Top Ten Videos on 2008

We have featured some unbelievable stories throughout the past year in our newsletters. There have also been some general feel-good videos that raise your vibration and put you in a state of positivity and productivity.

We have compiled our Top 10 list on the following page for your viewing.

Enjoy:

Link Here

Jack Canfield - Never Give Up

Another brilliant story and message from one of the icons of success today, Jack Canfield.

If youre just about ready to kick that dream of yours to the curb, Jack Canfield can understand your pain. He and his business partner schlepped their stupid idea - the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book to more than 180 publishers before they got one guy to agree to print the book. Listen in as Jack offers experienced tips and advice on staying on track past objections, really big blockades and people who laugh out loud at you.

From Homeless Drug User to Millionaire

As a teen, Bob Williamson 'got all hung up in drugs and all that nonsense.' Decades of hard work later, his company has 173 employees and sales of $26 million a year.

When Bob Williamson left home at 17, he lived on the streets and did time for heroin possession. But he pulled himself together, got a job and eventually began his own business as a manufacturer of art supplies.

In 1993, Williamson started a company to develop software for cafeterias. Horizon Software International today supplies more than 15,000 schools, colleges and universities, and has annual sales of $26 million. Meal payments are made online, and parents can monitor what their kids eat at school.

Horizon, based in Atlanta, also sells to hospitals, retirement communities, big corporations and, soon, U.S. military bases around the globe -- "wherever," Williamson says, "large numbers of people need to be fed."

Williamson, 61, recently told his story to Inc.com's Andrew Park:
My childhood was tough. My father was in the Air Force. We moved around a lot. When I graduated from high school, I got all hung up in drugs and all that nonsense. I slept on the side of the road; I stayed in missions; I didn't have anything to eat. I fought a lot. I was in jail lots and lots of times.

I had been told all my life that I was worthless and would never amount to anything. I hitchhiked from New Orleans to Atlanta. I had only one change of clothes, and I didn't know anybody. My first job was cleaning mortar off bricks with a hatchet for $15 a day. Not long after that, I had a head-on collision and very nearly was killed. While I was in the hospital I read the Bible and became a Christian. After that I met my wife. We've been married 37 years

I went to work for a paint company called Glidden. I had the worst job in the company: I was in charge of the label room, a caged-in area in the basement. But I was promoted eight times in two years to the point where I was managing special projects. I knew a lot of the chemists and taught myself about the chemistry of paint. In my spare time, I was a wildlife artist. There wasn't a good airbrush paint on the market. Everybody was using automotive lacquers. I spent about two years developing one for myself. I'd go to an art show and take my entire inventory. People lined up out of the door. Within about six months, I had distributors and customers all over the country.

I started Wildlife Artist Supply in 1977. I went from my basement to my garage to a little building. Then I went to a 50,000-square-foot warehouse. And I didn't just sell paint. We had a thick catalog, 6,000 or 7,000 items for artists, primarily mail order. It was everything you could imagine: brushes, compressors, clay. I started a magazine to teach people how to do wildlife art. We also founded the World Taxidermy Championships.

In 1988, I made a deal to take the company public. We were going to develop my business into a company like L.L. Bean. My customers were hard-core sportsmen. We were selling wildlife art supplies, so we could have just as easily sold them hunting and fishing stuff.

The next day, my controller turned in his notice. And then a whole bunch of other people quit. I discovered that all of our financial records had been destroyed, and we were $1 million in debt and $278,000 overdrawn at the bank, and my inventory was decimated. It was like a nightmare. I spent two years trying to make him pay. To this day, there's never been anybody but a Williamson reconciling our bank accounts.

There are only so many artists in the world. I wanted to get into something that didn't have any limits. My sons were very gifted in computer technology, and they wanted to start a software company. I had a couple of programmers who worked for me. We had written all this software. The best was our warehouse and distribution package. I had been using it for years in my own stuff. We decided to try selling it. I thought it would be like the paint: I'd just go out there and introduce myself, distributors would pick it up, and I'd be home free. Well, I had a rude awakening. When those big boys are in there, they just stomp you. I realized I had to have a niche.

A rep who worked for me also sold systems to school lunchrooms. I went with him on one of his calls and found out that in the schools there wasn't a system like ours, and there was a tremendous need for it. So I modified my warehouse and distribution system so it would work in cafeterias. The market was too small to attract those big guys, but it was big enough for me. There are 14,000 districts, 97,000 schools. It was a really big opportunity. It seemed unlimited. Everybody's got to eat.

