Archive for May, 2008

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The True Definition of Wealth

May 30th, 2008

Here is another great post from Adam Khoo. I believe that it is going to be a very insightful article for you. Read it and you will know that what actually determines your level of wealth. Read on…

Before you can be truly wealthy, you must first know what wealth really means. Again, many people think that a person’s wealth is defined by how much he earns, by the clothes he wears, by the house he lives in and by the way he lives. We now know that this is not at all true.

A person’s wealth is actually defined by how long a period of time he/she can sustain their lifestyle if they stop working. The longer you can go on living your life without working another day, the richer you actually are. Your wealth is therefore defined by three things: 1) your monthly expenses, 2) your liquid assets and 3) your passive income.

Your liquid assets refer to how much cash or cash equivalents (like stocks, bonds & fixed deposits) you have to pay for your monthly expenses. Your passive income refers to income that you will continue to receive even after you stop working. This could include interest, dividends, royalties and profits from a business. Don’t know what are the better ways to make money in your life? Read this, The Millionaire Mountains.

Let’s look at an example. Steve is a director in a multi-national company and earns a $20,000 monthly salary. He lives a lavish lifestyle that results in personal and household expenses a month of $18,000. He hasn’t really saved much over the years as he has spent any surplus upgrading his house and car. His liquid assets are just under $18,000. Besides his full time job, he has no other sources of income.

What is Steve‘s level of wealth? Well, if he stops working today, his $18,000 will last him for just a month. So his wealth is one month’s salary. As you can see, wealth is defined not by the absolute amount of dollars, but by time.

On the other hand, Susan, a marketing manager in a retail store earns a monthly salary of $5,000 a month but she is much wealthier than Steve. How is this so?

Well, over the last 20 years, Susan has diligently saved 20% of her income and invested it in the right stocks and mutual funds that have given her returns of 15% per year.

Over the years, Susan‘s liquid assets have grown to $1.32 million (you can verify this with a financial calculator). In addition, she has spent her free time building up a home–based business that sells unique collectibles over the Internet. Her small business earns her an additional in-come of $1300 a month. She may not drive a fancy car or wear a Cartier watch (she lives the Real Millionaire Lifestyle), but let’s see what her wealth is.

If Susan were to stop working today, she would still retain the $1,300 monthly passive income that her home–based business earns her. Since her monthly expenses total $4,000 a month (80% of her income), she would have a net outflow of $3,700 a month. With her $1.32 million in accumulated savings, she would be able to survive for 30 years! (This is assuming that she does not invest the $1.32 million she has prudently saved up!).

If Susan were to put her $1.32 million into a risk-free fixed deposit account earning interest of 4%, it would bring her an
additional interest of $52,800 per annum.

This means another source of passive income that rakes in $4,400 a month. So you can see how Susan can very comfortably go on forever without working another day in her life! Read The Four Financial Levels.

Can you now see that your wealth (i.e net worth) is not determined by how much you earn, rather, it is determined by how much you save and wisely invest. Even with just a middle class income, you could become a millionaire if you have enough financial intelligence, discipline and patience. I strongly recommend you to read The Nine Millionaire Habits from Adam Khoo, they transform you into a money magnet!

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Transform Your Blog Content Into Traffic Sucking Articles

May 29th, 2008

I believe that you have already known what is article marketing and how it works. If you don’t simply read through my previous article, The Benefits of Article Marketing. As you know, articles are very useful and they are very popular because the search engine spiders, ezine publishers, newsletter publishers, internet marketers and website owners need articles as their primary sources of content.

A really good article that informs the reader about a certain topic qualifies as fresh, quality content. Therefore if you can create quality articles you can easily get backlinks and traffic to your website. As a blog owner, creating quality articles for submission to the major article directories is very easy because your blog is already be filled with quality content!

So you see, as a blogger, you already have the content, what you need to do is just to re-write them, twist the idea and you will have a brand new, unique article. So all you really need to do is take the content from your blog and package it into 350-500 word articles complete with a catchy headline. This should realistically only take you a few minutes.

When you are writing articles, no matter for submitting to article directories, or you publish them in your own blog, there is one things you need to be aware of, the headline or article title that you are going to use. Make sure that the title of your articles are attention-grabber. If your title is boring, no people is going to click and read your article. Do you actually know what this means? It means that nobody reads your article and you have wasted your 30 minutes to write that wordy article. How are you going to feel then? So, you must always write a title that can attracts eyeballs.

