The Rewards of Sharing Success
One of the most wonderful things about what I do—sharing and getting out the information about my success—is that I get to see how my actions affect other people and their lives in a big way. It makes me feel so good to help other people. I certainly don’t need money now and to give a little bit back gives me the best feeling in the world! Here is a recent note I received from a young man who read How to wake up the-Financial Genius Inside You for the first time when he was 18. Now he’s 28 (I was 27 when I started investing in real estate) and ready to take on the world:
Mark, I’m very appreciative to you. You have literally set me on the right path to purchasing property & securing my families economic future for generations. I have a lot of gratitude for that. Since talking to you I have met the right people that have also set me on the right path. I now know what I have to do to start investing right here in Melbourne, Australia. There is a way…there are cheaper run down ‘dirt bag’ houses and apartments out of the city which you could still pick up for 150k-300k and all of your techniques are sure winners to increase value from the get-go. Australia’s population is going to nearly double by 2030 and I’m certain that pricing will naturally have to rise. I would definitely love to purchase property in the US but I think to start nothing’s better than in your own backyard.
I can’t be more expressive of my gratitude to you than to say that you gave me the time, were willing to meet & coach me all at no cost and that is absolute gold. It’s pure.
When I accumulate my wealth I promise to be generous with my time to others wishing to accumulate wealth. I will repay this debt as such and with all of the above said, I think that there is a lot I can do by myself at the beginning to really lay down the foundation of financial success. I’ve started creating a map. So again, thank you and I will keep you updated on my progress.
Mark, I wish you the best. You truly are blessed. Have a wonderful Christmas & New Years. You will be hearing news from me and it will be positive 🙂
Best—Sam Barry
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!
Leave The Pessimists Behind
I’ve had a lot of time and reasons to really think about all I want to do with my life these last few weeks. I’m pretty ambitious and some people, after hearing about my recent death scare, might think I should slow down or that my ambitious goals aren’t realistic. But you know, I’m not going to let other people’s pessimism and nay-saying stop me from finding a way to accomplish whatever it is that I want to do.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that you should listen to other people’s suggestions … their positive suggestions that can show you options to make things happen. But there is one thing you don’t want to listen to … the pessimists and naysayers that tell you it can’t be done, that you’ll fail, and/or criticize you for even trying.
If someone has nothing but negative responses to your dreams and ideas, walk away. All ideas will have cons as well as pros and any true friend should be able to give you a little of both. A true friend will support you in aiming for your dream and help you find sensible ways to accomplish them.
People who do nothing but aim to discourage you are not telling you what they think of you or your dreams but of theirs. These are the people who cannot or will not allow themselves to dream or are threatened by the success of others. Pay them no mind. Simply go out and accomplish your dream. Then maybe, seeing you succeed where they were certain you would not might just strike them in such a way that they will eventually dare to dream for greater things for themselves.
Cherishing Our Mistakes
I recently saw this anonymous quote making the rounds on the web:
“Don’t place your mistakes on your head, their weight may crush you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as a platform to view your horizons.”
What a great quote. Isn’t it more often true than not that we let our mistakes weight us down and crush our motivation? Mistakes are nothing more than learning opportunities. We learn best by the mistakes we make because it’s not so likely we’ll forget them.
Every one of us will make mistakes. A lot of them. They will make us feel idiotic, incompetent, and imperfect. But we are all these things at some moment (or two or ten) in our lives. And it’s wonderful! It means we always have something to work on, something we can look forward to doing better the next time.
So certainly, use your mistakes as blocks to step up on, to build the stairs you use climb to success. Don’t carry them around. When setting goals and taking those steps to reach those goals, know you will make mistakes along the way. Tell yourself,” I will screw up sometimes but that’s okay. I will learn from my mistakes and will be that much more competent and successful because of the knowledge I gained from those experiences.” This way when you make a mistake, you’ll be ready to move forward, not let it slow you down or stop you all together, which of course, would be the biggest mistake of all.
**If you like what you’ve read in this blog please send it on to people you know and love, to people who you think this message and information may be very helpful. There is nothing in the world that brings greater satisfaction than helping other people. Don’t you agree?
Don’t Take Planning for Granted
I talk a lot about goal setting and planning for your dreams, especially the aspect of making a plan and sticking to it. But have you ever considered what it might be like to not even have the option to make plans?
