Archives for April 2014

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Yen – Craving, desire.  Tom had a yen for a bacon cheeseburger until he found out it had nearly 1,000 calories.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Paul Mason, a 50-year-old man from England was once considered the world’s fattest man at 980 lbs. but he recently underwent gastric bypass surgery and already is down to 560 lbs. He says his 20,000 calorie-a- day diet is what attributed to his extreme size, but he also blames Britain’s national health service for not allowing him to see an eating disorder specialist when he was just over 400 lbs.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Poor eating habits are the primary cause of obesity. Healthy, successful people avoid high calorie foods. In my study, 70% of these healthy, successful people ate less than 300 junk food calories a day and 72% ate candy less than twice a week. 70% of all weight loss is caused by your diet. If you’re overweight, it’s because you’re eating too much junk food and too much food that is high in calories. It’s not because you are not exercising enough. Although exercise does help you lose weight, it only accounts for 30% of your weight loss. If you want to lose weight you need to limit your consumption of calories on a daily basis. You may only need to change some of the types of food you eat or reduce your caloric intake by 300-400 calories a day. You need to make eating right a daily habit if you want to stay lean and healthy.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Abstain – Fast, diet.  By abstaining from eating high calorie food, she was able to lose weight.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Researchers from Loyola University Health System and other centers compared African American women in metropolitan Chicago with women in rural Nigeria. On average, the Chicago women weighed 184 pounds and the Nigerian women weighed 127 pounds. Researchers had expected to find that the slimmer Nigerian women would be more physically active. To their surprise, they found no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of calories burned during physical activity. “Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic,” said Loyola nutritionist Amy Luke, a member of the study team. “We would love to say that physical activity has a positive effect on weight control, but that does not appear to be the case,” Cooper said.

Diet is a more likely explanation than physical activity expenditure for why Chicago women weigh more than Nigerian women, Luke said. She noted the Nigerian diet is high in fiber and carbohydrates and low in fat and animal protein. By contrast, the Chicago diet is 40 percent to 45 percent fat and high in processed foods.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

57% of healthy, successful people monitor how much they eat every day. Monitoring how much you eat every day is important because 70% of all weight loss is diet-driven. Each individual has their own unique “caloric threshold”. This is the number of calories you can consume in a day without gaining or losing weight. When you eat too much and exceed your caloric threshold you will gain weight. When you eat less than your caloric threshold you lose weight.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Aerobic – Run, jog, bike ride etc.   Aerobic exercise is the exercise of choice among the wealthy.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

“Everyday I’m up at about 5:30,” said North Texas millionaire Tony Jeary, who is an author and coach to executives. “I have five different trainers.”

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

76% of the wealthy in my study exercised aerobically 30 minutes or more each day. Their explanation?

1. Aerobic exercise helps keep the weight off.
2. Flood the body with oxygen.
3. Increases metabolic rate.
4. Increases energy so they can get more done.
5. Gives them a feeling of well being throughout the day.
6. Gives them momentum that carries over to the rest of their day.
7. Gives them more will power and an incentive to eat right during the day.
8. Increases the power of the immune system.
9. Get’s the heart rate going which is good for the heart.
10. Makes them healthier which translates into fewer sick days and more productivity.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Mettle – Confidence, determination.  His mettle was forged in life by pursing his dream to it’s successful completion.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Interview with Richard Branson on Confidence:

PETER THOMPSON: As you reflect back, were you aware of having such a strong inner sense of self-confidence, which has clearly been one of your traits through life?

RICHARD BRANSON: You know, once I was really working on the magazine, and I was doing something that I was interested in, yeah, then I started gaining self-confidence. And I think with dyslexics generally, once they realise that they’ve found something that they can excel at, which often dyslexics can, and they can put aside the areas that they can’t excel at, then they find a purpose in life, and they can do really well.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Confidence commands automatic respect from others. Those with high levels of confidence cast a spell on everyone around them. No one is immune to this spell. Confidence will propel you to positions of leadership in whatever industry you call your profession. Confidence will elevate you  from whatever position you hold in any company or industry to the very top. Confidence will make you very wealthy. Confidence has an incredible power.

