Michal Stawicki's Blog, page 29

The Dreams Come True

I’ve made a couple of my dreams come true, so please be patient with my rant and read to the end. Maybe you will make yours come true too?

Eleventh of July 2014 I bought a house.

You have no idea how big that is for my family. My wife has been dreaming about our own house since 2009. But that year I was laid off, because of the economy breakdown. It took me a couple of years to rebuild my salary to previous level and a bit above.

And previous level was not enough to afford buying a house. It allowed us to live the life at the level we were comfortable with in our small flat.

Mindset

It’s not exactly the money which made this purchase possible. It was the shift in the mindsets, both mine and my wife’s.

The price of the house was about my 4 yearly salaries. The mortgage’s installment is about 30% of my monthly salary. And we needed about $7k of our own contribution.

 

Two years ago I read The Slight Edge and undertook a massive change in my life. Oh boy, that was uncomfortable and a way outside my comfort zone.

One of the areas I reformed was my finances. I started to save much bigger chunk of the salary, than before. My savings ratio increased from 4.5% to about 20%. During those 20 months since I accelerated my savings, I accumulated about $10k. Without that money we wouldn’t have been able to provide our contribution.

I’m a writer

In April 2013 I started writing my first work ever published, small booklet titled “A Personal Mission Statement: Your Road Map to Happiness.” Today I have six works under my belt. When I started all I had was a desire to succeed. I had no bases to expect a success – no experience, no authority and mediocre English.

One of my books became a bestseller, which gave a bigger exposure to my whole catalog and I earned a few thousands of dollar so far. I have never intended to use my royalties to anything else than expanding my publishing business.

That money came very handy at the house purchase. In Poland, when you buy a house you are obligated to pay the “luxury tax”, 2% of the price. Bank took 2% for the “privilege” of giving a mortgage. Notary public took his share too, although it was a chicken feed comparing to banks and government’s shares. Though luck.

We could afford to pay all the fees. We used absolutely everything: the money I stacked for paying flat’s mortgage before time, the money I stacked for planned expanses like school workbooks for kids and a rainy days fund. And a good chunk of my royalties. Only about $1000 was left.

 

All that financial engineering was possible, because I’ve changed my personal philosophy. Because two years ago I saw where my future is going to and I decided to change that path. It took my massive transformation to put us in the place where purchasing a house was physically possible.

You have the influence

But the main driving force behind the decision of buying the house was my wife. She was very skeptical (that’s understatement of the century) when she heard about my writing venture for the first time. She scolded and mocked me.

I remember the point when I had three books written when she read them and trashed them as products of literary wannabe. She demanded that I “quit this entertainment and look for a better job instead.” But I was adamant. We went through that crisis and I kept writing.

She didn’t share my enthusiasm when my royalties transformed from a few bucks a month to several dozens of bucks. The success of Master Your Time modified her attitude a little. She started to believe that maybe I can make it happen.

I’m convinced that my change of thinking and acting affected her too. At the beginning she was extremely negative toward my idea of writing career.

You are the influence

I didn’t let her attitude affect me. I was on a mission. I was all for changing my life. I knew the final destination of my old ways and it wasn’t “they lived happily ever after.” If I would have focused on working for someone else for the rest of my life, I would have been destined for a lifelong struggle.

I refused to think about any other outcome than success.

Every time she mocked me, she found me inflexible. How long can you do something without seeing any results? Finally she gave up on this.

My open-mindedness affected her too. She quit her job. Formally she was fired, but it was because she demanded a salary raise from her employer. She worked in a very toxic environment and I was stoked that she won’t be working there anymore. We lost 25% of our income, but it was worth it.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

This quote is often used as an argument for “ditching negative people from your life.” But this influence works in both directions. “Negative” people are affected by you. They can’t observe your progress and don’t reach the conclusion they can do it too.

Usually that means they ran away, because they can’t stand taking responsibility for their lives. But my wife didn’t run away. She has changed. She came out of the negative thoughts spiral and started looking for opportunities. She came out of her comfort zone too.

As I said before, she was obsessed by the dream of our own house for quite some time. She became a local real estate expert. She knew about all houses for sale in the range of 20 miles from our town. She knew everything about them – location, age, construction technology, media…

But till about 8 months ago this knowledge was passive and very frustrating in its nature. She didn’t try to do anything with it. About the point she quit her job she changed her attitude. She started to call house owners and tried to haggle. She started visiting the sites.

Obstacles

When she found our house she was unemployed. However her faith in our abilities grew enough to try to finalize the transaction. We’ve encountered and overcame a few obstacles.

First my wife managed to haggle down the price to the 87% of the entry point. In a real estate transaction it translates to thousands of dollars.

Then she negotiated with the owner doing the bulk of paper work connected with submitting all the appropriate documents to the respective authorities. In Poland we have to submit countless documentation to various offices before the house is officially habitable.

I took care about the mortgage. The paperwork in the bank was even more murderous. One week we visited the bank 4 times to make a recon, to sign up papers, to deliver lacking paper… In the end they purposefully understated the value of the house and in the effect we needed to increase our contribution. It was the reason I dipped into my royalty’s fund.

In the meantime my wife found a job and she will earn almost exactly an amount we need for the mortgage installment.

Comfort zone extended

In April 2013 I had only dreams and hopes. Now I have a new home and a business. It usually brings just a few hundred dollars a month, but it’s a business nonetheless. I earn better than 75% of the authors, indie or not.

My comfort zone was extended significantly. I learned to invest in my business in order to get higher revenues. I started experiments with paid advertising. I wasted some money and I earned some money. I gained experience. I paid $300 for professional edition of my latest book. I didn’t break even at this investment yet, but within first 4 weeks I already earned 85% of that cost. I transformed from an employee to the entrepreneur.

I learned a lot about independent publishing. When I read “Write. Publish. Repeat.” I realized I have almost all the knowledge of a couple authors who are making a living from their books. No exaggeration.

More dreams

I was approached by a publisher a few weeks ago. They saw a potential in my books and proposed me a deal. They will do the heavy lifting – editing, proofreading, covers, different formats and help with the launches – for 30% of the royalties. They also requested a deposit: $1500.

