just have love for her. Which is better? Now from this explanation, I’m notstating that you should go through lifewith no standards, and no ambition, andno “Wants”, but what I am saying is thatyou shouldn’t become emotionallyattached to them. For example, if youwant to get a new job, you should doeverything in your power to get it. Planyour preparation, think about thequestions you’ll be asked, get a friend orcolleague to put you through some mockinterviews, and do your prep on the role

and the company. Go in fully preparedand ready to wow them, and leave nostone unturned. What you SHOULDN’Tdo though, is base your entire future onthe interview. As soon as you put toomuch emotional energy into it, you areleaving yourself open to getting hurt orbecoming disappointed. There is nothing wrong with beingdisappointed for half an hour or so, but itshouldn’t ruin your day or your week. So in short, you can still make goals, youcan still plan your future, you can stillset out the things you want in life, but tryto eliminate or at the very least reducethe amount of emotional energy to put

into your expectations and attachment tothem. This will help you remain peacefulinside.

Chapter 31

Do What You Love – Find A Passion If you want to be happy, find somethingto be passionate about and do it as muchas you can. I once read a newspaper article aboutwhat made people happy. They looked ata variety of variables: How much money people madeWhat sort of loving relationship they hadWhat type of work they were involved inHow they got on with their children

The relationship they had with theirparents Etc…. The ONE thing that made the biggestdifference to how happy a person was,was whether or not they had a hobby ora passion that they were activelyinvolved in. The study found that peoplewith a hobby or obsession (we’retalking healthy obsession here, not the“Stalker” type) were the happiest. If they had a hobby, or interest that theyregularly participated in, they were morelikely to score higher on the happinesstest (that’s my scientific name for it).

If you enjoy something so much that youlose all track of time when you’reengaged in it, you are more likely to behappy. For me, the three things I enjoydoing that make me lose track of time areplaying the guitar, reading, and writing. If I pick my guitar up and set myself aproper practice schedule, I can literallyplay for hours without stopping.Likewise with writing. If I sit down atmy computer and the words start to flow,I will look up at the clock and see thatthree hours have gone by and I haven’teven noticed. What could you start as a hobby that you

would really enjoy? What did you do asa kid that was fun, that you werepassionate about, that you couldreignite? Did you collect things? Didyou draw? Did you take part in a sportthat you loved? Did you read? Did youtake photographs? With all of the possible fun things thatare available in today’s world, therewill probably be something you wouldlove to do. There are courses bothonline and offline on just about anysubject you’d care to mention. Weird asit may sound, I knew a girl that hadalways had an interest in embalming, butjust thought it was a silly idea. She thenlooked into it, and realised she could

train in it locally. She started the course,and absolutely loved it. When shequalified, she quit her job, and now runsher own funeral directors. No matter how silly or foolish you thinkyou would feel by starting somethingyou’ve always wanted to, you will notbe the first person to ever feel like that.You won’t be the last. This should notstop you in any way, shape or form. I remember when I was young andwanted to play the guitar. I was such ashy kid, and I thought people wouldlaugh at me if I got a guitar, and I nearlydidn’t do it for that reason. So Imentioned it just in passing in front of

my family, and because nobody laughed,I went ahead with the idea. I’m so glad Idid as it’s changed my life. That onedecision to actually start led me to goingon 11 UK tours with my band, playinghundreds of gigs, meeting lots of coolpeople from around the world, andreleasing several albums and EP’s. If I hadn’t taken that first step I wouldnever have had those experiences, and Iwouldn’t have a lot of the friends I havetoday. Write a list of the things you’d like totry. What step could you take TODAY tofind a new hobby or interest? Who doyou know that could point you in the

right direction? What new skill would you like to have?Learn a new language? Play the piano?Learn computer programming or iPhoneApp development? Learn Japanesecooking? I’ll tell you this. In five years time youwill be able to look back at this moment.You will look back and say, “That wasthe day I decided on learning this newskill/acquiring this new ability”, or youwill look back and say “That was theday that I was going to start learning thatnew skill/acquiring that new ability, butI never got started”.

