Archives for November 2019

Do your employees have good habits? Do they have bad habits?

If you don’t know, you should, because habits spread like a virus within every organization. And if those habits are bad, they will negatively infect other employees and undermine your company’s bottom line.

This is why it is so important for employers to nip bad habits in the bud.

Dave Ramsey is one of the top radio hosts in America. Dave interviewed me a few years ago about my book, Rich Habits.

One of the habits that came up in the interview was gossiping. Dave said that he had a rule against gossiping in the office. It’s just not allowed.

If it does happen and Dave finds out, he gives the employee a stern warning. If the gossiping habit continues, post-warning, that employee will find themselves on the unemployment line.

Habits, like gossiping, might seem insignificant, but they’re not.

Dave understood that bad habits, like gossiping, are like cancer. They spread and infect other employees, ultimately undermining all of the good work Dave and his staff were doing in growing their company.

Successful companies, like Dave Ramsey’s, are tuned into the importance of habits and, therefore, seek to create a culture rich in good habits so their company can prosper.

Companies who are ignorant of employee habits, put their company at great risk by allowing bad habits to take root. Eventually those bad habits will filter throughout the organization and the glaring manifestation of this shows up on the Profit & Loss Statement in the form of meager profits or outright losses.

Habits have a cumulative effect on every company’s bottom line. Their impact quietly and slowly accumulates, like snow flakes on a mountainside, eventually resulting in an avalanche.

Good habits create an avalanche of profitability. Bad habits creates an avalanche of losses.

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!

These four statistics from my Rich Habits Study data caught me by surprise:

1. 21% of the wealthy were “A” students.
2. 41% of the wealthy were “B” students.
3. 29% of the wealthy were “C” students.
4. 7% of the wealthy were below average students.

77% of the wealthy were not exceptional students. In fact, more than a third under performed academically.

How can this be?

I had always assumed that success and intelligence, were correlated. But they’re not.

A high IQ has no bearing on success in life!

What I learned from my Study, is that in order to understand habits, I needed to understand how the brain works.

BRAIN SCIENCE BASICS

There are essentially three parts of the brain:

1. Brain Stem
2. Limbic System and
3. Neocortex

All three parts of the brain are connected through a series of nerve fibers.

Brain Stem

The brain stem is the oldest part of the brain. It is sometimes referred to as the Reptilian Brain, the Reactive Brain or the Instinctive Brain. At one time, it was the first and only part of our brain. The brain stem connects to your spinal cord which branches out to form our central nervous system. It is primarily made up of the Medulla Oblongata and the Pons. The brain stem controls all of your autonomic processes such as breathing, heart rate, swallowing, and organ function. It prompts hunger, your sex drive and the fight or flight mechanism. There is no thinking involved with the brain stem. It exists to ensure your survival.

Limbic System

The limbic system is the second oldest part of the brain. It is sometimes referred to as the Emotional Brain. It is where all of your emotions reside and is heavily involved in memory storage, both long-term and short-term.

It includes the following components:

• Amygdala – Memory and emotions.
• Hypothalmus – Muscle vibrations and internal temperature. This is why you shiver when you are sick. The hypothalmus increases body temperature to kill bacteria. Muscle vibrations generate heat to kill bacteria. The hypothalmus also controls appetite and hormones.
• Thalamus – Sits right next to the Basal Ganglia. Affects touch, pain, temperature and muscles. Recent studies have found that the thalamus is the brain’s gate keeper – all external sensory information passes through the thalamus first. Most of that information is discarded.
• Hippocampus – This is where short-term memory is stored. The hippocampus, during deep sleep, moves short-term memory to long-term storage in the neocortex.
• Olfactory Lobe – Triggers smell. This is why smell sometimes evokes emotions. They both are connected in the limbic system.
• Recticular Activating System – Along with the thalamus, the RAS vets the sensory information we take in. Most sensory information is blocked out by the recticular activating system and the thalamus. This is done in order to prevent brain overload.
• Cingulate Cortex – Creates Mirror Neurons that are critical to developing new skills, new habits and for survival. These mirror neurons program children to mirror the behavior and emotions of their parents, good or bad.
• Basal Ganglia – This is the command and control center for habits in the brain. The basal ganglia acts like the hub of a wheel. Each spoke (dendrite) of the basal ganglia reaches into the deepest parts of the neocortex, limbic system and brain stem. Habits are formed when we repeatedly use certain neural pathways. The basal ganglia will create a spoke and link it to other parts of the brain, in an effort to create a habit. The hub and those spokes remain forever. That is why habits are hard to break.

