SecretsOfAchievers.com

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

There are some really important life lessons for you to learn from in this video. Though it is 1+ hour long, take the time to view it, especially if you have a partner, or if you are a parent, , or if you are dying, or even when you are just bored with your life now. Hope the video can give you some inspiration or life-changing lessons to take away with.

I found this video and got to know about this guy when I visited google.com. Apparently Google is honouring him on their popular home page as Randy passed away few days ago. I did not know who Randy was until I researched on him online. In May 2008, Pausch was listed by Time as one of the World’s Top-100 Most Influential People.

“Leaders are readers.” I am pretty sure you have heard of this saying. And I think it is very true! Leaders have to read in order to keep them ahead. They constantly need good ideas to move ahead of their competitors and followers.

However, in this information age today, everyone is overloaded with information, they called it information overload. Unless you are not “connected” at all to this world or you are trying to “ignore” information, there is a very high chance that you are faced with this information-overload problem.

One common issue that all of us faced is that we just do not have enough time to read and absorb more knowledge or information, which sometimes can be pertinent to our successes that we need to acquire information, be it for personal or business successes.

Not too long ago, I came across the term “Photoreading” and I was introduced to this amazing technology called Photoreading by Jean Giam, a photoreading coach, based in Singapore. Apparently, I think she is the only Photoreading coach in Asia. To cut the whole story short, basically photoreading is a “skill” that enables you to read faster, so much faster than the usual way of reading that we were taught in school. And I know what you are thinking… it is Not Speed Reading… in fact I think Photoreading seems to be better than Speed Reading…

I guess this video below will give you a better idea of what Photoreading is all about, and whether Photoreading works or not!

Just in case you are keen to find out more about it, Jean is offering a free introductory seminar on Photoreading in Singapore. You can visit www.learnphotoreading.com to find out more information about this reading skill as well as to sign up for the free Photoreading seminar.

If you are complaining about what life is doing to you, the current situation that you are in, feeling down or depressed over what had just happened to you, I think you should watch this.

This is the power of our incredible mind at work! When something bad or unimaginable happened to you, there are always 2 clear options that you can take:

1) Give up and let the bad incident overwhelm you and take you down forever!

2) Stand up, do something that the normal person never thought is possible and earn the utmost respect of everyone else and inspire others!

Before you give me an answer to the choice that you will make, I want you to watch this video first:

So, do you want to give up or stand up to your current situation?

Here is the story of the 2 Chinese dancers featured in the video above:

What you have seen is a footage at a Chinese modern dance competition broadcasted on one of the China’s TV stations.

One couple won one of the top prizes. The lady has one only arm and the guy has one only leg. In spite of their own limitation, they performed gracefully and beautifully.

The lady in her 30s was a dancer and was trained as one since she was a little girl.

Later in her life, she got into an accident and lost her entire left arm. She was depressed for a few years from then on.

One day, someone invited her to coach a Children’s dancing group. From that point on, she realised she could not forget dancing. She still loved to dance. She wanted to dance again. So she started to do some of her old routines.

But because of the loss of her arm, she also lost her balance. It took a while before she could even make simple turns and spins without falling. Eventually she got it.

Then she heard that a guy in his 20s had lost a leg in an accident. This guy also fell into the same state of denial, depression and an emotional roller coaster of anger.

She looked him up and persuaded him to dance with her. He had never danced before.

“Dance with one leg? Are you joking with me? No way!” But she did not give up.

Finally, he reluctantly agreed. “I have nothing else to do anyway.” So, she started to teach him dancing.

The two broke up a few times because the guy had no concept of using his muscles, controlling his body, and a few other basic things about dancing.

When she became frustrated and lost patience with him, he would walk out.

Subsequently they came back together again and started training. They also hired a dance choreographer to design new dance routines for them. She would fly high (held by him) with both arms (a sleeve for an arm) flying in the air. He could bend horizontally supported by one leg and she leaning on him, etc. They danced beautifully and they legitimately beat others in the dancing competition.

This is one of the most magnificent and touching performance one can ever see! And it is a living proof that an unbreakable spirit or mind can conquer any physical limitations and make the impossible become possible!

If you think you can, you can.

If you think you can’t, you can’t!

Either way, you ARE RIGHT!

Many years ago, I had the privilege of getting to know a wonderful lady at an events company in Singapore. Her name is Dolly Yeo.

Over the years, our friendship had developed further to that of a business relationship. She has been one of my first clients for my web design and hosting business that I started many years ago, and today she is still with me and I really appreciate her loyalty in sticking with me and my business.

Dolly is the chief coach and founder of Mindset Coaching which specialises in life coaching. She is also a Results Certified Coach (Australia) and a member of the International Coach Federation, Singapore. She is also an Active Parenting Certified Leader as well as a Certified Parent Facilitator for Parenting Workshops.

