If you need personal finance advice, I highly recommend you read and of David Bach’s books like Start Late, Finish Rich: A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age (Finish Rich Book Series) that I almost finished reading last week.

Among some amazing advice, David Bach gave some stunning revelation to the uninitiated about personal finance such as putting aside just a small amount of money every day like $10 or $15 - which he affectionately called the Latte Factor. If you faithfully put away and invest $10 per day for 20 years, it will compound to over $200,000!!

In fact, that’s what I heard from an audio by Byrd Baggett, a personal development guru, as I was driving along the Malaysian Federal Highway on the way to Klang and I can’t wait to get that book the very next day from Borders, Times Square in KL.

Armed with such a revelation, anyone in their 40’s or 50’s can safely retire with hundreds of thousands of dollars when they reach their 60’s or 70’s. (I hear some skeptics say that it’s not enough! Well, then - apply David Bach’s Double Latte Factor - see his book for more details - and invest up to $30 a day to bring your retirement nest egg up to beyond a million dollars if you wish!)

Apart from the above nuggets, David Bach also gave wonderful advice and tips of how to recover from credit card debt. To me, that advice alone is worth much more than the price of the book.

When I watched the DVD that comes with Success University’s Success Express Edition #7 featuring Johnny Wimbrey, I was literally blown away…

Recorded during Success University’s 2nd anniversary, Johnny Wimbrey - the Training Director and top-earner Ambassador - shared some amazing truths in “7 Critical Character Distinctions Between A Producer And A Procrastinator”.

I was totally absorbed for the entire duration of the video that lasted a couple of hours and here are a sampling of the points he shared:

1. A PRODUCER is a winner while a PROCRASTINATOR is a whiner.

   The winner has a winning mindset and sees possibilities, and he has mentors. A winner establishes accountability in order to succeed. For instance, you simply tell someone what you want to achieve and that itself holds the winner accountable.

   On the other hand, the whiner focuses on external or personal limitations and has no accountability at all.

2. A PRODUCER is responsive while a PROCRASTINATOR is reactive.

   When someone said something you don’t like, what do you do?

   A producer responds by thinking before he acts while a procrastinator reacts emotionally by taking actions without thought.

3. A PRODUCER is optimistic while a PROCRASTINATOR is pessimistic.

   A producer entertains success and stands strong under pressure while the procrastinator entertains failure and cracks at the side of pressure.

4. A PRODUCER takes risk while the PROCRASTINATOR makes a wish

   It reminds me of the New Year resolution - which is coming soon for 2008 anyway or those birthday wishes we make - where a procrastinator simply hopes for the best.

   The producer, on the other hand, invests in what he says is his passion. For instance, Johnny made a 5-figure investment to learn public speaking.

5. A PRODUCER has vision while a PROCRASTINATOR has only illusion

   The producer has insights while the procrastinator acts on eyesight. Thus, the former makes a plan as he sees past what’s obvious while the latter wait for moments based on sight.

6. A PRODUCER believes in preparation while the PROCRASTINATOR lives by improvisation

   A producer makes efforts, then inspects what he expects while the procrastinator expects without effort.

7. A PRODUCER executes while the PROCRASTINATOR makes excuses

   The producer implements, participates and has a sense of urgency in taking their projects from start to finish while the procrastinator keeps postponing because of a dead end mind and thus finishes before he starts.

To become a producer and transform your life by receiving these invaluable tips and advice, visit the link below:

http://autoprofit.successuniversity.com/new

I just mailed off 15 copies of EMPOWER Magazine from the local post office last week…

EMPOWER magazine features companies with successful entrepreneurs … and this edition features the company that I work with: Success University!

And the BEST part is this:

Success University pays us US$ _______ per year just by handing out 2 magazines a day!!

Click here for more information as well as get a COMPLIMENTARY COPY of this full-colored international magazine for yourself.

You have nothing to lose but everything to gain because though it’s ridiculous, it’s true that Success University even gives a GUARANTEE to our success.

I can’t help but to add one more post on T. Harv Eker’s Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar …

Although the seminar was about money and how to get rich, something T. Harv Eker did won my total respect!

• It’s not his millionaire mindset
• It’s not his guerilla business tactics
• It’s not his training systems
• It’s not the way he runs his well-organized seminar
• It’s not his money advice and techniques
• It’s not his many experiential games we played that helped us realize who we are, our strengths and weaknesses and what caused us our money problems
• It’s not even his impressive 60+ back end programs!

It’s the way he impacted the audience with his call to contribution as a human being!

He urged us to get rich as long as we have the wherewithal, so as to help people who are by themselves totally helpless, those who are in the state of poverty…

… and he reminded the 5,000 audience that there are MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF SUCH PEOPLE AROUND!!!

He taught us not to get rich entirely for the sake of ourselves, nor entirely for the sake of other people but to seek a balanced way of using our wealth.

That, to me, is what impressed and impacted me most!

Think about it for a moment …

… there are 5,000 people there who heard this. Just 10 per cent heed his advice seriously, and there’ll be 500 rich people soon who cares enough to help the poor and needy and touch their lives. Wouldn’t that make a difference to the world? I think it does, in a BIG way!!

T. Harv Eker, a multi-millionaire business educator, conducted his first ever world famous Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar in Asia (held in Singapore) from 23rd to 25th November 2007.

Attended by around 5,000 people at Singapore Expo, many people rated it as one of the best seminars they ever attended because of its experiential nature and highly effective action-based style it was carried out!

It’s really pretty amazing how T. Harv Eker and his co-trainer Rob managed to organize the people to even form groups in an exercise to identify our ‘money type’. I am really thankful that Success Resources, the event organizer, brought T. Harv Eker and Peak Potentials, one of the world’s fastest growing personal development companies to Asia.

