Light The Fire

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I could share all of the Rich Habits, success tips, wealth advice, health research, etc. with everyone in the world and still only a small percentage would take action.

Why?

Because change is hard and only a small percentage will make the effort to change what needs to be changed in order for the circumstances of their lives to improve.

Why are so few unwilling to do the work in order to change the circumstances of their lives?

There are a number of reasons, actually.

Reason #1 Rock Bottom

Some people need to hit rock bottom before they will do what needs to be done. When you hit rock bottom, that usually means one of two things have happened:

  1. Those who love and care about you have given you an ultimatum. Ignore it and they will abandon you, leaving you all alone.
  2. Those who love and care about you have abandoned you. You’re on your own.

Reason #2 Need External Motivation

Some people need external motivation. This external source could be a person, a book, a movie, a seminar, a blog post or even a podcast. Tony Robbins butters his bread thanks to this group of people.

Reason #3 Need a Mentor

Some people need to be pushed into action by someone they highly respect and admire. This could be a parent, spouse, child, boss, grandparent, friend, etc.

If you choose to wait to hit rock bottom, or for some external influence to motivate you or for that influential someone to come along, you could be waiting a long time. If that internal or external motivation to change never manifests itself, change is impossible.

So, what can you do?

You need to become the CEO of your life. You need to take control over your life. Here are some tools/ideas to help you do that.

Dream-Setting

Dream-Setting is a four-step process that will light your imagination on fire and get you motivated to change your life. Here’s the process:

  1. Create a Script of Your Ideal Future Life – Pretend it is ten years into the future and you are writing in your journal. Describe in detail every amazing thing about this ideal, future life of yours. Also, describe your journey over the past ten years – Exactly what happened over the past ten years? Shoot for 500-1,000 words.
  2. Identify Each Dream – Define each specific dream that is a component of your ideal, future life.
  3. Create Goals Around Each Dream – Build individual goals around each dream. In order to realize a given dream, it may require that you accomplish numerous goals. Once you accomplish those goals, your dream will be realized. Think of each dream as a rung on a ladder. Every time you realize a dream, you climb that ladder, dream by dream, until you reach the top. At that top sits your ideal, future life.
  4. Create Habits Around Your Goals – The final step requires that you forge daily habits (goal habits) that, when accomplished each day, brings you closer to achieving each individual goal.

Experiment With New Activities

When you feel stuck and lack motivation, oftentimes it is because you don’t know how to unstuck yourself. Experimentation is the solution.

When you experiment with new activities, you will eventually stumble upon an activity you really enjoy; an activity that puts you in a State of Flow. The State of Flow is triggered when you are doing something you love. It is also triggered when any new activity comes easier to you than it does for others.

When you love doing something, the brain notifies you by releasing dopamine. That dopamine explosion is the brain’s neon sign that you may have found an innate talent.

When you are in a State of Flow, you are able to focus for many hours on something without taking a break. And when you do have to break from the activity, your find yourself constantly thinking about that activity. That State of Flow is another neon sign that you may have unearthed an innate talent.

We all have innate talents that are unique to each one of us. Your innate talents were hardwired into your DNA the moment you were conceived. Those who discover their innate talent, never have to work another day in their lives because they enjoy their “work” so much.

Find a Mentor

Mentors are individuals who actively steer you in the right direction. Mentors teach you what to do and what not to do. They are sounding boards for the decision you have to make. Mentor keep you motivated because they care about you. And because they care, they are the best accountability partners you can have.

Finding a mentor is not easy. For most, the only shot at having a mentor is a parent. When parents fail in the mentoring department, it’s up to you to find a mentor.

And mentors are everywhere. They are at work. They are on boards of local, community non-profits. They can be found in books, on podcasts, watching TEDx or YouTube videos.

Don’t wait for motivation to change.

Make the pursuit of change a daily habit.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

Why Do You Want to be Rich?

