Perpetrators of identity theft have the ability to obtain credit cards and loans in your name and then not pay the bills. They can open utility accounts, rent an apartment, obtain a cellular phone, and even purchase a car or a home on your dime, without your knowledge. They can commit crimes in your name and leave you with a criminal record. Undoing the damage done by identity theft isn’t easy—it’s a long, hard road to prove what is your responsibility and what is not. Protect yourself now by following these rules.

Leave Your Social Security Card at Home

Your financial livelihood is linked to your social security card. The only time you should ever have to display your social security card is when you are hired by a new employer. Do not carry it in your wallet, rather leave it in a safe place at home, preferably in a fireproof safe. You might even consider renting or safety deposit box.

Purchase a Shredder

As a young adult you will receive applications for credit cards from a multitude of lenders. Anyone with your information can take those applications and apply for credit in your name. Protect yourself and shred all documents that contain personal information, including bank statements, credit card statements, utility bills and tax documents.

Use Identity Protection

Identity protection from companies such as Lifelock, provide protection against fraudulent activity including your credit reports, public records, and websites where stolen information is frequently bought and sold. As with any theft, the sooner you become aware that identity theft has occurred, the sooner you are able to recover.

Look over your shoulder

“Shoulder surfing” is a new high tech way of stealing your identity. Today’s cellular phones enable thieves to video record your information either as you complete an application form or enter your information into a computer. Prevent this type of identity theft by remaining aware of your surroundings. Take note of who is listening and who has a direct line of sight to your keypad. If you have any reason to be suspicious, walk away.

Stop Phishing

The act of obtaining victims’ sensitive information by posing as a trusted company is called “Phishing.” For example, you receive an email from your bank requesting you verify your password or social security number via email. Do so and you are providing basic information to an identity thief. Learn to recognize spoofed emails and websites that urgently ask for various types of information. Use extreme caution when you receive an unsolicited email concerning your account information.

Know Emergency Contact Information

Ensure you have an inventory of all your lenders along with their contact information. Should you discover your identity has been stolen you will need to contact all your creditors as soon as possible to prevent any further damage to your credit. You will not want to waste any time struggling to contact credit card companies while you watch your savings account dwindle to nothing.

Author Bio

My name is Tom Corley. I spent five years studying the daily habits of over 200 wealthy people and over 100 poor people. I tracked over 200 activities that separate the wealthy from the poor. This separation is as wide as the Grand Canyon. The data I gathered from my study is quite frankly revolutionary at least in terms of the way we view wealth and poverty. What I discovered is that our daily habits dictate whether or not we will accumulate wealth and be happy in life or if we will be poor and unhappy in life. One of the interesting things I uncovered in my research was that, in America, we have a unique problem. Poor people are more likely to be obese than wealthy people. I didn’t expect that. I was under the impression that because wealthy people had so much money they could indulge themselves more when it comes to eating. But the opposite was actually true.Wealthy people were more disciplined about their health. They exercised more, usually aerobically, and they were more careful about what they ate, particularly where junk food was concerned. Most of the wealthy avoided junk food I found.

Concerned that my study results did not make sense to me I looked for independent research on the topic of obesity and poverty and here’s what I found:

• The Mayo clinic conducted a study and concluded that people raised in poverty-dense areas were more prone to obesity: http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2667.extract#.
• PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) published a study this week on the link between obesity and poverty (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/08/1321355110.abstract).
• Harvard University’s Kennedy School of government found that reduced physical activity may account largely for obesity rates among the poor.
• The Los Angeles Times recently ran a piece on this very topic (http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-adolescent-obesity-economic-divide-20140113,0,5247266.story#axzz2qTdT0Eb4)

Let’s look at some of the statistical data from my study:

• 57% of the wealthy counted calories vs. 5% of the poor
• 28% of the wealthy ate candy more than twice a week vs. 69% for the poor
• 70% of the wealthy ate less than 300 junk food calories each day. 97% of the poor ate more than 300 junk food calories each day
• 76% of the wealthy exercised aerobically 30 minutes a day, four days a week. 73% of the poor did not regularly exercise aerobically
• 25% of the wealthy visited fast food restaurants three times or more each week. 69% of the poor admitted to eating at fast food restaurants at least three times a week
• 60% of the poor admitted to getting drunk at least once in the past thirty days compared to only 13% for the wealthy.
• 66% of the poor were overweight by at least thirty pounds. 79% of the wealthy were not
• 53% of the poor admitted to having some health issue. Only 18% of the wealthy had health issues

