Last Sunday I was rear ended by a car while standing at a red light. I took a second, got out of the car, smiled and walked over to the other driver. With a lighthearted attitude I asked if she was okay, and asked her if she’d like to pull over around the corner to clear room for traffic.

I asked her if she would like to have a police report made, or handle it ourselves. She didn’t care either way. Luckily she had Geico, which facilitated me getting into a rental car within 10 minutes of walking into their shop, and a 24 hour turnaround for the fix!

I could have gotten angry, stormed out of my car, asked her if she was a complete idiot, degraded her for wasting my time, and perhaps even threatened her. Yes, this would be very extreme, but it would have been a result of just one thought, much like my lighthearted attitude was the result of one thought.

Thoughts are a Choice

Above I gave an example of how we can choose to respond with class, instead of reacting with temper. While this example is obvious, and many people can openly relate, it’s not the only place where we make choices. Everything in life is how we choose to think about it.

“As long as you have to think, you might as well think big. It takes the same amount of energy.”
~Donald Trump

Donald Trump has lost billions of dollars. On the other hand, he has also made billions of dollars. The reason being is that he has given himself permission to think big, risk big, and pursue mega deals in his career.

Most of our decisions in life are based on whether or not we can give ourselves permission to tackle the big things. Whether or not we give ourselves permission is based on the amount of courage and self-esteem that we possess.

Look at a person like Erin Pavlina, who at one point only gave herself permission to earn barely $10/hr as a secretary. After growing her talent as a psychic, and building up a tremendous following, she now gives herself the permission to charge $800/hr for an in person reading (and people are happily lined up around the corner for her service). That’s 2 weeks of income in just 1 hour as compared to where she was before.

A tremendous leap like this comes simply from thinking a certain way. First she had to give herself the permission to pursue her talent, versus answering phones, then to improve her skill through practice and learning. Finally she had to see that being booked for months means that she can give herself the permission to charge what she’s worth at the time.

In life, and in your business, you may also be stuck because of a situation where you aren’t giving yourself the permission to think big. Do you possess the knowledge and skills to be your own boss, but instead you’re letting your boss make more money from you than you make from yourself? Can you give yourself the permission to deserve better friends, better relationships, and a better lifestyle than your parents, or perhaps just better than what you have now?

What’s the difference between entry level and CEO, or between employee and boss? Is it not just giving yourself the permission to succeed, learning everything there is to do the job, and taking risks that other are not willing to?

Remember, if you’re going to listen to conventional wisdom, and follow everyone else’s advice, then you’re probably going to get the same results as everyone else. If you decide that’s not good enough for you anymore, make your own rules.

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Suzy Welch graduated at the top of her class at Harvard Business School, wrote a column in Oprah’s O Magazine, and was the editor of the prestigious Harvard Business Review. Since then Suzy has gone on to marry the ex-CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, who now runs 11 companies.

Jack and Suzy Welch co-authored the bestselling book Winning. Most recently, Suzy Welch documents the decision process that has brought her much success in life in her bestselling book 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea.

Suzy Welch: The Mission

Suzy’s life is currently focused on talking about and spreading the message of her new book 10-10-10. Her current work revolves around talking about the book, and helping people understand the idea. This is all connected into her life mission of helping people create their own lives.

10-10-10: A Decision Making Tool

Suzy Welch says that our biggest faults in decision making are the two deadly Gs, gut and guilt. In this case, 10-10-10 serves as an intervention. It forces us to take our decisions, and instead of basing them on expedience, pressure, or the last voice in the room, to make those decisions after we think about the consequences in the context of 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.

It doesn’t have to be taken literally, and with a stopwatch, but generally as the immediate future, and the distant future. Suzy Welch has been using this idea in her personal life for 13 years, and spreading it for the past 10, and then writing about it in O Magazine about 5 years ago. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have effectively applied 10-10-10 to their own lives.

This 10-10-10 process has helped people to create their own lives, and change their lives from being reactive and gut driven, to proactive and strategic. The tool is organized around how 10-10-10 has worked in relationships, careers, entrepreneurs, managers, friendships, and the dozens of stories in the book reflect how 10-10-10 can be used in all aspects of our lives.

10-10-10: A Three Step Process

First of all, Suzy Welch says that compromise is a bad decision making tool, because everyone is left only a little bit satisfied, which often backfires in the long run. Let’s look at the steps to take instead of compromise.

Step 1: Define The Question. A lot of times we are faced with a dilemma, but we don’t really know what we are deciding, which makes it really hard to get to the solution. We’re all over the place, and when we get to a solution, we come to realize that’s not even the problem.

Define the questions like “do we buy this house, do I stay in this relationship, do I take this job?” Sometimes this is simple, and sometimes it’s the hardest part.

Step 2: Data Collection. Also known as identifying your options. It doesn’t always have to be a simple binary options like yes or no, but it could be something outside the box that goes beyond yes or no. Once you’ve laid out the options it’s time to examine the consequences in 10-10-10 format.

Step 3: Prioritize Your Values. Things like “who you want to be, what you stand for, how you want to live” must be prioritized, so that you can make decisions properly and really own your decisions as a reflection of your authentic values. The book goes into greater detail as to how one can ‘excavate’ their values and really figure out what they are.

Suzy Welch: Conquering Her Day

In the hopes of getting out of this interview with a HUGE secret, and sharing it with you guys, I asked Suzy Welch how she manages to do more than most of us in the same 24 hours that all of us get.

Suzy Welch is at a point in her life where she really lives by her values, so she knows what matters to her. Because of this, she doesn’t spend a lot of time on things that don’t matter to her. The biggest time saver in the world after knowing your values is candidly communicating them. Suzy is able to tell someone “this is how much time we’re going to spend on something, because of whatever reason.”

The best thing you can do is not be a phony, and candidly tell people how and why you’re spending your time. Then you don’t make a lot of excuses or have a lot of phony conversations, and that creates a huge efficiency.

Suzy Welch on Extraordinary Leadership

It’s not about you. I mean REALLY that’s it. ~Suzy Welch

When you’re an individual contributor you concern yourself with yourself and your performance. The place that people trip up when they make a transition from being individual contributors to leaders is that they don’t get that it’s no longer about them. A great leader is not one that raises their hand, it’s one that realized it is no longer about them, and succeeds on the reflected glory of their people.

The better you make your team, the more you build their skills, self-confidence and their ability to over deliver the better a leader you are. It is about them.

Suzy Welch’s Biggest Mentor

It’s Jack Welch. While Suzy Welch let’s life be her mentor, and literally learns from everyone, Jack Welch is ultimately her biggest mentor. He’s also the mentor to millions around the world. Suzy Welch now believes that if we’re realistic about ourselves, we could probably achieve bigger dreams than we allow ourselves to believe.

Suzy Welch: The Problem of Poverty

I asked Suzy Welch which world problem she would tackle first. She believes that poverty seems to be the underlying cause of most other problems. The key is ending it is to create self-sufficient communities. How’s that for a goal worth giving your life for? If you’re reading this, and want to discuss possible solutions, I’m sure Suzy would have a pair of ears to lend.

One More Tip For Success

Success is when you’re living a happy, centered, fulfilling life and for each individual that comes in a different package. To get happiness, you must live by your authentic values.

More Suzy Welch

• Suzy Welch - Main Site
• Suzy Welch - WelchWay
• Suzy Welch - Everybody’s Business
• Suzy Welch - Twitter
• Suzy Welch - Amazon

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AJ Jacobs is a fascinating NY Times bestselling author, current editor of the infamous Esquire magazine, and what I would say is the “father of outsourcing.” AJ Jacobs has written The Know-It-All, in which he documented his experience of reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica from front to back in his journey to becoming the smartest man on earth.

Another riveting book written by AJ Jacobs is The Year of Living Biblically, in which he followed all the laws of the bible as literally as possible. Some of the other wacky-genius things that AJ Jacobs has done include many one month experiments, known as immersion experiments, which we get into during our interview.

AJ Jacobs: Immersion Experiments

When AJ Jacobs gets interested in a subject, he likes to become immersed in it, and live it from the inside out. Sure enough, when AJ Jacobs became interested in religion and the bible, he decided that the best way to learn it would be to live it.

After researching several versions of the bible, and recording a large list of rules, AJ Jacobs proceeded to follow every single rule in the bible - literally. This included not shaving his beard, following the 10 commandments, and stoning adulterers, as well as many other rules.

This immerse way of learning is truly gripping, and life changing, as AJ Jacobs will testify. While he is no longer religious, the year of living biblically changed his psyche in such a way that the rules of gratitude have carried over into his secular life. Pressing the elevator button, AJ Jacobs is grateful that the elevator comes, and then once again upon arrival he is grateful that the elevator didn’t plummet to the basement.

AJ Jacobs: Creating a Bestselling Book

Let there be no mistake, AJ Jacobs attributes some of his success to luck. Hundreds of great books do not become NY Times bestselling, so riding on the theme of gratitude, AJ Jacobs is very grateful to have made it onto this list (love the humility in this man!).

