Intangible Wealth (IW)

My brother Dion was telling me how he and his wife decided that they could accomplish more of their goals by waking up an hour earlier in the morning.  In fact, he wrote an article about it, A Million Dollars in the Morning.  In the article, he spoke of the challenges he had to overcome in order to convince himself that waking up an hour earlier to work on his goals was worth it.  He challenged us all to set the alarm and dedicate the first hour of our morning towards accomplishing a goal of ours.

I took the challenge.  The next step was to figure out…

What I would do with my hour?

I had to decide on a goal.  There were a number of goals that came up with.  I could use the hour in the morning to do some pleasure reading, writing, exercise, or study health or business.  Many good ideas came to mind.

After some brainstorming I decided I was going to use the first hour of my day to take a language course, Rosetta Stone, along with my brother.  I’ve made attempts at completing this program in the evenings a year prior but just could not get myself to focus on it.  It seemed the later in the day I waited to study on Rosetta Stone the more reasons I came up with not to do it.  I would get going for 3 days then lose focus…back on it for a day then lose focus again…off of it for a week…back on it for a day…you know how it goes.  But by dedicating the first hour of each morning towards completing the program, I had no more excuses.  The only challenge I now had was…

Getting my butt out of bed!

It was easy to set the alarm an hour early, but actually getting out of bed an hour early is a lot harder!  I struggled to get up on time.  I had to solve this problem.  I asked myself, “Why is it that when I go to work for someone else I arrive early but when it’s time to work on myself I arrive late?”  I had to change the way I was thinking.  I was more focused on the fact I was getting up earlier than about WHY I was getting up earlier.  I needed to change my focus and take control of my self-talk.  Now, I said to myself, “I’m getting out of bed to work on my goals, not just go to work at my j-o-b”.  That motivated me.

The early bird with a plan will always get the worm.

Why an hour early?

By dedicating the first hour of each morning towards one of my goals I completely eliminate any excuse for not getting it done.  It’s that simple.  For example, if I get up at 7AM I know by 8AM whether I am on track or not.  Compare this to getting up at 7AM and  waiting until 10PM to do what I could do first thing in the morning (in this case, I would have 15 hours of reasons not to complete my goal).  But by assigning the first hour of my day towards a goal I have less time to make excuses.  Using the first hour of your day to complete your goals will allow you to make progress at the beginning of everyday.  That’s a great way to start every morning, wouldn’t you agree?

Getting Your Million in the Morning

The most important part about getting up and dedicating the first hour of your day to your goals is that you are creating a success habit.  You are building the habit of working on YOU first thing in the morning.  This will build your confidence, give you greater enthusiasm, and make your life more exciting.  Why?  Because you’ll know that you have a day by day plan to accomplish your goals.  Plus, while most people are spending time rushing in the morning to go to work for someone else, you’ll know that you invested the first hour of your day by working on yourself.

Are you willing to make your million in the morning?   Will you accept the challenge?  If so, how do you use your hour?

Many of us manage to stay ‘busy’ throughout the day.  We’re running here, going there, stopping at this place, and going to that place.  Our days are full, packed with this activity or that activity: you have a full time job, you’re a full time student, a full time parent, and/or a full time member of X club or activity.    Between our professional, academic, and social pursuits we’re much occupied.  But have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “Am I working full time or fool time?

Working Fool Time???

Yes.  You’ve read that correctly…fool time. You are working fool time when you falsely believe that since you allot a certain amount of time for an activity that you are actually engaged in that activity for the entire amount of time you allotted.  Basically, if you are fooling yourself into believing that allotted time equals productive time you are probably working fool time.

Time is one resource that we all have in common.

If your clock is anything like mine, it’s got 12 numbers on it.  And when the hour hand takes two laps you’ve completed an entire day.  Twenty-four hours comes and goes.  Now, here’s the really important question: have you ever set aside the time to reflect on how effectively you used your last 24 hours?  Most people haven’t.  I strongly advise you to give this a try.  Take a moment to think about some activities you did yesterday, how much time you set aside for them, and how much of that time you wasted.  Perhaps, instead of analyzing a few activities, you could just pick out one or two.  This will enable you to tell whether or not you are working fool time.

Running My Mouth

I gave myself this same analysis a while back when looking at my exercise routine.  I found that I was spending a little over an hour and a half (1.5 hours) in the gym.  I’m a huge advocate of physical fitness and I love to exercise.  Still, the question I asked myself was, am I truly exercising 1.5 hours in the gym or simply spending 1.5 hours in the gym? How much of that time is productive?  Am I working out fool time?

I knew I needed to be more efficient, so I bought a stop watch and began to time myself.  Every time I finished an exercise I took note of the time and how long it took me to complete what I did.  Not long after doing this, I found that I was

(1) Sluggish moving from one exercise to the next, and

(2) Running my mouth too much instead of working out

I wasn’t really working out for a full 1.5 hours.  What I was really doing was working out fool time!  I decided I needed to stop fooling myself.  I pity the fool.  So I developed three goals, which were to

(1) Immediately move from one exercise to the next with no delay

(2) Focus on my exercises and minimize the socializing, and

(3) Maintain the quality of my exercise routine.

How long did it take to see results?

