So first of all – here is a bit of a life update before I get to the meat of the post.

I moved away from the UK permanently (I did this a few months ago actually) and am perpetually travelling for a while. Here are some pictures of my travels thus far – it’s been pretty cool. I had a chance to sail down San Francisco Bay, fly under the Golden Gate Bridge in a helicopter, dance at Coachella, party until dawn in Vegas, climb the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles and get wasted in the red light district of Amsterdam with friends from around the world!

Looks like fun? Living the dream? Lol. Kind of, but to be honest, there is a catch. If you look behind the facade of “travelling” or “being an international playboy”, you will see that I am actually using “work” as an excuse to travel – i.e. every place I have been to, I have attended an internet marketing conference or meet up. I just happen to also be doing some other cool stuff on the side wherever those meet ups happen to be.

I am, of course, up for doing some more purely “experiential” travelling (which I can do as I work online) like swimming with sharks, bungee jumping, deep sea fishing, seeing the pyramids etc etc. However, that’s more about if I can find people who I enjoy the company of to do these things with. To be honest, it’s hard to find cool friends who have the same level of freedom!

Also, despite my focus, I’ve actually found it very difficult to work whilst travelling every week / few weeks. This period of heavy travelling has showed me that it’s a big problem losing your routine and changing your diet and work out schedule. This is one of the reasons why, over the next few months, I’ve decided to live in countries / cities for a minimum of 8 weeks at a time. I estimate that this will create less disruption and allow me to create a routine through which I can better work. I will then return home to Sydney for the Christmas period and move to a city of my choosing in December / January permanently. That’s the tentative plan anyway!

Now, moving onto the meat of this post.

The reason that this blog post was entitled “The first million is the hardest… and the most dangerous” is because of something another mentor said to me recently – “Firstly mate, congratulations for your first million. The first is the hardest, the rest come relatively easier. Secondly, you should realise that ‘it never ends’. Its like you go from buying economy seats to business class seats. Then you start flying business class and then you think you should try first class. Then you start flying private jets… and all you ever needed was economy”.

The first thing he said was very true “the first million is the hardest”. Now that I have made my first million, the interesting thing is that the second million came pretty quick thereafter. And the third, fourth and fifth are no doubt well on their way too. Not to mention, the number of opportunities to make more and bigger money has literally exploded. I do know people though, who make their first million, and then… stagnate. I credit one of my mentors who gave me the critical advice to “focus when you are hitting” here. The temptation is to relax when you are doing well. The right thing to do is focus, capitalise, fortify and duplicate efforts, when things are going well. The mentality is that these “runs” do not last forever and you have to keep building on them.

Now, even though it may seem like I am travelling a lot, which I am, most of this is smoke and mirrors. I am travelling for business as much as (if not more than) for pleasure. I also focus a lot when I travel. I still work most of the hours in the day and I tend to do “activities” with people who I do business with (which tends to create more business). Not that this is an entirely conscious choice. Its also due to the fact that I generally only do business with people I like and/or trust, and I like hanging out with people that I like. Thus, sharing cool experiences with them is an absolute pleasure. Business and pleasure do not need to be separated, especially when you do business with people that you like. Moreover, I am capitalising on success by innovating and fortifying our business position and creating “new” avenues through which we can create profit.

As for his second point – i.e. ’spendings increasing’ – I don’t want my spendings to scale up proportionally to my earnings. I believe that there is really something to learning to live like a student – thrifty, but happy. Warren Buffet does it. So do a few other rich people I know. This is not to say that my spendings have not increased at all. I have been staying at 4 and 5 star hotels… but only because I can book them cheap at priceline.com. I have been flying business class AT TIMES (not all the time – for example, right now I am sitting in a monster 24 hour flight to Sydney in economy!)… but only because I can upgrade at almost no cost thanks to the AMEX points I have. I think that this is a good habit to have – to never lose the ability to economise your life… but also to never compromise on expenses which may make you more effective / efficient in what you do.