One year ago such cooperation wouldn’t have crossed my mind. I would have been full of suspicions. I wouldn’t have risked fifteen hundred bucks.

But I gained the experience. I knew how valuable their services are. I knew how desperate I needed them to expand. I knew I needed new channels of distribution and more effective marketing. I knew that I was reaching my limits as a one-man-army. And I knew them and knew I can trust them, because I have been in the business for the past year and have heard about them. They cooperate with my mentor.

My only problem was that I had not $1500. I confessed it and they agreed for $1000 deposit.

23rd of July I signed the contract. I have the publisher.

Lessons

Cool stories, huh? But what they have to do with you? A few lessons which may help you do just that:

1. Never ever give up on what’s important for you.

2. You don’t need self belief or any kind of belief. All you need is to keep plugging.

3. Comfort zone equals to comfort pit.

4. You need obstacles and hassles. They transcend into valuable experience.

5. The dreams can come true.

Did your dreams come true?

How so? Share with me.

The post The Dreams Come True appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

The Slight Edge in Action: 2nd Anniversary

I summarized the last two years of my life; it took some word count, so bear with me.

Exactly 2 years ago, 10th of August 2012 I read The Slight Edge.

Two years ago

Till that point in time I was going nowhere. No surprise, because I had no plans. I was living day by day crossing my fingers and hoping everything will going to be all right. Usually it wasn’t.

The brightest point in my situation was my fitness. I lost 10 pounds from April to August 2012.

I had one definite plan for my future; I wanted to go to Heaven. I just didn’t know how that was possible, except in the form of God’s mercy. So I awaited His mercy. Oh, that’s another bright point in my life – my church community which I’ve been attending for the last 15 years.

And I had my wonderful family, three smart and healthy kids and my wife, the love of my life.

Our financial situation was stable. Both I and my wife had jobs. We paid our bills and credits on time and I was even able to save about 4.5% of our income. So it took about two years to save one salary. It didn’t look like the best formula for getting wealthy.

My wife dreamed about a house, but we had just several thousand dollars on savings account and no perspectives for significant change in our income. I worked 2 years for my employer and I was already earning about two average salaries in Poland as a database administrator.

I divided my time between my work (more than half of it), my family (maybe 20%?), my church community (a few hours a week) and my entertainment – reading, playing a card game and on the computer (the rest).

I had no interest in personal development or learning at all. I finished my university studies in 2004 and I had to learn constantly new tools, software and systems in my jobs. I had enough learning.

Frustration

I was frustrated, because I was not stupid. No matter how much I anesthetized myself with entertainment I realized, that my life is going nowhere. It was a constant struggle to keep our expanses at bay. We couldn’t afford good vacations, we couldn’t afford renovation of our apartment, and we couldn’t afford a new car.

My wife had more ambition and dreams than me and that caused some tension between us. I felt I was doing all in my power to sustain our lifestyle and she put more and more pressure on me to realize her wishes. That was not fair!

That’s how my life was two years ago. Not exactly miserable, a bit frustrating and not fulfilling at all.

A year ago

The Slight Edge in action changed my life. I won’t go into too many details; you can read about it here and there. This is an anniversary post, so I’ll just describe briefly where I was a year ago.

I introduced a lot of changes into my life. Not much changed at the first glance. My family and possessions were the same. I had the same job. The changes were mostly intangible. The only thing which changed significantly was my schedule. I started to wake up an hour earlier to ignite my day.

I started writing. I wrote while commuting to and from work on the trains.

If I had periods at work when I could do with my time whatever I liked, and I had many of them, I studied personal development, I connected with new people, I explored publishing, blogging and online marketing.

On the tangible side I reached my dream weight in February and started two blogs.

In August 2013 I had two books published and I worked on two more. I was losing money on it, but I at least had a plan. I changed my direction. I learned to save more money. The savings ratio increased to about 20% of our income, so we could save more than two salaries a year. On the Slight Edge chart I would put my position somewhere here:

And now

10th of August 2014. Some pretty dramatic changes took place in the last year. In November 2013 the new edition of The Slight Edge was published and the story of my transformation was included!

I studied in my spare time and I got two professional certificates at my day job.

I was being recognized by a thriving indie community on FB and through the new contacts I got my covers re-done and my 5th book edited.

In October 2014 I started this blog. It was visited about 9k times. A rock star from UK, James Arthur, tweeted about my post once and I got a surge of visits that day.

In November 2013 I published my 3rd book and I started to break even on my publishing venture. In fact it became profitable.

My wife was fired from her job. She changed her attitude a bit, she became bolder in her salary expectations, and so her employer got rid of her. I was happy about it, this company sucked. And I was right; she blossomed without the burden of negative people around her.

We lost 25% of our income, but I was still able to save about 20% of it.

Steve Scott became my unofficial mentor. I followed him incessantly since May 2013. I commented on his every post, I followed him on Facebook and Twitter. We developed a relationship in the natural way and he helped me with my two last book launches. Speaking of which…

In January 2014 my fifth book, Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day, became a bestseller. I earned half of my salary in February! (Well, the money was transferred at the beginning of May). I finally was able to invest some cash into my business. I started experimenting with paid marketing and outsourcing.

Because of my book’s success I was interviewed a couple of times.

In March I was approached by an entrepreneur from Germany. He offered the translation deal for Master Your Time. It was published on Amazon.de at the end of April. I cashed the first royalties from Germany in July. 4% of my salary. A nice side income.

I published 6th book in June. I invested $300 in editing and the book became profitable in the first month.

In July I fulfilled my wife’s dream. We bought a house. We wouldn’t have done it without the increased savings rate and my royalties.

The same month I was approached by the publisher and signed a contract. My books will be re-done by professionals and re-launched. I already sent them the manuscript of my latest book.

Those are quite tangible results, aren’t they? I estimate my present position on the Slight Edge chart about this point:

And guess where I want to be?

Am I going to be there? Who knows? My friends, who were cheering me up from the beginning, claim that they knew I will succeed at our first encounter. It’s touching, but you know, they are my friends, and what else can they say?

I have a lot of doubts, a bunch of fears, the feeling of inadequacy and an impostor syndrome. However I had even more of them and still managed to achieve some results. So I’ll stick to my ways and try to climb this steep road to the end of the arrow.

