Key Success Secrets | Part 2 | Feeling The Pain

One of my first ever wealth creation mentors used to get so frustrated with the amount of people who just never took the first tiny baby steps to creating real wealth for themselves.  She used to say “You don’t need to have a “Road To Damascus Moment” to become a millionaire, just take action now!”

What is a “Road To Damascus Moment” and how does it apply to wealth creation and success?

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_Paul

“Within the New Testament, Paul’s conversion experience is discussed in both Paul’s own letters and in the book known by the title Acts of the Apostles. In both instances, the conversion experience is described to be miraculous or revelatory in nature. According to both sources, Paul never met Jesus prior to Jesus’s crucifixion and was not a follower of Jesus prior to the crucifixion, instead he persecuted the Early Christians. Although Paul refers to himself as an “Apostle” of Jesus, it is clear that Paul was not one of “The Twelve” (1 Cor 9:1-2). Rather, Paul’s conversion occurred after Jesus’s crucifixion, and the accounts of Paul’s conversion experience describe it as miraculous, supernatural, or otherwise revelatory in nature.

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Susan Boyle | Wild Horses | Update

Well, back in April 2009 I wrote about Susan Boyle and her inspiring story. If you have been wondering what Susan Boyle’s been up to, and indeed if she is ok, then here she is in HD singing her new single “Wild Horses” singing on the America’s Got Talent final.  She looks fine!

Ron Holland | One Big Thing

On our private Money Gym Google discussion group we often share great stuff, and as one of our members interviewed Ron Holland recently – actually his ears must be burning as we have been talking about him a lot – another shared this email she got from him.  I love action orientated material so I thought I would share it here.

“Over the years I have developed strategies for success by carefully emulating people greater than myself. By reading hundreds of biographies of great men and also working closely with numerous millionaires I noted one trait they all have in common.

They DISCIPLINED themselves to accomplish ONE BIG THING every day that would have a profound effect on their lives.

Most people do not run their lives like this. They allow themselves to get bogged down with trivia and at the end of every day they haven’t moved forward, most just managing to keep their heads above water; many living lives in quiet desperation.

You may want to start by accomplishing ONE BIG THING every week and if you start to be honest with yourself the ONE BIG THING that needs doing will be apparent.

It could be that you actually have to put an advert in the paper to….

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Business Success | Are You Ready To Crush It?

Isn’t life weird? Weird and wonderful all at the same time.   A couple of years ago I signed up for Rich Schefren’s BGS (Business Growth System) live coaching programme and one of the included audios had an interview with a guy called Gary Vaynerchuk.

Man, he was LOUD!

I loved the interview though, and so I’ve been following Gary ever since, online, as he walked the talk, building his mum and dad’s wine store to a multi-million business, using 10-minute wine tasting videos on YouTube.  I watched as he created WineLibrary.tv and became more famous, almost accidentally, sought after for his passionate talks at seminars and big corporate keynote speeches.  As he almost accidentally built …

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How To Be A Millionaire (Right Now)

The key phrase that brings the most traffic to our website is “how to be a millionaire” and at about number five in the list is “how to become a millionaire”.  Hmmmm, that’s interesting isn’t it?  Just think for a second about what people are doing when they type those two search terms into Google, or their search engine of choice.

The phrase “how to become a millionaire” implies that people are searching for the “how to” of becoming a millionaire and actually I’ve written a great report that gives you that very information.

It’s called “How To Become A Millionaire (In Just Five Years)” and it’s very popular.

It sets out, in plain english, what you need to do to become a millionaire from property investing, the internet or from building your own business, which I feel are the three easiest methods for most ordinary people (of which I definitely count myself as one!).  You can download it here >>>

When you look closely at the phrase “how to BE a millionaire” however, it implies something different.  There are shades of “how to be famous” or “how to be beautiful” or “how to be loved” and there is an element of just wanting it to happen, to just be, without having to become.

Because being something, like a millionaire, implies you are already there, you have made it, you have succeeded.

And let’s be clear here, I’m going to talk about self-made millionaires here, not people who have inherited millions, like Prince Harry did today, on his 25th birthday.  6.1 million left to him originally, which has grown with interest to 9 million plus apparently.

(Today while flying helicopters on his birthday, Prince Harry is being a millionaire without having had to become a millionaire.  I wish him happy birthday and all the happiness in the world because no amount of money can replace his mum!)

Whereas becoming something like a millionaire implies that you know there is some effort, some work, and even, dare I say it, some changing involved.

