The Success Principles - 62 Step Challenge

I’ve been reading Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles, for the last few days and I realized the great opportunity that I am passing up by not writing about it. This book is basically structured into about 62 chapters - each teaching a different life lesson.

The thing I like about it is that you can spend a few minutes reading and get through a whole chapter (makes you feel like you’re getting somewhere.)

I’ve got through a number of chapters and I can honestly say that this may be one of the first motivations/life changing books I’ve read that really gives you the why and how behind the change.

I had the opportunity to see Jack Canfield speak about a month ago and, based on his presentation, it looks like he may actually have something great to teach!

I am contantly trying to discover my own motivations and, if possible, help other people as well. To do this, I’m going to be writing about my thought process throughout this book and how the changes I hope to implement are affecting my life.

Some days I may write about one and some days I may write about a bunch in a row. Either way, I’d love to hear your own stories about it and which direction you would choose.

Let’s get started with chapter 1:

Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life

I think it’s great to start a book with a contrarian perspective to that of the general population. I figure that if you can’t read this chapter, understand what it’s saying then start taking responsibility then the rest of the book is worthless to you.

Canfield says that people in today’s society are conditioned to blame others on their failures. They blame media, friends, bosses, spouses, kids, co-workers, etc. etc. etc. for their problems.

Eat the Rich
One interesting story I have is about a guy I once worked with. This guy and his wife are the chronic spenders and wasters of money. They can barely make ends meet yet find the money to buy a new chair for the livingroom or cell phones or other electronics. Although the guy works pretty hard, he has absolutely no money management skills.

One day I was talking to him about some guys that started a business and had become successful. They weren’t much older than us and had litterally hit the jackpot. When we talked about their new-found wealth, all this guy could say was: Don’t you hate rich people?

At first I laughed. I thought he was saying it in the way you say you hate lottery winners because they stole your jackpot. Apparently he wasn’t. He bagan to talk about greed and people having too much money and not paying enough taxes etc. All I could do was sit there and listen to him talk about how evil the rich were because they didn’t share their money.

Talk about deflecting blame off yourself! While we’re at it, let’s blame cell phone makers for building their products thus forcing us to buy. We can also blame all restaurants for making us buy food for a higher price than at home. I’d personally like to blame my family for not working harder so I could inherit all of my wealth rather than work for it myself!

While this guy will probably be stuck in the same situation forever, here are some things we should be doing to Take 100% Responsibility:

• Give Up Blaming
• Give Up Complaining
• Give Up Excuses
• Create Your Life (Don’t let it just happen to you)

It’s Your Choices That Matter
As Jack mentions, when handed $400 cash you have two basic options. The first is to spend it on something. This may be a night on the town (you are now broke) or it may be an investments in stocks (you have increased your net worth.)

If you look back 10 years and you don’t have anything saved, do you blame yourself or should you blame your kids for having too many toys, your friends for going out too much, the economy for not paying you enough or one of 1,000,000 other reasons?

Looking Back

I can’t imagine someone who hasn’t tried to pass blame on to external sources at least once in their life. I have done it many times. Well guess what? That all ends today.

I am going to commit to banish the thoughts of blame from my head and understand that everything in my life is as a result of the choices I’ve made in my past.

That felt good just writing it out!

What does this mean? It means that I am going to stop looking back and where my decisions have brought me. The only thing that matters is how I am going to take my current situation and turn it into the future that I want!

Have You Joined The 62 Step Challenge?

Buy The Success Principles at Amazon and join in my new challenge.

Organization and other difficult things

I’ve experienced first-hand the stress that comes with disorganization. As I mentioned in a previous posting, I have been having my house painted for the last few days.

That means that everything that is normally in it’s spot is now distributed across the house in baskets and other containers. Finding the cell phone recharger takes 15 minutes because you need to look in a few different drawers, baskets etc. It also means that I am continually bumping into things when I trek downstairs to grab a water in the middle of the night. I truly believe in the saying that “The shin is a useful tool for finding things in the dark!”