 

Reflecting back on the two last years of my life I can hardly believe what has happened. The extent of my transformation eludes me on everyday basis. I just keep plugging, doing my little disciplines. I can’t comprehend how those tiny things built such a monumental (at least in my eyes) structure. The fact that I was at the beginning and in this moment gives me a unique perspective. I can reverse engineer what I’ve done, divide the picture into single puzzles and give you a method of making your own jigsaw.

Easy

Every single activity is easy to do or easy not to do.

Writing a book consists of writing chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words and individual keystrokes. How hard is one keystroke? It’s easy! How easy is not to press the key? The difficulty level is about the same.

Replace one activity with another. Instead of playing on the computer I wrote. Instead of hanging out on ‘funny’ sites, I hang out on authors groups.

Action

Each action matters. We don’t believe it, because it takes so long to see the tiniest results. Look at the chart above. In the first year of my transformation the difference between my action and inaction was almost invisible. Everything was about the same. I sowed and sowed the seeds, but all I could see after twelve months was a handful of miniscule blades.

Action is a fabric of accomplishment. Plans, re-evaluation, course corrections are secondary. They can affect your effectiveness profoundly, but only if there is an element of action.

You cannot re-evaluate anything. You cannot plan if you don’t have an idea what it is really like when you actually do something new. You cannot correct your course if you haven’t taken off.

Blind action can lead you to your goal, blind plans can’t.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

That’s a very wise system for conduct in life, but only when you actually take an action in the end.

Nowadays you are paralyzed by too many options. You have all the knowledge of the humanity at your fingerprints, but you can’t absorb it all! You can spend all your life just learning and planning and not implementing an ounce of it. Action is the only way to utilize that knowledge.

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Paralysis by analysis is the greater danger today.

The size doesn’t matter

The tiniest action matters. For the first three months the most tangible things I started were joining an online Slight Edge community, starting gratitude journal about my wife and paying myself first just 70 dollars.

I did other things too, but they were woo-woo: listening to motivational and educational materials during my morning workouts, regularly studying the Bible, reading for at least ten minutes a book written by saint. According to our material-oriented society these should have exactly zero tangible effects and could impair my sanity.

Anyway, take a step back and take a look on those early activities of mine. Try to connect the dots. How $70 a month could lead to almost eight thousand dollars of savings in two years?!? The math doesn’t add up.

How joining the community of woo-woo believers could lead to being recognizable by the publisher?

The math doesn’t add up again.

Consistency

It doesn’t add, because the time factor is not adding the results, it is multiplying them.

Consistency is a key to meaningful effects. That’s why “paralysis by analysis” is even greater danger than you realize. You start doing one thing, keep it for a week or month and don’t see satisfying results. But you have such an abundant range of the shiny alternatives out there!

So you ditch your “ineffective” action and do something else. And something else. And something else.

You can spend your whole life in this manner and achieve just teeny weenie results. In fact it’s happening all the time around you, isn’t it?

Think of successful and unsuccessful people from your surroundings. Pick any area – parenting, health, finance, spirituality – and check if you can find consistency in their actions. I bet the unsuccessful are not consistent.

Staying consistent is not an easy feat, right?

Wrong.

We are wired for consistency. Scientists say that about 45% of our behaviors are semi-autonomous.

Habits are an ideal vehicle to consistent behavior. You don’t have to think every time which good choice to make. Develop good habits. Employ them to change your life. Allow them to lead you along the upward curve on autopilot.

Time + effort = results

This formula is true. Usually we don’t have problems with the effort. We all understand instinctively that without the work there will be no effects.

Almost unanimously we have the problem with time. To hassle for a few hours is all right. Work a week and enjoy the weekend. Study four years and graduate. Then you can “take things easy, eat, drink, and have a good time.”

The answer for this is just: “Fool!”

 

What you need is patience, resolve and grit. Only by setting yourself for the long run you are setting yourself for the significant results.

Instant gratification is an illusion. I can hear the voices of critics, we hear them all the time: “But you can’t just hassle and hassle with no reward, with no enjoyment! It’s inhuman. You will be miserable!”

Oh yes, you can hassle and it is a reward.

Think of these protests rationally. Does it mean that Benjamin Franklin, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Edison, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Jim Rohn, John D. Rockefeller, Michael Jordan, Zig Ziglar, Will Smith were all miserable? Bollocks!

 

There is also one more implication to the formula above: if you start now, you will get more time. You will have the chances for bigger results. Don’t waste your time.

 

My whole rant can be bringing down to this simple advice:

Start right NOW. Persevere. Do it until.

The post The Slight Edge in Action: 2nd Anniversary appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Fourth Income Report – July 2013

The first half of July was full of frantic activity.

I was finishing my second book – The Fitness Expert Next Door. It became the first volume in the series “How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day.”

The book was flying back and forth between my editor and me. We did about 8 iterations of proofreading and edition. Again, I didn’t have a single complaint about the quality of this book.

I was getting a crash course on Aweber. I figured out how to create the list, the sign-up form, how to set it up on my website, how to establish thank you and confirmation page, how to add messages to the mailing sequence. It was a steep learning curve.

Outsourcing

I hired another designer on Fiverr. Once again it wasn’t a positive experience. She did a couple of revisions, but I had the feeling she didn’t read my feedback at all. I remember that in the end I spent 3 hours redoing her job before I could finally hit the ‘Publish’ button late evening on 12th of July. It didn’t add the flavor to the mix with my non-existent graphic skills. I think I demanded a refund for that job.

14th of July the first copy of second book was sold. I also sold 9 copies of 1st book so far in that month.

Holidays

On 15th I went to the family holidays. Two weeks on the beach near the lake. No computer. No Internet. No writing. For two long weeks I abandoned my publishing business.

We were back on 27th of July. I checked my sales as soon as possible. I sold 12 additional copies, 11 of personal mission statement book, 1 copy of fitness book.

Lesson:

Wow, that was a lesson on passive income in a nutshell! I did the entire job beforehand and I didn’t raise a finger to sell books during my holidays!

