The SnowHow

Category: Strategy

  • How To Create Your Fate Not Be A Victim Of It!

    Do you know, absolutely know, what your future looks like?

    Ok let me ask the question in another way let’s say you were reading this article 12 months from now, 3 years from now or say 10 years from now where do you think you will be.

    Do you have a clearly defined answer to each of those time frames? Or is it a wishy washy hope, or worse an “I don’t know!”

    If not why not?

    Let’s face it none of us knows the answer to those questions as anything could happen right?

    After all we could get run over by a car tomorrow or contract some sort of deadly disease that finishes us off in a blink of an eye!

    No point in planning, as tomorrow we could be dead!

    Crikey that’s not good!

    Maybe there is a better way for us. Maybe we should get all biblical with this one. Hey, you have got to get your wisdom from somewhere and some of the “religious” books do offer us some occasional wisdom, I think that’s why they became popular in the first place.

    OK so in Provers 29 it says words to the effect that “Without a Vision, The People Perish”.

    Or to put it in plain old english “if you don’t know where you are going then you’re f**ked”

    Think about it this way, if you were going on a journey normally you need two things, a starting point and a destination. That way you can plot a path to get you there.

    You have a  point of origin and a point of destination. If you remove one of them, how easy do you think it is to get where you are going. Think about that for a second! Did you think about it? Then let us continue.

    With the first one you have a point of origin, you know where you are, so you head off, but with no final destination you could end up anywhere. You would be zig zagging all the time hopefully ending up somewhere worthwhile. You know what, you may get somewhere good along the way, and hey the journey may be really enjoyable, that is definitely possible. The probability however, is that you would just end up lost and frustrated and have wasted so much time along the way.

    Second option. You know where you want to get to but you don’t know where you are. So you want to get to Timbuktu but you don’t know where you are right now. So do you head north, south, east or west. Do you need a plane, a car, a bicycle, a boat or is it just around the corner and you can walk there? You just don’t know and if you set of in the wrong direction, as you don’t know were you are starting from then, your journey may be a very long and tedious one. Also like in the first option you may stumble upon it by accident. There is definitely that possibility.

    The obvious thing in this situation is to go back to our original idea. Know where you are and know where you want to get to. Then you can draw a straight line between the two points. Or at least plan the quickest and shortest route!

    So now we are starting to see why having a destination is such an important part of the equation in travel.

    The same thing applies to us in our life, the time equivalent of a destination is a personal vision. Knowing what we want from life and how we want our life to look in the future.

    If we just wing it with our life then we could just end up anywhere, thrown about on the ebb and flow of the tide of life. Hey we may end up somewhere good and we may not. But I want to ask you a question. Do you think that is a good strategy for your life? Do you think you might have a better time of it if you knew where you wanted to end up, and you knew what you had to do in order to get there?

    Well, who knows! There are no guarantees, but the thing is I would suggest you stand a much better chance of getting somewhere that you want to get to, if you know where that place is.

    There is a second thing that you need as with our travel analogy. You need a starting point!

    In “The Art Of War” Sun Tsu tells us to know your enemies and to know yourself!

    Our point of origin, is the second part of the statement “know your self”. This means if you know where you want to get to, firstly, you have to self evaluate the person you are right now. You will need to know all of your strengths and weaknesses, you will need to be completely honest with yourself and who you are.

    Then and only then will you know the person you will need to become in order to get to where you want to go.

    So here is what you need to take away from this article today. You need to start to develop a personal vision for yourself. Start small, start thinking about where you want to be one month from now, then start to expand it out six months, a year. Then start going for the big numbers 3 years, 5, then push it out to 10 and 20 then all the way to the end.

    Take some time today just to start playing with the idea, then when you have some ideas and you realise just how fun this can be, devote some time to some serious thinking about where you want to get to. What your hopes and dreams are, what a perfect life looks like for you.

    OK there is also a hard part, you also have to turn a pointing finger back at yourself and really make an honest analysis of yourself. This can be really hard. We as humans are incredibly good at self deception but take the time to do this. An easy way to start is to write down a list of what you are good at, all your strengths. Once that list is long enough it makes the shortfalls that little bit easier to list. Don’t worry if the shortfalls list is longer than the strengths list. You are just looking for a starting point. Once you have that then you can begin your journey.

    Do this please, you will find the process incredibly rewarding and will give you immense personal clarity.

    I will talk at length in another article about the second part of getting to where you want to go to. That deals with having a strategy. But that is for another time. For now take the time to give this gift to yourself.

    Go create your Vision and your Starting Point!

    Until next time.

    Snowy

  • 10 Life Changing Books (That Actually Can Change Your Life!)

    So this is going to be an ongoing series of articles I will write that have the number 10 in them. This one is about books that can actually change your life.

    Ok, so let me just say one thing. No matter what the authors may say, very few books have the power to change your life.  That said there are a few flecks of gold hidden in the dirt. Some of which I have put here. Now these are a personal choice and you may argue against them or think you know better. If so put them in the comments section below. Hey I am always willing to be wrong or learn something new. 

    Ok so let’s get to it. Here is the list. 

    The list is not in any particular order, so don’t read it that way. That said maybe you should start with the first book on my list…..

