Steve Jobs did it. Ronald Reagan did it. Chris Gardner did it.

Successful people, at some point, reinvent themselves.

Sometimes it’s a gradual process, as was the case with Jobs and Reagan. Sometimes it’s an overnight transformation by virtue of one lucky break, as in the case of Gardner.

Regardless, what initiates the transformation is always the same thing – a clear vision of the new path towards your new life.

What causes this massive transformation?

Asking yourself one simple question: “Who do I want to be?”

When you have a clear vision of who you want to be in the future, you are able to back engineer your life.

You create a clear vision through a process called Dream-Setting.

To begin the Dream-Setting process, start by painting a picture with words of your ideal future life. This could be five, ten or twenty years from now. This script is the blueprint of your new future life. Re-read your script a few times each week. This creates a scratch your subconscious will feel compelled to itch.

At some point it will stop itching and communicate to you, through intuition, what you need to do. Sometimes that communication is subtle, like a feather. Sometimes its pronounced, like a hammer. Everyone hears their inner voice differently and at different volumes. But you will never hear that inner voice, if you are not clear on your destination.

This Dream-Setting process helps you to create that clear vision of your destination. This clear vision stimulates certain regions of your subconscious mind: Insula, Reticular Activating System, Thalamus, Brain Stem and various other regions.

In order to activate these regions, you must define exactly what your future life looks like:

• What you do for a living.
• How much money you make.
• Who you work with.
• Where you live.
• What your house looks like.
• What car you drive.
• How much money you have in your bank account.
• How you spend each day.
• Where you go on vacation.
• Places you travel to.
• Etc.

Transformation is a process. A big part of that process is visualizing exactly what you want your future life to be.

Once you have a clear vision of your ideal future life, portions of the subconscious mind  are toggled on and go to work seeking people, opportunities, and internal/external information to help you get where you want to go.

Until you know where you want to go, those subconscious powers remain dormant and your inner voice, silent.

Inherited wealth is fleeting.

One of the myths I frequently dispel is the myth that most wealthy people inherited their wealth.

The reality is, most wealthy people are first generation rich.

In my Rich Habits Study, 76% of the wealthy created their own wealth.

In other studies, 80% seems to be the magic number.

A 2015 Williams Group Wealth Consultancy Survey, in which more than 3,200 high-net-worth families were studied, found the following:

• 70% of rich families lose their wealth by the second generation;
• 90% of rich families lose their wealth by the third generation;
• The average recipient of an inheritance purchases a car within 19 days of the inheritance.

Why is it so hard to hold on to inherited money?

When you are given money, it has less value to you than when you are required to work to earn it.

Building wealth takes a long time. The few who are able to forge habits that create their wealth, take great pains in holding onto their wealth.

This human tendency to spend money that you did not earn is one of the reasons Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have greatly limited how much wealth their children will inherit.

Don’t buy into the myth that the wealthy inherited their wealth. It’s a myth. Most wealth in America is earned wealth. And this is a good thing.

Fear, whether conscious or subconscious, holds most back in life.

It’s very much like a boat’s mooring lines, tethering you to the dock, preventing you from venturing too far in life.

The key to overcoming fear is to take small steps, or dip your toe in just a little. Once you realize your fears are unfounded, it gives you courage to keep pursuing dreams or goals that were previously halted by your fears.

Baby steps allow you to face your fear incrementally, bit by bit, until your confidence grows to the point where you are able to cut those lines and free yourself from your fear.

Here’s How To Free Yourself From Fears

1. Make a list of your top four biggest fears.
2. Each week for a month, focus on just one fear.
3. Do some little thing that forces you to face that fear every day for seven days.
4. Move on to your next fear and repeat steps 1 – 3.

The purpose of this exercise is to prove to you that your fears are blown way out of proportion. It will help you forge the habit of overcoming fear. As your confidence grows, fear retreats.

How much you eat may very well determine how long you live.

In a report issued by Roderick Bronson and Ruth Lipman of the Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston, reducing your normal intake of food by 40% yields a 20% longer life span.

Eating less does three things:

1. Reduces DNA damage
2. Increases DNA repair and
3. Reduces free radical genetic mutations

Free radical mutations are the result of the mitochondria (power plants inside each cell) breaking down glucose and converting it to ATP, the primary fuel of every cell. During this violent conversion process taking place inside each cell, electrons can be pulled off their molecules and, like a Mexican jumping bean, bounce around inside the cell causing damage. If the wandering electron bounces off the nucleus inside the cell it can damage the DNA that resides inside that nucleus. This can result in mutations that lead to diseases like cancer.

Every time we eat, this metabolic process creates free radicals. So, the less you eat, the less free radical waste you create.

