Why do I want to be rich?

For the longest time I have always wanted to be rich, successful, influential, and helpful. However, I don't know why.

Looking past money, and looking past ego, I do not know why. I have always felt I will accomplish something great and have never been afraid to dream, but I mean deeper. Deeper than dreams, desire, motivation, whatever you want to call it. I don't know my purpose.

It is clear to me that until I know why, I will never complete my mission. So I am going to find this out. I don't know how long this will take, or even what I will do, but I am not going to update until I do so. I am not giving up or quitting, I just need to figure this out. I might have to leave or just do something drastic (and I use the word drastic lightly here) but I just need to know.

Until then, goodbye.

Numbers

So today I want to talk about a dream I had last week. It was one of those great feeling type dreams, as Trent Reznor says, "Perfect little dream, the kind that hurts the most." What I mean about the feeling of "hurt" was waking up and realizing it was in fact a dream, not reality! Of course, I can view it as a pessimist or I can be an optimist about it and use it as fuel for the fire.

As everything in dreams, nothing made sense. I just remember feeling terrible and overwhelmed, almost claustrophobic. I don't know where I was, however I remember staring at a red bar, like on a bar graph, and it said 100% in large yellow numbers. I kept looking at this chart or graph, and kept getting more angry. I decided enough was enough. I'm not sure how much time started elapsing over the course of my dream, but the bar started to decrease. It now read 95%. I was still angry, but I kept moving on. I would picture myself trying new ideas, experimenting, reading. The number kept falling. It now read 80% and I kept moving. It kept going down, 60%, 50%, 30%, 20%, 10%. Then, as I watched it reach 5% a feeling of satisfaction came over me. As I stared at the graph which at one point was 100% and now at 5% I thought, "I'm almost there." I felt so good, the feeling you get when you win; when you accomplish something that you have been attempting for years. Then I woke up.

I laid there for a bit, just holding onto the feeling for as long as I could. I remember thinking, "Wow, it was almost gone." I should probably explain what the percentage bar referred to; my debt. I have been thinking a lot lately about my debt that I have accumulated. Student loans and credit cards are the creator of nearly all of it. And every time I think of it I get more upset. However, this dream made me think.

Anger isn't a bad thing, and I have talked about it before. Without anger you show that you have no emotion. I get angry because I need to change. I am going to strive for that feeling! I can't even explain to you how amazing it would feel to eliminate this stress (and I am sure you understand what I am saying if you are troubled with debt in your life.) So what am I going to do? Change.

I am going to change the way I think, act, react, and perceive. Most people never excel in life because they refuse to change. I am going to embrace it.

As my title says "numbers" I want to share some, well, numbers. After this dream I started looking for ways to motivate me. I went to my local ATM, withdrew $10 for whatever I needed it for that night and looked at my receipt. It yelled back in black ink "AVAIL BAL: $10.43" Hmm. I am 21 years old and only have $10.43 to show for it? I was going to do what I always have done in the past, get angry, crumple it up and drive away. However, this time I did something different.

I went to a local store, and picked up a small picture frame. I went home, and framed that receipt. I placed it right on the wall directly behind my computer monitors. I am forced to see that I only have $10.43 every time I am on my computer. I am going to change this. Fuel for the fire.

I could continue to write, however I am going to try something new. I haven't advertised my blog to anyone, except for mentioning it once at Steve Pavlina's forum. I don't really expect much traffic at the moment, but once I start becoming rich I am sure I will get more readers. So what I am going to do is write less and update more often. Instead of one long drawn out entry per week, I will write 2-3 shorter entries. I think it will not only help to keep things more organized, but it will not be as overwhelming to whomever may want to read. So instead of just rambling, I am going to stop here.

Write until you're rich!

More Ideas and Experiments.

Hello blog (or book) world! It has been four days since my last update, and I would like to retouch on some of the things that I wrote.