As I increase my wealth, I am going to try to watch my discretionary spending, while spending freely on things which enable me to focus, work and earn better… or which produce more money / value… within reason. I also have a number in mind, that when I reach, will be the time that I change my focus. At that point in time, my passive income will be around 100k per year and I’ll be able to afford a very nice house and lifestyle. When this is achieved, I would like to focus 100% of my time on helping my team in particular, but all of those people who helped me get there, to get rich too. This is not and has never been about “just me” winning. If I don’t facilitate equal if not bigger opportunities for my team, then to me, then I have failed. I want the people who walked with me in to learn to walk with me, not behind me. And although it takes time, the journey will make them all better men as it did me.

Anyway, one of the reasons that I am going back to Australia is to regain some focus which may have been lost from this travelling binge. The travelling binge has admittedly allowed me to produce some really partnerships, JVs, and relationships and to see the world differently and cultivate different opportunities. These are awesome. However, I have not been as focused on the actual business, which I miss. I thus want to make sure that this next period is about FOCUS, and hopefully, it will set the stage for the team and I to continue to “kill it” for the next few months and beyond.

To the future!

It’s been a long time since I posted… mostly because I’ve been working so much and have thus been extremely focused.

Anyway, the big news – as of the end of last week, I became a self-made cash millionaire. In cash – not assets – and after tax.

As you may know, I started writing this blog so that I could have a record of where I had been on my way to where I was going. I actually took the last week to reflect on what had happened to me before I posted, because this was such an important milestone, so definitely worth writing about.

Where to start? Well, at the beginning seems apt. I arrived in the UK almost 6 years ago exactly – a young, idealistic, enthusiastic and broke 25 year old, with big dreams. I didn’t know a soul here, except a priest, who I stayed with at a small church in the small town of Maidstone until I could get my bearings. Eventually I moved to London, but Maidstone is where it started.

When I arrived, I was scared and excited. I was running away from a place that wouldn’t allow me to be me (my old life in Australia, which pushed me towards being “normal”), and had a burning desiring to live an aspirational life and succeed in the greatest city in the world – London. As of last week, I truly felt that I accomplished this goal. My 20s were filled with adventure, ups, downs, high highs and low lows. And I capped them off by hitting a key financial milestone.

The first thing that I want to point out to anyone reading this is how insanely hard it was to get here. My struggles have been well documented. See the posts below:

http://www.notyouraveragelawyer.com/2010/10/it-aint-easy/

http://www.notyouraveragelawyer.com/2010/08/entreprenuership-where-great-freedom-means-great-responsibility/#more-623

http://www.notyouraveragelawyer.com/2010/07/fear-and-passion-as-your-great-motivators/#more-262

And this doesn’t even do justice to how tough it was. It’s been tough. So so so tough. I don’t want to hark on this point, but it’s worth reading the above to see maybe 2% of the adversity I went through to get there.

I don’t want to talk about exactly about my businesses per se, only because the businesses are still making a great deal of money and I don’t want to disclose trade secrets, but you can read through this blog to get an idea. FYI, it wasn’t through trading… not yet anyway. More on that in a later post. However, I will point out the lessons that I learned:

1) Value good people and deliver value to people. Whether that be your network, or the people you work with, or anyone else – it’s important to have integrity, value the relationships you create, have a long term win-win perspective and build your reputation as someone who is competent, able, who gives value and is trustworthy. And above all, you have to be trustworthy. I can’t emphasise this enough. The opportunities that will stem for this are truly amazing.

2) Gravitate towards the “win-win” type people and stay away from “broken” people. I would consider myself a win-win type person. When I discover something of value, I try to give back to people who helped me discover it, in abundance. This has made a huge impact in my life, because people know that I share back. However, by the same token, there are people who are just… broken and have a “win-lose” / anti-sharing mentality. How do you know who these people are? The first and most important sign is that these people give you bad emotions from the outset – i.e. you have a strange feeling that “something is off”. Maybe they don’t seem genuine. Maybe they are too nice. Whatever it is, they just trigger off a cautious feeling inside of you. The next sign is that they are unpredictable in their actions and reactions. Now, it’s not that these people can’t help you. It’s more that the stress they cause you in the long run takes away from you actually achieving. When I minimised the “broken” people and surrounded myself with “win win” type guys, everything changed. Everything.

