How To Fail The Majority Of The Time And Still Get Rich

By T. Harv. Eker

Have you ever heard that old quote, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”?

This was said by ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky, and is a quote I always keep in mind. It’s a simple premise, but one that resonates with me to the core.

I recently stumbled across an email I wanted to share with you, which had a similar idea — although this time it was referencing basketball!

But the truth is, both Gretzky’s quote and what I’m about to tell you can — and absolutely should — be applied to your financial success.

The Email That Could Change Your Life

The premise of the email was this:

The author researched the top 10 starters for the Eastern and Western All-Star basketball teams to find out how much money they made this year — which came to a whopping $224 million. Not bad for 10 players.

But the interesting thing was what he discovered about their average field goal percentage. By the way, if you’re not into basketball, this is the number of shots taken that fall into the basket, versus those that don’t make it in. Basically, how often the player is making the shot.

So now you’ve got these 10 guys making tens of millions of dollars a year each, and you’re probably thinking that their percentages are somewhere near 100%, right? Or surely around 90% or 80% at the very least?

Nope — almost the opposite.

The author found that these 10 All-Star players were an average of 48.8% from the field.

Isn’t that crazy? That means that these 10 superstar athletes aren’t even making shots half the time. Compared to the 100% success rate the average Joe needs to achieve in his desk job, being an NBA ball player sure sounds like a breeze!

The Truth Behind All Epic Success Stories

But of course, it’s not quite this simple. And when you think about it, pretty quickly you can see why.

These high-level athletes — just as any CEO, entrepreneur or successful individual — spend their whole lives training to be the best. Not so they can have a perfect score percentage, but so they have the skills and experience to even get to play on that court.

See, although these athletes make their jobs look easy, it’s anything but. They’ve put in copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes to get to that point.

The years of training and commitment, missing out on parties, staying focused, and constantly honing their skills are why they’re at the level they’re at today — and this drive is priceless.

It’s the amount of time they spent improving themselves before the big game which commands their huge paychecks.

Now, ask yourself: what are you doing to improve yourself outside of your job?

Beyond the basic requirements you need to meet to get your paycheck… how are you going above and beyond?

What Does This Mean For You?

The truth is, success isn’t a one-hit wonder; it’s a slow burn.

Seemingly “overnight successes” are generally people who have been grinding for years before they made it big — even if it seems like it came easy.

So much of the success in the moment comes down to the hours, weeks, months, and years of dedication that have been put in before the first big paycheck.

On top of this, achieving the success you’re capable of relies on a thirst for growth, and the motivation to constantly better yourself.

And the rest is gravy!

As these big shot ball players show you, you don’t have to be perfect to get to where you want to be. In fact, you don’t even need to get half of the shots you take in.

But you do need to take a shot — and be ready for when your moment comes.

Your Next Steps

As I mentioned earlier, the success you’re capable of relies on a thirst for growth, and the motivation to constantly better yourself.

This boils down to two important steps:

1. Don't QUIT!

You WILL reach any dream you strive for as long as you focus on it and don’t quit.

How badly do you want to achieve your dream? A simple wish won’t cut it. You need to have a big enough goal that will motivate you to keep going, even during times when all you feel like doing is give up!

2. You Must Be Constantly Learning And Growing

The best kind of learning comes from real life experience. I hope you agree.

And when it comes to success, it’s no different: Experience is the best teacher.

The problem for most people is that their experience is full of struggle, frustration, dealing with one step forward and two steps back, and so on.

So you can either learn from your own experience and pray you’ll figure it out….

OR you can learn from someone who has been where you’re at and has found a formula to make millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Source

Learn to Reward Yourself for Success With These 3 Steps

By T. Harv Eker

Have you ever felt guilty about accepting a reward? I’m not talking about getting a hand out here, but actually being comfortable and feeling good about finding a way to reward yourself for your hard work. Ready on to learn how to fully celebrate your successes and remove all guilt in your life!

Celebrate Success by Learning to Reward Yourself

If you’ve ever felt like you “can’t” or “won’t” reward yourself for your hard work, I’m going to give you three simple steps to follow to remove all guilt… so you can celebrate each of your successes and feel great about rewarding yourself.

1. The golden rule of rewarding yourself

When it comes to finding ways to reward yourself, follow this golden rule: do what works for you.

That’s it!

For most people, they don’t have a ‘play jar’ to spoil themselves. They don’t take time for themselves. They don’t focus on loving themselves.