A good headline provokes the readers attention and teases their curiosity. You can write a catchy headline by:

1. Using words like ‘secret,’ ‘discover,’ ‘important,’ ‘never before seen,’ ‘amazing,’ ‘incredible,’ ‘unbelievable,’ shocking truth,’ ‘how to,’ etc.

2. Asking a question like…
“Is it possible to….,’
‘Have you seen…,’
‘Why does…,’
‘When is…,’
‘Who is…,’
‘What you don’t know about…,’
‘Can you really…,’ etc.

Avoid writing headlines like these:
“Fiberglass Speaker Boxes”
“Internet Usage”
“Essentials of Broadband Routers”
“Legalities of Pollution”
“Innovative Floor Tile Ideas”
Instead, write headlines like these:
“Are Fiber Glass Speaker Boxes Really Worth The Money?”
“The Shocking Truth Behind Internet Usage!”
“What You Don’t Know About Broadband Routers”
“What Are The Legalities Of Pollution?”
“Have You Seen These Innovative Floor Tile Ideas?”

If you need more information about article titles, read this post of mine, Article Title Determines Your Article Views.

Here is a tip for you if you are writing articles for submission. Once you have succeeded in getting readers for your articles you then need to get the all important click through to your blog URL. This is very easy to do. Instead of submitting the entire article to the directories, split the article in two and submit only a portion of the article. In the resource box you would then write something like, “Part 2 Of This Article Can Be Found At www.yourblog.com” or “To View The Rest Of This Article, Please Visit My blog At www.yourblog.com.” Using a tagline like this instead of the usual “All Of This And More Can Be Found At…” kind of tag line practically forces the readers of your articles to click through to your blog.

So now you can see, it is easy to come up with content, all you need is just the effort and time to write that article. In fact, you already have all the content you need, you have to use your content wisely. This is the information age, people are willing to buy for information. The best example of information that is getting popular is this ‘internet marketing’ or ‘make money online’ market. People are willing to pay hundreds and some even thousands just to find out how they can make easy money online.

Therefore, try to transform your blog’s content into articles. This way, you can have both your blog posted with fresh and quality posts, and you will have extra articles for submission purposes. Want to learn how you can write articles in less than 30 minutes? Read this post of mine, How to Write an Article Fast in Less Than 30 Minutes.

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The Secret to Getting Started with Your Goals

May 28th, 2008

Someday…

It’s a pretty useful word – someday. It gives people the chance to put everything off until another day. ‘It will happen,’ they tell themselves, ‘but not right now.’ Unfortunately, it hardly ever works this way. Millions of people will tell themselves that a happier, more successful life will happen someday – but it never will. (Your Someday One Day Will Never Comes)

They’ll continue to put off the things they want to do with as they grow older and older, until the day comes when they run out of time. It’s a sad situation, but you know as well as I do that it’s true. Many people tend to use this ‘someday’ as their excuses whenever they did not achieve their goals.

Almost everyone, when you ask them why haven’t they achieve their goals, they will reply you with ‘It is just not the time, I will achieve it someday…’. This is the similar answer that you are going to get. You know that if you want to achieve your goals, you must avoid doing this. So what can you do to avoid this trap? Let’s find out.

It Is Time For A Wake Up Call…

To put it bluntly, this isn’t a dress rehearsal. Excuse the cliche, but it sums up the problem quite well. People treat life like they’re preparing for the ‘real’ thing. All of their someday’s keep adding up until an entirely new life is planned to take place somewhere down the road; the happy, successful life they’ve always dreamed about.

Until then, they drag through life looking forward to that magical ‘someday.’ Are you guilty of this? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s only natural to put off things that scare us, to sidestep goals that require us to leave our comfort zone and take a risk.

But now that you’re aware that it’s happening, you can’t let it continue. You have to realize the truth, but before we get to that, I have a question for you. Do you know what you want? It’s not always an easy thing to figure out. And I know how confusing and frustrating it can be to not know what you want and what will make you happy.

The Truth About Change

So here’s the situation: Millions of people are afraid to go after what they want because it would force them to stretch their comfort zones. To put themselves at ease and avoid taking the risk, they fool themselves into believing everything will all work out ‘someday.’

And the reason so many people believe it will all work out in the future is because of another seductive trap. They may be afraid to go for it right now, but this ‘someday’ they talk about is completely free of fear and worry. In other words, they’ve convinced themselves that a time will come when they won’t be afraid to go after their goals. (3 Action Keys Toward Your Goals)

Have you done this? Have you convinced yourself that the right feeling will hit you and you’ll live the life you’ve always wanted to live? Chances are good that you have, and that’s why we have to kill the myth with the truth… You will always, always, always feel out of your comfort zone when it comes to changing and improving your life, and that ‘special’ time when everything falls into place will never come.

