Bits and bobs

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale  

genistar.co,uk

An international bestseller with millions of copies in print, The Power of Positive Thinking has helped men and women around the world to achieve fulfilment in their lives through Norman Vincent Peale’s powerful message of faith and inspiration.

With the practical techniques outlined in this book (there are exercises to carry out) you can energise your life—and give yourself the initiative needed to carry out your ambitions and hopes. Each chapter of the book tackles different issues, such as worrying, creating happiness, having energy, etc. 

Know though, that there is a definite religious tone throughout the book, which could bother some. Peale was a preacher and he often cites bible passages.

The main points:

 Believe in yourself and in everything you do
· Build new power and determination
· Develop the power to reach your goals
· Break the worry habit and achieve a relaxed life
· Improve your personal and professional relationships
· Assume control over your circumstances· Be kind to yourself

Positive thinking creates a positive life:
what we accomplish each day starts out as a thought, and each day, all day long, thoughts directly influence how we feel and what we do. 
So, if you spend your day thinking about negative things, expect to feel bad. 
On the other hand, if you spend your day concentrating on positive things, good things will happen. 
Such a simple and effective concept yet hard to do at times on its own is a good reason alone to read this book.

If you want to know if this actually works in practice, you will need read my blog tomorrow when I will cover the story of US Contest Queen, Helene Hadsell who used the principles in this book to win everything she ever wanted.

Bits and bobs

Pic from www.Amazon.co.uk

The Power to Shape your Destiny: 7 Strategies for Massive Results 
by Anthony Robbins ( set of 5 CDs)

The Power To Shape Your Destiny will become your best ally as you use it to realise what you really want from your life.

The first thing here is to have clear in your mind: what do you really really really want?

Then, whether you want to advance your career, lose weight, improve your relationships, see the world, or just have time to pursue your favourite hobby, this program will show you what has been holding you back in the past, and help you to achieve a break through.

Anthony Robbins understands the struggles and frustrations that can accompany any attempt to improve and grow.  He also knows the excitement and fulfillment that comes from actually reaching your goals and he can teach you how to shape your future through the power of purposeful goals by tapping into qualities that you already have inside of you.

What will you learn:

• How one simple exercise, when practiced for 20 minutes a day, can make you biggest dreams happen. This exercise can help you wiping out fear, procrastination, worry, anger, bad habit, or obstacle to achievement.
• How a certain quality you already possess can eliminate all your bad habits, and how that same quality can drive you to establish a new level of excellence for your life.
• How to identify the primary motivator in your life and modify it so it serves you.
• How to improve your decision-making system and your nervous system so you naturally attract and create a great destiny
• Powerful decision making skills that help your body and your mind actually create solutions

Pic from www.linkedin.com

Anthony Robbins will give you the skills and motivation you need to make your life extraordinary and this program will give you that extra boost to put you over the top. 

Remember though 2 very important things:

1. Like building muscles ( or becoming an athlete) you can't go to the gym once and except the muscles to suddenly appear, you need to do it regularly, the same is applicable here. Repetition is the key to mastery.
2. Knowledge is not power, is potential power. It is what you do with the knowledge that is important. Listen to the CDs and apply apply apply!!!

Bits and bobs

The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill 

Pic from Amazon.com

The Law of Success is Napoleon Hill's complete and original formula to achievement, is the book for everyone who wants to grasp the full range of Hill's ideas and tap their transformative power.

"The Law of Success" is a success manual course with fundamental 16 Lessons, examining the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success, the precursor as well as the hidden secret in Think and Grow Rich.

The introductory chapter, "The Master Mind," serves as a primer to Hill's overall philosophy. As Hill saw it, these lessons work as a "mind stimulant" that "will cause the student to organise and direct to a DEFINITE end the forces of his or her mind, thus harnessing the stupendous power which most people waste."

The 16 principles of success which you must absorb are:

1: The Master Mind - Telepathy, ether, vibration, and how it all is the basis for how the world functions. A master mind is the alliance of two minds joining in a harmonious way. The power that is formed from two or more minds coming together is more powerful than one alone. This is strictly for minds who trust each other and are interested in the good success of all parties involved.

2: Your Definite Chief Aim - You have to know what you want so that you can start receiving it.

3: Self Confidence - Believe that you are worthy of success and that you can attain it. Without this simple understanding you will probably get nowhere with most of your goals. 

4: The Habit of Saving - Stop trying to get a Porche if you feel more comfortable paying for a Panda. You are on the path to easily affording a Porche.

5: Initiative and Leadership - Leadership skills can be habituated and you don't have to be a born leader.  Hill acknowledges the penalties of leadership. Leaders are not always spoken of sweetly. This should not deter you from becoming a leader. Nobody bothers slandering a person who isn't somewhere near the upper rings of the ladder of success.

6: Imagination - Dream, and use your imagination to help lead you to the attainment of your goals. The making good decisions comes with use, dreams and actions are closely related.