It’s one thing to read about it in the overhyped style in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and totally another thing to experience it yourself. Selling eBooks on Amazon IS a passive income stream. All the money I earned from my books is of the passive quality. I worked hard to write, edit, put together and market each book to sit down and reap the benefits later.

I did almost none active promotion of my first book since publishing. I organized only 3 or 4 free KDP Select promotions and left it on the virtual Amazon’s shelves. I sold well over 700 copies of it already. And it’s just the first year of its life! It’s mind blowing.

Stagnation

Not much more happened in July. I sold 27 copies overall, but only 2 copies of The Fitness Expert Next Door. Ugly cover plus zero marketing summed up to this effect. The book was in a very competitive niche and was hard to find throughout Amazon search for any of the main keywords.

I organized hastily a free promo for it at the beginning of August.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: Still zero.

Well, the royalties reached $6.48 for July, but they weren’t sent to my bank account yet.

Cost: $19

Aweber (affiliate link) is not the cheapest mailing services provider, that’s sure. But with their flexible interface I was able to add about 40 perseverance quotes to my mailing sequence and go to the holidays. I was adding more of them with time. That was exactly the solution I needed, I could stagger the process of creating the mailing sequence.

I sold fewer copies with 2 books in July than in June with one book. Heck, my second book wasn’t a bestseller too! In fact it was my worst performing book till the publication of the book number 4. The ugly cover had a lot to do with it. But everything serves some purpose. In November 2013 this ugly cover made me a big favor.

The post Fourth Income Report – July 2013 appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Personal Philosophy: The Missing Element of Personal Development

I’m a student of personal development. And I know it gives results. It can realize your dreams. I experienced its power firsthand. I’m not some freak of nature; many people have similar experiences including today’s icons of personal development – Brain Tracy, Anthony Robbins, Bob Proctor, Bernard Burchard.

But looking around you can see that personal development doesn’t seem to be the answer for the most folks. Every year there are millions of new PD books copies sold, millions of podcasts episodes are downloaded and listened to, hundreds of thousands people attends to seminars, the circulation of Success magazine is half a million.

But we heard only about hundreds, several thousand at most, success stories.

The method which brought fame and fortune to some seems to be completely useless or of limited functionality to the rest. There is some missing element in this puzzle.

I grasped this dissonance almost as soon as I returned to personal development study. I came back to it after 16 years. I have extended experience of personal development which didn’t work.

Success is the question of personal philosophy

What it is?

A simplistic definition:

“A system a person forms for conduct of life”.

Some people developed a system which says “Stay on the couch and enjoy your bear at all cost”, others “Progress is my duty”. But everybody has one. And it defines the life they live and the results they get.

It is the reason why people who live in the same place, in the same family and experience the same hardships as any other person next to them achieve drastically different results.

Les Brown and his twin brother Wesley had almost identical data inputs in the early childhood. But only one of them became a world class speaker.

We observe it in the history time after time – people who live in the same ghetto are achieving radically different end results.

The secret behind those differences is the personal philosophy. A successful life is possible only for those who are backed up by successful personal philosophy.

How is it formed?

By sensory data inputs – everything you see, hear smell, touch and taste forms your personal philosophy in some degree.

Why in some degree? Because you have the watchdog in your brain – RAS. It filters everything, so you won’t go crazy. It’s working at a very low level; you literally don’t see things and don’t hear them. You have also a belief system, which many think are connected with RAS. And you subconsciously avoid everything which is not compatible with it.

I call it your internal interpretation. It can work subconsciously like RAS and filters anything not agreeable with your belief system. Then you don’t hear, don’t see. It also works half-consciously, when you can register your thoughts: “Yeah, bastards, you just want my credit card number, not to make my life better.”, “Yeah, look for a loser somewhere else, I won’t give you my email address, so you can spam me with success tips.”

To say the true, that’s all. You get input, you interpret it and it in the results shifts your personal philosophy a bit. But I also assigned the 3rd factor to my guide of developing your own personal philosophy: people.

People are unpredictable. I’ve never heard about a dog that turned his life around by a single destiny-defining decision. People deserve to be a separate category of factors that influence your personal philosophy. People are simply important. They can affect you on so many levels that are still incalculable.

And the more I study personal development, philosophy and spirituality, the more I am convinced that we are interconnected. On an invisible level we mimic those whom we are around. Skeptics may say its hormones or subconscious body language signals. They may be even right. Whatever it is, it works. The saying about being an average of the five people closest to you is a good approximation of reality.

People can be both your data sources and your interpretation. Most likely your parents are responsible for majority of beliefs you’ve gained in your childhood. You personal philosophy was also affected by your peers, teachers and neighborhood.

People often delivered you information and emotions mingled with that information: “Those bastard Democrats did it again!“, “Those tunnel-visioned Republicans said it again!” “It”, whatever it is, conveys the information, invectives (less often praises) are the emotions.

When is your personal philosophy formed?

Some says that the basics of your personality are determined in your early childhood, up to 2 years old. I very much doubt it. I experienced a major shift in my personal philosophy at the age of 33.

Aristotle claimed that a man is able to shift his philosophy up to the age of 54. He hadn’t a sophisticated scientific method to determine this threshold very precisely; he just used his sharp mind to estimate it. Tom Butler-Bowdown, the author of “Never Too Late to be Great” found many examples of people who were older than that when they shifted their philosophy. An Iron Nun was 54 when she decided to participate in an Ironman competition (and she started any physical exercises at all at the age of 48).

The right answers then seems to be: a personal philosophy is in constant process of alignment. It can be changed, it is changing all the time. That’s its nature. A system for conduct in life can’t be stale, because life is dynamic in its nature.

How to adjust it consciously?

I’m sure there are hundreds, if not billions of factors which affects shaping human’s personal philosophy. Sensory inputs, emotions, past experiences, knowledge, and interpretation attached to all of the above, your family life, your failures and successes, the kind of books you read or shows you watch. Whether or not you were bullied at school or whether or not you attended the single-sex school. Whether or not there was a death or serious illness in your close family. And so on.

