The Quality of Life Blog
Mark & Jack: Principle #4 - Believe In Yourself
September 23, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
This is the 4th week in my series, Mark & Jack: 52.4 Weeks of Living the Success Principles, my quest to master the Success Principles as written by Jack Canfield in his book of the same name. Last week’s blogs were about getting what you want and my approach to helping people create a Living Wealth Plan. If you didnt read it, check out how I applied this in my own life and some tips on how it can help you to be successful.
This week’s Principle is Believe in Yourself. I have been listening to Wayne Dyer’s latest audio book, Excuses Be Gone (recommended). It mentions another book called The Biology of Belief and how establishing a positive mental position for your intentions at some point goes beyond the thinking and starts to influence your actual cellular biology.
Heady stuff … I believe it. And, as we are discussing, that is the first step. Someone said the same thing about the Law of Attraction: you can either not believe in it and it will act on you without your participation (I prefer “full attention”) or you can believe in it and have it work for you.
At the end of the day, what is wrong with more positive thinking? Decide what one thing you want more in life right now. Financial stability is popular. To be a ranked USTA tennis player. To have self confidence to stand up to a bullying coworker. Put it into words and stand in front of the mirror, looking yourself in the eye and repeat the affirmation over and over, until you feel energized (or someone comes in and wants to know what’s wrong).
After awhile, I find that I cannot help but feel better. “I will be a million dollar a year public speaker in 3 years. I am knowledgeable, funny and helpful and 1000s of people will benefit from hearing what I have to say about being wealthy.”
That’s it - I am heading to the mirror right now. What are you waiting for?
More on Getting What You Want: The Living Wealth Plan
September 13, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · 1 Comment
Continuing with my exploration of Jack Canfield’s Success Priniciples in my series: Mark & Jack.
As you may have noticed, it’s not working out to one a week either…so what? When I work though each of these principles and figure out what they mean to me and how I can integrate my expereinces into what I teach others, THEN I move on.
Last time time I broke the different areas of our existence (ya know … life?) into 9 areas, physical, mental, financial, etc. (Mark & Jack post No. 6) to be used as categories for goal setting, etc. You may have 5 or 16 or you might like 9. It don’ matter tah me … do your own thing.
Set goals in each of these areas, implement an action plan (a HUGE factor in success … some of us are AWESOME at making To Do Lists and never finishing) and move on to the next fun thing. Some of these can be brief. A Physical goal for example might be “exercise 4 times per week” and/or “weigh 175 lbs. by Dec 31 2009″).
Could be complex too as you figure out your financial goals for different phases of your life. I actually recommend this, SPECIFICALLY for financial goals. If you say, “I want financial independence by age 48″, that is not specific. It is much more realizable to look at the next 30 days, the next 6 months, the range of 6 to 24 months, 2 years to 5 years, etc. and identify things like net worth, cash flow, debt, hard assets, etc. for those time frames.
It’s OK to start with, “$2.5M liquid net worth by age 48″ but you will have to break that down to an action plan that is starts in immediately. Then, and this is the good part, you tie that into the other aspects of your Living Wealth Plan and figure out where that monetary wealth is coming from (vocational), what you need to do to get to it (mental, realtional) and who you have to be (personal, spiritual) to get there.
Someone once said that the best thing about becoming a millionaire is not the million dollars but the type of person you become along the way.
Now that’s a plan.
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
Mark & Jack: Principle #3 - Decide What You Want
September 2, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
This is the third week in my series, Mark & Jack: 52.4 Weeks of Living the Success Principles, my quest to master the Success Principles as written by Jack Canfield in his book of the same name. Last week’s blogs were about being clear why you are here and finding significance and meaning in your life. It can get pretty philosophical if you allow yourself to go there but can come down to a few simple questions if you allow that instead. If you didnt read it, check out how I applied this in my own life and some tips on how it can help you to be successful.
This week’s Principle is Decide What You Want. What DO you want? Aladdin’s lamp type question: if there were no limitations on your asking, what would be on your list?
“If they granted you one final wish, would you ask for something, like another chance?”
- Steve Winwood, fr. The Low Spark of High Heeled BoysUnderstand one thing: this is one of the most important things in your life for you to decide. Consider this:
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If you dont know, who does?
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If you dont say, who will?
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If you dont put these things (what you want) in front of you as goals, values, objectives, dreams … whatever you want to call WHERE I AM GOING TO TAKE MY LIFE, how do you think you are going to get there.
And the other thing that I have found is that it is harder than you think. Next time I’ll post some of what I have learned in doing this in my own life and how you can make some progress on this in your life.
While I am thinking about it, here is one of my favorite quotes on this subject:
Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly… “Would you tell me,
please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where…” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Recognizing the Limits of “Do What You Love”
August 25, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
In the last post I mentioned that finding your purpose might just be as easy as figuring out what you love doing and what you are good at doing and then figuring out how to make a living doing just that.
Works … sometimes. Think about it. How many starving artists and musicians are there? How many frustrated athletes who were the best in their high school and never started in college let alone get into the pros. Plenty of stories of people who followed their dream into bankruptcy.
