How to Teach to Help Others and Yourself

Last week I talked about the epiphany I had as I was doing my daily walk (a day I put in 10 miles of walking!)  As you may remember my breakthrough epiphany was that when we start teaching and preaching helpful ideas and  life enhancing goals with  other people , our very own progress and development is inevitably pushed faster toward achieving the very goals the ideas support.  It’s a pretty neat deal–as we help others we help ourselves!

At the end of last week’s blog I promised I would give you ideas to “jump start” your preaching and teaching plans. It isn’t necessary that you be a teaching type or that you have experience in helping to lead others toward achieving goals. You simply need the desire to help and see others succeed.

So here you go. Read these, follow the suggested steps and see what happens! When you’ve seen the effect you can have on other’s progress as well as your own, expand your influence to compound your success and the positive changes you’ve helped make in other people’s lives.

1. Pick a part of your life you want to greatly improve upon.

2. Write it down.

3. Make a list of comments and talking points that will help you present the benefits of the particular goal that you are going to share with relatives, friends and maybe even strangers.

4. Make a list of those relatives, friends, business associates and acquaintances you’d like to help. The best place to start is with your spouse or partner, so you may want to put them on the top of your list.

5. Now go out there and start teaching and preaching. It doesn’t matter how you do it. It could be face to face, by phone, or through email or texting. The only real rule is to share what you know with openness and caring. Understand that some people won’t be ready for the ideas you have to share. Don’t push it on them; just let them know you’re there to help when they are ready.

6. When you feel you have had significant experience and success, you can also teach more broadly through a blog, guest posting on other people’s blogs and websites or volunteering through mentoring programs for kids, college students, small businesses or whatever matches the kind of knowledge you have to share.

Revisiting the Super Brain

The last couple days I followed my own advice and re-read a great book that I hadn’t picked up for about a year. The book is by the brilliant Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi and is titled Super Brain. I saw the book on my bedside shelf and it grabbed my attention–probably because my experience the night before.

Kimberly and I attended a gala fund raiser for the National Ability Center and listened to a short speech by Anna Beninati where she talked about her experience as a skier. She’s very talented and has Olympic gold medal dreams. But what makes her story so special and unusual is the stupid decision she made as a teenager. She was running alongside a moving train trying to jump on it only she didn’t quite make it. She fell beneath the train cutting off both her legs. However, she considers herself very lucky. Wow!

Why does she consider herself lucky? Well, first of all she is grateful to be alive but it doesn’t stop there. She’s lucky because that terrible accident changed her brain. Accepting that she had no legs, she decided she would make her life count for something and I don’t think if she wins gold at the winter Para Olympics in Korea in a few years that she will stop at that point. That will probably just be the beginning of using her “Super Brain”. I think she already deserves a gold medal for using her brain to push it to that level.

Our brains, as Chopra’s book explains can make us or break us. It all depends on how we use them. We have a choice to either control and program our brains to serve us or we can sit back, do nothing and let our brains control us.

On that note, let me share some of my “margin notes” from Super Brain.

P. 40 Whatever you pay attention to grows.

P. 42 Expect past memories, as well as the things we’ve learned, to come to us and they almost always do.

P. 16 You train your brain to do what you want it to and it will do it.

P. 31 You can choose to follow the upward learning curve no matter how old you are! (Creates new dendrites, synapses and neural pathways.)

P. 63 If you actively act as the leader of your brain you can reprogram your own neurochemistry.

P. 70 Inertia is depression’s best friend.

P. 71 Depression creates an illusion that all my power is stripped away.

P. 72 The brain is transformed by meditation.

P. 40 Don’t ever say to yourself or others “my memory is going”. If you say that your inner brain will prove you right.

P. 230 You need to motivate self –especially as you age.

And as an overall summary of this great book –the theme could simply be….Use Your Brain–Don’t Let It Use You!!

The Adversity Letter

I’m honored to have Richard Paul Evans as a friend. He is a superb author and a great human being. Ok I guess I also suffer from a bit of jealously. He has sold over 17 million copies of his books against a measly 2 million books of mine that I have sold. Rick’s books have been instrumental in lifting and enlightening countless numbers of people throughout the world. His latest book The Four Doors is a must read for anyone who wants or needs to be motivated and uplifted.

The 3rd door that he talks about that will help anyone and everyone is labeled “Free Yourself From Limitations”. In this chapter he gives very wise advice, telling of the great dangers of falling into the victimhood trap. I am sure you have seen many people who do this— always “playing the victim”, looking to gain some sympathy and support from friends and family. What they don’t seem to realize is that it’s a no win habit that will put severe limits on their life.

What really grabbed my attention in this chapter and made a huge impression on my brain and in my heart was “A Father’s Letter to His Son”, which I immediately sent to my sons and daughters. I quickly received “thank you” comments back from my kids. I’d like to share this letter with you here.

