Archives for January 2016

It’s too bad, in my opinion, that the word faith has been co-opted by religious groups. Belief in God is a very personal thing, but not everyone believes in God.  As a result, when personal development experts use the word faith, it has a way of turning off those who do not believe in God. That’s too bad, because without faith, success in unattainable. You will not succeed if you do not have faith in your dreams, goals and yourself. So, I thought I’d dissect the true non-religious meaning of faith. This way, everyone will understand what it really is and why it’s so critical to success.

Faith encompasses a multitude of success characteristics: fortitude, persistence, mental stamina, grit, sticking it out during tough times, confidence, belief, conviction, certainty, hope, certainty, courage, tenacity, fearlessness, boldness, resoluteness, guts, intestinal fortitude, determination, resolve, will, willpower and toughness.

Faith means you never quit on your dreams, your goals and the pursuit of your main purpose in life. Those who have faith in their dreams, goals and their main purpose in life do not allow anything to get in their way. Faith enables you to overcome every obstacle in your path towards success. It is an undying belief that you will succeed. When you have faith, success is just a matter of time. When you have faith, it can transform the poorest of the poor into the richest of the rich. Faith erases all doubts and all fears. Faith is the most important ingredient to success. With faith all things are possible.

In a paper published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience by researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in which the brains of 46 teenagers were scanned, they found that risk-taking teens activated a portion of the brain called the ventral striatum. The ventral striatum is comprised of a large amount of dopamine receptors. Dopamine is the happiness neurotransmitter.

In my Rich Habits study, I found that 142 of the 177 self-made millionaires (80%) had devoted much of their adult lives in the pursuit of some dream. Anyone who has ever pursued a dream understands that doing so requires that you take significant risks with your time and money, since there is no guarantee that you will realize your dream. An interesting correlation to this was also found in my study: 82% of the wealthy said they were happy. Conversely, only 3% of the poor people in my study took a risk in pursuing some dream and interestingly, only 2% of the poor in my study said they were happy.

It’s clear from these studies that the pursuit of success will make you happier in life. Playing it safe in life not only prevents you from pursuing success, it also results long-term unhappiness. If your ultimate goal in life is long-term happiness, pursue something you are passionate about.

We were not put here on earth to play it safe. We are here to push ourselves to realize our potential. We can only realize that true potential by taking risks and pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zones. The discomfort inherent in taking a risk by pursuing some dream forces us to grow our knowledge, expertise, skills and relationships. The true reward in pursuing a dream and realizing success is not money, it is happiness.

According to a study published by the Journal of Happiness, associating with other happy people turns on a gene that increases happiness levels. The gene is called “A allele”. A Allele regulates anandamine, a substance that increases pleasure and reduces pain.

Conversely, when you associate with unhappy, toxic people you turn this gene off, and this acts like a stopgap, preventing the release of anandamine, resulting in increased pain and reduced happiness.

The old adage is true, we are who we associate with. Create a culture of happiness by making a habit of associating with other happy people and avoiding unhappy people.

For years we’ve been advised that the key to weight loss is to burn more calories than we consume. And many accepted this advice, put on their running shoes, or bike helmet or weight belt and went to town burning calories. But the latest science on obesity is turning this strategy to weight loss on its head. Here’s why.

There are approximately 3-5 pounds of bacteria in our large intestine. This bacteria breaks down the food we eat and provides us (and the bacteria) with nutrients that keep us alive. Nutrients that are not needed at the moment are then stored as fat around different parts of the body. Recent studies on obesity indicate that a combination of our western diet (high fat, high refined carbohydrates and low fiber) and the overuse of antibiotics is killing key species of bacteria that live in our large intestine. The death of this bacteria impairs our ability to extract nutrients from the food we eat and forces the body to store these unused nutrients as fat. Your inability to lose weight is very likely the result of not having enough diverse species of bacteria living in your gut. So what do you do?

There’s something called pre-biotics (not to be confused with pro-biotics) which, when ingested, can restore the natural balance of bacteria in your gut, making digestion more efficient, while reducing fat. Pre-biotics include:

• Artichokes
• Beans
• Root Vegetables (carrots, potatoes, onions, etc.)
• Yogurt
• Sauerkraut
• Asparagus
• Bananas
• Garlic
• Cabbage
• Legumes (chick peas, lentils and green peas)
• Bran
• Leeks
• Apples

Amazingly, consuming these pre-biotics can restore the lost bacteria within 24 hours and help you get back on track with your weight loss. Make it a daily habit to consume foods rich in these pre-biotics and you will find it much easier to burn calories and lose weight.