Which would you prefer? 5 years willdefinitely go by no matter what youdecide. Would you rather look back withhappiness at the newskills/experience/ability/friends, or lookback with regret that you never started? Starting a new hobby could change yourlife for the better. It can open up a wholenew world of people, experiences, andfun. It might even make you just a little bithappier. The other beauty of getting good atsomething is that you can then charge foryour services to teach others how to do

it. So you can turn your new hobby into abusiness, or money-making asset. What do you want to do? Are you goingto do it?

Chapter 32

Search For The Answers - Books I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, butbooks are a pretty good way of figuringstuff out. This book may have helped youalong that path? If it didn’t, then I’m surethere are other books that can. One of the things Jim Rohn used to saywas that “It is rare that a good idea willinterrupt you. You must go and find goodideas. Read the books, go to theseminars, listen to the MP3’s”.

This is so true. If there is any skill youwish to acquire, there will be a book onit. If there is a book on it, there isprobably an audio book on it. If there isan audio book on it, you can listen to itwhilst you’re doing other things andlearn as you go about your day. Learningcan be so easy. You just need to find alearning style that works for you. If you spend 30 minutes in the car on theway to work each day, and 30 minutes inthe car on the way home, that is 5 hoursper week that you can learn a new skillor pick up some new ideas. That’s 20hours per month, and 240 hours per year.What could you learn in 240 hours peryear?

All leaders are readers. The world is changing. If you want tokeep up with the moving times, you needto CONSTANTLY re-educate yourself.Ten years ago, you couldn’t send anemail on your phone. Now, I never loginto my email account on my computerbecause everything is on my phone. Five years ago, there was no Kindle.Now you’re reading this book on one.What else is going to change in the nextfive years? If you’re not re-educatingyourself about what’s going on, you willbe left behind.

Whilst there are principles in life thatwill never change, such as honesty,integrity, hard work, and love, the onemajor constant in our day to day lives isthat everything’s changing. Business ischanging. The way we shop is changing.The way we read books is changing(after hundreds of years). The way weentertain ourselves is changing. Learning new things will keep youmoving forward. If you stay the sameyou will not stay where you are, youwill actually move backwards, aseverything else is moving forwards. Can you tell that I think reading andlearning is a good idea?

I just re-read Rich Dad Poor Dad byRobert Kiyosaki, and he talks in thebook about a course he attended on realestate. He said that going on that coursecost him $500, but the information he goton the course has made him in excess of$2,000,000. Was that informationvaluable? I have a goal to learn something newevery day. Even if it’s something verysmall, I try to do it so that I’m bettertoday than I was yesterday. I’m wisertoday than I was yesterday. I have moresolutions today than I did yesterday. Ok, rant over…. Let’s talk about fun!!

Chapter 33

Have FunFun is important. If you’re serious all thetime, then life becomes a bit boring andso do you. I’m sure we all know people that justwork all the time and never seem to lettheir hair down. I wouldn’t suggest youbecome one of these people. We are only here once, and when all issaid and done we’re here for a veryshort time. Make the most of it. When Imeet up with friends that I haven’t seen

for a long time, we remember the goodtimes. We don’t say things like“Remember that time we beat that targetat work”, or “Remember the day whenwe talked about where to invest ourmoney for the best return?” We talk about stupid things we did, orfun times we had. We take the Mickeyout of ourselves for daft things thathappened, or where we nearly got intotrouble. Life needs to be aboutexperiences. The good and the bad. Theserious and the fun. The happy and thesad. It does everybody a bit of good tosometimes just forget about the office, or

the business, forget about paying themortgage, and just be you. But be the funversion of you. When was the last time you reallylaughed until your stomach hurt? Whenwas the last time you went and saw alive comedian, or went to a theme park?When was the last time you spent somemoney on something you wanted just forthe hell of it (don’t use your creditcard)?When was the last time you looked in themirror and pulled some stupid faces atyourself?When was the last time you called up anold friend and just talked about the goodtimes?