Successful people aren’t lucky enough to be free of fear and worry; they move forward in spite of it. And this brings us to the main message I want you to take away from this issue.

What’s The Answer?

The time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do is right here, right now. This isn’t a practice run where you’ll get to rewind the clock when you’re ready to go for it. This is the real thing. And if you believe you can put them off until ‘someday,’ I guarantee that day will never come and you’ll regret it more than you know. An amazing life is within your reach, but if you don’t do something about it, you’ll never get to experience it.

You know I’m right. And I’m sure you’ve said these same things to yourself, but nothing really changed, did they? You know you should go for it, but knowing it isn’t enough to make things happen. So what’s the problem? Why haven’t things changed the way you always wanted them to?

The answer is motivation. In particular, the skill of getting yourself to take action. Did you know it was a skill? It’s true. You can actually learn how to develop and master the skill of getting motivated to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. The better you are, the easier it is to get yourself moving in the right direction. Just imagine how much your life would improve if you had the ability to create a powerful drive to act at the drop of a hat. Anything you wanted to be, do, or have would be yours.

You simply choose what you want and you’ll instantly feel driven to make it happen. You can have this ability, but only if you understand how it works. It’s a simple process, but one that very few people know about. But when they do, their lives are never the same. Read this interesting post, The #1 Ingredient For Success.

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The Millionaire Habit #9

May 26th, 2008

The final and one of the most important wealth habits is to…

Respect and Love Money

I don’t mean loving money to the extent that you are a slave to it, but but loving money for the good it can do for you and the people around you. Most people I share this with often respond by saying, “Well, of course I love money! Of course I respect money.” Who doesn’t? If I didn’t love money for what it can do, I wouldn’t be reading this article.

Well, there are many people who consciously desire to be rich and know that money is important. However, at a deeper level they may not realize that their subconscious mind either holds many limiting beliefs about money or associate lots of negative feelings towards money. These negative associates cause them to repel money and prevent them from becoming rich without even realizing it. Everything Starts From Your Mind.

Do you feel that although you consciously desire to be rich, but something holds you back? Have you experienced working hard to achieve your goals. However the moment you start getting results and seeing your wealth increase, you tend to go into the pattern of sabotaging it? Like the moment your bank account hits a certain amount, you start losing your motivation until the money dips below a certain level then you start working hard again?

It’s like your subconscious mind is preventing you from going beyond a certain level of wealth. I know of some friends who say that the moment they get a certain amount of money, they will tend to spend it away or lose it. If you are experiencing the same phenomenon, it is because subconsciously, your mind doesn’t want you to be rich. Again, its either because you have a lot of negative associations towards money or many limiting beliefs are holding you back.

As many of us grow up, we may unknowingly pick up many limiting beliefs and painful associations towards money from our family members, friends, teachers and relatives. Many people are taught that if they think about money or desire money, then they are being ‘money faced’ or’ money minded’.

As a result, their subconscious starts associating thoughts and desire for money as being a bad or evil. Have you been taught to believe this as well? Because many people who come from working class families see their parents working so hard for money, they subconsciously believe that working hard is the only way to make money. Their belief causes them to fail to realize that big money is from ideas and not just hard work. Your Beliefs Determine Your Success.

When they see $10 being offered for $2 they think that it must be some sort of trick or that they will be cheating. What they don’t realize is that there are opportunities like this everyday! Warren Buffett made his billions by buying companies at half of what they were really worth. He was buying $10 stocks for $2. Entrepreneurs make money by buying something a lot cheaper than what it is worth, re-packing it and sell it for ten times the price!

If you come from a poor or middle class family, there is a good chance that you may have been taught that ‘money isn’t everything’, ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’, ‘rich people are greedy’, ‘money is not important’, ‘if you have a lot of money then people will cheat you’, ‘investing is risky’, ‘money will change you’. As a result, your subconscious mind associates so much fear, hate and negative feelings towards money that it will stop you from ever becoming rich.

You may feel this inner power struggle inside you such that although you set your goals to become rich, but somehow, you sabotage your own success every time you achieve a certain level of wealth. Your inner mind won’t allow you to become rich as it would give you more ‘problems’ or make you into a ‘bad person’. However, you have to understand that your friends, parents or teachers may have taught you all these things because they probably thought they were passing on good advice.