Major Projects

Beyond just this disorganization, I’m also spinning my wheels trying to keep up with the workload at the office. I’m involved in a few major projects on top of the daily contact with my clients and associated partners. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Everything in life is going very well. It just seems like I’m in a bit of a period of ‘world-on-shoulders’ and I’m trying to figure out a way to get caught up.

I was speaking with a colleague the other day regarding organization. In fact, it’s her dream to become a personal organizer to help people exactly like me. She had some ideas about storage and categorizing things. After listening to her, I realized that storage wasn’t my problem.

My Wife Knows Me

I remembered a great line that my wife told me. She said that I was too much like the IKEA commercial where the little milk container isn’t being thrown away because of sentimental reasons. She said that when you get rid of old stuff you make way for new memories.

As I thought about this, I realized how much it’s true. I have a lot of things that have absolutely no value aside from the memories that they hold. In fact, I have a few boxes of such stuff. Maybe my problem is that my memory is too good for my own good! I can literally remember the W5 for every little junky item I have.

Guess what? It’s time to clean house and remove the stuff. I think that I will be removing a great weight from my shoulders as well.

On the same subject, I’ve also hired a house cleaner to start cleaning once every two weeks. (No this doesn’t mean that I’ll save up the dishes for 14 days!) With these types of small items off my plate, I can focus my down time on the family and other things I love. Just one more thing to try and free up time.

Wow what a rant!

I’d love to know your organization techniques. Just when I think mine are working, I run into a month like this!

Help me organize. Join my RSS.

Is Yahoo Punishing Me or Something?

As I was working on LewisEmpire.com last night I decided to take a few minutes and surf around MyBlogLog for a few minutes. At the stroke of 1:00am my profile was automatically logged out and I was required to spend the next 45 minutes trying to figure out what was going on.

I got a big screen that said Yahoo! owned MyBlogLog and that I needed to login with my Yahoo account. I don’t usually use Yahoo so I went through all my email and finally found one from 2004 that showed my username. Blah, Blah, Blah, I finally got my account open and then spent the next 10 minutes ‘merging’ my profiles.

Through this experience I lost:

• 45 minutes of my life
• My Avatar (short term loss)
• 45 minutes of sleep (same as above)
• Some of my last respect for Yahoo!

I understand that they want to become bigger, buy my personal information as well as the connections I’ve made online. I’m OK with that. But please don’t make using a service that I’ve been a member of since June 25th, 2007 (long term in the blogging world) a hassle!

When I tried to upload my Avatar again I was AGAIN referred back to a Yahoo page. OK. I get it! You bought MyBlogLog. Can’t they just do the biometric eye scan through my video thing here and approve me to join Debo Hobo’s community? (Can you believe after reading her blog for months I’ve never joined the community? Have you all joined mine?)

Yahoo Drowning Itself?

OK. I admit, I really don’t hate Yahoo but I’ve got to say that they could put a little more effort into some of the products that they offer.

Let’s look at two examples:
1. The Yahoo Search Marketing Screen:

2. The Google Analytics Screen:

I don’t want to nag Yahoo but I’m pretty sure the top one could be done by my 2 1/2 year old. Remember: I’m paying for the top one (through search marketing) and the second one is free.

Here’s one more thing. I know that people have been trashing Google for their page rank reduction lately. (You may have noticed that my PageRank dropped from a 10/10 down to a 0/10 without me even noticing at first. ) Wouldn’t this be the perfect time for Yahoo to make it’s run at the blogging community? Take advantage of all the crap that Google is throwing out and get their act together (if anyone at Google or Yahoo is reading this please give me an awesome ranking or at least send back the bribery checks).

Obviously they are doing something wrong. Here’s the share prices for both Google and Yahoo as a comparison to each other:

Please, please, please Yahoo don’t wreck MyBlogLog. I just got in there and simply don’t have the time to figure out another way to show my Avatar:

PS. Google broke $600 per share. It’s IPO was at just over $85. How does that make you feel? Anyone want to guess where it will go next?