Also, the longer you go without eating, the more time each cell has to clean up this free radical mess. This is why I am such a big proponent of intermittent fasting – fasting for at least 12 hours a day. Intermittent fasting help your body eliminate toxins that accumulate and clean up this free radical pig pen within each cell.

With less toxins and fewer free radicals roaming around inside your cells, your cells have less stress, less exposure to potential DNA damage and, thus, less opportunity for mutations to occur that can lead to diseases such as cancer.

Your brain loves novelty.

When you engage in new activities, or take up a new skill, your brain rewards you with a boost in Dopamine, the happiness neurotransmitter.

Why does the brain love novelty?

Because the brain is selfish. It likes to do anything that helps it grow bigger and stronger.

Every time you engage in a new activity and then practice it, you create a new neural pathway. Neural pathways are a series of neurons (brain cells) called into action to communicate with each other. When you repeat new activities, these neurons communicating with each other begin to form a permanent neural pathway, thus growing the size of your brain.

This is why it is critical for older people to engage in new activities – new activities keep older brains active and growing.

Those who want to grow their brains should engage in a new activity periodically and repeat it until it becomes a skill. This can take anywhere from 18 days to 254 days. Each new activity that becomes a skill, creates brain mass and keeps your mind active and your brain healthy.

Blood’s major purpose in the body is to carry nutrients (glucose and oxygen) to the cells and to carry waste out through our lungs in the form of carbon dioxide.

When we exercise aerobically we increase blood flow throughout the body. The more aerobic exercise, the greater that blood flow. This means more nutrients and more waste removal.

Exercise also increases blood flow into the Dentate Gyrus. The Dentate Gyrus is part of our brain’s Hippocampus, a region involved in memory formation and neurogenisis (birth of new neurons).

Weight-lifting or resistance exercise stimulates the production of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDFN). BDFN is miracle grow for the neurons inside our brain, helping them not only stay healthy but increase in size.

Lastly, when you lift weights and/or engage in aerobic exercise, this increases the myelin sheath (insulation) around the axons of each brain cell. The thicker the myelin sheath, the faster and more powerful the electrical signals sent by brain cells to one another. This increases how fast you are able to think, a key attribute of those with high IQs.

For those who are pursuing success, you will face obstacles, impediments, seemingly intractable problems and many issues that require you to think better and faster. Exercising every day gives you that slight edge that can make a difference between failure or success.

Eighteenth century French philosopher, Denis Diderot, became rich after writing Encyclopedie, one of the most comprehensive encyclopedia’s at the time.

His wealth enabled him to satisfy a want he had – to buy a very expensive robe. Soon after buying the robe, he decided to replace all of his clothing in order to match the beauty of the robe. This escalated into a series of purchases that included art for the walls of his home and other accessories.

Diderot, realizing his folly, wrote about this Spiral of Consumption in an essay titled, “Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown.”

Diderot explains how new consumption often leads to a Spiral of Consumption that can enslave you and rob you of your wealth.

This psychological tendency is known as Want Spending and Lifestyle Creep. We see it at work with celebrities such as Johnny Depp and Connor McGregor, whose reckless spending has eroded their wealth.

The only way to stop this Spiral of Consumption, known as Want Spending, in its tracks is to replace envy or greed with gratitude or gratefulness.

Gratitude shifts your thinking from negative (envy/greed) to positive (gratitude/gratefulness). It is like a stop sign that prevents this Spiral of Consumption from addicting you to Want Spending, and bleeding you of the hard-earned money you’ve accumulated.

Decisions are significant players in determining the financial circumstances of your life.

One bad decision can cost you significant money and put you behind the eight ball for many years.

Bad decisions are like dominos – they lead to more bad decisions.

When a bad decision costs you significant money, it puts you in a position of weakness.

When you are in a position of weakness, all future decisions you make are made out of necessity – to solve some immediate short-term immediate need, which is usually a financial one.

This immediate financial need, a need you created by making a bad decision in the first place, then forces you to take shortcuts that an individual in a position of strength would never take:

• Out of desperation, you fail to do your due diligence (homework) before making an investment;
• Out of desperation, you partner with someone whose background you really don’t know enough about;
• Out of desperation, you ignore facts or details that a non-desperate person would never ignore.

One bad decision can put you in a position of weakness and cause a cascade of poor decisions that act like an anchor, dragging you further down into a financial abyss.

Here’s the rule when it comes to major decisions:

Never make a major decision when you are in a position of weakness. Only make major decisions from a position of strength.

Position of Strength Decisions are almost always sound decisions.

Position of Weakness Decisions are almost always poor decisions.