I hired salespeople, but they couldn't sell anything. I told my wife, "I might just do it myself." I had always detested sales and salespeople. But I found out that's what I'm really good at. I went in and told food-service directors how they could save money. They were doing everything manually, and I showed them all the things that our software could do. Within two weeks I had my first order. Then I went to another one, and I went to another one, and pretty soon I had all of Georgia. So I became our chief salesperson. You wouldn't believe how I could sell. I could sell firewood in hell.

It wasn't like I was real flush with cash. Pretty much all my career I was undercapitalized. I borrowed on my home equity and loaded up my credit cards. We started with three or four people, in 1993, and each year we would either double or triple in size. Now we have 173 employees and sales of $26 million.

We ended up developing an A-to-Z software system for managing school food services: warehousing and tracking inventory and sales. For a long time I didn't have any competition. I started looking at other markets. We developed software for colleges and universities and then hospitals and senior living communities. Whoever feeds a lot of people, that's who we go to. We have more than 15,000 installations.

In 2005, we got a $10 million deal with the U.S. military. I worked five years on that deal. Our technology will be in every dining facility worldwide for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Every land base, ship, submarine and remote battlefield.

It's my goal to get junk food out of the schools. Oranges instead of Snickers bars. We've developed technology so kids can buy healthful items from vending machines on their prepaid accounts. And we have software so parents can go online and view what their kids ate that day. I want to help kids make the right nutritional choices. We've got all this technology and all these schools, and we ought to be able to have an impact.

Robin Sharma

This video is an excerpt from a live presentation by Robin Sharma. He is best known for his book "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari." In this video, Sharma discusses the personal power that comes with maintaining a commitment to personal excellence.

Concentrated Effort

Do you feel overwhelmed at times by the sheer number of things you’re managing? Do you find yourself running so fast that you just wish the world would slow down? Has “busy” taken on new meaning leaving you wondering, “is this all life is about, just getting stuff done?”

Perhaps this way of life is what you’ve gotten used to. Over the years you’ve added new people, places and responsibilities to your schedule and your life without removing anything. Now you find yourself overextended.

In my coaching work with clients, I often use the analogy of digging holes. People tend to dig a hundred holes, one foot deep. They have their hands in so many things; they are all over the place. And because there is only so much time and energy in a 24-hour period, their relationships and their commitments are superficial at best – one foot deep. There is only so much time and energy they can give to each of the hundred things they have
going.

Living this way has its benefits: you might feel important. You might feel good about having so many interests. You might even enjoy the feeling of being busy sometimes; it gives you a “rush” running on adrenaline all day. It might serve you to run all over the place if you are running from yourself: from past hurts, from current pain, from loneliness. But the fact is that you go with you everywhere you go and the hurt remains, even if it is buried underneath the superficiality of your life...

Read the rest of the article HERE

The Courage - Les Brown

In this inspirational video, Les Brown discusses the power of courage and how having the courage to life your dream life will in fact GIVE you life. It will give you a sense of power and meaning. Listen to Les with an open mind and heart. He is truly a master motivator.

Justin Live at John Assaraf's Event

Last week, my good friends Gail and Sherri from The Phenomenal View hosted the 4th event in a 4-part speaker series featurng Jack Canfield, Mike Lipkin, Lisa Nichols and John Assaraf. Ignite was a proud sponsor of the event as well!

Since John's work has had such a big impact on my life and my business, I decided to put together a video recap of the event along with some of the key lessons learned. I strongly encourage all readers of this newsletter to look into John Assaraf's work, it is life changing material.

Living With Purpose

MARCH 2006 Mark Victor Hansen interviews Wayne Dyer in this fascinating audio program. From the days when Mark carried Wayne’s books 30 years ago to the creation of Wayne’s latest book, Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling, this interview provides a rare glimpse of two great men sharing an evening together.

Audio Interview

Martel Van Zant

Martel Van Zant is a cornerback for Oklahoma State University. Football is a dangerous sport and players need to use their senses to make sure they stay safe. You need to be aware of where you are on the field and where everyone else is.

This is especially important for Van Zant who has to work even harder because he is deaf. Van Zant did not have the kind of attitude where you fold under the circumstances. He doesn't focus on what he doesn't have, he focuses on all the gifts he does have. That focus and attitude have helped him reach an elite level of football. Check out his story below.