If you Yahoo and you know it join my Feed.

Tags: google, business education, yahoo!, blogging, business blog, online marketing

Up the Ante On My RSS Challenge

I made a decision today regarding my RSS Challenge It’s Time To Chow Your Shoe and Lewis Too against John Chow and Shoemoney.

Shoe Me The Goods!

Anyone who writes about my competition and links to either this post or the RSS Competition post will be entered for the following:

1. A Lewis Empire site review
2. A Free Wealth Building Book
3. Blogroll Listing

My review will include a feature of YOUR RSS Feed for everyone to enjoy. I will send you a copy of either a Rich Dad Poor Dad book or The Millionaire Next Door. (There are other options that will be available when the contest closes on October 31st.) You will be on my Blogroll for an undecided period of time (I don’t update it very often so it will probably be there for quite a while!)

Current Entrants

Those who have already written about it will be automatically entered (although I will consider a second entry if you write about both posts) so DeboHobo.com, dcrblogs.com and MyBlogContest have their entries! (and free links here too!)

Let’s not forget my commentators!

I’ve also decided to give a linkback in the contest summary post (scheduled for November 1st) to anyone who makes a comment on this competition post from now until the end of October.

Thanks for your support!

I’m in. Give me some great RSS.

Rock Paper Scissors Roundup

My company recently had a RPS competition - that’s rock, paper, scissors to the layman. There were 64 comptetiors - who I call ‘athleates’ - and it was a ton of fun. You’ll be happy to know that I ended up in the top 8 with some solid victories. Not only that, but the entire event was for charity and with a $5.00 entry fee, we were able to dontate $250 (after trophy and prize money.)

The best parts of the entire competition was 1) the trash talk between competitiors and 2) the fun that I had destroying my first three challengers.

After being in the competition, I found it very funny how serious people got when they were competiting. One girl was very mad that a vertical paper was not accepted (paper must always be thrown with a flat hand) and one guy swore when he was down by two (we played best-out-of-five.)

Here are some great RPS sites:

World RPS - the definitive organization dedicated to the advancement of Rock, Paper Scissors as a decision making tool as well as a competitive sport. This is the international organization for RPS enthusiasts.

USARPS League - the more home-grown version of the international sport (and sponsored by Bud Light). Main differences: in the US league scissors can be thrown both horizontal and vertical. Horizontal scissors is illegal in international play.

How To Win at Rock, Paper, Scissors (and also how to cheat) is a great read for a good laugh about RPS strategy.

Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard - a new take on the old game.

Try playing against a computer for Rock Paper Scissors supremacy!

Rock Paper Scissors

Rock, Paper, Scissors Beer Commercial

Please note: LewisEmpire.com does not endorse any individual beverage company; however, I do endorse their funny ad.

Have fun!

What do you prefer? Rock, Paper or Scissors?

Net Out Even

I had a meeting with a client last week and we were discussing options for his multiple properties and what the costs would be for moving his operation.

The funny thing was, the more we talked about it, the more it seemed like every alternative we came up with had a zero benefit once all the factors were taken into consideration.

In this example, there was talk of moving the main buildings from one area to another. On closer examination, while the actual rent would be lower, there were higher taxes, energy and other utility charges. Not to mention that the cost of moving and additional distance between the previous and new building. The net savings was zero.

This got me thinking about my own life whenever I make long term decisions. What amount of emotion am I adding before I have a firm grasp on the overall outcome?