When was the last time you didsomething totally unpredictable just forhell of it? A few years ago, and a friend and Istarted a monthly routine called TheEigth Regime. On the 8th of each monthwe had to do something totally random.Whether that was getting a coach up toLondon for the day, and watching afootball match, or catching a show, ithad to be something we wouldn’tnormally do, and it had to be fun. Wehad a great time for about six months,then due to other commitments we had toput a stop to it. But we still talk aboutthose days.

Could you do a similar thing with yourfriends? Spouse? Kids? Make a plan to go and do some funthings as soon as you can, especially ifyou’ve been getting a bit too seriouslately. Get your family involved. Getyour friends involved. Be a kid again.

Chapter 34

Contribution Here’s a quick way to feel good aboutyourself. Go and help another person. If you contribute, you will be happier. Iknow that when I’ve helped anotherperson I have felt great. Whether you’rehelping somebody by coaching them,lending them a hand, supporting themthrough a tough time, giving them advice,or just lending an ear to listen to their

problems, you will feel better. Many Ultra-Rich business people reacha point in their lives where they feel asthough they need to give something back.They realise that contribution is one ofthe most important things in life, and thatgiving back to others not only makesthem feel better, but it changes theworld. My partner used to be a Samaritan.She’d sit in the office, and take callsfrom people just to be able to help. Shesaid it was an amazing experience. You can give your time, your money, oryour expertise. If you’re short of time,

then you can donate to a charity orcharities of your choice. If you’re shortof money, but have plenty of time, youcan volunteer to help others. If you havea skill, you can donate your talents, evenif it’s not often, to help others. Who do you know that could do withsome help or support right now? Who doyou know that would like to learn fromyou? What good causes would you liketo support, but just haven’t had the timeto, or just haven’t gotten around todoing? Could you start contributing in your ownhome? Does your partner struggle withthe housework whilst you watch TV? If

so, get up and help them. Do your kidsfind their homework difficult, but you’retoo busy to help them? Change it. Could you contribute in your road? Doyou have an elderly neighbour that coulddo with some help or assistance? Do youknow somebody locally that could dowith a bit of financial support? Remember, you can always do thingsanonymously if you don’t want people toknow about what you’re doing. Youcould buy someone a book and post it tothem with a note from an “Anonymous”friend. You could do an online shop forthem and put a note in from “Someonethat cares”.

Have a think about what you could do.You’ll feel great if you actually do it.

Chapter 35

Master The Only Thing You Can –Yourself We’ve talked about a lot of things in thisbook so far, but true happiness can beachieved with this one simple principle. Every day, try to become better at whatyou do, and learn to master yourself. If you were the true master of yourselfyou could never be anything but happy,unless you wanted to be.

You would be the master of yourthoughtsYou would be the master of youremotionsYou would be the master of your bodyYou would be the master of yourrelationshipsYou would be the master of yourfinancesYou would be the master of your timeYou would be the master of your destinyYou would be the master of your health 99.999999999999999999% of peoplewill never achieve this. In fact, maybenobody EVER will achieve this, but thecloser you get to this, the happier youwill be.

Create the habits that will lead to yoursuccess. Set aside time for the importantthings. Learn something new every day.Become an expert at something. All this is just a choice. The onlyquestion is, what are you choosing? Are you choosing the best path forYOU? If not, then you can alwayschoose again tomorrow. If you chose thewrong path today, don’t beat yourself up.Just choose a different path tomorrow,or in the next minute. It’s up to you. Youcan change in one second. It’s just adecision. The next time you go to putfood in your mouth, you can decide if

it’s right. The next time you talk to yourkids, you can decide how you want thatinteraction to be. Will you make mistakes? Absolutely.Does everybody make mistakes?Absolutely. Can you correct them? Mostof the time yes. Just be careful of whereyou scatter your feathers. I hope you enjoy the rest of your life. Simon

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