You Need an Attitude Adjustment - Bob Proctor

Victor Frankl once wrote, “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one’s attitudes in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Frankl was right. Attitude is a choice. You could be faced with a thousand problems, many or most over which you have absolutely no control. However, there is always one thing in which you are in complete and absolute control, and that is your own attitude.

When you surrender control of your attitude to what appears to be a negative situation, you will react to that situation. More often than not, reacting is inappropriate. On the other hand, if you were to remain objective, you would respond to the situation appropriately, thereby creating a winning situation.

If attitude is such an important word, why do so few people understand it? To be honest, it wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I finally understood its full impact. All through my teens and into my early adult life, I can’t tell you the number of times that I heard, “Bob, if you’d just change your attitude, you would do a lot better.” In retrospect I can easily see the cause of my problem. I didn’t know what attitude was, let alone know how to change it!

Attitude is the composite of your thoughts, feelings and actions. Your conscious mind controls feeling and ultimately dictates whether your feelings will be positive or negative by your choice of thoughts; then your body displays those choices through action and behavior.

Attitude is actually a creative cycle that begins with your choice of thoughts. You do choose your thoughts and that choice is where your attitude originates. As you internalize ideas or become emotionally involved with your thoughts, you create the second stage in forming an attitude; you move your entire being - mind and body - into a new “vibration.” Your conscious awareness of this vibration is referred to as “feeling.” Your feelings are then expressed in actions or behaviors that produce the various results in your life.

Positive results are always the effect of a positive attitude. Attitude and results are inseparable. They follow one another as night follows day. What I mean by that is: one is the cause, the other, the result. There is a term we use to distinguish this “cause and effect” relationship. It is called The Law of Cause and Effect. Simply stated, if you think in negative terms, you will get negative results; if you think in positive terms you will achieve positive results. Ralph Waldo Emerson reiterated that same point when he said, “A person is what they think about all day long.” The results you achieve in life are nothing more than an expression of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Take a close look at your life and evaluate the results you are achieving in various areas. See if you are able to relate your attitude to your results.

Winning and losing are opposite sides of the same coin – and that coin is attitude. There are many things wrong in this world; unfortunately that is all some people are able to see. Those who view the world in this light are often unhappy and somewhat cynical. Usually, their lives are ones of lack and limitation and it almost appears as if they move from one bad experience to another. I know people who are like this and I am certain you do as well. It would appear as if they had been born with a streak of bad luck that had followed them around their whole lives. These individuals are quick to blame circumstances or other people for their problems, rather than accepting responsibility for their lives and their attitudes.

Conversely, there are others who are forever winning and living the good life. They are the real movers and shakers who make things happen. They seem to go from one major accomplishment to another. They are in control of their lives; they know where they are going and know they will get there. They are the real winners in life and their wins are a matter of choice.

You can experience that kind of life as well; you only need to decide. Making that simple decision is the first step to a new life. Dorothea Brand once said, “Act as if it were impossible to fail,” and I challenge you to do so. By simply becoming aware that you can choose your thoughts each and every day, you will change your entire outlook. You have the power to choose an abundant life no matter your circumstances. That active choice will allow other positive people and opportunities to be attracted into your life. Don’t wait to experience all the wonderful things the universe has in store for you. Start today by working on your attitude and welcome the abundant life that you were meant to lead.

Bob Proctor is widely regarded as one of the living masters and teachers of The Law of Attraction. Featured in the blockbuster hit, The Secret, Proctor has worked in the area of mind potential for over 40 years, is the best-selling author of You Were Born Rich, and has transformed the lives of millions through his books, seminars, courses and personal coaching.

© LifeSuccess Productions www.bobproctor.com

John Assaraf and Murray Smith on Donny Deutsch Big Idea

John in the hot deat with Donny talking about how to be successful as an entrepreneur and how we are literally programmed at a neurological level to achieve certain results in our life. Great Stuff!

John Assaraf and Murray Smith on Donny Deutsch Big Idea
by blumcorey

5 Myth's About Change - John Assaraf

Myth: Crisis is a powerful reason for change.

Reality: In a recent study, ninety percent of patients who’ve had quadruple heart bypass surgery continued to live a lifestyle that would worsen their condition and threaten their lives.

If you won’t change despite a life and death decision, then what?

Solution: Most people use “will power” and “persistence” to make the changes they want or need thinking that they are doing the best they can. After all that’s what we were taught.