For starters, I explained how I was having a poor attitude and decided to go into the day positively and see how it turned out. Well, it went fairly decent. It started slow and I started to feel the day dragging. I'm sure many of you know what I mean by dragging, it just seems like every minute is an hour and every hour is a week. I was trying so hard to fight my tiredness which in turn was causing me to have a bad attitude. I remember I kept thinking, "I am really trying to feel happy, but it just isn't working!" Then something happened.

I can't really explain what that something was, because it's not like a bolt of lightning struck the ground or someone grabbed me and said "SNAP OUT OF IT!" However, I just felt a sudden change of perspective about how my current situation was going. I believe it was around 12:30 PM or so when this happened. I was becoming frustrating and just stopped working for a minute. I took a deep breath and looked around. I believe I have asked this question before, but it is a great question to ask; have you ever just looked at the beauty of the world? Instead of just worrying about getting something done (which I was while working) or getting to and from destinations, just stop and marvel at the world's magnificence. It is truly remarkable. Shortly thereafter I started reminding myself that I was lucky to be where I was at. Sure, I could think of many other circumstances or situations that I would prefer to be doing at that specific moment in time, but things usually are not as bad as we see them. I started to envision my dreams and goals, my family, my friends, and I started to become happy. I honestly don't know what I took a pause and started thinking about these things, but I am happy that I did.

Shortly after that break, everything totally turned around. I started to feel more energized, and I was happy to be alive. Whereas just 15 minutes ago I could not wait for the day to be over. I think back to when I was working as a carpenter and I would say to myself as I looked at the time, "wow I wish it was 6:00." It doesn't take much to determine that 6:00 was the time I got off work. After my experience last week, I wonder that if I had decided to see the bigger picture, rather than focusing on what was presently frustrating, if my whole outlook on my job would have changed? And to expand on that, with everything? I really feel for the people who go through their day wishing for it to be over. I use to be someone like that. I still go through days where I jokingly say, "I wish I could fast forward time until this was over," but I am going to refrain from that as much as possible. Can you imagine how short lived our lives would be if we could "fast forward" through it? If I truly had the power of this silly thought, my 21 years that I have lived so far would probably be closer to 15, or less. I have said that many times during school, work, events, etc.

I am still growing and am no where near being able to say I have a good attitude. Little things still frustrate me at times, but I can see myself becoming better. As of right now I can not tell you that if you change your attitude and focus on the good that it will change your outlook on life. I can only assume that. It also makes it easier to assume when every successful person I have read about has basically said they have applied the same principle. This is going to be an ongoing experiment that I will bring up from time and time and hopefully capture more examples of this working. Whenever I start to feel frustrated or mad, I am going to think of the good in the situation. If I can't find the good in that specific situation, I will look elsewhere.

This has actually made me think of an idea, which I will do right now. I am going to list 10 things that are good about my life and if you are reading this, I suggest you do the same. Anytime I start to feel upset, I will think of something on this list to try and turn my feeling around. This will be in no particular order other than just listing ideas as they pop into my head:

1) I have a great mutual loving relationship with my girlfriend.
2) I have many great friends who I enjoy being with.
3) Both of my parents care for me and supply me with shelter.
4) I am not starving and am able to supply myself with food and water.
5) There are many people in my life who love and care about me.
6) I feel that I am heading in the right direction.
7) I am alive, conscious, and able to think clearly.
8) I live in a free country which gives me the ability to become successful in a field of my choice.
9) I am of good health.
10) Overall, I am happy with my life.

Those items took about 13 minutes or so to compile, and I am happy with it as I re-read them. The first three items came to me rather quickly, then I sort of hit a block. I had to really clear my mind and think about some things that I take for granted. Once I began to think of the big picture, the ideas started flowing in. I think this is a great exercise that I just thought of from my experiment with attitude, and I hope you enjoyed doing it as well!