AJ Jacobs started writing in a tiny newspaper in California about PTA meetings and sewage taxes. After about 15 years in the business, AJ Jacobs finally got to the point where he could write the book. AJ Jacobs took on topics that fascinated him, such as religion and the Encyclopedia (which pretty much covered everything, from advarks to zygotes).

While AJ Jacobs does have narrow focus topics that he enjoys, such as the history of peppers, he decided to write on his more general topics of interest in order to break in in popularity.

When writing The Know-It-All, AJ Jacobs first created a 20 page proposal, which included only 1 letter (A) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Including the approval chapter, the entire book took approximately 2 years to write.

AJ Jacobs: Outsourcing Your Life

Following his love for immersion experiments, AJ Jacobs outsourced his entire life for one full month. When I say entire life, I mean it. He outsourced reading bedtime stories to his kids, arguing with his wife, shopping and beyond.

In his upcoming book The Guinea Pig Diaries (coming September 2009), AJ Jacobs includes many of these immersion experiments such as My Outsourced Life (Esquire, 2005.), and uses outsourcing to get a lot of the research done for the book. This is 110% on my reading list (I’ll be reviewing it here, and AJ, when you read this, I’d like to do coffee and an autograph!)

So with everything outsourced, what does one do with all the free time? Nothing too out of the ordinary, just some TV, catching up on reading books, and just taking the month off. Following the article, an onslaught of people requested more information about outsourcing from AJ Jacobs. In response, a lot of these outsourcing companies created special departments for “personal life” outsourcing. (I even hear there was some hate-mail from people who thought that AJ Jacobs single handedly ruined our economy by encouraging mass outsourcing, but I think he just wrote about what was inevitably going to happen anyway - globalization).

AJ Jacobs’ article My Outsourced Life has also been included in Tim Ferriss’ bestselling book The Four Hour Work Week. Tim Ferriss called AJ Jacobs while he was still writing 4HWW to request permission to use the article. Tim said he was a recent Princeton graduate and first time writer, so AJ Jacobs was nice enough to let him use the article for free, under the assumptions that only 500 or so copies would be sold. A business mistake he later regretted when just 6 months later 4HWW was number 1 on top of the NY Times bestseller list.

AJ Jacobs: Radical Honesty

Radical Honesty is a movement that requires the “removal of the filter” between your brain and mouth. Not only are you to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but you are to say directly what is on your mind at all times. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Big trouble ahead! The Esquire article in which AJ Jacobs documented this experience was called I Think You’re Fat, which should give you some indication as to just how much trouble this whole Radical Honesty business is really worth.

For AJ Jacobs, to not lie to his wife or boss, was unheard of in his normal day-to-day (something that many of us can relate to). An awkward moment presented itself when AJ Jacobs and his wife ran into a couple they knew from college. The couple suggested that they should all get together, and being under the influence of Radical Honesty, AJ Jacobs had to say “You seem nice, but I’d rather not, because I have enough friends that I don’t get to see, so I don’t want any new ones.” (Damnit AJ, I was hoping WE could be friends… maybe if one of your friends disappears…. jk!)

Now that the experiment is over, AJ Jacobs is once again left somewhat changed. However, instead of bashing people over the head with Radical Honesty, AJ Jacobs practices something called “Sustainable Radical Honesty.” This means you pick when you’re honest (ok, no it doesn’t). This means that you take responsibility for your own actions and mistakes, but when it comes to speaking at the expensive of someone’s feelings you bite your tongue. We both agree that with the way technology is headed, it will ultimately be futile to lie, since everything will be transparent and exposed.

AJ Jacobs: Interviewing George Clooney

I personally love interviewing people, and I’m so humble and grateful to have the opportunity to do so through this site. AJ Jacobs interviews some really awesome people, like George Clooney, so I’m sure he can relate.

The standard stale method of going about such an interview is a lunch with the celebrity. Is AJ Jacobs standard or stale? No. AJ Jacobs is different and remarkable, so he did something a little bit different with that interview.

AJ Jacobs sat George Clooney in front of a computer and had him look at George Clooney fan and hate sites. Believe it or not, George Clooney has never looked at these, in an attempt to spare his personality from splitting.

The first website the viewed together was called “George Clooney is Gay Gay Gay,” to which George Clooney replied, “This is absolutely not true, I am Gay Gay, but that third gay is not true.” Funny guy!

AJ Jacobs: Favorite Books

A Walk in The Woods by Bill Bryson. Bryson documented “trying” and failing to walk the entire Appalachian trail. In the entertaining process Bryson documents his experience, the history of the Appalachian trail, and environmentalism in the US. This type of book, one that combines a personal story with real nonfiction history is AJ Jacobs’ favorite type.

In the realm of personal development books, AJ Jacobs likes Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cas Sunstein. This book talks about how people are born with a brain full of biases, leading us to be irrational. It then gives pointers on how to overcome and compensate for these biases and ultimately be a happier, healthier, and wealthier person.

AJ Jacobs: Tip for Success

Altering his own psyche by reading about positive psychology has really helped AJ Jacobs’ to redefine what success means and increase his happiness level. Had he still been using his old philosophy from 20 years ago, he would have been miserable today, despite achieving what we would say is a great life and great deal of success.

This is because that philosophy stated that there is always something bigger and better, so don’t be happy until you get there, and then don’t be happy until you get to the next level. Under the influence of this new positive psychology AJ Jacobs has learned to really be satisfied with what he has, that fact that he’s published a book, can read interesting books, live interesting experiments, and still have enough to eat.

More AJ Jacobs

• AJ Jacobs Official Site
• AJ Jacobs on TedTalk (this is kind of a big deal!)
• AJ Jacobs - The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.
• AJ Jacobs - The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
• AJ Jacobs - The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment

Practical Personal Development on iTunes

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You want nothing more but to experience life, become an interesting person, establish which unique values you want to define you, and move forward in life - sure of yourself. There’s just one little caveat. In your state of confusion you’re just not sure how to plan your great escape.

Luckily for you, the usual flow of your day is interrupted when you meet a man that you’ve never seen on the island before. He tells you stories of the world beyond the island, which fuels the fire of your curiosity like never before. This is, as he says, your ticket off of confusion island:

1. Read everything. You’re tired of the same old thing, that’s why we’re even having this conversation. That means that up to this point, for the most part, you have been reading the same things, or even worse, not reading anything at all. That’s one surefire way to get stuck on confusion island with no chance of escape.

How can you tell you’re interested in something if you don’t know a thing about it, or know that it exists at all? Run, don’t walk, to the nearest library and take a tour of all the isles. Pick a few random books on topics you haven’t even heard of, and take a moment to think about how much you could discover if you read at least one book a week.

2. Learn from everyone. One of the biggest mistakes you could make is thinking that someone is “not enough” for you to learn from them. Not aged, smart, benevolent, or similar enough to you. Realizing that everyone has something to teach us, based on their unique experiences and perception of the world, allows us to tap into the consciousness of everyone on the planet.

Being open minded to new people doesn’t mean you have to believe or agree with everything that is said. It does however mean that you can keep asking yourself what you can learn from the interaction as a whole. This is how you learn new things, and find out about life outside of the island.

3. Always try new things. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got, and you’ll always feel what you always felt.” Whatever part of the island you find yourself on today, make a conscious decision to try something new. After all, variety is the spice of life, and the only way for us to learn something new is through a novel experience.

You can sprinkle variety all throughout your day. Take a different route than you’re accustomed to, read a new book and talk to a new person as we already mentioned, try a new dish at a new restaurant, or just do that one thing you always wanted to do, but never did.

4. Journal your thoughts. Let’s face it, we don’t always remember, and when we do, we don’t always remember with perfect clarity. The hard earned lessons that we’ve learned deserve to be written down, so that we can look back on our lives and figure out the skills we possess to take us of the island. These journals will be the greatest treasures that we leave behind for future generations.

Journals are also an excellent way to sort out and make sense of your thought process. Instead of getting stuck in confusion, and not knowing the chain of thoughts that led you to your current thinking, you can think with your keyboard and gain perfect clarity about yourself.

5. Define your values. The little secret about your values is this - you already know what you value, whether you’ve thought about it or not. It’s just a matter of sitting down with your journal, asking yourself “what’s really important to me” and letting the pen do the talking. Sure, you can choose new and exciting values, just make sure you want them because you want them, and not because they sound pretty.

As you move forward with a well defined set of values, you will be looking at life through a lens that is very unique to you. The values you choose and the way that you prioritize them, will be unique to you as your fingerprint, and assist you in making great choices with unshakable confidence and keen clarity.

6. Follow your passions. Want to make confusion island a permanent residence? That’s easy, simply put out that fire inside of you, and let your passions blow away in the wind. If your passions are not something you’re willing to give up, and they’re aligned with your values, then it’s time to stop at nothing in order to achieve them.