But all you need to amend your philosophy is generalization and simplifying – concepts human mind is so fond of. Just focus on the 3 factors I mentioned earlier: data sources, internal interpretation and people. It will take care of 80% of forming your right personal philosophy. The rest? It will take care of itself or you will study it when the main bulk of work will be done.

Where to start?

Start from data sources. It’s the easiest and most tangible part.

Read books. Jeff Olson in The Slight Edge recommends reading at least 10 pages of a good book every day. If you stick to this discipline, it will translate to 8-10 books read within one year. If it seems daunting to you, because you don’t like to read, start from 2 pages a day. The worst thing you can do is to ignore this advice and not read at all.

You are lucky to live in the Internet era. There is a multitude of blogs on every subject imaginable. You can learn about parenting, healthy eating, starting a new business, becoming an author and thousand other things. Carefully select 2 or 3 blogs in an interesting area and follow them closely. Find someone close to your level, which has some successes, but still have time and desire to interact with his audience. This kind of interaction on the global Net touches a bit another pillar of rebuilding personal philosophy – meeting new people. Not only the blog owner, but also his audience. The comment section is a great place to start new acquaintances. You get two advantages at one stroke.

 

I personally hate learning from videos. But your preference may be the opposite. There are a lot of valuable video materials on the Internet including a multitude of specialized YT channels. For expanding your horizon I recommend TED talks. If you prefer to consume content offline (as I do) there are free tools which allow you downloading videos from most of the sites, including YT. I recommend Flash Video Downloader or HD Transform.

 

Audio is another way to get new ideas and knowledge. I don’t find it very useful for the learning purposes, the data are hard to extract for me just from listening. But you can utilize a lot of opportunities to listen to audio materials which are unavailable with reading or watching. You can listen while doing household chores, exercising, and commuting, driving, going for shopping… the list goes on and on.

 

Find something which will work for you. Pick carefully a couple of new inputs and develop new habits of plugging into them. Some useful ideas:

- read 10 pages of a good book a day

- listen to one podcast episode a day

- Watch one TED talk a day

- read a single specialized blog post a day

- listen to educational/motivational audio materials for 15 minutes a day

- read a single random blog post a day (just type an interesting topic in Google)

Approach those activities like any other serious habit-building activity. Design the process. Find your cue, like leaving a book on your bedside cabinet, so every time when you lie in your bed you read 10 pages of it. Set alarms or reminders. Track a new habit, make it a point of honor to do both the tracking and habit itself every day.

For how long?

Forever. At least set your mind for such time horizon. It shouldn’t take you forever to change your life, but if you negotiate with your subconscious whether or not do your new data-input habit, it will crush your determination. It’s bigger and stronger than you. Be consistent.

Every sustained action brings the results.

Stick to your small discipline for days, weeks and months and one day you won’t recognize yourself.

How much?

There are experts who advise to start very small. If you had problems with staying consistent it’s definitely a viable option.

But Jim Rohn advised to read even half of the night if you found yourself in dramatic circumstances, with very lousy personal philosophy.

When I started my transformation I set myself for at least 45 minutes of exposing my mind to the new data sources. But I did more than a minimum. In the few first months I read about dozen books and a couple hundreds of blog posts.

So do as much as possible. No less. No more.

The challenge

I bet your life will change if you start even a single 10 minute discipline of this kind and stick with it for one year.

C’mon, prove me wrong! Start a new habit on Lift, find me there for accountability, build 365-day long streak and we will see if (in my opinion-how) your life will change.

The post Personal Philosophy: The Missing Element of Personal Development appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

The Accurate Future Reading without Woo-Woo

Here is the methof of the accurate future reading. It’s relatively easy and quite reliable.

Even better, you can decide if you like your destiny and adjust your action to change your life’s direction and in the effect – its destination.

You can do it using The Slight Edge philosophy. Take a look at the chart and I’ll explain it.

The author of the book, Jeff Olson, states that your lifestyle is the product of your results which come from actions which eventuates from your attitude which are the effect of your personal philosophy. Only 5% of population achieves success, because only 5% is driven by their values on an everyday actions level.

They embrace the discipline and responsibility for their lives. The rest of us decide to rather do what’s comfortable now and don’t care about the future fallouts. That’s the way of the downward curve, which leads to failure.

Why this idea is revolutionizing and made this book a bestseller? Because success and failure boil down to the simple things you do every day. And they all are small, easy to do and easy not to do.

It’s the choice between a fruit and a chocolate bar. Is it easy to take a bite of an apple? Is it easy to peel away a wrapping and devour a chocolate? Both actions are basic. Both of them seemingly don’t matter. However, multiplied, compounded over time they give totally different results.

It’s not the grand action

The idea here is that no single grand action, but everyday actions determine your lifestyle.

Let’s imagine you won a main prize on a lottery. $4 million dollar. That’s grand. You of course quit your job. I would do the same, if I were you. You donate some money to charities; pay your debts and your parents debts. You buy a nice house, a couple of nice cars, a handful of expansive gadgets, but you are no fool, you stop right there. You have $2 million left. You put it on the savings account and you live happily ever after.

Well, there is a small problem with an ‘ever’. Ten years later your fortune drains out. You can’t afford your mansion and Ferrari anymore. You don’t have a job and have no useful skills, because the last 10 years you were focusing on enjoying your life.

How the heck did it happen? Simply, your compounded errors in judgments (read: unnecessary expanses) led you to this point. You didn’t need to buy a new luxury car every year to cause it. It was enough to spend about $550 a day, less than $4k a week or $16,500 a month to gone bankrupt. Frequent vacations, tickets, hotels, souvenirs, not to mention the costs of maintaining your mansion – it all summed up.

This is a fairytale of course. Usually it takes just a few years of small errors in judgment to spend the prize.

A single grand action or grand event means nothing if it’s not supported by a consistent discipline.

Everything matters

Your every action counts. Your every act adds to your wellbeing or works against it. The tragedy is, you don’t know for a long time in which direction it really works. Your errors or disciplines are so tiny, that their results are invisible. Eating a single hamburger won’t kill you. It won’t even make you a slightly ill. Eating a single apple won’t make you a specimen of health.

