Best Empowering Tools

Yeap, I know. This is a very generic title. But, if you clicked through it, you’re gonna be in for a treat.

Every once in a while, I get to be involved in specific online events. Sometimes it’s about collective projects, sometimes it’s about some interesting memes and sometimes it’s about specific sales events. This post is about one of these sales events. How are these are working? In short, you put together some top-notch experts in a specific niche, and then try to convince them to lower the price of their products, for a very short amount of time, and to create what I call  a “window sale”. In other words, a very appealing value, concentrated in a short time span.

The Package

The sale event I’m part of it now it’s called “Best Empowering Tools” (obviously) and what makes it stand out is the very high level of the participants (i.e. the people who are putting together their best works in this huge package). The sale is hosted by Barrie Davenport, from the LiveBoldAndBloom fame and Stephanie Wetzel from TradingPounds.com. I was kinda late to the party, so you won’t see my face in their nice web wall there (like you don’t get to see my face enough on this very blog or Twitter/Facebook, doh ). But you will see my products, down there, on the 25th spot.

I’m contributing not one, not two, not three, but exactly four products to this event, namely: Natural Productivity, Brilliantly Better, 100 Ways To Live A Better Life and 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life. Just click on the links if you’re interested to know more about them.

But enough about me. Let’s talk a bit about the rest of the gang.

With some of the contributors in Best Empowering Tools I’m a close (online) friend. That includes Steven Aitchison (who was kind enough to include me in his top 50 self-improvement blogs of 2011), DirkdeBruin (aka Diggy, from UpgradeReality.com) or Jonathan Wells. Also, I’m happy to see Marelisa Fabrega in there (she was also kind enough to give away for FREE one of her ebook to the readers of my blog, just go to the downloads page and scroll down) as well as Jonathan Mead, from Illuminated Mind, Anastasiya Goers, Evelin Lym (with whom I kick-started my first massive guest posting experiment, two years ago). I won’t go on with all the 25, but I won’t stop before mentioning other very common names in the self-improvement / productivity area, like PicktheBrain.com, Henrik Edberg from PositivityBlog.com or Charlie Gilkey, from ProductiveFlourishing.com. They’re all giving away some of their best products in this window sale.

The reason I’m not mentioning the rest, is not that they are not at least as good as the ones I’ve talked about so far, but because, as they teach you in all the good sales courses: you don’t have to make them drink, you have to make them thirsty.

So, my goal is not to make you click on one of the links to Best Empowering Tools (although I won’t be upset at all if you do) but to reach down into yourself and try to answer to one question: “What am I going to change this year?”. If you find the answer, that will be enough for me. And if you find the answer, just keep in mind that you have now an opportunity to get the best support you can imagine for pursuing these goals, in the form of a huge collection of ebooks, courses, DVDs and videos. There’s one catch, though (it’s always a catch, I know): the sale will last only three days. It starts today, January the 16th and it will close on January the 19th.

Now, the last thing you should worry about (and that’s the reason I’m putting it like at the very end of the post) it’s the price. The combined value of these products is well over $1000. But you get it for a measly $97. Yeap, feel free to re-read that. It’s $97 for $1000. You do the math.

The catch? It will only last for 3 days. So, go ahead and check out this package.

Thank me later.

Taming Monkeys Aftermath

It’s the first day of 2012 and I think it’s time to review my taming monkeys experiment. It all started a year ago, when I decided to ditch my new year resolutions. Instead, I replaced them with twelve monthly challenges, in which I wanted to tame an inner monkey. Very shortly, an inner monkey is an unfulfilled promise I made to myself, or a thing I really wanted to do but never really had the time to make it happen. If you want to know more about my definition of an inner monkey, go ahead and read this post. If you want to know more about the entire taming monkey process, go ahead and read the iintroductory post.

The Twelfth Monkey

This was the December monkey. If you followed my blog or social media presence, you may have noticed that I was extremely quiet during the month of December. I hardly wrote 3 blog posts and had very few social media interactions. It was almost like October, when the monkey was “talk less and do more”. But it was also different from October.

In other words, I didn’t pick up a monkey for December. Or, if you like it this way, the December monkey was to have no monkey at all. So, not much to write about it. Other than living a regular life and doing my stuff each and every day, there’s nothing more to tell. Sometimes, writing about stuff can make it obsolete, up to the point you’re not into it anymore. Keeping a log, a personal journal, even a public blog, can definitely help you achieve more and stay on course. I know I was a very strong advocate of this and I still am. But for every up there’s a down. For every peak there’s a valley and for every explosion there must be an implosion.

Writing too much, like I did on this blog for the last three years, may be alienating. It’s like projecting your desired life into writing, instead or living it. Blogging, like every other part of our existence, needs balance. It needs a sense of reality and equilibrium. I know many of you are visiting this blog almost daily, looking for inspiration. Creating inspiring texts is easy for me. I can do it the same way they build cars, ten per day. But at the same time, I need my own life, with its own boundaries and personal challenges. With its secrets and concealed spots. I don’t know if this is a universal fact, but for me, having a personal space proved to be extremely important. So, sharing too much, about too much, for too much time, it’s not a good thing. At least for me. And when it comes to inspiration, I’d rather create it on the spot, if there’s a real, internal need for it. From my part, that is. Not forced from external circumstances.

The Taming Monkey Experiment Results

I think the hardest part in evaluating an experiment, any type of experiment, is in the metrics. What exactly are you measuring? What are the “in” values and what are the “out” values? Since this was by definition a very foggy experiment, in which the actual elasticity was more important than its precision, I think I’m just gonna give a bird eye view of what happened. In other words, there won’t be a recap of all the experiments and an exact evaluation of each of them. You can just go ahead and read all of them, if you’re interested in a more exact evaluation.

It Worked

First of all, the experiment was a success. The mere fact that I gave up the quantitative part of my life (do “more” stuff) had a huge effect. I stopped blaming myself every time something didn’t go as expected. I stopped beating myself up every time I wasn’t up to something. And that is something I did constantly, at least for the last 20 years of my life. By replacing my goals with a pack of monkeys, I shifted from a one-two-three evaluation of my life, to a more playful and guilt free approach. I may not have accomplished more, but I lived more.

Fears And Liabilities

Second, I finally faced some of my deepest fears and liabilities. You know, when you surround yourself with “stuff” you did, you tend to forgot that you have an imperfect nature. You even start to think that you’re ok, just because you did all that stuff. Which, of course, is nothing but stuff. You still have your unfinished businesses from childhood, your apprehensions, your taboos. So, when I finally gave up the “look how much I accomplished this year” approach, which was like some sort of pressure on top of my hidden fears, keeping them deep inside, they finally exploded.

So, I had to face the fact that sometimes relationships are going to disappear, to melt away. And that moment, the second they’re gone, is the best moment for you and you should just accept and move on. Don’t cling to the past. It’s gone. It’s like a rock going down in the ocean. If you keep clinging yourself to that precious rock, you’ll always be with it but you’ll eventually die. This year was about my last long term personal relationship, which ended up with a divorce, but also the relationship with my son, which entered a “no man’s land”. Both were meant to go like this. But I kinda desperately cling on to what I thought it was something worth to preserve, only to find myself choking on my own memories. A good thing to mention though, was the fact that I kept all my promises involved in these relationships. Which were completely useless for the other part and only meaningful for me, but I still kept it. Good for my morale, anyway.

Another liability was my attachment to my public image. Without even noticing, I was convinced that there must be a link between what I do and my public image. Which is completely wrong, of course. What I do is something that I can control myself, whereas what others are thinking or writing about me, is something that I have no control over it. So, the link is inexistent. For the last 5-6 years I’ve had a fair share of violent attacks on the blogosphere and, lately, even from my own son. My public image was seriously hit. Well, it may safely stay hit, if you’re asking me now. I finally understood that there’s nothing of value in keeping a balanced public image. After all, people are free to say whatever they want about whoever they want. If somebody thinks I’m an idiot, he’s right. If somebody thinks I’m a genius, he’s also right. Do I agree with both? Nope. I agree only with what I think about myself, and I leave the public image to those who have enough time to build me one. As good or as bad they want it to be.

There were many other fears and inner liabilities that were revealed during this year, but I’ll just stick to those two above for the time being.

Slashing Away Chimeras

Third, I realized that some things I started but never finished, well, they never worth finish. One of the monkeys was about finishing a fiction book. Never finished it, of course. I applied all my internal discipline (and, oh, I know I can be freakin’ disciplined when I want to) but nothing really happened. Another internal chimera. Just because we are linking this unfinished thing to a positive context in our mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing to do. Finishing a fiction ebook was something that was very positive inside my head. But it was also just an image, a positive context in which I was projecting myself. The moment I actually started to write it, I realized it was shallow, thin and ego-driven. So, I stopped the whole process.

Back To Curiosity

Another subtle effect of this experiment was that it allowed me to resort to curiosity again. I said it many times and I will say it again, I don’t consider myself a very skilled individual in any area, although I do know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, but I do consider myself almost pathologically curious. I’m attracted to many apparently unrelated areas, and, in the process, I learn and achieve a lot.

By stepping away from the traditional fixed goal structure, and replacing it with a “monkey taming” approach, I allowed myself to just be curious again. If I really look back to last year, it was probably one of the best years in terms of new stuff that I tried. I went paragliding in New Zealand, I entered a new business partnership in a wordpress related area, I visited Hong Kong, I met dozens of new people, I self-published myself, got translated and published in Korean, and a lot, a lot more.

I think curiosity is closely linked to our desire to live. Without curiosity, we barely survive.

What About 2012?

I don’t have any measurable goals for 2012 right now. I don’t even want to tame monkeys anymore. But I’ll keep my curiosity awake and just stay put. If there’s something worth pursuing, I’ll just do it.