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I became an entrepreneur so that I could become a multi-millionaire.

But why did I want to become a multi-millionaire? It took some time and much soul-searching. But eventually I realized there were five driving forces behind my desire to become wealthy:

  1. Freedom – When you are truly wealthy, you don’t have to work. You choose to work because you want to work or like to work.
  2. Family – When you are rich, you can send your kids to college, without saddling them with debt. When you are rich, you can help your children pay for their weddings. When you are rich, you can help your children with a down payment on their first home. When you are rich you can become a safety net for your children if something catostrophic happens to them.
  3. Charity – I am President of the Ashley Lauren Foundation, an organization that help families struggling with Pediatric Cancer. As a multi-millionaire, I would be able to give my organization more money so we could keep more families in their homes and financially worry-free, allowing them to focus on one thing – keeping their child alive.
  4. Friends – When you are rich, you can help friends who are going through difficult times.
  5. Position of Power Decisions – When you are wealthy, you make decisions from a position of power and not weakness. Position of Power Decisions are ones that help you thrive. Position of Weakness Decisions are ones that help you survive.

So, I had five Why’s that drove me to become a wealthy entrepreneur.

Why do you want to become rich?

What will wealth help you to do that you are currently unable to do?

Your answers are your WHY.

Your WHY puts all of your dreams and goals within reach. Your WHY must have powerful emotions behind it: happiness for you or your family, to get healthy, to leave your mark on life (legacy), to help improves the lives of the poor, children, battered women, the addicted, the homeless, society, to teach something profound, etc.

If your WHY does not get you emotional, then you will eventually stop pursuing your dreams and goals.

Willpower alone will only get you so far.

Passion fuels achievement. And the right WHY unleashes your passion.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

Everything I Was Taught About the Rich Was is a Lie

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Back in 2004, I began to research why the rich were rich and why the poor were poor. When I began my Rich Habits research, I hated rich people. I had some entrenched negative beliefs about the wealthy that I inherited from my upbringing.

As I learned more about the drivers behind wealth and poverty, however, my perception flipped 180 degrees. Instead of hating the rich, I grew to admire them. The self-made rich became real-life heroes to me.

Here are 8 lies I was taught to believe about the rich:

Lie #1: Rich People Inherited Their Money

“Old money”. That’s what I used to hear growing up. The rich were rich because of old money.

Boy, is that a myth.

In my study, 76% of the wealthy in my study did not inherit anything. Nada, zip, zero. Of this 76%, 31% came from poor households and 45% came from middle class households. The annual Wealth X survey seems to peg the self-made percentage at anywhere from 75% – 84%, depending on the year of the survey.

Only 24% of the rich in my study, were raised in wealthy households and inherited their wealth. So, no – the overwhelming majority of the rich are self-made. Which, by the way, is a very good thing because it means most of the wealthy come from poverty or the middle-class.

Lie #2: Rich People Don’t Have to Work Hard

According to my Rich Habits study, one of the reasons the wealthy accumulated so much wealth was due to the fact that they worked more hours than those who were not rich. Here’s some of the data:

  • 44% of the wealthy worked 11 hours more each week than the poor.
  • 86% of the wealthy who had full time jobs, worked 50 hours or more each week, whereas 57% of the poor who had full-time jobs, worked less than 50 hours each week.
  • 88% of the wealthy took fewer sick days than the poor.
  • 79% of the wealthy, on top of their extended work hours, networked 5 or more hours each month. 55% of this networking was done during their lunch hour.
  • 65% of the wealthy were working so many hours, in part, because they had 3 sources of income to manage. 45% had 4 sources of income. Only 6% of the poor had more than one source of income.
  • 67% of the wealthy watched less than an hour of T.V. a day, whereas 77% of the poor watched more than an hour of T.V. a day.
  • 63% of the wealthy spent less than an hour a day on the Internet. 74% of the poor spent more than an hour a day on the Internet.