7: Enthusiasm - Mix enthusiasm with your work - do something you are enthusiastic about- and you will not get tired nearly as quickly. Hill explains the things that can contribute to enthusiasm, one being to wear nice clothes. The opposite is also true, and this is to be avoided. Feel good about your appearance, because it also affects the first impression of you on others who can be instrumental in your path to success.

8  Self Control - Auto suggestion is like reprogramming your subconscious mind to believe what you want it to believe - to replace your old beliefs with new ones that will serve you better. This takes self control. When you take control over the thoughts you are thinking, then you can take control of your success. Make these thoughts the ones you want to believe, and see yourself the way you want to see yourself. 

9  Habit Of Doing More Than Paid For - If you are going to complain about your work, then you are not going anywhere. Do the work you have in front of you, then ask what else you may do. By doing this, you make yourself valuable, and you will surely reach a point where you are being paid very well. Valuable employees are... valuable. This is also and especially true when you are working for yourself.

10  Pleasing Personality - "Have one. Don't point things out on people, don't hang your head and say "I'm tired". Mediocrity does not care if you are pleasant or not. Success does".

11  Accurate Thought - Sort "facts" from "information", and use auto-suggestion in conjunction with focused thoughts.

12  Concentration - "Concentration is the act of focusing the mind on a given desire until ways and means for its realisation have been worked out and successfully put into operation".

13  Cooperation - The implementing of cooperation between you and others who are going to help you get to your goal. Cooperation must also exist between your conscious and subconscious mind so that they may work harmoniously in your favour.

14  Failure - Failure is inevitable,  and be happy that it is bringing you one step closer to success. Replace "failure" with "temporary defeat".

15  Tolerance - Don't practice prejudice or racism. It is ignorance, and it is a barrier to success. Just see the best in people and situations, and focus only on your goal and the good for all. 

16  The Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you." Also, "Think of others as you wish them to think of you."

This is the beginning of the application of the Quantum Physics theory brought to the masses. 

Hill formulated the self-help "auto-suggestion" theory in bites that could be assimilated by everyone so as to get people to better themselves no matter what their background was.

Don't be put off that it was written by Napoleon Hill in 1928 (85 years ago!) as it teaches many lessons. At time some statements might no longer apply because of the lapse of time since written, but the basis on which this book lies is still relevant today.

I cannot imagine how revolutionary this must have been at the time. Now it is up to you to read it and, most importantly, apply the principles.

People stuff

Nudging in practice

Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein is a book that explains how prompting people to make minor changes without telling them directly can have amazing results.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other and they call this Libertarian Paternalism. 
Overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed.

The UK Government created a Behavioural Insights Team (the nudge unit) which has since launched a number of nudging initiative onto the British public following this principle.

Some practical ways of making nudging work for your business:

Pic from market community.com

• If you offer a subsidised canteen or your have an outsourced provider, you can consider providing information about calorie content, links to popular fitness apps etc
• Run informal fitness competition amongst your staff (counting steps for example)
• Arrange the office in a way that encourages mobility and casual encounters (this will also aid flow of information and relationships)
• Offer good coffee (or tea) so staff can avoid long queues at Costa (or Starbucks etc. etc.)
• Provide water stations to improve consumption, hydration and well-being

Bits and bobs

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman  

Pic from www.thebookblog.co.uk

This book was originally published in 1995, and teaches you everything you want to know about emotional intelligence, though the book doesn't show you how to improve your EQ.

Goleman, a psychologist and former science writer for The New York Times, explains how the rational and emotional work together shape intelligence, using information from neuroscience and psychology of the brain, and why IQ is not the sole predictor of success. 

Goleman shows how the brain can succumb to an emotional hijacking, using data from studies based on brain imaging technologies, and summarises much of the best psychological work of the previous few decades (the importance of learned optimism, the theory of multiple intelligences, the role of innate temperamental differences, and the importance of emotional intelligence in marriage, management, and medicine). 

Even though one can learn a lot from Goleman's work, the overriding theme seems to me to be that nurturing (rather than aptitude) is more likely to produce exceptional humans; bad nurturing creates people problems.

Part One looks at what happens in the brain at the molecular level under all sorts of emotional experiences. 
Parts Two through Five focuses on feelings, personality, upbringing, aptitude, and treatment citing several studies to show that today's children are most decidedly a product of how they were treated.

Goleman believes we can cultivate emotional intelligence, and improve not only the I.Q.'s but the general life performances of children who suffer because of unbalanced emphasis on the intellectual at the expense of the affective dimension of personality. 
In his final section, he offers a plan for schooling to restore our badly neglected "emotional literacy", proposing greater attention to classes in "social development," "life skills" and "social and emotional learning".

This book is considered a classic in its genre and, whatever one agrees or not with his theories, is one that should be read at least once or twice for reference.

Bits and bobs

Contesting: the Name it & Claim it Game and the SPEC technique by Helen Hadsell

The book is old and there are many things that don't apply today, but there is still value in the majority of it. Helene was a good woman and she had great information. She was explicit on her winnings but if you travel further in the book, you will find the gems. 

Although the title leads you to believe that this book is only about winning contests (and there is certainly lots of contest-winning information), the contents of the book can be applied to any situation. 

"Attitude is everything".