Brilliantly Better – The Ebook

Last Friday I launched – in soft mode – my latest ebook, Brilliantly Better. During the last 48 hours anyone interested in getting it had the chance to buy it at a discounted price, 9.99 USD. As of now, the price of the ebook is at the normal level, meaning 16.99 USD.

Also, a few other things have been completed, adding the final touches to the launch. First, I finished a promo movie. I’m really proud about how it came out, more about that in the next paragraphs. Second, a brand new website has been put in place, and that would be, obviously, Brilliantly Better.

The Brilliantly Better Movie

This is my first attempt ever at making a movie. I don’t know anything abut this so I asked a very good friend to help me out. He’s one of the best guys I know at this thing, with thousands of hours of work on the field, and dozens of commercials already aired. His name is Sega and you can find more about what he does by clicking on that link.

We spent the last Saturday shooting in my living room, experimenting with various lenses and gear and settings and props. I never thought that getting a few minutes of valuable filmed material can be that hard. But it was also incredibly fun. We both enjoyed our time and we did that not because we had to, but because we liked it. Huge difference. Meaning we had a blast

I should also mention that the music and the sound on the movie were also supervised by Sega (I’m the one talking, though, obviously). I should also note that we shoot it with my Canon 450D, with two types of lenses, and the music was made on my iPad, using Garage Band. The editing was completed on Sega’s laptop, on Adobe Premiere. The total number of hours spent on this was around 20.

One of the things that really helped us out was the fact that we have a lot of common beliefs. During the last 3 years Sega has been on his own quest too, traveling through India and Asia. Also, he started to write a novel about his spiritual adventures, the book (in Romanian) should be published soon. Also, we’re both fussy and expensive. But, as you can see, we deliver.

As for the movie, you can see it at the end of this post. If you like it, share it. Also, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

What Should You Expect From The Ebook

I’m sure you already clicked on the first link and you read everything on the Brilliantly Better website. I’m writing this for the 1.34% of you who didn’t.

You will get more 70 articles, 500 pages, each and every one of them carefully selected out of more than 700.000 words I’ve written on my blog since I started it, 3 years ago. It’s just the best of what I wrote so far.

And I won’t say a word more than that, because you should really be at the ebook site now. And because I deeply hate those ridiculously long and shallow sales pages, that way of promoting stuff I did just doesn’t click with me.

Enjoy Brilliantly Better – The Ebook!

Living Off The Grid

For the last 3 years I’ve been living completely off the grid. I don’t have a regular job anymore, my income sources are completely erratic, and my personal relationships are either collapsed or very hard to understand from a traditional perspective. I travel a lot and when I work, I set up my own hours and spaces. From the outside, I often characterize myself as a digital nomad, but on the inside, I’m just living off the grid.

It’s an incredibly powerful experience and, the more I get into it, the more I enjoy the whole process. But, as cool as it may look or feel, living off the grid is not easy. Also, it is a socially alienating lifestyle, and that’s for a very good reason: any individual living outside normal rules is intrinsically a threat to the society. Which will in turn do whatever it takes to alienate those who are not obeying its rules. And believe me, I’ve been treated like this by what we call “society” more than once.

What Does “Living Off The Grid” Means?

Before diving too much into the causes and consequences of such a lifestyle, let’s stop for a moment and try to understand what “living off the grid” means. At least for me.

First of all, it means I’m not socially enrolled as a worker. It doesn’t mean I don’t work, it just means I don’t have a regular job. I don’t fit into any socially accepted description of a job, although I do perform a lot of value creating roles. I code iPhone apps, although I’m not a programmer. I write on a popular self-improvement blog (the one you read read right now, that is), although I don’t define myself as a blogger. I wrote 5 books, though I’m not a writer.

In fact, I do have a very odd lifestyle and it took a while even to me to come to the terms with it. After jumping from one definition of what I do to another, from blogger to writer and from entrepreneur to programmer, I finally decided that I’m neither of them. And that I just live outside of a normal grid of rules. With all the good and bad stuff that may come out of this.

Second, living off the grid also affects relationships. I don’t have any of the socially accepted roles in this area, nor do I want to embark on one anymore. I’m not a husband to anyone (I’m twice divorced, as a matter of fact). I’m friend of a few, although I do have a rather eclectic taste in friends. I have short bursts of powerful social interactions, followed by long periods of solitude.

All in all, I’m not following any traditional patterns in living my life. I do not comply with a lot of socially accepted rules. Also, I’m not a nice guy, by any standards. And that’s true, although parts of my blog may have mislead you in this matter.

And yet, I live an incredibly fulfilling life. I don’t experience any of the limitations that come with following the rules. I have an unbelievably diverse field of experiences. I see a lot of places and interact with a lot of people. I create and provide value on many levels. And all this while still maintaining a decent level of comfort, enabling me at least to provide for myself and for my kids.

So, that’s what “living off the grid” means to me. Now let’s move a bit to the reasons for this lifestyle.

After giving it a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that living off the grid has 3 main reasons: impossibility to adapt, boredom and, finally, curiosity. Let’s talk a bit about each of these and then we’ll go deeper with the implications that this lifestyle had on me for the last 3 years.

1. Lack Of Adaptation

Some of the people living outside of the grid are just unable to cope with the normal rules imposed by society. They simply can’t accept something that is imposed to them. The energy necessary to follow all the rules will simply dry them out. They’re the unadapted.

To some extent, we’re all unadapted. We do not obey to all the rules, all the time. But we do obey to a certain set that allows us to survive in the grid. We’re able to cope with the majority of rules imposed on us, and we do this for the vast majority of time. But once we reach a certain threshold, once we’re not able to fit in properly, we’re off the grid.

If there will be a scale for people living off the grid by lack of adaptation, to the most violent end of it we’ll find criminals, homeless or other “extremes” of the human nature.Their lack of adaptation is so obvious and aggressive that society simply can’t manage them in a frictionless way, and they have to be put away. On the other end of the scale are the shy, unobservable, silent people. So shy and unobservable that we don’t really know they’re there. But they are. We’re only not accepting them in our “circle”.

2. Boredom

Another cause of living off the grid is boredom. You know, when you just had enough and need a break. Everybody needs a break every once in a while. We’re designed in such a way that we need diversity, otherwise we tend to implode sooner or later.

Boredom makes rules so unfulfilling that simply obeying them became a chore in itself. Why being a socially correct individual when you don’t get any excitement back? What’s the good in being correct if you don’t get back anything funny?

And, sadly, this is true: the role of rules is to keep the larger structure going on, not to provide excitement. Rules are made to keep everything under control while excitement, by definition, it’s something completely out of control.

3 Curiosity

That’s the third, and, if I may say that, the most “healthy” reason for living off the grid. If lack of adaptation is your “child” mode and boredom is your “adult” mode, this is what I call your “experimental” mode. The playful one, curiosity in action, but doubled also by responsibility. Trying things outside the normal scope, just to see what happens. How you feel. What you can get off of it.

It’s different from lack of adaptation because you know you can cope with the rules, but now you just want to play. Deep down you know you’re fit, you just try something different.

It’s different from boredom also as it doesn’t set any expectations. In the boredom mode, you expect a thrill as result of your action. In the curiosity mode, you already have the thrill inside, regardless of the outcome of your action.

So, to finish this part, my main reasons for living off the grid are in order: curiosity, boredom and lack of adaptation. I always was almost clinically curious, I was really bored after running my own business for more than 10 years and I also have my share of not coping with the rules. Like I told you, I’m not a nice a guy.

Consequences Of Living Off The Grid

During the last 3 years many things in my life were changed. I will only talk about a few of them, namely about those who may be of interest for a broader audience.

Business

Doing business when you live off the grid is kinda difficult. You must rely only on your own efforts for branding and networking. You won’t get any help back from society: none of your diplomas will work here. It’s only what you know to do and how well are you able to sell it. If you’re good at these, you may end up pretty good. You may create an image of success and you may attract a lot of partners. In my case, I have to admit I also relied heavily on my successful history as an entrepreneur. Before living off the grid, I acted as an important society pillar: I created a big business, which in turn created jobs and generated a lot of extra value. But if I wouldn’t have such a successful history, my current position as an “off the grid” business man would have been very different.

Doing business when you live off the grid is also borderline fraud. Or, to be more correct, this is how it’s perceived by normal society. And why is that? Because you, as an outsider, claim ownership to stuff that is no longer backed up by your lifestyle. You want money, right? But money is a value that was generated inside society. You’re no longer part of that society now, you live by your own rules, so why you still need money? Of course, what’s happening in real life is that you start to align some of your “off the grid” rules to those of a normal, protective society, in order to keep the revenue area in sync, so to speak. Many of the popular icons of this lifestyle are actually doing it. Think Tim Ferris or Steve Pavlina. Although they’re prophets of a lifestyle in freedom, outside a regular job, some of their rules are making (a lot of) room to (a lot of) money.

In my experience, doing business off the grid took a lot of trial and error. The good news is that my initial model, building an online brand around a blog, was validated. This thing is actually working. The bad news is that I have to work way more than I initially thought to make this happen. And I also had to increase the speed of my experiments. If you’re reading my blog, let’s say, twice a month, you wouldn’t have notice any of these. There was very small experiments in monetization, like advertising, affiliate products and so on, each in a very narrow time window. They were taking place at a very high speed, so the regular flow of my messages wasn’t disturbed. Also, I had to invest a lot of time in building some real life connections. These efforts couldn’t be seen also on the blog, but they were part of this new lifestyle.

After 3 years I can finally testify that doing business as an off the grid individual can work in a sustainable way. But it’s not even remotely as easy as doing business in the normal society. So if you wanna take on this path, be prepared to work your arse off.