Unchecked negative emotions can alter or destroy relationships forever. The most destructive and costly type of negative emotional outburst is anger. Allowing your anger to erupt hurts those closest to you – those who care about you the most and who you need the most.

No one is perfect and people often disappoint us. Their behavior, their choices and their mistakes affect those closest to them. Responding with anger at these failings only serves to distance those closest to us. Don’t allow you anger to spontaneously erupt. Make a habit of deferring any emotional reaction to a latter time. Sleep on your anger. Deal with the failing after sleep. Sleep has a way of calming the amygdala, the portion of the brain that regulates many of our emotions. Sleep diffuses anger and re-engages the pre-frontal cortex, our executive command and control center. We want our pre-frontal cortex to deal with the failing, not our amygdala. Our amygdala will only get us in trouble.

The next time you are face to face with any potential emotional uprising, defer any response until you have had time to sleep. Your reaction, after sleep, will be controlled by your conscious, analytical brain (the pre-frontal cortex) rather than your emotional brain (amygdala). A well-thought out response will prevent you from damaging or destroying the relationships that are most important to you – those you love and care about the most.

Success is about consistency. It’s a process that requires consistent daily action. You must do certain, specific things every day in order to realize success tomorrow. Consistent daily behavior is also known as a habit.

The self-made millionaires in my study adopted certain habits that helped move them forward in life. In the beginning of the habit formation process it is necessary to set daily goals to engage in those habits. If you maintain a daily to-do list, specifically tailored to the thing you are trying to succeed in, that to-do list becomes part of your success process. Automatically pre-populating your to-do list with habit goals forces you to engage in those habits every day. Eventually, the habits will become automatic – you won’t need to use the to-do list goal-setting process to engage in them. This puts you on auto-pilot for success. Automating the success process is the key to achieving success.

Have you ever considered the possibility that poor people are actually successful? I used to view poor people as individuals who were failing in life. I no longer do. I’ve come to the conclusion that wealth and poverty are simply the result of following different processes. One process results in wealth and the other poverty. You see, whether you’re rich or poor, you are succeeding in the sense that your process is working. It is making you rich or making you poor.

The Poverty Process

The process that results in poverty, like the process that results in wealth, is complicated. You actually need to intentionally do things every day that drag you down in life. It takes a lot of effort to be poor. What are some of the things you need to do in order to become poor?

• Take no responsibility for your life circumstances. Blame everyone but yourself.
• Do not read to learn or for self-improvement.
• Do not do anything that requires thinking, concentration or focus.
• Do not help anyone who is trying to better their life. In fact, criticize them.
• Give in to your doubts and fears.
• Avoid being mentored.
• Stay completely within your comfort zone.
• Have little to no willpower or self-control.
• Spend everything you make and if your income isn’t enough, use credit cards.
• Waste your time watching TV, on the Internet, playing video games, going to bars, going to the movies, reading recreational material (i.e. fiction), etc.
• Associate with toxic people.
• Avoid pursuing anything you are passionate about.
• Avoid pursuing goals and dreams.
• If you do pursue dreams or goals, quit when you confront any obstacles and then immediately move on to something new and different.
• Gamble.
• Express every emotion you have the minute you have it.
• Say whatever comes to mind immediately.
• Be mean and nasty to people.
• Be negative, pessimistic and cynical about everything.
• Trust no one.
• Talk behind everyone’s back.
• Intentionally hurt people with your words and deeds.
• Cheat on your spouse or significant other.
• Eat in excess.
• Drink and party often.
• Don’t exercise.
• Buy whatever you feel like buying immediately and without thinking about the consequences.
• Live for today and never plan for your future.
• Take up bad habits that result in some addiction (drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.).
• Forge a reputation as unreliable and untrustworthy.
• Lie, cheat and steal. Ignore laws.

Now, if you don’t want to be poor, it’s really not that complicated. You just need to change the process you have been following. I won’t bother listing the process that creating wealth requires. Why? Because if you want to be wealthy, just do the opposite of everything I just listed. The wealth process is simply the opposite of the poverty process.