Although it’s a gallant effort, we now know that permanent change takes reconditioning the brain to a new way of thinking and behaving. According to scientists, it takes approximately 30 days of daily reconditioning to create the new “neural networks” that are needed for long-term permanent changes in a person, before you can expect your business or life to get better, and stay that way.

It took time to create your beliefs and habits and it takes time to get rid of the ones that don’t serve you.

Myth: Change is motivated by fear or loss.

Reality: Absolutely not true! People almost always go into automatic denial of the bad things that might happen to their business or themselves no matter what the potential severity of their decisions and consistent actions are. It’s as natural as breathing for us to wait till the absolute last minute to change.

Solution: Creating compelling, positive visions of the future with a viable plan or solution is one of the best ways to inspire long term and permanent change. You must get emotionally involved with why you must change and then follow your plan. If you have a big enough reason to change, you may be more serious than if it’s just convenient. Having a buddy to help you is also a great way to ensure you follow through. In addition, create an environment around you to help support any new changes you seriously want to make and keep.

Myth: Facts are what we need to help us makes changes in our lives.

Reality: Our thinking is guided by our internal stories, narratives and habits of thought, not facts. When a new fact doesn’t fit our current internal map of reality—which we use to make sense of the world—we automatically reject it. Change is best achieved when emotions are involved and invoked quickly, not facts.

Solution: If you seriously want to make significant gains in any area of your life or business, you must get emotionally charged regardless of the doubt, fear, obstacle or size of your goal. Emotions are the brains fuel for making your goals a reality and as mentioned above, get support to help you along the way.

Myth: Gradual and small changes are the best way to go to achieve your desired goals or outcomes.

Reality: Radical, fast, and severe changes are often easier to sustain because of the quick results one derives. We thrive on fast gains and will do a lot to sustain them. When we see that our efforts have paid of fast, we are 100% more likely to continue vs slower to see results.

Solution: Make a specific decision on what you want to achieve and go full out executing a well thought out plan. Make sure you get the support you need to sustain the changes during and beyond the 30-day mark. And remember the change MUST happen on the inside first or it will be very short-lived.

Myth: We can’t change because are genetically predisposed to certain thoughts and have become “hardwired” early in life and have to many bad habits to change.
Reality: The latest findings suggest that only 50% of our “hard wiring” is genetically based and that our brains have extraordinary “plasticity” that can be molded and plied in new ways throughout our lives. We have the ability to grow complex new “neural networks” very fast that can help us create a new reality for our business and life no matter how young or old we are.

Solution: We can rewire our brains by creating new beliefs of what is possible for us to achieve. You can create new beliefs using affirmations, visualization techniques and meditation. You must then act upon our desired goals as if your life depended on getting great results regardless of the doubts or fears that we feel due to your old conditioning or past results.

Farther Than The Eye Can See

An intimate look inside one of the most successful Mount Everest expeditions ever. Blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer scales the massive mountain.

Is Your Marketing as Fresh as Madonna's?

'Touched for the very first time'

Call it what you want, but few pop stars and fewer businesses have understood the intricacies of Madonna's genius of reinvention and the inevitable end of the business cycle. Learn from the branding expert.

While Madonna soars, everyone else seems to stumble, bumble and disappear down a deep, dark hole.

So, what is it about Madonna Incorporated that has allowed it to consistently reap profits for over 18 years on the trot? And is there something we in business can learn about branding from the chameleon of pop music?

What Madonna Learned from Houdini
Gasp! That's what the audience would do, every time Harry Houdini cheated apparent death. Except that death was a deliberate stroke of genius to keep the name of Houdini alive forever.

Madonna seems to have used the same bag of tricks. Reinventing herself in almost clockwork fashion, she has transmogrified herself successfully into virgin, material girl, boy toy, dominatrix, media maven to working mom. And made big bucks all the way.

Out with the Cabbage, In with the Tomatoes!

Bring out the fertiliser, Madonna's here!

With green-fingered precision and lots of tender loving care, she plays along with Mother Nature. In every phase, Madonna has realised that things change with the season and accordingly dug deep to replant new shoots.

Summer plants die. Shrivel, shrivel, it's a fact of life. You can whine and whimper but if you understand the basis on which Mother Nature works, you can pretty much put it to work in your own business.

Most businesses experience growth both intellectually and physically, yet every business seems to run on summer growth. Never changing, never evolving, they hope Jack Frost will give them a wide berth when the cold days roll along. That doesn't always happen and when the business peters down, it's let's blame the economy time, when all they've done is failed to plan for the end of a business cycle.