You may realise that (1) and (2) above relate to people. This is accurate. People are EVERYTHING in helping you are the keys to success. While I got rich, people around me did as well. They won, I won. And I’m proud to say that everyone I’ve met except the 1-2 “broken” people, I would be happy to work with again, or would be happy to work with me again.

3) When you are winning, focus. The first time I achieved some level of financial success, I took my foot off the pedal and took the situation for granted. Great wealth happens in spurts, and you MUST FOCUS during these spurts. It’s too tempting to say “OK I’m making good money, let’s chill”. The modus operandi is forward momentum. Stagnation is death. When I started using my success as a sign to focus more, my success skyrocketed.

4) It takes sacrifice. The truth is that you do have to sacrifice certain areas of your life in order to achieve success. For the past 2 years I’ve barely been out and haven’t really had a girlfriend, nor had a booming social life. No rosiness about this. No 4hr work week. It was grinding.

5) Luck is the combination of preparation and opportunity, but it still takes luck. I was lucky. I will admit to that. But I also pushed and pushed. I met people from my industry, I worked hard, I focused, I networked, I created value for people… and eventually… that value came back to me, multiplied. So yes, it was very lucky, but it was also where preparation met opportunity. I can’t say it will happen to everyone, but it did happen for me.

As for what it felt like… yep, it felt pretty great when I hit the $1m mark and I realised that “I did it”. It felt especially good because I had worked so hard for it over the past few years. I admittedly had an initial boost of extreme happiness, because I realised that I had achieved my goal of being a millionaire by 30, and I could also now afford to spend so… freely.

I also realised that richness does not stem from the numbers in your bank account. Many others have millions in their account. The richness actually stems from what the numbers represent. It represents the fact that I “made it” and that I did it MYSELF – not through family or anything like that. It represents a feeling of independence – of being the guy who started from scratch and succeeding. It represents the feeling that I could do it again. And of course, it represents an ease at which I can now live my life because I don’t have to worry about expenses – so it represents more freedom. It also represents the fact that I did it right and that my doubters were wrong. Finally, it represents the end of a journey, and the beginning of another one.

So there ends the journey of my 20s…

• A law student in Australia…
• A Lecturer…
• A volunteer in Ghana…
• Trained as a monk…
• A dual qualified lawyer…
• Developed a men’s movement…
• Built two companies (Higher Click and Altitude Shoes)…
• Became a millionaire…
• Became a British Citizen…

So where to next? Well, first stop is Miami, but after that, I don’t know. But what I do know, is I’m not stopping. I’m 30 years old. I’ve got money. I’m got youth. I’ve got health. I’m single. I’m free. And I still have so much left that I want to do.

Here’s to creating greatness.

A few years ago, I posted an article about the importance of having character and substance.

In that article, I spoke about my friend and mentor Shak, who after meeting a Lord, realised that “something was not right” and told me that “where you see smoke, there better be a fire”. He never said anything bad against the Lord, but had an uneasy feeling.

That lord was recently arrested for fraud and there is a documentary about him here http://www.channel4.com/programmes/fraud-lord:

What an amazing development. Respect to my friend Shak for being able to see the forest through the trees and teaching me the importance of character and substance.

WHY “YOUR NETWORK” IS IMPORTANT

When I was younger, I used to be super independent and rarely asked for help. I worked hard, was smart and wasn’t afraid to make mistakes – so I thought I didn’t need other people. Now I realise that there is a big flaw in this way of thinking.

The flaw is that it takes you time to learn things which other people know… the hard way. As I grew older, I started to understand the extremely important role of mentors in shortcutting the time it takes you to get good at something. Most importantly, it allow you to skip crucial learning mistakes and thus save you the most valuable commodity on the planet – time. Yes, you can figure almost anything out if you have a good head. But it will take you time. Mentors and relationships with people who can teach you things allows you to shortcut that process.