I initially thought this disparity in work hours, between the rich and the poor, was due to the fact that 91% of the wealthy in my study were decision makers, which carries with it more responsibility and, thus, more work hours.

But that’s not the case.

According to the Census Bureau, the average wealthy household (defined by the IRS as the top 20% of income earners in the U.S.) worked five times as many hours as the average poor household. The cause? Single-parent households and high unemployment among poor households.

Lie #3: Rich People Pay Less in Income Tax than Everyone Else

According to the IRS, the income tax rate for the top 1% of earners in the U.S. is 22.83% whereas, the top 50% of income earners in the U.S. pay 14.33%. The bottom 50% of income earners in the U.S. pay just 3%. The top 1% of income earners in the U.S. pay 45.7% of the entire 100% of income tax collected by the IRS. 1% are carrying nearly 46% of the tax bucket for the other 99%.

If anyone can make a case about the unfairness of our tax system, it’s the rich. They carry far too much of the tax burden, in America at least.

Lie #4: The Rich Are Rich Because They Just Got Lucky

Only 8% of the self-made millionaires in my study said they accumulated their wealth because of dumb luck. But, interestingly, the remaining 92% did acknowledge that luck was critical to the accumulation of wealth. However, it was a different type of luck that I gave a name to – “Opportunity Luck”.

Opportunity Luck is a special, unique type of luck that is the byproduct of hard work, persistence, Rich Relationships and habits. This 92% in my Rich Habits Study simply never quit on themselves, their goals and their dreams. They persevered through enormous adversity and, sometimes great risk. They danced on a razor blade that separated success from bankruptcy. They refused to surrender. They survived until they could thrive.

And even for those who did fail (27% of the self-made millionaires in my study failed at least once in business), they picked themselves up, figured out what went wrong and tried again.

Lie #5: The Rich Are Better Educated

Thirty-six percent of the self-made millionaires in my study never obtained a college degree.

Of those who got a college degree, 46% of them paid their own way through college and 23% of them went to college part-time, while they worked.

Lie #6: Rich People Are Not Charitable and Hate Poor People

I was raised to believe that the wealthy were selfish and greedy with their money. I was raised to believe that the rich despised poor people.

Wrong on both counts.

Sixty-two percent of the wealthy in my Rich Habits Study said they contributed 10% or more of their net income to charity. Many of the charities they supported included local, community food banks, homeless shelters, means-based scholarship programs and organizations that benefited poor children.

And they didn’t stop there.

Seventy-two percent volunteered five hours or more a month for some charity. Their volunteer work included helping to run the charities, either through board membership, or as part of the various committees.

Lie #7: Money Does Not Buy Happiness

I must have heard my mom say this a thousand times growing up. I just assumed that rich people were miserable people.

Another lie.

Eighty-two percent of the wealthy in my study said they were happy. Ninety-four percent of those who were happy, said they were happy because they liked or loved what they did for a living.

Lie #8: Rich People Live Extravagant Lifestyles

Whenever I thought about the extravagant lifestyles of the wealthy, I envisioned private jets, yachts, luxurious vacations, expensive cars, etc.

Wrong again.

Fortunately, I gathered a great deal of data on the spending habits of the rich. Here’s some of that data:

  • 67% said they were frugal with their money.
  • 8% still shopped at goodwill stores.
  • 30% clipped coupons.
  • 92% never vacationed on a yacht.
  • 55% of the wealthy spent less than $6,000 a year on their vacations. Only 23% admitted to spending $10,000 or more on their annual vacations. Most of those 23% were those who inherited their wealth.
  • 87% said they never purchased a new luxury car in their lives.
  • 44% said they purchase a used car every five years.

It’s easy to hate the wealthy.

Most in our country grew up poor or middle class and far too many were indoctrinated with the belief that the wealthy are corrupt, evil people. And the media, for some reason, loves to pile on the rich whenever one of its members, like Bernie Madoff, does something despicable.