So more people want to be a millionaire, than become a millionaire.

I’m a bit obsessed with this topic at the moment and have started a series of articles on “The Secrets Of Success” on our blog and you can read them here as they unfold week by week.

Because I have realised that it’s actually easy and quite simple to find out how to become a millionaire.

The bit I’m most interested in now is learning how to BE a millionaire or even a billionaire if that’s what you want!

Because I have learned that you have to BE  one, before you can BECOME one, at least in terms of attitude, thoughts, feelings, decisions, the people you surround yourself with, your actions and most of all the quality and amount of those actions.

Let’s look at those things, those requirement if you like, one by one, shall we?

Being A Millionaire – The Attitude

What kind of an attitude do you think a millionaire would need to have?

Open minded? That’s quite likely as you would need to be able to listen to new ideas without dismissing them out of hand.

Generous? Possibly, there are probably mean ones too, but you often hear of millionaires and multi-millionaires being great philanthropists.  Look at the programme “The Secret Millionaire” on which my first ever wealth creation mentor Gill Fielding appeared – those millionaires are actually giving away their own money.

A “Can Do” attitude would certainly help because in order to become a millionaire, you would need to have overcome problems, bust through challenges and above all, to have never, never, never given up.

The Thoughts

What kind of thoughts do you think you would need to have in order to be a millionaire?

Upbeat thoughts would help you overcome those “grey days” everyone gets and I would imagine someone who has become a millionaire has got pretty good control over the kind of thoughts they would allow in their heads.  This is tough at first, but the more practice you get at it, the more easy it gets.

Excited?  Yes, I would imagine a millionaire would have many excited thoughts, as every day must be a new adventure.  From the next business venture to the next holiday, there must be many exciting things to think about when you can do just about anything you want to and have complete freedom of choice.

Creative thoughts, definitely.  You don’t get to be a millionaire without having been creative at some time…perhaps you created a product or service that filled a need or solved a problem.  Perhaps you saw a great solution to something and took that idea from the original thought, through a trial to launch – that’s a creative process right there.

Positive? In order to be a millionaire you most definitely have make sure your thoughts are more often positive than negative.  Negativity is the lethal enemy of creativity and of taking action and taking action regularly.

The Feelings

Feeling Optimistic?

Yep, because if you are not optimistic you would never start a project.  It’s different feeling optimistic from choosing to have positive thoughts by the way, just think about it for a moment.  Can you say you both feel optimistic AND have positive thoughts?

Feeling Responsible

Feeling responsible is a bit of a double edged sword actually, but master the proper grip and you will become very strong indeed.  You need to feel responsible for yourself, and take responsibility for your own success, but you need to be careful of shouldering responsibility for others, their results and their happiness.

First born children in families – while more likely to succeed – need to be especially careful of this, as they often had to take responsibility for siblings, and parents struggle a little bit too.  Of course you are responsible for your children’s safety and getting enough love, but you are not responsible for the happiness and success of other adults around you.  That’s their job.

The Decisions

Being a millionaire involves making decisions,  They don’t even have to be great decisions or the right decisions but making decisions is absolutely crucial.  Making decisions means creating momentum and all millionaires have created massive momentum at some point.  They made decisions knowing that they could correct course later if they needed to, but that it was important to get going!

The People

Being a millionaire means surrounding yourself with great people, people you can trust, people you love, people who, ironically, don’t care that you are a millionaire.  It also means being around people who inspire you, who challenge you to be your best, and who you can continue to learn and grow from.

Actions – The Quality

I once read in a Steven Covey book that you should always do the right thing, not the easy thing.  That really struck home and it’s served me well in many tricky situations because most of the time, the action you want to take is the easy action (for you) but not necessarily the right action.

Of course “right” can be defined in many different ways – what is right for you might not be right for someone else (in their opinion!)  So you have to decide what action is right for you, by whatever criteria you define.  Is it right for your business?  Is it right for you?  Is it right for your wealth creation?  I think most people have a deep sense of fairness and are inherently good people, so I try and decide if the action I’m about to take is fair to as many people as possible and I ask myself if Nicola as a child would think it was a good thing to do – kids have a great sense of fairness and goodness I think.

So, you have to take good quality actions to be a millionaire so that you can live with yourself and sleep well at night, in your luxury mansion.