Take for instance a big law firm in Auckland, New Zealand. Lots had changed within the firm. It had grown considerably over the years and believed that its outdated logo was the hallmark of the firm.

Simple research showed otherwise. The clients hated it. Fuddy-duddy, they called it. Yet, it had nothing to do with the law firm. The partners and the lawyers were as competent as ever, if not more than before. A simple logo change, some internal and external fix-its and Voila, they could do little wrong!

It had nothing to do with the firm or the quality of its lawyers. They had simply failed to track public opinion that had gone against them. Once they realised it, they could mend it. Once they fixed the logo (among other things), they were reborn.

Replant the Garden, Don't Chop the Trees!

Are we suggesting you reinvent the wheel? Madonna doesn't think so. Like a hardcore brand specialist, Madonna has actually stuck to her brand like glue.

If you look carefully, she stands for RADICALISM. Everything she's done has taken her one step higher on that scale. Every time someone screamed blue murder, Madonna was in the thick of it. She hacked the lawn, and replanted all the flowers choosing shocking pinks and bright orange, understanding all the time that it stayed in line with her true brand image.

Coke, too, tried to reinvent itself, but failed miserably. Why? Because Coke owns the word classic. People loved their Coke. It was owned by us sugar-water drinkers and no one, not even Coca Cola Inc., was going to change it. In short, that's why they failed.

Yet Coke has reinvented itself in several other ways. Its packaging has gone from sexy bottle to cans and then to 2 litre PET bottles without much drama.

It has reinvented convenience, much like McDonalds reinvented their snack to combo lunch. Realising that customers were after a better deal and their accountants were after better profits, the combo managed to put gigantic smiles on both faces simultaneously.

Let's face it. It's not just about reinvention. It's about realising WHICH PART of your business needs to be reinvented and then having the common sense to leave the rest alone.

Don't Reinvent the Goodyear!

Chinese gooseberries were going nowhere till they were renamed Kiwi fruit. With this re-baptism of sorts, this humble, nondescript looking fruit somehow took on the flavour of an exotic, lush green country. The reinvention wasn't earth-shaking; the results were.

Madonna does just that. While her radicalism has seen an outward change in every avatar, the core change isn't overly dramatic or complex. Every reinvention has caused her to add bold yet simple colour to her garden.

Too many marketing people change twenty things all at once. Confused customers don't care. Gradual progression they can handle and want. Dramatic change scares the heck out of them, often causing them to switch brands suddenly and permanently.

Even hardcore Madonna fans found the leap from music to movies too complex. She flipped and flopped her way through the popcorn aisles and came out triumphant on the Evita side. Yet, you'd prefer Julia Roberts to do the drama bit instead of doing a Grammy number, wouldn't you?

Simple snip-snaps you and I understand. Which is why even Einstein kept it down to E=mc2 despite reinventing everything science stood for.

Can You Carry it Off?

Hey, Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but he just didn't have Madonna's figure and he'd look crappy as a blonde. Which is pretty much the crux of the issue. If you don't have the ability to carry it off, you don't. Not at least in the glare of the spotlight.

Madonna's outward reinvention is her most dramatic feature, but at the same time she's plugging away at her new spiritualism and lifestyle and hopefully it reflects in the lyrics as well.

Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards.

Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation

Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.

Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?

At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.

How Does your Garden Grow?

For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main areas that you need to look at are:

1) Your Communication: Logos, Newsletters, Emails, etc. Do they really meet your clients' needs? Have you got so busy doing things that you've forgotten to reflect your true worth to your clients?

2) Your Customer Loyalty: Are you stretching these parameters? Are they getting less or more loyal? If yes, why? If no, why not? What do you need to reinvent and re-analyse? And do you have a customer loyalty program at all?

3) Your Failure Analysis: This is a biggie. If you're not analysing and welcoming failure, you're going to be stuck on your island for so long, that you'll sink once global warming gets worse. If you want to double your success rate, you've got to double your failure.

The Key to Reinvention is Simple

a)You've got to die a thousand deaths and come out on the other side. b)Simplicity is the key.
c)Your brand image is money in the bank. Don't ever change it.
d)Wear the mini only if you can carry it off. Remember there's a market for minis and gowns simultaneously.

While you're reading, Madonna will be hard at work on the next step. Isn't it time you got to work too?

©2001-2009 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.Article written by Sean D'Souza.