They don’t focus on that feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment for more than three seconds before it becomes doubt, judgment and “What’s the next thing?”

The reason I incorporate rewards so heavily into my “Ultimate Life Makeover System” web class is because number 1, many times it’s tangible. When you buy that dress you’ve wanted or that jacket you’ve wanted and you see it in your closet all of the time, you’ll say, “Wow, it’s worth doing the things I committed to doing!”

And number 2, rewarding yourself for your accomplishments gives you the motivation, drive, and self-confidence to keep moving towards your goals with momentum.

Many people won’t give themselves a little reward here and there, which is why it’s so important to take the time to do this consciously.

Here’s the simplest way I teach to do this: Set an action and a deadline for that action to be completed,, set a reward, and when you complete that action, take your reward! Then… repeat this over and over and over again.

So, what works or WILL work for you when it comes to patting yourself on the back for a job well done?

2. Redefine rewards

If you believe that you should only get a reward for doing something difficult, then you need to rethink this belief immediately.

The bottom line is if you associate rewards with something difficult, you created that belief.

In other words, you were taught that if you do something unpleasant or difficult, you deserve and should get a reward.

But then what if you don’t do something difficult? Well, you don’t get one… right?

This is faulty thinking, and something that holds a lot of people back. You can and should get rewarded for accomplishing things you actually enjoy doing, too.

For example, if you ENJOY your work, and you are successful with it, guess what? You should be REWARDED for that!

You shouldn’t have to do work that you hate, and that is unpleasant and difficult simply to make money because you’ve linked rewards with unpleasantness.

If this is something you believe, then very unconsciously you have linked getting rewards from unpleasantness—and this singular belief is holding you back from enjoying your work, your life, and blocking you from experiencing true happiness.

3. Move beyond “either/or”

If you associate rewards with pain and suffering, then you’re living in an either/or world.

Remember what I said in my book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: most people live in an either/or world. Either it’s money or happiness, money or spirituality, money or health, money orfree time, money or this, money or that.

It’s either/or.

How about we do what we love? How about we enjoy what we do? How about we do very pleasant and wonderful things and we get a reward as well?

Imagine this is your new rule: I can do what I love and get rewarded.

I can do what I enjoy and get rewarded in all kinds of ways, not just satisfaction and accomplishment (because the mind doesn’t hold onto these for longer than 3 seconds).

Instead, write down what you want in your life including all the “luxuries” you’ve ever dreamed of. They could be material. They could be any kinds of things, but you’ve got to allow yourself to enjoy them.

I’ll tell you why many people don’t do this: it’s because the conditioned, fear-based mind doesn’t want that. Because if you’re really nice to you and really good to you, then what is your mind supposed to do?

Its job is to look for the problems; to mainly look for what’s wrong. You must consciously step in and stop this in its tracks!

By unlinking rewards from unpleasantness, and instead believing that you deserve to be rewarded for ALL the great things you accomplish, you’ll begin operating on a higher energy plane – and living a more abundant, happy, fulfilled life in the process.

Source

How to Invest Your Way to a $70 Million Retirement Fund

Really interesting take from Tony Robbins on investing and methods for wealth building. Enjoy:)

10 Ways to Get a Better Night's Sleep

By Steve Lockwood

Whether you have a physically demanding job, lead a hectic lifestyle or spend all day anchored to a chair at an office desk, we all understand the importance of getting a good night's sleep. Rest replenishes our minds and our bodies and is necessary for healthy functioning. It helps to regulate our mood, improves our memory and strengthens our learning capabilities.

However, for a lot of us, getting a good night's sleep is often easier said than done, as our daily lifestyles don't always allow us the time needed to have an optimal rest. For this reason, we've developed a quick and easy guide to help everyone enjoy a more adequate bedtime slumber.

Delving into the science behind sleep reveals that it is largely controlled by biological rhythms, known as circadian rhythms, which play an important role in determining our sleep patterns. These rhythms are in turn governed by our body's master clock which is responsible for producing melatonin, a hormone that makes us feel drowsy and helps to lower our body temperature.