But the real problem is with parents, the public school system and politicians who bash the rich as corrupt and greedy.

Parents do this out of ignorance, which I’m trying to correct through my research, my books, my blog and my media interviews.

But the public school system and politicians bash the rich because they have their own separate agendas.

The public school agenda is to raise children to be working class employees – worker bees.

The politicians agenda is to soak the rich through higher taxes and then to use the money they collect from the rich in order to wield power over the poor through paltry, ineffective entitlement programs. Politicians need poor people. The more poor people they can make dependent on government, the more power they have over them.

What kind of a message do you think bashing the rich sends to the next generation?

It is teaching them that the pursuit of financial success is a bad thing.

The fact is, the rich are rich for a lot of reasons. And most of those reasons have to do with hard work, persistence, taking educated risks, good habits, good decision-making, being frugal with their money, living below their means and building strong, powerful relationships with decision-makers who can open doors with a phone call.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

The Good Luck Habits of Self-Made Millionaires

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Most people have been misled to believe that self-made millionaires are endowed with some discipline-superpower that renders them immune to failure and adversity and supercharges them with incredible grit, determination and perseverance.

That, I learned from my Rich Habits research is patently false.

Self-made millionaires have no more discipline than anyone else.

Self-discipline is powered by willpower. Willpower, however, is short-lived. No matter how strong you grow your willpower muscle, it will still fade away after just a few short hours.

But self-made millionaires do have something else, far more effective than willpower, which empowered them to overcome mistakes, adversity, failure and obstacles.

What is this special something?

Rich Habits.

Self-made millionaires forge certain unique habits which automate grit, raw determination, perseverance ….. and good luck.

This is why developing good habits is so crucial to success. Good habits put you on autopilot for success – they automate grit, determination persistence and good luck – crucial ingredients to creating success and building wealth.

Successful people create their own unique version of good luck I call Opportunity Luck. They create this luck by forging Good Luck Habits.

The Good Luck Habits of Self-Made Millionaires

  • Take Only Educated Risks – When you do your homework for potential investments and understand every conceivable outcome, you are engaging in Educated Risk. Educated Risk takes the “Risk” out of investing.
  • Rich Relationship Habits – Building relationships with other upbeat, success-minded individuals was a common habit among the self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study. Why? Because wealthy, successful people are door openers – they can, with a phone call, put you in front of the person who can help you achieve your goals and dreams in life.
  • Hello Call, Happy Birthday Call, Life Event Call – These phone calls help build and maintain important relationships.
  • Volunteering five hours or more a month – Many of the self-made millionaires in my study had a pet non-profit that they devoted their time to. In many cases, they were the decision-makers on the boards of these non-profits. Volunteering puts you in direct contact with these decision makers.
  • Growth Habits – These are habits that keep you growing in knowledge and skills.
  • Reading to learn 30 minutes or more every day – Help you grow in knowledge.
  • Deliberate Practice and Analytical Practice three hours or more a day – Helps you become a Virtuoso in what you do to earn your income.
  • Good Health Habits – These are habits which maintain or improve your health. It’s hard to build wealth from a hospital bed. Good health habits reduce sick days and boost productivity.
  • Eating healthy non-processed foods – Keeps you healthy and productive.
  • Exercising aerobically every day – Improves brain performance, boosts longevity and gives you more energy.
  • Anaerobic exercise three days a week – Improves brain performance, boosts longevity and gives you more energy.
  • Sleeping 7-8 hours a day – Sleep cleans the brain, re-sets your emotional equilibrium and boosts optimism.
  • Daily Goal Habits – Daily habits tied to your goals and your dreams.
  • Save 20% or More of Your Income – You can’t invest if you don’t have any savings. You can’t take advantage of financial opportunities if you don’t have any savings.
  • Optimism Habits – Habits which foster a positive outlook on life.
  • Gratitude – Gratitude is the gateway to a positive mental outlook. Positivity boosts optimism, which is critical to success.
  • Meditation – Calms the mind and reduces stress, improving brain performance.
  • Developing New Skills related to what you do for a living – Makes you more valuable to others.
  • Gaining new knowledge related to what you do for a living – Makes you more valuable to others.
  • Choose who is in your Inner Circle – Your inner circle infects you with their habits and their outlook on life.
  • Good Gossip – Saying only kind, favorable things about those inside your inner circle. This builds trust others have in you and strengthens your relationships at the same time. So Good Gossip is like hitting a double in baseball.
  • Experimentation – Only through experimenting with new, different activities can you uncover otherwise hidden, innate talents. Oftentimes, those talents can be monetized, giving you an additional revenue stream, which boosts your wealth.