    1. Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson

    If you only ever take one tiny bit of advice from me it is this… Read all of the books of RAW, he will give you an education of the mind, like few other people can. He has a teaching method that he called Guerrilla Ontology (He literally forces you to think). His breadth of knowledge in far reaching subjects are in my opinion unmatched by anyone in the written world. He was the writer along with Robert Shea of the Illuminatus which can be considered the definitive conspiracy theory novel (this was back before the looney fringe got involved).

    Anyway Prometheus Rising is his master work on brain change willed! He takes you through Timothy Leary’s 8 circuit model of human consciousness, to show you how your mind works and how it is conditioned. Then he gives you techniques and strategies to smash through your own “reality tunnels”. 

    WARNING: This book is not for the faint of heart. If you have courage, and the willingness to do some personal experimentation, this book can make you really see the world for the very first time. 

    2. The inside out revolution by Michael Neill

    There are many books written about the 3 principles that were extolled by Syd Banks. This is in my opinion is the easiest to digest. In the book you will get to re-examine the nature of reality and the nature of mind, consciousness and thought and how the world really is. 

    You may get a few oh my god moments when you read this book. The way you think the world is, may be turned on its head. 

    This book is a must read!

    3. Choose Yourself by James Altucher

    This book offers clear and practical wisdom in the 21st century. For most people born in the last part of the 20th century, the old rules no longer apply. All the advice you have been given by well meaning people, is starting to look more and more wrong and outdated. No longer can you let your life be dictated by the whims of someone else. This book offers you a practical methodology to go about choosing the life that you want, not one that is foisted upon you. 

    The book is well written and James Altucher has a lovely writing style and the lessons contained in here are easy to digest and apply. Again I think this is a must read book. 

    4. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

    This book is very well known in the US but not so much here in the UK. That said if you are looking for a philosophically challenging novel, then this is your boy. This is a book about what happens when the mind goes on strike. It deals with Rand’s Objectivism philosophy and extolls the virtue of value creation as being the highest moral ideal. It also deals with what happens when you penalise people for success. The book was written 60 odd years ago and some of the insights are uncannily accurate in our modern world. 

    If you have some time on your hands give this ago. You will also find an answer to the eternal question of “Who is John Galt?”

    5. As A Man Thinketh by James Allen

    This is a relatively short book, that said it is packed with so much wisdom per sentence you would be lucky to find its peer. This might be one of the earliest examples of the self-improvement book. In the 130 years since its original publication few books in the genre have risen higher or outshines this simple little masterpiece. Allen has many other works that are worth reading but this is his magnum Opus.

    Must be read and read often. 

    6. Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

    You ask enough successful people for a top ten book list, and this is the book that will appear most often. In fact W.Clement Stone once wrote this… Although I have no real way to prove it I believe that Think And Grow Rich has helped more people achieve success than any other book in history save the bible” 

    I have no idea if that is true but I do know that I have taken so much from this book over the years and before I went digital my copy had been battered and bruised by the amount of times I had read it. 

    7. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

    There is a funny thing that happens with this book on first reading. It will probably polarise you in one direction. You will either love it or hate it. 

    The book shows you 48 ways to gain through strategy or deception or force of will, how to gain power over people. For many on first reading this is unpalatable after all who wants to do that to other people, clearly it is morally wrong? 

    There is a funny thing that happens with this book. I have recommended it  to many people and they have read it, and come back to me and told me they hated how manipulative it shows you how to be. 

    I then have told them to read it again, this time with the notion that you need to be aware of how these techniques are being used on you, and how you can protect yourself from them. On second reading from that perspective, people always say how much they love the book. 

    8. Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant

    You can only love the world/someone else to the extent that you love yourself. This book will show you how to up your game. This book takes about an hour to read. Please Please Please take the time to do that the/your world will be a better place because of it. 

    9. The Richest Man In Babylon by George S Clayson. Money by Anthony Robbins

    Have you ever wondered why they don’t teach financial literacy in schools? Surely that is more important than say Chemistry (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed my knowledge of ionic and covalent bonds since I left school, it’s practically a daily occurrence) Understanding money and to have knowledge and power over it is clearly unimportant as I don’t use it every day…. Oh now hold on a second!!!!

    There are few good books written on financial literacy, for years the only one I could recommend was The Richest Man In Babylon. Even though it is written in parable format, the wisdom is sound and should be read and understood by everyone. 

    Now Anthony Robbins has a new book on the subject that is well written and teaches the layman how to go about understanding then winning the game of money. Go read both. 

    10. Jonathan Livingston Seagull/ Illusions: The Memoirs Of A Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

    I just love both these books. Although they are a lot more whimsical than the rest of the books on the list i genuinely believe they offer some really practical wisdom. I must have read both at least ten times and every time I do I get new insights. Give them a go, they are perfect for when you have a spare hour. 

    Ok so that’s it 10 books that can change your life. I hope you read some if not all of them. Hey and maybe your life will change for the better. 

    Until next time. Go read a book!

    Snowy

  • The 10 Currencies Of Living An Awesome Life!

    Time it’s in short supply. No one gets more than the next person on a day to day basis. 24 hours each! Some get more over time, some get less, after all we all die at some stage. (Well, maybe not me I’m probably going to live forever.)

    So the currency of life is time!

    Time is precious yet we spend it like it is in limitless supply. We think that it will never end, but inevitably for all of us it will. The thing is, how we spend this currency is directly proportionate to the quality of our lives. We become the sum of accumulated memories over time.