Actions – The Amount

Here’s the big one.  I’ve come to the realisation that both becoming AND being a millionaire means doing much, much more than most people would do.  When we went to T.Harv Ecker’s event in New Jersey, there was an exercise that he got us all doing (and made us promise not to tell) which made me realise that I always used to only ever do the BARE MINIMUM (much like employees only ever do the minimum required to keep their jobs), and that successful people aim way beyond doing the minimum – they take MASSIVE ACTION.

In conclusion, I hope that this article has made you think about the difference between becoming a millionaire and being a millionaire.

More importantly I hope it’s made you realise that you are much more likely to become a millionaire if you act like you are ALREADY a millionaire.

Because being a millionaire involves a whole different set of decisions, people, actions – both the quality and amount of, thoughts, attitudes and feelings and you can start to cultivate and practice those today.

I would love to hear/see your comments and thoughts on this article – if you just click the “share your thoughts” link just under the title up there, we can get a discussion going!

Key Success Secrets – Part 1 | Introduction

In the early days of my wealth coaching career, I was always very focused on the practical, the down to earth, the “how-to” of becoming wealthy.  I’d read all the books out there on the market on the principles of wealth creation, becoming rich, the power of belief and focus, attraction principles and I was angry and frustrated!

Because none of them told you how to make money!  None of them laid out a step by step plan of  HOW TO ACTUALLY DO IT!

So my first book The Money Gym – which started as an email programme, I was not arrogant enough to think I had a book in me – was written out of that frustration;  I wanted to give you a step by step, logical plan for how to make money and even become rich.

I wrote it as I wanted it, simple, easy to understand, with pictures.  I tried to include (and credit) the best bits of all I had read or heard, from Robert Kiyosaki to Napoleon Hill, from Steven Covey to Mary Hunt, from Gill Fielding to Robert G. Allen, especially where it was helping me and making a positive difference to the way I thought and particularly to the way I acted.

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“Relationships and The Credit Crunch” by Susanne Jorgensen

Nicola says: We are currently on holiday with ex-Money Gym and ex-mentoring client of mine, founder of The Singles Gym, Susanne Jorgensen, and as I’m feeling very lazy in my last few days, I asked her if she had a nice money orientated article for you.  Her first book “Get Real: Relationship Success Is An Inside Job” is about to be published this Autumn, via my publisher Bookshaker.com, so there is a nice rosy glow of achievement (and reflected glory) around her at the moment – she’s thrilled about getting her first ISBN number……..little things!

Relationship Coach Susanne Jogensen says:

“Everywhere you turn the words ‘credit crunch’ and ‘recession’ are being used.

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But Where Do You Stay? By LeaWoodward

Nicola says: You may know that we are currently in the lovely Andalucía village of Casares Spain, for what many think of, and I’m describing on the blog, as a holiday.  In the rooftops pic, our house is the one with the white balustrades round the rooftop terrace.

Wrong, our holiday was a week in Stoupa (no kids) in July and I’m going to the Mexican Caribbean (no kids) in January, with the Marketer’s Cruise crowd. If you want to join us, there are a few tickets left here >>

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Feel The Fear & Do It Anyway

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear recently, mainly because I’ve been doing quite a few fairly scary things over the last few weeks!

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, and how not being able to do that, holds a lot of people back from success.  But before we talk about that, let’s look at what fear actually is.

From the website “How Stuff Works”

“Fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing and energized muscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response. The stimulus could be a spider, a knife at your throat, an auditorium full of people waiting for you to speak or the sudden thud of your front door against the door frame.

The brain is a profoundly complex organ. More than 100 billion nerve cells comprise an intricate network of communications that is the starting point of everything we sense, think and do. Some of these communications lead to conscious thought and action, while others produce autonomic responses. The fear response is almost entirely autonomic: We don’t consciously trigger it or even know what’s going on until it has run its course.

Because cells in the brain are constantly transferring information and triggering responses, there are dozens of areas of the brain at least peripherally involved in fear. But research has discovered that certain parts of the brain play central roles in the process…..”

Read more here >>

And Wikipedia has an interesting take on it

“Fear is an emotional response to threats and danger. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of pain. Psychologists John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that fear is one of a small set of basic or innate emotions. This set also includes such emotions as joy, sadness, and anger. Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat.

Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable.[1] Worth noting is that fear always relates to future events, such as worsening of a situation, or continuation of a situation that is unacceptable.”

Read more here >>

Notice that Wikipedia says “fear always relates to future events….” and this would seem to be born out by the list of the things people fear most.

What do people fear most?