These Rich Habits automate persistence.

And good luck visits the persistent.

Eventually, Rich Habits create good luck in the form of Opportunity Luck – outcomes you never anticipated or outcomes that far exceed your expectations.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

What You Feed, Grows

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An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” the grandfather said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride, superiority and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandfather went on, “This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

What you feed grows.

When you feed yourself with knowledge, you grow in knowledge.

When you feed yourself daily exercise, your body grows stronger.

When you feed yourself healthy food, your health improves.

When you feed yourself optimism, you become hopeful about all of life’s possibilities.

When you feed yourself good habits, those habits improve the circumstances of your life.

What are you putting on your plate every day?

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

When You Find Yourself in a State of Flow You Are on to Something Big

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When you are doing something you like or love, time seems to fly by. They call it the State of Flow.

And whenever you find yourself in a State of Flow, think long and hard about what you are/were doing while in that State of Flow.

Why?

Because that State of Flow activity is very likely the thing you should be doing to make a living.

The State of Flow is triggered when you are doing something you love. And when you are doing something you love, to earn your income, you never have to “work” another day in your life.

That is something Richard Branson told me. We both spoke at the Titan Summit back in 2014.

I had to follow Richard Branson’s speech.

Afterwards, me and the other speakers were given the opportunity to hang out with Branson for a little while.

I told Branson that I read he was a workaholic. And I asked him if he thought he was a workaholic.

He said no.

He then turned the tables on me by asking me if I loved what I did for a living. I told him I love to write and speak.

He asked me if that was “work” to me. I told him that I always felt guilty about devoting so much time to writing and speaking. It felt like I wasn’t really working, because I enjoyed it so much.

Branson then said, “Bingo!”  and asked me this question: “If I told you I played 14 hours a day, would you think I was a hard worker or lazy?”

I told him, I would think he was lazy.

Branson then smiled at me and said that that is how he felt every day. Like he was playing and not working. He said he loved what he did so much, he did it for 14 hours every day.

“In the process, I became a billionaire,” Branson said

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

You Can’t Fake Confidence – 7 Powerful Confidence Boosters

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You can’t self-talk your way to greater confidence.

Confidence is earned. It is forged in the white-hot fires of action.

The path to success is riddled with many pitfalls, setbacks, obstacles, mistakes and problems. Like a roller coaster, your confidence drops with every setback and rises with every accomplishment. One of the rewards for those who are able to ride this roller coaster to success, is sky-high confidence, gained only through taking action in overcoming obstacles/mistakes.

Every time you overcome adversity, you learn what works and what doesn’t work. This causes your confidence to grow.

For those pursuing success, understand that your confidence will be tested along the journey. You must get comfortable with this ebb and flow in confidence. There will be days when your confidence is high and there will be days when it is low.

Those who persevere and never quit, eventually figure out what to do and what not to do and are beneficiaries of certain factors which boost confidence.