    So how are you spending your time? Is it to build lasting memories ones that are magnificent and defining, or are you building a bank of mundane unimportant memories, most of which are forgettable (pun).

    How about this as a measure of success (I have a few, but I like the simplicity of this one) the person who get’s to the end of their life with the best stories/memories wins!!!

    So in those terms the systematic accumulation of great stories means that you will improve the quality of your life.

    OK with that idea in mind, we can start to think about how we go about spending our time to accumulate good stories.

    There are some areas of life, that if you spend your time there, then that can help with the acquisition of great memories.

    I have ten areas that I focus on, that I make time for every week. I write down each area and figure out what I am going to do to make sure I pay my time currency into that account.  For you the areas may be different, but I suggest you make a list and if you want hey just copy mine until you figure your own out.

    I make time each week to make sure that area of my life has some input in it. This I feel lifts me as a person. I think sometimes we concentrate on one area of life to the detriment of others. Sometimes when we lift the whole at the same time, we can make radical advances in the quality of our life and the quality of our memories.

    Ok here are my ten areas and why I think they are important.
    1. Art/Beauty: The world is an amazing place full of so many beautiful sights to see. From mother nature to man made wonder. Every day we get bombarded with negativity from all sorts of sources, from people we know to the media. So isn’t it obvious that we should counter that with balancing our life with some beauty? At least once a week you should saturate yourself with beauty. Spend some time looking at great art in a gallery/museum. If you don’t have that option go to a book store or search the web for great art. Get out in mother nature away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Go find something green or look at water and just breath it in. After all in life who really wants to experience ugly?

    2. Relationships: As the quote says no man is an island, we each are affected by the people we surround ourselves with. The thing with relationships is that we should rate them by their quality, but we really don’t we just let one relationship take equal standing as the next. If you are going to spend your time with people make sure that they are the people who provide you with nurture, love, fun and growth. Your whole purpose with relationships is to build great ones and limit your time on the mediocre ones.  (I will at some stage fill this idea out a bit more in a later post.)

    3. Fun: Isn’t that the point of it all! I know some people live for the weekend, and some people are so tired by the weekend all they want to do is relax. That said, if you are not making time to do one really fun thing each week then crikey make that change. Figure out what is fun for you and diary that in. The point of life is to enjoy it. So make time for fun.

    4. Health: Your body is the engine of your life. It should be capable of taking you through the journey of your life with little in the way of adversity. It is meant to be pain free and in good shape. So think of it like the engine of a Ferrari. It should be carefully maintained and only given the best fuel. If yours doesn’t work well start taking steps to get yourself in some sort of optimum health. This is one of the easiest areas to let slide in your life. Sometimes it can happen from bad treatment of yourself, or sometimes too much good living. Like in all things there should be balance and care taken. Build a body that will last you for the journey.
    5. Home: I try and do one thing each and every week to make my home an environment that nurtures me and allows me to have more tranquility in my life. I can put my hand up though and state I am by my nature laid back when it comes to tidiness and I could do better that is why once a week, I try and up my game a little bit. We can all learn to be a bit better when it comes to creating the ideal environment to live in. Think of it as your own fortress of solitude. (excuse the superman reference.)

    6. Income:  Money is not the be all and end all of life, it really isn’t but it does help fund some of the great things in life. I have talked more about the accumulation of this in other articles and books so for now you should look for ways to grow and maintain this “awesome memory fuel”.

    7. Love: In all its forms is what we are looking to give and experience. Much has been written about love and I have very little to add to the subject. Maybe just that love is an act not just a feeling.

    8. Thought:  Our mind like our health needs nurturing we have to give it time to rest and de-clutter. If you don’t take some time out each week (preferably each day) to give your mind some time to relax then you should. For me it is meditation and mindfulness. For you it may be something else. Give it a try it could change your whole world.

    9. Study: In the 21st century virtually all the knowledge of the universe is available to us on tap. Every great discovery or idea has been presented to us in some form or another. It is there for us to learn from and improve ourselves. If you are not reading one great book a month you are going to fall behind. I would suggest at least one a week. If you want to get ahead. Make time for reading or its equivalent each week.

    10. Travel: This is and can be the greatest source of lasting experiences and memories. There is so much to see and do in the world and for many/most of us the whole world has become available to us at the cost of a plane ticket. (There are not too many places you can’t get to these days for less than one months wages). We should always be thinking where we want to see next. That said it doesn’t have to be foreign travel. It could be visiting a new town in your country. It could be using a method of travel that you wouldn’t normally take. A bike ride, a boat trip, a train journey or maybe something really adventurous like paragliding, gliding or skydiving. Go have some sort of travel adventure.

    OK so there are my ten. Maybe they could be yours also. If not go figure out what your areas are and spend time doing something each week in those areas.

    Start making deposits of time in your ten most important areas and start to build your memory bank.

    Like I say the person with the best memories wins!

    Until next time…

    Snowy

  • The Villain Is The Hero Of His Own Story!

    It’s always someone else’s fault! No, it really is! It is definitely not your fault right?

    My boss is an asshole and he does not pay me enough, my partner just does not get me, the world is unfair, the little guy does not stand a chance, the rich/banks/government stops me at every turn, in fact everyone has got it in for me!

    Well, that sucks!

    You might be surprised how many people walk around each day with variations on that theme. The thing is they are right! All of those things are true. Let me explain.