Dolly is an amazing lady that is passionate about what she is doing, always full of energy and she never fails to leave an impression on many who have met her.

I had the honour of working quite closely with Dolly and from her, I have learned some really useful and important things about myself and my business.

I am writing this today because I want my readers to know about Dolly and the wonderful work that she is doing in Singapore. And if you are looking for that something in your life, I want you to meet her.

To find out more about Dolly Yeo and what she is actually doing, I invite you to visit http://www.mindset-coaching.com

During the 1st Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar in Singapore, Harv Eker introduced to people from all over Asia about the world’s simplest, easiest and most effective money management system.

Harv suggested that everyone can use the JARS system to better manage one’s money. The key between rich and poor or middle class people is their ability to manage their money. Rich people are excellent money managers and poor or middle class people are less-savvy when it comes to managing their money. And of course, there are many other distinctions that set the rich, poor and middle class people apart. I will go into that on my later blog post as I intend to discuss more about the JARS money management system in this post.

The most important part of money managing is separating your income into different accounts for specific purposes. I will outline the various accounts for the JARS system as well as their % breakdown of how one should divide their money to manage below:

Financial Freedom Account (FFA) = 10%

Long Term Savings For Spending (LTSS) = 10%

Education (EDUC) = 10%

Necessities (NEC) =55%

Play = 10%

Give = 10%

Anyone can start using this JARS method of managing their money even though if you think you do not have a lot of money to manage. The key is to develop a habit of managing your money, but not how much money you have available for you to manage. One must get into the habit of managing their own money, and you can start with as low as $1 to begin using this system.

Here are how the JARS system works:

Financial Freedom Account (10%) - Put 10% into your FFA whenever you receive money, such as your salary. You must NEVER, NEVER spend the money that you put inside your FFA account. Any money inside the FFA account can only be used to purchase or acquire passive income streams to grow your money. You may spend the interest acquired from the FFA if you choose to, although it is recommended that you do not. Keep the interest inside the FFA to grow your capital and interest faster. Think of your FFA as the golden mother goose that lays you golden eggs, if you spend the money inside the FFA, it is akin to killing your mother goose that will bring you golden eggs (your riches). Instead, keep the baby geese (FFA’s interest) that the mother goose is giving you, and you can grow more baby geese (your wealth) even faster. As you may already get it, the idea is to create a golden goose! You may prefer to think of the FFA as a legacy that you can leave behind for your future generations. If you are one who believes in the law of attraction, this FFA is actually your money magnet. Keep putting more money into your FFA and attract more $$$ into your life! Put $$$ into your FFA account everyday if you can, even if it is just a penny.

In summary, the time to spend your FFA capital is NEVER! When you stop working, you get to spend the eggs but never the goose!

Long Term Savings For Spending (10%) - Put 10% into your LTSS whenever you receive money, such as your salary. The money inside LTSS can be used for major expenditure such as savings for your children’s education, buying a house for yourself, keeping aside contingency funds.

Education (10%) - Put 10% into your EDUC whenever you receive money, such as your salary. You can use the EDUC funds for your self-education, for examples, books, seminars and events etc. Everyone needs to learn, especially in this changing world. Grow your comfort zone through learning and doing. If you are not growing, you are dying!

Take this quote from Ben Franklin:

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!”

Necessities (55%) - Put 55% into your NEC whenever you receive money, such as your salary. You should use the funds inside your Necessities account to settle all your essential bills such as phone bills, electricity, clothings, eating, driving, travelling, hair etc. If you cannot survive on 55%, simplify your lifestyle. Instead of driving a car, perhaps you can take public transport, or drive a Honda instead of a BMW. Buy Converse jeans instead of Armani. There are people who cannot live on 55% NEC when they started the JARS system but over time, these same group of people are able to simplify their lives and live on 50% or lesser!

When your usual needs for instant gratification kicks in, think this:

“Wealthy people think Long term. Poor people think Short term.”

Play (10%) - Put 10% into your Play account whenever you receive money, such as your salary. You are supposed to spend this money every month to pamper yourself. The key is to BLOW this Play money away every month so that you will feel good about having money and spending it! You should feel guilt-free when you spend this money every single month. Maybe you go for massages once every month, now you can use this money to really pamper yourself by going twice, thrice or as much as you want. Or you can try ordering champagne during dinner at a restaurant if you do not usually do. Or buy yourself a new gadget. Anything outrageous that you can do to pamper yourself and makes you feel really good. You are recommended to BLOW this money every month. However, if you need to save up for things such as short trips getaways that require a little more money, you can accumulate them up to a few months, say a quarter, before you use them.

Give (5%) - Put 5% into your Give account whenever you receive money, such as your salary. You can use the money for donations to charities, use it to help someone in need. Giving is important. If you choose to give 10%, take the extra 5% from your NEC and change the % allocated for NEC from 55% to 50%.

