MetaGreg

Be yourself. Do not pretend to be someone or something you are not. Your uniqueness will appeal to a certain segment of the market. These folks become your best fans and customers.

Following your passion – doing what you love – does not guarantee financial success. But not doing what you love guarantees a life of boredom and unhappiness. The trick is to find a niche where your passions and interests intersect with the needs of the market.

Learn a financially valuable skill so you can command a decent salary or (if you are self employed) a respectable fee.

Those workers and service providers who command top dollar either (a) perform a service that makes or saves their employer or client money or time, (b) have a skill for which the demand exceeds the supply, or (c) specialize in a narrow niche with little competition.

If you can earn a salary or generate a net income as a self-employed service professional or independent contractor of $200,000 a year or more, you won’t get rich. However, your life will be easier and you will be financially more secure than 95% of Americans.

Given the choice, have your children when you are young and possess the energy it takes to parent active youngsters.

Spend as much time as you can with your children when they are young and still want you, even if you must make sacrifices in your professional achievements to do so. This time passes quickly and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

Strive to achieve a liquid net worth of at least $2 million by age 50. You won’t be rich, but again, you’ll have more financial security than about 95% of Americans.

The best piece of financial advice I ever got was from Florida freelance writer David Kohn, who told me: “Live below your means.” Doing so further enhances your financial security.

With your wealth, avoid buying material possessions that are unnecessary – especially luxuries that depreciate in value over time. Use your money to buy income-producing assets, assets that appreciate in value, or services that free up your time for other activities.

Avoid debt of any kind to the extent you are able. I have zero consumer debt except the mortgages on investment properties. Cars I buy for cash. If you have to get a loan or lease to drive a particular model car, you can’t afford it.

If you lend money to friends or family, do it with the expectation that the money is really a gift rather than a loan,
and do not expect to ever get the money back. If you are repaid, even in part, consider it found money.

Every day you wake up and everyone in your family is in good health, and you have food to eat and a decent place to live, you are ahead of the game.

When writers, Internet marketers, and entrepreneurs brag to you about how much money they make, divide the figure they give by three. As my colleague Fred Gleeck is fond of pointing out, the only numbers you can trust are your own.

In your business, always under-promise and over-deliver. Give your customers not their money’s worth, but more than they have a right to expect. Err on the side of being too generous rather than being too rigid or strict.

Before criticizing a supplier or vendor, say something positive – what you like about the work — first. The more
insulted a vendor feels, the less motivated they become to serve you.

Do not allow yourself to be belittled, insulted, or demeaned verbally or in writing by others. When someone makes a snide or degrading comment, your reply should be: “What was your purpose in making that comment to me?” It will stop them in their tracks, and embarrass them so they never do it to you again.

Do not give people unsolicited advice.

To paraphrase Dan Kennedy, guard your time like the gold in Fort Knox. You can always make more money, but time lost or wasted is gone forever.

As long as a business or life decision does not involve risking the mortgage money, make it quickly. Successful people are able to make swift decisions and carry them out with speed.

The #1 difference between successful people and those less successful is that successful people act on their ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Without action, ideas are worthless.

Do not think you must reinvent the wheel on every new product or business project. Most things have already been done before. All you need to do is add a twist or put your own spin on a product or service to create demand and make it profitable.

If you are successful, you can be arrogant and boastful, but why do it? Your bragging makes others who are less successful feel badly about themselves. What’s the point of doing that? Also, don’t refer to yourself as a genius or superstar in your marketing copy. If you were a genius, you wouldn’t have to say it – instead others would be saying it and you could quote them.

Focus on your work – on creating valuable products, giving great service, going the extra mile for your customers – rather than how much money you want to make.

Start investing right away, when you are young. Do this early enough, and compounding can make you rich. Wait until you’re 50 or 60, and you could find yourself in desperate straits. And diversify. Put 10% of your wealth in an investment that moves in opposition to the stock market, such as precious metals.

From Bob Bly.

This is a follow-up to my previous post, How to reinvent yourself.

Don’t rush it. Energy and enthusiasm are important if you want to make radical changes to your life.  However, don’t do it hastily. I know you are eager to become your own boss but it doesn’t mean you have to submit your resignation tomorrow.  Significant personal changes require time and deep understanding of yourself.

Don’t do it alone. It always helps to have someone to watch over you while you are transitioning.  Find someone who can be brutally honest with you and at the same time you are willing to listen to. Feedback are always helpful in keeping things in proper perspectives and staying on track.