Confidence Boosters – In Order of Impact

  1. Victory Log – Success is the #1 booster of self-confidence. Every time you succeed at something, your confidence grows. Even small victories, boost confidence. Maintaining a Victory Log, and reviewing it during your confidence low points, is helpful in restoring your confidence levels.
  2. Daily Practice – Deliberate and Analytical Practice, if done daily, will boost your confidence in your skills.
  3. Daily Study – The more you know about what you do to make a living, the more confident you become in what you do.
  4. Goals Accomplished Log – Every goal is like a mini-success event. Like success, every time you achieve a goal, your confidence grows. Maintaining a Goals Accomplished Log, has the same confidence-boosting effects of a Victory Log.
  5. Overcoming Obstacles – Obstacles stand in the way of you and success. But obstacles are important because they teach you what works and what doesn’t work. Once you figure out what works, you can cookie cut the learning into a failure-proof process, which boosts your confidence. So, every obstacle you overcome, boosts your confidence.
  6. Solving Problems – Much like obstacles, problems stand in the way of you and success. Finding solutions to problems helps you gain knowledge and this boosts your confidence.
  7. Realizing a Dream – Every dream requires the achievement of multiple goals, overcoming obstacles, and solving problems. Each dream you realize, you can point to. This gives you confidence that you can realize your dreams. The more dreams you realize, the more powerful your confidence becomes.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

Sleep Your Way to the Top – Why Sleep is Critical to Success

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According to researchers from the University of Illinois, the more sleep a person gets, the more optimistic they are about life.

Why is optimism, and thus sleep, so important?

Reason #1 – Optimists Are More Successful

Martin Seligman was a Psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. In the mid-1980’s, he created a Style Questionnaire that MetLife’s new salesmen were all required to complete. The responses to the Questionnaire helped Seligman classify each salesman as skewing more towards optimism or pessimism.

After two years of selling, Seligman compared the success of each salesman to the answers on the Questionnaires. What he found was eye-opening – the MetLife salesmen who skewed towards optimism outsold the pessimists by 20% in year one and 50% in year two.

Reason #2 – Optimists Live Longer

Telomeres are the caps at the end of each chromosome. When your Telomeres unravel, the chromosomes fall apart and cells are unable to divide in order to create new cells to replace them.

Numerous studies have found a direct correlation between the length of Telomeres and life expectancy. The longer your Telomere, the longer you will live.

Becca Levy is a Professor of Epidemiology/Psychology at the Yale School of Public Health. She is also the lead author of a prominent study on Telomeres. Levy found that those who were more upbeat and positive had longer Telomeres and better health.

Reason #3 – Optimism Maximizes Brain Performance

When you are enveloped in pessimism, negativity or severe stress, you literally shut down half of your pre-frontal cortex, your brain’s executive command and control center.

Have you ever read stories about of individuals who were in “shock” following some type of catastrophic accident? In many of these stories, police and medical emergency personnel who arrive at the scene often describe the accident victims as being in a zombie state. They are uncommunicative, unresponsive and, well, zombie-like. Their very consciousness seems to be closed off to the world around them.

When you are faced with a life or death situation, the fight or flight process of the subconscious mind (limbic system and brain stem) takes control over your brain. It does this by overriding and taking your pre-frontal cortex offline.

  • Your visual cortex shuts down, so things your eyes are seeing are not processed by the occipital lobe.
  • Your hearing shuts down and all you hear is noise.
  • You entire awareness to the outside world goes into shut down mode.
  • You become oblivious to everything around you – your external environment.

There’s a good reason for this. During very stressful events, your thinking and focus is intentionally narrowed, so that you can focus on one thing – survival.

Pessimism creates stress and anxiety, triggering a watered-down version of “fight o flight”. Your brain’s CEO, the pre-frontal cortex, when pessimistic, automatically becomes less in control and your focus and awareness becomes narrowed. As a result of this narrowed focus and awareness, you become oblivious to solutions to problems and opportunities.

