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As budding millionaires it is necessary that we understand the fact that money is not bad or evil. Money is simply a tool that becomes whatever the holder decides. For example, if money is in the hands of a drug dealer then it can become harmful addictive drugs that will cause devastation and ruin, however that exact same money in the hands of an ‘enlightened millionaire’ can become life saving penicillin which could save millions from dying in Africa or other 3rd world nations.
It is not money that is evil or good but what we choose to do with it that makes all the difference.

So what is an Enlightened Millionaire?
The term ‘enlightened millionaire’ was first coined by Robert G. Allen who himself is a multi-millionaire.
This is his definition from the book “The One Minute Millionaire” - To become an Enlightened Millionaire is to be free to be, do and have whatever you desire as long as it hurts no one and simultaneously helps others.

The Enlightened Millionaire pursues a principled approach to wealth:
First, do not harm. Similar to the oath a doctor takes to preserve life an Enlightened Millionaire commits to avoid wealth building activities that harm or impoverish other people. Create only abundance, never scarcity. This means creating wealth in an ethical, honest and win-win manner.

Second, do much good. The Enlightened Millionaire enjoys creating wealth that improves the lives of many people. The goal is to enrich oneself whilst enriching others.

Third, operate out of stewardship. Enlightened Millionaires are stewards over their financial blessing – enjoying the privileges of financial success while creating an ongoing legacy to bless others. The first proof of your commitment to make money to bless other people is to give at least the first 10% away to charities, communities etc.

I am a writer, and everything I do flows from my creativity and my ability to write. If I cannot be creative then I have nothing to write about and my career becomes non existent.
I have been starting to experiment lately with finding my creative space; that is finding the place in which my ideas flow the best.

The art of being creative is often illusive for many people. Many people find it extremely hard to find their creative side, however everyone has one, often they just don’t think that they do. A lot of the reason many people believe that they are not creative is because they have not found their space.

In a creative space your ideas flow a lot easier than anywhere else. In a creative space your distractions are minimized and your focus is increased. In a creative space the ideas that change lives and change the world are discovered. In a creative space you can have those “Ah ha” moments when something finally clicks in your head and things make sense.

I want to share with you a few of the creative spaces I have been exploring and what I think about them.

The Living Room
I am getting rid of my laptop for the moment (as I am saving up for a new one), so I won’t have a laptop for about 1 month. The only other computer I can use is in our living room. However, I hate this for my creative space. My dad is always around or both my parents and they distract me and make me nervous.
Positives: It is the only computer I have available to me, I don’t get distracted by surfing on the net as much.
Negatives: My parents distract me and make me nervous and so I cannot think properly to be creative.
Rating: 1/10

My Bedroom
I currently live with my parents so my bedroom has been my refuge and place of writing for some time now. It offers me exclusion behind a closed door, and often it offers me peace and quiet also. I usually sit on my bed with my laptop when working in my bedroom
Positives: I have exclusive time to myself to do what I want, wear what I want, write what I want without being nervous.
Negatives: I often get distracted by surfing on the net, or by playing games or doing other things. Sitting on my bed hurts my back and makes me sleepy, which does not help my creativity
Rating: 7/10

In The Café
This is a new creative space I have been trying when I can because I have found that I need to have a place to focus away from home and access to the internet where I can just think and write and not get distracted. I like looking at people and I can think well when no one around cares about what I am doing (as apposed to in the living room where my parents care what I am doing)
Positives: I can focus on writing, whilst filling my belly with yummy food. I can think well and I can be stirred to ideas by observing people and the way they act and observing the things around me.
Negatives: I only have 2 hours of power on my laptop so I only have 2 hours to write what I want to write before I need to go and recharge. Sometimes the noise of people can distract me from thinking and being creative.
Rating: 8/10

At a Quiet Remote Place
I have a special secret remote place where I can go to think, pray and write. It is extremely quiet and there are no people around
Positives: I can be alone for extended periods of time to think and be creative and there are no people or noises to distract us.
Negatives: I am exposed to the weather, so often the sun, the wind and the rain will stop me from being comfortable and then I cannot think (or sometimes cannot even go there)
Rating: 4/10

In the Shower
This one may sound a little funny to you but I love thinking in the shower, because I am alone, it is comfortable and I am not doing anything else which I need to engage my brain in (only washing)
Positives: I can be alone to think, I feel really relaxed in the situation and my brain is completely free of thought (apart from washing myself)
Negatives: We have a drought here in Sydney and therefore I cannot have long showers to think for long periods of time, also I cannot write down what I think up and therefore I sometimes forget it.
Rating: 5/10

So there is the list of a few of my creative spaces (I do have more than this) but I want to hear what your creative space is, and why that is your creative space.