Do you notice the common denominator in these statistics? Habits. Daily habits are driving the obesity rates in America. Poor people have Poverty Habits. They don’t watch what they eat. They eat too much junk food, go to fast food restaurants too frequently and they don’t exercise regularly. Why? Parents are to blame. Parents in poor households unknowingly pass along to their children certain Poverty Habits that cause their children to become obese. Wealthy people, on the other hand, watch what they eat. They limit their consumption of junk food and fast food and they exercise regularly. Wealthy parents pass along certain Rich Habits to their children that encourage healthy living.

What it boils down to is education. Poor parents do not know any better. They are not taught by their parents the good daily health habits that children raised in wealthier homes are taught. worse yet, the next generation is never taught  pass along to the next generation certain Poverty Habits. This generational cycle of poverty will continue until parents or educators teach the Rich Habits to children.

Rich Habits is all about unlimited opportunity, achieving the American Dream and ending poverty.

It is the by-product of  a 5-year study I conducted on the daily habits of wealthy people and poor people.

Follow me on this blog and I will share with you many of the secret strategies that I uncovered in my research.

The discoveries I have made will dramatically improve your life!

If you’ve known or followed me for any length of time, you understand that I’m all about strong, capable women who aren’t afraid to go after what they want!

Which is why I am so excited to have learned that I will featured tomorrow in Women Who Run It: Your Life – Your Love – Your Terms!  It’s THE e-magazine for strong, successful, super-achieving women and women leaders in all walks of life. They feature experts in all disciplines of life to help you stop the frazzled time-sucking search for information and discover the fastest path to the money, career, health, and fitness of your dreams. So sign up today and get on the list and access to me as well as tons of other great guest experts!

What are you waiting for? Go to WomenWhoRunIt and grab your FREE copy!

Faithfully yours in my never ending promotion of individual responsibility, the pursuit of the American Dream and the elimination of poverty,

Tom Corley

I spent five years studying the daily habits of 233 wealthy and 128 poor people. One of the discoveries I made, which surprised me, was that wealthy people were generally more health conscious than the poor. I just assumed that the wealthy liked to indulge themselves by eating exotic foods that were expensive and unhealthy. I also assumed that the wealthy liked to indulge themselves by engaging in more leisurely activities. Boating, for instance. Boy was I wrong. I was actually the opposite of right in my assumptions. My research clearly showed that the wealthy were very disciplined about their diet and how they spent their time. This discipline included daily aerobic exercise of 30 minutes or more and carefully planned meals that were low in calories and healthy.  Here are some of the statistics from my research:

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Anyone and everyone can become wealthy in America. There is no shortage of money, only a shortage of right thinking. Most of us in America were raised in poor or lower middle-class households. 30% were raised in poor households and 30% were raised in lower middle-class households. That’s 60%. This 60% inherit Poverty Habits from their parents and one of the Poverty Habits they inherit is Poverty Thinking. “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, “rich people are greedy”, “eat your food, there are people starving in the world”.

Rich people don’t think like that. The rich believe there is an unlimited supply of money and everything in the world. They believe wealth is good and that the rich are good, industrious, hard working people. Their thoughts are different from everyone else’s.

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Parents serve a very important, basic function in society. They turn children into functioning adults. This is a very important function. Without it society would collapse. But if you want more for your children it requires that you become more than a parent. You must become their mentor. Quite frankly, the best parents are mentors to their children. They mentor their children to be more than functioning adults; they raise their children to be exceptional. They raise their children to be millionaires.There is no exception to this rule. Take a look at any millionaire and you will find at least one parent who instilled in their children exceptionalism.

Warren Buffet

Many probably don’t know that Warren Buffet’s father was a stock broker. It’s no accident that Buffet became the world’s best known value investor. He was mentored by his dad.