    Your reality is based around the thoughts that you think each day. If you believe it, then it is true. Well, at least for you. You see as many people have stated we become our controlling thoughts. If we see the world as “out to get us” then more often than not you will find a way to make that true. As Robert Anton Wilson stated “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves!” actually quick tip go read his book Prometheus Rising it is one of the few life changing books, in fact read all his books.

    Moving on, you see most of us think we are the good guy that we are doing right and that we are good people. The thing is this works for virtually everyone. John Dillinger when asked why he robbed banks said “because that is where the money is” he didn’t believe he was a thief he believed he was a liberator of money from the evil banks/government.

    Hitler probably believed that bringing forth the master race was a noble pursuit no matter how he achieved this. Same goes for all empire builders in history Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon etc.

    You see pretty much no one sees themselves as the bad guy.

    So in human terms we have normally three categories of people The Good Guys, The Bad Guys who think they are good and The Victims.

    The Bad guys we have discussed, so lets get on with the other two.

    Before I discuss the Good Guys let’s talk about The Victims.

    The Victims as I have mentioned believe that everyone has got it in for them. They see no opportunity, they think everyone doesn’t seem to understand them. They believe life’s golden ticket has been stolen from them, and as I have mentioned for them this is true.

    Does this hold up under examination?

    Well do you know what if you live in the third world, a war zone or say sub-Saharan Africa, then do you know what you may be justified in your stance. For the rest of us well, I’m not so sure.

    I’ll tell you the reason why. Pretty much all of us are the product of each and every choice we have ever made. In fact if you are reading this every choice you have ever made led you to reading this at this moment in time.

    Each day we make a plethora of different choices that affect us in the moment and also our future.

    The more good choices we make on average the better our life turns out. The more bad choices we make then on average the worse our life turns out. Yes there are exceptions to every rule, but for most people that runs true.

    Victims tend to point fingers outwards and blame other people. They never point the finger back at themselves and take personal responsibility. They think their fate is set by the hand that they have been given. And so it is!

    The Good Guys, they have a different mindset to The Victims and The Bad Guys, you see the good guys often started out just like The Victims or could have taken a pathway that would have led them to becoming The Bad Guys. The thing is they didn’t they made better choices!

    Let me say that again, they made better choices.

    You see the good guys take a look at their lot in life and decide they will take a stand for themselves. (hey, for some the lucky ones this is almost inbuilt and requires very little in the way of effort. Good for them!) They make solid choices that lead them onwards and upwards.

    The Good Guys if they start in The Victim place, don’t accept that as their final outcome and ask themselves how they can go about improving their situation. They make a better choice for themselves.

    Maybe it is to study hard in school, maybe instead of going to the bar for a beer or sitting at home watching soaps and drinking wine, they go to the library and pick up a book. Maybe they go ask the advice of someone who has already lifted themselves up and out of a similar situation. Maybe they work doubly hard on themselves rather than complaining about the way life is hard.

    You see we all get to be who we are… The Good Guy, The Bad Guy and The Victim by our choices.

    Yes, I know sometimes bad things happen to good people, sometimes really horrendous and horrible things happen to good people but the person we become after that happens will also depend on how we choose to deal with it. We are our the accumulation of our choices over time.

    So for now make better choices! Choose one area of your life right now that is not working for you and choose to do something about it.

    Snowy

  • The Fastest Way To Rapid Knowledge Acquisition!

    Back in ancient Egypt when they were mummifying a corpse one of the things that they did was remove all the vital organs from the body. All that is except the heart! Back then the Egyptians believed that the heart was the intelligence centre of a human being so they left it in. The human brain was thought to be superfluous to requirements and was treated with very little in the way of reverence. Hooks were inserted up the nose and they were jiggled around to scramble the brain and then they would proceed to scoop it out back through the nose. Oh those crazy Egyptians smart in many ways dead wrong (pun intended) in others.

    So what has that got to do with the acquiring of knowledge I hear you ask? It is a good question! After all this is all about questions.

    Well I will do my level best to bring it all together with just one terrible segue.

    Brain Picking!

    See what I did there 🙂

    If you are unfamiliar with the concept of brain picking it is the systematic approach to obtaining information, skills or knowledge from another person by asking specific and well constructed questions.

    The thing is most people when they look to learn something new, try and gain the knowledge of that thing by trial and error.

    Hey it works that’s why we do it. The thing is using your own effort to acquire a new thing that someone has already done is, if you think about it clearly not the most efficient way.

    I mean let’s say you wanted to be a doctor you wouldn’t just start trying to come up with new ways yourself to see if you could make someone better. You would consult the existing body of work that has been accumulated over the years. Obviously!

    The thing is in so many other fields we ignore this wisdom and just start by plowing ahead trying to learn as we go. No thought to the easier way.

    Let’s take business as an example you decide you want to start one but have never done so. Let’s say you decide that you want to offer a personal concierge service. Hey people are busy and they need to be organised often they don’t have the time to do things for themselves. You know that people are doing very well in this business but there doesn’t seem to be anyone doing it in your area. You’ve found your gap in the market.

    Now all you have to do is figure out how to get this up and running. So you do all the usual things get some cards printed, get a website done, get your business registered and you start trying to find clients by asking friends if they know anyone who could use your service and head to local networking events to pitch your service.

    Over time you barrel through picking up the occasional bit of business and hoping your business improves. With each new month you learn a few more skills that make your business better and after a year or two you are getting quite good at what you do.