Personal Relationships

Probably the most challenging area. First of all, when I really got into this new lifestyle, my traditional relationships went bonkers. Although it worked well for a year or two, starting with the third year, my traditional marriage collapsed. It took almost 2 years to solve the whole separation related stuff and it was one of my most painful and difficult times ever. Mostly because my daughter, Bianca, had to witness a lot of unhealthy emotional reactions.

I won’t blame entirely my new lifestyle for my marriage collapse, but it was certainly an important part of it. As much as we, as men, don’t want to believe this, women are also starting partnerships with our images, not with us, as human beings. Just as we, men, are attracted by their exciting shapes or flirtatious games (which are almost never exact mirrors of their real human beings), they’re also attracted by our (often unconsciously projected) images of protection and power. In my case, being “the CEO” had a big impact on my last marriage. So big that when the “CEO” part of me was gone, wasn’t much left, at least in the eyes of my ex-wife. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no one to blame here, this is just how things were and I don’t hold any grudges to anyone.

Subsequently, starting new personal relationships when you live off the grid is equally difficult. You know, before this, every time a woman was asking me what do I do for a living, the answer was easy: “I own my own business”. From that point on, things were usually pretty straightforward. But now, I am having a real hard time trying to explain to my new acquaintances what I do for a living. In the beginning, I was taking this question seriously and started to really explain that I have a blog, and around it I built an ecosystem of products, and brands, and so on. Big mistake. Now I only tell them: “I do everything I can to avoid a 9 to 5 job”. It seems that it keeps their minds busy enough so we can move to other parts of the game.

But even if they eventually understand what I do for a living, the real bonding is very difficult, especially if the other person is very much “into the grid”. As a matter of fact, the higher is on her career path, the most difficult is for a woman to relate properly with a man off the grid. Their minds are pretty hard wired into stability and protection (usually, that’s the main reason behind their effort to climb on the career ladder anyway). So, if at any moment they will perceive (and women are extremely good at perceiving things, you know) that you’re not into this protection role anymore, and you’re just experiencing and looking for adventure, they’ll back off. Of course, there is also the other side of the coin, when your adventurous image will arouse them and made them push things even deeper, just to experience a little bit of the thrill they see inside you. But in the end, the planet represented by society is way bigger than you, and its gravity will attract them back.

There is always the possibility to meet a woman who also lives off the grid, or who has a deeper understanding of the world. In that case, things will really work out. But, as you may imagine, this is an order of magnitude more difficult to happen than a normal, society compliant relationship.

Health

This area was one of the few that benefit 100% from my lifestyle change. I will just start by saying that every time I’m asking an unknown person to tell my age just by looking at me, I invariably get “30, 33 or 30 something”. I will be 41 in 3 months.

The main reason for my huge massive health improvement was that I escaped a very tiring work routine. Getting to work day in and day out, whether you like it or not, well, that’s not a good thing. I know you know that. I’m just saying. Doing things in a forced way is not good for anyone. Unfortunately, when we sign up a social contract to have a job, we gotta follow through, otherwise the whole universe around us will collapse. And that mere thought is literally killing many of us slowly. And don’t even imagine that just because I had my own business I didn’t have to go to work day in and day out. As a matter of fact, I think I worked more than any of my employees.

Another important consequence for my health was that I also had a lot of time to experiment. One of the most interesting health experiments I did in the last 3 years was my raw food diet. I stayed raw for like 9 months. During this time I lost 12 kilos and I felt like I was 14 again (minus the hormones thing). I was sleeping 5 hours a night and felt absolutely great. But in the end I had to give up. The main reason for that: society is not ready for this lifestyle. I simply can’t be 100% raw and still have a normal social life. Right now I’m omnivorous but I also drastically changed my physical exercise routine.

And by that I come to another fortunate consequence of living off the grid: the ability to start complex 30 days challenges. I started a 30 days challenge to exercise 2 years ago. I also started a “taming monkey” experiment in which I re-learned how to run. And in the meantime I did countless of other small improvements in my physical health. Like walking instead of driving and not eating after 7 PM. And more. But there’s a very important caveat to this situation and I’m very much aware of it. None of these experiments would have taken place if I wasn’t a self-improvement obsessed freak. And by that I mean it’s much more difficult to get motivated when you’re off the grid. When we’re sharing our lives with other people, by following the same rules, much of our behavior is on auto-pilot. Most of the time, this is a bad thing. But there are situations when being part of a larger group are beneficial. Like your weekly basketball game, for instance, if you know what I mean.

Social Interactions

And with that, I’m going to the part that was most heavily changed by living off the grid: social interactions. In the beginning, the most important consequence was that I was able to filter all my social contacts based on a simple rule: whether I like them or not. You have no idea how heavily our social contacts are influenced by our jobs and how little we can influence them when we follow the rules. Once you’re off the grid and once you can make a conscious choice, your social life will be completely changed. You will meet only people you want to meet. This simple change will have enormous effects on your social life. You will simply be able to ignore people you don’t like. Because you’re not forced to deal with them anymore. Massive amounts of anger and rejection won’t be triggered at all. Instead, your emotional life will start to heal. At some point, you will grow so strong that you will not need this filter anymore. You will be able to deal with all kind of people the same way you deal only with people that you used to like. And that’s huge. It’s an internal transformation that will literally catapult your social life. As of today, I have no difficulty whatsoever to normally relate with basically anyone. And I mean anyone.

Also, another important consequence was that I started to work from home. For the last 10 years I had an office. All that was “work” was happening in that place and in that place only. But after I sold my company I didn’t want an office anymore. So all my work started to happen at home. As surprising as it may seem, this was one of the most effective disciplinary measures I ever took. Working from home, instead of making me a lazy couch potato, transformed me into a productivity freak. There were also a lot of other lessons I learned from this.

But probably the most important thing that happened to me on the social level was traveling. It may sound strange to you but I never left my country until I was 35. And since 37, when I sold my company I went over the world and back 2 times. I started a company in New Zealand (and thinking to start one in US too). I went to Asia, from Thailand to Japan. I gambled in Vegas, ate cooked rice in Hong Kong and croissants in Paris. Visited half of Europe and also crossed my natal country, Romania, in any conceivable way. I learned how to fly in Christchurch and also made my first tattoo. I simply can’t imagine myself being capable to have all these experiences by living a socially accepted lifestyle. Like having a regular job and so on. If there is one, I simply cannot see it, so I’d greatly appreciate any insights in the comments.

The Most Important Lessons From Living Off The Grid

Living off the grid is cool. It’s also pretty difficult, as you already saw. But there is also one thing that proved to be the most important of all. A thing so simple and yet so powerful. A thing that made me realize that I can really keep this lifestyle for as long as I want to, provided I won’t forget it.

Without further ado, here it is: living off the grid doesn’t have any positive outcome if the grid doesn’t take something back of the outside experiments. In other words, if you’re living off the grid for yourself, you are not improving anyone’s life. In fact, you’re not improving your life either. You may say that, as a result of your actions, you’ll be a different person once you get back to the grid. But, since the grid hasn’t changed at all as a result of your absence, your newly acquired abilities or skills are useless.

So, if you really want to live off the grid, remember to give back. Stop every once in a while, look back and see what you can share with others that will make the grid a better place. Start telling your stories, for instance. Or start teaching others, Or just start providing some service you learned on your off the grid experience.

In my case, I’m giving back on this very blog more than 500 self-improvement articles. All free of charge. Just browse and read at your leisure. Also, I wrote 5 books and created an iOS productivity app. All these are some of my ways to give back to the grid.

Because I have no intention to get back there soon. It’s way too cool out here.

Even if it gets really tough at times.

From Competition To Connection

I used to think that my company, Mirabilis Media, (the one I created when I was 30 year old and sold it 10 years after, for quite some money), was one of my biggest achievements. Honestly, I don’t think that way anymore. It was an achievement, but I start to doubt that it was my biggest one.

By any mainstream standards, being successful with your own company is a great achievement. Many people are working their butts day in and day out to make it happen.

And once you’re getting a little bit of grip, once your products are becoming adherent to the market and your name starts to be recognized, well, something interesting kicks in and kinda ruins the whole thing. It’s called competition.

Am I the first one in the market? Am I the second? Everybody and their mother knows that only the first 3 players are counting in any field. And only number one and number two can get a major investment. If you have 25% of the market you can do that and if you have 45% you can do the other thing. If you are the third in a market with two big and powerful leaders you can play your cards in a certain way. Everything is about coming up first.

Competition is deeply wired in our structures. Especially males are subject to its influence. Roll back to the time when we’re hanging around in small groups, hunting on the fields of Africa and you’ll start to understand why. The alpha male used to have all the privileges. If you were number one, you got the most fertile ladies, the best food and shelter and pretty much the entire respect of the group. Until somebody else challenged you, that is.

I guess that spreading away your genes as far away as you could, imposing your own DNA over your peers and just surviving in a very difficult environment was the biggest achievement you could have during those times. I’m inclined to agree with that.

But times have changed. Surviving, as important as it is still is, is not the biggest issue anymore. Our social structures, our environment, our capacity of creating life supporting materials have evolved. It’s way easier to survive and to spread your genes today, than it was 50.000 years ago. If that’s all that you want, I mean. As a matter of fact, I think that spreading your genes became the easiest thing we can do nowadays.

Then why we’re still so pushed by these ancient instincts? Why we’re striving so much to pick up on some numbers and always try to come up in the first place? Why we still have this pathological fascination with numbers and fight?

I admit I haven’t find an answer to that question yet. I tried, believe me, for years, but I couldn’t find it. And when I was just about to give up, a few years ago, something happened. Basically, I found a new question. And that new question is: What would happen if we could replace “competition” with “connection”?

And the answer to that questions was: “Wow!”.

Competition versus Connection

If you’re in a competition state, everybody is your enemy. If you’re in a connection state, everybody is your partner.