In my opinion, this is really a great Money Management System as it covers most aspects, if not all, on how one usually spend their money. It is so amazing simple, yet profound, method of better managing your money, regardless of how much money you already have! It can work for people who never save their $, or for people who needs to give to feel a sense of contribution to others/society, for those that need to learn and grow through learning, for anyone who just needs a little more help in managing their money.

I had the opportunity to attend T Harv Eker’s Millionaire Mind Intensive (MMI) seminar in Singapore from 23-25th Nov 2007 at the Singapore Expo. The MMI was one of the best seminars that I had ever attended since Tony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within (UPW) seminar which I had attended in 2002.

It was 3 full days of Millionaire Mind Intensive training which will open up your eyes to what can be achieved financially in your life. I have learned lots of really useful insights and practical tips that I can apply to improve my financial health for the better.

Harv Eker imparted to us a very simple but profound money management system that anyone of you can apply in your life to better manage your money, even though if you think you do not have a lot of money to manage. It can start with managing as little as $1, because it is not the amount of money which you can manage that matters, but instead, the key is to develop the habits of managing your money! He called it the JARS Money Management System 101. I will share in details on my other blog posts about this JARS system that Harv Eker is talking about.

There were a lot of things that all of the MMI participants had learned during the intensive 3-days training at seminar and I will attempt to share them here progressively.

Harv Eker gave us a simple Financial Freedom Formula which anyone can take back home after the Millionaire Mind Intensive and appy them to see how we can improve our financial lives. The formula is as follows:

Working Income + Savings + Investments + Passive Income + Simplify = Financial Freedom

These are the 5 critical factors in the Financial Freedom equation.

Some of the things that Harv Eker talked about during MMI include:

The concept of a financial blueprint in each and everyone of us,

Our beliefs, attachments and associations about money,

Attitudes of Wealth

and so much more!

Watch out for my subsequent posts on SecretsOfAchievers.com as I cover in more details of my 3 days of Millionaire Mind Intensive in Singapore!

In the meantime, check out all the wonderful fun that the MMI participants had during a break before the next session of the presentation starts:

What is a money blueprint you may ask?

According to T. Harv Eker, your money blueprint is simply your preset program or way of being in relation to money. If we were to use an analogy, it will be like the blueprint for your house, which is a preset plan or design for that particular house. Everyone of us has a blueprint in us. And it is this financial blueprint in us that will determine our financial success.

And how was our financial blueprint formed? The answer is simple. From the past ‘programming’ that we had since we were young from our parents, friends, teachers, media, culture etc.

Everyone of us were taught how to think about and act in relation to money. Everyone of us went through these similar ‘programming’ processes and the key to all these is whether these ‘programming’ on us are empowering or disempowering us financially! As I wrote this, did you also realise that for most of us, the people who were ‘programming’ us on how we think and act with regards to money are not truly financially successful? In fact, some of them are even struggling financially to survive.

Are you conditioned or ‘programmed’ to have a consistent income or an inconsistent income? Are you set for having a high income, a moderate income, or a low income?

Luckily, according to Harv Eker, there are ways to change the financial blueprint in each of us if it is not serving us well. He also outlined 17 ways in which how the Rich and the middle-class or poor people think and act differently.

I will talk more about it in my next blog post. If you have any comments on this post, do feel free to leave your comments below.

Recently, I had the privilege of listening ‘live’ to T. Harv Eker, best selling author of the book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”, at National Achievers Congress 2007. He was such a dynamic speaker that all of us were enjoying his speech. But most importantly of all, he left some very important messages for all of us, especially all those who are financially challenged!

If you do not know who T. Harv Eker is, allow me to let you in a bit on him:

T. Harv Eker is one of North America’s foremost business and personal success coaches. He went from zero to becoming a millionaire in just 2.5 years.

Hailed as combining the “street smarts of Donald Trump and the heart of Buddha”, Eker has built his training company from 1 assistant in 2000 to a firm with 70 ful-time employees that grossed more than $10 million in revenue in 2004.

More than 250,000 people have travelled all over the world to attend his powerful and life-changing seminars!

During his speech, Eker provided some very important and practical insights for all of his audience with regards to achieving a financially secured life.

He was talking about how millionaires think differently from most people…and his messages resonated with many of us so well that quite a number of the audience were snapping up his book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” at a nearby book fair near the venue where his speech took place.

Books were flying off the shelves as I witnessed the book fair staff kept topping up the book shelves with more books to keep up with the demand!

I just managed to finish reading the book recently. Oh my, this was a great book! Halfway reading the book, I already realised why today I am still financially challenged! After finishing the entire book, I know this book can potentially change my life if I can apply what Eker was talking about in the book.

The contents of the book are divided into 2 parts:

Part 1 talks about the money blueprint that everyone of us had in us. And how the money blueprint in most of us does not assist us to achieve our financial goals.