Neocortex

This is the newest, most unusual part of the brain. It is found only in mammals. It is most of your human brain. Fully 5/6ths of our brain mass is made up of the neocortex. It has the most neurons – 40 billion. It is sometimes referred to as the Thinking Brain, Higher Brain, Conscious Brain, Cerebrum or Cerebral Cortex. It is responsible for learning, long-term memory, thought creation and decision making. It is comprised of the four lobes: Parietal, Frontal, Temporal (vision) and Occipital (vision), the Amygdalae and the Corpus Callosum – a bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the neocortex. It takes in and processes sensory data the thalamus and RAS allow it to see.

Neurons

It is estimated that the average adult has between 23 to 100 billion neurons. The jury is still out on this. No one really knows. The preponderance of the research I’ve done seems to skew toward 100 billion.

A neuron is also known as a brain cell. Each neuron is made up of one axon and multiple dendrites. Each axon and dendrite have multiple branches, just like trees.

When neurons talk to each other, this is known as a synapse. Axons receive communications from other neurons through each one of its axon branches. Dendrites send communications to other axons on other neurons through each one of its branches.

The synaptic gap is an indentation on each dendrite that an axon branch sends its signals through. Think of each axon branch as a plug and each dendrite as an outlet. The axon branch plugs into each dendrite outlet and viola, we have a connection.

The most powerful neurons are called spindle cells. These are like neurons on steroids. They are bigger neurons; four times bigger than all other neurons, with long, thick extensions that look like spindles. They reside primarily in the cingulate cortex and are able to connect divergent areas of the brain due to their enormous size. No other species on earth has the abundance of spindle cells humans do. Spindle cells make human unique among all species. Because of their size, spindle cells are capable of faster communication over longer distances. Think of ordinary neurons as local neighborhood roads and spindle cells as the German autobahn highway. Spindle cells are the superhighways of the brain. They are where intuition comes from and gives us the ability to make instant, quick decisions.

Ok, thanks for staying with me so far. I’m almost done with laying our foundation.

Recent Breakthroughs in Brain Science

Neuroscience (the study of the brain), over the past ten years, has completely changed our understanding of how the brain works. We now know that the brain changes every day. We can rewire our brains. This is called neuroplasticity.

We also now know that the hippocampus gives birth to thousands of new neurons every day. This is called neurogenesis. That’s a big revelation. For over a hundred years, we were told that the number of neurons was fixed at birth.

We also now have a better understanding of what memory is and how memory happens. Once again, one of our hardest working brain parts, the hippocampus, is a major player in the formation of long-term memory (called long-term potentiation).

We now know that when we sleep, the hippocampus and the cortex are hard at work creating memories.

We also now know, thanks to the study of, and mapping of, the genome, that genes give us the ability to increase our IQs during our lifetime. We know that IQ can change over time. It’s not fixed. Just because you were a “C” student at age 17 with an IQ of 100 doesn’t necessarily mean you will stay that way.  You can increase your IQ all during your life, even into your eighties.

Success and Your Brain

Because of the recent advancement in our understanding of how the brain works, we now know how it is possible for unexceptional students, with average IQs, to achieve incredible success in life – they are able to increase their IQs as a result of continuous study and the growth that occurs as a result of pursuing goals and dreams.

Successful people forge certain Rich Habits that enable them to improve their brains and increase their intelligence during their lifetimes. These activities increase brain mass by increasing and strengthening old neural connections and by creating entirely new neural connections.

Let’s touch on some of the brain-building activities of wealthy, successful people.

Daily Learning

Every time you learn something new, you re-wire your brain. New neurons are recruited and begin firing with one another (known as synapses). As new neural pathways are created by learning, your brain actually increases in size; your intelligence grows.

Eighty-eight percent of the wealthy in my study, sometime prior to realizing financial success in life, formed the daily Rich Habit of reading to learn 30 minutes or more every day. This self-education daily habit allowed them to increase their cognitive abilities during their lives, which contributed to their success in life.