In Serbia where we recently traveled, they are so thankful that the war that tore up that country from 1992 to 1995 is over. There is still plenty of evidence of those hard years but what a great country it is to visit now. It’s very safe and friendly as well as being an inexpensive country to enjoy and explore. But the really amazing thing is the people and their appreciation for things that, at one time, they weren’t sure they could have, would not even dream about because their future was so uncertain.
These days the people of Serbia are finally feeling settled and are able to make long term plans to create businesses, start or grow families, go to school, or build a home. There are still struggles but they have at least had the ability to dream restored to them.
We take that kind of long term planning for granted because it is not only possible but pretty easy for us to plan for whatever we might want. We certainly have fewer hurdles than most of those people in Serbia. If we only take the time to plan and then act on those plans, imagine what can be accomplished in a country that encourages and supports your dreams? We should, at least, be so very grateful for that extra benefit in our lives.
**If you like what you’ve read in this blog please send it on to people you know and love, to people who you think this message and information may be very helpful. There is nothing in the world that brings greater satisfaction than helping other people. Don’t you agree?
Our Circle of Very Special People
A couple weeks ago we drove to the annual Stein Eriksen “Trollhaugen Tennis Tournament” in Montana. Before I went I worked my buns off. Okay … some of what I had to do might not fit your definition of work since a lot of it was using the tennis ball machine to work on and improve my backhand and forehand but I also did cram in a bunch of office work. In that time I wrote up a complicated contract, worked on a refinance of my Kauai house and made an offer on 3 new Family Dollar stores. All that office work and the tennis workouts were crammed into two days which made it a couple of frenzied days but it also make the tennis tournament all the more rewarding–even though I didn’t win. It was a ‘break’ that was all the more prized because of that hard work, just as I’ve been saying the last couple weeks.
Going to this tournament is actually not so much about the tennis as it is about the wonderful friends and great conversations. I mention this event on page 134 of my book “How to Ignite Your Passion for Living“. There is even a picture of the Eriksen’s and us in the book. Most of the people we see at the tournament are friends we only see once a year but still those once a year friends have become very close and dear to us over the last 15 years that we’ve been going.
Stein Eriksen (the 1952 Olympic ski gold medalist and world cup champ) along with his wonderful wife Francoise and son Bjorn are an inspiration to me. They have such an incredible ability to surround themselves with many very dynamic, successful, kind and gentle friends. I just hope over the rest of my life I can come even close to doing the same thing that the Eriksen’s have done.
There are few loftier goals, in my opinion and experience, that a person could set for themselves than to have many great, successful and kind people as friends. Surrounding yourself with these types of people is inspiring, motivating and so very fulfilling. You can never have too many so I say let’s go out and work on increasing our circle of very special people.
Willpower Awareness
So, as I was mentioning last week, I have this goal to be in the best shape of my life. There is no reason that I can’t achieve my goals. But it will take a lot of work and dedication. That is the issue—not whether I can achieve this but keeping with the program.
I was just 10 days into my new program when I found myself breaking some of my work out and eating goals. Ouch! That pissed me off at myself. Not sticking with my goals was the bad news but there was good news and its news that can help anybody who is serious about setting and sticking with their goals.
What I did was to go back to that great book by Kelly McGonigal PhD, “The Willpower Instinct: How Self Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It”. I have this habit of skipping around in books to quickly find the real gems and in doing that I often miss key points. This was one such book. To my great delight, this time around I discovered a few critical secrets that I totally missed before.
I am going to give you just a couple of her gems starting this week and then adding to them in the next week or two. Kelly’s advises readers to try only one new strategy per week so here are a couple options.
1. Get To Know Yourself: Know when and where and why you are likely to give up on your goal. You must be able to see how and why you stop short. So this week I am going to work on becoming more aware of when I am making choices related to my will power. I think it is quite reassuring to know that everyone struggles in some way with temptation, addiction, distraction and procrastination. These are not weaknesses but simply part of the human condition and something we can work on.
2. Pay Attention to How You Talk to Yourself About Your Willpower: What do you say to yourself when you procrastinate and how do you judge your willpower shortcomings and successes?
Put just one of these ideas into practice. Once you become more aware of where the temptation is coming from and what you tell yourself that gives you permission to give up, you will be better able to halt that behavior and stick to your goals.