I don’t think the chart above really gives The Slight Edge philosophy justice. I think it should look like that:



For a long time the results of daily disciplines or daily errors in judgment are very hard to recognize. And the errors give you an immediate reward. The taste of a hamburger or chocolate bar is so much better than the taste of a raw carrot!

Get to know your future

However you can estimate on which curve you are, even if it’s just the beginning of your road. You can get the idea where you are going to, by examining your habits.

First of all, if you can’t recall specific habits connected with a specific area of your life it’s usually a bad sign. It’s highly likely that:

If you don’t think about God and afterlife – your spiritual life is in shambles.

If you don’t know what you eat, drink and have no exercise routine – you are fat.

If you don’t know where your money goes, from where your income comes – you are in debt.

If you don’t care about your education – you are a dropout (or soon will be).

If you don’t remember the last time you’ve said ‘I love you’ – your relationships are shallow.

There is a chance that you are a freak of nature

Maybe you have an incredible metabolism and you can eat huge amounts of anything and still be fit. You may ignore God, but He doesn’t ignore you and gives you a lot of graces so you are not spiritually dead. You spend money like crazy, but earn them even faster.

It’s quite possible to be unique, exceptional in one area, but you would have to be a Superman to be exceptional in all. So even if something is very easy for you, pay attention and draw the conclusion about the area where you are not so flawless.

You may have nice results in some area, but if they are not supported by consistent disciplines, you are still on a downward curve.

Errors

Then look for the errors repeated over time.

Bitching on God, not attending your congregation – indicate that your spirit is in shambles.

Eating junk food, drinking soda, smoking, alcohol or drug addictions – indicate that your body is in shambles.

Credit cards maxed out, buying on credit, being late on payments – indicate that your finances are in shambles.

Not a single education activity – indicate that your education is in shambles.

And so on. If you repeat an error on a regular basis, it’s a sure sign that you are on a downward curve. The appearances may not show that, you still don’t have a cancer, you still are able to pay your mortgage on time, but it’s just a question of time.

Disciplines

On the other hand, if you recognize some disciplines and abide to them consistently, it’s a sign that you are on the right way. You may even be starting very low, below the neutral line as a result of your poor past choices such as smoking for your health or gambling for your finances.

Nonetheless, supported by the right discipline, your upward move in the end will be fast and furious and will lead you far above average.

Evaluate your future. This process made me to conclude that my life is going nowhere. I started my transformation introducing 6 disciplines without much hope or belief that it will do much good. It brought a massive value into my life in the effect.

Design your future

Your future is predictable. It is also changeable. It’s never too late to reverse the downward move. Abandon your errors in judgment, develop some consistent disciplines and you change the ultimate direction.

Where to start? As the Slight Edge chart suggests – start from your personal philosophy.

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Third Income Report – June 2013

The 1st of June was the last day of a free promo. The second and third of June I still didn’t sell a single copy.

I had gloomy thoughts: “I’m no good; my book is a piece of crap…” I definitely parted with the dreams about bestsellers and fortune.

4th of June I sold 2 copies and the sales started to trickle.

11th of June I reached a whooping 7 copies sold and in my desperation I changed one of book’s categories from Self-Help-> Personal Transformation to Non-fiction-> Writing Guides

This category was almost abandoned (and still is). With my 7 sales this month I instantly occupied #2 place.

I was already working on my second book, “The Fitness Expert Next Door.” At the end of June it was almost ready (including proofreading and edition).

In a meantime I was writing my speed reading book. I finished the core of it on 9th of July. Mark that date.

The sales kept trickling.

My frustration was escalated because on 9th of June Stephen R. Covey’s guide “How to Develop Your Personal Mission Statement“ had been published. One of the reasons I decided to write my first book about mission statement creation was a relative lack of competition. And Covey’s book was selling a few dozens of copies every day!

It wasn’t fun at all.

Now I think it was this factor that kept my book afloat. It immediately was put into “other customers who bought this book also bought” section at competing book’s page. Every client who bought Covey’s guide saw also my book there and some of them bought it too.

21st I beaten my sales record: all, shiny, three sales in one day!

A peek into the future: this record hold till 7th of November.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: Still zero.

I sold 29 copies of “Personal Mission Statement: Your Roadmap to Happiness.” My (future, vague and not materialized) income was $6.96. The good news was that it exceeded the cost of the cover in the first full month of the book’s life.

The bad news was that it was about 0.3% of my salary. I needed to write about 335 of similarly performing books to replace my 9 to 5 job’s income. Though luck!

Costs: $1.

I bought Aweber (affiliate link) service. It was only $1 for the first month. I wanted to get my mailing list ready for the launch of the second book.

I decided on Aweber, because it was the tool my mentor was using, so I had an access to some guidelines. I played around a bit with MailChimp, but my idea for a lead magnet – 100 perseverance quotes – was hard to implement in that soft. I was time constrained as usual, so I decided on the paid service just to get started faster.

I had also this silly idea that I will become a famous author sooner rather than later and I will exceed 2000 free subscribers in no time.

This was my first shift into an entrepreneurial mindset. This was paying for something to save the time on learning the tool of trade.

The other change was that I actually started doing something advised by the people who were ahead of me. Steve Scott said that mailing list is crucial for an indie author and I trusted him.

Well, my writing career didn’t proceed as planned (first book published = bestseller and fortune).

On the other hand I earned the first real money (read: my friends didn’t book all those copies) from my craft. It was an encouraging thought. I was also exposed to the idea that all I need is to repeat the process a few hundred times and I’ll be free. Much later I found this idea articulated in “Write. Publish. Repeat.” written by full time indie authors.

 

I decided my writing career was doable. Up till then I was convinced it was impossible.

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From Shy to Hi available on Amazon

“From Shy to Hi” has been launched. This is my 6th book and 5th in the “How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day” series.

40 percent to 45 percent of adults in America say they are shy. So there are good chances that this book is for you.

From 25th to 29th of June it is free to download from Amazon.

If you are still on the fence about reading it, take a peek into this excerpt:

A Quick, But Meaningful, Moment

With time and practice, I became better at starting and carrying on conversations with strangers. I also became more confident. One day, I was on the train heading home from work. I hadn’t talked to a stranger yet that day, so I was looking for the opportunity. I smiled at the lady sitting opposite me. She smiled back at me with a wide and sincere smile.