Daily Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise floods the bloodstream with oxygen. This oxygen eventually makes its way to the brain. Since the brain uses 20% of our oxygen reserves, increased oxygen flow into the brain soaks up more free radicals inside the brain, making it cleaner and healthier. Increased oxygen flow into the brain also increases the the production of brain fuel (glucose or ketones).

Twenty to thirty minutes of aerobic exercise every day has been proven to stimulate the growth of axons and axon branches on each neuron.

The number of axons and axon branches your brain has is directly related to your intelligence.

Aerobic exercise also increases the release of neurotrophins, or Nerve Growth Factor (NFG). NFG stimulates the growth of neurons, helps maintain a healthy coating around every neuron (called myelin sheath) and stimulates synaptic communications between neurons.

Increased synaptic communication translates into better memory and faster recall.

So, daily aerobic exercise increases your intelligence, each and every time you engage in it.

Avoid Intoxication

Our livers are able to process at most, about two ounces of alcohol an hour (about two 12 ounce glasses of beer).  Anything in excess of that allows alcohol to enter your bloodstream and this makes its way into your brain.

Neurologists are still debating the long-accepted belief that alcohol kills brain cells. Some say it does, others disagree.

What they all agree on is that once alcohol reaches the brain it infiltrates the glutamate receptors in your synapses, damaging the neurons’ ability to fire off signals.

If you regularly drink in excess, you are causing long-term damage to these receptors and this can cause long-term or permanent damage to your memory and your motor skills.

Is it a coincidence that 84% of the wealthy in my study drank less than two ounces of alcohol a day? I don’t think so. Their moderation in the consumption of alcohol helps them keep their brains growing and improving.

Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

Eighty-nine percent of the wealthy in my study slept an average of seven or more hours each night.

Why is sleep so important to brain function?

To understand this, we need to understand sleep. Everyone who sleeps goes through four to six sleep cycles that last between 60 – 90 minutes per sleep cycle. Each of these sleep cycles is composed of five separate levels of sleep: Alpha, theta, delta, rapid eye movement (REM) and then back to theta.

For each individual sleep cycle, the first three sleep levels (alpha, theta and delta) last 65 minutes. REM lasts 20 minutes and the final level of sleep lasts 5 minutes.

The number of hours you sleep is less important than the number of complete sleep cycles you have when you sleep. Five complete sleep cycles a night is considered optimal. Completing less than four sleep cycles a night, however, negatively affects our health.

REM sleep is particularly important as one of its important functions is long-term memory storage. During REM sleep, what we’ve learned the day before is transported from the hippocampus to the neocortex for long-term memory storage.

If we do not complete at least four sleep cycles a night, long-term memory storage becomes impaired. Completing at least four sleep cycles the night after learning a new skill or the night after studying for a test, locks in the new skill or study material.

If we get less than four complete sleep cycles the night after learning a new skill or the night after studying for a test, it is as if we did not practice the skill or did not study at all because it never fully gets transferred to long-term memory.

So sleep helps you remember what you’ve learned.

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 never truly know your limitations, until you test them.

Individuals who succeed in life, in particular Dreamer-Entrepreneurs, know their limitations because they pursue dreams and goals that test their limitations.

Dreams force you to create goals. Goals are the construction crew for each one of your dreams.

Failed goals are a neon sign informing you that you just encountered a personal limitation.

Failing at achieving a goal is a good thing – it exposes a limitation that you didn’t know you had. Once you become aware of any limitations you might have, you can eliminate it, which is precisely what successful people do.

How do successful people get rid of their limitations?

They do one of two things:

1. They gain knowledge or skills that enable them to grow, thereby erasing a limitation or
2. They hire someone with the knowledge or skills they lack.

When it comes to limitations, those who fail do so for a number of reasons:

1. They are unaware of their limitations
2. They are aware of their limitations but ignore them
3. They fail to gain knowledge or develop skills to help them remove a limitation or
4. They fail to secure the assistance of experts who possess the knowledge or skills they lack.

Knowing your limitations is a Rich 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!

I love to study both rich and poor people. They always have pearls of wisdom, forged in the fire of experience, that force you to reevaluate your habits, thinking and the decisions you make.