Confidence comes from two places: Mentoring and Success. As I’ve said many times before, parents are often the only shot any of us have at having a mentor in life, so parents are critical to instilling confidence in their children. They build the foundation for confidence in their children. But by far the most significant contributor to confidence is success. Experiencing success in your life in your endeavors fuels your confidence and takes it to higher levels. Those who pursue success (by following their dreams, main purpose or some major goal in life) and succeed, grow their confidence geometrically. This creates a domino affect, creating more confidence and more success in life. People flock to those who are successful and have high levels of confidence. You become a magnet to other important, successful people. Most, unfortunately, are raised by parents who do not build the foundation of confidence within their children. This is why pursuing some dream, main purpose or major goal in life is critical in life. When you realize your dream, main purpose of achieve some major goal, it elevates your confidence and magically transforms you into a completely different, better person.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Erudition – Learning, self-education.  His erudition was self-evident the moment he began to speak.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Arthur C. Clarke is one of America’s most celebrated science fiction writers. Too poor to go to college, he educated himself by reading magazines. He has written more than 60 books, with 50 million in print. 

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Knowledge has power when used. Make it a Rich Habit to learn one new fact every day. Create a Fact Binder and add to it every day. Spend 10 minutes each day reviewing one page of facts in your Fact Binder. The Fact Binder should be limited to 10 categories: Career/Job-Related, Current Events, Historical, Health, Biographical, General and 3 Personal Interest categories. As you gain more knowledge you will begin to see more opportunities manifest out of thin air. Increasing your knowledge creates Opportunity Luck. Opportunity Luck is the type of good luck created by wealthy people. Opportunity Luck increases your ability to make money and, thus, increases your wealth.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Millstone – Hinderance, difficulty.  Churchill faced every millstone like a man possessed with unending confidence.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Churchill used his rhetoric to persuade all of Britain that they could succeed and be victorious. Here are a few of his famous lines:

• Never, never, never, give up.
• A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.
• Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
• Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
• Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.
• If you are going through hell, keep going.
• Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Incidentally, Britain won.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Success makes people think you are a genius or something very close to a genius. Success takes your confidence level on a rocket ride, straight up. Success breeds loyalty. Success creates devoted followers. Success opens the door to new, powerful relationships with other successful people. Success breeds more success. Success improves your finances and very often makes you rich. Success unshackles you from your fears. But most of all, success makes you happy. That is the carrot at the end of the stick for those pursuing their dream, main purpose or major goal in life. The power of success is intoxicating. It is worth the toil, frustration, mistakes, set-backs, failures and mental anguish that accompany all who pursue it. For those on the path toward success: never quit, never surrender, persevere. Focus, persist and be patient. It will be worth it.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Analogous – Synonymous, similar.   The use of simple analogous words was one of his greatest communication skills.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” Winston Churchill announced gravely in his first speech as Prime Minister of Great Britain. It was, in one sentence, a summary of his approach to all of life.

Winston Churchill’s speeches are among the best-loved public addresses of the 20th Century. It was Churchill’s perseverance in banishing fear, combined with his love of the English language, that defeated Adolph Hitler. That Sir Winston made an impression was not accidental. He carefully crafted and rehearsed each speech. Churchill developed a strategy to practically guarantee that people would remember his most important words. The secret to Churchill’s success was this: he saw words as weapons. He shot them out in short, staccato bursts. He often paired two adjectives together at a time and fired them as from a double-barreled gun. He marched them out rhythmically as if in a parade.

Churchill once told Edward Duke of Windsor, “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.” Churchill understood that people remember phrases, not speeches. To be memorable, a speech must contain a few well-placed, punchy, rhythmic quotes. Churchill carefully crafted two or three such phrases into every speech.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Words have power. The words you use to communicate can turn failure into success, a prospect into a client, a stranger into a lifelong relationship. It is important, therefore, to make a Rich Habit out of improving your vocabulary every day. One of the strategies I use is something I call the Word Book. A Word Book is a simple looseleaf binder I use to add new words to. Whenever you hear a new word or word that you would like to incorporate into your vocabulary, write it down in your Word Book along with its definition or synonyms. Spend ten minutes every day studying the new additions to your word book from the prior week. In time this will grow your vocabulary and increase your communication skills.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Introspection – Meditation, relaxed thinking.  Tom’s daily introspection focused on achieving his goals.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

Professor Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin presented research showing that people who had undertaken a meditation course were found to have a higher immunity to influenza and a higher tolerance of pain.