A Father’s Letter to His Son

Always, always remember that adversity is not a detour. It is part of the path.

You will encounter obstacles. You will make mistakes. Be grateful for both. Your obstacles and mistakes will be your greatest teachers. And the only way to not make mistakes in this life is to do nothing, which is the biggest mistake of all.

Your challenges, if you let them, will become your greatest allies. Mountains can crush or raise you, depending on which side of the mountain you choose to stand on. All history bears out that the great, those who have changed the world, have all suffered great challenges. And, more times than not, it’s precisely those challenges that, in God’s time, lead to triumph.

Abhor victimhood. Denounce entitlement. Neither are gifts, rather cages to damn the soul. Everyone who has walked this earth is a victim of injustice. Everyone.

Most of all, do not be too quick to denounce your sufferings. The difficult road you are called to walk may, in fact, be your only path to success.

Wow, what a super great letter and one that if your kids, friends or you yourself follow, will greatly enhance your life. Rick goes on to say “Everyone has problems. It’s how we choose to deal with our problems that matters. Some people choose to be whiners–some choose to be winners. Some choose to be victims–some choose to be victors”.

So go ahead and make your choice and also I would say go buy Richard Paul Evan’s great book The Four Doors.

Delegate to Expand Your World

Last week I wrote about the power of delegation and how it can greatly magnify and expand your world whether it’s business or social or charitable.  Your first thought may be “wait a minute I don’t have a staff of workers to delegate to and I certainly don’t have the extra money to hire anyone, so how can I do it?”

The good news is you don’t need a staff or an assistant and you don’t need to hire anyone.  There are literally millions of people out there that are willing and able to take on tasks for other people and even do it for free.

Just look around and you will see people everywhere working hard for something they believe in but aren’t getting paid for.  You see it in folks that work for the PTA, for churches, little league baseball–soccer and football, boy scouts and girl scouts and even in demanding positions like apartment and condo association presidents and their directors.

Your task, if you want to expand your world, is to do a lot of work thinking and planning to find and pick good dependable people that are qualified and have natural talents fit for the tasks you give them.

Anything that takes up your time that you wish you didn’t have to do, can be delegated to all kinds of people directly around you as well. As your kids, grand kids, spouses, friends and neighbors. If you are asking them to do something for you and that something is their passion and they are really good at it, there is a very good chance they will do it and happily. These will greatly expanding your list of delegatee.

I am not saying that it is easy.  Thinking and planning can be hard work but again the rewards and the great expansion of your life can be well worth the efforts.  It’s fascinating to study the lives of many great business and civic leaders and see how they started with a small group of people that worked for nothing or very small compensation because they were totally turned on by the project that they were working on together. It’s all about finding what things people do that makes them happy and allowing yourself to let them gain more joy by doing these things for you!

Improvement by Measuring

Some studies have shown that just about anything that you take time to measure or count on a regular basis tends to improve or get better.  If you keep track of and start measuring your financial net worth or you physical health for example, they will almost magically start to improve. Perhaps you’ve noticed this in your own life.  If you decide to lose a bit of weight and you write that goal down and start to track your progress on a daily or even just weekly basis you will probably see that you are making progress.

When I was just 27 years old I started calculating and measuring my financial net worth after setting a goal to hit a net worth of one million dollars by the time I was 30.  I began measuring my net worth every few months.  What happened?  Well, I must admit, that even though my measuring seemed to help lift my net worth I didn’t make the million by age 30.  I did, however, hit that magic million dollar mark by my 31st birthday. I didn’t think that was all too bad.

To test this theory of improving things by measuring, I recently bought a pedometer.  It’s a little inexpensive device that you can clip on your belt or pocket that counts every step you take. Then without even setting a goal for walking or running I starting observing how many steps I would take each day. I would then write down the total steps taken at the end of the day.  I was a little surprised that even without a goal, the total number of steps I took each day was generally greater than the previous day.  Wow.  That made me feel so good.  As most of us know, it’s critically important to stay active, even more so as you age. Movement is a kind of magic for the human body and essential if you care about staying young or at least feeling young.

The first few days I logged between 5,000 and 7,000 steps per day. But then, without consciously thinking about it, those steps per day increased to between 10,000 and 12,000 per day.  Wow. A couple weeks later I was stunned to see that I was consistently walking between 16,000 and 19,000 steps with some days hitting well over 20,000! And remember, most of that improvement, or maybe all of it, came from simply deciding to keep track. Perhaps it’s just being more aware of the activity—we already know awareness is a critical key to a successful life– or perhaps there’s some unconscious self-competitiveness going on or maybe a little of both, but whatever it is, it does work.