I was recently doing some research on Jon Taffer, the host of the award-winning show Bar Rescue.

One of the things Jon said really rang a bell for me. He said, “never allow anyone to rush you into making a decision. When you feel rushed, this puts you in crisis mode and causes you to make bad decisions.”

This resonated with me because that was one of the seven factors that cause bad decisions, according to my Rich Habits research.

When you make too many bad decisions, that’s a pattern. Patterns indicate habits are at work, behind the scenes, causing you to make bad decisions.

The problem with making habitual bad decisions is that they lead to desperate decisions. Desperate decisions force you to do things you do not want to do – things you intuitively know are not going to be good for the future you.

Like a domino effect, bad decisions force you into a position of weakness, which then forces you into making desperate decisions. Desperate decisions eventually come back to haunt you.

Unlike most ordinary bad decisions, desperate decisions are typically well-thought out bad decisions that you must make – you have little choice. You’re boxed in and you know it.

Desperate decisions always are one-sided – they benefit one party and hurt you.

So, in order to avoid being forced into make desperate decisions, you must first understand why you are regularly making bad decisions.

Bad decisions are caused by 7 factors:

1. Impulsive Decisions – Rash, spontaneous, spur of the moment decisions. These are never well-thought out decisions.
2. Emotional Decisions – Making decisions when elated, angry or sad.
3. Uneducated Decisions – Not doing your homework before making a decision.
4. Making Decisions When Tired – Your prefrontal cortex is the CEO of your brain. When you’re tired, your CEO is impaired and unable to make good decisions.
5. Making Decisions When Hungry – When you are hungry, this is your body’s way of telling you it needs fuel. When your prefrontal cortex lacks fuel, it will not be functioning at its best.
6. Making Decisions While Under Stress – Stress suppresses the prefrontal cortex and allows the emotional center of the brain to take control of the decision-making process.
7. Making Decisions While Impaired – When you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, your prefrontal cortex, your CEO, is impaired and not functioning properly.

When you forge the habit of making good decisions, those decisions put you in a position of strength. When you are in a position of strength, you are not forced to do something you do not want to do. You can walk away. You can say no.

Good decisions are decisions that follow three basic rules:

1. Doing your homework
2. Seeking feedback from experts and
3. Deliberation – giving your brain time to consider all of the facts before making an informed decision.

Good decisions usually work out, and when they do, they put you in a position of strength. This enables you to make future positions of strength decisions, decisions that create some long-term benefit, some future good outcome you desire.

It’s not realistic for me to tell you to avoid position of weakness decisions. It is not realistic because position of weakness decisions are often forced upon you by third parties. These third parties might be a bank, a tax agency, an employer, a spouse, a vendor, customer, etc.

It is, however, realistic for me to advise you to follow the above three-step process when it comes to making good decisions.

Good decisions are a firewall against needing to make position of weakness, desperate decisions.

 

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 much you eat may very well determine how long you live.

In a report issued by Roderick Bronson and Ruth Lipman of the Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston, reducing your normal intake of food by 40% yields a 20% longer life span.

Eating less does three things:

1. Reduces DNA Damage – When you eat, oxygen converts glucose into Adenosine Triphosphate, or, ATP, inside the mitochondria (fuel factory inside every cell). This glucose conversion is almost violent and can cause quite a mess inside each cell. This mess includes free radicals or electrons, that have been ripped away from its atom, during the conversion process. If these free radicals are not removed within the cell by oxygen, they can fly around and damage the cell wall or, even worse, fly straight into the cell’s nucleus, damaging the DNA that resides in there. Those who consume fewer calories, have less of a mess to clean up inside their cells.
2. Increases DNA & Cell Repair – 30% of all of your body’s fuel (glucose or ketones) is used to digest food. Those who eat less, require less fuel. The excess fuel available is then put to use cleaning up damaged cells or repairing any DNA damage that might exist. Part of this DNA repair includes fixing frayed telomeres, which reside on the end of each of the 46 chromosomes that make up your DNA. When telomeres are frayed or damage, this can lead to cell death. Many studies have shown that individuals who have longer telomeres, live longer lives.
3. Increases Good Bacteria Inside Your Gut – Recent studies have discovered that the trillions of microbiota that reside inside your gut (primarily large intestine) function as a separate component of your immune system. When you fast or restrict calories, this can help to re-balance your microbiota, especially if there is too much bad bacteria living in the gut. This reset, therefore, helps imrpove your immune system. The stronger your immune system, the better able you are to defend against disease.