Those who remain perpetually negative or pessimistic, struggle financially, struggle keeping a job, struggle with relationships and have almost no chance of succeeding in life because they are unable to fully deploy the powers of the pre-frontal cortex to enable them see solutions and opportunities that would help them solve their problems and create a happy life.

Reason #4 – Optimism is Contagious

In a Farmington Heart Study, in which twenty years of data was analyzed, James Fowler, lead study author, found that emotions, such as optimism, spread throughout your social networks – they infect everyone within your inner circle, including your children. This optimism contagion positively affects sales prospects, investors, employees and everyone you do business with.

Reason #5 – 54% of the Rich in My Rich Habits Study Said Their Optimistic Outlook Was Critical to Their Success and thus, Their Ability to Accumulate Wealth.

Reason #6 – Optimism Produces Wealth and Pessimism Produces Poverty

A paper published by the University of Cologne in Germany in the May 2015 Journal of Personality and Psychology, in which more than 68,000 Americans and Europeans were studied, found that pessimism causes poverty.

The study noted that pessimism makes you wary of trusting others. It went on to argue that when you see people in a pessimistic light – untrustworthy, self-interested and deceitful – you are less likely and less willing to rely on others.

Those in the study who were the most pessimistic, also happened to be the poorest. If you are wary about trusting others, you’re likely to have a lower income now and in the future, the study concluded.

Conversely, those in the study who were optimistic, had a more trusting view of others and a higher income than the pessimists.

Pessimists miss out on opportunities because they are less likely to ask for help and less likely to collaborate with others.

Reason #7 – Optimists Have a Higher Risk Tolerance Level

In 1998 and 2001, B.L. Frederickson conducted two studies, measuring cognitive ability and risk tolerance. What he found was that those who were more optimistic had a greater degree of risk tolerance.

Elon Musk is perhaps the best modern day example of someone who was willing to take enormous calculated risk, putting everything he had on the line. His over the top optimism made that possible. He used it to infect everyone he came into contact with. The investors, employees, the government, even NASA became infected with Musk’s unbridled optimism. The all took significant risks in partnering with Musk. Risks they would have otherwise found intolerable.

Reason #8 – Sleep Improves Long-Term Memory

The hippocampus and pre-frontal cortex send signals back and forth to each other, thousands of times, during the REM portion of sleep. Like a well choreographed dance, this process converts short-term memory to long-term memory.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

Your Childhood Follows You Into Your Adulthood

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What is your oldest memory?

How old were you?

In 1964, my family moved into a new home on Staten Island. Very soon after we moved in, my Mother took me to Staten Island Academy. They had a day care or summer care camp for children.

To this day, I still remember everything about that first day at Staten Island Academy.

I remember screaming-crying as my mother tried to pull away from me to leave. I remember holding on to her for dear life as some older woman was pulling me off and away from my Mom. I remember standing around the outside playground area crying as other kids swarmed around me, curiously looking at the new crying kid on the block.

I shared this memory with my Mom some years ago, before she passed away. My Mom somewhat shocked. She said that memory was burned into her brain because she felt so guilty having to leave me with the day care facility. She also said there was no way I could remember that day because I was far too young.

How young was I? I asked my Mom.

She said I was about to turn three years old.

Three years old!

Good or bad, certain childhood experiences become permanently imprinted in your brain because of something Behavioral Scientists refer to as the Primacy Effect.

According to this Primacy Effect, first impressions are likely to carry more weight than other memories.

We remember early, emotional events in our childhood even into our very adult years.

We remember first best friends, first teachers, first vacations, first swimming lessons, first base hits, first kiss, first fight, first broken bones, etc.

When it comes to habits, the habits we forge in our childhood, due to this Primacy Effect, stick with us into adulthood.