Their parents and teachers probably taught it to them as well, and that is why they have never become rich. Very often, they also choose to believe all these negative things about money because it helps them to justify their own lack of money. When someone says, “Well… money isn’t all that important anyway”, they are just consoling themselves. When someone says, “I love my family and that’s why I have no time to make money”, they are just giving themselves justifications.

So, it is really important for you to stop for a while and really reflect about the inner feelings you have towards money. I know that consciously you respect and love money for what it can do, but I want you to set aside your pre-judgments and really think about the subconscious beliefs and feelings that you associate with money.

Only by adopting new empowering beliefs to your subconscious mind, you can then become a money magnet and attract tons of money to your bank account.

There you have it, the last millionaire habit that you have to practice. All thanks to my favorite wealth and success teacher, Adam Khoo. You should know that wealth comes from the inside, not outside. You will first need to have the million-dollar mindset before you can attract and make a lot of money. Therefore, I strongly recommend you to steal Adam’s Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires, it is the book that can change your life forever.

Adam Khoo

==> You can straight away download the complete version of The Nine Millionaire Habits here in PDF, without having to go all over my articles.

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Amazing Life Lessons From Warren Buffett

May 25th, 2008

Today, in this post, it is going to be a short one. However, it is going to be a very, very meaningful one. Last few days I received an email from a friend, and he sent me a file, it is about the real life lessons from the world’s richest man, Warren Buffett. I have gone through it, very interesting and very meaningful. You definitely have to learn from this amazing man.

Warren Buffett

I have uploaded it to my blog here, and you can download it through the link below:

http://www.themillionairesecrets.net/LessonFromBuffett.pps

Just click on it will do. Go through it, I believe that you will find it useful both in life and financially.

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How To Build A Blog That Wins Your Reader’s Heart

May 24th, 2008

Well, I have been blogging for quite some time now. I still remember that it was last year, May 2007, that I created this blog. Thinking back, it was already one year. So what have I learned from blogging? There are a lot of things that I have learned. Frankly speaking, I have a learn a lot about internet marketing and how to make money online. Which is most people’s favorite topic.

As for blogging itself, sometimes I will think that why is it that some blogs can get so many readers, tons of people are subscribing to their blogs and read every article the blogger posted. One of the great blog out there which I will recommend you to read is Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneur’s Journey. He has more than 20k of feed subscribers. Can you imagine that? Every time he posted something, more than 20k of people are going to read it.

Gosh, what makes his blog so great that everyone is rushing to read it? So, today, I’m going to tell you one BIG SECRET that is going to make your blog become a magnet. Your blog is going to attract tons of readers, and of course, win their heart. For me, this secret is the basic principle of blogging. It is this ‘secret’ that makes a blog, a blog. Without this principle, your blog will not be a blog, it will rather become an article bank or article directory.

I bet you already can guess what this big secret is. It is this…

Build Your Blog With Personality

If you really read through Yaro’s blog, you will find that every of his post is written in such a way that it seems like he is talking to you when you read it. Yes, this is the kind of personality that is going to win your reader’s heart. If you don’t believe me, just head to any of the article directories, and read one of the articles there. You will find this big difference, the personality in the article. I have an interesting article here, Blog As If You Are Talking To Your Friends.

Build Your Blog With Personality

Most of the time we will write something that seems like an article, which is more formal. But bear in mind that this is a blog. An online diary. You have to write it as if you are talking to your good friends. I found out that many people did not like to use these words like ‘you’ and ‘I’. Because in their mind, they thought that they are posting for hundreds of readers, they want to make it special and have more ‘power’ in their articles. Therefore, they use the word ‘we’ instead of ‘I’.

This makes your blog formal, and people will frame their mind in such a way that they are reading an article, and will not leave their comments. You make them forget that they are the most important asset of your blog! Readers, is the most important asset of your blog, if you don’t have any readers, no people will read your blog. This is a common sense. So, stop acting like a large faceless corporation, treat your readers as your friends.

Include Your Pictures If Possible

To make your blog even more personality, you can insert your own picture. Don’t be shy, this is a blog, just take a nice smiling face picture and upload it to your blog. If you notice, my top 3 recommendation blogs, Entrepreneur’s Journey, ProBlogger, and JohnChow, all three of them show their pictures in their blog. Why? Simply because they understand that if you want to attract readers and win their heart, you will have to be true to them, get close with them. How can you do this? Insert your own picture in your blog.