Have you ever asked someone “How was your day?” for them to reply to you “It was busy.”
For some reason we in the western world have this idea that if we are busy then that must mean that our lives are important and that we are being effective in some way or another. Because if we are doing so much, and we are so busy, then we must be doing something good.

But this is not true, busyness does not equate to effectiveness. In fact I would go as far as to say that if you are busy then you are not being effective and are wasting a lot of your time.

This is a financial blog and I want to provide financial advice, but often all of the advice I can offer you is useless because you do not have the time to implement these strategies because you are too busy.
Recently in my life I have found that a lot of the time I have been busy but I haven’t been effective. Often the next step we need to take to becoming more successful and becoming more wealthy is not taking on more things and filling up our schedule more but actually doing less things and putting a greater focus on the main things we want to do.

For me I am taking a look at my schedule and cutting out everything that doesn’t have to do with Relationships (Family and Friends), Writing, Teaching and Preaching and Building Leaders. This can be a hard thing to do but I believe that I need to refine my life in order to make it more effective in the long run.

So here are a few of my tips which I believe you can use to make your life more simple, yet more effective.

Write down the important things you should be doing. I call this an ‘effective list’.
Write down a list of the things that are most important in your life. For me ‘making money’ is not on my list. Making money will come out of the things I have written on my list such as writing, teaching and preaching and building leaders.
So sit down and write out a list of what is most important to you. I don’t believe you should have more than 5 things on this list…but you might. Remember this is about refining and becoming more simple and focused. You may want to do everything, but it is good to do a few things really well than a lot of things poorly.

Look at the things you are currently doing that are NOT on your effective list, and do your best to cut them out
Now go ahead and take a look at your diary, does the things you are doing match up with the things you have written on your effective list? If they do not can you cut them out? Do your best to cut out what you do not want to be doing and replace it with those things you do want to be doing.

Focus on doing the things on your effective list well
Like I said before, I believe it is better to do a few things really well rather than trying to do a lot of things and doing them poorly. Me, I have a natural talent and desire to communicate both in writing and speech, I want to do them well and let someone else who is good at music do that well, instead of me trying to do all of them and doing them poorly.
So focus on doing the things you love to do and doing them well. Get educated, get lessons, get mentored, get trained and do them really well.

Try to combine things you HAVE to do with things on your effective list
For a good example of this, if I have to do the shopping then what I can do is invite someone to come with me and I can build into them to help them become a future leader. That way I do what I have to do (shopping) and I do what is effective to do (building leaders).

Now I want to hear you guys write in the comments section below what you have on your ‘effective list’.

6 Ways to Earn an Extra $1,000 in the Next 6 Months

We could all use an extra $1,000 in our pockets. $1,000 to invest, $1,000 to spend or pay bills. Take a look at my previous post of If I Gave You $500 What Would You Do With It? Where I talk about doubling your money in 6 months.

In the next 6 months I actually have to find a way to earn an extra $4,000 in order to fund a short term missions trip I am going on to Japan. Hopefully most of it I can get sponsored, however I need to begin thinking of ways I can get an extra $4,000 to fund my trip.

I thought $1,000 would be a more reasonable target for everyone who reads this post. We can all do something to earn an extra $1,000 in 6 months. That is about $160/month which we will need to raise. I have come up with a few ideas which I will be implementing in the next 6 months to earn some extra cash.

Earn Money Online
I am beginning to invest strongly in my websites and my marketing in order to be able to see a greater return for my websites. There are a number of ways you can make money online. You can create and sell t-shirts at www.cafepress.com or you can run a blog and sell advertising space using www.google.com/adsense or maybe you can sell other people’s affiliate products using www.clickbank.com and www.google.com/adwords (you don’t even need to have your own website). There are a variety of ways you can make money online and it is definitely achievable to make $1,000 in your first 6 months if you learn and work hard. Try having a look at my Making Money Online category to learn more. Or check out Profit Lance which is a great and extremely cheap training system on how to make money online automatically.

Pick Up Extra Shifts
This is a simple one that almost everyone can do (if you can fit it into your schedule). You could get a second job or you could pick up more shifts at your work. You don’t have to work a lot more. For example if I fill in one Sunday shift (7am-4pm) at the chemist I can earn an extra $165. I could do this once per month and earn $1,000 in 6 months. What extra shifts can you work to earn more money?
Tip: Working weekends and nights gives you loading pay, so you get paid more for less work.

Sell Your Used Items
In the last 6 months I have made over $1,000 by selling things to my friends or selling them on Ebay. In the next 6 months I plan to make around another $1,000 by selling things on Ebay. Usually you can find a bunch of things around the house you don’t really need to sell on Ebay. Or if you ever upgrade your fridge, tv, dvd player or computer or anything, sell your old items on Ebay. There are some people who would be extremely happy to have your old items. For example I sold my old computer (which I didn’t want) for $200 and the person who bought it was happy to have such a cheap laptop, and I was happy to have $200.