If you’re competing, you’re spending resources, like in losing them. If you’re in connection, you’re sharing resources, like in growing them.

If you’re competing, there is only number one that makes you happy, like a pyramid that can only be traversed from the top to the bottom. If you’re connecting, you’re happy everywhere, you’re in a graph, a web that can be traversed any way you like.

If you’re competing, your body is in a fight or flight situation, you can either win or lose. If you’re connecting, you don’t have anything to lose or to win, there is only healthy expectation.

If you compete, your self-esteem becomes a result of the competition: if you win, self-esteem goes up, if you lose, self-esteem goes down. If you connect, your self-esteem is driving the connection process: the more you have, the more people you attract into your connection area.

If you compete, you win a prize. And, in order to win another prize, you have to compete again. And again, and again. If you connect, there’s no prize to be won: your created value is spread constantly in the graph and returned to you constantly from the same graph.

As I started to draw all these simple comparisons, I realized that I kinda shifted to connection right after I sold my company. A few of my formers competitors in the market were puzzled by the fact that I didn’t invest more, that I didn’t create even a bigger empire than the one I sold. Some of them still are puzzled and maybe think that I have something under the table, ready to explode when the time will come. Well, I don’t. Because I don’t compete anymore. I connect.

So, to make a long story short, I still don’t know what pushes us to competition. And I may never find out what it is. But I do know something better than that.

And that’s the value of a true connection.

Unleash Your Confidence – Vlad Dolezal Interview

A year ago I read a blog post on Tim Brownson‘s blog in which he was making some recommendations for other bloggers. One of them was Vlad Dolezal. I started to follow the guy on Twitter and liked its stuff. No non-sense personal development and even more, a touch of humor in every single post. A few days ago, Vlad launched his first paid product, a guide called Unleash Your Confidence. You may find it hard to believe, but this guide is actually about… confidence. Go figure.

So, instead of writing a review of the guide, I chose to do something different: an interview with the guy behind the guide. Without further ado, ladies and gents, here comes Vlad Dolezal. Questions are mine, if you wonder, and the answers are his.

1. Who is Vlad Dolezal?

Hi, that’s me. Wow, what a coincidence that you happen to ask this question when interviewing me specifically! I really lucked out to know the answer to that one, huh?

Okay, more seriously now. I’m just a guy who’s utterly fascinated by the human mind. I love figuring out its many secrets, and finding ways to get it to do what you want. Like being confident in the situations you want.

2. What are you doing for a living?

I’m a life coach, and I write a blog about personal development. I’m also in the last year of getting a degree in mathematics, because that’s one of my other big passions.

3. What is your bigger passion?

This is going to sound really corny, but… I love helping people grow and be happy.

I (try to) do this in both big ways (like writing my blog) and small random ways, like walking around with a big cardboard sign giving out free hugs. Because that’s just really FUN!

4. What is your bigger fear?

This is a tough one, but I think I’ve got the answer for you.

I’m most afraid of wasting lots of my time procrastinating, playing computer games, and generally doing things that don’t align with my core values and thus neither leave me very happy, nor improve other people’s lives much.

Why that? Because I believe that whether a serious injury, or financial difficulties, I could handle those things when they come. And I don’t dare even contemplate losing loved ones. (That’s one of my “if it happens I’ll find a way to deal, until then I refuse to think about it.” things.). That leaves the above as my biggest active fear.

5. Why did you write an ebook?

A lot of my readers were interested in learning more about confidence, and after thinking about it for a while, I decided that an e-book would be a great way to cover the topic.

But also, I’ll be honest with you, money. Selling e-books is one of the ways I earn enough money to be able to keep producing lots of free content on my blog to help people improve their lives.

6. Name 3 difficult moments on the road of writing this ebook.

My biggest problem when writing Unleash Your Confidence was letting go. Specifically, I first had to let go of an old, rather mediocre, idea I had for an e-book. It took me about two years to accept that the idea just wasn’t that great.

My other big sticking point came when it came to contacting other bloggers I knew (like Dragos). I wanted to help as many people as possible with the e-book, and I knew contacting other bloggers with established audiences was the best way to get the word out to lots of people. And this was scary.

Luckily, I’d just written a book about confidence, so I handled my fear and talked to them. But even I’m not immune to fear. Confidence isn’t about magically getting rid of all fear. It’s about learning to draw upon the resources of confidence in any situation you want, which involves reducing the feeling of fear to manageable levels and then acting despite it.

I had some other small sticking points, but nothing major.

7. If you would wake up one day on planet Mars, what are the first 3 things are you going to do?

- Jump up and down, and get excited by how high I go in the lower gravity (only 38% as strong as Earth’s).

- Check my e-mails… wait, damn!

- Travel to a point where I can see Earth and think about “all those people over there”.

8. Say something nice to my readers.

Dear reader, you have a nice smile. No, really, you do. I hope other people get to see it often!

***

So, that was it. If you want to know more about Vlad’s guide, I have something for you: it will be on sale until March 16th, 12:00 PM. Usually, the guide is 17 USD but you can get it at only 11 USD until March 16th. Yeap, I also have a link for you (which is an affiliate link, if you wonder, meaning I trust this guy not only to promote his products, but to make some money out of it too).

Unleash Your Confidence.

You Steal My Jacket? Blood In Your Face!

When I was younger, I had a little bit of a restless life. I had what the vast majority of people knows as “a lot of fun”. Which translated in drinking 5 days out of 7 each week, the rest of 2 being reserved to women. Sometimes the ratio being drastically reversed in favor of women. Fact is that, until my late twenties, I didn’t do almost anything else except “having fun”. Oh, I had a job and all, but it was a very easy one. Being a radio anchor I was basically making a living by talking out loud.

The Setup

One of these long (and, I have to admit, quite boring) weeks, I was as usual in the student campus. Just after the fall of the communist regime the student campuses in Romania were a wild mix of cheap student hostels and drinking holes, poorly disguised as “terraces”. I remember it was a very cold winter night. I had a thick jacket, a blue furred short jacket, which came in very handy at those minus ten Celsius degrees. That jacket was also a distinctive sign of my presence in that campus. I guess we would call this today “a personal branding item”. But at that time it was just my special blue furred jacket.

And since I was going to enter my regular routine, which involved a dozen of beers and mindless gambling at the poker machines in one of those “terraces”, I left my jacket on one of the chairs outside the pub. My drinking buddies were already in and we took our comfortable places at the poker machines. Luckily, that terrace allowed me to play, because there were other places were the owners didn’t. Basically because playing for so long I somehow started to guess the algorithm and started to win more than I was “allowed”.

The night went fast forward before my eyes, beer by beer and friend by friend. I remember I played everything I had on me and didn’t win. That night wasn’t good for algorithms, it seemed. It was around 3 and a half in the morning when I decided it would be a good idea to take my jacket and find a room in the hostel to sleep for one and a half hour until 5 AM. From 5 AM I could take the subway, 5 stations to my rented studio (I wasn’t living in the campus anymore, just having fun there). So I did one last hand at the machines, lost it in style and went out to take my jacket.

The Revelation

But outside: surprise! What am I saying, surprise, it was plain horror: my jacket disappeared! First, I thought it was a joke my drinking buddies were playing on me. I looked deep into their eyes and realized they were much too drunk to answer logically to any question I may have had. Planning and executing a joke in that state was clearly out of the question. With a little bit of surprise, I realized I was also much drunker than I initially thought.

After a few minutes in which I was walking in circles on the terrace, hoping to find my jacket under some table, and trying to avoid slipping on the thick ice, I experienced a strong sensation of cold. It was freezing. Minus ten degrees Celsius. The alcohol was burning really fast inside me and I suddenly had a revelation: I had to find my jacket or otherwise I would die frozen. Of course I could find a room and sleep, or borrow a jacket from somebody else, but, as I told you, I was much drunker than I thought. Didn’t think clear.

I don’t know if it was the cold, the sudden realization that one of the members of our gang (we were quite popular at that time) was robbed, but my drinking buddies had a burst of lucidity and, in a clear voice, they had an incredible proposition. “Let’s find the jacket” they said, and, as this sounded like a voice from the heaven, I followed instantly. At some point, one of us may also have mumbled a quote from “Tortilla Flat” which happened to be the book I was having under my pillow at that time, but that, I cannot remember clearly.

The Search

Our long term party animals memory activated instantly. In a few seconds we identified all the parties, open terraces and, generally speaking, all hot places still populated at that time, including discotheques and other venues, and took them one by one. We may have been quite an impressive show, a few lads all frown ups with a guy only in his shirt (yes, I only had one shirt on me, and it was minus ten degrees outside) entering each of these parties, silent but decided. We were mingling instantly and started to subtly hunt for clues. The most subtle way of doing it, as I remember, was: “Who the fuck stole Dragon’s jacket?”

We visited a few hostels, all the terraces and open discotheques, but my jacket wasn’t in any of these places. To ease a little bit the frustration we did have a few drinks everywhere we went. Also, because it was really cold outside, you know. At some point, I remember we met with a young Albanese guy who was at the medical school in Romania. Usually, we were drinking buddies, but in that specific context, something happened. In a burst of lucidity, I throw at him the only English phrase I could articulate at that time: “You steal my jacket? Blood in your face!”. After a few minutes of talking it was deadly apparent that he didn’t steal my jacket. We had a few drinks to celebrate this fact. He promised he will do some research and get back to us. We parted ways as close friends. Almost walking on our own feet.

It was getting late. My drinking buddies were fewer and fewer. We lost some of them in each of the places we were into. In the end, there were only two left. They walked me to the subway station. They insisted to give me one of their jackets. I refused. I was a man, right? They gave me strong pats on the back and declared they didn’t see anyone manlier than me. They had tears in their eyes. Probably because of the cold, but I thought otherwise.