This way, you will seem like more friendly, and more approachable. You have to stand behind your blog, it is your blog that is going to make you money. So what if you can earn a few thousand dollars just by being more friendly with your readers? There is nothing wrong to it. Hence, always tell your readers who you are, and be honest with them.

This is my big secret of how you can build your blog that wins your readers’ heart. You should know that you have to act with integrity if you want to be successful with your blog. If you study the life experiences of all successful people out there, you will find that everyone of them often put honesty and integrity in the first place in conducting their business. They know that without honesty, your business won’t go long.

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The Millionaire Habit #8

May 23rd, 2008

All thanks to Adam Khoo, my favorite success and wealth teacher. Thanks to his book, Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires, only then you will be able to read this interesting articles.

So, the millionaire habit #8 is about…

The Ability To Accept Failure And To Turn It Into Success

Most people have the impression that successful people never fail and that millionaires never lose money. As a result, many people fear failure and shun those who have flopped. This is a huge lie and distortion that prevents people from becoming rich. The truth is that everybody fails at one point or another. In fact, millionaires fail more times than anybody else because they take so much more action. You have to Multiply Your Failures and You Will Succeed.

So mark my words, you will fail many times before you ever succeed. What’s important is what you do about failure. This is the critical habit that makes the difference between the rich and the poor. There are three ways people respond to failure. The first group of people get so disappointed by their failure that they just give up! They would say, “I tried it but I failed”. They see failure as the end of the game, as the final verdict that they are not meant to succeed.

They give themselves reasons like ‘Maybe I’m not good enough”, or “It is just too difficult”. Have you ever been guilty of doing this before? Sure enough, this way of responding to failure will see many dreams fade away. The second group does not give up that easily. When they reach their outcome, they would say, “Let me try again. Let’s not give up”. So they quickly get on their feet and try again. If their business fails, they go start another business. If they lose money investing in the stock market, they will go and try to buy different stocks. Will they eventually succeed? The answer is “No”.

Why? It is because this group may try and try again but they don’t change their strategy. They keep making the same mistakes, doing the same thing again and again. Sure enough, they keep getting the same disappointing results. So what happens after a while? They eventually get so frustrated and tired that they too will throw in towel. Some may even begin to accept mediocrity and fear to dream of anything better.

Success is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad judgment. Anthony Robbins

Millionaires approach and perceive failure very differently. When they don’t reach their goals, millionaires do not see themselves as having failed. Rather, they see themselves as getting a learning experience! To them, failure is not the end, but only a detour. They see it as feedback that they are not using the right strategy. They then take this feedback, learn from the experience and change they strategy!

If changing strategy does not get them the result, they will once again get more feedback, change their strategy and take action again. They keep doing this again and again until they get the results they want! They will do whatever it takes UNTIL they succeed. By doing so, they turn their failures into success! Your Fuel To Success, Commitment.

My policy is to learn from the past, focus on the present, and dream about the future. I’m a firm believer in learning from adversity. Often the worst of time can turn to your advantage, my life is a study of that! Donald Trump, after turning around his $935 million dept into a $3.7 billion fortune.

Very seldom do millionaires achieve their success on the first go. Many achieve their financial dreams only after countless learning experience and setbacks. However, many agree that if not for those ‘learning experiences’, they would never have found the solutions to their outcomes.

Sim Wong Hoo, the founder of Creative Technologies did not succeed until numerous business failures. His first idea was to develop and sell the Cubic CT, the world’s first multimedia PC. After spending countless of hours and hundreds of thousands of investment dollars on the product, it turned out to be a dismal failure. Instead of beating himself up and finding lots of excuses, he saw it as feedback that the market was just not ready for the product. It was just too expensive and complicated for its time.

Sim Wong Hoo

What did he do? He went back and changed his strategy. Eventually, after even more failures, he finally came up with the idea of a low cost sound card called “Sound Blaster”. And that one idea turned Creative Technologies into a billion dollar global company. You see, all you need is only ONE great idea that will make you your fortune. However, that ONE great idea hardly ever comes the first time around. It only comes after lots of bad ideas.

So can you see now? If you want to be a millionaire, then you will have to practice this habit, the ability to accept failure and turn it into success. If you are going to ask me which wealth books that I will recommend you, I will tell you it MUST BE Adam Khoo’s Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires without thinking much.

==> You can straight away download the complete version of The Nine Millionaire Habits here in PDF, without having to go all over my articles.