Matt DiMaio - Instant Concentration

An interesting lecture about focus and how to develop your ability to concentrate. The video is not the highest quality but definitely worth a view!

Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith

I have some friends who have had the pleasure of seeing Michael Beckwith speak and they have all been blown away by his knowledge, sincerity and passion for empowering others. This is an interesting interview that was conducted by CBS. He does a great job backing up his teachings and explaining them in a clear, concise way.

How Thoughts Affect Feelings

by Jerry Waxler

Our thoughts have a profound affect on our emotions, and by learning how to think in our own best interest, we improve our emotional condition. We may not realize our thoughts affect our feelings. Most of us assume it's the other way around; that our feelings come first and our thoughts naturally follow. But as we watch the relationship between thoughts and feelings we begin to recognize that the influence works both ways. For example, our thoughts may habitually emphasize first and foremost the discouraging side of every situation, or compulsively predict a catastrophe at the end of every pleasant moment. Such gloomy thinking drags our feelings into the dumps.

The fact that thoughts affect feelings is good news, because we can review our thoughts, talk about them, compare them with other people's thoughts, decide if we agree or disagree with our own thoughts, and so on. We don't have anywhere near as much access to our emotions as we have to our thoughts.

The part of our brain that gives us the ability to think, called the prefrontal cortex, is what makes the human brain so specialized, and distinguishes us from other animals. By using our thoughts to refine and guide our emotions we are maximizing our human potential.
But while it's possible to change thoughts, it's not easy. We've been under the influence of our thoughts for so long that we're not aware of the general tone of our thinking, nor do we realize we have choices. Even when we begin to notice the connection between our thoughts and feelings, we may not believe we can change them.

Time for change
To change the things we think, we must expose them to conscious scrutiny. Keeping a journal exposes what we are thinking, and enables us to more deeply understand our own thoughts and to make conscious decisions about them. Talking to a counselor also helps us recognize old patterns and consider new options.

Elaborate trap of habitual thinking patterns
As we learn more about our thinking patterns, we realize our thoughts can trap us into strong negative emotions. For example, it is common to blame another person's behavior for our own feelings. We might say to ourselves that the other person "makes us depressed" or "upsets us." Cognitive therapy helps us reframe our thoughts to realize that the other person doesn't magically control our feelings. We make ourselves depressed through our own beliefs.

When we look more closely at our beliefs about other people we realize that we often expect them to place us at the center of their world. We learned to think in these magical terms when, as children we believed we were the center of the universe, and we expected our parents to know our needs and give us what we wanted. These, and other childish beliefs, persist unchallenged into our adult life, continuing to disturb us, until we take the time to root them out and correct them.

For example, we may have formed the notion that another person is supposed to know what we want, and then is supposed to behave accordingly. This belief sets us up to become upset and troubled when the other person doesn't behave in the way we expected. By saying the other person upset us, we give all the power to the other person. Upon closer consideration we realize that we were upset by our own belief about the other person's behavior, rather than the behavior itself. When we look at it this way, we can find ways to reclaim control over our feelings.

Cognitive therapy is a rich, productive perspective that helps us learn about the habits of our mind. From Norman Vincent Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking" to Dr. David Burns' "The Feeling Good Handbook" many self-help books spell out the way we use thoughts to upset ourselves, and suggest ways to replace these habits with more productive ones. Here are some insights that help release us from negative emotions.

Labels
One of the most common ways we inflame our feelings is to use a label to describe someone. When we say, "you jerk," or, "what an oaf" we pin an emotionally charged label on someone else or on ourselves. A label limits our options, making us feel helpless, depressed or anxious. Once we accept the label "jerk" we have no where to go.

We can lift our spirits by describing situations more accurately. Say, "I'm having a bad day" or "Everyone makes mistakes." Such statements take more work than automatic labels, but when we use forgiving phrases instead of emotionally charged labels, we'll tune down our bad feelings, and increase our optimism and cheer.

Mental filter
We filter our observations of the world through our own beliefs. We may tend to focus on any information that agrees with our perspective and to ignore information that disagrees with our belief. By selectively filtering out the things on which we focus, we continually give ourselves supporting "proof" that our belief is a correct reflection of the way the world "really is." For example, if we have low self-esteem, we may tend to only hear criticisms, while ignoring praise. To break this gloomy habit, we need to make the effort to see and reflect on evidence from both sides.