Understanding the mechanics behind sleep has enabled us to create a list of things we can all do on a daily basis to help encourage a more effective sleep:

1. Do some exercise at the beginning of your day - this helps to fortify your body's cortisol rhythm, which is greater during early mornings. Cortisol is an important hormone that activates the body's anti-stress and anti-inflammatory functions
2. Expose yourself to some sunlight - our skin contains photoreceptors that help balance the levels of serotonin and melatonin in our bodies
3. Adjust smartphone brightness levels - engage the night time settings on your smartphone which decrease screen brightness levels at night
4. Install the f.lux application f.lux application (https://justgetflux.com/) - the screens that are found in all modern day electronic devices such as televisions, computers, tablets and smartphones emit blue light, which creates melatonin deficiencies that inhibit your body's capacity for REM sleep (the stage in which we dream)
5. Food and alcohol consumption - before going to bed, stay away from all snacks and beverages that raise your blood glucose levels. This means no sugar and no alcohol
6. Have a regular nightly routine - if you have young children, you'll understand how crucial it is for them to have a set routine to help them get to sleep at night. Grown-ups are the same. If possible, be in bed by 10 o'clock. Put on some soothing music, read a novel, or indulge in some other relaxing activity that helps prepare you for nap time
7. Ensure your room isn't too hot or too cold - a room's temperature affects your ability to sleep. For most, an optimal bedroom temperature is between 16 and 20 degrees Celsius. Those who choose to set the temperature outside of these suggested limits using a thermostat, risk hindering their sleep, especially REM sleep
8. Use a foam roller or therapeutic pillow - foam rollers are a great way to massage your body before going to bed, while therapeutic pillows provide a host of benefits including increased comfort, enhanced breathing, circulation, improved spinal alignment and more
9. Use window blinds - aside from having a pleasant ambient temperature when you're about to nod off, your bedroom should also be suitably dark. Window blinds or even sleeping masks are a good idea, especially for those who work night shifts and need to sleep during the daytime
10. Sleep in the nude - going to sleep unclothed or with loose fitting sleepwear helps with lymphatic drainage, a process that can help to reduce headaches, swelling and soreness and can also promote healing in post-operative or post-injury body tissue. Additionally, lymphatic drainage also helps the body to relax

Source

The New Science of Happiness and Success

By Anthony Hamilton

Would you like to be happier?

Would you like to be more successful?

Whenever I ask people these two questions, as I have done many times over the past 35 years, I find that virtually everyone's answers are the same; a resounding, "Yes, of course! Who wouldn't?"

If I then follow these questions up with another question, such as, "What would it take for you to be happier?" I generally receive a response like, "More money", "More peace of mind", "More time off work", or perhaps a response like, "A better relationship" or better 'job', 'salary' or 'body' etc.

The thought process behind these answers reveals a fundamental pattern which seems to be true of pretty well everyone, namely the idea that for us to be happier, we need something else, specifically more success, either in our finances, in our relationships, in our health or in any other area of our lives. This thought pattern reveals a fundamental aspect of virtually everyone's beliefs about the way life works. Namely, that more success leads to more happiness.

This basic concept, that more success) leads to more happiness seems so self-evident that we seldom question it. Indeed, we never even notice that we are thinking this way. But this attitude is what author Jack Canfield, of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series of books, calls, "living on 'Someday Isle'.

In other words, as Canfield says, we tell ourselves, "Someday I'll have more money." Or "Someday I'll have better health." Or "Someday I'll have the right relationship." Or, "Someday I'll lose that ten pounds." The implication with this line of thinking is the same; the basic belief that "When I get the success I want I will be happy.

But is this line of thinking really true? Does more success really lead to more happiness?

"Not at all." says Shawn Achor, author of the best-selling book, "The Happiness Advantage" (Crown Publishing, New York, 2010).

Trained by some of the pioneers in the new discipline of Positive Psychology, Achor helped design and teach the famed "Happiness" course, for years the most popular course at Harvard. Since then, (according to his on-line biography), he has spoken at or worked with over a third of Fortune 100 companies and his TED talk is one of the most popular of all time, with over 13 million views.

The front flap of his book reads, "Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard, we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we'll be happy. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward."

He explains that when we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This discovery has been borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience. It has also been proven true in the boardrooms and on the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.

This change in thinking echoes the transformation that followed the reversal of the conventional belief that the sun revolved around the earth. According to Achor, this new discovery that conventional thinking is backward and that it is happiness which leads to success and not the other way round, promises to be as earth shaking and life transforming in its impact.

However, this recent bit of scientific knowledge which is a result of recent brain scanning research, is not the only evidence that our previous ideas about the human condition are wrong that has come to light in the last couple of decades. Just as profound and potentially earth shaking is the recent discovery (also using brain imaging technology) that the structure of our brains, which was long believed to be fixed and unchangeable, is actually plastic and continually changes throughout the course of our lives.