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The Millionaire Habit #7

May 21st, 2008

Let me ask you this question, “Do you want to be rich?”, “Of course, that’s why I’m reading this article!”, you may say. Let me ask you the next question, “Are you 100% committed to be rich?“.

You see, there is a very big difference between wanting to become a millionaire and being 100% committed to becoming a millionaire. When you merely want, wish or hope to achieve a goal, it will rarely happen. Think about it. Everybody wants to be financially free, but very few ever make it happen.

This is the millionaire habit #7 which you must adopt!

Be 100% Committed

Studies after studies have shown that people who achieve phenomenal success and wealth did not just want it, they were 100% committed to achieving it. When you are 100% committed to a goal, it is no longer a wish, a hope or a want… it becomes an absolute MUST. You see, when something becomes an absolute MUST to you, it gets you to operate from a totally different frame of mind.

Be 100% Committed

When something is a MUST, it will become your number one priority and nothing will ever come in its way until that goal is accomplished. When something is a MUST, you will do whatever it takes to get it (within limits of integrity of course). Even if it means stretching way beyond your comfort zone and investing time, energy or money, you will do whatever it takes. Read Your Fuel To Success, Commitment.

I believe that when you are willing to do whatever it takes to get something, you will always find a way. And if you cannot find a way, you will make a way. For example, when George Lucas (millionaire at 28 and creator of Star Wars) wanted to revolutionize film-making by creating the special effects required for the space battle scenes for Star Wars, the technology did not exist. Everybody told him that what he wanted to do couldn’t be done.

Instead of accepting the comfort of reality, his total commitment to making his dream come true was to set up his own company, Industrial Light and Magic to create the special effects required for his own movie. However, when you merely have a weak ‘wish’ or ‘hope’ for wealth, you will never attain it. Why? This is because the path to achieving any goal and creating wealth is never easy.

In fact, it is extremely challenging and difficult. I can bet you that when you begin on your path to financial freedom, there are going to be huge obstacles and challenges that will get in your way. All the problems that you can possibly think of will come to test your faith and endurance and to stretch you out of your comfort zone. You will find that at certain points of time, you will lack the money and lack the energy. You may encounter people discouraging you, friends leaving you and things not going as planned.

If it is merely a ‘wish’ that you have to become rich, chances are that you will eventually give up and find lots of excuses of why it cannot be done. This is because those that merely ‘wish’ for success are never willing to stretch beyond their comfort zones and do what ever it takes to overcome all their challenges. In addition, when something is merely a ‘want’, you will find that your mind will be filled by a dozen other ‘wants’ that will take away your time and attention.

After a while, you will find you will find yourself being distracted by other things that come your way. Has this happened to you before? So, the only way you will ever achieve your goals of becoming rich is to make it a MUST for yourself.

How To Make Your Goals A “Must”

The trouble is that becoming financially abundant is rarely a must for most people. It is merely a wish. However, it is always a must to survive… and that is why most people merely survive. So once again, to achieve all your financial goals, you have to make them a must for yourself. How do you make something a ‘must’? The answer is by putting yourself on the line. When you put yourself in the situation where you give yourself no choice BUT to succeed, you very often will.

If you study the life stories of millionaire history makers, many of them came to a point in their lives where they put themselves on the line and staked everything they had. And because they had NO CHOICE but to succeed, they often did it against insurmountable odds. Lack of drive after setting goals and procrastinate? Read 3 Action Keys Toward Your Goals.

The only reason that the movie Star Wars came to existence is because George Lucas was 100% committed to making his dream come true. Many people have the perception that Lucas was just a genius who was fortunate enough to dream up this naturally successful movie. If you read about the history of Star Wars, you would know that up to the day of its release, everyone believed that it would be a major flop, including the actors!

During the production, anything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong! At the end of sixteen weeks of filming everyone had every reason to believe it would fail. The movie had grossly exceeded the initial budget, it had overrun the filming schedule, the special effects unit could not create the desired effects and everyone had the opinion that it was a kiddy movie.

As a result, 20th Century Fox studios wanted to pull the plug and gave Lucas three days to finish 2 weeks of work that was lost. What made things worse was that Lucas suffered severe chest pains in the middle of all this and was warded for severe stress and exhaustion. Most directors would have given up and cut their losses, knowing that it was impossible to achieve it all in three days.

If Star Wars had been a ‘wish’, it would have failed there and then. But to Lucas, it was a must… he would do everything to make it happen. Lucas hired a triple crew, divided the stage into three sets and directed three scenes concurrently. Three days later, Star Wars was delivered and the rest in history. By the end of its first theatrical run, Star Wars became the most successful film in North American history. It grossed a total of $290 million and George Lucas‘ cut from the box office was more than $50 million.

