Archives for March 2020

Getting a lot of sleep is vitally important when you are sick. In fact, it is so important, the body puts you into something called Sick Sleepiness in order to force you to sleep.

Why do we need so much sleep when we are sick?

When you go to sleep, your body’s immune system and janitorial crew go to work:

• There are several automatic immune defenses that get deployed during sleep. As your body forces you to slow down, it performs the following functions:
  • Encoding: The immune system goes on the hunt for foreign bacteria or viruses.
  • Consolidation: The immune system gathers and communicates front line data about any foreign invaders it encounters.
  • Recall: Every immune cell commits to memory through its genes, exactly what weapons (Proteins) worked in destroying specific types of bacteria or viruses it destroyed. This weapon manufacturing memory is called into action any time the invaders return.

• Damaged cells are repaired.
• Cells infected with viruses, that have been killed by our immune system, are dismantled and cleared away.
• Old, end of life cells, are dismantled and replaced by new cells.
• In the brain, the Glymphatic System is called into action while we sleep, sending lympatic fluid where it is needed inside the brain, in order to remove dismantled dead cells or dismantled, beyond repair cells.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

Many people love to eat sausage because it tastes so good.

But, if you ever witnessed how sausage was made and the ingredients that went into it, you’d likely cringe.

Most people feel the same way about success as they do about sausage – they want it.

They’d like to be able to live in mansions, have yachts, go on exotic vacations, fly in private jets, own expensive cars, buy expensive jewelry, have a house on the ocean, etc.

But, if you ever walked in the shoes of the average successful person, you’d have second thoughts about success.

Why?

Because if you really knew what goes into creating success, it would make you cringe.

The Ingredients of Success

• Long Work Hours – The Dreamer/Entrepreneurs in my Rich Habits Study worked an average of 61 hours a week, for twelve years. Weekend and vacations were almost non-existent. Those long work hours impacted everyone in the Dreamer’s immediate orbit. Family and friends are hit the hardest by their absence. Often one spouse must take up the slack and raise their children, almost as if they were a single parent. Close friendships whither on the vine, due to those long work hours.
• Financial Stress – Until the Dream begins to pay off, making ends meet can cause almost intolerable stress. Only the strong can survive that stress and that includes the spouses. In the early going, getting a steady paycheck is near impossible. Weak marriages will almost certainly fall apart, due to this stress.
• High Risk – Dreamers have to put everything they own on the line. Their homes, retirement plans, and savings become the assets that breathes life into their Dream. When a Dreamer runs out of assets, they have no choice but to turn to debt in order to continue to finance their Dream. The lucky ones are eventually able to secure Lines of Credit to keep them afloat. The unlucky ones are forced to rely on credit cards or loans from family and friends to survive until they thrive. If they thrive. Pursuing a Dream is a gamble. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the Dream will every pay off. Many fail. In fact, 27% in my Rich Habits Study failed at least once. Failure can mean bankruptcy. Sometimes that bankruptcy is followed by divorce.
• Growth Habits – Successful people forge daily habits which help them grow, improve and become the best at what they do. But, forging good habits, in the beginning, is hard work. You need discipline and a strong reserve of willpower. It’s particularly not easy to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to engage in the growth habits that create success:
  • Daily Reading to Learn – Reading helps you to increase your knowledge-base, making you more valuable to everyone you serve. But, it’s not easy devoting hours every day to reading to learn.
  • Daily Practice – Practicing three or more hours every day to maintain and improve your skills, isn’t easy.
  • Daily Exercise – Exercise not only keeps your body healthy, it helps strengthen and improve brain cells. Daily exercise helps extend the life of all cells in the body by keeping telomeres healthy and long. Daily exercise feeds the body with oxygen, which helps boost cognitive ability. Daily exercise increases the ability of the mitochondria (fuel plants inside every cell) to convert glucose/ketones into ATP (fuel). Daily exercise helps your blood and lungs sweep away waste, bacteria and virus-infected cells. It’s not easy to exercise 30 minutes or more every day.
  • Daily Relationship Building – It’s hard work to build and maintain relationships with Influencers who can help fast track success.

When you see how the success sausage is made, most will turn and run.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

Edgar Allen Poe suffered from depression. If you lived his life, you probably would have been depressed too. He was born in 1809 to a couple of actors. He was two when his father abandoned him. His mother, unable to take care of him, left him with John and Frances Allen. His mother died soon after that.