She started her winning streak after reading the book by Norman V Peale "The Power of Positive Thinking" which she applied immediately  to achieve a more comfortable life for herself and her family.

But if you don't fancy reading the book and just want to go straight to the nitty gritty of it and how did she manage to win every contest she ever entered then go straight to her SPEC technique, which means:

Select it
Project it
Expect it
Collect it

 Try it and see if it works for you.
Lottery tonight??? ;-)

Bits and bobs

Money: Master the Game: the 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom   

Pic from books.google.com

Tony Robbins is a master at studying and then modelling successful behaviour ; this book is financially modelling in practice and the outcome of his relentless pursue to understand how the most brilliant financial minds navigate and succeed through every economic condition. It includes interviews with Paul Tudor Jones, Charles R. Schwab, Carl Icahn, T. Boone Pickens, Ray Dalio, John C. Bogle, David F. Swensen, Mary Callahan Erdoes, Kyle Bass, Marc Faber, Sir John Templeton, and Warren Buffett.

Tony Robbins walks readers of every income level through the steps to become financially free by creating a lifetime income plan. This book delivers information and essential practices for getting your financial house in order, albeit with strong US bias. It also offer helpful investing tips that most people who invest have known for years now:

·     - fees eat away most investment profits

·     - over 90% of professional stock pickers under-perform the broad markets

·     - earn more, spend less and automate the investing process.

Quick summary of the 7 Steps ( it is actually a fun book to read, not heavy like many other financial books):

Step 1: Make the Most Important Financial Decision of Your Life.

In essence, decide to become an investor (not just a consumer). This means automating a specific percentage of your income that goes toward your "Freedom Fund" (i.e., your ideal retirement nest egg, which you calculate based on your desired financial outcome).

Step 2: Become the Insider: Know the Rules Before You Get in the Game.

Here, you shake off the nine most common myths about fees, actively vs. passively managing funds, real costs of specific investments,etc..to help minimise your risk of losing money and over-paying fees, and create tax-advantaged investment strategies.

Step 3: Make the Game Winnable.

This is when you calculate exactly the amount of money you will need for your financial freedom.To make these calculations super simple, Robbins provides a companion mobile app. You also look at your spending habits and how you can speed up your plan to achieve financial freedom faster-from limiting your daily impulse purchases to reducing your taxes, earning more, relocating, and improving your lifestyle. There are lots of ideas here on how to achieve your desired financial outcomes faster.

Step 4: Make the Most Important Investment Decision of Your Life. \This is about asset allocation, rebalancing, and cost averaging.

One interesting idea is to not just have "Risk/Growth" vs. "Security/Conservative" but to also include a "Dream" bucket.

Step 5: Create a Lifetime Income Plan.

This is about understanding the returns you are currently getting on your investments compared with other portfolios and recommended asset allocations. These are the secrets of the ultra-wealthy.

Step 6: Invest Like the .001 Percent.

This is where you learn that the worst environment is your greatest opportunity: to buy when everyone else is selling in a panic, and to sell when the markets are going crazy in the positive direction.

Step 7: Just Do It, Enjoy It, and Share It!

This is about investing and psychology. We can choose to see the world as scarce or abundant. We can see the world filled with problems or opportunities. Daily priming and the appreciation of what you already have will ensure you focus on the outcomes you truly want, as opposed to worrying about what you don't have and not taking action because of fear and other negative emotions that are holding you back.

If financial freedom is important to you, then you have no choice but reading this book.

Bits and bobs

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill  

Pic from Amazon.co.uk

Thousands of personal finance books today promise to teach you just about anything under the sun but perhaps none said it better than a 200-page book published in 1937, which went to become one of the best-selling books of all time.

Napoleon Hill, former advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, explains entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie's secret to success, revealed to him during private interviews with Carnegie, the richest man of his time and during more than 20 years of research into the lives and philosophies of more than 500 of the most successful people in America.

This little gem presents a systematic approach to developing the skills and mindset required to achieve exceptional success in any field , personal or professional. It was the first book to ask, "What makes a winner?"

The man who asked and listened for the answer, Napoleon Hill, is now counted in the top ranks of the world's winners himself.

The most famous of all teachers of success spent "a fortune and the better part of a lifetime of effort" to produce the "Law of Success" philosophy that forms the basis of his books and that is so powerfully summarised in this one, helping people overcome the psychological barriers that keep them from wealth. 

"Wishing will not bring riches, but desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognise failure, will bring riches." (Napoleon Hill).

In one passage, he sums up six steps to turning a desire for wealth into "its financial equivalent":

• Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. Be definite as to the amount. (There is a psychological reason for definite-ness).
• Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.").
• Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire. 
• Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
• Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.
• Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before bed at night, and once after waking up in the morning.

The only ways to achieve true wealth is to understand that more often than not our emotions and our mindset are what keep us from succeeding, and that it's our job to come up with a plan to overcome them.

I though subscribe to the same train of thought of Joe Vitale and I do believe that the real "secret" to Think and Grow Rich is in his Law of Success, where he really reveals it all... for that, you will need to read my blog tomorrow :-)