Well, since I updated on my attitude experiment, I might as well enlighten you on my sleep problem. In my last entry, I said I really did not have an idea of how to help myself. Well, I looked up articles on sleep, primarily focusing on how to become an early riser. I found many useful ideas and techniques which I am going to try to put into practice. I am not going to set the bar so high that I will fail, but I am going to try to wake up no later than 10:00 am everyday for the remainder of June. Also, I am going to rise as soon as my alarm goes off; no snooze! I live by hitting the snooze button and have read a few different ways to make this so. I am not going go into major detail, but here is the basic jist of everything:

I need to beat the idea into my subconscious, rather than my conscious. This idea mainly came from Steve Pavlina in one of his blog entry's titled How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off (which can be viewed here). He states that who you are when your alarm goes off is not the same person who said, "I am going to wake up at 8am, no question about it!" You think differently, and no matter how determined you are to wake up early when you fall asleep, you are not going have the same mindset when you wake up; he calls this fog of the brain. This makes a lot of sense to me because I would swear, promise, and sign in blood that I would wake up at x-time, only to turn off my alarm and keep sleeping in the morning. I would keep this process up, rarely waking up when I wanted to, then get very frustrated and mad at myself when I woke up hours past my alarm. The only thing I was doing was making a bad habit worse and was going about solving it the wrong way. Steve recommends something different.

He says that it does take discipline (I mean c'mon, what doesn't?!) but not as much as many people think. Instead, he recommends that you program your subconscious to wake up when your alarm goes off. Sounds interesting, but how? By practicing.

Yep, acting like you are waking up. He even says, "This is going to sound really stupid, but it works." And sense what I have been doing isn't working, I decided to give it a shot. So, starting tonight once it is dark, I am going to pretend that I am sleeping and waking up to my alarm. Yes, it sounds silly, but why not try?! I am going to create the environment as close as I can while I am sleeping, set my alarm for a few minutes, turn off my alarm immediately after it goes off, take a deep breath, stretch, then get up as if I would be waking up for the day. Then I will repeat it. And again. And again. I will probably try this about 10 times tonight, more tomorrow, and so on for the rest of the week. I am excited about this experiment because I haven't heard of anything like this before and I believe it could work. As with everything else, I will update my progress as I go along.

While we are on the topic of changing perspectives, I want to bring up another problem in my life that I have not been able to solve. I like to have things neat and organized, but I have a heck of a time keeping it that way. I spend most of my day on my computer (which I want to change as well, but that's for another entry!) and everything becomes cluttered around my desk. This drives me crazy, but due to laziness or something else, I just can never keep everything clean. Well, today I cleaned my room for the last time! Well, not technically, but it is the last time I am going to let it get as out of control as it was. I had dishes stacked up around my keyboard, clothes on the floor, an overflowing garbage, papers scattered everywhere; I looked like a pig! I don't want my room to look that disgusting ever again. I feel so much more secure and content when everything is clean and organized, and it is going to stay this way. How? Well, I put up a sign above my monitors that reads "KEEP YOUR ROOM CLEAN" Will this work? I think so! I also plan on placing notes like this in other places in my room and house in hopes to get it through to my thick skull that I have to pick up after myself! I was actually having a conversation with my girlfriend, Kristen, about this and asked her to help me keep my room clean. She responded with, "Well, it isn't that hard. Just pick up after yourself." Touche Kristen. It's really just common sense.

Moving onward! The website idea is starting to become more and more exciting everyday. Although we haven't done much more work on it, I keep thinking of new ideas. I can not wait until we start attracting a decent amount of viewers to come on our quest with us. It will up my motivation and dedication so much! What we have to do now is get a decent layout based on the skeleton which has been erected. We also need to develop a system so that everything is pretty much "one click." We don't want to have to update many html pages when just one thing has changed, and this is something we will have to learn to do. Once we have an idea for what we want to include and the process of everything, we can then start uploading content. I can not wait until everything is in place; this is going to be a huge step!

I feel I covered a lot today and am glad I started writing. I actually didn't really feel like writing when I started, but like always, when I forced myself to, I was happy with the result. I enjoy writing, working, and getting things accomplished; it's just starting them that is difficult!