    Well that’s one way.

    Another way might be this….

    Part 1.

    You go on the internet and find everyone in that industry who is a successful and not geographically competitive with you. Get a list of at least 20-30.

    Take a look at each persons website and see what is good on there and what is bad. You look at services provided and the pricing structure if available. You make a note of all the things that you could adopt yourself. You create a spreadsheet with the details of each person/business what they do how they do it good and bad. You get all their contact info for part 3.

    Part 2

    You brainstorm a load of questions that you would love to have answered by someone in the know. So that would shorten your path to knowledge of the industry.

    Things like…

    How did you start your business?

    What have been your biggest successes?

    What have been your biggest mistakes?

    What would you have loved to know at the start that would have made you more successful quicker?

    What marketing strategies have been the most successful?

    What do you think you would do differently if you had to start all over again?
    So you would get a list of relevant questions. That would if answered, fast track your knowledge.
    Part 3

    You contact each person on the list tell them that you really admire what they are doing and say that you would love to have a chat about how they became so great. Tell them that you are thinking of doing something similar and that you are not going to be in competition with them as they are operating in a different area.

    The thing is everyone likes to tell their story and we are all starved for the attention of someone who will listen. This is your advantage you are prepared to listen.

    Get them to tell their story. Then ask your questions. Make notes.

    When you finish, thank them and ask if it would be ok to speak to them from time to time if you ever have any questions. Job done!

    You do this for each and every one of the people on your list. Well, at least those who will speak to you and you again take lots of notes.

    Very quickly you will have virtually all the knowledge that you need to get your business off the ground. You will know how to get it going and growing really fast and you will know what mistakes to avoid. You will have more than a few people to help you should you get stuck.

    There is a secondary benefit to speaking to lots of people. Often many different people in an area have different knowledge and never do anything to improve that knowledge. You will be the only one who has the complete picture as you have talked to everyone. This can give you a massive advantage if you have competition, as the people who you are competing against never take the time to do this.

    This usually does not take long you can normally get this done in under two weeks.

    You now get to hit the ground not only running but running like Usain Bolt.

    You have a far greater degree of confidence in what you are doing and you are not wasting any time with trial and error and second guessing yourself. You have shortened your learning curve to its bare minimum.

    You can do this with any skill that requires knowledge and is the fastest way I know to shortcut that journey.

    Use this technique in every area of your life and your speed to knowledge and skill acquisition will be the stuff of legend.

    Oh one final thing you should memorise the first 4 questions as you can use them on any person you meet. It is good for you and it is good for them you gain knowledge, they get to tell their story.

    So go Pick Brains non-Egyptian style.

    Snowy

  • The Ultimate Mastermind Group!

    I don’t know if you have ever tried to get a mentor but often it is so much harder than most people will tell you.

    Especially if you want a world class mentor. Those guys are near impossible to get to.

    So what’s a guy to do if he really wants to get a world class mentor?

    Imagine you were in the tech space what would it be like to have say Mark Zuckerberg or if he was still alive maybe Steve Jobs as your mentor? If you were into business how good would it be to have someone like Richard Branson or Donald Trump giving you advice? Or say you were into personal development and peak performance imagine you had Anthony Robbins in your corner.

    Do you think that would make a difference in your life? I guess you would say “you bet your ass it would”.

    So what are your chances of getting these guys to mentor you anytime soon? Practically a big fat ZERO!!!

    Hey you could try begging and pleading, you could go one step further by trying to be useful to them. By offering yourself and your services in free of charge in exchange of being in their orbit. Still seems unlikely. Hey maybe we can up our game a little maybe we can come up with 10-50 good ideas about how to improve their world. Hey that might help. Maybe it is worth a try… You never know!

    For the most of us this is a hiding to nothing, and you stand about as much chance of getting them as a mentor as landing on the moon.

    So what is plan B?

    Well, I have a rather weird alternative! Oh and a warning this is not for the faint of heart and does require some serious effort! That said the payoff can be nothing short of incredible.

    So let’s begin…

    I have mentioned in another article that in the classic book “Think and Grow Rich” the singly greatest idea in there is completely overlooked by the majority of readers. It is called the “Internal Mastermind”

    So what is an internal mastermind? Well, for those of you who for a start don’t know what a Mastermind group is, it is basically a collection of people who get together to come up with ideas for a common pursuit of purpose. i.e business people getting together to exchange ideas on ways to improve their respective companies.

    The internal mastermind group is exactly the same it is just imagined in your head.

    Did I lose your there? Did I?

    Please bear with me and I might just give you something that can radically alter your life.

    Why do you want a mentor? Because you believe they will bestow upon you ideas and information that will help you improve your lot in life. Agreed? Good!

    You can’t get to the good ones in the physical world but you can get to them in the mental world!

    Let me explain how I went about doing this.

    First I built with an imaginary boardroom in my head (I could tell you that it is wood panelled and sumptuously furnished but that is unimportant!) It has a large table with 5 chairs on either side, a large seat for me at the head of the table and two guest chairs at the end.

    Each chair is filled with people who have skills, knowledge or characteristics that I admire.

    How do you find out who has characteristic that you admire? Well, look to the place you want to get to in life and ask yourself “who is already in that place?” Or alternatively ask what characteristics do I think I am going to need in order to get to where I want to go?