That’s rare, at least in my country, on the 8 p.m. train, when everybody is going home after a long and (usually) tiring day at work. I estimate that only about one person in 20 smiles back at me on those evening trains.

“OK, level one checked off,” I thought to myself. I stirred a reaction, so I accomplished the basic level of my discipline. I was done for the day. The train was approaching my town, so I got up, packed my laptop and put on my jacket. While doing this, another thought came: “What the heck? I should tell her that she has done something exceptional.”

I sat down once again and said to her with a wide smile:

“Do you realize how special you are?”

She was abashed. I could almost read her mind: “WTF?”

She answered hesitantly, “No, why?”

“You smiled back at me. I smile at many people, but not many smile back at me. I think maybe one in 20. You are special.”

“Well, thank you very much. It’s what I do. I always smile back.”

The anxiety left her. She was really touched by my remark. We had 5 minutes to talk about how people interact with each other. We had another common denominator – commuting, and we talked about that a little.

She thanked me a few times more for my remark. She said it made her day. It was a nice surprise for her at the end of the day. I started that conversation to appreciate her and I definitely succeeded. Two people felt better about themselves after this encounter.

There is more of such stories in “From Shy to Hi“. Download from Amazon and enjoy it!

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“From Shy to Hi” Launches Soon

I hoped to launch this book on 20th of June, but it’s unlikely. I got a cover late evening yesterday and the book is still going through the final revision.

New plan is to launch it on 22nd of June. Maybe I’ll keep this deadline, who knows?

In the meantime enjoy From Shy to Hi’s excerpt. It’s one of my several stories about talking to strangers:



Unnecessary Intimidation

As I mentioned, I’m especially shy around attractive women. On my commutes to work (when most of my opportunities for meeting strangers occur), I spotted a woman about my age, who frequently traveled on the same train. Every day we would get off the same train and walk to the same bus stop.

Many times, I came up with things to say to her, such as complimenting her outfit, but I never had had the courage to start the conversation. I was too intimidated.

I was transferred to another office, and this office had a different entrance. This time, we got off the bus at the same stop and began walking the same direction. Thanks to this, I realized that we worked for the same company; we had more in common than just the same commuting route.

One Friday she had a heavy suitcase with her. I assumed she was leaving for a weekend trip right after work. I wanted to help her out and start the conversation, but I talked myself out of it. You know, the standard stuff: “What will she think of me? She looks like a strong, independent woman, what if she is offended by my offer of help?” And hence, I missed that opportunity.

The train’s timetable changed and I changed rail carriers. I saw her less often.

Several months after the occurrence (or rather non-occurrence) with the suitcase, I noticed her on her way from a bus stop to the train station. I was reading on the bus, immersed in my book, so I was a little surprised to see her.

I was now months into my talking-to-strangers practice. I was more confident. I started a conversation, using the most mundane opening line in the world:



“So, you work for the same company as me, don’t you?”

We talked a little about work, about commuting and about the disreputable city district we walked by on our route from the train to the bus. We parted at the train station.

She was a normal, nice person, and the long months of apprehension were caused solely by my internal perception of myself and the flawed opinions I had about her in my mind. I never would have known, had I not found a common denominator.

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Weight Loss Secret: Eat Less

There are just two “secrets” to an effective weight loss:

- eat less

- move more

Guess, which one is more important? With today’s obsession about fitness you may believe that exercises are doing the most of job… but it is not true. Fitness industry, personal trainers and gym owners are trying very hard to convince us, that physical activity is a big part of the equation.

But it’s not.

1. You may not exercise and lose weight.

I know people who did little to none exercises and lost a significant amount of weight. One of them is my wife, so I know it’s not some urban myth neither the story was made by dietary industry to draw away people from exercises.

2. You may exercise and gain weight.

I have been doing an intensive and short workout every day for about 4 years. I topped it in the last year with 15-minute Weider series.

I got some impressive results as far as my strength was considered. For example doing more than 100 consecutive pushups.

But all this time I was steady gaining weight. Several pounds one year, a couple pounds another year… Exercises didn’t save me from fat.

3. Ten minutes a day is enough.

I can envision fitness fanatics replying to the previous point: “With that ridiculously short amount of time you were spending on your workout, have you expected any better results?! Of course you exercised too short. You need at least an hour every second day to see the results.”

(Or 3 hours every 3rd day, it depends on personal beliefs)

Bull shit. I didn’t change my routine and I lost 15% of my body weight. I did 15 minutes of Weider series, which felt like a warm-up for me. It’s hard to even call it a workout. For me it’s relaxing like cycling with kids.

And I did a few ultra-intensive workouts in ultra-short intervals. One minute of pull-ups, 2 minutes of dips, 3minutes of legs-elevated pushups. No more than ten minutes a day.

I lost weight that way and I kept it stable that way. What is more I crush a fitness record after record with this simple routine. 42 chin-ups, 56 dips, 107 legs-elevated pushups…

 

Exercises are not necessary to lose weight and keep you fit. They are welcome, but not so important.

Weight loss Pareto rule

You know the 80/20 rule? There is always a factor which brings the most results or the best results. In my opinion when it comes to weight loss it is 95/5 rule. 95% percent of your results come from your diet, 5% from exercises.

I had nothing against exercises per se. In fact I love them. You must love them to do 40 pull-ups. But I am all for results. In the realm of weight loss the results come from the change in your diet.

Sticking to 80/20 rule, do you know which change in your diet gives you the best results?

Eat less.

You don’t have to go vegan or to eat a hefty breakfast and then just crumbs for the whole day. You don’t have to eat 8 meals a day or have proteins within 30 minutes of waking up.

Any of those tactics may be helpful, but only if you eat less overall.

If you eat junk food I’m fine with it.

Just. Eat. Less. Of. It.

I have a sweet tooth. I can eat two or three pounds of the cake in a single afternoon. And I do from time to time. On 7th of May my wife bought a cake for our anniversary and I ate half of it within 4 hours. It was well over a pound of a sweet poison consisted of delicious carbs and sugar.

My weight didn’t move that week a bit. I just made sure to eat less afterwards.