Remember, write and return rich! (If you haven't noticed, I have been putting different silly little motto's at the end of my entries lately. I am trying to find one that fits me, so they will be different until I find one that I like!)

Ideas and Experiments.

Good morning America. It is currently 7:15 AM and I am wide awake. I actually have been up since around 4:30, and only got a couple hours of sleep. This is not a new problem. I mentioned in a previous post that I have had trouble sleeping for as long as I can remember. Let's solve it.

I really don't know how or why it started, but I think a lot of it has to do with how I was raised. Now I'm not blamming my parents or using that as an excuse, but I just think that is how this bad habit developed. Growing up at home, once I hit middle school I never had any real strict curfews and never really had a bed time. This is not due to a lack of care by my parents, they trusted me and allowed me my freedom. Also, another very large factor is that thing called the internet. I remember the first time we signed up for AOL; I was hooked. I wanted to spend every waking moment of my life chatting with friends, joining web forums, playing games, watching videos, etc etc. And once I bought my own computer for my room, I was done for. I was stay up until 2:00 - 4:00 AM many nights, and have to be at school or work around 8:00 AM. And since I never really liked school, many times I just slept in and skipped. After years of this, it can become a pretty bad habit.

Well, that's the history, now what about the future? I am honestly clueless as to how to go about curing this myself. It will definitely require the help of some outside source. It seems to have developed into a mental problem. For example, if I have to wake up early the next morning I will think to myself, "Ugh, I hope I can sleep tonight. I really do not want to be tired tomorrow." Thinking that way almost always makes my sleep that night bad or non-existant. Also, there have been many times where I will fall asleep at a normal time, but only wake up at 2:00 - 3:00 am; wide awake. I can lay there and try to fall back to sleep, but usualy I fail. I then will get up, become tired again around 9:00 - 10:00 am, and sleep until 4:00 - 5:00 pm. This was a cycle that I was in for a while. This can become very frustrating! It makes having a job, doing work, or a social life pretty hard, which is why I want to solve it.

So how am I going to fix it? Well, reading never hurt! I am going to check out if I can find any articles on sleeping or how to train yourself to relax and get a good nights rest. I will also see if I can find any good recommended books on the subject. I need any help I can get. Expect an update on this sleeping issue further down the road!

Seven sentences ago I said, "This can become very frustrating!" This was in regard to my sleeping problem, and today was no different. I woke up and immediately felt angry and frustrated, which probably did not help the situation. I was esspecially upset because I have to work at 8:00 am this morning helping a friend with a landscaping job. So I kept running the same thought through my head again and again, "Today is going to suck!! I hate that I can't sleep!" I wasted time for about an hour on my computer, made myself something to eat, all the while still in a bad mood. I kept convincing myself that today was going to be a bad day. It was around 6:00 that I started remembering something that I read in the book The Magic of Thinking Big; which basically was by thinking this way I would do nothing but make it so. I mean c'mon, the day wasn't over yet so why should I assume it will be bad? It has only just begun! I decided to get my mind on other things, so I listened to a few pod casts from Steve Pavlina's website, and decided to write. So here is where the experiment comes in.

I am going to try something today, and hope that it works. Instead of going into the day, and work, with the "Today will suck!" mentality, I am going to be happy and tell myself, "Today is going to be a good day!" I am going to see the great in everything, as opposed to the negative. I am going to go into the day with a great attitude and see what becomes of it. It is only fair to assume that it will be bad going in negative, so my hypothesis is that it will be a better day. Of course, I can not compare unless I found a way to live the day angry, then go back in time and relive it happy; which I am not sure of how to do! But based on past experience, I think this will work. I will let you know how this little experiment goes in my next update.

Now, onto the exciting part, Ideas! Remember in my last entry when I stated "I actaully wanted to bring up one other idea that came to me while brainstorming with my friends, but I will save it for next time." Well it is next time!