    Next decide who best fills that role?
    And here is the tricky part find out all you can about that person. Read their biography if they have one. Read articles about them. Watch videos of them on YouTube. Saturate yourself in your knowledge of them. So much so that you can get a really good mental impression of them.

    Then sit them in a chair. You can do this with one or many it does not matter what your preference is.

    But this is the good part. You get to ask them questions! This is the really, really good part. They will answer you back!!!! This is the most extraordinary part if you do this often enough they will give you answers that you will genuinely believe did not come from yourself. Yep read that again. I know you know that it is just you and your imagination, but believe me these characters take on a life of their own and genuinely give you insights that you will think, “Where the hell did that come from?”

    Why this happens I have no idea! Maybe it just allows you to get out of the way of yourself and allows your subconscious to work through you, that’s my best guess but like i say I have no real idea. Either way, the results can be wondrous.

    To give you some ideas as to who you should put in your board room I will tell you about some of the people I have put in my chairs over the years (you will start to swap out people over the years as you will feel that you have acquired the skill you brought that person in to gain, or that you find a more useful person to provide that skill.

    Richard Branson (business acumen)
    Sir James Goldsmith (Passion/business acumen)
    Anthony Robbins (Motivation)
    Leonardo Da Vinci (creativity)
    Don Vito Corleone (Leadership)
    Keyser Soze (force of will)
    Paul Atreides (seeing the future)
    Edward De Bono (lateral thinking/problem solving)

    You will notice that the list contains some fictional characters. This is allowed as they were the best representation of skills that I could come up with.

    As I also mentioned if there was a specific problems that were not being able to solved by the fixed members of my board then I would bring in guest members to ask them questions.

    Anyhow by now you might think that this makes me schizophrenic but I assure you, I never once forgot that this was just taking place in my head. All I am stating is that when I go there I often get extraordinary help if and when I need it.

    It can be a remarkable tool if you use it I suggest you do.

    Oh, one final thing for some of you who want a soft intro into the power of this technique i suggest this.

    Whenever you have a problem ask yourself the question “What do I think X would do in this situation?” You might find yourself getting a better answer. If you do maybe you will decide to up your game and take it to the next level by trying the boardroom.

    Snowy

  • Beware False Prophets!

    This is the shortest article I will ever write, but maybe the most important.

    You should question anyone who ever makes an unprovable statement, talks in absolutes, says things like “as we know” or says as X (let’s say Albert Einstein as an example) has shown us (deferring to a third party) or uses big words to make themselves sound knowledgeable.

    Ask who are they, and in what way can they legitimately claim authority on this subject.

    If they cannot offer a reasonable answer to this without using the above mentioned statements, run from them, as they are a giver of opinions at best, and a charlatan/conman at worst. So measure them by that standard!

    Obviously if you follow this to it’s logical conclusion, you should take with a pinch of salt everything I say or write.

    Trust only that, that is provable but keep an open mind as to why it might be wrong.

    Until next time, think for yourself!

    Snowy

  • Don’t Be 10x Better Be 1% Better!

    If you are anything like me you are always looking for ways to improve yourself and make yourself that little bit better.

    It sounds like a good idea in theory and we would all like to do it but the thing is to make any meaningful progress we pretty much know that we would need to radically change ourselves. After all there is no point in doing things by halves!

    Even if we were 50% better than at the moment that really wouldn’t make a significant amount of difference in our lives. Hey it would help but it really wouldn’t make that much difference.

    I mean lets say I can run 4 miles would 6 really make that much of a difference.

    We earn $50,000 (£30,000) would $75,000 (£45,000) make that much difference? Hey I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice!

    What about a double up maybe that would make all the difference!

    Nah what we really need it a really big increase something significant we need 5X or 10X.

    Yeh, lets go with 10X now we are cooking with gas.

    The thing is how the hell do you go about making a ten times leap? How you improve by 10 times, seems like a really big ask. Especially as none of us has a genie in a lamp or magic wand! The reality of ten times just doesn’t sound real.

    So what are the other alternatives? Well there is small incremental gains, but they hardly seem worth while. No we need the big radical stuff. Small and simple that’s just no good.

    Or is it?

    Let’s take a look and examine the reality of it.

    Can small gains make big improvements?

    It is at this point I want to tell you a story I heard when I was watching the Olympics in 2012. The British Cycle Team had just pulled in a record haul of medals. The mastermind of this triumph was a man by the name of David Brailsford.

    Elsewhere Brailsford was in charge of team Sky and had helped Bradley Wiggins become the first Britain to win the Tour De France the worlds most prestigious cycle race.

    So what was his secret to getting such amazing results. Well the people around him tell of his philosophy and it was this, Brailsford believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” He explained it as “the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.”

    Let me point out the important part again it was “The aggregation of marginal gains.” It wasn’t a 10X strategy. It was small incremental improvements. That 1% when added together with other 1% made all the difference and brought in a flurry of golds and other medals.

    Before we go any further I want to make you two offers

    Offer a) within 1 year you get to be 10 X better than you are today!
    Offer b) each day for a year you get to improve 1% from the day before!

    Which one would you choose?

    Without examination offer A looks infinitely more appealing doesn’t it?

    The thing is if you took that option you would be massively robbing yourself. Really?

    Well yes it does! It all comes down to a wonderful thing called compounding! Allegedly Albert Einstein called compounding “the 8th wonder of the world.”