Check back next week for another couple great ideas.
Growing Ageless
I set a huge goal a few weeks ago–not long after my 68th birthday—to get in the best physical shape of my life!
Now I know that may sound like a bit of fantasy at my age but if you look hard enough you will find some great motivational examples of people well into their 70’s and 80’s and even 90’s who are in super incredible shape.
You may not believe it until you see it so check out these people:
- 77 year old Sizzling Senior, Kelly Nelson
- 70 year old model Sunny Griffin
- 95 year old Merrill Matzinger
Not such a fantasy after all, is it?
My goals is not necessarily to have just a ripped type body but to be in overall great shape which includes getting down to my high school weight of 160 pounds, be super flexible and be able to run faster and longer than ever before! Well, okay, maybe not faster but certainly longer.
There is no reason that I can’t achieve these goals. It is physically possible. But it will take a lot of work and dedication. That is the issue–keeping with the program not whether it’s possible to reach it.
Next week I’ll start talking about that—the role of willpower in our lives. I’ll tell you how to gain successful self-control so you can reach whatever goal you have your heart set on.
**If you like what you’ve read in this blog please send it on to people you know and love, to people who you think this message and information may be very helpful. There is nothing in the world that brings greater satisfaction than helping other people. Don’t you agree?
On Becoming a Good Communicator
“I love people and I listen”
I must admit I am not a very good listener. The quote above is a positive affirmation that has been helping me change this in myself. But what really helped me become a more aware listener and more empathic to others was helping my wife as she recovered from her difficult trachea surgery.
The thing is she couldn’t talk for almost a month. In the hospital she had her chin sewed down to her chest so as not to damage the repair of her trachea. Then after her 10 days in the hospital she was on mandatory voice rest for another 2 plus weeks. She had a pad and would write down her thoughts and comments but of course that is very slow and cumbersome and I could see that growing frustration each day. I found myself trying to figure out what she was thinking since I knew she didn’t want or have the energy to write everything down, so I constantly found myself trying to see the world from her eyes.
Even though my wife wasn’t speaking, this need to pay closer attention made me a more aware listener and because she couldn’t write out every word she wanted to speak she had to be more particular about the words she chose. Because of this our communication became more valuable and we paid closer attention to what the other person had to say .
After this experience I couldn’t help but think about how this might help people who are having relationship problems. I think that if one or both people agreed to not speak a word for, let’s say, a few days or even a week and the only way they could communicate was by writing their thoughts and comments down, I believe it would be incredibly good therapy and help people solve a lot of problems. Why not give it a shot if you are having any struggles with someone. They don’t have to agree to the no talking rules because this experiment can be carried out by just one person. Do it and see if you don’t become a better communicator.
Changing for Better Health BEFORE the Alarms Go Off
Sometimes it takes huge bells on a gigantic clock to wake us up enough to change our thoughts and our habits. But, sadly, too many times when the alarm goes off we hit the snooze button or even sleep right through the loud ringing. I had the opportunity to see quite a few wake-up alarms going off at the hospital in Boston where my wife underwent a difficult surgery and I hope to permanently learn from them.
One such alarm was seeing and talking to a patient who had half her lungs taken out 5 weeks before but was back in the hospital with blood clots. Her husband took me aside and told me how sad it was. His wife smoked but never a lot. Still, she couldn’t seem to give it up. He was really hoping that this was a loud enough wake up bell that she wouldn’t hit the snooze button this time.
Another thing that really hit me was seeing so many obese people in the halls. This wake-up call was more one of empathy for them, knowing many were there for obese related problems. I realized that even though the alarm was going off for them, food addiction is even harder to give up than smoking! Unlike cigarettes, you can’t totally stop eating food, so in a way a person who overeats is constantly teasing and tempting himself or herself every time they eat.
Being in a hospital environment, there are many instances where you are exposed to the problems people have with taking care of themselves. The big take away, at least for me, is knowing that we all need to be much more observant, to see our own selves clearly and see what we need to be doing to stay healthy. We need to figure out better paths to go down before we get the big wake up calls. Additionally, I would say–don’t hit the snooze button! Go out and make the necessary changes—now!
**If you like what you’ve read in this blog please send it on to people you know and love, to people who you think this message and information may be very helpful. There is nothing in the world that brings greater satisfaction than helping other people. Don’t you agree?