Throughout the 3-day seminar, the participants followed the instructions with workbooks with exercises as well as participate in lots of kinesthetic exercises in an effort to reset our money blueprint, which Harv said is responsible for our financial successes.

Real life examples were quoted such as the following:

Read more »

The well-know book, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (Hardcover, 1960) (PMA), reveals the thinking of two highly successfuly men: Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone.

It’s a highly inspiring book with chapter after chapter of thrilling snippets of stories of real people succeeding through PMA! It’s so ’sticky’ that I read almost half the book in one sitting.

The way these two masters define PMA is wonderful - through a lesson from the story of a little child…

What happened was a minister was trying hard to prepare a sermon and was distracted by his young son who was growing restless and bored. To occupy him, the minister cut out a page with a map of the world from an old magazine, tore it into tiny pieces and told his son to assemble them.

Thinking that the child would take the whole morning, he set about preparing his sermon but he was shocked that it took him only ten minutes!

On investigating how he did it so fast, the child said that there was a picture of a man on the other side. So he put a piece of paper, put the picture of the man, and put a piece of paper on top, then turned it over…

The little child figured that if he got the man right, the world would be right. The minister smiled and handed a quarter to his son, saying that now he got his sermon:

“If a man is right, his world will be right!”

The lesson here is: If you are unhappy with your world and want to change it, the place to start is with yourself. If you are right, your world will be right. That is what PMA is all about. And when you have PMA, the problems of your world tend to bow before you.

Do drop a comment or two how you find this little story…
 

Allan Pease, of ‘Body Language’ fame, gave practical on how to use ask questions to promote a conversation in his other book, Talk Language.

Personally, I have been asked by a woman very personal questions. She was a business contact that I met at a business networking session. Having agreed to meet for coffee one day, she fired her barrage of questions at me:

Question 1: Are you married?

Me: Yes

Question 2: Do you have kids?

Me: No

Question 3: Why you don’t have kids?

Me: ???

Question 4: What’s wrong?

Me: $%##!^$#$**#&$#!&^&#^&#*#!

***************************************************

As you can see, I fired her after she asked her 4th question!

What’s wrong with the above scenario?

First off, I told her that this is our first meeting and she had no rights to my privacy.

Secondly - I didn’t tell her - that she did not realize how to use questions to promote a conversation …

(To be continued in Part 2 …)

In the midst of reading Jim Collins’ Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, I came across the Stockdale Paradox …

Good To Great discusses what makes eleven companies made the quantum leap from good to great and in one of the chapters, Jim Collins explained that every company faced significant adversity along the way to greatness.

In every case, the management team responded with a powerful psychological duality. On the one hand, they stoically accepted the brutal facts of reality. On the other hand, they maintained an unwavering faith in the endgame, and a commitment to prevail as a great company despite the brutal facts. We came to call this duality the Stockdale Paradox.

Admiral Jim Stockdale, the highest ranking US Officer held as a prisoner of war (POW) in Hanoi during the Vietnam war had to live through dark times of his life, enduring torture of his captors, without ever knowing when he will be released or whether he will ever be released for that matter.

Here’s how Stockdale put it:

“I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Subsequently, after his release, Stockdale teaches philosophy at Stanford University and he’s a brilliant, sensitive, and courageous man. He was even remembered as a Vice-Presidential candidate.

In life, as we experience setbacks, disappointments and even crushing events such as accidents, disease, loss of a loved one, or even like what Admiral experienced in Vietnam, what separates people is how we deal with the inevitable difficulties. This is the Stockdale Paradox:

“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

As I write this, it reminds me of two people:

1. Matt Morris, President and CEO of Success University, who personally experienced many challenges in his life before he became very successful, said, “Whatever didn’t kill you makes you stronger!”
2. My mother who departed last week - for many years in her life, due to our poor upbringing, she had to do a lot of manual work like washing clothes and sewing, just to keep the eight of us alive. When asked, she always said, ‘Just do it and it will be done!”

In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Jim Collins’ research found that the key elements of greatness are deceptively simple and straightforward. These leaders are able to strip away the noise and clutter and focus on the few things that have the greatest impact!

They were able to do so because they operated from both sides of the Stockdale Paradox, never letting one side overshadow the other. If you can adopt this dual pattern, your odds of making a series of good decisions is high, leading you to a sustained transition to breakthrough results.

I just read Secrets of the Internet Millionaire Mindby Matt Bacak who brands himself as the “Powerful Promoter”.

Matt is an incredible guy who started his first company with employees at the age of 12!

Here are two nuggets I thought might benefit you and your business:

• Internet millionaires ask questions beginning with what and how … but not why! Matt Bacak said that ‘why’ reminds us of childhood days that we often are asked, ‘Why did you do that?’  Instead, ask questions like ‘What are my goals?’ and ‘How do I get there?’
• Internet millionaires use two magic words: systemize and monetize. As an engineer by training, I particularly like the term ’systemize’. In business too, if we can systemize what we want to do, our business or work would become process-dependent rather than people-dependent. With a system, when you put in a certain input, you are guaranteed a certain output…  As I write, that reminds me of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It - that I would recommend anyone who wants to start or own a small business to read from cover to cover!

This morning, I reviewed ‘The Secret to Relationships’ in the book, ‘The Secret’ which revealed that the law of attraction in the most powerful law in the Universe.

The author, Rhonda Byrne, mentioned that we can turn a difficult relationship around by taking a piece of paper and write all the things that you appreciate that person for the next thirty days. Instead of complaining about that person, appreciate their sense of humor and appreciate how supportive they are.