    The funny thing is that 1% compounded everyday gives you a 38 X improvement over a year. Don’t believe me go check it out on your calculator. (just do this put in the number 1 then press the X twice followed by 1.01 to represent 1% now press = 365 times for days of the year you will get just over 38)

    Ok great so now we know about the power of compounding and we know that we really can make a radical difference to the quality of our lives if we just keep making small improvements.

    So the next question is in what areas of your life should you start making these improvements. Well I will be writing articles on the ten main areas of life improvement in future articles. For now I think there are two areas you should concentrate on.

    To start your physical body. (I will be talking much more about this as I have mentioned but for now, think about exercise, nutrition and sleep.)

    Ask questions like what one thing can I do today to improve my physical performance?

    Maybe you will say well I could think of my food as fuel rather than just something I use to satisfy a need. Maybe instead of sitting down in front of a TV for half an hour you could go for a walk or do one pushup. Maybe you make your bedroom that little bit darker to help aid sleep.
    Mental Health. Avoid negative people and look for ways to reduce/eliminate stress from your life.

    Ask Questions like who or what causes me the most stress in my life?

    Maybe you have a specific person or persons who always come to you with their problems and dump them on you. Maybe you begin to reduce the time you expose yourself to these persons. Maybe there is a thought that always causes you to worry about things, so maybe you reach for a better thought, at least for a couple of moments.

    If you just do that then you will start to get marginal improvements in your life and as we have seen that it is the sum total of all these little improvements that in the long run make all the difference.

    The secret to both success and failure is small things repeated over and over for extended periods. So make sure the things that you do serve you, not steal from you.

    Each day strive for your 1%.

    Until next time I hope you become at least 1% better.

    Snowy

  • What Bugsy Malone Can Teach Us About Success!

    The thing is with knowledge you have to take it as and when you find it.

    For years when people have asked me where do you get all your best ideas I used to tell them Bugsy Malone. Partially as a joke but secretly there was a lot of truth in what I said.

    You see Bugsy is not just a great film, there is also a lot of great wisdom in there that is often overlooked by those who watch it.

    If you are not familiar with the film it is Alan Parkers take on the gangster film. The difference is that all the characters are played by children. The guns don’t shoot bullets they shoot custard. The cars are peddle power. Much of the dialogue comes in the form of song. So if you will Bugsy is in essence a gangster musical with kids.

    As a child I was mesmerised by the film oh how I wanted a splurge gun and a peddle car. Jodie Forster as Tallulah was my idea of all thing glamorous, there were definitely no girls like here in my school.

    Scott Baio who played the eponymous title character was the very definition of all that was cool! He was smart he was funny, he was street savvy and he seemed always to be one step ahead of the game.

    All that is unimportant for the purpose of this article, the important point is that, in the songs there was wisdom. Some of it truly profound.

    Yep I know what your are thinking, really in a kids film? I tell thee yes!

    Ok you want proof!

    Have you ever procrastinated about anything or said to yourself i can do that tomorrow? Yep! We all have that is part of the human condition right?

    Well the film gives us some advice on the subject from the song Tomorrow. In the film there is a character who keeps on trying to get an audition for a job as a dancer from the owner of a speak easy. Everyday the owner says to the character ok you can get an audition tomorrow. The lyrics state “Tomorrow never comes, tomorrow a resting place for bums!”

    Clearly stating that if you put off living your life for too long you might end up in the worst off all situations living like a down and out! Our character knows that there is no tomorrow he states “what kind of fool do they take me for!”

    The thing is he also gives us the cure for being put off. He says “I won’t take no for an answer!” Or to put it another way I will take control of my own fate and not be at the whims of others! The whole song is a masterclass in seeing how you claim control of your fate!

    You want some more advice from Bugsy, in a song entitled “Down and Out” it gives us a cure from complaining about your situation. At the start of the song we hear these lyrics.

    You don’t have to sit around
    Complaining ’bout the way your life has wound up
    Think of all the time you waste
    And time’s a precious thing to let go by

    Talk about philosophy hidden in plain sight!

    They also go on to give your there cure in the very next lyric it says..

    Sure you’ve hit the bottom
    But remember you’ll be building from the ground up
    Ev’ry day’s another step
    That takes you even closer to the sky, so give a try

    It goes on a little further to tell us how we do it by really taking a stand for ourselves and how we can start to make progress by taking a chance and making some new changes!

    Fight and fight some more
    Until you know the world is ready to receive you

    So be a man you know you can’t be certain
    That you’ll lose until you try, so give it a try

    You want some more?

    Ok how about Karma or if you prefer sow and reap or to put it another way, if you provide value first, then you will reap the rewards! We here this in the lyrics..

    You give a little love
    And it all comes back to you

    Simple, yet completely accurate.

    It also goes on to tell you about the importance of Character and how we should strive to keep ourselves to our highest standards and be impeccable with our word after all….

    You know you gonna be remembered
    For the things you say and do

    I won’t go on any more about just how good a film Bugsy is because every time I watch it I think for both children and adults it is a philosophical masterpiece.

    That said I will leave you will one final lesson from Bugsy Malone it comes in the form of telling us that we become the sum total of the choices we make and it is never to late to start making better ones.

    We could’ve been anything
    That we wanted to be
    Yes, that decision was ours

    We could’ve been anything
    That we wanted to be
    And it’s not too late to change
    I’d be delighted to give it some thought
    May-be you’ll agree that we really ought

    There are so many other great bits of wisdom in the film take the time to watch it if you haven’t or reacquaint yourself with it if you have.

