The Quality of Life Blog
What is Your Gold Medal?
February 16, 2010 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
The Olympics are going on in Vancouver Canada. Canada just won it’s first ever gold medal earned on their own soil as a host of the Olympic games. Heckuva goal and they did it.
Do you notice how long some of these athletes have been coming to the games in hopes of claiming a medal? 4? 8? 12 years some of them have been coming back.
Determination. Persistance. Think about the training that goes into to qualifying for the Olympics. Then times 2 or times 3 … times 4 YEARS. Think about what it takes for a salmon to swim back upstream to spawn. Envision you had a FRACTION of that determination to achieve the things that have been on your To Do list year after year after year.
What a rock star you would be if you could just get it together and Do It.
No time like the present. Write and let me know how you are doing with those New Year’s Resolutions.
Later…
CAN You Decide What You Want? Sure You Can ….
September 6, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · 1 Comment
The Mark & Jack series continues. This week I am helping you to figure out what you want (and dont want as it turns out).
What I do - and what I teach others - is to break things down into the different areas of their life that are important to them. In my book, The Wealth Manifesto, I use these as the different categories of wealth (or wellbeing) in your life. These are the ones I use (you may have different ones):
- Health and fitness (physical)
- Learning (mental)
- Relationships (relational)
- Service (charitable)
- Self-esteem / Self-worth (personal) Read more
Success Principle #2: Be Clear Why You Are Here
August 20, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · 1 Comment
OK, week #2 and 2nd in the series “Mark & Jack: 52.4 Weeks of Living the Success Principles.” This week we deal with purpose, significance, meaningful lives … lightweight stuff like that.
Some people drift aimlessly through life. Others specifically state that humans (themselves included I suspect) have no purpose or that the question - what is your purpose in life - is meaningless.
I dont buy it.
If you get into a spiritual arguement about the meaning or existence of God, free will and if you have a role as a part of God’s plan, I agree - this might make your head hurt. However, if you are able to discover how your life has meaning and significance you are on the right track. How do you do this?This is exactly what I teach people how to do in developing Your Inner Expert, my method of helping people to develop a niche that is willing and able to compensate you for what you do best: Be Yourself.
The first step is to Identify Your Inner Expert - who you are, what you want and the passions and Read more
Success Principle #1: Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life
August 13, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
And so it begins…52.4 weeks of The Success Principles.
Taking responsibility for your life is a given. I soooo get this one. It is really easy to fall into a pattern where there is ALWAYS someone else you can blame for what has happened to you and where you are in your life. And to complain about it. You have said it yourself or you have heard it from others:
- I had a horrible childhood (parents beat/abused you, i was raised by wolves in the forest, etc)
- I have this … problem (fill in latest made up disease…can you even keep up with the acronyms?)
- They (family members, kids, co-workers, Moms at the bus stop where you drop off the kids, the CIA) are out to get me.
- Life is not fair … why do these thing always happen to me?
Get the idea? Well then knock it off! What we need to get is that we have the power to change just about anything in our lives. No, you cannot grow another limb if you are an amputee. No you cannot instantly have $1.237M in your bank account (I dont like round numbers). But you can change your attitude about how you react to your circumstances and what you are going to do about it. You can get a prosthesis, you can start working towards that $1.237M.
THIS principle is truly one of the secrets to success in anything: Accept responsibility for who you are RIIGHT NOW and pay attention to how you react to your reality on a daily basis … it is all you really control.
Success Action For The Day: Think of the last time you got mad at someone for something. Think about how you reacted and come up with at least 3 other ways you could have reacted. Which option makes you feel better, emotionally or physically? Which puts you closer to joy? Is this the reaction you chose? Think about - and commit to - how you will react differently next time.
Mark & Jack: 52.4 Weeks Living The Success Principles, pt. 2
August 12, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
In my last blog, I mentioned my new Crusade, 52.4 weeks of living The Success Principles as detailed by Jack Canfield in his book of the same name. If you are someone who has done any amount of self-help type work, you know that not everything you read or someone else recommends - is going to work for you and your situation. The purpose of this blog series is to help show other people how they can find out for themselves what really works.
The other reasons I’m doing this? Personal Growth. It couldn’t hurt to set a goal of working through one of these Principles every week to integrate them into my life (there are actually 64 Principles in the bookso I will have to consolidate - or just ignore - a few to stick with my title). I am NOT going to use much content from the book other than the title of the individual principles and how they apply, in my own words, to me. Anything that is Jack’s … I will attribute to Jack (as I should).
I also plan on working up a process that I can use in my own coaching services (have to walk the walk) for helping people fine tune the behaviors and actions consistent with success that work in THIER lives. I will integrate this into my system for creating wealth - The Wealth Manifesto: Training and Tools for a Thriving Life.