What happened? If this is my “purpose” Mr Smart Guy, why didnt I succeed. Where is my Nike endorsement contract? Why doesnt The Donald return my calls? Why is God messing with me.
Actor Kirk Douglas had a great line (paraphrasing): “God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is ‘No.’” I suppose the quick way to wind down this post (part of my committment to write shorter blog posts) is when you are looking for your purpose, your passion your place, you have to be honest with yourself: is this real or just something you THINK you want? It is referred to as a ‘calling’ for a reason: is this what is really calling you or is it your ego talking? Recognizing that it doesnt always work out and you may have to ‘do what pays,’ for awhile longer while the planets line up is a call you may have to make.
I quit a long - and highly profitable - career in engineering to do my own thing. I was pretty successful but a) it was not quite right (more on that in a later blog) and b) I was not paying my bills (that is called cash flow negative in the financial parlance. I more into the idea of writing a book and being a trainer/speaker than having that be a call I was answering. So I went back to work in engineering. Now, my situation has changed in many ways and I am getting back into writing and speaking for more of the right reasons than I had before. I’ll get to that next post.
Heard a good joke from a homeless woman yesterday on the beach in La Jolla, CA:
What to know how to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans for the day.
You Are 100% Responsible for Your Life (Principles of Success)
August 17, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
I have been living this Success Principle now for just about a week (Success Principle #2 is Coming on Wednesday). I have had one epiphany and a couple of realizations.
Epiphany: When you live in the Now, there is no way to be OTHER THAN 100% responsible for your life. I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle - when you are truly in the moment, there is nothing but your consciousness, your presence. How can anyone or anything else get in there? You make your decisions about what to perceive, how to react, what to feel. Complaints about your past? Experienced in the present. Fear about the future? Experienced in the present. No one else to blame … no excuses for what and who you are.
Realization #1: 100% responsibility for your life means: no complaining, gossiping, or blaming. Try doing NONE of those for just a day. It’s hard but you can do it. 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.
Mark & Jack: 52.4 Weeks Living The Success Principles
August 11, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
The new movie (based on the book) entitled Julie & Julia chronicles the events in the life of chef Julia Child, contrasting her life with Julie Powell, a woman who aspires to cook all 524 recipes from Child’s cookbook, The Joy of French Cooking. Julie comes alive as she expands her view of life vicariously through … yes, you guessed it, the joy of cooking.
I’m going to do something similar. Jack Canfield (and to be fair, co-author Janet Switzer) wrote a book a few years ago called The Success Principles, including in there all of the thinking, behaviors, actions, etc that the co-creator of The Chicken Soup for the Soul series recommends for anyone who wants to be successful.
I dont know about you but I have read plenty of books on success, talked with and even interviewed dozens of people about it and included part of a chapter in my own book (The Wealth Manifesto) dedicated to what it takes to be successful.
But, so what, ya know? There are SO MANY principles for success, so many books (doing a book search on amazon.com for “success” came up with 856,592 results … Jack’s book was listed first BTW), how is anyone going to know what are the “best” principles of success? What are the ones you just CANNOT be successful without? I tried to do this in my book but really didnt have close to enough pages to cover all I thought was important.
So I had an idea: Why not live The Success Principles as detailed by Jack and let everyone know what a (semi) real guy thinks of it, what really really worked for me and why. And, most importantly, come up with my own method of discovery that you can use too to find out what success means to you?
My next blog will explore more on why I want to do this and what you can learn from it. Talk soon!
“Men climb mountains because they’re there; men make art because it’s not.”
-Peter Voulkas, American Ceramic ArtistTime Management 101 Part 2
February 16, 2009 by Mark T. Rafter · Leave a Comment
What we do with our time should be OUR choice
Last month I wrote a post about some basic Time Management techniques that work for me. I just had another epiphany that I thought was worth sharing.
I dont know any “perfect” people. I dont care how self-aware, self actualized, together, integrated, synergized, etc you might be, just about every conscious person is regularly working on themselves, working to improve on who they were yesterday. Richard Branson is no different. Jack Canfield is no different. I’m no different.
So, today I noticed something different about my own productivity. It is President’s Day here in the US and the stock market, schools, banks and many businesses are closed. In my world, that means two things: I am not paying any attention to my portfolio and I have way less emails to “deal with.”
I got into my office this morning and just dove into work, productive and (theoretically) income producing work. Not the usual time sink I find myself in for a typical Monday through Friday.
Often dominated by the markets and email. Most books on trading I have read suggest that you really can spend only a few minutes a day (unless you are day trading) managing your portfolio. You must have a system (which takes time to establish and discipline to implement) that includes taking profits and protecting losses with limits and stops.
Email should be addressed ruthlessly and quickly and only a couple of times a day. I am “usually” good about this but not always (refer back to my comment about everyone can improve). Somedays I am more “lonely” than others (working by and for yourself has it’s own drawbacks) and really am looking for someone to talk to.
The whole point of this is that because of an outside condition (President’s Day), I am able to free myself from distractions that I should be able to do on my own any darn day I want to.
Something to think about.
Of course, I could always do another blog post. Or no….WAIT! The spot market for gold is open in London. Let’s go there!
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