Do Some Fundraising
Here in Australia we have companies that offer specific fundraising opportunities. Cadbury (chocolates) offer many fundraising opportunities for selling chocolates, and Crispy Cremes offer fundraising opportunities also. You could ever get creative and cut your hair and ask people to sponsor you, or skydive and ask people to sponsor you. People are happy to buy chocolates, especially if it goes towards a good cause.

Run a Mini Seminar
Now I was hesitant to put this tip in because it might confuse you guys a little bit, but I think this is a great untapped resource of many people. Do you have a skill or a knowledge base in which you could teach people how to do what you do? Are you good at finances, or good at raising children, or good at dealing with anger. In 6 months you can learn to be really good at one thing which you are passionate about and then you could put an ad in the paper and run a seminar. It doesn’t have to be massive. If you have 10 people and each person pays $100 to be there then you can make $1,000 (minus costs).
So try running a one day seminar and see how you go.

Sell Your Services
Do you have a skill which you could sell? Could you mentor someone in something and get paid for it? People pay hundreds of dollars for personal fitness training and personal life training; people pay money for someone to help them out around the house, or by doing some gardening. I am helping my girlfriend’s mum do some gardening because I am strong and can do some jobs which she cannot do. I am selling my services to her in order to make some extra money. What services could you sell? Could you help your neighbours out with some work around the house? Or maybe your friend wants their house painted. Think creatively of how you can do this and you can easily make $1,000 in 6 months doing a few odd jobs.

So I want to set a challenge before you to make AT LEAST an extra $1,000 in the next 6 months. Also I would like to hear from you about any ideas you may have on how you are going to earn an extra $1,000 in the next 6 months. Post them in the comments section below.

I recently was in a leadership class at college with a man named Scott Wilson and he was talking to our class about the value of having goals. He told me a story which I cannot confirm but he told us that a study was done on a class of university students.

They asked the students the question of whether or not they had life goals. 3% of all the students had goal and they had them written down, 13% of all the students had goals hadn’t necessarily written them down, and then 87% of all the students did not have any life goals.

They then came back and did another study on those same students. They found that the 13% of students that had goals earned combined 10 times more than the 87% of students combined. So if you have ever believed that goals are not important to your wealth and your success then you are wrong. Goals are extremely important; if you have goals you have a greater chance for success.

I want to offer you a different view on goal setting today. Because we all know about having a to do list for the day or the week or having a goal to be wealthy. I want to challenge you about the way you think about goal setting when it comes to your finances. Often we set goals that do not stretch us to grow. They may stretch us to sacrifice and to go without, but they do not stretch us to grow. For example someone may earn $40,000 and they have a goal of saving $10,000 in one year in order to invest in the stock market. This is a good goal but it does not teach us to grow, it teaches us to go without. But I believe that we should set goals that force us to grow.

For example, instead of saying “I want to save $10,000 out of my $40,000 I earn per year” why not say “How can I earn $10,000 more this year, which I can save”. The outcome therefore is the same ($10,000 saved in the bank to invest) however the different goal has made you grown. You are now earning $50,000 per year and you could now save $20,000 per year to invest, or next year you could work out how to earning an extra $10,000 (so you will be earning $60,000 per year) so then you can save $20,000.

Have goals that will challenge you to grow
We need to start changing the ways we think about goal setting and we need to set goals that will challenge us to grow. It is good to sacrifice and to save, but it is better to increase. How are you going to challenge yourself to grow? Maybe you can set a goal to earn an extra $1,000 this year or maybe $10,000? Set something achievable but challenging. Maybe you want to set a goal to have more customers, or to get more out of your customers. What are your goals? Are they challenging you to grow or are they making your shrink inwards and making your life smaller?

Have goals that will dispute your current way of thinking
We will all live according to the way that we think, and we will naturally set goals according to the way that we think. But I want to challenge you to begin setting goals that will challenge the way you think. For example, I used to think that the way to become rich was to get a good job and earn a lot of money. So I could have set goals to get an office job and work my way up to get a good wage. However, I have set goals to become a pastor (which are poorly paid) and therefore I had to change the way that I thought about creating wealth. I have now set goals to earn money online to invest, this means I have to change the way I think about dealing with customers and the way I think about making money.
You need to be setting goals that will dispute your current way of thinking.