And finally (I’ll be honest), there is a marketing element to this. I took about 4 months off from doing anything with my coaching and speaking business. It’s time to get back into the fray. This is a timely idea to play on the recent movie Julie & Julia (that’s where the 524 comes from … 524 recipes are included in the Joy of French Cooking). Maybe I’ll even get Jack’s attention (and hopefully not that of his lawyers … hey, lighten up it’s good advertizing for Jack!).
This is a process … a work in progress. It has a beginning - I am not sure about the end. I’ll be getting started tomorrow with Success Principle Number 1: Take 100% responsbility for your life.
We will see together where it takes us.
Your Inner Expert at College
October 24, 2008 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
I did a free program for a local community college the other day. It was my main talk that I give on Why Choose a Career, Choose a Life with some modifications I am seeing a need for based on the chaos in the economy.
My platform to date has been:
- Understand the Rules
- Understand Yourself
- Understand what you want
- Understand what to do - apply Your Inner Expert to owning your own business or investing
At the end of the day, it’s about creating value and building wealth. That is where the business owner and investor part comes in as a part of the applications noted in Number 4. However, with the recession we are now in (tell me this is not news to you … please!), I have added a couple of elements to the program. As a side not, I pretty much did this in real time during my presentation the other day - kinda scary but that’s why I am an entertaining speaker! Read more
Your Inner Expert
September 8, 2008 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
Titles are something I really pay attention to. Not ‘Vice President’ or ‘Chief Uselessness Officer’ … not those kind. Title of books, of blogs, of Mice and Men. I have been bouncing around with what to call this blog. Part of the reason for that it that it’s purpose is changing … moving away from specifically blogging about The Wealth Manifesto and moving on to bigger things.
Just to let you know, this blog is going to be moved as I get set up to explode into the wealth building consciousness of the Internet (LOL … yes it WILL happen .. not quite tomorrow). It’s going over to www.markrafter.com/blog so this is a heads up to look there if this is nothing at the current URL one of these days real soon.
My expertise is gradually starting to gel as I work with more people as a coach and I find out what they need most and where they are getting the most value from working with me. I’ve oriented my main speaking program around the same area as it is REALLY resonating with entrepreneurs and small business owners:
How to identify, maxmize and monetize your inner expert…
In short, I’m an expert on helping people becoming experts (mostly at being themselves as it turns out). The whole point of doing this - in my way of looking at things - is to become wealthy. So, this blog is will start to focus more on my views on the philosophy of wealth and abundance and how to get whatever you want out of life using your strenghts and passions (that’s the foundation of your Inner Expert). Here I’ll talk mostly about the Identify and Maximize parts … that more the “people” part of the system.
The monetization part … how to build financial wealth is going to be at my new blog over on Integrated Wealth Resources. This is where we apply your expertise to the very real world of markets and money.
That is going to turn into a WHOLE ‘nother thing … starting real soon … so stay tuned
Back in the Saddle Again
August 28, 2008 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
Yep, one of my favorite Aerosmith songs…it’s got that classic 1-2 combo punch of Steven Tyler’s screeching vocals and Joe Perry’s Les Paul guitar (I read somewhere he has over 600 guitars - I get grief for owning 8!).
Thus I digress. Back in the (Blogging) saddle that is. For those of you who are actually still listening, the blogging will indeed be back with a vengeance. I have been getting my speaking platform (programs, collateral, new website, etc) together and thinking a lot about why I am doing this.
I have seen the hits on the website dwindle and book sales vanish from the radar.
No matter…I’m back. This blog will migrate to my new speaker site (www.MarkRafter.com) at some point because that is going to be my focus and where I want to beef up the traffic. There will be a brand new format for the blog as well, a new name and a consistent and earnest effort on my part to help readers with wealthbuilding, both in terms of how you find personal fulfillment and meaning in your life as well as how to generate income.
I’ll start by finishing the synopsis blogs on the articles of The Wealth Manifesto. I plan on doing a video series for that as my new format readily incorporates video as well.
Here we go …. sorry I was gone so long.
Article 7: Values are the Foundation of Wealth
May 12, 2008 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
When you find something to be valuable, it is a reflection of your values. All of those things which you find valuable in your life form your system of values.
It is this collection of values, most of them reflecting our beliefs and those we grew up with, that we use to make decisions everyday about the tradeoffs in our lives. More work vs. less time with the kids, more exercise vs. less dessert, being honest vs. lying to get what you want etc. This is one function of our system of values. You will make choices between these kinds of things based on what is most important to you at a given time in your life. Read more