The Kennedy’s

Many may not realize that father, Joseph Kennedy was a very successful politician who mentored sons JFK, Bobby Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy.

Ken Griffey, Jr.

Many probably don’t know that Ken Griffey Jr., arguably the most talented baseball player ever, was mentored by his professional baseball player-dad, Ken Griffey (NY Yankees).

Bill Belichick

Many probably don’t know that Bill Belichick’s father was a football coach for Navy for 33 years. At age three Bill could be found on the knee of his father watching film of Navy football players. Bill was mentored by his dad.

The stories of parents who raised successful, millionaire children all have one thing in common: Mentorship. It was not an accident that their children excelled in life. They were mentored by one or more of their parents to be successful. For most, parents are the only shot any of us have at having a mentor in life. Mentor-parents do more than simply raise us to survive as adults.They regularly and actively participate in our success by teaching us what to do and what not to do. They share with us valuable life lessons they learned either from their own parents, a life mentor or from the school of hard knocks.

In my five-year study of the daily habits of the wealthy and the poor I uncovered secrets to success that rise to the level of Holy Grail-type stuff. For example, only 24% of the wealthy in my study were fortunate enough to have had someone mentor them in their lives. Of this 24%, however, 93% attributed their enormous wealth to their mentors. The average net liquid wealth of the 233 rich people in my research was $4.3 million. If you do the math, finding a mentor in life is like someone depositing $4.3 million into your bank account.

Imagine if every parent decided to become a mentor to their children. Being a mentor means to instill in your children Rich Habits and to teach them to avoid Poverty Habits. What a very different world it would be. The fact is, parents do the best they can. There is no book on parenting. Parents learn what they learn from their parents. They pass this learning on to their own children. It’s generational. If parents really want their children to be better than themselves, to do better than themselves, to make more money they they made, they must become success mentors. Parenting is simply just not enough.

From a financial standpoint envy is the worst of all of the negative emotions. When we are envious we send a message, infused with emotion, to our subconscious that we lack. The subconscious picks up only the emotionalized thought of not having something. It interprets this negative emotionalized thought of lacking as a directive. When we allow thoughts of envy to enter our minds we are essentially telling our subconscious to go out and give me more things to be envious of. The law of attraction kicks in and we begin to attract into our lives less income, fewer possessions, more expenses and more debt etc. The subconscious is only doing what it is told.

You need to eliminate thoughts of envy. How? By thinkings about what you are grateful for. You can replace envy with daily thoughts of gratitude. Gratitude thoughts send a message to the subconscious that you are happy when you get stuff. Make a daily habit of thoughts of gratitude. The law of attraction will kick in and your subconscious, like a guided missile, will begin searching for more things for you to be grateful for. More income, more possessions, fewer expenses and more money.

The subconscious only receives emotionalized thoughts from our conscious mind. Emotions are the key to opening the door to the subconscious.In order for the thought of gratitude to register with the subconscious you need to get yourself into a state of happiness. I created something I call the Dailey 5. Every day I find 5 things to be grateful for. Immediately prior to vocalizing the 5 things I am grateful for, I think of something that happened in my life that made me incredibly happy. I let that happiness thought seep in for about 30 seconds and then I vocalize the 5 things I am grateful for.

Don’t question or doubt the workings of the subconscious. That part of the brain is still little understood. One day we will learn more about the subconscious and it won’t be so mysterious. For now just know this: emotionalized thoughts of any kind somehow get into the subconscious and act like computer virus, directing our subconscious to do whatever the emotionalized thought tells it to do. I’m jealous so give me more things to be jealous of. I’m grateful so give me more things to be grateful for. The formula is really very simple: Gratitude = More Stuff, Envy = Less Stuff.

Finding a mentor is like having someone deposit $4 million into your bank account. Only 24% of the wealthy in my study were fortunate enough to have had someone mentor them in their lives. Of this 24%, however, 93% attributed their enormous wealth to their mentors. The average net liquid wealth of the 233 rich people in my research was $4.3 million. This means the value of their mentor(s) was $4 million.