Here is the basic idea. Well, this blog is basically my journey on becoming rich, or wealthly, better, happier, whatever you want to call it. So while brainstorming with my business partners (Matt and Adam) I thought, "Why don't we create a website dedicated to our progress?" DING! We all stopped and thought, "Wow, that;s a good idea." Not just a website with 3 blogs, but a website with articles, reviews, forums, a community, the whole time documenting our progress. Also, we can invite others to join us on our quest! (We actually thought of the slogan "Join us on our quest to success!") We feel that this website will be a large success, and we feel that we will be different than any web sites out there on the same topic for a couple of reasons.

1) We aren't there yet. How many times have you seem someone who is successful say, "And you can be too!" I have mentioned this before, but if you're anything like me, I always thought, "Well, maybe, but I don't know." Here is what will seperate our web site from others; we're not there yet! You can join us and grow with us! You can become a part of the quest, publicly or privately. I would feel very inspired and more motivated to change if there was someone out there, just like me, who wants more in his or her life and is willing to grow with me. I personally would be willing to help anyone, share whatever knowledge I have and learn from others who know more than I.

2) We want to put a large emphasis on community. Sure, any website can install a web forum. It takes all of 10 minutes to get it up and customized. However, what if we took it even deeper? What if we gave each registered user their own page, their own blog, their own personal space to document whatever they would like to? I think people would love to become a part of something like this. Many other community based websites have had large success, and none of them have been dedicated to success! Of course, this kind of website design is not easy nor is it cheap. We have had many quotes on the idea, and we're taling 5 figures as a setup cost from most places. Yikes. So, for starters, we will go with a basic web-forum community that will eventually expand into an indivdual aimed community.

3) Constant updates. There are few websites, esspecially informational ones, that are constantly updated. We will all be updating our quest journal, along with personal blogs, articles, interviews, reviews, etc. Also, we will request and post these from members who join along the way. We want every member to feel good and want to give thema chance to get something published on the website. This would not only help content, but it would help that person develop skills and share their knowledge that they might not have been able to otherwise. We also have more ideas to expand off of user submitted articles and such which include contests and the like with cash prizes. This of course is when the site starts making money, however long it will take!

Well, that is the basic idea and I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited. In fact, we are all VERY excited about this. Currently we only have a basic skeleton uploaded with no content, but we hope to fill it full of information this summer. Who knows where this can take us and who will meet along our journey. Let's just say for one second that the website ends up not making much money, so what? Of course finance is one reason I am writing this blog and we are making the website; one of the goals is to generate a profit. But on a large scale, it is so much more than that. We would be reading, writing, and staying focused on our goal! Since I will be constantly smacked in the face with the idea, I won't be able to slack! Also, imagine the people we will meet. I can not wait until we get our first registered member, our first user submitted article, the first person to thank us for our website. We will make so many great friendships with great people, and I can not wait! (Almost forgot to mention the site name, which is non-coincidentally called Macardam and can be viewed at http://www.macardam.com)

Well, I think that is good for now. I have to run and have a good day working a that landscaping job that I mentioned! So remember, write until you're rich!

Indulgence.

As per my last post, you probably came to the conclusion that I was having a bad day. If that was your hypothesis give yourself a round of a applause, because you are absolutely correct.

I think that entry serves a good purpose, and let me tell you why. First off, it shows that I am trying. If I was never mad, upset, or frustrated, I would not have the urge to change. If I was always content and thought "that's just the way it is!" I would never become successful. It proves to me that I am fighting for this and I want it now! This is the inner drive I was talking about, coming out in full force. I know it will be a long journey, and I should become upset with myself if I slack off or don't live up to my full potential. So, don't worry if you ever get mad at yourself. It is good sometimes! But don't become the person who gets angry at himself, others, or his situation and does nothing to change it. Understand why you are feeling that way. It is probably because you want something to change. Find out what it is, and work at changing it, instead of waiting for it to go away itself. If you lose, and are not upset, you do not want to win.