Have goals that will force you to change
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. If we want our lives and our wealth to be on the increase then we need to be willing to change.
Big goals will always force you to change the way you do things. You cannot keep doing what you are doing and still get the same result. You need to change and refine everything you do all the time in order to become more effective in the art of making wealth. Set goals that will force you to change the way you do things in order to achiev your goals.
My goal to become a millionaire before I am 25 is forcing me to change the way I earn money. I cannot achieve this by working a day job that earns me $30,000/year. Even if I saved all of my wages I would only have $150,000 (plus interest), but would be no where near the $1,000,000 mark. So I am changing the way I live and act in order to achieve my goal.
Are you setting goals that are forcing you to change and grow?

I want to hear what kind of financial goals you guys have and what you have to change to achieve that.

If I gave you $500 what would you do with it?

I am sure that most people will say that they would put the money onto their bills, or their credit cards, or they would go shopping or pay their rent. Most people would have little to show for that $500 in 6 months time.

I have a second question for you and my question is this. If I gave you $500 what you do with it to double it in under 6 months?

Now we all know that many people would say “Well I would play the stock market and try to double my money” but lets get more creative than that.

There is a story in the bible about a master who went on a long trip and gave one of his servants 10 talents (currency of the time), gave another 5 talents and gave yet another 1 talent. He gave them their amounts based on their ability.
As the story goes the ones who were given the 5 talents and the 10 talents went away ‘immediately’ and went to work and they doubled their money so when the master came back he said to them “well done my good and faithful servant, you were faithful with 10 talents now I will make you in charge of 10 cities” but then the servant who received one talent dug a hole in the ground and buried it (just like we pay off bills, pay rent, buy clothes, buy technology) because he was afraid of losing it. Well when the master came back he got angry and took the talent of the servant and gave it to the one who had 20. Then the servant was punished.

Now punishment is a little brutal in today’s society but the moral of the story stands. That it is important that we invest what we have in order to make more.

Now I want to draw out one thing from this story.

• The servants went ‘immediately’ and invested

The servants ho doubled their money went immediately to invest the money. I bet this was because they had so many ideas on how they could make money with it that they were just waiting for the opportunity.

Do you have so many ideas that you don’t have enough resources to fund them?

If you want to be wealthy, it is going to be ideas that are going to get you there. The distance between where you are and where you want to be is simply the ideas you are going to have.
So how can we get these great ideas?

Brainstorm
Take time aside to purposely think up ideas. Ask yourself “if I was given $500 how could I make it into $1000?” and write down a series of ideas which you could implement. Often I find that ideas flow best for me when I am in a quiet place, and I often feed off other people’s ideas when I am reading books or blogs. Find what works best for you when brainstorming so you can think of as many good ideas as possible.

Write them down
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a great idea in your mind but then gone to sleep and forgotten all about it. Have something where you can write down those spontaneous ideas, personally I use my phone but you can use a notepad or a diary or whatever works best for you.

I want to ask a question to all of my readers, if I gave you $500 how would you turn it into $1,000 in under 6 months.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” - Henry Ford

This is a guest post from leo over at Zen Habits.

One of the biggest challenges in meeting any goal, whether it be related to productivity, waking early, changing a habit, exercising, or just becoming happier, is finding the motivation to stick with it.
If you can stick with a goal for long enough, you’ll almost always get there eventually. It just takes patience, and motivation.

Motivation is the key, but it’s not always easy, day in and day out, to find that motivation.
What follows is a guide to motivation using what I’ve learned over the last few years in a series of successful accomplishments, goals and habit changes. I’ve had many failures, but also many successes, and I’ve learned a lot from all of them. Motivation has been a particularly important topic of exploration for me.
What Motivation Can Achieve

What have I accomplished using these motivation methods? Too much to mention, just in the last 3 years: running two marathons, learning to become an early riser, losing 40 pounds, completing a triathlon, becoming vegetarian, becoming more productive, starting a successful blog, writing a book, becoming organized, simplifying my life, quitting my day job, tripling my income, eliminating my debt, and much more.

That’s not intended to sound like bragging, but to show you what can be accomplished (just to start) if you find the right motivation.

How Does Motivation Work?

Before we get into specific methods, it’s useful to examine what motivation is, what it does, and how it works.

Motivation is what drives you toward a goal, what keeps you going when things get tough, the reason you get up early to exercise or work late to finish a project. There are all kinds of motivations, of course, from positive to negative. Having a boss threaten to fire you is motivation — you’ll likely work harder to complete a project with that kind of pressure. But I find that positive motivation works better — if it’s something you really want to do, you’ll do a much better job than to avoid something you don’t want (such as being fired).
So motivation, in its best form, is a way for you to want to do something. There may be times, for example, when you don’t feel like getting up early, and in those times you may seriously just want to sleep in (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But if you have a reason to want to get up early, something you really really want to do, you’ll jump up out of bed with excitement.