One survey says that at the top of the list is death, the fear of which is necrophobia. Second, apparently, is the fear of failure, which is called kakorrhaphiophobia. Wikipedia lists “spiders, snakes, heights, water, enclosed spaces, tunnels and bridges, social rejection, failure, and public speaking” as the most common fears.

In an innovative test of what people fear the most, Bill Tancer analyzed the most frequent online search queries that involved the phrase, “fear of…”. This follows the assumption that people tend to seek information on the issues that concern them the most. His top ten list of fears consisted of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, success, and driving

From my work in The Money Gym, I notice that a lot of our members fear “other people’s opinions” quite a lot.  They don’t want to be perceived to be different, or to be ridiculed or rejected, if they become interested in wealth creation or even if they become wealthy. They are almost shooting themselves in teh foot because they are afraid of success.

On that topic, I was on a “experts panel” once at the World Internet Summit, when  a speaker asked the audience why they might NOT want to become internet millionaires and one brave soul said that she was worried that she might not be able to handle the emails!

Time management expert Mark Forster describes these as anti-goals and that you have to identify your anti-goals, or fears around achieving something, or you will sabotage yourself and won’t succeed.

For example, I have a goal to become an international speaker, but when I identified my anti-goals around that, I was fearful of being on the road all the time, away from my family, staying in grotty hotels, driving constantly and turning up to speak for free to only six people!

Once I had identified those anti-goals, I was able to reframe my goal to say “I am an in-demand international paid speaker, who picks her gigs carefully, only speaking to big crowds, staying in five star hotels and travelling first class”

Being fearful is not the same as worrying….I used to be a terrible worry-wort, particularly about what people would say/think if I asked for what I wanted/needed.  Then Judith pointed out that I was hallucinating, as I had no idea how people would react, and Steve pointed out that I was being narcissistic, as I was always projecting onto others how I would feel in that situation.

Speaking personally, I’m not afraid of rejection, or other people’s opinions (unless it’s the people I love), I love public speaking – one of my sisters is an Opera Singer and we don’t think we have a “stagefright” gene in the Cairncross gene pool – and I’ve failed so many times I’ve seriously got over that one, because I have always known, deep down, that one day I will succeed.

So what am I afraid of and why are my fears coming up so much while I’m on holiday?  I’m almost afraid to tell you (write them down) in case I manifest them!!

Fears that have surfaced for me in the last few weeks, while travelling, are….

Fear of driving on the right hand side, particularly on windy greek and spanish country roads.  Actually it’s more specific than that – it’s of the brakes failiing with a carful of kids.  And I hate the thought of the car not “catching” when going up a steep slope in first gear…and there are a lot of those in both Greece and Spain.  Just getting from the main road in Casares to the municipal carpark involves hairpin bends and steep slopes!

Fear of flying – particularly the landings.  I have to meditate quite hard to get over that one.  Dawn French summed it up when she said that she can’t go on holiday for only a week, it has to be at least two to make up for the stress of flying as she feels that it’s only her will power alone that keeps the plane in the air, and if she relaxes for a second, the plane will plummet out of the skies.  She wonders how all the other planes manage, when she’s at home, but supposes that every one must have a “Dawn” on board to keep them airborne.

I’m not massively keen on swimming out of my depth, and there is NO WAY I can swim over rocks or seaweed.  That’s why I love Kologria Beach in Stoupa so much, clear golden sand, goes out for miles, and while there are tiny transparent fish there, they are miles away from your feet.  I discovered yesterday at Estapona Beach, that I have a fear of sharks and if the water is cold enough, I start thinking of the possibility of being eaten while swimming so I can’t swim out deeper than anyone else on the beach.

I have a huge fear of insects, particularly spiders and daddy-long-legs (like particulary daft flying spiders) but anything with legs and wings will do.  Euuuuughhhh.  Hate mossies too, and if I hear one in a room, there is NO WAY I can sleep.  Mossie nets and plugin chemicals get me over that one.  At home, I have a long-handled spider catcher which has set me free to a large degree (really need to find a manufacturer for that one – it’s a sure fire commercial success!  Mine was made by a little man in his shed, bought on Ebay)

So how do I get over all these fears, which even when I write them down, look a bit daft by some peoples standards?

Well, I just have to.  I want the kids to have this experience and I don’t want them to grow up a scaredy-cat like I was as a child.  Also, Sarah is here, and I want her to experience things to…so actually I’m forcing myself to get over fears for others, when perhaps I wouldn’t do stuff like this if I was on my own.