Poe was rejected by the literary circles of his time, which was a result of his reputation for being a crazy drunk without any talent. Poe often referred to bipolar disorder through his themes using the “double self.” Later it was called a split personality and today it is referred to as bi polar disorder or schizophrenia.

There are days when everyone gets depressed. Monday mornings can drag you down. An end to a family vacation is another thing that can make you sad. Seeing your kids off to college is another trigger for sadness or depression.

You are definitely not alone when it comes to feeling the blues every now and than. We all experience these momentary bouts of sadness.

One of the anti-depression strategies I uncovered in my five-year study of the daily habits of the wealthy involves engaging in a creative activity. Sadness and depression fade away when you’re engaged in any creative pursuits.

Why?

It’s in our genes to create. When we create, we are at our most natural human state and when we are at our most natural human state, we feel happy and fulfilled.

Creativity creates happiness and happiness displaces depression.

We all have some creative skills. It’s hardwired into our DNA. We are all creative beings. For me, it is writing. For others, it is painting or music or knitting or building. I actually have grown to envy builders because builders get to create for a living.

When you are immersed in any creative pursuit, the right side of the brain takes over and suppresses that part of the brain where depression takes up residence. It’s hard to start a creative project when you are in the midst of depression and that is why you should already have in place creative projects to ward off depression-triggering events.

As you get older, you get better at anticipating when those events. Starting your creative project, before a depression-triggering event, helps stop sadness and depression in its tracks.

If you’re feeling down right now, find something creative to do. It will not only take your mind off your problems, it will make you feel happy.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

According to Robert Zilttzer, MD at US National Library of Medicine, daily exercise boosts your immune system, which enables your body to ward off viruses, bacterial infections, germs and other invaders.

In his research, Dr. Ziltzer discovered that exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, accomplishes three specific things:

1. Flushes bacteria out of the lungs and airways
2. Encourages antibodies to circulate more rapidly
3. Slows the release of stress-related hormones, which can otherwise compromise your immune system.

When we allow fear to control our lives, that fear creates chronic stress which compromises the immune system. When we are struggling with chronic stress, there is a domino effect of physiology that takes place inside our bodies:

• The hypothalamus increases the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine. These hormones make the heart beat faster and prepare the body for fight or flight. If the stress lingers, a gene on chromosome 10, called CYP17, is activated. This gene goes to work to convert cholesterol to cortisol.
• Cortisol is used in virtually every part of the body and it’s purpose is to integrate the body and the mind. The body and mind then work in harmony to escape the external threat that triggered the stress response. One of cortisol’s side effects, unfortunately, is that it depresses the immune system by reducing the production of lymphocytes – white blood cells. The gene CYP17 also turns on another gene called TCF, which suppresses the the creation of a protein called interleukin 2.
• Interleukin 2′s purpose is to put white blood cells on high alert. White blood cells are first wave of defense against viruses and other invaders. Their job is to contain the threat, stopping it from spreading throughout the body. This helps allows the body to buy time so that the immune system can manufacture the specific proteins that it will use to attack and kill the contained invaders.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

There are two main brain areas that work in unison in the pursuit of goals. They are the Thalamus’s Reticular Activating System and the Prefrontal Cortex.

The Thalamus’s Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the brain’s gateway to the outside world.

Whenever any one of our senses, other than olfactory sense (sense of smell), picks up some external environmental input, that input is filtered through the RAS. The RAS determines if that external data is important or unimportant.

If it is important, the RAS will allow that sensory information to reach the brain’s CEO, the prefrontal cortex (also the seat of consciousness).

If the information is unimportant, the prefrontal is never made aware of it – it never makes its way into our consciousness.

What types of information get passed along along to the prefrontal cortex?

• Anything having to do with your name.
• Anything having to do with family, friends people you know intimately.
• Anything that is deemed a threat.
• Anything that is deemed a top priority – This includes anything related to your job, career, ability to earn an income, health, neighborhood, your finances, your home, possessions
• Anything that is related to any dreams, goals you are pursuing. When you pursue dreams or set goals, the RAS is put on high alert for any environmental information that will help advance your dreams and goals, transforming them into reality.

Any environmental information picked up by your senses, which trips any of the above switches, will be forwarded to your prefrontal cortex for further processing.

This is why it is so important to pursue dreams and set goals.