The best motivation, then, is a way for you to really want something, to get excited about it, to be passionate about it. Remember that, as there are many other types of motivation (especially negative), but in my experience, this is the kind that works the best.

There is only so long that you can go trying to motivate yourself to do something you don’t like to do, something you don’t want to do. But if you find ways to really want to do something, you can sustain your effort for much, much longer.

8 Ways to Motivate Yourself From the Beginning
I’ve found that it’s important to start out with the right motivation, because a good start can build momentum that you can sustain for a long time. If you start out right, you have a much better chance of succeeding. Here are some tips for starting out:
1. Start small. I’ve said this before, but that’s because it’s one of the most important tips in motivating yourself toward a goal. Don’t start out big! Start out with a ridiculously easy goal, and then grow from there. If you want to exercise, for example, you may be thinking that you have to do these intense workouts 5 days a week. No — instead, do small, tiny, baby steps. Just do 2 minutes of exercise. I know, that sounds wimpy. But it works. Commit to 2 minutes of exercise for one week. You may want to do more, but just stick to 2 minutes. It’s so easy, you can’t fail. Do it at the same time, every day. Just some crunches, 2 pushups, and some jogging in place. Once you’ve done 2 minutes a day for a week, increase it to 5, and stick with that for a week. In a month, you’ll be doing 15-20. Want to wake up early? Don’t think about waking at 5 a.m. Instead, think about waking 10 minutes earlier for a week. That’s all. Once you’ve done that, wake 10 minutes earlier than that. Baby steps.
2. One goal. Too many people start with too many goals at once, and try to do too much. And it saps energy and motivation. It’s probably the most common mistake that people make. You cannot maintain energy and focus (the two most important things in accomplishing a goal) if you are trying to do two or more goals at once. It’s not possible — I’ve tried it many times. You have to choose one goal, for now, and focus on it completely. I know, that’s hard. Still, I speak from experience. You can always do your other goals when you’ve accomplished your One Goal.
3. Examine your motivation. Know your reasons. Give them some thought … and write them down. If you have loved ones, and you are doing it for them, that is more powerful than just doing it for self-interest. Doing it for yourself is good too, but you should do it for something that you REALLY REALLY want to happen, for really good reasons.
4. Really, really want it. This is essentially the same as the above tip, but I want to emphasize it: it’s not enough to think it would be cool to achieve something. It has to be something you’re passionate about, something you’re super excited about, something you want deeply. Make sure that your goal meets these criteria, or you won’t stick with it for long.
5. Commit publicly. None of us likes to look bad in front of others. We will go the extra mile to do something we’ve said publicly. For example, when I wanted to run my first marathon, I started writing a column about it in my local daily newspaper. The entire island of Guam (pop. 160K) knew about my goal. I couldn’t back down, and even though my motivation came and went, I stuck with it and completed it. Now, you don’t have to commit to your goal in your daily newspaper, but you can do it with friends and family and co-workers, and you can do it on your blog if you have one. And hold yourself accountable — don’t just commit once, but commit to giving progress updates to everyone every week or so.
6. Get excited. Well, it starts with inspiration from others (see above), but you have to take that excitement and build on it. For me, I’ve learned that by talking to my wife about it, and to others, and reading as much about it as possible, and visualizing what it would be like to be successful (seeing the benefits of the goal in my head), I get excited about a goal. Once I’ve done that, it’s just a matter of carrying that energy forward and keeping it going.
7. Build anticipation. This will sound hard, and many people will skip this tip. But it really works. It helped me quit smoking after many failed attempts. If you find inspiration and want to do a goal, don’t start right away. Many of us will get excited and want to start today. That’s a mistake. Set a date in the future — a week or two, or even a month — and make that your Start Date. Mark it on the calendar. Get excited about that date. Make it the most important date in your life. In the meantime, start writing out a plan. And do some of the steps below. Because by delaying your start, you are building anticipation, and increasing your focus and energy for your goal.
8. Print it out, post it up. Print out your goal in big words. Make your goal just a few words long, like a mantra (”Exercise 15 mins. Daily”), and post it up on your wall or refrigerator. Post it at home and work. Put it on your computer desktop. You want to have big reminders about your goal, to keep your focus and keep your excitement going. A picture of your goal (like a model with sexy abs, for example) also helps.
20 Ways to Sustain Motivation When You’re Struggling

The second half of motivation is to keep yourself going when you don’t feel the same excitement as you did in the beginning. Perhaps something new has come into your life and your old goal isn’t as much of a priority anymore. Perhaps you skipped a day or two and now you can’t get back into it. Perhaps you screwed up and got discouraged.