Although some of the new ideas about our brains seem like common sense, others are a little harder to grasp. For example, the proof that when a person learns to play the piano, certain parts of the brain undergo measurable changes, seems, upon reflection, to be quite reasonable. After all, we know that the nerves which move the fingers have connections to specific areas of the brain, so the fact that these areas of the brain would grow through endless repetitive piano exercises, like a person building his biceps by lifting weights, seems eminently reasonable.

But how about feeling happy? Does practicing feeling happy produce changes in the brain as well?

In a word, writes Achor, "Yes".

Furthermore, there seems to be no limit to how far these changes can go. Numerous studies have confirmed many ways we can permanently raise our happiness baseline and adopt a more positive mindset simply by doing certain kinds of thought exercises.

And Achor is not the only author writing about this discovery. According to Sharon Begley, author of "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain", (Ballantine Books, New York, 2007) the long held scientific dogma that the brain was forever fixed and unchangeable, implied that one's 'happiness set point', which is the level of happiness to which one returned after experiencing a deep tragedy or a great joy was as unalterable as the earth's orbit. However it now appears that our 'happiness set point' can be altered quite easily. And when we re-set it, it remains the new baseline for happiness long into the future.

Here is a key idea which most people simply miss; that an individual's personal inner world of emotions, feelings and self-talk, and her outer world of observations, experiences and conscious reasoning are linked. After all, is not the nervous system responsible for your feelings of happiness or unhappiness, optimism or pessimism, not the same nervous system which is responsible for other cognitive functions as well?

We all have noticed that when we are feeling down, our perceptions of the world are negative too. We not only feel low. We also feel that our goals and desires are less attainable. We feel that opportunities are eluding us. We tell ourselves that life is becoming more difficult. On the other hand, when we are feeling optimistic, we not only feel more positive, we will also see more opportunities for positive results in the world. We not only feel that our dreams and goals are attainable, we can actually see more opportunities in the outer world. How many popular songs have been written on the same theme; that when we are in love, the sun seems to shine a lot more frequently.

Therefor it follows, according to Begley and Achor, that when we re-set out happiness set point, we not only recover from set-backs more quickly and perceive negative results in a more positive light, but we also feel better and more optimistic about the world in general. When our brains change, we begin to actually see more opportunities for success and satisfaction in the external world. What the findings of this new research is showing us, is that when we re-set our inner happiness set point, our outer world undergoes a positive shift too. For all of us who have harbored the desire to change the world, this new information shows us that it might actually be possible. While we might not be able to change someone else's world, we can indeed change our own.

So how do we re-set out happiness set point? It is amazingly easy. All we need to do is to practice FEELING happy for a few minutes a day on a regular basis. They say nothing succeeds like success. And nothing attracts more opportunities for success and happiness than an inner feeling of happiness and well-being.

If you want to reset your own 'happiness set-point, try this simple exercise:

1. On a sheet of paper, write down a small number (five or six is enough) of what I call, "Past Successes". These are simply events from the past which we consider to be positive successes. And here's the thing; they don't need to be huge successes. Simple successes like getting your driver's licence, learning to bowl or baking an amazing chocolate cake are perfect. Here's the key: does remembering this past event make you to FEEL happier and more successful? If the answer is 'yes', write it down on your 'Past Successes List'.
2. Read this list over every day for five minutes. While you do this, actually FEEL the feelings of happiness and success in your body. You might want to do this exercise while listening to a favorite piece of relaxing music. As you read your list, make an effort to really FEEL the feelings in your body. As you think of other past successes (And you will.) add them to your list.
3. Repeat this exercise each day for four to six weeks. Scientific experiments have conclusively shown that over this period of time, actual, physical changes in the brain are measurable.
4. Keep a simple diary of how this exercise is affecting not only your inner world of thoughts and feelings, but also note any observations of successful events in the outer world. Expect your world to shift and it will

Is there any limit to how far one can take this brain training exercise? According to Achor, there doesn't seem to be. As he writes, "The point is, we do not know the limits of human potential. Just as we can't know the limit for how fast a human can run or swim or how high a person can jump, we still don't know the limits of our brain's enormous potential to grow and adapt to changing circumstances. All we know is that this kind of change is possible."

Source

Gary Vaynerchuk & Tai Lopez Interview: Audit Who You Are and STOP Hoping

Very interesting way of cultivating success and sustaining focus and energy. Audit who you are and get real!!

What does it mean to be Unshakeable? | Tony Robbins

What is unshakeable to you? No fear? confidence? adaptability? Knowledge? Experience?