But the Mirror article prompted me to look up which other newspaper articles might be online now and I found the rather splendid Scotsman article arising from my otherwise rather frustrating trip to Scotland this time last year.  This is MUCH MORE my kind of thing….

Read it here:
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1077&id=1315792004

Nicola says:

I SO didn’t say that! 

Our fabulous PR Paula Gardner emailed me this evening to say that the recent Mirror piece is now online at http://www.mirror.co.uk/mirrormoney/mirrormoney/tm_objectid=16455023%26method=full%26siteid=94762-name_page.html

This was organised just before I went to the USA for the Mind of a Millionaire seminar and I had to send in my Top 10 Tips for Women To Save Money - which I did.  The journalist wanted to speak to me but I was on the plane, so I was pleased that they ran the piece - until I saw that they had made up almost the entire advice I was supposed to have given!

This is what they SAID I said, and I’ve included my thoughts afterwards:

[Read more →]

Nicola Says:

I’ve just read an entire blog from start to finish! 

Donna Fox’s diary of participating in the Enlightened Millionaire 101 Day Challenge - fascinating and with lots of diversionary links (which all opened in a new window thank goodness!).  She’s still got about 70 days to go so it’s worth checking it out…….the goal is to make $1,000,000 in 101 days and I think her team (which includes Paulie Sabol) have done it….

One of her posts included this nugget which I thought I would share with you:

"Today at the seminar we do an exercise on subject lines to an email, or the "interrupter". We learn an exercise that they use to judge whether a subject line is a good one. They use the mnemonic RICHAC

A good subject line should have:
Recognition (mention a familiar person)
Instinctiveness (make people react instinctively)
Contradiction (think jumbo shrimp)
Humor
Absurdity, and
Curiosity

You judge every subject line on a scale of 1-5 on each of these topics. Ethan and Steven mention that their office doesn’t use anything that doesn’t rank in the 20s, preferrably over 25.

At the end of the exercises they reveal that they remailed the same list with my offer, but with a different subject line. The first subject line, something like "get out of debt" didn’t really match my message. They said they changed the subject line based on something I said on stage the previous day, and had sent the new mailing out only a hour or so before.

The new subject line "Does the bank owe you money?" They showed my numbers. Sales had doubled to 250. I can think of no better way that this to have driven home the importance of a subject line and message match to the group."

Read Donna’s blog here: http://www.credit-millionaire.com/101daysa.htm

Nicola says:

My sister Sarah sent me a book from Australia via those lovely people at Amazon "The Yes Man" by Danny Wallace (Random House) - very very funny, indeed. 

And actually very moving.  She sent it to me (I think) because I must have said something about the tragic downturn of my social life due to my mid-life crisis (more about that later), and the amount of things I have been saying "no" to recently.  I saw Sarah for the first time in a year and a half in New York at the Mind Of A Millionaire seminar just before Christmas, and while I can’t remember saying anything about it, I might have done. 

(I obviously said "yes" to the Mind of a Millionaire Seminar when Andy Shaw suggested going, but there were many a moment when I wished I had said "no" - until I got there obviously!  Then I was very, very glad I had said "yes").

Or perhaps my other sister Heather, who lives just up the road and has to listen to me moaning about my existentialist angst (as my therapist calls it), has mentioned it to Sarah.  Heather is in Australia at the moment, staying with Sarah, and my brother Alex is there too.  Actually, I’m feeling just a teensy bit paranoid about them all being there without me - they must be talking about me even just a little bit.   The reason I’m not there is because it seemed more sensible to stay home……

So, to get my own back in case they ARE talking about me, here’s some pictures of them in Oz, enjoying themselves without me!  That’s my bruvver Alex in the pool and then again with Heather on the beach.  If you can call a long white expanse of sand with blue sea, blue sky, no people and pebbles, a beach!  And Heather with the obligatory kangerooo, then Nick & Sarah in the kitchen on Xmas Eve.  Sarah is hiding as she’s not keen on having her photo taken!

  typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/new_image.JPG">typepad.com/nicola_cairncross_wealth_/images/new_image.JPG" width="100" border="0" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px" />

typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/new_image10.JPG">

But back to the "Yes Man" and it’s quite profound effect it has…..

[Read more →]

The biggest challenge I face nowadays is around dealing with my weight.  I’ve changed my life so dramatically around business, finance, personal stuff all round, but this is the "final frontier" as it were.

I’ve been overweight for years and the only times I’ve been slim it was through living very unhealthily (let’s not go there but it involved diet pills and living on AllBran and ice-cream) so I don’t want to go back to that again! 