The funny thing about passions is that talking about them is not enough to make them happen. Sometimes it takes overwhelming force and giving it all you got, while other times a small measurable effort every day will get you there. In other words, when you want something real bad, work your face off to get it.

7. Be true to yourself. After you’ve read the books, spoken with the people, and filled yourself up with new experiences your only half way off confusion island.  Many people will tell you that you can take a person out of confusion island, but you can’t take the island out of the person.

It’s important to know where we come from, the lessons we learned growing up, and accept ourselves regardless of how many mistakes we might have made along the way. You can choose to be a brand new better you whenever you want, but not at the expensive of who you used to be.

All the man really did was give you a raft. It looks like you have some treading to do.

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Q: Doctor,  I’ve heard that  cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
A: Your  heart is only good for so many  beats, and that’s it…  don’t waste them on exercise. Everything wears out  eventually.  Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that’s like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer?  Take a  nap.

Q: Should  I cut  down on meat and  eat more fruits and  vegetables?
A: You  must grasp  logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables.  So a steak  is nothing more  than an efficient mechanism of  delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source  of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can  give you  100% of your recommended daily allowance of  vegetable  products.

Q: Should  I reduce my  alcohol intake?
A: No,  not at all.  Wine is made from fruit.  Brandy is  distilled wine, that means they take the water out of  the fruity bit so you  get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out  of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How  can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well,  if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one  to one. If you have two bodies, your  ratio is two to  one, etc.

Q: What  are some of  the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can’t  think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain…Good!

Q:  Aren’t  fried  foods bad for you?
A:  YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!!! …..  Foods are fried these days in  vegetable oil. In fact, they’re permeated in it.  How could  getting more  vegetables be bad for  you?

Q:  Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft  around  the middle?
A: Definitely not! When  you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q:  Is chocolate bad for me?
A:  Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa  beans ! Another vegetable!!! It’s the best feel-good   food around!

Q:  Is swimming good for your figure?
A:  If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

And  remember:
‘Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving  safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather  to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one  hand - chocolate in  the other - body thoroughly used up,  totally worn out and screaming ‘WOO  HOO, What a  Ride’

AND…..

For  those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final  word on nutrition and health.
It’s a relief to know the  truth after all those conflicting nutritional  studies.

1. The Japanese eat  very little fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.

2. The Mexicans  eat a lot of  fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.

3. The Chinese  drink very little  red wine
and  suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.

4. The  Italians drink a lot of red  wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of  sausages and fats
and suffer fewer heart attacks than   Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

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If you’ve been away from someone you care about or love for at least two hours, the first 90-seconds that you see them has more impact on the relationship than spending hours with them later.

Pavlov’s Dogs

Damnit, he got me! It makes perfect sense (and resonates with me) if you look at it from a psychological perspective. Remember hearing about Pavlov and his salivating dogs? I studied psychology all throughout university, so I heard this story one too many times. Dr. Ivan Pavlov won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for this experiment.

We all know that dogs naturally salivate when you bring them food, if you don’t know, just try it. Ivan Pavlov inserted a special device that measured how much saliva a dog produced when food was brought to it. This was the control of the experiment.

Next, Dr. Pavlov added another factor. He synchronized a bell *dong*, with bringing the dog food. Surely the saliva level was the same. He continued to condition the dog repeatedly for some time by always giving the food and the *dong* together.

After doing this conditioning for enough time, Dr. Pavlov was able to force the dog to salivate by merely ringing the bell. Measuring the levels of saliva, they were significantly like the control, when the dog used to salivate over food. Pretty wild stuff right?

The scary part is that this could easily happen to us. And it does. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way, and the worst part is that we don’t always have the self-awareness to know that it’s happening to us. Not just wish salivating, but with EVERYTHING.

We’re Like Dogs Too

We’re like dogs too, in the sense that we can be conditioned for just about anything. Imagine everyday at school, in first period, the teacher walks in, yells at you, and smacks you in the back of the head with a ruler. What will your opinion be of this teacher? More interestingly, what will happen to your blood pressure and anxiety level as soon as she first walks through the door. This is not a good type of reinforcement.

Imagine at the start of your work day, your boss comes up to you and gives you a hearty greeting. Your boss praises you, and tells you not to hesitate to approach her, because it’s your bosses job to serve you, and you’re all working towards a mutual mission. Pretty good reinforcement eh?

90 Second Rule

What’s up with the whole “first 90 seconds” thing, what’s the significance in that? This is my take on it: At “first” our brain experiences a sense of novelty (a new experience), at which point we’re much more mentally stimulated, excited, and aware. After this, our brain gets used to the other person being there, and they’ve already had an opportunity to set an impression on us and set the tone to go in a certain direction.

The other reason is that when someone is gone, you miss them, and this is the opportunity to enjoy being reunited. When someone’s been by your side for 10 hours, you’re not really “missing them,” are you?

The 90 Second Rule video, created by Jim Fannin, is really simple, that’s what I like about it. Sure it stereotypes men as the bread winner, but surely we can look past that, in order to see a perfect illustration of the 90 second rule principles. Enjoy.

Dear readers, which relationships in your life do you think would most benefit from using the 90 second rule?

I drove to a BBQ on Friday evening, where I met up with Marina and some of our friends. There was a bit of beer drinking on my part, and I made a quick detour by walking over to the nearby bar in order to buy my friend and myself a couple of shots for his 21st birthday.

It wasn’t a long BBQ. We hung out there for a couple of hours, went to a Middle Eastern cafe for some food and hookah, after which it was time to go. Marina left, as did everyone else, and I walked towards my car.

I was fully aware that after approximately 5+ units of alcohol my blood-alcohol limit would be above the legal limit. On top of this, I was tired, and I hate driving tired since I fell asleep driving several years ago (by an act of God my car spun out of control in a 360* turn and I didn’t hit anything). Of course I don’t want to injure myself, nor any innocent bystanders.

Last semester when I was volunteering at NYU, Dr. Eric Ploumis, an orthodontist and an attorney that specializes in dental law all wrapped up into one pretty awesome human being gave an interesting lecture. As a side note in his lecture, he stated that if a dentist is to get a DUI, even if he had half a glass of wine more than he should have, the Dental Board will take away his license.

A dentist without a license is not able to pay back the massive 6 digit school loans, the money he took out to finance his office, and the money for the house and cars that he no doubt financed. He’s also not qualified to get another job with a salary that is even close to what he was making as a dentist. I’m actually not sure how this affects someone that isn’t a dentist yet, but a perspective dentist, and if this would prevent a person from receiving their dental license in the future. Regardless, the risk versus reward of this situation is overwhelmingly high in favor of the risk.

Had I been Tyler Durden, a fictional character from the book Fight Club, and had nothing to lose, I’d probably purposely crash my car into the police station. Alas, I’m not, and I like police officers, and my life, and my freedom, so I wouldn’t do that!

So when faced with such a situation, what’s one to do but go camping in their own car? BTW, as far as I know, you aren’t allowed to stick your keys into the ignition of your car if you’re intoxicated, because then you are technically “operating” your vehicle (instant DUI).

The weather was perfect. I put down my back seat, so that I could lay down fully stretched out with my head inside the trunk and my feet on the back seat. My review: More comfortable than sleeping on the bare ground in the woods, safer than sleeping under a park bench, but less comfortable than sleeping in my own bed at home.

It was about 1:15am when I decided to go through with this. I did have other options, like sleeping over Marina’s friend’s house, but I didn’t want to bother. I could have taken a cab home for approximately $20, and then back again in the morning for another $20 to catch my 10am class. The class was only 2 miles from where my car was already parked.

With my book bag already in the car (perhaps I was expecting this?), I went car camping. I put my head-end in the trunk, and the legs-end on the back seat because it was darker, and felt safer in the nook of the trunk.

I woke up around 7am, evaluated if I was sober, and found myself to be as fresh as a cucumber. I headed over to Dunkin Donuts. I cleaned up, got my coffee and breakfast, and parked my butt there for approximately 3 hours to study and prepare for class.

If I had to do it again, maybe I’d pack a pillow or something. Maybe I’d even try to arrange a place to sleepover, or a ride home in advance, as I’ve done many times in the past. The experience was interesting, and totally out of the box.

The moral of the story is that even if you have to go ‘car camping’, there’s never a good reason to drive drunk. Also, I just found this article on How to Sleep Comfortably in Your Car, which leads me to believe that I’m not the only one (see #5), lol.

Dear readers, have you ever had a similar experience? Have a story with a good moral? Just a plain old drunk story? Share!

Don’t forget to get your free copy of Liberation Revolution: It’s Time to Cut the Cubicle Umbilical Cord, by Jonathan Mead.

I created a new review site yesterday. If you’re interested in having the freedom to do whatever you want in life, you’ll be interested in reading the Project Mojave Review.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Hello Alex,

I ran across your blog (and subsequently have sent you a LinkedIn invite) regarding finding what motivates you in reaching your goals, and having a powerful “why”.