Studies had also shown that introducing meditation at a young age gives children greater self control and leads to fewer criminal convictions in adulthood, Prof Davidson said.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

Meditation relaxes the mind and opens the connection between your conscious and subconscious mind. Meditation, when focused on reprogramming your mind from negative to positive, allows intuition to work for you. Intuition is the way the subconscious mind speaks to your conscious mind. When you are functioning in a positive mindset, intuition works for you. When you are functioning from a negative mindset, intuition works against you. This is why daily meditation is critical. It can shift your mindset from negative to positive, thus allowing intuition to help you achieve your wishes, desires, dreams and goals. Here’s a simple way to meditate. Find a quiet place, sit in a chair and count to 100. See every number in your mind. After reaching the number 100 visualize all of your wishes, desires, dreams and goals coming true. Do this for sixty seconds. This effectively reprograms your subconscious from negative to positive.  Try to meditate for 30 days in a row.You will, almost immediately, begin to notice positive events unfolding in your life.

Rich Habits Word of the Day

Respite – To relax, recreate, sleep.   Tom had worked 6 weeks in a row without a day off and became physically exhausted so he took a respite yesterday and left work early at 6:20pm.

Rich Habits Fact of the Day

When Barack Obama celebrated his 50th birthday in August, journalists and experts noted that the president was showing more wear and tear—mostly in the form of wrinkles and gray hair—than when he took office in January 2009. Their observations sparked a flurry of news reports referencing the longstanding theory that U.S. president grow older more quickly than their contemporaries, perhaps due to the stresses of the job.

Rich Habits Lesson of the Day

I have been working around the clock since January 2nd 2014. In January and February I spent 6 hours every day writing my upcoming book Rich Kids. Three hours in the morning from 4-7am and then three hours at night from 7-10pm. In between those six hours I was working at my main job of running a CPA firm. I pushed myself during those two months in order to complete my manuscript before tax season really kicked in, which officially is around February 20th. I have not taken one day off since February 24th.

My day begins usually at 4:30am. I spend that 2 1/2 hours reading, writing and relentlessly promoting my research to members of the media or anyone else who might, by rare chance, open up their eyes and read one of my research articles or pitches. It’s mostly a thankless, depressing job trying to get media attention. I also squeez in 30-45 minutes a day of aerobic exercise on my StairMaster, while also reading a book. It wears on me, it frustrates me. For every 300 daily Tweets and every 100 daily emails to members of the media which I’ve made day in and day out for the past 3 months, almost 100% ignored me. That drags me down phsically and emotionally. It also makes me feel so all alone in my mission to share my Rich Habits research with the world. At days end I am drained of all of my energy and any emotion. But, the next day, I do it all over again. I persevere one more morning. Then I head to my full-time job – preparing taxes and helping clients any way I can. At night I start reading, writing, tweeting and pitching again for another 2-3 hours.

Yesterday, for some reason I can’t explain, I felt physically exhausted, almost ill. The feeling began the moment I woke up and, somehow, I pushed on until 6:20pm. I decided to leave work early yesterday. I was in bed by 9pm. I normally wake between 4-5am every day. Today I woke at 6:45am. That’s nearly 11 hours sleep.

Here’s the lesson of the day. Our bodies are incredibly complicated machines. They know when enough is enough. Mine informed me yesterday that enough was enough, so I left work early and went home to sleep. You need to listen to your body, hear what it is saying. When your body tells you it’s time to rest, there’s a reason. It may be your immune system sending a signal, it may be your mind seeking some down time, it might be any number of body parts begging for some R&R. You need to listen. I’ve said many times, “Wealthy People are Healthy People.”  Those who are successful in life know when to push themselves and when to slow things down. Yesterday, for the first time in 94 days, I listened.

It’s not easy pursuing a major dream. Mine is Rich Habits. The key is to never quit. I am on a mission to help millions rise above their circumstances, to help them unleash their full potential in life by sharing with them what I learned from my five years of studying the daily habits of the rich and poor. Most of the time (99.9%) I get ignored by the media. But every now and then a brave member of the media takes the time to read a research article of mine and then reaches out to me for an interview. And every time the interview goes viral. For that moment there is vindication. I live for those moments of vindication. It makes all of the effort worthwhile. But for now I must rest. Tomorrow I shall begin my mission once again to help poor people rise above their circumstances in life. Tomorrow I will begin again to change the world.