If you can get yourself excited again, and keep going, you’ll get there eventually. But if you give up, you won’t. It’s your choice — accomplish the goal, or quit. Here’s how you can stop from quitting, and get to your goal:

1. Hold yourself back. When I start with a new exercise program, or any new goal really, I am rarin’ to go. I am full of excitement, and my enthusiasm knows no boundaries. Nor does my sense of self-limitation. I think I can do anything. It’s not long before I learn that I do have limitations, and my enthusiasm begins to wane. Well, a great motivator that I’ve learned is that when you have so much energy at the beginning of a program, and want to go all out — HOLD BACK. Don’t let yourself do everything you want to do. Only let yourself do 50-75 percent of what you want to do. And plan out a course of action where you slowly increase over time. For example, if I want to go running, I might think I can run 3 miles at first. But instead of letting myself do that, I start by only running a mile. When I’m doing that mile, I’ll be telling myself that I can do more! But I don’t let myself. After that workout, I’ll be looking forward to the next workout, when I’ll let myself do 1.5 miles. I keep that energy reined in, harness it, so that I can ride it even further.
2. Just start. There are some days when you don’t feel like heading out the door for a run, or figuring out your budget, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do that day for your goal. Well, instead of thinking about how hard it is, and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start. I have a rule that I just have to put on my running shoes and close the door behind me. After that, it all flows naturally. It’s when you’re sitting in your house, thinking about running and feeling tired, that it seems hard. Once you start, it is never as hard as you thought it would be. This tip works for me every time.
3. Stay accountable. If you committed yourself publicly, through an online forum, on a blog, in email, or in person … stay accountable to that group of people. Commit to report back to them daily, or something like that, and stick to it! That accountability will help you to want to do well, because you don’t want to report that you’ve failed.
4. Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This is one of the most important motivation skills, and I suggest you practice it daily. It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts, and to recognize negative self-talk. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, “This is too hard!” and replace it with, “I can do this! If that wimp Leo can do it, so can I!” It sounds corny, but it works. Really.
5. Think about the benefits. Thinking about how hard something is is a big problem for most people. Waking early sounds so hard! Just thinking about it makes you tired. But instead of thinking about how hard something is, think about what you will get out of it. For example, instead of thinking about how hard it is to wake early, focus on how good you’ll feel when you’re done, and how your day will be so much better. The benefits of something will help energize you.
6. Get excited again! Think about why you lost your excitement … then think about why you were excited in the first place. Can you get that back? What made you want to do the goal? What made you passionate about it? Try to build that up again, refocus yourself, get energized.
7. Read about it. When I lose motivation, I just read a book or blog about my goal. It inspires me and reinvigorates me. For some reason, reading helps motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. So read about your goal every day, if you can, especially when you’re not feeling motivated.
8. Find like-minded friends. Staying motivated on your own is tough. But if you find someone with similar goals (running, dieting, finances, etc.), see if they’d like to partner with you. Or partner with your spouse, sibling or best friend on whatever goals they’re trying to achieve. You don’t have to be going after the same goals — as long as you are both pushing and encouraging each other to succeed. Other good options are groups in your area (I’m part of a running club, for example) or online forums where you can find people to talk to about your goals.
9. Read inspiring stories. Inspiration, for me, comes from others who have achieved what I want to achieve, or who are currently doing it. I read other blogs, books, magazines. I Google my goal, and read success stories. Zen Habits is just one place for inspiration, not only from me but from many readers who have achieved amazing things. I love, love, love reading success stories too.
10. Build on your successes. Every little step along the way is a success — celebrate the fact that you even started! And then did it for two days! Celebrate every little milestone. Then take that successful feeling and build on it, with another baby step. Add 2-3 minutes to your exercise routine, for example. With each step (and each step should last about a week), you will feel even more successful. Make each step really, really small, and you won’t fail. After a couple of months, your tiny steps will add up to a lot of progress and a lot of success.
11. Just get through the low points. Motivation is not a constant thing that is always there for you. It comes and goes, and comes and goes again, like the tide. But realize that while it may go away, it doesn’t do so permanently. It will come back. Just stick it out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal, ask for help, and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back.
12. Get help. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. When I decided to run my marathon, I had the help of friends and family, and I had a great running community on Guam who encouraged me at 5K races and did long runs with me. When I decided to quit smoking, I joined an online forum and that helped tremendously. And of course, my wife Eva helped every step of the way. I couldn’t have done these goals without her, or without the others who supported me. Find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both.
13. Chart your progress. This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar, or creating a simple spreadsheet, or logging your goal using online software. But it can be vastly rewarding to look back on your progress and to see how far you’ve come, and it can help you to keep going — you don’t want to have too many days without an X! Now, you will have some bad marks on your chart. That’s OK. Don’t let a few bad marks stop you from continuing. Strive instead to get the good marks next time.
14. Reward yourself often. For every little step along the way, celebrate your success, and give yourself a reward. It helps to write down appropriate rewards for each step, so that you can look forward to those rewards. By appropriate, I mean 1) it’s proportionate to the size of the goal (don’t reward going on a 1-mile run with a luxury cruise in the Bahamas); and 2) it doesn’t ruin your goal — if you are trying to lose weight, don’t reward a day of healthy eating with a dessert binge. It’s self-defeating.
15. Go for mini-goals. Sometimes large or longer-term goals can be overwhelming. After a couple weeks, we may lose motivation, because we still have several months or a year or more left to accomplish the goal. It’s hard to maintain motivation for a single goal for such a long time. Solution: have smaller goals along the way.
16. Get a coach or take a class. These will motivate you to at least show up, and to take action. It can be applied to any goal. This might be one of the more expensive ways of motivating yourself, but it works. And if you do some research, you might find some cheap classes in your area, or you might know a friend who will provide coaching or counseling for free.
17. Never skip two days in a row. This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not perfect. So, you missed one day … now the second day is upon you and you are feeling lazy … tell yourself NO! You will not miss two days in a row!
18. Use visualization. Visualize your successful outcome in great detail. Close your eyes, and think about exactly how your successful outcome will look, will feel, will smell and taste and sound like. Where are you when you become successful? How do you look? What are you wearing? Form as clear a mental picture as possible. Now here’s the next key: do it every day. For at least a few minutes each day. This is the only way to keep that motivation going over a long period of time.
19. Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them. We all have urges to stop, but they are mostly unconscious. One of the most powerful things you can do is to start being more conscious of those urges. A good exercise is to go through the day with a little piece of paper and put a tally mark for each time you get an urge. It simply makes you aware of the urges. Then have a plan for when those urges hit, and plan for it beforehand, and write down your plan, because once those urges hit, you will not feel like coming up with a plan.
20. Find pleasure again. No one can stick to something for long if they find it unpleasant, and are only rewarded after months of toil. There has to be fun, pleasure, joy in it, every day, or you won’t want to do it. Find those pleasurable things — the beauty of a morning run, for example, or the satisfaction in reporting to people that you finished another step along the way, or the deliciousness of a healthy meal.
“Never, never, never, never give up.” - Winston Churchill