Mentors do more than simply influence your life in some way. They regularly and actively participate in your success by teaching you what to do and what not to do. They share with you valuable life lessons they learned either from their own mentor or from the school of hard knocks. When you think about the value of finding a mentor, now you know the answer – $4 million. Finding a mentor is one of the best and least painful ways to become rich.

So how do you go about finding a mentor?
The easiest way is to find someone where you work who is outstanding and ask them to be your mentor.
“John, I’ve been watching you for some time and you are very good at what you do. I would like to follow in your footsteps. Would you be my mentor here at work?”
How could John say no. John will be very flattered and say yes. Being a mentor is not a one-way street. Mentoring helps the mentor become a better teacher. You have to really know your area of expertise to be able to teach it to someone. Being a mentor benefits both parties.

As the mentoring begins, your relationship with your mentor will grow strong. In time, the mentoring will move beyond the workplace and the lessons your mentor will share with you will move beyond the workplace as well. Your mentor will teach you about success both inside the workplace and in life. He or she will share with you their morality, success principles and daily habits. They will share with you the mistakes they’ve made and the life lessons they learned from those mistakes. This means you won’t have to repeat their mistakes. You won’t have to attend the school of hard knocks. Mentoring is like paving the road to success with a smooth surface. It removes the rocks and potholes. It removes the detour signs. Mentoring is the most direct map to your financial success.

But what if there is no one at work who fits the bill?
There are other ways to find mentors in life. Join a network group. Network groups are a great way to meet new people both within and without your field of expertise. Over time, your relationships will grow stronger and you will be able to identify outstanding individuals who can act as your mentor. Volunteering at non-profits or civic organizations will introduce you to individuals who can become your mentors in life. Many wealthy, successful individuals sit on the boards of these non-profit organizations or work in the various committees that every non-profit has. In these nonprofits you will find that outstanding individual who can act as your mentor. Trade groups or trade organizations are another avenue to finding a mentor in your industry. Getting involved in these trade groups will expose you to many individuals.

74% of poor people spend more than an hour each day on the Internet engaged in recreational activities and 95% admitted to using Facebook exclusively for recreational use. When you look at the rich, you get a completely different picture. 63% of the wealthy spend less than an hour a day on the Internet engaged in recreational activities and only 45% use Facebook for recreation purposes.

Our daily habits are the reason why we are rich, poor or middle-class. Most daily habits are ordinary, everyday habits. But some are Keystone Habits. Keystone Habits are unique in that they affect other daily habits. Rich Habits are good Keystone Habits that can eliminate two or more Poverty Habits. This is important because 40% of all of our daily activities are habits. This means that 40% of the time we are all on auto pilot. This is a good thing if most of your habits are Rich Habits but this is a very bad thing if most of your habits are Poverty Habits. For example, adopting the Rich Habit of exercising 30 minutes a day aerobically will eventually cause the elimination of the Poverty Habits of overeating, junk food eating, cigarette smoking, excessive drinking of alcohol and any other Poverty Habit that might be adversely affecting your health.

Recreational Internet use is a Poverty Habit. It’s a time waster. It does not help move you forward. Facebook has taken the nation by storm and most who now spend their time on the Internet are doing it through Facebook. So Facebook has become a Poverty Habit. When you adopt the Rich Habits of reading for self-improvement 30 minutes a day, and exercising aerobically 20-30 minutes a day you eliminate time spent on Poverty Habits like Facebook or watching T.V.  It actually has a multiplier affect because not only are you adopting 2 Rich Habits but you are eliminating numerous Poverty Habits. This is why adopting just one or two Rich Habits can turn your life around and pull you out of the poverty nightmare that has been enveloping your life and negatively affecting those you love the most, your family.

One great thing that I have witnessed from watching those parents who have adopted the Rich Habits is how their kids are positively affected by their parents new habits. Kids are always watching their parents. For most, parents are the only mentors any of us will ever have in life. When kids see their parents living life correctly by following the Rich Habits, they intuitively adopt these same habits. Since most habits stay with us forever, this is a good thing. Adopting the Rich Habits will not only drag you out of poverty, but it will keep your kids out of poverty as well.