The Wake Up Ride

As I entered the subway, I had a mix of strange sensations. First of all, it was warm inside. Second, I realized I smelled like a distillery. Scratch that. Like a consortium of distilleries. I was still able to identify distinct faces of workers and secretaries rushing to their jobs. They were looking at me a little bit too long, I thought.

And then I realized the awkwardness of the situation: it was minus ten degrees, 5 AM in the morning and I was in my shirt, smelling like a consortium of distilleries. This young and good looking pal, what a waste. At that point, I clearly remember that all my alcohol was simply washed away. In just a few seconds I was widely awake. I also had a sudden change in my spatiality perceptions. It was like all the space around me was curbing, giving me a strange position. Looked like every gesture I made was amplified by this strange space deformation.

I still had 4 more stations until my rented flat. And I decided to change those looks. I don’t know if it was the shame, the guilt, or anything else, but I strongly intended to send a different message to those people. So, I focused as much as I could on this attitude: “hi folks, I’m just taking the garbage out. Yeah, I know, I could put it just near my block, but what can I say, I like to ride the subway in the morning. I’m cool. I’m ok.”

The deformed space around me started to change. Seemed like any intention I had was amplified and sent away in waves. I could almost see it as you see the ripples made by a stone thrown on a lake. I was actually modifying the image I sent to other people. First, the number of looks started to decrease. There were fewer and fewer people looking at me. Second, the ones that they were still on me had a lower intensity. Just a few seconds on me, and then they moved onto somebody else. It worked. By the time I was home, absolutely everyone in that wagon thought that I was a perfectly normal guy, just going back to his home. And I mean it. Nobody had any fancy looks anymore. I was just blending in. It may sound completely strange, but this is how it happened.

Oh, and I wasn’t cold anymore.

Forced Adaptation

Without knowing, that morning I learned one of the most important lessons in my life. The lesson of forced adaptation. Without my jacket on, I was deprived of something very important for me. But at the same time, I had to adjust. Not only to my personal context (which translates into having very powerful sensations of cold) but to the other people contexts. I had to find a way to blend in again.

This is happening in our lives more often than we think. We’re suddenly deprived of something important but we can’t adapt. Our first reaction is to blame somebody else. “You steal my jacket? Blood in your face!” It’s nobody’s fault, of course. Sometimes, deprivation just happens. We may lose our job. We may lose our money. We may lose our partners or beloved ones. We may lose our furred blue jacket.

We have only two alternatives: to blame others for that, or to adjust. Blaming never works. As drunken as I was, while negotiating with my Albanese friend, who was even drunker than me, I realized this was a dead end. And it’s the same in real life. We believe so hard that other people are responsible for our misfortunes and we just can’t stop. In fact, they may be even unhappier than we are. They may have even bigger problems than we have.

On the other hand, while I was on the subway, something magical happened. That strange space deformation thing, that was something extremely powerful. Somehow, from that morning on, I did incorporated it into my daily behavior. I do this instinctively now. For example, when I was for the first time in Geneva, 10 years after the jacket incident, I was approached 3 times by locals who were asking for directions. They thought I was a local. On my first flight back from New Zealand, I was asked by my seat neighbor if I’m Irish or Scottish. I’m Romanian, I told him.

Even now, when I’m writing this post, I noticed this. I am having my car checked up and a few moments ago a clerk asked me to give him some papers. I left my computer here in the lounge but instead of getting out of the building and take the long way from the outside to the reception, I crossed through the actual repairing hall. It’s too cold outside. Needles to say that you don’t have access to the repairing hall. While I was passing by all those cars partially dismantled, a mechanic asked me to hand him a hammer. “Here you go, buddy”, I said. Yeah, I’m one of you, guys…

The ability to adapt ourselves to unexpected contexts is fundamental. If we don’t train our abilities to blend in, to fine tune for the same vibration as our environment, we will always be considered aliens. And people will always be afraid of aliens. Like those guys in the subway, watching me with disgust: “look at this guy, he’s so out of this context”.

I don’t think you can find a more ridiculous context than the one I was in that morning. Later on, I faced many challenges and I was deprived by many things. But the power I experienced that morning in the subway always helped me to get over them. Yes, in just 4 subway stations, I somehow managed to make other people think not only that this guy in a shirt on a freezing winter is a normal person, but also that they have no right to judge me whatsoever.

Lost And Found

A few days later I got a phone call from one of my drinking buddies. Apparently, they found my jacket. Apparently, under one of the tables of the same terrace. It seemed that the ones that stole it had no idea from who they stole it. They were quite new in the campus and didn’t have the time to identify the jacket with its owner (we were quite popular at that time, did I tell you that?). Which basically means they couldn’t sell it in the campus, everybody knew that jacket. That, and the fact that all they found in its pockets was a half empty tube of mini-super Glue (I have no idea why did I carried that with me) made them throw the jacket under the table, when nobody looked. I also vaguely remember about some very serious threats for the “idiots” who stole my jacket, threats that may have played quite a role in their decision.

Fact is that 30 minutes after that phone call I came back to the same terrace, with only one sweater on me (it was the same freezing weather) ready to celebrate this very, very happy event. I only had a sweater because I knew I would return home with my jacket. When I left the campus, at 6 AM next morning, with my flurry blue jacket on me, I mingled into the morning subway population, made by the same workers and secretaries rushing to their jobs.

While I was looking at them, I intended to send out the the appearance of a suit who’s coming home after a very long night at the office, crunching numbers, strategies and marketing plans.

I think they bought it.

How Goal Setting Works (For Me)

Goals are just milestones. Places where you stop for a while and enjoy the scenery. The trip is what gives you the ultimate thrill, and it will always be like this.

But, as interesting as the trip may be, goals have their own importance. They can either add more awesomeness to the mix or make the whole experience dull and boring. It’s one thing to stop on the side of the road, eating some dust watching how others are passing you by, but it’s a completely different thing to stop at a 5 star hotel, relax, and get your strength together for the next part of the trip. As I said, both are just milestones within a bigger trip, but their quality is different.

Let me share a personal story with you about some goals I set a few years ago. Although these are material goals, closely linked to money, I’m using these examples because they can be easily measured. The same approach works in many other areas, like personal evolution, lifestyle, or relationships.

The Early Years

A few years ago I was spending the majority of my time trying to build an online publishing company. I had a considerable degree of success, some would say, but it involved a considerable degree of personal involvement and time spent making things happening.

At that time, I could barely afford my own car. I was driving a very old Dacia model (a local brand, based on a Renault chassis). It was a wreck. I remember that at times the engine would heat up to the point where it would let out waves of white steam from the hood. Often I had to pull over and replace the water from the expansion recipient. Before going to a meeting, I would always making sure I was carrying around at least 4 liters of water on the back seat. It wasn’t unusual to stop 2-3 times a day to watch the white steam and to replace the water.

So, eventually I decided that it was time to get a new car. A beautiful one. Of course, I couldn’t afford it. I was barely affording the maintenance expenses for my wreck. But I wanted a new, beautiful, and shiny car really bad. So, after browsing a little on the internet I decided I want a Volvo XC90. It was 6 years ago and the model hadn’t even been launched yet, but since one of my niche websites was the biggest car portal in Romania, I was wired to everything that was new in the car industry. I already had a few wallpapers for the upcoming Volvo XC90. Beautiful, shiny pictures.

I set up my computer wallpaper to the most beautiful picture in the whole album. Each morning, it was the first image I saw when I opened my computer. Each evening, before shutting down my laptop, I saw the same image. I had made a very strong commitment. I think I had that wallpaper for more than one year. One day, I decided it would be no more than 3 years until I would have that car.

Time passed and in the process I changed my wallpaper. I also changed my car, but not to a Volvo XC90. I started gradually with a Skoda, then an Opel. At some point, after 3 years of countless hours spent in the office with clients, partners and employees, I realized that I could finally afford a much better car than my Opel Astra.

So I bought an Infiniti FX 35, a huge, powerful and luxurious car, more expensive than a Volvo XC90. That Volvo disappeared from my goal horizon, but the associated lifestyle didn’t. In fact, the goal of having a big, shiny and powerful car (which could act more like a statement of what I was doing at that time), become even stronger.

The whole process took about 6 years. From the moment I set up a certain goal, to the moment that goal became reality, there were around 2100 days. How did I feel the day I drove my new Infiniti home? Exactly the same. I wasn’t different. The car was, but I wasn’t. However, the car was a very clear sign that my intention to change my mindset towards a much more abundant one was working really well. The trip was unfolding in the right direction and this milestone was a very rewarding one.

The Current Situation

Now, this may be an interesting story, but it happened 6 years ago. How about now? What is an easy to measure goal that I have right now, and what exactly am I’m doing to make it happen?

If you read my last post, you already know, but I’ll say it again anyway: I want a jet. A Learjet, to be more precise. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. It may even be crazy. But that won’t stop me from wanting it.

Can I afford a jet right now? You’re kidding me, right? Of course I can’t! Compared to my “car goal” situation, I don’t even have a wreck to call my “first jet”. I have nothing in this area and the financial difference between how I’m doing right now and how I would need to do in order to afford a 17.9 million dollar jet is enormous.

But I’m reading about it. I started to look around for flying courses. I’m enjoying its pictures. I don’t have a wallpaper with it, but one of the tabs of my browser is always opened with that image. I’m “soaking” myself with a jet the same way I soaked with the image of a Volvo XC90.

I want it in 5 years from now. And I’m working towards it.

The Three Stages Of Goal Setting

Those of you familiar with my ebook already know that I’m using a life management framework called “Assess – Decide – Do”. Of course, 6 years ago I didn’t know that I was using that framework in particular. At least, not consciously. But, on a very deep and hard to grasp level, I have always done stuff following this pattern. Now, how can this be related to goal setting?

