Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Unlocking Your God Gene

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Forge – Create. Tom forged a new understanding of the causes of income inequality and the wealth gap, with his research.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

History’s top 10 greatest inventions:

  1. Telephone
  2. Computers
  3. Television
  4. Automobile
  5. Cotton gin
  6. Camera
  7. Steam Engine
  8. Sewing Machine
  9. Light Bulb
  10. Penicillin

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

Many books have been written about God. Perhaps the most famous book is the Bible. At the core of being God is one unique trait: the ability to create. This ability makes God unique. But God is not the only one who can create. Humans posses this trait. We are the only species on earth who have the innate ability to create tangible things from mere thought. We have the ability to dream and turn those dreams into reality. We are, in a sense, godlike.  Each of us is endowed with the God Gene. Those who create are actually tapping into the God Gene. Those individuals who do harness this God Gene, and create things of incredible value to society, are labeled “geniuses” and rewarded by society.

Only when we create are we truly being human. For some unknown reason, we were the only species on earth blessed with this unique gift to create. Those who spend their lives creating, are the happiest human beings. That is life’s reward for utilizing the God Gene. Happiness. Creating is our purpose in life. For most, unfortunately, the God Gene remains dormant. When we ignore our purpose in life we find ourselves unhappy, eking out a living, never reaching our full potential.  Making use of this God Gene is the path to happiness. Ignoring it is the path to unhappiness. If you want to be truly happy in life you must create. You must activate your God Gene.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Volunteering is a Form of Networking

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Networking – Making relationships. Tom’s volunteering helped him develop valuable relationships that helped improve his business.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Volunteers spent a median of 50 hours on volunteer activities during the period from September 2011 to September 2012. Time spent on volunteer activities was similar for women and men. Median annual hours spent on volunteer activities ranged from a low of 32 hours for those 25 to 34 years old to a high of 90 hours for volunteers age 65 and over. 

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

When you volunteer your time in your community you gain name recognition. It exposes you to more people and expands your relationship base. You become a recognized figure in your community and that makes you feel important. 

There is no better feeling than the feeling that you made a difference. I like to call it the “George Bailey Effect.” We all want to feel our lives have meaning. Volunteerism satisfies that empty feeling we sometimes have about our very existence. When our volunteerism makes a difference, it simply makes us feel like we matter in life.


Volunteerism allows you to meet new people and gain new relationships. These relationships can turn into life-long friendships or business acquaintances. If you have had difficulty making new relationships, volunteerism may be the perfect remedy.

Volunteerism is a perfect way to highlight your skillset. When you do a good job, people notice and that very often translates into business opportunities. People want to do business with people they know, like and trust. What better way to make that happen than volunteering.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Cause & Effect

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Causation – Origin, beginning. Tom realized, after completing his five-year study, that the causation of poverty for most people was their bad daily habits.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

What causes hurricanes?

Hurricanes are intense low pressure areas that form over warm ocean waters in the summer and early fall. Their source of energy is water vapor which is evaporated from the ocean surface.  

Water vapor is the “fuel” for the hurricanes because it releases the “latent heat of condensation” when it condenses to form clouds and rain, warming the surrounding air. (This heat energy was absorbed by the water vapor when it was evaporated from the warm ocean surface, cooling the ocean in the process.) 

Usually, the heat released in this way in tropical thunderstorms is carried away by wind shear, which blows the top off the thunderstorms. But when there is little wind shear, this heat can build up, causing low pressure to form. The low pressure causes wind to begin to spiral inward toward the center of the low. 

These winds help to evaporate even more water vapor from the ocean, spiraling inward toward the center, feeding more showers and thunderstorms, and warming the upper atmosphere still more. The showers and thunderstorms where all of this energy is released are usually organized into bands (sometimes called “rainbands” or “feeder bands”), as well as into an “eyewall” encircling the center of the storm. The eyewall is where the strongest winds occur, which encircle the warmest air, in the eye of the hurricane. This warmth in the eye is produced by sinking air, which sinks in response to rising air in the thunderstorms. The winds diminish rapidly moving from the eyewall to the inside of the relatively cloud-free eye, where calm winds can exist.