    Hey, maybe you will realise somewhere in the film that you really can be anything that you want to be.

    Until next time.

    Snowy

  • Don’t Change Yourself, Upgrade Yourself!

    So from time to time we want to change a habit or adopt a new one. The thing is the process of change can be really hard, especially if you have to make a big change.

    When we are trying to make a change there is so much to get in the way of us succeeding.

    First of all we have an inbuilt system within our brain to regulate change and stop us from doing it. The homeostatic part of our brain literally stops us from making changes.

    If you are not familiar with homeostasis it is a self regulating system within the brain that tries to maintain a stable environment and to be wary of change.

    Why would your brain have such an inbuilt system? Well it is for a very important reason. It is designed to keep you alive. How does that work? Well your brain “knows” that if you do anything out of the ordinary it increases the “Risks” you are taking. The more risks you take the higher chances of you dying.

    Or at least that’s the way your brain thinks.

    There is a really big problem with that. Let’s say that we know exercising is a good idea as it will improve our overall health. The thing is all your homeostatic brain sees that as not a good idea it says to itself RISK so it will do everything in its power to stop you from making that change. It will literally throw thoughts into your mind about why it is not a good idea and why you should avoid making the change.

    It kind of sucks doesn’t it.

    This doesn’t just happen for physical things, let’s say we want to start a business, get a new job, end a bad relationship, start eating healthy food? All these are subject to the same scrutiny.

    So every time you are looking to make a change you have to fight that part of your brain.

    So what can you do about this well most people try and use will power to get past this. The thing is what most people don’t know is that will power is in limited supply within us all. And to be honest if you are a regular person you really don’t get that much of it.

    Certainly not enough in most people to make big changes. That is why virtually all New Years resolutions go out of the window within a couple of days from the start of the year.

    Well if you have not got enough will power to get you through it what have we got left. Well we have a few things. One is the BIG DECISION.

    If you make a decision in your mind, one that is absolute, and without question, somehow your mind knows it. This can’t be a wishy washy decision or a hope or an i’d like to decision this is an absolute deciding. Somehow this cuts through the homeostatic gatekeeper and gets taken on board.

    Most of the time these come from rock bottom. They come in the form of a sort of Never Again moment.

    They can come from a good place but that involves building so much positive emotion around the idea that it literally gouges a new neural pathway in your brain. Most of us don’t have the inclination for such practice.

    So unless you are in the depths of despair the big decision may be out of your reach.

    So what else is left? Well we have auto suggestion, affirmation and incantation. Which deal with repetition of chosen words or phrases that slowly change your thinking over time. The latter can be especially effective as it adds the emotional component to it, which your brain takes special attention to, as it (your brain) operates in an emotional capacity. Also we tend to become what we think about most of the time. So hey don’t dismiss this approach it can work for you.

    That said most of us don’t have the discipline to start such a committed routine.

    So what have we got left. Well I will tell you….. Tiny changes and trickery.

    So like i say when you try and make a big change your brain says to itself “forget that” or words to that effect, and does what it can to throw a spanner in the works.

    Aha so if we have the intention to make big changes but don’t want to scare our brain what can we do. Well we can go all psychological stealth ninja on our brain that’s what.

    So how do we do that. Well we take the big change and we break it down to it’s smallest component.

    Let’s say that you decided to get healthy and you thought that the best way to do that was to join a gym and commit to going 4 times a week first thing in the morning. Your brain panics, throws up a million ideas why that is not a good idea, and that is not the person you, are after all we’ve never even done any exercise in years. The plan is scuppered before it begins.

    So what can we do? Well we just do something small to start. Let’s say that you there is something that you do consistently each day. It could be anything taking a shower, brushing your teeth or putting the kettle on for your morning coffee. We will use the latter as an example.

    Here is what you do. You put the kettle on and as it is starting to boil you drop to the floor and do just one push up. No more, just the one! You get up and give yourself a fist pump. (The fist pump is important, new habits love positive rewards/reinforcement) Actually it does not have to be a fist pump it can be any reward (maybe chocolate) but you must reward yourself in some way.

    That’s it your done! Do this for a couple of days and then if you like, start adding one more push up each day. If you like after a while do this every time you put on the kettle. Then maybe add one extra exercise a squat maybe or a jumping jack (star jump). Do this slowly.

    Then before you know it your mind starts to get the message that you are a person who exercises. Then maybe you decide to go to the gym once a week not 4 times just once (your brain thinks, “ok, I do some exercise the gym is not that big a stretch!”) Do that for a couple of weeks. Your mind then thinks to itself and says to it’s self “I really am a person who goes to the gym.” Add one more session each week over a period of time. Your brain will readily accept this.

    This is how you sneak up on your brain to make lasting change.

    This works for virtually any area of your life. Just think of the change you want to make break it down to its smallest component. Attach that to an existing habit. Reward yourself. Add small increments. Simples!

    I also like to use this sentence as I’m making changes, it is amusing to me and it makes the thought of change easier in my mind. Give it a try here it is.

    “I’m ready for an upgrade!”

    For some reason we associate upgrades as a reward and not a change, so your mind let’s it slip through.

    So that’s how you can easily make a big change without the hardship and failure. I hope you try this.

    Snowy