First Stage: Assess

This is the stage in which you’re pondering how your goal should fit into your life. It’s the stage in which you are wondering, day dreaming, brainstorming, and drifting away in dreams about your goal. This is the part where you are making room to fit your goal into your current lifestyle.

That’s the stage from which I am slowly getting out of now, with my jet goal. I impregnated its image into my daily activity. I made it familiar. I found ways to integrate it into my lifestyle.

6 years ago, wanting a better car had a close relationship with my lifestyle. I had the biggest car portal in Romania, and having a state of the art car was somehow part of my image as an owner.

Right now, I want a location independent lifestyle. Having a jet to support it looks like a good fit.

Second Stage: Decide

This is the stage in which you are signing the contract with your goal. And you do this by placing it into a space/time continuum.

Speaking of my car goal, the decide stage was when I clearly stated that I want the car in a time frame of 3 years, here, in Bucharest.

And speaking of the jet goal, this is the stage where I am right now. I have a clear time/space context in which I can see this goal happening. In this case: I’ll have it in 5 years from now, when I’ll be fully location independent.

Third Stage: Do

This is the most confusing stage for people, because they think they should focus on the goal. There’s a very subtle difference here. And I guess this is the most important difference in my goal setting approach versus other techniques. I’m not advocating a “fixed eye” on the goal. On the contrary. If you start moving towards your goal, you start making it happen, and you don’t have to focus entirely on it. Instead, you should focus on the chosen lifestyle.

That’s a fundamental difference and here’s why.

Focusing on the goal will be like focusing on the hotel. Instead, your focus should be on the trip itself. A goal is just a milestone. The trip is the great thing, not the goal. If you focus on the hotel, you’ll get stuck on the hotel. You may get a nice room, but your trip will be over.

So, in my “goal car” example, once I assessed it (having its wallpaper on my computer for a year) and once I placed it in a time/space context (3 years) the things I did where not directly even really related to this goal. I just continued to work on my business. I constantly improved my lifestyle. I grew up. I just went on with my trip and enjoyed myself.

And, at some point, the goal was already there, on the side of the road, waiting for me to enjoy it.

The Quantum Element

One more thing: you may have noticed that there was a little bit of a difference between what I wanted as a car, and what I got. I wanted a Volvo XC90 and I got an Infiniti FX 35. In this case, I outgoaled myself. I did better than I thought I was able to.

Most of the time this is the case. I set up a certain goal, start working towards it, and then I wake up one day realizing that I have much more than I initially wanted.

I call this the “quantum element”. If you do your job properly, if you stay on the trip, the milestones will be much more rewarding than you can imagine. It’s like reality is suddenly activating some invisible triggers telling you “ok, I know you wanted this, but I’m going to give you that instead, because, well, it’s much more fun”.

But be aware that sometimes this “quantum element” may be working “against” you. You may get a lower vibration. For instance, I am fully aware that I may not get a jet, but only a regular, 4 seater plane. That may happen.

We may not get exactly what we want. Sometimes we get more, sometimes we get less. I think it’s part of a bigger process, which is tightly connected with acceptance and observation. This “quantum element” adds a certain degree of randomness to our trip. Maybe for preventing us from get too wired up in our own little wishes. If we would always get what we want, life would be pretty boring and predictable, isn’t it?

But that’s another story.

Well, 5 years is a lot of time. Since I’m finished with the Assess and Decide part of my jet goal, I’ll just continue to do my work here, on this blog.

And that’s how goal settings works. At least for me.

What Is Rich and Happy

This is a guest post by Tim Brownson, @timbrownson.

Writing a book entitled ‘How To Be Rich and Happy’ means rather unsurprisingly I regularly get asked by interviewers, “What is rich and happy?” and I always respond by saying, “I have absolutely no idea”.

As you can imagine, that is seldom the answer the person is looking for, or indeed expecting, and it usually leads to a furrowing of the brow and a quizzical look before the follow up question of “Well how can you write a book on it then?” comes my way.

Philosophers have been debating the meaning of happiness almost since the dawn of time and we still don’t have a definition that everybody agrees upon. Modern day advancements in the field of positive psychology led by Martin Seligman have certainly helped determine what happiness isn’t, but not necessarily what it is.

For example, we know pleasure isn’t happiness. In fact, counterintuitively the denial of pleasure can often lead to an increase in levels of happiness. If you quit something that brings you immediate pleasure, such as drinking or smoking, there is a high probability (once you get over the cranky stage), that will lead to enhanced levels of happiness.

We also know that money has almost zero correlation to happiness once you remove somebody from abject poverty. Billionaires, statistically speaking, are no happier than millionaires, and millionaires no happier than whatever you call people earning 6-figure salaries.

We can take that a stage further when you consider that 7-figure lotto winners, are on the whole, no happier 6 months after their win than somebody that has been paralyzed in a road traffic accident.

That is an amazing statistic uncovered by Harvard Professor, Daniel Gilbert, in his book “Stumbling On Happiness”, and one that demonstrates perfectly why defining happiness is so difficult. The incredible ability of Human Beings to overcome adversity and find happiness in all sorts of unusual situations makes it nebulous at best. Especially when you consider that the reverse applies and many people seem skilled at snatching misery from the jaws of happiness.

On the plus side of the equation, we do know having a sense of purpose in our lives (especially at work) can lead to feeling more satisfied, content and thus happy. Doing work that you know makes a positive difference in peoples lives is often a short-cut to feeling better about yourself, and your life.

Further, we recognize that people with a strong religious faith tend on the whole to be happier with life, as do married people and those that do volunteer work. Although you could undoubtedly find very religious married people that do volunteer work and yet are deeply unhappy.

We talk in How To Be Rich and Happy about ‘the formula’ to a rich and happy life, but this is no A+B=C formula. It’s more dynamic than that and will be different for every person on the planet.

For example, I have no idea what your core values are as everyones are different. I do know from my own experience and that of hundreds of clients though, that if you don’t know what they are (and very few people genuinely do by the way) you are massively reducing your likelihood of achieving long-term happiness.

Living in alignment with your core values may not necessarily guarantee happiness, but it hugely stacks the deck in your favor and being out of alignment will certainly lead to, at best, a life of frustration and discontent.

Of course you may slip into alignment by chance, in the same way you may win the lottery, but as a Life Coach it’s not really a plan I‘d advise a client of mine to adopt. You are far better working out what your values are and then doing whatever you can to meet those values than simply hoping things will turn out for the best.

For example if ‘freedom’ is your most important value, think twice about taking that office bound job irrespective of how much money they are paying. All the money in the world will not bridge that gap.

Shortly before the book came out I had a meeting with my co-author, John Strelecky. We were talking about the launch and I said to John, “I do feel a tad uncomfortable writing a book about being rich and happy, when I live very much hand to mouth”.

I’m grateful to John for dragging me back to (my) reality by saying something like, “Tim you work when you like, you play golf when you like, you walk your dogs when they like and you love what you do for a living. Which part of that isn’t rich and happy?”

When I say I have no idea what being Rich and Happy is, I mean I have no idea what it is for you.

It is no mistake that the tagline to the book is “Whatever you want, whenever you want” because that is what rich and happy is all about, even if the whatever and whenever is not defined.

Of course there will always be occasions when it isn’t possible to do exactly what you want. Few people enjoy a root canal or filing taxes. But if you can utilize the Pareto Principle of doing what you really, really, want for 80% of your time and you are true to your core values, then my guess is you will feel rich and happy irrespective of the amount of money in your bank account.

About the author: Tim Brownson is an English certified Life Coach, Master Practitioner and author now living in Orlando, Florida. He is currently involved in a huge project to giveaway 1,000,000 copies of How To Be Rich and Happy.

Affiliate Marketing For Beginnners – The Basics

When I published my post on how to make money with a blog by building reputation, many comments were pointing the fact that affiliate marketing wasn’t very obvious on my blog, although it accounts for more than 70% of my blog revenue. Well, it doesn’t need to be obvious in order to work. On the contrary, the less obvious your affiliate marketing activity is, the higher the chances are to succeed.

I know it sounds a little bit confusing. I bet all you know about affiliate marketing starts with: “make your offer as visible as you can”. Put it in the header of your blog. Stick it to you reader’s retina. Well, I don’t agree with that. And to be honest, I wanted to sound confusing on purpose. Because I really feel the need to puzzle your brain a little on this topic. If you landed here from some search engine, looking for a quick ‘n easy way to grab some cash from the “Internets“, you’ll be rather disappointed. Because there isn’t such an easy way to make money with affiliate marketing. Or, if it is, it’s most likely a scam.

Affiliate marketing means a lot of work, a lo of discipline, vision and persistence. It also needs a lot of honesty. For instance, I only recommend on this blog products I own and use. If there are ebooks that I recommend, you can be sure I read them and I have great respect for those ebooks or they authors. If there are some software apps, like Mac Journal, be sure I know and use that piece of software for years.

But now let’s get back to the point of this article. Like in any other moments of my life, every time I shift my focus towards a certain area, other related things are starting to pop out from nowhere. For instance, just when I started to mention affiliate marketing more on my blog, one of my friends, Corbett Barr, sent me an email telling me that he’ll restart his affiliate marketing beginner course. Well, well, what do you know!  Now that’s a coincidence!

What Is Affiliate Marketing For Beginners About

You should know by now that every time I hit this kind of coincidence, I follow. There must be something to be done following this coincidence, so here I am, trying to tell you a little bit more about affiliate marketing for beginners. When Corbett told me he’s going to relaunch it, I signed up like in 2 minutes. I was curious. And in the next 2 hours I browsed through the course. Some modules brought back some nice memories, while others made me have some really, surprising ”a-ha“ moments. Without spoiling it, here are a few things about this course.