As a teenager, Lucas set a goal of becoming a millionaire at the age of thirty. He was off by two years; Lucas made his millions by the age of 28. When it came time to making the sequels ‘Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’, Lucas rejected the money offered by Fox studios. He was so committed to making the sequels an even bigger success, that he took what he earned from his first film and fully financed Empire Strikes Back for $18 million (Millionaire Habit #4 – Delayed Gratification).

Everyone thought he was crazy as the number one rule as a moviemaker in Hollywood is to ‘never use your own money, even if it is your own film’. His belief and commitment paid off. The next 5 Star Wars films generated revenues of over $20 billion and today, George Lucas has amassed a personal fortune of close to $3 billion.

George Lucas

Well, you don’t necessarily have to risk all your money like George Lucas to get totally committed to your goal. There are other ways of putting yourself on the line. You can put yourself on the line by making public commitments. Whenever you set a goal, announce it to everyone because you know that the moment you do so, there would be no turning back. You had to make it happen!

Interesting article? Feeling motivated and excited now? All thanks to Adam Khoo, this article is sponsored by Adam Khoo’s Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires. This is a wealth book that I will strongly recommend to anyone who is serious about building their wealth. If you are truly 100% committed to become a millionaire, then this book is meant for you. Steal Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires while you can.

==> You can straight away download the complete version of The Nine Millionaire Habits here in PDF, without having to go all over my articles.

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The Millionaire Habit #6

May 20th, 2008

Many people have the perception that the fabulously rich and powerful are dishonest and unethical. And who can blame them after hearing stories of how millionaire executives rip off their shareholders in scandal after scandal on Wall Street? Think about Enron, China Aviation Oil, WorldCom, ACCS, REFCO and the list goes on.

Certainly, there are unethical and unscrupulous rich people around (incidentally, their wealth and business rarely last), but the truth is that most self-made millionaires share a common habit of personal integrity. Interestingly, in the best-selling book ‘The Millionaire Mind’, author Thomas Stanley interviewed 733 multi-millionaires and asked them what were the key factors that contributed to their wealth. Ranked number one was ‘being honest with people‘.

Surprised? This factor was ranked way ahead of factors like ‘making wise investments’, ‘working hard’ and ‘having a competitive spirit’. What is integrity and why is it so important to long-term wealth?

I guess now you know what is the millionaire habit #6, it is…

Acting With Integrity

These teachings are from Adam Khoo‘s book, Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires. As you may already know, Adam Khoo is a young, self-made millionaire from Singapore. He is my favorite wealth teacher. That is why I strongly recommend anyone who are serious in building massive wealth in their life should buy his book, Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires. Think about it, by only investing a small portion of your money, you will learn all about wealth building, start from your mind until you build a successful wealth fortress.

Integrity is about being honest with others and adhering to high moral standards. It is also about doing what you say you will do. When you act with integrity, your customers, colleagues and staff will place their trust in you. They know that you mean what you say and that you will not let them down. They know that you will give them the best quality for their money and they know that you will not cheat them.

It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently. -Warren Buffet, world’s richest man.

In a world where so many people are unethical and dishonest, build your reputation on integrity and you will have an endless supply of customers, suppliers, investors and business partners. One of Singapore’s multi-millionaire Vikas Goel, Founder and CEO of eSys Technologies, arrived in Singapore without a dollar, but managed to build a global billion-dollar company in five years.

Vikas Goel

Vikas Goel, Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the year awards. Click here to read more.

How did he do it? Where did he get the money to get started? Initially he worked at a company called Karma. When the recession hit in the late 1990s, Karma‘s parent company collapsed. Instead of waiting to be retrenched, Goel took the proactive step (Millionaire Habit #2) of undertaking a management buyout of the Singapore unit. In order to keep the business going, he persuaded his customers to pay him in advance so that he could use the money to buy the products from his suppliers.

The only reason his customers agreed was because Goel had built up his reputation as an honest and trustworthy man while dealing with them in the past. A few months later, he bumped into his old boss at Sim Lim Square. When he told his ex-employer that he was running out of money to sustain the business, Goldkist gave him $300,000 simply because he knew that Goel was a man who would never run away with his money.

This is the power of building a reputation of trust and honesty. That was not all. Goel also happened to meet up with an old friend and ex-customer in Sim Lim Square. When he asked for help, his ex-customer wired $1 million into his Seagate account so he could buy goods from Seagate.