Hurricane intensity is based upon the highest sustained (1 minute average) wind speed the hurricane is producing. The “Saffir-Simpson” scale rates hurricane strength in this way from Category 1 to Category 5. These categories were chosen based upon the amount of damage that each category can produce.

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

For most people bad daily habits are the cause and poverty is the effect. In my five year study I discovered certain poverty Habits that are directly responsible poverty. Poverty Habits are behaviors that contribute to poverty. Behaviors such as watching too much T.V., spending too much time on recreational Internet use, eating too much, not saving, living beyond your means by spending more than you earn, not reading every day for self-improvement, lack of proper goal-setting, procrastination, poor relationship management, negative thinking, allowing negative emotions to control your behavior, drinking too much alcohol, not seeking out mentors in life and lack of purpose in life. You can eliminate your Poverty Habits by adopting Rich Habits. Rich Habits are unique Habits known as Keystone Habits. Keystone Habits are unique in the habit world. They are unique because they affect or eliminate Poverty Habits. If you want to raise yourself out of poverty you need to adopt Rich Habits.   

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Happy Birthday Calls

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Latticework – Framework, infrastructure. Tom built into his Outlook database a latticework of processes that enabled him to remember every person’s birthday.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Twelve Things How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie book) Will Do For You:
  1. Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions.
  2. Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.
  3. Increase your popularity.
  4. Help you to win people to your way of thinking.
  5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.
  6. Enable you to win new clients, new customers.
  7. Increase your earning power.
  8. Make you a better salesman, a better executive.
  9. Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.
  10. Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.
  11. Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts.
  12. Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

In my research 80% of the wealthy made happy birthday calls while only 11% of the poor did this. The wealthy process this Rich Habit into their day using cell phones, calendars, customer relationship management software, database management systems, Outlook and in some cases a simple Rolodex. While it may seem trivial it isn’t. In Dale Carnegie’s famous book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, Mr. Carnegie points out that the two most important things to every individual are their names and their birthday’s. To each of us our birthday’s are important. When you wish someone a happy birthday it says to the birthday boy or girl you are important to me. Phone calls are the best way to wish a happy birthday because it gives you an opportunity to communicate with your relationship. While Facebook is a great tool to process happy birthday wishes it should not take the place of a phone call. The more we communicate with our relationships the stronger they get. Wherever you go carry around a notepad and when you meet with your relationships at events, gatherings, get togethers, ask them for their birthday and write it down in your notepad and then transfer it to your cell phone or Outlook and set it as an anniversary reminder. This way you will never forget anyone’s birthday. Happy birthday calls keep all of our relationships on life support because at least once a year we are communicating with them. I have been following this Rich Habit for years and I discovered that about 20% of the people you call on their birthday will eventually reciprocate and call you on your birthday. This reciprocal birthday call takes your relationships off life support and grows the roots to your relationship tree further.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Healthy People are Wealthy People

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Salubrious – Good health. Tom learned his salubrious lifestyle from studying the daily habits of the wealthy.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Running burns 124 calories per mile for men and 105 for women. 20-30% of you total daily calories need to be fats. Fats enable your body to absorb vitamins A, D, E & K. Trans Fats (in processed foods) & Saturated Fats (meat and dairy) are bad fats. Unsaturated fats (olive oil, seeds and fish) are good fats.

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

The wealthy, successful people in my study were health-minded. The poor were not. Some of the things the wealthy did to maintain good health include the following:

  • Reduce daily caloric intake. 57% of the wealthy counted calories every day
  • Avoid junk food. 70% of the wealthy ate less than 300 junk food calories a day
  • Daily aerobic exercise. 76% of the wealth exercised aerobically 20-30 minutes every day
  • Consume less sugar. 72% of the wealthy ate candy less than two times per week
  • Avoid fast food restaurants. 75% of the wealthy ate at fast food restaurants less than 3 times per week
  • Good dental hygiene. 62% of the wealthy flossed every day
  • Moderate consumption of alcohol. Only 13% of the wealthy drink in excess every month
  • Don’t smoke cigarettes. Only 21% of the wealthy smoked cigarettes

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – The American Dream

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Prosperity – Financial success and abundance. Tom’s dream was to help the poor rise from their individual poverty in pursuit of the American Dream and realize unlimited prosperity.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Horatio Alger wrote over 100 books embellishing the American Dream. In his books, individuals were depicted as rising above their poverty and gaining wealth, happiness and respect.