Weirdly enough, even when I was in my early 20’s and at what I would now call my ideal weight I was still joining Weight Watchers thinking I was fat.  Now I AM fat, I think I’m thinner than I am till I see a picture and get a horrid shock.  Reverse anorexia anyone?

I don’t want to go into ….

[Read more →]

Reading Bob Parson’s excellent blog (founder of GoDaddy.com) and he’s talking about how to make great decisions.

Quickly is the answer!  He maintains that - given a decent amount of information - you usually intuitively know what the right answer is and I would agree with him.  Often, if you just stop and think about how you feel in your tummy, you will know if something is a good idea for you or not.  If it feels right, do it, if not, then don’t.

Bob goes on to say "General George S. Patton once said, “A good plan violently executed today, is far and away better than a perfect plan next week.” Those of you who take forever to decide would do well to remember the General’s quote. The most important thing is to always be moving in the approximate right direction. That’s far and away better than not moving at all."

This echoes the "Mind of a Millionaire" BBC TV programme which I often quote which is that the one over-riding characteristic of multi-millionaires is that they make decisions and take action.

Read the rest of Bob’s excellent article here >>>>

Just been interviewed for the passive investments Newsletter and also for Glamour Magazine (going up in the world, eh?)

Here’s what I shared with the Passive newsletter lot….

Nicola’s 10 top tips for achieving your goals:

1.  First of all, believe that you are worth it.  Low self esteem is the root cause of much initial failure.  Therapy is great for finding out why you self-sabotage!

2.  Stop trying to re-invent the wheel.  Entrepreneurs are terrible for trying to create something new, rather than take something that is proven to work and using that.

3.  Set aside some time to plan how to progress your success.  Turn the TV off once a week and sit and plan what you will do this week to move yourself forward.

4.  Start reading - most success blueprints can be found in life-changing books like "rich dad, Poor Dad" by robert kiyosaki and "The e-myth Revisited" by michael gerber

5.  Stop being cynical - open your mind instead.  Successful people are always open to new ideas, meeting new people, trying new things.

6.  Work out what you are strong at and particularly what you love doing - focus on making money from that because joy and success will follow.

7.  Start thinking about investing rather than spending.  That seminar or workshop is not spending money, it’s investing in your knowledge base.  Ignorance is expensive.

8.  Surround yourself with positive, like-minded people who are on the same path as you - close your ears to negativity and don’t let the energy vampires suck you dry.

9.  Get a coach or a mentor - pick someone who has achieved what you aspire to and listen to them.  Then take action!

10. Never give up.  Never, never give up!  Can i just stress this one?  NEVER GIVE UP!

Peter Thomson again…….but it dovetails into the Millionaire Mind Intensive nicely so bear with me!  Another quote from my notes is from when Peter said "People will never consistently do, who they aren’t"

He means that in order to take on board a new way of behaving, you first have to change yourself into the kind of person that would consistently behave that way, or you will fail in your attempts.

My thoughts are that you could "act as if" you were that kind of person, until you actually became the person who would consistently behave in that way.  Which is what I often call "wearing the coat till it fits"

(which always conjures up visions for me of each September and a new term at school, and my duffle coat that my mother MADE me wear even though it was several sizes too big and stiff as a board! but that’s another story)

Another quote along those lines was "It’s not what it (making money / becoming rich) makes FOR you, it’s what it makes OF you" that counts.

I totally agree - one of my favourite quotes is from Mike Litman’s "Conversations With Millionaires" where he says that "One of the best reasons to set a goal to become a millionaire is for the people you will meet and the things that you will learn along the way" which could easily be amended to say "the person you will become" as well.

This is why continuing education and personal development is so important and I’m always amazed when I come across people who are not interested in learning something new - either about who they are or how to do something. 

We all need rest periods but without moving forwards in our learning, surely we are like plants? 

Not growing = starting to die.

Woody Allen said that "relationships are like sharks, if they stop moving forwards they die" and I think people’s brains are the same.  If we are not constantly exercising and using the old grey matter, surely it makes sense that it will start to wither away?

I fully intend to be using mine - and as much of it as possible - to the very end!

Really interesting video on CBS News about one family’s financial makeover with a Loral Langemeier Live Out Loud coach in the USA - they are using all the tools we use on the Money Gym with clients;  getting control, knowing where your money comes from and where it goes to, investing in rental property, building a business to love, then moving onto the stockmarket and the internet for passive income.

Watch it here >>>> http://cbs5.com/video/?id=9175@kpix.dayport.com

And subscribe to Loral’s newsletter here (thanks to Maria Davies who put me onto this) while checking out her new book.

www.LiveOutLoud.com
www.TeamMadeMillionaire.com