As an example, when choosing a home would you rather live closer to the downtown core (assuming you work downtown) or further out in the suburbs? Here are my calculations:

Downtown Monthly Costs
Mortgage on $750,000 property: $4500 per month
Property Taxes: $280
Commuting Time 20 minutes per day @ ($25 - $50 per hour):$200 per month
Fuel: $0
Total: $4980

Suburb Costs:
Mortgage on $ 450,000 property: $2700
Property Taxes: $168
Commuting Time 2 hours per day @ ($25 - $50 per hour): $1190
Fuel: $125
Total: $4183

Other costs to consider: Renovations to old buildings, premier location prices, local traffic, amenity access

Once these costs are determined and the final analysis being so similar, you need to then move on to other factors such as lifestyle, location, schools etc. What value do you want to add to these things?

I use this in many aspects of my life. I find that doing a quick overall monthly cost calculation will allow me to view decisions objectively and not just change for the sake of change.

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A Dark and Stormy Night - Interlude

If you are just finding this story for the first time then STOP HERE!

You need to read part 1 of the story: Dark and Stormy Night - The Setup before you move on to part two: Interlude.

As you may have read, this is a challenge from dcrblogs.com that I have decided to put some effort into for you to enjoy.

Without further interruption, please enjoy part 2: Dark and Stormy Night - Interlude.

When I woke up it was a little after 11pm. I didn’t know where I was but from the Misdo Club membership on the counter and the Slyvisions glasses on the table, I figured I wasn’t in a poor part of town.

There was almost no furniture or personal effects. Obviously moves around a lot I thought to myself.

A small Webd360 police scanner sat in the corner next to a few digital devices that I had never even heard of before. I was Lost in Technology and needed an explanation from this Nerdy Nomad that had probably saved my life.

I gave my head a shake and stood up.

The room was fairly dark but not intentionally. Phil McDonnell was presenting on E-World Vu TV in the other room. I remembered that it was scheduled for tomorrow night. That meant that I had slept about 24 hours.

I checked my hip like some Mobile Phone Geek but the Blackberry was gone. I let out a Sigh,I guess I was disconnected once again.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, obviously hearing me as she walking from behind the shade in the other room.

She was as gorgeous as a Rich Minx.

I stuttered slightly, “Neatorama“. She rolled her eyes.

What, am I five? I thought to myself. “Uh, I mean, I’m Going The Wong Way about this. I’m…”

“I know your name,” she said quickly. “I can’t imagine there’s a person in this town who doesn’t these days.”

I didn’t know what she meant by this but chose to move on. “What do I owe you for saving my life?” I asked.

She looked at me; standing there in my dusty and torn Armani suit with a broken Rolex on my wrist. “I’m Smart Not Cheap” she said with a smile.

I looked down at my own clothes. Obviously I had rolled in something I hadn’t intended. “I guess I’m not in danger of starting a new Fashion Style Trend am I?”

No Answer.

I changed the subject to find out more information and avoid embarrassment. “Fill me in on the details after I went all Tips Supremo and blacked out.”

She grabbed herself a hot cup of tea and a copy of the Net Business Journal. There I was on the cover with the headline: Beyond the Rhetoric: Boston Brat embezzles Millions in Forex Trading scheme.

I was amazed. “That’s not who I am. Don’t they ever check their facts?” I looked at the cover once again. “If they wanted to frame me, why try to kill me the same night?”

“So you didn’t do it?”

“Of course not! I don’t even know what it says I did in there.”

She looked me over one more time. There was something in her eyes that seemed to penetrate me, searching for my honesty. I can’t say I enjoyed it but she did save my life. I gave her the moment.

“What happened?”

“It was the Idea Sellers” she said.

A chill went through my spine. Not only was this the fiercest gang in the city, but I had killed some of them. Not good for my One Year Goal of staying alive.

She began her story:
“I was at Skittle’s Place having a DigitalORDER processed when I heard the first shots. I came around the corner just in time to watch you fall in behind the garbage bin and collapse. There were bullets flying everywhere and I could tell you were in trouble.

From the distance, I knew you didn’t have a lot of time before they were on you so I moved closer to your spot and got ready. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to jump up like some Blogamama and start firing! You scared the crap out of me!” she laughed out loud.