Generalization
When someone treats you unkindly, you may say to yourself, "He never considers my feelings" or "he is always rude." Words like "never" and "always" ignore all the exceptions and focus only on the negative point we are trying to make. If we look carefully we realize that the person or situation actually has a variety of positive and negative aspects. Instead of generalizing, we should select words that remind us that the offending situation is just one episode. Instead of "never" or "always" say, "in this situation." By looking more closely at the actual situation you are in a better position to respond appropriately, without escalating unproductive feelings.

All-or-nothing
Reality can turn out to be black, white or any shade in between. But often we convince ourselves that if we can't have it all, we can't have anything. For example, if I can't be first in my class, why bother studying at all, or if I can't be as thin as a model, why bother controlling my eating, or if my lover doesn't give me everything I want, she doesn't love me at all. This type of thinking creates expectations neither we nor others can ever meet, and so we are inevitably disappointed.

"Should" statements and beliefs
We believe that someone should behave towards us in a certain way, and when that person behaves differently we become angry, disappointed, depressed, etc. But we are the ones who created that rule. While it would be nice if everyone focused on us and pleased us, this is not the law of the world. We can become much healthier when we realize that other people are motivated by a whole range of causes, and that their behavior towards us is not controlled by our rules. Accepting the rules other people live by, even those we don't agree with, lifts a burden from our shoulders and improve the quality of our life and relationships.

Crystal ball gazing
Often, we find ourselves considering what might happen in the future. Our mind races ahead, and we fantasize about a negative outcome, one with catastrophic consequences. We are flooded with fears about losing our job and home, or escalating the world's chaos from its present state to a much worse state. Experiencing the upsetting emotions of our dire predictions, we feel discouraged, frustrated, or angry, based on a reality that has not yet taken place, and probably never will. After recognizing that we are making ourselves miserable when we predict the future, we can allow ourselves to back off of our thoughts of gloom, and focus instead on those things over which we have more control.

Mind reading
As we try to relate to other people, we find ourselves wondering what they are thinking. Since they can't say everything on their mind, we must guess some of their thoughts. Sometimes our guesses take us into blind alleys, creating tension within ourselves, and tension with other people. By guessing that someone is judging us, mocking us, manipulating us, and so on, we can become enraged or depressed. We can help to bring our mental state back into equilibrium by recognizing that we have jumped to conclusions about their thoughts. They may not be thinking any such thing, and meanwhile we are working ourselves into a frenzy. Once we recognize that our emotions are based on fantasies of what they might be thinking, we can insert positive guesses into our fantasy. Even better, we can develop the skill to check out our fantasy by asking people what they are thinking. The ability to communicate our concerns empowers us to increase intimacy and reduce misunderstanding.

Refuting errors, and affirming positive values
Our thoughts form the verbal basis of our internal life. We describe the world through our thoughts, describe ourselves, and describe what we intend to do. We even get in touch with our emotions by describing them with our thoughts. Of course most of our thoughts are just fine. The ones we're interested in changing are the ones that drag us into feeling bad. When we recognize the power of our thoughts, and want to improve, we must learn how to modify our own mental patterns.

But just because we begin to pay attention to our thoughts doesn't mean we're immediately able to change them. These patterns run deep, and once we see these trouble-making thoughts, we often feel helpless. As soon as we stop one thought, our mind generates another. Rather than stopping thoughts, we need to learn how to dispute them and replace them with more effective ones. Changing our own thought habits requires practice and hard work. To understand, dispute and then correct the beliefs that make us miserable. Through introspection and skill building, we can learn to counterbalance these negative thoughts.

Notice thoughts
First, by becoming aware of the thoughts that make us miserable, we become better able to communicate them with others, and think about them ourselves. This clear perception itself improves our sense of understanding of ourselves, and can open channels of intimacy with others.

Abandon fruitless lines of thinking
Second, we learn to let go of fruitless lines of thinking. When we realize our misery is based on unsubstantiated fantasies of what someone might be thinking, or of what might happen in the future, we can begin to relax our grip on these thoughts that seem so compelling and important.
Refute thoughts that drag us downThird, we can begin to actively refute our line of thinking. If we realize that a thought such as "He always treats me shabbily" makes us feel miserable, we can recognize it and refute it. In this case, we would realize that by generalizing we are making ourselves upset. Instead of focusing only on his negative behavior, we would also include times when he behaves more generously. By opening ourselves up to this recognition, even if he only treated us well one time, we can break our negative generalization and open ourselves to more positive ways of thinking about our situation.