Don’t follow someone else’s dream. It’s one thing to follow your dream – it’s another to follow someone else’s. Sometimes you get envy because your high school friend who always copied your homework is richer and more successful than you, or we get pressured by our partner’s or parent’s expectations.  Acting out of envy or pressure usually leads to disaster as Hollywood movies have shown so many times.  Remember your ultimate goal is to be happy but it will not happen if you are acting based on someone else’s definition of happiness.

1. Ask ‘Why?’ constantly. All creativity stems from questioning why things are the way they are. The more everyday obvious a thing is, the more it needs to be questioned.
2. Always be suspicious when people say, ‘It stands to reason’. Human progress has come from those who had the courage to challenge the generally held view.
3. When working on a problem, never be satisfied with your first solution even if it seems correct. Always look for other answers.
4. Never worry about ideas that don’t work. Most ideas are like that. Just be encouraged to keep trying for a better idea.
5. Always carry a notebook for jotting down any bright ideas that you may have. Ideas come to the surface all the time but, unless they are quickly caught, will often escape and you may well find that you are quite unable to remember them later.
6. It is always easier to ask for forgiveness that to ask for permission. If you believe in your idea, you must go ahead with it at all costs. If you wait for a permission, it might never come. If you find that you are wrong, admit it frankly and then get on you with your next project.
7. Take a random word — the more ridiculous the better — and try to find a way to work it into your creative project. This exercise may seem tough and you might not see right away how it will help but if you persist you’ll be surprised at the number of original notions that suddenly pop into your mind.
8. Always look for new experiences that will stretch your mind. For example, listen to new music, read a magazine that you don’t normally look at, watch a TV documentary on a subject you know nothing about, go somewhere new, talk to new people. If you always stick to your usual routine, you make it hard for new things to influence and inspire you.
9. It is often a good idea to spend some time visualizing what you think a project will look like when it’s finished. This can sometimes show you the path from where you are now to where you will be at the end.
10. It is possible to make a trigger (such as a gesture) that you deliberately associate with creative thought. For example, you could run the tip of your index finger up and down the bridge of your nose whenever you are involved in creative thinking. When you have a bright idea, make sure that you use your trigger. Eventually, the process can be made to work the other way around, and the use of your gesture will prompt you to enter your creative mode and produce bright ideas.
11. Ask a dumb question and you may look stupid for five minutes. Fail to ask it and you will be stupid forever.
12. Always keep stirring the pot. Good ideas will float to the surface unpredictably, but for that to happen there has to be plenty of thought and action going on.
13. First the chaos; then the production of order from chaos. In this way, interesting ideas may be born.

–
From Robert Allen’s Boost Your Creativity

• Dan Akroyd was a mail sorter for Canada’s national postal service.
• Jennifer Aniston was both a telemarketer and waitress before hitting it big.
• Halle Berry worked at Higbee’s Department store in the children’s department.
• Sandra Bullock worked as a bartender.
• Before his big break, country singer Kenny Chesney worked as a valet attendant, telemarketer and mail sorter.
• Chubby Checker plucked chickens at a poultry market named Henry Colt’s.
• Before Nirvana, the late Kurt Cobain worked as a janitor for Lemons Janitorial Service.
• Diddy was an intern at Uptown Records where he did grunt work like washing cars & fetching coffee.
• Bill Cosby shined shoes and sold produce when he was young.
• Simon Cowell started out as a mail room clerk for EMI Music Publishing where his father worked.
• Michael Dell washed dishes at a Chinese restaurant for $2.30 per hour.
• Danny DeVito was a formally trained hair stylist before his break on Taxi.
• Michael Douglas once worked as a gas station attendant.
• Tom Hanks once worked as a hotel bellman and carried bags for a number of celebs.

[via Mike Dillard's Newsletter]

To The Crazy Ones
How many times have you told your friends you want to do something and all they say is “you’re crazy”? These people at one point in their lives were ridiculed and laughed at because of what they want to do. Today, we look up to them as our model, as our heroes.

Failure: Secret to Success
Thomas Edison is one of the most successful inventor of all time. There are many things we use today that are rooted in Edison’s original works. We can name at least one of his successful stories (e.g. light bulb) but I doubt if we remember any of his failures. Yet,  majority of his work and effort resulted in failures. However,  Thomas Edison is a firm believer of failure  as a requirement to success that he would often tell his colleagues that he did’nt fail – he just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Get Back Up
If you think your unlucky or the whole world is conspiring against you, then take a peek at Nick Vujicic’s life.  Afterwards, look into the mirror and ask yourself what you are going to do with your life.

If you can’t see the videos right now,  you can visit my website and watch these amazing stories here.