Part 2 talks about the 17 ways rich people think and act differently from poor and middle-class people.

I could not possibly list down every thing in one blog post which I wanted to share with you guys after reading this book. I will break them down into many other blog posts and I hope you will be back again to read them as I publish them online soon.

The Science of Getting Rich is a timeless classic written in 1910 by Wallace D. Wattles. It is a bold title for a book and suggests that getting rich is a predictable outcome if one can master the principles outlined in the book. Here is how Wallace D. Wattles puts it in his own words, “The ownership of money and property comes as a result of doing things in a certain way. Those who do things in this certain way, whether on purpose or accidentally, get rich. Those who do not do things in this certain way, no matter how hard they work or how able they are, remain poor. It is a natural law that like causes always produce like effects. Therefore, any man or woman who learns to do things in this certain way will infallibly get rich.”

Certainly, this book is well referenced by many of the great teachers today and it is the same book that inspired Rhonda Byrne to produce that runaway success “The Secret”. Here is what Rhonda Byrne said on her introductory note to the book, “I can honestly say that, since that first night when a tattered printed manuscript found its way to me (thanks to one of my daughters), my life has never been the same. Once you read it for yourself, you will understand why”. Rhonda went on to produce the movie “the Secret” and the best-selling book of the same title which has sold millions of copies worldwide.

However, learning how to do things in that “certain way” as described by Wallace D. Wattles may be more challenging for some as the book was written nearly 100 years ago. Some of the language is a little dated and much of its wisdom lost from a modern day perspective.

Fortunately, a new training seminar for the Science of Getting Rich has brought the wisdom of this timeless classic back to life for modern readers. Called “the Science of Getting Rich”, this program is the most comprehensive training system for mastering Wallace D. Wattles wealth creation philosophies and principles since its creation. It comprises written, audio and live seminar formats for learning, applying and mastering the Science of Getting Rich.

A unique “twist” to the program is the fact that it has an in-built vehicle for creating substantial financial wealth through its affiliate program. This is truly a unique wealth eduction and wealth building program designed to empower any individual with the resources to get rich. It is a program whose time has come. The program would not be possible without the original text from Wallace D. Wattles, the skills of leading teachers of our time, the phenomenal success of “The Secret” and the Internet as a learning and distribution tool.

I welcome you to click here to learn more about the Secret Science of Getting Rich and the details of the program.

Jack Canfield is an American motivational speaker, trainer and author. He is best known as the founder and co-creator of The New York Times No. 1 best-selling “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series, which currently has over 65 titles and 80 million copies in print in over 37 languages. According to USA Today, Canfield and his writing partner, Mark Victor Hansen, were the top-selling authors in the United States in 1997. He was also one of the teachers featured inside the hit movie The Secret that is currently taking the world by storm. Inside “The Secret” movie, Bob also talks about the Law Of Attraction and how it has changed his life!

With a BA from Harvard University, a Masters from University of Massachusetts, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Santa Monica, Canfield has been a high school and university teacher, a workshop facilitator, a psychotherapist, and for the past 30 years, a leading authority in the area of self-esteem and personal development.

Canfield is the founder of “Self Esteem Seminars” in Santa Barbara, and “The Foundation for Self Esteem” in Culver City, California. Self Esteem Seminars trains entrepreneurs, educators, corporate leaders and employees on how to accelerate the achievement of their personal and professional goals, while The Foundation for Self Esteem provides self-esteem resources and trainings to social workers, welfare recipients and human resource professionals. Canfield is also the President of Souperspeakers.com, a speaking resource service that provides inspirational speakers for event planners worldwide.

Canfield has traveled to over 21 countries, delivering hundreds of keynote speeches, workshops and trainings each year. As part of his presentation style, he always uses inspirational, motivational and uplifting stories to help his audiences discover, experience and retain key concepts and approaches. After each session, audiences everywhere had encouraged him to put his stories into a single book.

In 1990, while on an airplane home, he felt that it was time. He shared his idea with author Mark Victor Hansen during breakfast one day. Hansen liked the idea, and so began the Chicken Soup for the Soul phenomenon. But with their busy schedules, translating what worked on the podium onto the written page proved more challenging than either of them had anticipated. After three long years, the two had compiled just sixty-eight stories — a far cry from the 101 they believed was the magic number for a successful book. Nonetheless, their successful partnership has spawned many other titles that have made them enormously famous.

Canfield has appeared on numerous television shows, including Good Morning America, 20/20, Eye to Eye, CNN’s Talk Back Live, PBS and the BBC. Today, he speaks shares his success strategies with companies and associations worldwide.

The most recent book Canfield has written was the 2005 publication of The Success Principles. In it Canfield shares 64 principles that he and other people have utilized to achieve great levels of success.