“I’m glad I could make your evening exciting,” I replied.

“Oh it doesn’t end there. I saw that they had you in their sights so that’s when I yelled. Do you remember?”

“Yeah”

“Well, you hit the ground and I started to fire into the darkness. I must have had my AdSense Tracker on because I got all three of the rest of them with only four shots. I waited a minute and ran over to check the bodies. Aside from the usual bullet clips and wallets I found your picture and a note. It said ‘Welcome to…”

“I remember! …to my world of dreams right? I thought I imagined that.”

“That wasn’t the end of it.” She walked over to the drawer.
“Here it is…OK. Uh…world of dreams that will soon become reality. With the Market Treasure ready to be moved, phase two of The Dragon Project can begin. Get rid of the contact…I’m guessing that’s you…and clear up the last roadblock at the club. That’s everything.”

“I wonder what the Dragon is?”

“I’ve got no idea but it almost got you killed. Once I grabbed that note, I figured out pretty quickly that you had been poisoned.”

“How did you know that?” I asked. I had never heard of there being any specific outward signs before, it’s not like they had poisoned Any Apples for her to find.

“You were delirious. You said ‘I’ve been poisoned’ so I rushed you back here. I’ve worked on a few cases with clients that had this happen so I gave you a quick shot of Kenibatz and let you sleep. It was close for a while.”

“Thanks.” I thought for a moment. Her story was a little convenient but I had to accept it for now. “You’re part of the The Diva Network aren’t you?”

She looked stunned.

“I can’t imagine that everyone has an antidote like that one lying around the..uh…empty house,” I said, “what is this your Mother’s Home?”

“If you know anything the Network, you’d know that I can’t talk about it.”

I’d hit the mark.

“Can you think of anything you’ve worked on lately that might have started this?” she asked, changing the subject.

I sat back into my chair and looked at the ceiling. The Secretalife was to keep your clients separated from your personal life. The poisoning had got too close. In my line of work there were always a few cases that could come back to haunt you but this was specific. I couldn’t think of anything specific but there were Picture Clusters in my mind of potentials. The note had said, ‘The Contact’ which meant that I had been involved somehow without knowing.

A low siren suddenly started to sound: Bloggrrl! Bloggrrl!

“What’s that?” I asked.

She was already gathering her things and putting them in her bag. “We’ve got to leave. Now.”

I looked around for the beeping noise. It was attached to a small monitor that showed an outside view of the street.

They’d found me.

“How did they know where to look?” I yelled across the room.

She tripped on the carpet and slid across the floor, “Blog Duck” she yelled.

“Watch your mouth!” I tried to joke. Not funny. She was serious.

“If they found you this quickly we’ve got no solid place to hide. We need protection and we need it now.”

I knew what that meant. I was headed for the underworld once again to ask for another favor from my Godfather, or as everyone else calls him: The Don.

The Don Biz Blogger.

To be continued…

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If you’re interested in including your blog in my story, please leave a comment below and/or post about this story on your blog. Thanks for reading! Part 3 is coming in a couple of days.

Midweek Ramble 2007-09-19

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to post part two of my Dark and Stormy Night article. I was called away on business and simply have not had time to get the posting ready. If you haven’t read it already, have a read at Part 1 of Dark and Stormy Night.

Grand Slam
On a positive note, I went to a Boston Red Sox / Toronto Blue Jays baseball game tonight (my first professional baseball game ever) and was witness to a great Grand Slam Home Run! Although I am more of a Soccer and Hockey fan, it was really cool to go into a new stadium in a new city for the game.

Indoor Soccer Starts On Monday
After finishing a great outdoor season of soccer (finishing in 4th place) I am really looking forward to playing indoor again. There’s just something about leaving the house at 9:00pm in the pitch black for a 10:00pm game.

The unfortunate thing is that since the games are so late, my team doesn’t have the opportunity to do our weekly post-game BS session at the local pub. I proposed that we have the meeting before the game. No one thought that playing on a full stomach of wings and nachos would do us any good!