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

The American Dream represents the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American along with a life of personal happiness and material prosperity. The American Dream offers every American a real hope that they can increase their prosperity and the potential to rise from poverty to wealth in one or two generations. It is the dream that children will grow up to be happier and more prosperous than their parents; that each generation can be better off than the last.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Courage to Persist Creates Geniuses

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Perspicacity – Genius, perceptive. G. W. Carver’s perspicacity for seeing what other experts did not see is why he is in the history books and those so-called “experts” are not.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri, around 1864. Carver went on to become one of the most prominent scientists and inventors of his time, as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver devised over 100 products using one of these crops—the peanut. Botanist and inventor George Washington Carver was one of many children born to Mary and Giles, an enslaved couple owned by Moses Carver. After the Civil War Moses and Susan Carter decided to raise and educate George in their home since blacks were not permitted an education in any of the local schools at the time. Carver moved to Ames and began his botanical studies as the first black student at Iowa State. Carver excelled in his studies. Upon completion of his Bachelor of Science degree, Carver’s professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel persuaded him to stay on for a master’s degree. His graduate studies included intensive work in plant pathology at the Iowa Experiment Station. In these years, Carver established his reputation as a brilliant botanist and began the work that he would pursue for the remainder of his career.

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

The successful have the courage to pursue their dreams in spite of the overwhelming obstacles placed in their way. Passion for your goal or dream enables you to persist. Perseverance, in pursuit of your passion, always manifests opportunities and unintended consequences. That is why it is so important to persevere. Often the path to achieving your goal or dream is very different than the one imagined. You simply cannot predict the “how” to reaching your goal or realizing your dream. The “how”, in the face of persistence, just appears out of thin air.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Outsiders Who Innovated

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Outlander – Outsider. Tom was an outlander trying to help the poor rise from abject poverty to wealth.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Jack Johnson – 1st Black Heavyweight Champ

Alice Coachman – 1st Black woman to win an Olympic Gold medal

George Taliaferra – 1st Black player drafter by the NFL

Chuck Cooper – 1st Black player drafted by the NBA

Willie /thrower – 1st Black NFL Quaterback

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

It often takes on outsider’s perspective to solve intractable problems. Many wealthy individuals were outsiders. Oftentimes the greatest achievements in life were by outsiders who were not confined to the rules and paradigms of industry experts. Being an outsider means taking risks, being innovative and bucking the tide. Critics are everywhere but those who persist reap the rewards.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Innovative Outsiders

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Vicissitude – Innovation. His very vicissitude helped lift millions out of poverty.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Many of the most significant discoveries and innovations were made by individuals who were considered outsiders. Albert Einstein, the genius Physicist who gave us the Theory of Relativity, was a patent clerk doing physics part-time. Daniel Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics, never took an economics course.  Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, had no business experience, yet created two of the most valuable businesses in the modern age.

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

Many wealthy people become wealthy, in large part, because they are innovative risk takers pursuing a dream. Their passion fuels the fire of  creativity allowing them to create newer and better ways of doing things that have value in the marketplace. They are not afraid of following their dreams even when they lack experience, knowledge, capital and knowhow. They follow their passion and this passion instills in them a persistence to follow their dreams and innovate even when others around them say it can’t be done.

Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Positive Emotions: Love

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Adulation – Love. His adulation for his family never waned.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

NELSON MANDELA, Autobiography

Rich Habit Lesson of the Day

Those who are wealthy and successful understand a very fundamental universal law: Positive Thinking creates wealth & success; Negative Thinking creates poverty & failure. Love & Gratitude are the strongest of the positive emotions. Together they will change your mindset from a negative one to a positive one. Use the Daily 5 technique to make love a daily habit. Every day think of 5 people who have helped you in your life and affirm your love for them. This daily habit exercise is like sending a good computer virus into your subconscious. If you perform this daily habit every day for 30 days it will shift your mindset from negative to positive and will reprogram your subconscious to begin seeking out more people to help you become successful in life. It is a directive to you subconscious. The subconscious is a computer. It takes this directive and it begins attracting more people and events into your life to love. It becomes a guided missile for love. Try it for 30 days.