Why don’t you give it a try and see if it works for you?  Measure anything that’s important to you and those around you.  In fact for starters and as a way to prove the point to yourself, why don’t you go online right now and buy a pedometer and if you see that the simple measuring of steps, works then start measuring other things in your life. This whole concept brings to mind an old management saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”. How true that turns out to be!

Don’t Retire–Keep Engaged!

A few weeks ago my message was all about how critically important “Work” is for every human being on the planet. Well, I was waiting to catch a flight from Paris to Salt Lake City earlier this week and when I saw the cover story on Fortune Magazine. It really grabbed my attention. Why? Get this … the story is all about a 72 year old guy who is still working his buns off and risking huge amounts of money. Shouldn’t he be retired and taking it easy?

Ok you could assume that maybe he needs the money and can’t retire yet. But no, he’s a multi-billionaire! So why then is he still working and on top of that risking mega money to develop what Fortune calls “America’s Biggest Real Estate Project …Ever”.

I will tell you at least one very good reason why. Because he knows that to retire and just sit by the pool drinking Mai Tai’s–which he certainly can afford to do–will greatly diminish, if not totally destroy, his physical and mental health and at the same time it will do major damage to his sense of self-worth. So instead of letting himself wither away, Stephen Ross, the 72 year old I’m speaking of, is working on a 20 billion dollar project that is set to reinvent a huge swath of New York City. That would keep someone as sharp as they can be and certainly engaged!

As anyone who has been reading my blog knows I am closing in on the big 70 (only 200 days now), and I find myself, even though I don’t need the money, looking for and engaging myself in more and more projects and adventures (like these last 3 weeks in Europe.) I find that the harder I push myself towards social, physical, and financial goals the better I feel. However, because I don’t need to do anything at all I need to push very hard to stay active and keep on working! But I always see the result and I can tell you, it more than just a little worth it.

I think you can probably tell that I am trying to push any and all of my readers to do the same. Even if you are still young and not facing the 65 year old retirement number or are already pushing yourself towards big goals you can probably still be much more engaged and excited by setting even tougher goals. Plus you could encourage your parents, siblings, friends and neighbors who might be on the verge of retirement or already retired and give them a gentle nudge (or a kick in the butt!) to encourage them toward enhancing their lives by more fully engaging in work and staying super active in all parts of their lives. They will reap such huge rewards if they do.

 

Death is Part of Life

 I got a very shocking and sobering email from the wife of a very dear friend a few days ago, a good friend, who is a doctor and in excellent health. His urine had turned very dark and his skin was jaundiced. At the hospital he found out he had a tumor in his bile duct that leads out of the pancreas. Not good! A few days ago he had a very complicated 9 hour surgery in which they took out part of his pancreas, stomach, duodenum and the gall bladder. It was shocking to hear this since my good friend kept himself in great shape. He has, from all his friends and family, wonderful support and encouragement. We know he’s a tough guy and are hoping and praying he’ll be ok.

Quite naturally this got me thinking about my own health and that inevitable end of the road for myself and yes, every one of you who are reading this blog. “Ouch,” you may say. “I don’t want to think about that.” But we all do—and we should—only there is a good way and a bad way to think about death. One way helps you and the other hurts you.

In the book “Super Brain” Deepak Chopra and his co-author Rudolph Tanzi write “If you are afraid of death, it is bad for your body– not because death looms so darkly but because the fear of anything is toxic.” They go on to say “Some cultures, such as Tibetan Buddhism, offer extensive preparation for death and a highly detailed theology of various heavens and hells.” Which they use to help people face and accept their own death.  The authors say the path to making peace with death might look something like this:

1. “I don’t think about death. It’s pointless.”
2. “The main thing is to live your life right this minute.”
3. “Anyway, I secretly don’t believe I will grow old and die.”
4. “To be honest, I don’t think about dying because it’s too scary.”
5. “I’ve seen death of a friend, family member, or pet. I know I have to face it someday.”
6. “I am beginning to feel calmer about the whole issue. I can look at death without running away.”
7. “Dying happens to everyone. It’s better to approach it calmly with eyes open.”
8. “I’ve felt the first serious twinges of mortality. It’s time to face it.”
9. “I find I am actually interested in what death is all about.”
10. “It’s possible to embrace dying as a natural stage of life–and I have.”

As you the read through these stages of thinking about death, try to think back to when you were young (assuming that you are no longer in that category) and notice how close these 10 stages may come to your own thinking back then and now. Have your thoughts changed dramatically?

The bottom line is you don’t need to fear death. It will come so fearing it is rather pointless. Instead, focus on the now, on what you are doing every moment of your life, filling it with purposeful, gratifying thoughts and activities. Living a good life makes fearing death unnecessary.

Next week, we’ll talk a little more about what Deepak and Rudolph have to say about keeping your mind young so you can get the most out of every moment of your life.