So how do I do it?  I just tell myself or even shout out loud sometimes…. “feel the fear and do it anyway!!” and then get on and do it.

With most of the above, apart from the insect thing, it works and we are having loads of fun, which helps a lot, along with the sense of achievement you get after overcoming a fear or two.

In conclusion, I would say that knowing yourself well, working with your silly old fears, but overcoming some by sheer force of will, remembering that not everyone reacts/feels like you, will help you on your road to success.

So what are you afraid of?

It helps to visualise the outcome  or payoff – by hiring two cars in Spain, we saved a small fortune on taxis and we are completely mobile, no mean feat for two grownups and six children of varying ages, in another country.  The other benefit is that Sarah has got over the hump of driving on the right for the first time, and I’m more confident with it, because I had to look brave for her.

How can you find a practical solution (like a long handled spider catcher for example) or how could you ease yourself in gradually (like swimming out of your depth in a crystal clear blue sea).

Perhaps you could find someone who regularly does – confidently – what you want to do, and talk to them about how they felt the first few times.

You might be amazed to find that they were scared witless too, and that they just felt the fear and did it anyway!

So they succeeded in their goals and ambitions.

Just like you can too.

10 Tips for Creating Your Vision Board

A vision board, sometimes known as a dream board, consists of a collection of images that help you visualise the things you wish to manifest in your life. These can be material things, such as a home or a car, or situations, such as a dream job or relationship.

Here are 10 tips to help you create and use your vision board.

1. Consider what you wish to use to mount your images. You may have a cork board, on which you can pin your pictures, a scrapbook in which you can paste your images, or simply a large piece of cardboard on which you can make a collage. Bear in mind that you may want to change the images frequently, so it is ideal if they are not too difficult to remove.
2. Decide whether you want one board for all your images, or several that you can theme. For example, one with pictures of your ideal home, one with images of your dream vacation, and so on. The scrapbook works well for this as you can use the pages for different themes.
3. Get clear on what you really desire. This is the most important step of all. When you look at your images, it is important that they give you the feeling you will have when your manifestation is here. If your picture gives you no feeling of excitement, happiness, peace or whatever it is you want to feel, then it will not be effective in helping you to manifest and may be a clue that this is not truly a heart’s desire.
4. Start looking for images. You may find these in newspapers, magazines, brochures, promotional booklets, calendars – in fact any kind of illustrated printed matter. You may also find pictures that you can print from websites on the internet. Cut them out and add them tou your board.
5. Consider taking your own photographs too. This can make the subject more personal. For example, you could take pictures of an area you would like to move to, the car you have just test-driven, the furniture you like in the showroom, and so on.
6. Include some pictures that simply make you feel good. They may be pictures of an evening with friends that brings back enjoyable memories, a picture of yourself having fun in a favourite holiday destination, or simply a beautiful sunset that stirs a feeling of peace and serenity. Anything that makes you smile, or, even better, laugh out loud, is also excellent.
7. Place your vision board somewhere prominent, so that you will see it often throughout the day. If you are out much of the time, make a mini one in a small notebook that you can keep in your purse or briefcase. The more often you see your images, the more you will magnetise your desires to you.
8. It is most important that you get a strong, positive feeling from looking at your images. Sometimes, if you have been looking at an image for some time it can feel a bit stale. If this happens, change it so that you get a tangible good feeling again. For instance, you may still want the same car, so get an image from another angle, or in an exciting environment.
9. Make time each day to have a concentrated look at your images. Spend a few minutes thinking about each thing you intend to manifest, feel what it will be like when it is here, how your life will change. Feel those positive changes. Imagine what you will be doing, what differences it will make to your routine, what you will be saying and thinking.
10. Enjoy it! It is meant to be fun! It is all about aligning your vibration with the things you desire that are being held in waiting for you. So go ahead and give it a go and make your dreams a reality!

One thing that I have found incredibly helpful and powerful is having images on my computer screen that I can look at any time I wish. I can combine these with affirmations and sound to make the process even more effective. For a one-time small fee you can set this up and change your images as frequently as you like and you have it for life. For more information, click on the banner below.

There is also a FREE RESOURCE for you, called Vision Lounge. This is a community of like-minded people sharing experiences and ideas for creating and using vision boards, also offering inspiration and support. When you join with others who share your aspirations, you increase your magnetic power, so join now for free!

Dawn Dowsett
Live life in love, inspiration and joy!…and realise your desires
Claim your freee prosperity ebook at
www.TrueAspiration.com

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