Next, it shows that I am real; I am having struggles. I've said it many times before, I'm a broke kid! I'm not some rich guy in a suit screaming, "You can do it!" (Please note I am not saying rich guys in suits can't teach you anything, because I have learned much from them and you should listen to what they say!) I am just a normal everyday person who wants to excell in life. If I document my journey and prove it's possible, there is absolutely no reason why anyone else can not do it.

Also, I heard a very good quote a few times which I will try to remember, "Nothing that is easy to get, is worth getting." Now the quote may be off a bit, but the meaning is the same. I remember when I was a young child trying to beat a video game on Nintendo, and I kept saying to my mom, "Why do they make it so hard?! I just want to beat it! It's impossible!" Now my mom could have said anything, or just laughed at the ignorance of her 5 year old child. Instead, she said, "But if it was easy then you wouldn't feel as good when you beat it!" And guess what, when I finally beat the game, she was right!

It's the same with anything. Think really hard for a moment. Think of a time in your life that you accomplished something. Think of that feeling; the feeling of winning. Everyone has won at something in their life, so don't say you have never won anything. It may be harder to picture for some than others, but just try. It can be something as silly as an airplane flying contest where your paper airplane flew 15 feet farther than anyone else's, or the first time you tied your shoe without mom or dad. Sports will probably play a big picture in a lot of people's past visions, and I find sports to be very inspirational and amazing - but I was never good at them! Don't get the definition of winning mistaken with the context of this experiment. 1st place is defined as "winning" an event, but you need not come in first to win. Think of something where you beat the odds, where you gave it your all and came out smiling. Maybe it was something that wasn't on a scale of placements (like 1st, 2nd, 3rd.) Think of the time you helped out your grandmother, the child you gave assitance to when his bike tire popped. Anything that gave you the satisfaction of knowing you did something right. It's that feeling that I desire. Not because I want to think "I am a good person" and become addicted to thinking I am great. I believe a good person knows that he or she is doing good things, but does not see them as great. They simpley do not have the time to reflect on how much they changed the world because they continue to change the world. That is ideal. If life was easy (and we all know it isn't), it wouldn't be worth living.

Now the title of this post is "Indulgence" so I should probably talk about what I am indulging myself into, right? Well, so far so good in the 20 minute per day rule. Actually, I am killing it. Since my angry post on May 31 I have read for a total of 145 minutess, which is 65 minutes over my quota! I am not saying this will be sustainable, but I am becoming excited to read! Even now, writing this entry I kepe thinking about being able to read. I want to keep learning more and more, but I becamse so excited that I just had to write!

Right now I am focusing on a few different kind of books. Personal Development, Investing, and General Success. I want to talk about each of them and why I feel they are the best topics for me to be reading right now:

When it comes to being successful, as per my last post, it is defined on the persons perception. So, it would only make sense to develop into the best Carl Carlson that I can be! If I were to have won the lotto or something of that sort a couple years ago, who knows what I would have done. I was not prepared to have that kind of money, so I probably would not have had a very good experience. I believe this is why many lotto winners and jackpot hitters often talk about how they sometimes wish they never won a lot of money, because it created so many problems in their life. I was not mature enough to handle such amount of money. Sure, there may be people who are and people who have; but I surely wasn't. But back on topic, I want to learn how to become a better person, to deal with people, to gain confience, to highten my attitude, treat others with respect, and how to think big! This is a very large part to becoming successful. I don't want to become one of those rich arrogant people that created a bad stereotype for business owners, and I won't. Actually, every successful person I have ever met to date is very generous and helpful; which is also a common trait amoung people with success. And if that is the one trait that is shared between them, I think I would be a good idea to learn it!

Investing is just something I am beginning to learn, and become very excited about. If you look back a few entries at my list, you will see Investing and the Stock Market at 4 and 5 (even though this was just a brainstormed list and items were in no particular order). However, I would now like to pull them off the list and turn up the gear with them. I picked up a few books (which I will mention later) on the topic and am very excited about the information I will learn.