My question to you is how do you find your “why”? Do you have resources you could guide me to that will give me some direction in finding what my “why” is? It really isn’t as easy as people think, would you agree?

Thanks so much for your website and blog, it’s been a huge help to me, I look forward to hearing from you.

~Judy

Thank you very much for such an excellent question Judy, I’m happy to have you as a reader. As you already know, figuring out our why is not always an easy and simple endeavor. I’ll try to give you a few tidbits of my opinion on the subject, to go along with all the research I’m sure you’ve done and are currently doing.

Motivation is a core, fundamental principle is doing everything from getting out of bed, overcoming adversity, to conquering the world. You already knew that. I’m sure you’ve also heard the saying, “if your why is big enough, the how doesn’t matter,” aka “if there’s a will there’s a way.”

Our motivations are shaped largely by our environment. The books we read, the people we talk to, as well as the random events that we happen to go through (and our reactions to those events). All this input creates a belief system, or paradigm, of the way the world works (in our mind) and what we consider to be good, virtuous, or worthy of going after.

Without a doubt, my opinion, is that our belief system guides us. The question is, does our belief system control us without our knowledge from within our subconscious, or are we holding the reigns by examining (and reexamining!) our belief system consciously.

Our “current” why, attached to our current belief system, is already within us. Everything that has shaped us up to this point, including how we consciously shaped ourselves, has created a belief system with it’s own why for the motivating itself. It’s always a selfish why. Selfish because the why is self serving, and our personal belief system is the only one it will serve directly.

This selfish drive, or motivation, to achieve also has a lot to do with our self-worth. Are we worthy of getting what we feel we deserve? Do we deserve the things that we “know” to be the very best, and will we allow ourselves to go after them. This principle of self-worth will help to determine what we spend our life on. The currency of our life is our time and energy, and the things that we consciously choose to spend our time and energy on are the things we’re giving up our life on.

So we begin by consciously asking ourselves. What am I willing to die for? If you think about it, your career is most likely where you’ll spend most of your life, then sleeping, then with family and friends. You need to ask yourself, is the place where you’re spending most of your time and energy worthy of your life? If yes, then how are the other things, like exercising, eating healthy, having delicious relationships, all contributing to your maximum output in this place. If the answer is no, the question becomes, what is a time, place, cause, and journey that i’m willing to give up my life for, one hour at a time?

Thanks for the excellent, thought provoking question.

Dear readers, what have you done in order to find your why?

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

We will receive our fair share of criticism in our life. It is hard to stop criticism from coming because there are too many people with different views and opinions, which may result in disagreements.

There are a few reasons why people criticize and here are some of them.

1. Disagreeing with you.
2. Angry.
3. Upset with what you had said.
4. To prove they are right.
5. Just out to piss you off.

Whenever we receive criticism, it certainly affects our mood. Instead of feeling down, you should actually use the chance to try to get the most out of it.

Vincent’s Story

When I just started out blogging, everything was going fine and I love the positive comments that I had received from my readers. Reading the positive comments never fail to brighten up my day. But one day I received a comment from someone whom I do not know and he criticized about my articles.

He thought that it is not appropriate for someone of my age (I am 22 at that time) to be writing personal development articles. He thinks that someone who is at that age can’t possibly go through enough challenges in life to share with others.

I felt sad about it and self doubts started to appear in my mind. I did not know how to handle the criticism at that time and it affected me greatly. I thought of shooting an email back to him and trying my best not to be sound like a jerk but it is harder than it seems.

I held back from sending the email and sought out some advice from some of my friends that I had made through the blogosphere. Talking to them brought me back to my calm state of mind which I am then able to think more clearly. Following their advice, I decided to just ignore the guy, picked up valuable lessons from the criticism and just move on from there.

How To Deal With Criticism - Step By Step Guide

It can be hard to deal with criticism, especially from people that you don’t even know, but most of the time we can pick up something from the criticisms we received. Here are the steps that I used to deal with it.

1. Listen

Whenever others are criticizing us, don’t be defensive immediately, listen to what they have to say. Being defensive at the very moment means that we will not be able to evaluate whether the criticism is of any help to us. Being defensive may also cause us to make unwise decisions or choose the wrong words to reply as we are not in the right state of mind to think clearly at that moment.

2. Create Space

As I had mentioned it is hard to make wise decision at the very moment when people are criticizing you. Create space for yourself to think about it by walking away. The space created acts like a buffer which can give you more time to think clearly. People who try to make decisions without adequate amount of time and space can increase their chances of making unwise decisions that they may later regret.

3. Evaluate

You will need to evaluate the criticism and think whether there are any lessons that you can learn from it. Sometimes people criticize because they see your flaws which you had failed to see. This is a good thing as they help to point out something that you can improve on.

Try to see their criticism with an open mind and think whether what they had said was true. If what they had said was true, acknowledge your flaws and work on it. However if you think that the criticism is just out to bring you down without any truth in it, just ignore it and move on with your life.

4. Seek 2nd Opinion

A neutral party can see the whole picture much more clearer than you do. Seek someone else that you trust and ask them what do they think about the criticism. Determine whether the criticism is valid or it is just some ramblings by others who have nothing better to do.

5. Move on

After you acknowledged the criticism it is wise to just move on from there. Some people are stuck to their criticism for days or even weeks. They can keep thinking about the criticism until it start to affect all areas of their life. Do not commit this mistake as the time spent brooding over it will only make you feel miserable. Once you had already picked up lessons from the criticism, work on your flaws and just forget about it.

Parting Words

I found out that there were some truth to the criticism that I had received from the guy. It is true that I am young but I do not agree with him that I have nothing to share with others. I believe everyone have their own unique experiences that they can share and no one is alike in this sense. Criticism is just parts and parcels of life and everyone have their fair share of it. The important thing is to know how to deal with it instead of trying to avoid it.

Vincent writes on the subject of Personal Development at HealthMoneySuccess.com. His site’s main aim is to help people to be more productive, happy and achieve more in life.

If you’re interested, I’m currently accepting guest posts from talented writers.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Whether I’ll get accepted or rejected for this coming cycle is currently up in the air, and a factor that is out of my control. What is in my control is to retake the Dental Admission Test (DAT) and reapply with higher scores.

With over 6,000 people applying for 200 spots, it doesn’t matter that my score is well above average, so now I’m shooting for the 99th percentile. The DAT is a 4.5 hour test that includes 1) Biology 2) General Chemistry 3) Organic Chemistry 4) Perceptual Ability 5) Reading Comprehension and 6) Quantitative Reasoning.

The best methods for studying the DAT might be of little use to you, but the general techniques to optimize studying are important to each of us whether we are studying for school, work, or life. I’ll share the techniques I’ve learned at University, my Masters Program, self-education, and of course my twitter friends (I often ask them for best study techniques).

Start With a Clear Intention

When you start the timer on your study session, it’s important to have a clear intention as to what you expect to get out of and accomplish in the study session. Without a clear intention you’re liable to day dream, spend too much time shuffling and organizing, and ultimately demotivate yourself from having an awesome study session.

You can get yourself into the zone of having a clear intension by starting with the end in mind. Imagine yourself on test day, and create an outline of everything that you have to know and understand by that day. Then back track each day before the exam and figure out how much of the material you need to absorb daily until you arrive back at the current moment.

At this point is should be clear what you need to do today, tomorrow, and each day after until you reach full competency on exam day. This technique will serve to keep your mind organized, and motivate you to make the most of your study sessions.

Timed Studying and the 50-10 Principle

The way I used to study was by arriving at my study destination, whether it was library or my personal desk, and assign myself X amount of hours to study. When I was hungry I ate, when I was tired I took a break, but I generally went through this whole time period studying.

Over the past few weeks I’ve done more of what I call “timed studying” then I’ve ever done in the past. The only extra tool that you need to do this, aside from your books and writing utensils, is a simple timer (whether it’s on your phone, watch, or computer).

There are two things that you will want to time yourself on. Your study times and your break times. I’ve experimented with 30 minute studying, and 5 minute breaks, but ultimately found the 50-10 setup much more productive for my own taste.

50 Minute Study Sessions. Everything I need for this session is in front of me before I begin, and the only thing I do during this time is study. My phone is on silent, my family is alerted not to bother me or use loud noises, and I’m on a mission-unstoppable to get through the 50 minutes as productively as I’m capable of.

Most of the time when the buzzer sounds I’m still in the middle of something. It’s important that you don’t continue to cross your t or dot your i at this point and RESPECT the timer. Respecting the system, and in this case the timer, is the single most important factor in discipline. It’s all about respecting and not giving way to the moral code (timer system), that you have set up for your self and your studying.

10 Minute Break Sessions. As important as it was to have an intention for your study session, it is important to have an intention for your break session. The ultimate intention of a break session is to refresh yourself so you can have a focused uninterrupted study session right after.

I use my study sessions to use the restroom, eat, drink, and do exercises and breathing techniques in order to have my body be at 100% once I begin studying. If I am hungry, the food I’ll get will be light, such as a small bite of leftovers, or a fruit.