In only five days, I had amazing results. Each day, I decreased my exercise time and still completed all of my workouts. On day one, it still took me 1.5 hours to finish my workout… no improvement. But after that, the results poured in. On the second day I decreased by time to 1hr and 10 minutes; the third day was just over an hour; the fourth day was just under an hour.  I was pumped! Each day I was making progress.  Eventually, I was able to get my exercise routine cut down from 1.5 hours (90 minutes) to 50 minutes on the fifth day!  Wow.  I practically cut my workout time in half!  I added 40 more minutes to my day by simply being proactive about the answer to this question: Am I working fool time?

You can apply this same concept to virtually any activity in your life and you will see remarkable results. I guarantee it!

What’s the big deal about 40 minutes?

What could you do with 40 minutes more a day?  You could use that time to take a nap, beat the rush hour traffic, pick the kids up from school, read a book, etc.  And if 40 minutes a day doesn’t mean much to you, how about almost 5 hours more per week (40 minutes x 7 days)?  You could use that time to go on a date, have a dinner party, take an evening course, or make some extra money.

How to Stop Working Fool Time

(1) Pick one activity that you do, preferably at least every week or most days of the week.

(2) Time how long you are engaged in that activity

(3) Complete this same activity in the least amount of time possible and record how long it takes you.  Keep doing this until you feel you have minimized the time as much as possible without sacrificing the quality of the activity.

(4) This amount of time will be used as your baseline.  Your goal is to conduct this activity in this amount of time, every time, without reducing the quality of the activity

Once you have completed this successfully on one activity, select another activity and apply the same four steps.  I guarantee that you will find yourself completing activities more efficiently and will have more time to do other things that are important to you.

What are you waiting for?  Stop fooling yourself and give it a try!

Why would anyone want to take over the world?  After all, that is not what caring, compassionate, and unselfish people do, is it?  That type of activity is reserved for fascists and dictators or for the arrogant and egotistical, right?

Wrong.

Kind, loving, and respectful people are constantly taking over the world and I’ll prove it to you.

What Does It Mean to Take Over the World?

Someone who is aiming to take over the world has a goal of having an abundant and seemingly limitless amount of power, control, and influence.  Once accomplished, this person will have the power to direct resources as needed to accomplish any given task at any given time.  If you manage to do this you have completely taken over the world.

How do we go about accomplishing this?  Before we answer that, let’s first answer…

Where Is the World?

Contrary to popular dogma, the world does not exist outside of you.  Instead, it actually exists within you.  Yes, within you.  By taking over the world within you will be able to have power over your thoughts and ideas, control over your habits and attitude, and be a greater positive influence in your society.

How Is This So?

Our brains function as data processors, taking in information from our surrounding environment.  It then processes this environmental information producing an output that we know as our experience, perception, or reality.

Just like our personal computers we have an operating system.  The operating system that we use to process information is our belief system.  Our belief system processes all of our environmental stimuli (input) and creates our experiences, shapes our perceptions, and forms our realities (output).

Our experiences are a product of how we interpret our environment.  This is why two people in the “same” environment can react in opposite ways.  For example, one person sees challenges, the other sees opportunities.  One person sees poverty, the other sees riches.  One man sees trash while the other sees treasure.

Understand?  This is why our world is created from within us.  We can control our output by changing our belief system.

How Do We Change Our Belief System?

We can change our belief system by increasing our education.  This will renew our ideas, stretch our imaginations, and expand our worldview.  We must learn!  And we can learn from a myriad of things whether it be from a conversation, other people’s experiences, a book, etc.  The list is endless.  But no matter what form the opportunity to learn comes, you have to take responsibility for using it to reshape your reality.

On the Quest for Domination

A single mother of two working a full time job decides to go back to school and get her Master’s degree to: (1) demonstrate to her children the importance of education; (2) increase her earning potential and raise the quality of life for her children; and (3) prove to her children that there is indeed nothing you can’t do if you want to badly enough!  She is creating her future.

Fed up with his negative life circumstances, a man changes his entire philosophy from one of criminality and deception to one of legality and honesty.  Instead of continuing to blame everyone else for his mistakes he realizes that he must take responsibility for his life because no one else will.  Despite his past life blunders he refuses to let those obstacles restrict him from achieving his newfound dreams of becoming an author, publisher, and public speaker to inspire the lives of youth and adults alike.  He is changing his reality.

A business man, earning $500,000/yr is striving to double his income in the next 2 years.  Not because he doesn’t think $500,000/yr is a lot of money, not because he needs a new car, and not because his house isn’t big enough; but because he firmly believes that he is actually worth $1M and $500,000 is merely half of his earning capacity.  Why should he settle for half a million?  He alters his philosophy.

These people have one thing in common: they are all taking responsibility.  They are changing how they process their life experiences.  They are changing their realities and creating their own circumstances.  And most importantly, they are all taking over their world!

Don’t Change Other People Change You

Some people are out to change the world by changing everyone else.  This is a short path to frustration.  Instead of trying to change other people, change you.  We can influence other people but we won’t change them.  Each of us has to take over our own world. I’ve seen so many people who are waiting for their boss, their spouse, their friend, the President, or whoever, to change their world.  Don’t count on it.  The best thing about changing you is that you don’t have to wait on anybody.  You can take over your own world right now.

Pop Quiz…

Where does your world exist?  (Hint:  Answer B is wrong)

(A)  Within You

(B)  Outside of You

Now that you’ve passed that difficult quiz, let me give you …

One Major Reason Why You Must Take Over Your World

It’s your responsibility.

Go dominate!