When you pursue Dreams and set goals, the RAS becomes your personal Private Investigator, relentlessly searching for external environmental information that can help you realize your dreams and goals.

You can see the RAS at work in the form of light bulb, Ah Ha or Eureka moments of many famous historical figures.

Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity came to him while his train was passing a clock tower. Thomas Edison’s Ah Ha moments often came to him immediately after one of his famous cat naps. James Watson’s (one of the duo who discovered DNA’s double helix) came to him in a dream. And Sir Isaac Newton’s came to him after getting hit on the head by an apple that fell from a tree.

These individuals had their Eureka moments because they were pursuing something important and their RAS took notice.

When you pursue dreams and goals, you toggle on your RAS – it starts working, behind the scenes, trying to identify anything in the environment that will help you realize those dreams and goals.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

Nicholas Christakis, currently a Yale University Sociologist, did a study on obesity a few years ago and discovered that habits spread like a virus throughout your social networks.

Dave Ramsey is one of the top radio hosts in America. Dave interviewed me on his program a few years ago about my book, Rich Habits. Dave was intrigued by my research, specifically surrounding the Poor Habit of Gossiping.

Dave had recently instituted a “No Gossiping” policy at his company. He understood that bad habits, like gossiping, are like virus – they spread and infect other employees, ultimately undermining all of the good work Dave and his staff were doing in growing their company.

We forge habits that are common among our diverse social networks.

If you want to forge habits that help improve your life, your health, your finances or your ability to succeed, you must find a group of people who have the habits you desire and include that group of people in your inner circle.

Associating with others who have the habits you desire is one of the most effective paths to habit change.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

Since 2004, I’ve been studying the lives of the rich and the poor. In my Rich Habits Study, 76% of the millionaires in my study came from poverty or the middle-class.

What intrigued me more than anything, from my research, was how those very average poor and middle-class individuals were somehow able to rise above their circumstances and become wealthy.

There were mighty lessons I learned from listening to how they created such massive change in their lives.

Here are those lessons.

Lesson #1 You Must Create a Vision of the Future You

When you create a vision of who you want to be in the future, this opens up your eyes to all of the dreams and goals that you must pursue in order to massively change your life.

Lesson #2 You Must Change Your Thinking From Negative to Positive

Almost every self-made millionaire in my Rich Habits Study considered themselves optimists. They all shared a positive, upbeat, optimistic outlook on life. In my brain research, I learned that the prefrontal cortex is shut down or suppressed by negativity. For instance, in Martin Seligman’s Study, sponsored by MetLife, he found that the Optimist Group sold 50% more than the Pessimist Group. B.L. Frederickson’s 1998 & 2001 Broaden and Build Studies found positivity boosted the prefrontal cortex’s ability to focus and improved overall cognitive ability (IQ).

Lesson #3 You Must Change Your Daily Habits From Bad to Good

You are the sum total of your habits. If your daily habits are bad, your life will be bad. If your daily habits are good, your life will be good. If you want to massively change your life, it begins with changing your habits from bad to good.

Lesson #4 You Must Change Who You Associate With

Habits spread like a virus within your social network. Health habits, thinking habits, money habits and many other behaviors are derived from those you associate with. If you associate with individuals who exercise daily, you will exercise daily. If you associate with positive people, you will become a positive person. If you associate with people who are frugal with their money, you will become frugal with your money.

If you are pursuing a dream and its associated goals, hang out with other people who are pursuing the same dreams and goals.

Lesson #5 You Must Forge Daily Growth Habits

There are two prime categories of Growth Habits:

1. Knowledge-Based Growth Habits – Growing your knowledge-base every day. There are two types of Knowledge-Based Growth Habits:
   • Reading to Learn – This requires reading thirty minutes to three hours every day in order to become an expert in your field. The more you know about what you do for a living, the more valuable you are to others. The more valuable you are, the more you can charge for your services.
   • Learn From Other Experts – Picking the brains of those who are experts in your field will help you grow in knowledge. These experts can be supervisors, mentors, teachers, coaches, etc.
2. Skill-Based Growth Habits – Practicing every day, maintains, improves and perfects your skills. There are two types of practice that will transform you into a Virtuoso in your particular skill-set:
   • Deliberate Practice – Deliberate Practice involves repetition – repeatedly practicing the subsets of the skills you possess. For example, tennis requires skills – you need to know how to serve, volley, hit a forehand and hit a backhand. But when Roger Federer practices his forehand, he’ll hit 500 topspin forehands, 500 slice forehands, 500 down the line forehands, 500 cross-court forehands and 500 down the middle forehands. He practices subsets of his forehand every day. And then he does the same with his serve, volley and backhand.
   • Analytical Practice – Analytical Practice requires feedback from someone watching you perform your craft; someone who is also an expert in the same craft. In most cases, getting someone to watch you do what you do and then evaluate your performance, requires money to pay for that feedback.