Exercising During Break. It’s important to get the heart rate up, and to get blood and oxygen to our brains to invigorate our brains for the next study session. Exercises enables our brain to release a special protein that is conducive to creative new neuron connections and thus learning better.

Some of the exercises I do are running up and down the stairs, jumping jacks, perfect pushups, pull ups, squats, bicycle sit ups, handstands, and various dumbbell exercises. You can be creative here, and use part of your break to work on whatever you want.

Breathing Exercise. Recently I have started to implement Yoga breathing techniques, based on advice from my friend Cynthia. You can breathe in for a 4 count and breathe out for an 8 count and then increase these numbers as you get better. The main thing to remember about breathing is to forcefully exhale every last bit of air (and thus Carbon Dioxide) out of your lungs, creating room for much more Oxygen.

The Magic of the 50-10. When I go through the 50-10 technique something amazing happens. I have complete concentration and motivation throughout the whole 50 minute study session. When the buzzer rings to tell me the 50 minutes are up, I think “ohh man, not yet, I still want to study more.” I get up right away regardless. I go through my 10 minute break routine, and then it hits me - the 10 minutes of ‘break’ feel longer than the 50 minutes of studying, and I’m excited to get back to studying.

Daily Exercise

Memory and brain function have been linked to exercise in many official scientific experiments. If you’re healthy, you could easily be doing a minimum of 30 minutes of light cardio every single day, and eventually work up to an hour of intense cardio workouts.

Know your body, consult a doctor for advice before starting, and remember to take baby steps when first starting up the exercise habit. Instead of starting really strong, hurting yourself, and not coming back to the exercises, it’s smart to start slow and progress whenever you’re comfortable enough to take the next step.

There are 80 and 90 year olds finishing Marathons, so there’s no reason why you can’t build yourself up to doing just 1 hour of cardio every day. I understand that if you’re handicapped in some way this presents more of a challenge, but it’s important to reach higher levels from your own baseline and not compare yourself to others.

Don’t forget about strength training. It’s very important to have the other muscles that aren’t involved in your cardio routine being firm, not flabby. If you spend your days studying, then you can throw in a few good sets of strength training several times a day during your 10 minute breaks.

Using Multiple Senses

Certain people are keener on certain study modes over others, such as auditory versus visual. It’s important to remember that visual learning is still the best way to learn, and that the other modes of studying are excellent supplements.

Since vision is dominate in learning, it’s important to get the most use out of that by using flash cards, using different colors to make notes, draw diagrams, and create mind maps. The different shapes and colors can all serve to give your memory extra triggers.

Just reading the material is usually not enough for more complicated topics. It’s important to write down notes, in your own words, in ways that will make sense to you and trigger recall of information.

When it comes to auditory learning, attending lecture might be important, but it’s not absolutely necessary. There are two different methods that I use to incorporate other senses, which are speaking, and listening.

Sometimes I read what I’m studying out loud. Other times I read the notes that I’ve made out loud. I also make personal audio recordings of myself reading my notes, and then I play them back to myself when driving, exercising, or in the background of other things that I’m doing.

I normally encourage single-tasking when studying, but I look at this as an extra supplement that doesn’t take away from your normal study time. This type of personal recording is also different from other people’s lectures, because you don’t feel compelled to stop what you are doing and takes notes - the notes are already there from when you personally created them.

Engaging the different senses helps the memories to be formed through different incoming avenues. It also allows you to recollect the information through different parts of your brain, making it more likely that you won’t forget the facts on test day.

Single-Tasking

In our consciousness, our brain is only capable of focusing on one thought at a time. Try it. Focusing in on two different thoughts is virtually impossible. While it is possible to switch rapidly between thoughts and actions, it takes time to get into a deep state of focus and concentration that is conducive to studying, memorizing, and understanding.

There are certain things that I like to do in order to enable single-tasking and optimize focus. I like to sit at a very large desk that has a lot of open space. I have all the necessary tools in front of me, so at any given time I don’t have to get up and retrieve them from another location.

Colored markers, notebook, index cards, text books, review books, water bottle, and anything else I might need in the course of a study session are right at my grasp. My computer stays at another location. I write down my questions and make a separate research session with the computer when the need arises.

The only thing I’m really doing while I’m studying is focusing in on one very narrow topic. I’m proactively reading the information and then figuring out ways to store the information, whether it be in some kind of mental chamber, or in some creative way on paper.

Nourishment and Hydration

Whether you’re vegan, kosher, or carnivore, eating heavy foods and overeating is going to make you less alert. Not something you want while going through big study sessions. For this I recommend eating a big meal in the morning, and then having really small snack size meals several times throughout your day.

Never eat to the point where you’re full. See if you can get a sense of your stomach capacity and eat to 60-75% capacity. In the morning this means a large meal, but during the small meals in your day (during your 10 minute breaks for example), it’s going to take less food to get up to 75%.

When we eat, our digestive system uses a tremendous amount of energy to digest the food, our blood sugar can get a bit wacky, and we get tired. Tired isn’t bad when we want to rest, but we don’t want to rest while we’re studying.

Your brain takes up about 2% of your body weight, and it uses 20% of your daily energy. If you spend the day studying, I would argue that your brain uses even more energy. Combine that energy consumption with the exercise you do in the morning, during your 10 minute breaks, and during digestion and you’re going to burn a lot of calories.

You need to get those calories in by eating a lot of fresh and healthy food. Since your body and each individual cell is literally made from the food you eat, it makes sense to eat healthy. Don’t forget that your brain needs a lot of healthy fats to consume, which you get not from fried fatty foods, but from avocados and various nuts and seeds.

Make sure you stock up on the nutritious essentials. Just like you want to have everything on hand for your 50 minute study session, you want to have things ready for your 10 minute breaks.

Our body requires about 3+ liters of water every day. You’ll get some of it from eating a lot of fruits, but you still need to drink a lot of water to keep your body functioning like a well oiled machine. Water will make you feel more alert and well in general. Make sure you don’t forget to drink, drink, drink!

Turn off Distractions

While I do use my iPhone as a timer, I put it on silent and turn off vibrate mode. This way I don’t get distracted and look up each time I get a phone call or text message. This is important because each distraction that looks like it weighs an ounce actually costs a ton in lost focus.

When I’m studying at home, I ask my family members not to interrupt me, and not to turn the TV on too loud. Some people hate studying at home and they assume the role of a victim. They say that their family is so distracting, and there are so many other distractions in the house. I used to say this too.

I stopped being the victim by speaking up. Family doesn’t always realize they are distracting you, and are not doing it intentionally. Kindly ask them to be quieter and they will happily oblige. It’s your job to keep your study environment distraction free, not anyone else’s.

All other distractions can wait after you’ve gone through all your 50-10 study sessions. Your study is really important, and all the little distractions that pop up are usually just urgent. If you’re constantly putting out the fires and letting urgent tasks get your attention, you’ll never get to what is really important.

Reviewing

Reading something and taking notes is just not enough. Definitely not enough when dealing with such high volumes of information as the DAT. This means that it’s necessary to review, and to do this often.

After you’ve finished your study sessions and written notes, it’s important to look over the notes right away. Within 12 hours of your session, it is important to review all the information again. This is the key to getting things from short-term to long-term memory.

I also recommend reviewing things from day one every day until test day. This involves extra review for things you aren’t 100% certain about, and minor review for things you feel confident about. If you’re taking notes on a word document or paper, you will want to condense your notes each time you look at them.

Condensing your notes means using less words to explain the same concept, such as trigger words that would make sense only to you. You might also consider cutting out things that have become a complete no brainer.

When dealing with a longer study time, you might want to keep one document that is absolutely complete, and another one that you keep condensing. During the week of the test you’ll take a peek at the longer document to make sure you didn’t forget anything.

Practice Questions

Whenever studying for a test it’s important to pretest what you really know. Get your hands on any old tests, practice tests, or similar text book questions. Don’t just casually browse through the practice questions. Instead, play a game where you treat the practice questions as a real test.

In order for this game to work, you have to assign a time limit to a certain number of questions in order to keep the pressure on yourself. You’ll go through the entire question set first, and then look at the answer key to check your answers.

You’ll encounter three important types of scenarios when you go over the questions. A) You will be 100% confident in the answer and get it right. In this case, you move on. B) You’ll get the question wrong. In this case, you go back to the text book and reread the whole section to fully understand why you got the question wrong. C) You got the question right, but it was sort of, kind of, maybe a guess. You might not be so lucky on the test, so you must go back to your text and fully understand this area.

Final Words

Please note that different techniques will work better for certain individuals, that’s why it is important to both find what works for you and optimize your techniques daily.

My current daily mission, until I take this test, is to proactively study my material, in a distraction free environment, keeping up with the pace I set for myself when I was thinking with the end in mind. This allows me to be confident in my abilities, zone in and focus on the content, and do this all with a clear intention and purpose.