Affirmations lift our feelings
Fourth, instead of disputing negative thoughts habits, consciously flip them the other way and substitute more positive ones. For example, reverse the crystal ball and consciously predict a positive outcome. Or change the negative filter to a positive one, and see all the good things in life that you can be grateful for. Even making simple optimistic statements like "this too shall pass" or "everything is for the best" you can get to the other side of rough spots with a more positive frame of mind.

Conclusion
Living well requires insights and learning about our own internal environment. One of the most accessible places to look for ways to feel better is our own thought stream. As we explore our thoughts, we find many opportunities for improving them.

When our thoughts drag us down, we can learn to change these habits for the better, and gradually, with diligent persistent work, we learn first how to detect, and then how to dispute our habitual thinking. By escaping the trap of unproductive habitual thinking, we can become free to think thoughts that deliver more productive and more harmonious results.

Rich Dad TV

Robert Kiyosaki is world famous for his financial wisdom. I read his books religiously before I was heavily involved in personal development. He has a great mix of personal and financial growth ideas.

He is a successful businessman, author and investor. His books have helped millions of people change their financial circumstances. In this video clip, him, his wife and some special guests share a number of their financial ideas.

Two Principals For Financial Success

THE TWO PRINCIPALES FOR FINANCIAL SUCCESS by BRIAN TRACY

There are two great principles for achieving financial success. The first Principle is what we call the law of attraction. The law of attraction says that you are a living magnet. It says that your thoughts create a force field of energy that radiates out from you and attracts back into your life people and circumstances in harmony with them. Any thought you have, combined with an emotion, positive or negative, radiates out from you and attracts back into your life the people, circumstances, ideas and opportunities consistent with it.

HOW TO ATTRACT THE SUCCESS YOU DESIRE

Many people feel that this is perhaps the most important of all mental laws. It says that if you have a very clear idea in your mind of your desired goal, to become wealthy, and you can hold that idea in your mind on a continuing basis, you will inevitably draw into your life the resources that you need in order to achieve it. Every person who has become wealthy or successful has become wealthy and successful as a result of holding the idea of wealth and success in their mind long enough and hard enough, until they drew into their lives the resources they needed to accomplish it.

YOUR WORLD REFLECTS YOUR THOUGHTS

The second principle is called the law of correspondence. This mental law is very powerful. It says, "as within, so without." It says that your outer world is like a mirror that reflects back to you what is going on in your inner world. And this law of correspondence says that everything that happens outside of you corresponds to something that's going on inside of you. When we say that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world, we mean both at a conscious and at a subconscious level.

VISUALIZE YOUR GOALS CLEARLY

If you consciously believe that you have the ability to achieve your goals and you can hold a picture of those goals clearly in your mind long enough and hard enough, eventually your outer world will correspond with it.

THREE REFLECTIONS OF SUCCESS

There are three places where we see this law of correspondence. First of all, your outer world of people will correspond exactly with your own attitude. You will always see your attitude reflected back to you in the faces and the behaviors of the people around you. If you have a positive, optimistic attitude, people will respond to you almost immediately, even before you open your mouth, in a positive and cheerful way.

RELATIONSHIPS SHOW YOU WHO YOU ARE

The second area where we see the law of correspondence is in your relationships. Your relationships will always mirror back to you exactly the kind of a person you are. When you are happy and optimistic and at peace, your relationships will be happy and harmonious and loving. But when your thinking is disrupted or negative for any reason, consciously or unconsciously, this will be immediately reflected in your relationships.

INNER AND OUTER WEALTH

The third place you see the law of correspondence is with regard to your wealth. Your external world of wealth and financial accomplishment will be a mirror image of your inner world of preparation. The only part of the equation that you can control is your conscious thoughts, and if you can keep your conscious thoughts on what you want, on your images of wealth and affluence, eventually your external world of reality and experiences will reflect it back to you.

ACTION EXERCISES

Here are two things you can do to apply these principles in your financial life:

First, guard your thoughts carefully. Whatever you think about, combined with the emotions of desire or fear, you will attract into your life. Be sure that you are attracting what you want by continuing to think only about what you want.


Second, keep feeding your mind with new information, ideas and pictures of the person you want to be and the life you want to live. By creating this inner attitude of mind, you change the outer aspects of your reality.

Using A System To Work Less

If you have not heard of Timothy Ferriss, you should look him up! He wrote a book called "The Four Hour Work Week". In this video, Ferriss speaks at a conference about the key principles behind getting the most value for your time.