For example, I had an affiliate marketing mentor – Greg – teach me how to use Facebook as a platform. I now make a good living off that platform. It would have otherwise taken me a lot of time and money without him and he shaved years off my learning.

It’s not just mentors either – contacts can help you achieve things which others cannot. It could be a tip about an offer or traffic source. A passing discussion about a trading course. A simple idea, which when combined with what you know, allows massive scale. But whether it be mentors or contacts, the key is to be able to create and build these genuine, long lasting and solid relationships.

I should emphasize first though, that mentors and contacts are no substitute for technical knowledge and hard work. What they actually are, are amplifiers of technical knowledge and hard work. I’ve seen people fall down the rabbit hole of “know everyone, achieve nothing”. It’s mostly because they want free handouts from mentors or contacts… which just does not exist.

Considering how important this is, it’s funny to me how little is known about how relationships are created and how weird people get when they try to “force” relationships. The real components, in my opinion, have to do with delivering value to people, sharing time and sharing experiences, providing good emotions and having integrity. The below list are some of the principles of Relationship building. But the ULTIMATE in relationship building is REPUTATION.

With reputation, people seek to build relationships with YOU because you are a known quantity. Who would you rather work with, for example? A well known super affiliate / businessman, or an unknown who says he makes a lot of money? Of course, the well known guy. That being said, this post is about building strong relationships, rather than reputation, although the former is often a cornerstone of the latter.

So here goes… my primary thoughts on how strong relationships are built. These are definitely not all of the principles, but they are core ones that a lot of people miss.

PRINCIPLES OF STRONG RELATIONSHIPS

Delivering Value

Firstly, delivering value. The reason that humans communicate is because it helps us to survive and thrive.

So, for example, if I am good at marketing, and you are good at product creation, then together we can achieve more than if we work separately. Back in the old days, this would allow us to trade fish for rice, as an example. This entire transaction is based on the fact that both parties will deliver value to each other at different points in time. I deliver value to you and you deliver value to me. Together, we do things better, faster and create more value.

The importance of this “transaction” underpins all economics and human relations. Indeed, the ability to exchange is the reason that we humans developed communication abilities in the first place. It is also why reciprocation is such a strong psychological factor of influence (in his book, “Influence”, Robert Cialdini states that reciprocation is the strongest factor of influence between human beings).

The basic idea is that if I do something for you, you should feel obliged to do something for me. It’s not a “manipulative” principle. It’s basic human communication and predicated on the simple notion of “helping each other”.

Stated in another way, the principle is to deliver value to good people as much as possible. That value will most likely be returned to you tenfold – if not by way of reciprocation, then by way of  the fact that you have a good relationship with those people that may one day amount to something and should in any case provide you with some feeling of fulfilment.

An example of this from my own life is with my dear friend, Mark V. At one point in our relationship I went our of my way to help him, with no agenda, except to improve his life.  It didn’t take much on my behalf to do this but it really made a big difference to him. Fast forward two years later, and the tides had turned. Mark was a super affiliate while I just came out of the sale of my SEO Company. Mark then taught me things which allowed me to get successful very quickly and is now someone that I hold very close to my heart because of the difference he made in my life too. He obviously feels the same way for the difference that I made in his. It’s not as if we both thought “Reciprocation” when we helped each other. No, it was that we both had a mentality of DELIVER VALUE TO OTHERS. Now, we openly help each other in many facets of life.

One of my best buddies Mark V

Have Integrity

Second, Integrity. I don’t like this term because people misuse and misunderstand it.

I find the best way to describe integrity is simply in it’s final impact – i.e. that people trust you and that you have a good reputation. If whatever you are doing does not give people this impression of you, then you are not acting with integrity. In it’s most basic form, integrity is about sticking to what you say you’re going to do and treating others fairly.

You might be able to fake this in the short term, but in the long term, you will be found out. Too many times, I see people take the short term gain and sacrifice a relationship or their reputation or integrity in order to do it. This may net you a positive gain in the short term. However, it affects your reputation and does not contribute to long term relationships (which are often more sustainably profitable… and fulfilling).