I like to start studying early, remain distraction free, and work into the evening. This doesn’t leave too much side room for day dreaming, or thinking of great topics to write here, so I hope you enjoy this one, which is a good reflection of what my life is looking like at the moment.

If you like this article, I would love it if you gave it a thumbs up on StumbleUpon and a vote on Reddit.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Remember when you were in school, and you had a term paper assigned to you? Imagine being able to log into a website, search through dozens of expert articles, pick the one you want and write your name on it. Sounds great in theory, but, you would be cheating both your teacher, and yourself out of an education.

Imagine the same principle applied to physical products, such as cranberry juice. Do you think that the Walmart brand cranberry juice is actually made by Walmart? The answer is no. They went to a cranberry juice manufacturer, bought the rights to the juice, and had it shipped over with their own label on it.

This principle is known as Private Label Rights, and while it might not have been ethical for your assignments, it’s the standard way of operating in business. The experts create content, perhaps even better than you could yourself, and it’s yours without time commitment and at 1/40th of the price.

If you’re a coach, public speaker, author, or business owner who puts on workshops and seminars, then you probably know that creating fresh content every day is a very time consuming thing therefore expensive thing.

PLR.me provides you with Private Label Rights content that you can start using right away. The content is updated every month, meaning you get a full new set of unique content to display monthly.

Private Label Rights Video

This is a really fun little video that explains what PLR is. It uses a really funny example of how Walmart gets all those “Walmart brand” products without making a single one of them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Do You Get EACH Month?

(Delivered on the 1st of each month)

• 30 Articles (min. 500 words)
• 30 Personal Reflection Affirmations (great for blogs!)
• 20 Wallpapers (with inspirational quotes)
• 5 PDFs (worksheets, checklists, reports, etc.)
• Graphics (all the graphics you need to promote the materials)
• Monthly Mastermind Calls (we tackle your most burning questions)

Ronnie Nijmeh, the expert author and owner of the Quality PLR content at PLR.me gave me a free members pass for the purpose of this review. I was able to check out all the behind the scenes content that they provide, so I can honestly say that I am very impressed with the content quality that him and his team of authors have put together.

Sometimes “PLR” has a bad stigma attached to it. It’s not unusual for someone to think of a PLR site as a bundle of “crap content for Adsense sites.” After looking through a good number of the articles, I can honestly say that the content on PLR.me is high quality.

Ronnie’s content is used by public speakers, authors, and big businesses who use the content for their in-person workshops and seminars. After all, for them to have one of those PDF reports researched, written, edited, and designed, it’d cost them a fortune… but having it done for them and ready to print-on-demand is a great advantage.

The content is really good, and it’s ready to be posted right away in any of the following ways:

What Can You Do With All This Content?

1. Post on your website or blog
2. Email newsletters and auto-responders
3. Create eBooks
4. Create print-on-demand books
5. Loyalty-building giveaways
6. Record a podcast
7. Record a video and post it to YouTube
8. Put together a teleseminar
9. Sell it as a standalone product
10. Give it away as a bonus or as part of an upsell

Customer Service

Most PLR sites will just give you one bundle of articles, and never update it again. Ronnie and his team of writers at PLR.me have a fresh batch of expertly written content every single month. To back up the product, because Ronnie is positive that you will see an increase in traffic by using PLR.me, he is offering a 200% money back guarantee. I think that’s pretty generous, and doesn’t get much better.

Another thing that sets PLR.me apart, in the sea of PLR providers, is that you can give them a buzz on their toll-free number and ask them questions directly. Also, they boast that any e-mails you send their way will be answered within a day, if not a few hours.

Bonuses for Joining The PLR.me Family

In Closing

I think that Private Label Rights is a great idea for many individuals. If you would rather spend time on other parts of your business, such as networking with individuals, setting up business deals, and concentrating on how to bring more value to your clients then this is a great opportunity for you.

I think I’ll be using bits and pieces of the content for certain things in the future. I want to share as many personal experiences as I can in future articles, since I find that style helps my own personal growth and it has proven to be the most interesting to you guys. PLR could still come in handy for research, and for giving you guys bonus content.

For $20 in the first month, it’s definitely worth checking out. Check out more about PLR at PLR.me and don’t forget to stop by their blog.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

I’ll be referring to the superstar singer Ishtar from the world famous group Alabina as Ishtar Alabina in this interview.

Ishtar Alabina is a singer that is truly loved by fans all over the world. In the early 2000s Ishtar Alabina made millions in record sales worldwide, while performing for audiences in the hundreds of thousands. These days she does a lot of private shows for Oligarchy, and runs in some of the same circles as Edward Mermelstein.

Ishtar Alabina is a great success story. She is someone who maintains a great marriage and family life as well as an overall sense of life balance. Most importantly, in my opinion, is that she’s able to follow her passion for music as her first priority, and graciously accepts the money that comes pouring in with it as a bonus, not a destination.

The many styles of Ishtar Alabina

Ishtar Alabina sings in several languages including English, Arabic, French, Hebrew, Russian and Egyptian. Her early music influences were everything from middle eastern, rock, pop, and r&b, which is clearly seen in the musical style that she produces now.

World-music would be the genre that she best fits in to, but even that is a bit hard to describe. It’s a mixture of a lot of different cultures and instrument combinations, infused with modern beats, and middle eastern touches.

Ishtar Alabina - Career Mistakes

Like many success stories, Ishtar Alabina has a bit of a ‘failure’ story. When she first signed onto Sony records, they had her produce a completely french album with a totally melancholy feel. This was a complete disconnect from what her fans came to expect from her, and learned to love about her.

While there are no regrets, Ishtar Alabina learned the importance of performing and catering to the fans, while standing by what she personally loves about music. She’s since quit Sony, and produced 3 other albums solo. This philosophy has brought her much success.

Ishtar Alabina - Superstar, Twins, and Family Life

Ishtar Alabina’s husband is also the producer, and he’s been traveling by her side for the past 15 years. It makes the relationship much easier, considering she doesn’t have to leave him often for extended trips.

On the other hand, now that Ishtar Alabina has had twins, it is much harder to create new music, and take great care of the kids. There’s not much sleep at night, and it’s hard to concentrate on creation. She uses the night hours to think of new beats, melodies, and lyrics.

When traveling, the twins are left back home with family, which makes traveling easier. The downside of course is that you tend to miss your kids when you’re away.

Ishtar Alabina - Advice for Independent Musician’s

There’s no recipe for success. If there was a recipe, then everyone would be doing it, and the music industry would be so easy and so obvious. The only secret

The only “secret” that Ishtar Alabina can share is:

“Believe in what you do, and don’t do something because you think others will love it. First you have to love what you do and believe in what you do.”

Ishtar Alabina - Online Promotions

These days it’s essential for an Artist to have online profiles such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. However, Ishtar Alabina does not personally focus on these mediums. Instead, her husband collects data, such as letters from fans, and hands it over to Ishtar Alabina to read.

This gives Ishtar Alabina the freedom to concentrate on the important thing, which is the actual creation of the music. This is something to think about for people in any field who try to do everything themselves. Sometimes success comes when we concentrate only on the essentials.

Ishtar Alabina - Getting In “The Zone” To Create

Before, Ishtar Alabina would eat, breath, and sleep with her music in mind. After… after the twins were born that is, she has someone else to wake up for, feed, and care for. This makes the act of creation VERY difficult.

Sometimes Ishtar Alabina would hear a melody, perhaps while singing to her children while they’re taking a bath. When she catches this melody, she waits until they go to sleep, and then stays up developing this melody.

If she’s not writing this music, she’s writing lyrics. When she has lyrics, she can find music to it, and vice versa. Sometimes composers will send her music to look at. She takes all these things into consideration in order to squeeze some creativity out of them.

This is a big reason why her latest Album, which is due to release in late 2009, is taking so long to complete. It takes a lot of time to put together something really special.

Ishtar Alabina - The Passions of Food and Reading

She doesn’t just like world-music, she likes world-food. Japanese, Egyptian, Moroccan, Chinese, Italian, French, and everything else that’s good.

Before the kids, Ishtar Alabina would read a lot of books on philosophy and mystic stuff. Things that related to God, knowing ourselves, as well as the truth and power that lies inside of us. She also read books about desires, and emotions, and things that made her stronger and shaped her character.

The game has changed since having the kids, and most of her reading now involves parenting books and children’s books. So far no parenting success tips from Ishtar Alabina… we’ll have to wait until her kids are all grown up to see how successful she was… but I’m sure she’s an awesome mother anyway!

Ishtar Alabina - Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

As I mentioned above, Ishtar Alabina sings in several languages besides English. This one song in particular has some English vocals, with some Spanish and middle eastern sounds. You can watch this video to get an idea of the type of hit music that Ishtar Alabina puts out.

Final Success Tip

Don’t always be so sure that you are right. Instead, be kind, patient, hear, listen, and be open to other people. When making important life decisions, take into account what all the people that love you and really care about you have to say, then following your intuition pick the choice that you really believe in.