 

First Step to Making Your Fortune

Last week I promised that I would show you an almost fool proof path to your own financial fortune.  I said that I would lay out a step by step formula that you could follow, so that’s what I am going to do now.

First a few comments about timing as it is very important that you understand how your timing can impact your success. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers he talks about research done on young hockey players and how the timing of their birth dates made all the difference as to who went on to play at a professional level. This might sound a bit odd but if you read the book you’ll see why their birth dates were so important to their success. The timing issue is about being at the right place at the right time but it’s not just about luck. Right now the timing for someone who wants to make a fortune in the USA is near perfect but it won’t matter one bit if you don’t take advantage of it.

So let’s talk about step number 1, that first step you need to take on your way to building a fortune.

Step 1: Work on accumulating some beginning capital.

Okay, you may rightfully be thinking “Easier said than done!” But it’s not about easy; it’s about what is possible. Just about anyone can do this and there is more than one way to get the job done.

The slow but sure way is to consistently set aside at least 10% of your income. 20% is even better if you can do it. That’s the way I started and yes it took years before I had enough capital to begin to get started on amassing my fortune. However, if you want to jump start you growth of capital there is a way to dramatically speed up the process. It’s called “Partners Capital”.

In my book How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You I tell the story of a guy that now has over a half a billion dollars of income producing property and he did it quickly because he did it primarily with “Partners Capital”. When he was in college he came across my book, followed the formulas I had outlined in it but also added the “Partners Capital” thing to the mix. With this combination he passed my success level by a huge margin, which of course makes me very proud.

If you choose to go the “partner” path there is a way to do it that can bring in not just one or two partners but multiple partners to join you. This is really is part of step number two which we will get to next week. But as part of your first step, I suggest you read my updated book now called  The Next Step to Waking up the Financial Genius Inside You. I very much want you to succeed so I am giving the first 50 people who email me a free copy of the book. Just cover the $5 cost of shipping to show you are serious about amassing your fortune and I’ll get the book right out to you. Email me at freebook@reincome.com  to get started.

Grow into Your Goals

I ran across this quote on the net recently …

Something about this statement sticks with me. With my recent health scare I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals. I don’t usually set easy goals but I do usually set goals that fit with who I am at the time. However, I have been thinking more about who I want to be and what I want to change in my life so when thinking of my challenging goals, I need to focus on not what my present self wants but what the future version of me should do.

The thing is, sticking with what is easy – with what we know is comfortable and safe – isn’t usually very fulfilling. Challenging yourself to be, and do more, than you think you can is not only exciting but gives every day a unique and motivating reason to get up in the morning. If you stick with it. taking on the challenge will make you change and grow until you become the person you need to be to accomplish that goal.

How much do you push yourself? You are never so far down the road that you shouldn’t keep trying to make yourself better. Keep challenging yourself with big goals!

Dodging a Bullet

All I have to say is a double WOW… I worried myself sick after the doctor told me there is a 90% chance that my right main heart artery is 100% blocked. We scheduled an angiogram and just before they wheeled me in the doctor tells me that if my left main artery is also blocked then they will have to do open heart surgery. Of course, that last comment scared me to death and I started thinking about dying. Hey, I’ve had a good nearly 69 years and a lot of people get much less than that.

So there I am in the operating room staring at the ceiling as the doctor gets to work. (They don’t put you under for an angiogram.) I think back on my life and that everyone has to die and maybe it’s my turn now.  Less than an hour later they wheel my bed back to the hospital room where my wife Kimberly is waiting. Then the WOW news!! And what was that news?

“We didn’t find any blockage. All the tests, cat scans and nuclear stress EKG’s that you had that showed a blockage were wrong. It was a false positive.”

Did that ever make my day … or life! But what a lot of stress I went through to get there. I guess that kind of proves the old adage that “What we worry about the most doesn’t usually happen.”

But there was a good lesson that I learned. It goes back to what the Buddhist have said for years … that everyone of us needs to mentally go through in our heads the process of dying (to die before we die) so when we do get to that point in our lives where we really are going to die, it makes that transition much easier to accept and to embrace.

So yes, I dodged a bullet. Even if I did have a stent put in or had open heart surgery the chances of survival would have been very high but still, dodging that bullet helped me prepare myself for the inevitable. It also gave me pause so that I took a good hard look at the relationships I have with family and friends and renewed my vow to do more with my life.

But you don’t have to go through an unnecessary scare like this to appreciate and reaffirm the strength and importance of your relationships and really see what you are doing with your life. Just ask yourself, if I died today, would I feel that I was the kind of person I wanted to be for the people I love and am doing what I really want with my live? Then listen carefully and well to the answers and make the changes you want to see while you still have the time here to do it.

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