Of course, I’ll be writing about the lesson’s I’ve learned from each game. To read last season’s series, have a read of:
Related Posts:
Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Semi-Final
The Failure Series
Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Game 6
Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Game 5
Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Game 4
The Success Series
Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Game 3
More Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Game 2
Three Lessons From Monday Night Soccer - Game 1

Bracelona is playing Lyon (plus I’m tired from meetings all day). I’ll write more tomorrow…

I look forward to hearing from you so consider my Full Feed RSS.

Around the Blogs and Back Again 2

I’ve been busy again this week both off and online. Through all my hours of reading and commenting on the web, here are some items that I found very interesting:

• Real Estate Editorial gives a good article on city buildings and residences going “Green” by implementing green roof technology.
• The Laidback Buddhist has a great self analysis by using “7 P’s” as an analytical tool. My own is coming up since being challenged by dcrblogs.com earlier this week.
• Googlesightseeing.com is a very cool site that shows some of the more interesting things that are found on Google Maps. Here is one that shows an inter-dimensional portal located somewhere in the Netherlands.
• Online Cash Flow posted about the benefits and hassles of being a blogger. This is the link to the benefits and here is the link to the hassles.
• The Edmonton Real Estate Blog posted an article promoting a distant annex of the Lewis Empire. Sara’s posting is about an area of the city called Lewis Estates. My domain expands…
• SEO Optimization wrote a great article on optimizing your title. If you haven’t been doing it already, here are some things you need to know. Also, see my article about title optimization.
• Four-Pillars.ca wrote about his long-term plan for retirement. I made a comment about his goals and he got back to me right away. My estimations are based on a minimum 8% return, his were from a conservative 4%. I think he’ll be rolling in money when the real rate comes out much higher than his budget. Won’t that be a nice retirement day?!

That’s a quick summary. I’ll see you back again tomorrow!

Can anyone else believe that it’ already the 16th of September?

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The Jack Of All Trades Myth

Tim Ferriss’ recent post The Top 5 Reasons To Be a Jack Of All Trades really opened my eyes to the world of business. He targets the idea of being a “Jack of all trades, master of none” and then discounts the “master of none” part!

The basis for his article goes back to the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule). His arguement is that you can ‘Master’ any skill - ie. get to the 80% level - in about a year. The remaining 20% could take another 10 years, 20 years or even a lifetime of practice to achieve. This results in a diminishing return on time invested (ROTI) after the 80% is achieved. Tim’s arguement is that the term ‘Master’ is very different than being ‘Perfect’.

My Understanding
Although I completely agree with his statement for many areas of business, I think that the article should clarify it’s target audience a little better. I don’t want to have a Doctor, with 1 year of schooling, removing my appendix. I would prefer that an Engineer, with more than 1 year of schooling, design the building I work in. I’d also like the rocket scientist who designs the space shuttle that flies over my house to have more than 1 year of schooling. Other than these people, I’m all for it.

Entrepreneurs and Team Builders
Being a Jack Of All Trades will work wonders for you if you are also working towards creating your own business or self-directed investing. A Jack needs to create a team of people who have specialized knowledge that can be leveraged. Without this drive, a Jack will probably be forced to spend their days in a mid-level management position of some large Cog manufacturing company.

As you can imagine, the world needs people who are specialized for this exact reason. If you have the ability to successfully build teams and motivate people, you don’t need to know more about taxation than your accountant. You also don’t need to have a better understanding of the legal profession than your lawyer. What you need is the ability to manage your team, your time and your goals.

Dare I say: Become a Jack of all trades?

Not without a warning:
There are too many people who should run away screaming if someone suggests that they become an entrepreneur. My suggestion is that you take a good look at your personality, long term goals and skills. If you’ve got the internal motivation you need to succeed then go for it. If you’re satisfied working 9 to 5 with a steady 3% raise every year, then stick with that.

Create your life the way you want it.

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