In today’s world there are many so-called artists are are just packaging for promoters and record companies. There’s a lot of money that comes with that, but that isn’t success. Success doesn’t mean you sold millions and zillions of records. It means that you create something and love it, and people listen to it, appreciate it, and love it. Success is hard work, falling and standing up again, and then having this appreciation.

More Ishtar Alabina

• Ishtar Alabina Official Site
• Ishtar Alabina MySpace

Practical Personal Development on iTunes

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One of the six sections is Quantitative Reasoning (aka Math), and it covers a very broad spectrum of math topics. I went to the library the other day and picked up text books on Algebra, Geometry, Statistics, Trigonometry, Precalculus, and will also be getting a calculus book.

These are all subjects I’ve taken before, some over 10 years ago. I could have just gone through study manuals, and picked up on certain weak points, but I wanted to rebuild my mathematical knowledge base from the bottom up.

When I told her this, she asked me, “why are you still trying?” Why am I still trying to get into Dental School is what she meant, instead of just getting a “real job” right now. “After all,” she said, “you tried to get in, and you failed.”

It’s true. I’ve applied to Dental School already and I was rejected. This latest time that I applied has landed me on the waiting list, but I don’t know if or when I’ll get accepted or rejected. All I know is that there are 6,000 people applying for 200 spots.

The question remains, why am I still trying? After all, I’m sure I could find an entry level job paying at least 40k, and depending on the field I can probably move up from that. Alternatively, I can work on expanding our family business. I could live a good life, save some money for retirement, and then eventually die. That seems to be the natural progression of things, and a very tempting option…or not.

Dentistry is something I’m very passionate about. I’ve been assisting since I was 15, and have tempted in over 60 dental offices around New Jersey. I know what Dentistry looks, smells, and feels like, and I like it.

When I told Marina about the question, “why are you still trying” she said, “How can you live if you stop trying? That’s the formula for regret.” Yes, it’s true, my girlfriend is a genius.

I think going for a “real” J.O.B. right now would be an easier option then what I’m doing now, which is rising up to the challenge and chasing my dream. I calculated that I’ll have to read about 30 text books worth of material by the time I take the test mid-August.

I try not to think about that, because the sheer amount of information makes me dizzy! It’s silly to think in those terms, since at one point all that information was in my head, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get it back in there!

I don’t think that being rejected from dental school, again, would cause me to live a life of regret. After all, I believe that it’s more important for me to live my life as the person I want to be, and not be defined solely by my occupation.

I think it’s good that there are so many walls to becoming a dentist. Especially since I know the a little secret… shhh… the walls are there to keep the other people out. Yes, that holds true for you and your walls… if you do whatever it takes to scale them, they’re not there for you, they’re there for the other people.

Remember, the best answer to “why are you still trying” is “because I’m still alive, and because I can.” you’ll always have time to stop trying when you’re dead. What have been some of your biggest failures to date?

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The audience votes based on who has a better looking mug, and of course, based on who has given the best answers. This first Face Off is between Tim Brownson and myself, Alex Shalman.

The image below shows who clearly has the better looking mug, but click over to see who has the answers you like best - and don’t forget to vote (preferably for me lol).

You can also support my cause my telling some twitter friends, for example: “RT @AlexShalman: Quick favor plz. 1-click vote for me here. Competition! http://tinyurl.com/clcezp ” Thank you very much!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

I’d also like to welcome the regular Mizfit readers that are going to be coming over here today. I’ve humbly watched Carla’s blog, and have seen first hand that you are some of the greatest bunch of people on the blogosphere. Feel free to look around, comment, and stop by anytime - mi casa su casa.

On with the show!

You can find all of Carla’s MizFit Monday Facetimes here ( http://www.youtube.com/user/chickenbus2006) and the rest of her daily musings at MizFitOnline.com, and if you’ve seen Carla’s arms in the video above, then you know that she can snap you like a slim jim!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

“To begin with the end in mind is to begin with the image of the end of your life as the frame of reference by which everything else is measured.”
~Stephen Covey

Without making things too complicated, who would the elderly you - at the end of a long, happy, and heroic life - be. Who this elderly person will be is going to be a sum of who you have consistently been on each day of your life.

Some questions to wonder about as you decide who you want to be at the end of your life.

1. When you look back at your life, will you be proud of the person that you have become?
2. Will you be proud of the decisions that you have made that have made you into this person?
3. Will you be happy with the wisdom you have gathered, the wealth you have amassed, and the loved ones that are by your side?

Crafting a Mission Statement to Live Consistently With Our Vision

In order to be a specific type of person at the end of our life, we need to effectively create, and recreate, our lives so that our path will lead us to our goal. We won’t be perfectly aligned with our path 100% of the time, in fact, I believe that we’ll have to constantly refocus ourselves to make sure we’re on the path that we have defined for ourselves.

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage about an airplane that is heading from New York to Los Angeles. Most of the trip, the plane isn’t pointing exactly at Los Angeles, as wind, turbulence, and sometimes geese force the plane to go several degrees off course. The pilot, or autopilot system, has to constantly readjust the direction of the plain in order to get back on track.

In our lives, we also have to consistently readjust our course, so that we can safely arrive at being who we want to be - both right now, and in the future. In order to live a life without regrets, we must be the type of person that upholds our own highest principles for ourselves, and never deviates from them. In order to do this, we must first define what these ‘highest principles’ are for us.

Our principles are what keep us on the path. The path is the way that we are being. The way that we are being is defined within our mission statement. Our mission statement is our way to our path, which is our way to our goals. Our mission statement is who we are committed to being, regardless of the circumstances.

Set your life goals and mission statement together, so that one compliments the other, and they don’t contradict each other. Set your life goals according to what you want, not what others may want for you.

My Personal Mission Statement

1. I am an outstanding human being in every respect
2. I am honest, kind, loving, loyal and true - to my family, friends and everyone who knows me
3. I am a positive, optimistic, confident, warm, friendly person who is admired and respected by everyone
4. I am an excellent parent (in the future), a fine employer and I do my work in an upstanding fashion every time
5. I uplift, encourage and inspire everyone I meet - everywhere I go
6. The possibility that I have created for myself and my life is the possibility of being someone who operates with the greatest good of all in mind, and the possibility of living in the present.

I have full confidence that if I am the person that I describe in this mission statement, every day of my life and in every decision that I make, that I will be very proud of the way my life has gone when I’m looking back at the end of my life.

How would you like to see yourself at the end of your life? What would you like for people to say about you at your funeral?

This post is part of a series on Life Goals. Subscribe to the site, so you don’t miss a thing, and share your experiences with goals in the comments below.

If you like this post, please vote for it on StumbleUpon and Reddit.

I would say that most people don’t ask themselves this question, or, they don’t take the time to sit in solitude and wonder about the answer to this question; until it is resolved. The problem with leaving this question open ended — we move forward in life without a compass.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
~Socrates

We all have life goals, but, do we really want them, and, how far forward have we looked?

What happens when we don’t really want our life goals? We aren’t full with vitality, we don’t experience total immersion, and we’re generally not very excited about the small action steps that are necessary to bring us closer to our big life goal.

I’m not saying every minute task has to bring us into a state of glee and ecstasy. Some rote tasks will be dull, repetitive, and not challenging enough to peak out interest after we have learned them. They will still be necessary!

Life Goals are a Joke

Life can’t possibly be too serious, not when you consider that Life is a Game. Our only hope of winning - or at least doing very well - is knowing, and playing by the rules.

So we set a life goal. We want to accomplish X by the time we’re 80. Eighty rolls around, and let’s say that for the sake of argument, we reach our life goal. Now what?

Triumph is nothing more than a fleeting moment. In the next moment we can hold our heads up high and say “I have achieved my life goal, in the past.” But, now what?

As any good goal setter, we would set a new life goal, and strive to achieve another triumph. The worthwhile goals are few and far between, but the small action steps that pepper the journey towards our life goals are precisely what our entire life is made of.

Think about it. If you spend 40 years working towards one life goal, you better enjoy those 40 years, and not hold your joy off until mission accomplished.

That’s the punch line. The true fulfillment of life goals is in the journey towards them, not in the goals themselves. That’s the long-tail of life goals.

Look at it like website traffic. After several years, you’re still going to get traffic spikes to your newest posts. This might be Y amount of visitors. However, little by little, the hundreds of articles from your archives, will have a grand total of 50Y visitors. Going through all those years of hard work — the journey — is more important than actually reaching the goal.

In this way, the joy of goal achievement is X, but the joy of working on your goal, day in, day out, is X times a very large number; a number that you can’t put a value on, and a number you wouldn’t trade for the world.

The Problem (and Solution)

The key is to have the best life journey that’s absolutely possible. In order to do this, we have to want to live, and we have to have something to live for. We need to have life goals that we would absolutely love to achieve - both in the short, and long term.