”Affiliate Market For Beginners“ has 5 modules and 21 lessons. The 5 modules are covering pretty much everything you should know if you have no previous knowledge about affiliate marketing:  finding opportunities, site building, getting traffic (and sales) and some advanced topics. The 21 lessons are focusing on keyword research, topic selection, site building with WordPress, search marketing, content development and sales optimization. And if you’re curious about the advanced part (I know I was) this is about how to scale an affiliate marketing business.

After 2 hours I knew I was set: I had to write about this. But there was also something missing. Something didn’t yet clicked. Too little information. So I wrote 3 questions to Corbett, 3 questions that I knew any one of my readers would ask.

A Blitz Interview With The Man Behind This

1. What are the 3 main benefits of your program? I’m a busy person, but I have the drive and the money to spend on your program. Give me fast 3 reasons why should I spend money on this one

Cobrett Barr: If you want to earn a living online, affiliate marketing is one of the top revenue streams. My course has three major advantages.

1. It’s meant for complete beginners (to slightly intermediate), so if you don’t have experience with affiliate marketing, it will walk you step-by-step through the process.
   It’s an ethical course on affiliate marketing that will, as I like to say, leave you feeling good in the morning. We don’t teach any pushy sales tactics and only encourage people to promote products they love in a way they can be proud of.
   I guarantee you’ll make your first affiliate marketing sale after going through the course, and if you don’t make $1000 in the following months, I haven’t done my job.

2. How affiliate marketing helped you as a business man? Give me a personal story. I know you have one. We all have one.

Corbett Barr: My favorite story is the $1,000 on the beach day. I was in Hawaii with my wife visiting her sister for college graduation. We were busy visiting family and exploring the island, so I didn’t plan to work much that week.

At the last minute, I decided to send out an email to a handful of people about Chris Guillebeau’s awesome Empire Builder Kit. Then we headed out for a long day at the beach. We returned to the hotel after 10+ hours of fun in the sun to the pleasant surprise of having made $1000 in affiliate commissions from that single simple email. That’s when the real power of affiliate marketing really hit me.

3 On a scale of 1 to 5 give me a level of complexity for this program? How much it will ask from my time and my focus?

Corbett Barr: The course is meant to be easy to follow, but it will definitely take some time to go through. This is no silver bullet (they don’t exist), so if you were hoping for a get-rich-quick approach, this isn’t for you. You have to be willing to focus, go through the course material, and build your own affiliate program and experiment with what works for you. That process will take some dedication and time. How much time really depends on your level of experience, but some class members have made their first sale within a month. I’d say 2 to 3 months might be a good goal, doing a little each week.

How Much Does It Costs?

The cost for the whole thing is 47 USD. I won’t make any assumptions about this, now that you read the interview. I guess it’s obvious for everybody that this is a VERY good deal. So, if you really wanna know what’s this thing with affiliate marketing for beginners, go ahead and sign up here.

This price will only be valid for 48 hours starting August 10th, 8 AM, Pacific time. It’s 48 hours, folks, not one minute more.

One More Thing…

Just before hitting publish I got another email from Corbett, telling me that he was able to put up an enhanced version of this product. He called it the ”Deluxe Package“. And he did this for a reason: this deluxe package contains 3 interviews with some of the most prominent rockstars in the blogging world nowadays. Namely: Karol Gajda, from Ridiculously Extraordinairy, Adam Baker from ManvsDebt.com and Everett Bogue from Far Beyond The Starts . Oh, and the names links are direct links to those guys twitter profiles, so I’d suggest to follow them regardless of your decision about the affiliate marketing course.

Well, that’s that. I followed my synchronicity and wrote this article. I’m feeling rather good about it, to be honest.

And let me tell you something: you reading this… well, this isn’t by hazard, don’t you think?

Are you going to follow?

50 Ways To Start Fresh

Defeat. Boredom. Lack of meaning in your life. All these symptoms, and many others, of course, are a sign that you need to start fresh. To run again. To leave the old behind and embrace the new. Te ignite a new spark that will light a new life, with a deeper meaning, broader experience and much more fulfillment that you had so far. A rebirth.

I started fresh for many times in my life, and, hopefully, I’ll start fresh again. Because, like it or not, change is the only permanent thing in this Universe. Here are 50 proven (and I’m not kidding you) ways to start fresh.

1. Accept Change

Sometimes starting over means accepting that you’re no longer the person you used to be. You’re no longer attracted by the same things or persons, you’re no longer driven by the same goals. It’s ok. Don’t blame yourself for it and don’t try to resist. Start over. As hard as it may seem in the beginning. You’ll be surprised how fast things will fall into places again.

2 Just Leave

Quit the boring job, the abusive relationship, the past. Embrace the unknown. Make the first step. Every trip starts with just one step. You’re resisting to this impulse because leaving is associated with letting someone else down. Well, you won’t let nobody down if you’ll step out of an abusive relationship. But if you won’t leave, you will let down somebody very important: you..

3. Accept To Meet Someone New

Too often we’re unconsciously rejecting other people by habit. Well, make a fracture in that habit. Don’t put a label on every person you meet, assuming you know beforehand who they are, what they do and how they can interact with you. Open up, let yourself flow and look for the signs. Many times my life was truly changed when I just accepted to meet someone new.

4. Accept Defeat

And move on. Yes it hurts. Yes, you lost something, or somebody. Yes, your hopes are broken down and maybe so is the heart. Accept it. Close the battle and move on. There is this very simple thing which many people are just blindly ignoring: you can’t have a new victory until you close your current battle (by accepting defeat, if that’s what just happened).

5. Talk to somebody

It doesn’t have to be a friend. Anybody willing to listen will do it. Just take it out of our chest. Transform your experiences in words and let them out, transfer your story to somebody else. Not only you’ll feel a little better, but you may also find a new idea, a surprising solution or just the courage you lack to start fresh. Let the others be the triggers of your change.

6. Do Something Reasonably Risky

Bungee jumping, for instance, if you’re the physical type. Or, if you’re the shy guy, do a public speech in front of one thousand people. The more consuming the challenge you’re embracing, the faster you’ll get out of your comfort zone. And by getting out that comfort zone, you literally stretch your limits up to the point you’re forced to break up with the past.

7. Go To A Live Event

A concert or other stuff involving hundreds or thousands of people. Be in a crowd. In something way bigger than yourself. Blend in and lose your sense of identity (which is false anyway, we’re all part of something bigger). Confronting your own tiny ego with this  huge surrounding energy will make any decision you embrace much easier. Especially a new start.

8. Write A Story About Your Past

Don’t make it a novel and don’t aim at publishing it. Just write down in your own words what happened to you. Describe the sequence of steps which drove your life to its current position. Be verbose. Don’t rush. And little by little you’re going to realize that once you put it in words, your past will become more manageable and you’ll be able to break up easier.

9. Make A Plan

And stick to it.

10. Enjoy The Victory And Move On

You don’t have to start fresh only after a big defeat. Victory is just the other face of the same coin. Don’t get too addicted to it, or you’ll end up in a continuous frustration loop. Attaching yourself to an already consumed victory is as bad as not accepting defeat. Just because your prison cell is pink, that doesn’t make it less of a prison cell. Yes, you won this one. Next.

11. Make Peace With The Past

Accept ALL your past defeats and victories. Accept all your past mistakes or brilliant decisions. Accept that the moment you stepped out of a second, there’s no way to live it again, because it’s gone. The past doesn’t really exist, it’s a human invention, just like the future . Look around and accept that the only option you have is to live now. Or not at all.

12. Write Down The Worst Case Scenario

Ok, you wanna change, but you’re note yet sure. Than write down the worst case scenario. What could go wrong? Pick the worst possible case. Write it down and be very careful at the details. It will not only make you more aware about what you really are up to, but it will also reveal that it’s much more easier than you feel. Hoping for the best and preparing for worse.

13. Clean Up Your Closet

Throw away clothes, things, devices, memories. They drag you down. Clean up your room, wipe the dust, get rid of the clutter. The more you do that, the more you’ll realize that things are not you. The more you let go, the more lighter you’ll feel. And that will make you move easier and faster. Change will look like a natural path, not an effort.

14. Limit The Stuff You Own

Get rid of your possessions.  Do it until your life will finally become a matter of enjoying your time here and not managing your stuff. I’m sure everybody was there: you badly need something, you get it and enjoy it, but after a certain time (and a certain number of things you own) you spend more time managing your inventory than living your life.

15. Format Your Hard-disk

If your brain could be assimilated to a computer hard-disk, do a raw format. “Accidentally” lose some data. Re-arrange drastically all your information and intently destroy some of your hard-disk sectors. After you’ll finish moaning the “disaster”, you will will have no other chance than to push yourself forward, in order to be functional again.

16. Update Your Life Device Drivers

Redesign your social circle, your friends, your goals. Continuing the metaphor above, if your brain is a computer hard-disk, than your interactions will be assimilated to the drivers. Re-write them. Re-engineer your social life at a much deeper level. Ignore the old devices, update and upgrade. The old you is obsolete and your old life is deprecated.

17. Break Up A Habit

Sometimes all you need in order to ignite a bigger change is just shifting some small, unconscious behaviors. Like a habit, you know. Before engaging in a bigger change, start by breaking up a small habit. Tiny moves (or baby steps, if you prefer) are easier to do and to monitor. Just stack small victory over small victory. You’ll soon be there.

18. Create a new habit

But, as hard as it may be to understand and accept, we are living huge parts of our life on auto-pilot. By habit. So, breaking up a habit will only take you half way. From there, you gotta try to build a new habit. The good thing is that you’re consciously choosing a new habit now. There is not any bad thing about starting a new habit, by the way.