General Success should be a no-brainer. "If you want something, find someone who has it, and ask them how they got it." That is a very interesting quote that I heard a while back, and it makes sense. Although it may take a while before someone who will actually help you out, why does it hurt asking? I never really thought about it until recently. I've always wanted things, like nice cars, vacation homes, etc. But I never thought about asking someone how to get one! There is a good quote from a very successful busines owner, Chris Brady, when he describes a conversation with 2 younger men as I heard it on a CD:

"I had two guys in my driveway the other day, they wash cars for a living. They're half way into washing my Jeep and they ask me 'Do you mind me asking you what you do?' I said, 'Well have you heard of a guy named Orrin Woodward? Well he pioneered an online business and it really took off, (etc etc.) You see these 15 houses on this road? There are 15 houses on this road. I wish someone would have told me this at your age; there's not a house owned in here by anybody that has a job. All 15 homes are either people who are either self-employed doctors, or business owners, or both. There's not a single person here who has a job. This guy named Orrin Woodward taught me all about this stuff, do you think that sounds like anything you could qualify for someday?'"

Now that was just a sample of the story, and regardless of the industry and who knows if anything ever came of it, but can you see how something big could happen just from asking a question? What if, just for the sake of saying, because they had asked him that question, he met with them and helped them along the path that he took to become successful? You really don't know when your next opportunity can come; just keep an open mind.

What I am doing to really indulge? Well, I purchased about $500 in books and CDs to better myself both personally, and financially. Am I recommending that you do the same? Not really. If I could do it over again I would have done it differently. Why? Well, because I bought everything about 6 months ago, and am just now truely starting to learn it. It sat around for a very long time before I made this decision. I don't want to recommend that someone spend more than they can afford in one lump sum. $500 was a lot of money for me, and still is. I would recommend going one book at a time, or a few CDs at a time. $10 - $20 here and there is a much better approach for a book per month, or CD per week, rather than overwhleming yourself. After all, you can only read one or two books at a time anyway, and I much prefer just one at a time to give it your full focus.

Currently I am reading two books, The Psychology of Winning, and The Intelligent Investor. I had started reading one book at a time, which was the Psychology of Winning, but today I got very excited about investing and picked this one up. Both are very very good! It's amazing the epiphany you notice once you start to change the media that you input into your brain. The first thing I realized is how bad television was for me. There is (hardly) anything good on tv these days, and most shows are just mind numbing programs that will teach you nothing. A good book, or a CD, is so much better for your life. On the topic of CDs, I don't mean your favorite rock band, anything by Anthony Robbins can really open your eyes to new things. Also, there is a website I had recently came across (http://www.stevepavlina.com) which is ran by a man named Steve Pavlina which is dedicated to personal development. He has pod casts and articles on hundreds of topics. Now if you're thinking, "listen to people talking on a CD? That's weird.." Yeah, maybe. But I find it very strange that people will spend 5 hours in front the tv after work watching reality shows about other people. Just give it a try, pick up a book, or a motivational CD; if you have come this far into the book I think it is fair to assume that you will enjoy it. Now I know there are thousands of books and CDs written on these topics, and that can be prety overwhleming. My goal to help conquer this is to indulge myself as much as possible to create a shortened list to help you out.

Now this chapter/entry has become very long. Quite longer than I expected. I actaully wanted to bring up one other idea that came to me while brainstorming with my friends, but I will save it for next time. (It's a great idea!!) But before I leave, I need you to do something. I need you to dedicate yourself to something right now. I need you to pick a book, and start reading. If you have come this far, and want to keep going, you have to do this. I'm not going to come over and rip your book apart if you chose not to, but it will better yourself. (If you are reading this already in my book, I should have a list of top 5 books that I have came across during my journey and I suggest you pick one of those 5 to start. If not, why not find a copy of The Psychology of Winning and read it with me?) If you are already writing, then great! Don't think of it as another chore you have to do, think of it as an investment of your time. It doesn't even have to be often; just read instead of turning on the television. Even if just for 10-20 minutes per day, it will benefit you!

Until next time, write until you're rich!