Without setting any life goals for yourself, you’re going to have a goal-void. This void is like a black-hole, so it’s going to get filled. The trouble is that it’s most likely going to be filled by another person, and no other person has your best interest in mind like you do.

No other person knows you, what you like, and what you aspire to become like you do. This makes the solution quite simple.

It’s quite simple, and very hard at the same time. Sit down — alone, with yourself — and take a look at things in your life that have brought a real smile to your face, things that have made you laugh uncontrollably, things that have made you cry tears of joy and touched your soul, things that you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life.

Then, reach for a life goal, in the distant future, and ask yourself: If I were to use all my time and energy to go for this goal, would my day to day be full of the things that make me come alive?

This post is part of a series on Life Goals. Subscribe to the site, so you don’t miss a thing, and share your experiences with goals in the comments below.

If you like this post, please vote for it on StumbleUpon and Reddit.

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I actually made a site using this Affiliate Theme that describes some of the great features of Affiliate Theme. I figured by testing it, and putting it on display, I would be able to “put my money where my mouth is.”

You can see my review site at Affiliate Theme Review. I’ll keep it brief here, since you’ll get all the explanations there in detail, with some videos that I’ve made just to describe it.

Affiliate Theme is a wordpress theme that should be exciting for all affiliate marketeres, and everyone interested in making money online. This project has been in the works since August 2008, and is not just a theme.

The customization level is amazing, but my favorite part is that it’s VERY friendly towards non-tech-savvy people. With just a few clicks you can be set up. In fact, my site Affiliate Theme Review is something I set up in under 1 hour. If I can do it, so can you.

When I said it’s more than just a theme, what I meant is that you get a ridiculous amount of support to go with it. Tutorials on how to set it up, customize everything, and anything else you can think of along the way.

That’s not all either. In the members resource center, you get to listen to many podcasts done with the top affiliate marketers in the game. That means, you get yourself a new site within an hour, and you get tips on how to turn profit.

I was personally sold on this idea pretty quickly, and I have no regrets. I’m going to be putting out several personal development products soon, and I’ll be using Affiliate Theme for them, without a doubt.

Check out Affiliate Theme, and the Affiliate Theme Review site.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

In this short episode of the Practical Personal Development Podcast, I talk about 4 fundamental principles that get me excited to work out. When we’re passionate about fitness, we make time, we get energized, and we’re able to take our day to the next level.

Practical Personal Development on iTunes

Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Lewis Howes, a good friend and fellow mutant, is an absolute sensation in the online social networking world. He’s a record holding arena football player, author, networking event planner, ridiculously good networker, and now the owner of his own publishing company.

Lewis Howes has become one of the leading LinkedIn consultants, helping people improve their profiles, connect and network with people in their field, and ultimately place themselves in careers that they love.

Lewis Howes turned his passion for helping people, networking, and LinkedIn, into a book called LinkedWorking, with co-author Frank Agin. The book goes into great deal on LinkedIn techniques, each one backed with a real-life success story from their clients.

Lewis Howes: Football Record Holder to Social Media Tycoon

A freak accident left Lewis Howes temporarily disabled. With a mangled wrist, and a full arm cast, Lewis Howes had to take a brake from sports and look for a creative outlet elsewhere.

Instead of spending 6 hours a day training for sports, Lewis Howes would spend 6 hours a day, in bed, networking with sports professionals on LinkedIn. This wouldn’t be much of a problem for most people, but as a world-class athlete limited from his physical activities, this was another big challenge to overcome.

Luckily his wrist is all better now, and the invaluable experience that he gained from that time, when he turned adversity into opportunity, has gotten him a great career helping people achieve their very own professional goals.

LinkedWorking: Teaches You To Make Real Moves Using Linked In

“I’m on LinkedIn, but not getting any job offers, what am I doing wrong?”

That’s the question that Lewis Howes tackles in both his LinkedIn consulting business, as well as in his book LinkedWorking. Lewis Howes takes real life networking principles and teaches you how to apply them to the tools and applications within LinkedIn.

Lewis Howes has one of the largest networkers on LinkedIn, particularly a sports centered network of individuals who are looking to meet other sports professionals. In the same way that Lewis Howes grew his network, and met all the top people in the sports industry, he consults, and illustrates in his book, how we can do the same thing.

The point isn’t just to make a pretty profile. Lewis Howes teaches us how to stop thinking in terms of old-fashioned resumes and enables us to portray our skills, talents, abilities, hobbies, interests and personality, ultimately creating the persona of the real person that we are, and getting us into the career that we dream of.

What I like about LinkedWorking is that it is riddled with success stories for each of the tools that Lewis Howes presents. You begin to understand how everything that he teaches has been successfully applied time and time again with real people.

418 Publishing: Starting Your Own Publishing Company (Goodbye Middleman!)

After looking at many publishing companies, and considering all their pros and cons, Lewis Howes decided that the best route to take his book from his computer and into our hands was by self-publishing. He then went ahead and created the 418 Publishing company.

In order to self-publish, Lewis Howes had to front some money, find a printer that works with a lot of publishers, apply to work with them, buy ISBN numbers, have a cover designed, have an editor, have someone do the layout and design of the book, and then follow up with marketing efforts.

He describes it as a challenging process at first, but well worth it for him, since he is in the process of doing a book tour, and doing a lot of self-promotion for the product. Marketing would be one of the biggest reasons to get a publisher, but you aren’t guaranteed that your book will be popular regardless, and you’ll end up keeping less money on book sales.

Marketing expert Seth Godin says that out of the 70,000 books published each year, only 100 or so get proper marketing treatment. Odds are you won’t be one of those top 100, and you’ll need to leverage your own network to make sales.

Hosting Networking Events With 300+ People Via LinkedIn

To create all his networking events, all the promotion, sponsors, and venues were found through LinkedIn. Lewis Howes created lists of people in his network, and divided them by cities. A couple of e-mails, stating “free food, half priced drinks, and very cool networking opportunies” and Lewis Howes fills up venues with 300-500 people.

The venues are contacted before hand, and something is planned for an off night when no one usually comes in. Venues are happy to not only do this for free, but offer a 10% on all food and bar sales. Lewis Howes tries to make everyone happy, by announcing sponsors all throughout the night, offering door prizes, and connecting people amongst each other.

The sponsors are happy because they get dozens of qualified leads, the attendees are happy because they meet people in their industry, meet people in positions to offer them jobs, get cool gifts from Lewis Howes, and genuinely leave feeling like they had a productive and fun time.

Lewis Howes Shares His Networking Skills

The most important rule of networking, according to Lewis Howes, is to define your intentions before setting out to an event. By saying “I just want to go out there and have fun,” and not setting up a real goal, you’ll likely pass up a lot of networking opportunities due to lack of focus.

On the other hand, if you create an intention that you’re sure about, and clearly define it, such as, “I want to make 10 quality contacts at this networking event,” then it’s likely that this will happen. With the intention in place, you’ll idle less, talk with more people, put yourself out there, and ultimately walk away meeting the number of people you set out to meet.

I personally think it’s not about the quality of contacts, but the quantity. If you happen to make one real solid relationships from a networking event, then it’s worth 20 loose ones. Regardless, go out there and make it happen, and you won’t have any regrets. Without regrets, you’ll end up having more fun too. Remember what Jim Rohn says, discipline weighs ounces, but regret weighs tons.

Lewis Howes’ Recommended Reading

The Alchemist by Paulo Cuelho: This book is a real easy read, with a great story line, and a message that we can all relate to. It reminds us that life isn’t about the destination, it’s about the journey that we’re on.

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman: This book is about a talented, olympic bound athlete, that gets injured and loses his ability to compete. After meeting a humble socratic-like gas station attendant, our peaceful warrior pulls himself up, and competes in another event that he’s physically able to - the moral is to take each day as it comes.

Lewis Howes’ Mentors

Lewis Howes tries to surround himself with as many successful and positive people as possible. One of his mentors is Chris Hawker who is a genius eventor. He comes up with the most amazing, simple, and useful inventions.

Another mentor is the old CEO of his college, Stuart Jenkins, who is also a Socratic figure who always has something useful to say. He was involved with licensing the invention of the Nike Air Bubble (the bubble in the sneakers). He also created another company, Skydex, which is seen is Navy ships, as well as used as a matte for pole vaulting.

Lewis Howes’ favorite mentor is his brother Christian Howes. At 19 he was encarcirated for 4 years. After getting out, he turned his life around, and became a music sensation in the Jazz world. Argueably one of the most successful Jazz musicians of our time. He also teaches at Berklee College of in Boston, which I visited yesterday, and travels the world to play for fans.

Final Success Tip:

“Connect with everyone.” A lot of people think they should connect only with people in their network. By reaching out and accepting other connections you expand your second and third degree connections. This exposes you to far more opportunities, because you never know who you’re going to meet, and how they can add value to your life.

More Lewis Howes

• SportsNetworker
• LinkedIn
• LinkedWorking Website

Practical Personal Development on iTunes

Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!