Addiction

Face it. You are a food addict. All of us are. It’s how our brains work. Brain worships the feeling of fullness or the delicious tastes. Gluttony is your brain’s shortcut to heaven. You eat well and you feel great. For a while at least, but it’s all your brain cares about.

A healthy human can live without food for a week. It’s not a big deal. At the end of the last year I was fasting for 94 hours in a row, and then I ate a bowl of chicken soup and kept my fast for another 24 hours.

All of this time my brain was whining for food. I caught myself multiple times subconsciously reaching out for the crumbs on the table. I caught myself multiple times at the attempts to lick my fingers when I was preparing meals for my kids.

We love to eat. It’s just the way we are wired. But it is possible to eat less. You won’t starve, you will just tone.

I’m not encouraging you to go for 120 hour fast to lose weight. It won’t be sustainable in the long run and when you consider your body “long-term” is the only horizon you should be interested in. All in all it will be accompanying you for the rest of your life!

Just don’t let the false fears of starvation affect your attitude toward this fundamental weight loss rule.

How to eat less?

Some points to consider when looking for decreasing your calorie intake:

1. White carbs.

Bread, rice and so on. Switching from the “white” version to the whole meal version will immediately decrease your calorie intake from this type of food for about 10%.

2. Sweets.

No comments. Sweets are the icon of empty calories foods. The sole reason for eating them is how blissfully that makes you feel.

3. Junk food.

Greasy and tasty.

4. Soda.

This is another way to deliver empty calories into your body.

5. Snacks.

Crisps, chips and so on. Tiny and delicious, but even small amount of them provide a huge number of calories.

6. Raw veggies and fruits.

Usually we don’t eat them enough. And when you stuff yourself with them, there is no place for the more caloric food to fit in

7. Water intake.

As a society we also don’t drink enough. Water has zero calories, is necessary for you to function and fills your stomach.

Eating less also help to max out fitness performance. It’s easier to do more pushups when you have fewer pounds to push around.

If you want more tips, here is a great post about downsizing your foods portions: http://www.developgoodhabits.com/portion-control-tips/

Common sense advice

You don’t need professional equipment, the stack of pills or the hours on the treadmill to lose weight. You already have all you need. I managed to lose weight without it and the same did hundreds of common folks.

I included my weight loss story and the lessons I learned along the way (that you can use) in my book The Fitness Expert Next Door

A very special (and costly!) weight loss offer

It used to cost $1 and I tell you, the folks who managed to grab it for that price were very lucky ones.

You dear reader of this post are not so lucky. I will make you pay for this book the most overpriced amount of money you have ever paid for a book.

Take a pen and paper and write down how much is worth losing a pound of fat for you? Or 10 or 50 pounds? I bet it is far more than $1.

So here is the deal: you may download my book from Amazon or Smashwords for free. I don’t lose anything because of that. And sadly you don’t achieve anything by the act of downloading or even reading the book.

But if you apply this information and get the results, you owe me what you’ve just wrote down a moment ago.

I’m not afraid you will abuse this little contract of ours. I can’t imagine that such a straight and honest person like you would have ever cheated on me. Cheaters don’t get results, at least in the case of weight loss.

I don’t need to charge your credit card right now or to demand a payback in the future. I know that if you get your dream weight and know it happened because of my advice, it would wear your heart out if you wouldn’t repay me.

So consider very carefully if you want to sign up for this contract. And when you are ready grab the book from Amazon or Smashwords.

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Second Income Report – a Few Days of May 2013

Are you curious about a one-year delay? I explained it in my first income report.

1st of June 2013

My book was on sale for 6 days. Well, it was 3 days really; I did a free promo since 29th of May.

 

A personal Mission Statement: Your Road to Happiness is very short, about 9k words. I priced it at $1.

 

The very first day I sold 4 copies. My friends bought them, although I shared the book with them prior to the publishing.

I didn’t expect them to buy. I was even a bit angry on them that they did

 

27th of May 2 more copies were bought, also by my friends. I’ve got a first review. Four stars.

On May 28th I sold 1 copy and I couldn’t pinpoint which friend made the purchase. Maybe, just maybe, it was an anonymous Amazon client’s purchase.

Hopes and fears

Prior to publishing the book I was of two minds.

On one hand, I sincerely hoped my book will become a bestseller, I will become a millionaire and I will live happily ever after.

On the other had I was afraid that people will judge my book as a product of a literary wannabe.

True to tell, I was most afraid, that nobody will even notice it.

The first free promo

On 26th of May I submitted my book to a few freebie sites which didn’t need to submit the info 10 days prior or didn’t require several reviews. It took me a couple of hours. I wasn’t familiar with the process.

I was so naive then! I didn’t even check out later if they in fact posted my book. All in all, they wanted free books, so they would surely be happy to publish one more ad?

I also believed that all who download the book for free will read it.

After one year I’m more inclined to think that only 20% of the downloader’s become the readers.

 

I found several freebie Facebook groups and posted there about my promo.

Promo results:

29th of May: 123 downloads

30th of May: 181 downloads

31st of May: 183 downloads

The bright side

467 people got my book! The ‘bestseller scenario’ clearly didn’t realize itself, but I was thrilled to put my work in front of so many readers.

It was my first work ever published! And people were willing to read my stuff!

I was happy with that. Nah, I was elated!

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: Still zero.

I sold 7 copies of my book, but I consider as “income” only the money which materializes on my bank account. Right then I had just a promise of future income. And it was shockingly low promise as well. For each copy I would get just 35 cents, after the Amazon’s hefty cut. Well, not exactly, US government got their cut too. My “cut” was only 24 cents.

Thus my overall publishing income, which I would see on my account only after a few months, was $1.68.

The encouraging fact was that my $5 investment in the cover would return within a single month at that pace. And if I could sustain it, I would earn about $205 a year on this book. After about 10 years I would break-even on my time investment too.

 

Costs: Zero.

I already included the cover cost in previous report.

Well, I invested a few further hours in spreading the word about the premiere and a free promo.

I topped that with tracking my sales and downloads on daily basis.

 

The first several days of my writer’s career brought me down from the dreams realm to the reality. But the reality was not so bad. People were reading my book.

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