We have all heard the saying “practice makes perfect” but often when it comes to success we try to get it perfect first time around and we forget that it is practice that makes perfect.
When I started trying to make money online in 2006 I just assumed that it would be simple and that I would ‘get it’ first time around and make a whole bunch of money. Turns out this is not how it works in business. More often than not you will not ‘get it’ in the business world first time. You will fail, and then re-assess and then become successful.
Many of the world’s best entrepreneurs have been bankrupt in their lifetime. Robert G. Allen who is my mentor and teacher has earned over 500 Million Dollars in his lifetime, yet he has become bankrupt before.

I learnt the hard way that it takes practice to become perfect and to become successful. Here is what I have learnt about practice over the past few years trying to make money online. I failed, failed, failed, but I kept trying until I was successful.

Try your best, but be prepared to fail
Always approach a task giving it your best, but know that maybe it might not turn out as you have wished. Learn to not be afraid of failure but embrace it knowing that you can learn from it. Every time I have failed making money online it wasn’t really failure… I discovered many way how NOT to make money.
Failure is an opportunity to learn and grow and do better next time. So try your best but be prepared that you may fail and then you can learn from your failure.

It is hard work
Creating wealth and becoming wealthy is not exactly a walk in the park. Many people buy programs hoping that the information will mean that they will never have to work again, which is possible although it takes a lot of work to never have to work again.
Be prepared that as you practice and try things it will take hard work. One of the hardest things is to learn and not get stuck in one way of thinking. Continually be open to new ideas.
It is better to work hard now for a better future than to do nothing now and then complain when your future doesn’t look like you want it to.

It takes time
Becoming wealthy is not a get rich quick thing that you can implement overnight and then you will never have to work again. It takes time to build wealth and learn the habits that millionaires implement. It takes time to learn how to save, to learn how to invest and to learn how to make money through your business ventures.

So remember, practice makes perfect. You will never get it right first go. It is all about refining what you are doing to make it more and more effective. So remember to learn from your mistakes, work hard and take the time to build the skills and wealth you want.

I have a dream, a dream that I will be a millionaire. My dream is that I will be able to make a lot of money online, and that with the money I would be able to give a lot of it away to help people and change the world. That I wouldn’t HAVE to work but I could be a full time pastor because I didn’t have to worry about the money.