Lesson #6 You Must Forge Daily Good Health Habits

As one self-made millionaire in my study told me – “You can’t make money sitting in a hospital bed.”

You must be have good health if you want to be successful in life. Good Health Habits include:

• Daily Exercise – Thirty minutes or more of aerobics and 30 minutes or more of anaerobics (weight lifting, high impact training, pushups, sit-ups, etc.)
• Healthy Eating – Getting two-third’s of your calories from vegetables is key to good nutrition. Vegetables boost the good bacteria that lives within you gut. This good bacteria also boosts your immune system’s ability to fight off viruses, bacteria, parasites and disease.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

In a comprehensive study on Fasting, the National Institute on Aging in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, found that Intermittent Fasting dramatically improved overall health by boosting the immune system’s ability to defend against viruses, bacteria and diseases such as cancer.

In this study, twelve hours of fasting was found to the optimal number.

Dr. Andreas Michalsen, Charite University Hospital, in Berlin, used Intermittent Fasting on patients suffering with chronic health issues. Dr. Michalsen’s study found that fasting for fourteen hours straight increased the creation of the number of new, healthy replacement cells, helped increase cell repair functions as well as waste removal functions in the body (getting rid of damaged cells).

So, for those who are concerned about their health and battling infectious viruses, Fasting will boost your immune system’s ability to overcome such viruses, if you come into contact with them.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

There are four paths to building wealth:

1. Saver-Investor Path
2. Big Company Climber Path
3. Virtuoso Path and
4. Dreamer-Entrepreneur Path

According to the enormous amount of data I’ve gathered since 2004, the fastest way to accumulate the greatest amount of wealth, is, hands down, the Dreamer-Entrepreneur Path.

In my Rich Habits Study, the Dreamer-Entrepreneurs accumulated an average of $7.4 million over an average of just twelve years.

Compared to all of the other three paths, that was more than twice the amount of wealth in a much shorter amount of time.

While it may be the fastest and most financial rewarding path to accumulating wealth, it also happens to be the hardest, riskiest, and most stressful path to wealth.

There are many costs to being a Dreamer-Entrepreneur:

• Long Work Hours – The Dreamer/Entrepreneurs in my study worked an average of 61 hours a week, for twelve years. Weekend and vacations were almost non-existent. Those long work hours impacted everyone in the Dreamer’s immediate orbit. Family and friends are hit the hardest by their absence. Often one spouse must take up the slack and raise their children, almost as if they were a single parent. Close friendships whither on the vine, due to those long work hours.
• Financial Stress – Until the Dream begins to pay off, making ends meet can cause almost intolerable stress. Only the strong can survive that stress and that includes the spouses. In the early going, getting a steady paycheck is near impossible. Weak marriages will almost certainly fall apart, due to this stress.
• High Risk – Dreamers have to put everything they own on the line. Their homes, retirement plans, and savings become the assets that breathes life into their Dream. When a Dreamer runs out of assets, they have no choice but to turn to debt in order to continue to finance their Dream. The lucky ones are eventually able to secure Lines of Credit to keep them afloat. The unlucky ones are forced to rely on credit cards or loans from family and friends to survive until they thrive. If they thrive. Pursuing a Dream is a gamble. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the Dream will every pay off. Many fail. In fact, 27% in my Rich Habits Study failed at least once. Failure can mean bankruptcy. Sometimes that bankruptcy is followed by divorce.

But, if you have what it takes, the Entrepreneur Path will generate the most wealth in the shortest period of time.

So, is The Entrepreneur Path right for you?

Everyone is different and because everyone is different, their path to accumulating wealth must be in alignment with their particular personality.

For example, shy, risk averse, low stress-tolerant individuals would find the life of a Dreamer-Entrepreneur ill-suited for their specific personality.

Outgoing individuals who love high-risk challenges and seem immune to stress, however, are perfectly suited for the Dreamer/Entrepreneur Path. If that’s you, then the Entrepreneur Path is the right path for you.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!