As you can see now, integrity is above everything else. So, always act with integrity and you will possess one of the greatest strengths of all.

==> You can straight away download the complete version of The Nine Millionaire Habits here in PDF, without having to go all over my articles.

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What Is Your Blog’s Mission?

May 18th, 2008

If you notice, every successful bloggers out there have their own mission for their blogs. For example, they know exactly what kind of results their blog is going to achieve in a certain period. That is why all the big companies out there have their own ‘mission and vision’. Only if you have a mission, you will stay focused and achieve it.

If you don’t have a mission, there is nothing for you to hit for. Therefore, to build a successful blog, you must set mission for your blog. What is it that your blog is going to achieve in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, or maybe 5 years? You have to know all these if you are serious about blogging.

Vision and Mission

One of the killer mistakes that make so many bloggers out there fail is that they don’t have a clear plan. They don’t know what they need to do with their blogs. All they know is that they have to keep on posting. Let me tell you this…

If You Fail To Plan, You Plan To Fail

So first thing first. Plan for what goals you want your blog to achieve. Is it that you want your blog to have 100 daily readers in 30 days? Or maybe 1,000 daily readers? This is what I called, your blog’s mission. You have to know whatis your blog’s mission, only then you can stay focused and you KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO with your blog.

Many people did not know what they want to achieve from their blogs, that is why they don’t know what they should do for their blog. Soon enough, they will give up because they thought that blogging is their hobby and they can make money from it. In the end, they give up because they don’t have the drive and motivation to keep on going on anymore.

Why? Simply because blogging is not their hobby! They have the wrong thought. Your blog’s mission must be corresponded with what you love to do. Many people thought that blogging is what they love to do, wrong. What makes them to have this wrong thinking is because they have the wrong perception about blogging. They thought that blogging is suitable for them and they can make money while telling people about what they love.

In fact, what they love is this, instant money. They see other bloggers are doing great and earning from their blogs, so they wanted to do the same. What they did not know is that those successful bloggers devote their life to blogging, they love blogging. Successful bloggers will keep on continue to blog even if they did not profit from their blog. This is the main difference between a successful blogger and an ordinary one. So will you still keep on blogging if you know that for the next 6 months you are not going to earn any money from it?

Do You Need To Blog Everyday To Be Successful?

Once you have your mission, and you are serious about it, do you need to spend time finding content to blog? Not necessary. If you really love to blog, and you have all the time, just go for it. You can blog every single day. However, what I want to let you know is this, you don’t need to post every single day in order to make you a successful blogger. If you have no idea about posting frequency, read this, How Often Should You Post In Your Blog?

The best example I can give is Yaro Starak. He did not post everyday. Because for him, blogging is part time. He did loves to blog, but not to the extent that blogging becomes his job. That is why he is only blogging for part time. Still, he managed to build a successful blog.

Of course if you don’t write articles you won’t get traffic but as long as you post something interesting, creative, practical or valuable every once and a while your blog readership will increase. People that like your work will look forward to it regardless of how frequently you post. A little anticipation is a good thing.

When you start to post regularly, not hourly or daily but at least weekly people adjust their expectations accordingly. Remember you don’t owe anyone anything when you blog. Blogging is only about putting in as much effort as is required to meet your goals.

If you post new articles six times a day people will start to expect it from you. You will start to expect it from yourself and blogging will feel like a job because of pressures to publish a certain amount of new content each day. It is fine to post everyday if you feel like it. This is your blog, not your job. So be flexible with your job. If you are running out of topics to blog, go through these 5 tips.

Always Adjust Your Blog’ Mission

I know that even though you have your own blog’s mission, but for most people, they will not achieve their mission in the first attempt. So my suggestion is, always adjust your blogging mission to always reach your goals. If you spend 1 hours writing quality content every day but still you can’t achieve your mission, then change the strategy.

Maybe you can post for one day, and market your blog the next day. Not everyone can achieve what they want the first time. It is through many trial and error, actually, it is the feedback that help you to achieve your goals. Don’t you think so? if Thomas Edison did not failed more than 10,000 times, do you think that he will find the right material for his invention?

The same goes to Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, they train everyday just to discover more ‘feedback’, and it is the feedback that makes them more perfect in their game. It is the same for blogging. You have to find out what works and what doesn’t. Then change your strategy and go all out again. There is always smarter way to build a successful blog. Want to profit from your blog? Just follow these 6 steps to build a profitable blog.

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