However, I am a college student in my final year of college and my assignments are almost due, also I want to marry my girlfriend and I need to start saving up for it (I am not making enough money online yet). Maybe it is time that I put my dream on the shelf and just get a job so that I can afford a ring and a wedding in the future?

There will be times in your life when you might need to put your dreams on the shelf. Maybe you will need to get a job just to pay the bills instead of a following a career path that you are passionate about (like me working online and writing).

If you need to put your dreams on the shelf and you cannot run after them at the moment let me give you some tips:

Have a good reason
If you are going to put your dream on the shelf then you need to have a good reason to do it. For me saving up for a ring for my girlfriend is a good reason for me to put my dreams on the shelf for the moment. She is very important to me and I love her.
Maybe for you, you will need to get a job to pay for your electricity bills. Darren from Problogger often had to get a ‘real job’ in the past before he became a full time blogger. But he needed to pay the bills and honour his wife.
So don’t feel bad if you ever have to put your dreams on the shelf for a while, but have a good reason for doing it. Don’t just do it because you can’t be bothered.

Have a time frame
If you are going to put your dreams on the shelf have a time frame for when you are going to get it back down, otherwise you run the risk of it staying up their too long. Have a time frame for when you want to get it back down. Do what you need to do and then work on your dream after that. Always remember that it is your dreams and your passion that will make you successful, don’t choose money over your passion. That is why having a time frame will remind you when it is time to go back to work on your dream

Do not discard your dreams
Don’t discard your dream, keep it on the shelf for another day. Maybe you can work on your dream part time while working part time. Personally for me I am choosing to focus on college so I am only working on my blog/website part time. I am posting 4 times per week instead of trying to post 2-3 times per day. This way I can post better quality information for my readers and I can also have more time to work on my assignments.
Don’t forget about your dreams, keep them for another day. The day your forget your dreams you forget your purpose and your passion.

So if you ever have to put your dreams on the shelf then don’t feel bad about it. There is a time and a place where you will need to, but let it just be for a time and not forever. It is your dreams that are going to change the world and make it better.

I want to hear what your dreams are. I told you my dream, I would love to hear your dream…please share it in the comments section below.

Recently I bought a PDA/Phone off my friend for $50, I then sold it 3 days later for $100. I made $50 in 3 days for almost no work at all. I was telling my friend Michael about this and he said something to me that I thought was very interesting “buying low and selling high is the definition of genius.”
This thought struck me mainly because buying low and selling high is such a common thing, and everyone knows about it. So why isn’t everyone rich if they know they can make money by buying low and selling high?
Maybe they don’t know how to do it effectively, or maybe they think it is too hard or takes too much time. I really wanted to share with you guys how you can make some extra money (or even a full time income) from buying low and selling high.

Ebay
Ebay is the world’s garage sale. You can pretty much buy anything off ebay, you can also sell almost anything on ebay. Recently a friend gave me a kitesurfing kite. I have no use for a kite surfing kite, nor to I know anyone I could sell it to. But ebay gives me an instant market of people who want to buy a kite. They find my product on ebay and they bid for it as they please.
You can easily find bargains on ebay where something goes for less than it is worth, and then you can resell it on ebay. However hunting out and finding these bargains can take you a long time to do. Personally I don’t want to be sitting on ebay all day trying to find things I can resell.
However, there is another way. If you can somehow find a way to buy things from a distributor for a cheap price, then you can buy them in bulk and continually resell them on ebay. One of my dad’s friends buys stock from China for cheap and then sells it on ebay in Australia.

Clickbank
Why buy things for cheap, when you don’t have to buy them at all. You can just sell someone else’s product and get a commission. This is the real reason why Amazon.com became so well known, they offered people a commission for selling their products for them. Every time you send someone to their site whatever they buy while on that site you get a commission for.
www.Clickbank.com works similar to www.amazon.com. You send people to a site through a link and then if that person buys something while they are on the sellers site you earn a commission for it. Clickbank offers up to 75% commissions because many of the products are online products and cost the seller nothing to sell.
You don’t even need a website to sell things through ebay. You can use Google Adwords to direct people to an affiliate site through a link, then when they buy something you earn a healthy commission.

Have a Website
You can also sell items through your own website. You can either sell them directly through you website (paypal offers a shopping trolley service for a commission of all your sales) or you can use clickbank or amazon to sell products and simply use your website to link people to the affiliate program and then whenever they buy a product you can earn a commission (like described above).

Sell Them to Your Friends
Maybe you could find out what your friends want and then find it for cheap and sell it to them for under market price (for them) but you get to make a small profit. That way they save money from buying from you and you make money. It is a win win situation.

So, the definition of genius is to buy low and sell high (or to mot buy at all but sell and get a commission). Let me know some of your stories and way of buying low and selling high in the comments section below.