  • If you were raised in a family with good or bad money habits, those money habits follow you into adulthood.
  • If you were raised in a family where alcohol consumption habits were commonplace, those habits will follow you into adulthood.
  • If you were raised in a family where parents fought with each other, you will fight with your spouse as an adult.
  • If you were raised in a family where everyone worked hard to get what they wanted, you will work hard as an adult, in order to get what you want.
  • If you were raised in an optimistic/pessimistic family, that optimism/pessimism will become part of your adult personality.

This Primacy Effect is why some habits are so hard to change – they may have been imprinted into your brain at a very young age.

And this Primacy Effect is also why many habits are invisible to you – they’ve been with you so long, you aren’t even aware you have them, until someone like me forces you to confront them.

Without awareness, habit change is impossible. You can’t change a habit if you don’t even know it exists.

But once you become aware of your bad habits, change is possible, even probable.

If you know how.

That’s why I wrote Change Your Habits Change Your Life. Included in that book is the latest in habit change science.

Rich Habits, Rich Kids, Rich Habits Poor Habits and my latest book, Effort-Less Wealth, teaches you What habits to change.

Change Your Habits Change Your Life, teaches you How.

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!

How the Brain is Connected

tip-o-the-morning

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All habits are created and regulated by the brain. So, in order to fully understand habits, you need to understand how the brain works.

This turned out to be quite a rabbit hole for me. One I didn’t expect to enter when I began my Rich Habits research.

But, nonetheless, I did stroll down that rabbit hole and in the process, learned quite a bit about the brain and how it works.

Habits are turned on or off by brain cells (AKA “Neurons”). Most habits require multiple brain cells that must work together in order to initiate a habit.

When those brain cells are fired up to engage in a habit, this requires them to be connected somehow to other parts of the brain.

For example, the brain cells that are involved in the exercise habit must somehow tell the cerebellum (area of the brain that controls motor activity) to get the legs and arms moving.

How does it do that?

Thanks to it’s amazing infrastructure, the entire brain is interconnected. Here’s how.

Main Brain Areas

It’s much more complicated than I’m making it out, but most neuroscientists/neurologists/brain experts agree that there are three main parts to the brain:

  1. Cerebral Cortex
  2. Limbic System
  3. Brain Stem

Peduncles

Peduncle’s connect each of these three main brain regions to each other.

What the hell is a Peduncle?

Peduncles are like bridges. They are thick brain fibers that connect one major part of the brain with another major brain region.

There are three main Peduncles, or brain bridges:

  1. Cortex Peduncle
  2. Spinal Preduncle
  3. Cerebellar Peduncle

The Verrazano Bridge connects Staten Island to Brooklyn. When you cross the Verrazano into Brooklyn, you can take the Belt Parkway or the Gowanus Expressway.

Much like the Verrazano Bridge, each Peduncle bridge connects to other brain parkways/expressways.

Which brings me to Fasciculis.

Fasciulis

Fascucu what?

Fasciculis are the expressways that project out from each Peduncle. There are twelve of these expressway, Fasciculi’s. The Optical Nerve is one, the Arcuate Nerve Track Fasciculi is another.

These Fasciuli’s are actually bundled Cranial Nerve Tracks that branch out and connect to numerous brain cells.

Pons

Pons are the brain’s relay station, or a hub. Think Penn Station. The brain’s Pons receives passengers (brain signals) and sends passengers off to where they need to go. When a brain signal reaches the Pons, just above the Brain Stem, it is instructed where to go.

Overview of Our Connected Brain

Here’s an example of how the Limbic System brain region is connected to the Cerebral Cortex brain region:

Brain Stem —> Pons —> Cerebellar Peduncle —> Fasciuli —> Cerebral Cortex

There are billions of brain cells that are all interconnected to each other through this neural infrastructure of brain regions, bridges, expressways and hubs.

The cool thing is that, despite this complex infrastructure, the communication along this infrastructue occurs instantaneously.

Habits are amazing because the brain is amazing!

My mission is to share my unique research in order to help others realize their dreams and achieve their goals. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Subscribe. Thank You!