When you understand how the body turns the food we eat into fuel, it’s pretty mind-blowing. There are various processes, or steps involved, in turning food into fuel.

Step #1 Converting Food into Glucose

As soon as food hits your lips, the saliva in your mouth begins breaking down that food. The munched up, siliva-drenched food then works its way down the esophagus into the stomach, where it is further broken down. As this broken down food makes its way through the digestive track, it transforms carbohydrates and proteins into Glucose.

Step #2 Glucose Absorbed Into Bloodstream

As soon as that newly manufactured Glucose reaches the small intestine, it is filtered through the lining of the small intestine, where it then enters the bloodstream.

Step #3 Glucose Transported Into Cells

As soon as the Glucose enters the bloodstream, the Pancreas is notified. Immediately, the Pancreas releases Insulin, a hormone. The Insulin is like an Uber driver. It’s job is to take the Glucose out of the bloodstream and get it into every cell in the body that’s screaming out for fuel.

Step #4 Cells Convert Glucose Into ATP

ATP, Adenosine Triphosphate, is the ultimate fuel for every cell in the body. But first, each cell must convert Glucose into ATP. Inside every cell are Fuel Conversion Plants, known as Mitochondria.

Once the Glucose passes through the cell membrane, Mitochondria come to life. There are literally thousands of these Fuel Conversion Plants within each cell. The Mitochondria  grab onto the Glucose and calls to Oxygen to help it rip the Glucose to shreds. They call this process Oxidation.

During this violent, messy Oxidation process, some of the Glucose molecules lose their Electrons and those Electrons start flying around inside the cell. If they are allowed to bounce around, they could bounce off the inner cell wall, damaging the cell membrane, or worse, they could bounce into the Nucleus of the cell and damage the DNA that is protected inside the Nucleus. They call those wandering Electrons, Free Radicals.

The Oxygen molecules inside the cell, are then asked to do double-duty. They are given marching orders to float around the inner cell and look for wandering Free Radicals. When they find one, they attach themselves to the Free Radical, float out of the cell membrane wall and into the bloodstream. The blood takes these Oxygen-transported Free Radicals into the lungs, where the Oxygen is converted into C02. The C02 somehow manages to hold onto those Free Radicals, which are then breathed out into the environment.

Step #5 Excess Glucose Gets Stored For Later Use

Once the Mitochondria manufacture the ATP they need, any excess Glucose is transported back out of the cell and into the Liver, where it is converted into a stored form of Glucose, called Glycogen. After the excess Glucose is converted into Glycogen it is stored in the Liver, Muscles and Fat Cells, for later use.

Step #6 Glycogen Converted Into Fuel

If, for whatever reason, you fail to eat or fail to eat enough, your body will send out an SOS -OUR CELLS ARE RUNNING OUT OF FUEL  This SOS is sent as soon as Glucose levels in the bloodstream drop too low.

Once the Liver receives this SOS, the Liver then notifies the Pancreas that it’s going to release Glycogen. The Pancreas then releases a hormone called Glucogon, whose job is to convert the Glycogen, back into Glucose where it will, once again, be transported into the cells who are screaming for more fuel.

The Liver has about 3-4 hours worth or stored Glucose. When it runs out, the Glycogen stored in the Muscles will be converted into Glucose. Because the body needs it Muscles, it can only afford to release a little bit of Glucose, as it needs the rest to keep the Muscles working. Once the Muscles say No More stored Glucose for You, the body will not turn to its Fat Cells.

Step #7 Fat Converted Into Fuel

In a process called Lipogenesis, Glucose stored in fat cells as Glycogen, is released and converted into Fatty Acids and Glycerol. That Glyceral is then transported into the Liver where it is converted back into Glucose, to fuel all cells. other than Brain Cells.

In a much shorter, more efficient process, the Fatty Acids that are earmarked for brain fuel, are converted into Ketones, in a process called Ketogenesis. These Ketones are further processed into Beta-Hydroxybutyrate (BHB), which the brain uses as fuel. The interesting thing is that BHB is 70% more efficient and produces 20% more fuel than Glucose.

My mission is to share my unique Rich Habits research in order to add value to your life and help you realize increased wealth, superior health, abundant success, fulfillment & happiness. If you find value in these articles, please share them with your inner circle and encourage them to Sign Up for my Rich Habits Daily Tips/Articles.  No one succeeds on their own. Thank You!