19. Find Out What Went Wrong

And write it down somewhere visible. Keep it in front of your eyes. Day in and day out. If you really did something wrong, than make it painfully obvious. If somebody else did something wrong to you, remember it. In both cases, tell to yourself: “I won’t do this anymore”. This aggressive visualization will push you to something new. And maybe better.

20. Commit To Someone New

A new friend, a new personal relationship or a new business partner. The keyword here is “commit”, not “new”. Be there for somebody else, hook up to something or somebody. Too often we’re hit by life when we try to unglue, to subtract ourselves, to give up, to avoid.  Exercising commitment to somebody new will help you avoid this situation.

21. Reconnect With An Old Friend

Find somebody you didn’t speak to in the last 10 years. Re-connect. Start understanding his or her life, see how your paths took different ways. Your life will certainly look different after this reconnection. By shifting your perspective, you’ll start to understand which parts of you are the same, and which ones are changed. Like in a spiral path.

22. Move Somewhere Else

Live in another place. Your physical environment has a memory of itself, interlinked with yours. Changing your current surroundings will make those dragging memories fade away. Moving in a different city, or even a different country will push you to completely redesign your life. It may be stressful and painful in the beginning. But it will change.

23. Flip A Coin

The old ones had a name for it: asking the gods. If a coin won’t do the job for you, feel free to use whatever divination method you’re comfortable with: dice, yi-king, astrology, whatever. Just keep in mind there will be a significant amount of hazard in this. And sometimes hazard is exactly what you need in order to destroy a poisonous structure.

24. Restart Your Morning Routine

Mornings are certainly underrated. They have a huge influence on our lives. A small insertion in your morning routine could have incredibly deep effects. In fact, the way you’re starting your morning will completely shape the way you’re spending the whole day. A butterfly wing in Venezuela can generate a storm in Australia, they say.

25. Create And Keep Close A Minimum Survival Kit

It’s not about clothes or food, this minimum survival kit. It’s more about a certain attitude and life skills. Be prepared, keep hope and avoid excessive baggage. Stay thin. If you’re on the adventurous edge, you can also stay fool and hungry, that will certainly bring some excitement in your life. But don’t forget that survival kit, it’s incredibly useful.

26. Change Your Game

We’re all playing games. Even if we think we don’t, we do. We play the game of the career, the game of the family, the game of being rich or poor. By transforming every part of your life into a social game, you will empower yourself. It’s much easier to start a game than to repair a serious situation. It’s just a game, what could go wrong in a game?

27. Do The Magic Fairy Exercise

Every time you’re stuck, go meet your fairy tale. I know, we’re not all having our personal fairy tale, floating around ready to fulfill our deepest, craziest desires. And yet, you can do something else: you can pretend that fairy exists and that she can really fulfill you any desire. Just be very careful about what you’re asking. Because you’re going to get it, eventually.

28. De-virus Your Mind

If you’re going to start fresh, one of the things that would really help is to realize your mind is not perfect. In other words, don’t believe everything you think. Your mind may be the victim of many social viruses, and you’re certainly not aware of many of them. Just take some distance from your own thoughts every once in a while. De-virus your mind.

29. Laugh More Often

It may be that you’re fighting to get back your life, to find your purpose or to attain your goal. Be there, be a warrior, but don’t forget to laugh. Even in the most difficult part of your lives you can find reasons to laugh. Too much commitment, too much strain, too much seriousness will have in the end the opposite effect. They’ll drag you down.

30. Start Teaching Others

You do have a talent. You do have some special skills. That talent, it doesn’t really have to be spectacular, you know, but it’s really something that defines you. Use it, don’t loose it. Sometimes the only way to learn something new is to teach others. By sharing your knowledge, time and experience, you’ll in fact ignite new ways to live your life.

31. Write A Book

Any book. Unblock your thoughts, if you’re the organized type and just got stuck, or get the courage to imagine new worlds, if fantasy is your type. Chose a topic you know or like and stick with it. A book is wonderful milestone. Even if it won’t change your entire life immediately, something important will shift inside. Creativity is a magical thing.

32. Practice Your “Yes”

Change is never about negativity. You cannot change as long as you are in denial, right? This is what denial means, by the way: resistance to new. Any genuine change will be fueled by your capacity to say “Yes”. The good news is that this ability can be strengthened the same way you strengthen your muscles at the gym. Practice your “Yes”.

33. Practice Your “No” Too

It goes hand in hand with the one above. Learn how to say “No”. To an abusive relationship, to a boring job, to a limiting context. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at. Don’t take everything for granted. You have the power to say “No” to certain things in your life. You have the power to say “No” to the past, and “Yes” to the present.

34. Quit Being A Quitter

Quitting something (your job, your family, your friends) doesn’t mean you start fresh, it means you’re not finishing your stuff. Quit doing this, take responsibility and do your part of the job. If you committed to something, finish it. It may be difficult, but until you consume everything you set up for a meal, you won’t be able to fill your plate again.

35. Keep (And Read) A Log Of Your Breakthroughs

Sort of a personal history of things your consider important in your life. It may be the fact that you had the courage to speak to somebody, or the fact that you climbed the Everest. If you think it will help, you can share them, but that’s not compulsory. What is compulsory is to read them from time to time. It will pump you up beyond your expectation.

36. Learn How To Be Ridiculous

Too often we’re rejecting change and avoid starting fresh by fear of rejection. What if I’m going to be laughed at? What if people will reject me because I will be clumsy or shy in the beginning? Well, they may reject you. You will be ridiculous if you start something completely fresh. And that’s the good news. Learn how to be ridiculous. It’s an art.

37. Take An Interview With Yourself

Yes, you’re a star and yes you deserve exposure. You can light this world with awesomeness. Take an interview with yourself. It doesn’t necessarily need to have exactly these questions, but you can start with them. Just be honest. Put it aside for a week or two and then come back and read it. You really want to be that person?

38. Practice Hazard

Learn how to get from A to B in 5 easy steps. Leave your mind free and see where it goes. That’s a great exercise not only for enhancing your creativity, but also for strengthening your change muscles. While it will not directly build up your courage to take action, you’ll learn how to spot opportunities and broaden your vision.

39. Keep Your Brain Fit

The most important tool you have is your brain. You have this amazing engineering machinery with you all the time and yet, you chose to use only a tiny percent of its capacity. You wouldn’t be able to climb a mountain without a fit body, right? Then be sure you wouldn’t go through a complex and difficult change without a fit and agile brain.

40. Clean Up Your Lenses

The road to change may be right in front of you, but you may not see it. Why? Because your life lenses got blurred. It’s like a camera which doesn’t know how and where to focus. Move it back and forth a few times and see what picture it shows. That’s equivalent with shaking a bit things around. In the end your lenses will be cleaner.

41 Act. Don’t React

If you’re reacting to what’s happening , you’ll never start fresh. Change by reaction is rooted in fear and is nothing more than a form of escapism. Even more, you’ll end up continuously being chased by what you’re running from. Make your own judgment and don’t react to pressures like lack of money and social rejection. That too shall pass.

42. Stop Solving The Wrong Problem

Focus on what matters. What they say about you is not that important. What you really do with your life, that’s important. We do have a tendency to get lost in the details and start solving the wrong problems. Cut it short. Those tiny little things you want to “solve” around will soon grow to the size of the swamp. Don’t allow that to happen. Stay sharp.

43. Forget “I Can”, Embrace “I Do”

You’re largely what you’re saying to yourself. You actually do what you continuously tell to your brain to do. Insert yourself in this process and change all the “I Can”’s with “I Do”’s. “I Can” may be empowering but “I Do” is truly life changing. You can’t start fresh without taking action. Change this monologue. You’ll be amazed by the results.

44. Pay Yourself First

So you can pay others too. Altruism doesn’t worth a nickel if you can’t make ends meet. Giving and giving and giving away, without taking care of yourself, will eventually drain you out. Turn your face to yourself and find out what you really need. Start getting it. Forget the blame and shame. That change alone could spark a new beginning for you.

45. Shift Your Focus

One thing we often ignore, is that our reality is generated by our focus. Whatever we’re focusing on, grows. So, a new beginning could be in fact just the result of a focus shift. Place your attention on other things. It may be difficult in the beginning, so start training.

46. Take A Long Distance Trip

Traveling long distance is an art. Whenever I did a very long trip something changed inside. A new perspective, some unexpected ideas, something fresh and surprising emerged from that trip. Whenever you feel prisoner of a lifestyle you don’t want anymore, do your best to travel far and away. You’ll be back, most of the time, a different person.

47. Stop Trying To Be Perfect

Perfection is a big mind trap. It’s nothing more than a state of suspension in which you’re not really alive. Perfection means you reached the end of the journey. And the understanding of this end, for us, as human beings, is being dead.  Just try to be better instead. Being better will always give you room for change. Chasing perfection will not.

48. Eliminate Self Sabotage

What if I’m going to tell you that the biggest enemy of yourself is… you? What if I’ll tell you that you’re afraid of success? What if I’ll tell you that you don’t live up to your dreams by fear of failure? All of these mindsets are forms of self-sabotage. And they are more dangerous than you think. Thinking that change is impossible is a form of self-sabotage.

49. Get Rid Of Your Guardians

They’re living inside of you, as images of authority. Or they live with you, in imbalanced relationships, based on power games. Whatever the place, those guardians have only one mission: to keep you in a perpetual state of submission. To prevent you from growing, by selling you the illusion of safety. You’re much better off. As scary as it may be.

50. Recycle Aggression

You need it. You have it in yourself because deep down, when you were just a sparkle in the dark, you had a deep need to survive. And you survived. Aggressiveness is not toxic, the way you use it may be. Re-channel that huge force, that immense energy flow you get from aggression and put it to good work. Don’t bottle it deep down, let it out.

Have more? Share them in the comments.