This is why eating healthy and eating less are Rich Habits. These particular Rich Habits add years to your life.

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 your life’s purpose, that thing you were born to do, you know it. There is no doubt. You are 100% certain.

In fact, if you have any doubts about whether you are pursuing a career that is your life’s purpose, the answer is you are not.

Constant doubt or uncertainty is life’s way of notifying you that you are not doing what you were supposed to be doing – you’re not engaged in your purpose.

Unfortunately, most of us never discover our main purpose in life. We put our ladder on someone else’s wall and then spend the rest of our lives climbing that ladder.

You know your ladder is on the wrong wall when you hate your job or your work bores you. And your displeasure shows up in your paycheck or net profit.

Not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, causes unhappiness, financial struggle and stress.

So, how do you find your main purpose in life?

The key to finding your main purpose is by discovering some hidden innate talent that is unique to you.

So how do you find your hidden talent?

Through Experimentation!

We all have innate talents. These unique talents are hardwired into our DNA. But finding those talents requires experimentation.

If you’re young, explore various professions until you find one that you were born to do.

If you’re not young, your time to experiment will be limited to mornings, nights and weekends. Finding your innate talent on a part-time basis will take you longer. It may take as long as six months for each new activity you experiment with.

How do you know when you’ve found something you were born to do?

Your hidden talent is revealed in two ways:

#1 Your talent is revealed any time you try something new, and right out of the gate, that new thing comes easy to you. Being a quick study or a natural at something is life’s way of informing you that you have unearthed some unique innate talent – a talent specific only to you.

#2 Your talent is also revealed to you when engaging in it makes your heart sing. Passion is the song your heart sings. Passion is toggled on when you find an innate talent. That passion will possess you. It will stimulate you. You will find yourself wanting to engage in your talent 24/7, on weekends, holidays and vacations. You will dream about it. It will wake you up early in the morning.

Once you find your innate talent, your job then is to devote the rest of your life to perfecting that talent.

If your talent is knowledge-based, it will drive you to increase your knowledge by reading to learn, daily study and relentlessly seeking knowledge from those who are experts in what they do.

If your talent is skill-based, it will motivate you to devote many hours to practice in an effort to improve and perfect your skills.

In both cases, whether it be a knowledge-based or skill-based talent, passion will transform you into a Virtuoso.

And the world is more than happy to pay a premium for the services Virtuoso’s provide. That premium results in greater compensation, which, when saved and prudently invested, can translate into millions of dollars (wealth).

When you find your unique talent, you have found your main purpose in life.

And when you do, everything about your life will change.

Happy hunting.

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!

“I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.” – Unknown.

Some Poor Habits can be masked but eventually they reveal themselves to those around you.

LeBron James was unmasked recently after China became angered by a tweet from an NBA owner supporting the freedom-fighters in Hong Kong. This “social justice warrior” dropped any pretense that he cared more about social justice than making money. His greed habit was revealed for the whole world to see.

Bill Cosby, a famous comedian-actor, was also recently unmasked. He dropped his wholesome image mask when his sexual predator habits finally caught up with him.

Beloved Penn State coach, Joe Paterno, saw his mask fly off when it was discovered he knew about his assistant coach’s sexual abuse habits. His winning-is-everything habit caught up with him, eventually.

How about Lance Armstrong? He won seven consecutive Tour de France cycling events after battling back from testicular cancer. His hero mask also came flying off after his blood-doping habit was revealed to the world.

Other Poor Habits can’t be concealed by a mask, such as poor eating habits and lack of exercise (obesity and poor health), poor work ethic (frequent unemployment and money problems), infidelity (divorce), uncontrolled emotions (frequent relationships/work problems), smoking (lung cancer/heart disease), etc.

My point in all this is that your habits are who you are. And, they paint a picture for all the world to see.

That is why it is so important to forge good habits – good habits also paint a picture for all the world to see – a magnificent, splendid one.

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!