An example of integrity is that I have a friend who shares ALL of his marketing campaigns with me. I could literally copy them and make x,xxx per day. Not once, have I ever run them in competition with him. This has led to him opening many more doors for me and our relationship strengthening. Why don’t I run them? Because even if I am not making x,xxx per day, I have an abundance mentality whereby I value relationships and money is the resource in great abundance.

Remember That It Takes Time And Shared Experiences

Lastly, time and sharing experiences. Great relationships take time to build.

I hate it when people pretend to be my best friend without even knowing who I am. Be friendly, of course, but don’t “emotionally overreach”. Over the course of time and shared experiences, relationships WILL develop, but it does take time and it’s important “networkers” out there realise this.

Good networking, to me, is basically just spending time and having good experiences with people so that they get to know where you are. The “business” will flow naturally from this relationship. Don’t push it. Just understand that relationships are about time and shared experiences.

An example is with my friend Charles Ngo. Charles and I shared some pretty intense experiences together. I won’t go through them all but they involve all sorts of weird and crazy things. Our relationship wasn’t predicated on business, but fun. This is not to say relationships cannot be cultivated over business – many are. But in this case, over time, I began to trust Chales and vice versa, I believe. We shared more experiences. At some point we may do business with one another, but even apart from that, he is one of my TOP “go to” guys for advice on many things business, efficiency, personal etc related. And of course, just for shooting the shit.

A body double of my friend Charles

In summary…

If I was to give advice to anyone about networking, it would be… “don’t network”. Instead, share experiences, deliver value and have integrity. In business, these are the principles that I believe will lead you to solid, long term relationships with the right people.

And remember above all that if you work in a small industry (such as affiliate marketing, or law, or any other industry in which I used to work in if I think about it – where the top is shared by very few), you have only ONE reputation. That reputation is the cornerstone of your larger “networking” success and without going into it right now, the best way to maintain that reputation is to follow the principles above… and treat others as you would want to be treated.

What separates a virtuoso piano player to a novice piano player? How they fail.

A University of Texas study showed that there was a certain trait, during practice, which was common ONLY to the virtuoso piano players… and that was way that they dealt with FAILURE. I’ve noticed that when I get really good at something in my life, this same trait applies.

Before I go through what it is, let’s see if YOU would deal with failure the same way a virtuoso would…

When you experience failure what do you do?
(a) Most of the time I give up
(b) I get discouraged
(c) I focus on my failure
(d) I push through the failure and keep going
(e) I ignore the failure and remind myself that I am awesome

The right answer is… (see the bottom of this post for the answer).

How is that the right answer? Well, to virtuoso piano players, failure helped indicate of the area of their practice and playing that they needed to improve. Rather than it being a BAD thing, it was a GOOD thing and they FOCUSED on it. So, the essential mindset is that failure is not bad – it’s an opportunity because you know where you can improve.

The path to virtuoso, however, is not that simple. Repeated failures leads to discouragement ESPECIALLY if the person who is failing does not know how to stop failing, or more importantly, how he can improve and move beyond this failure. This cycle of failing and not being able to figure out how to improve your situation is literally the foundation behind depression. It creates negative momentum in your life. We’ve all been there – depressed at our results, and not sure of the way forward. Thus, if you are failing in any area of your life, I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again… you need to find either the MENTORS or the KNOWLEDGE that will allow you to make the change that will produce the desired result. Sometimes, this involves making radical changes to your life. These are not necessarily difficult changes for the long term (you probably underestimate your adaptability to such changes), but they may not be easy to adapt to in the short term.

For example, let’s say you’re not hitting your goals in affiliate marketing, trading or business. Applying the methodology briefly explained above, the first and most important perspective is to realize that this is actually an opportunity to learn. The first thing that you want to do is identify your problems and your issues so that you can lucidly outline them to people (ideally, a mentor) or search for the appropriate knowledge. So, for example, if you are not able to make something work on a traffic source, then you know that you need to learn something or meet someone who can help you with that traffic source. You have identified your issue/problem. To solve it, you need the mentors and/or knowledge to be able to make difference in this field. How do you find these mentors?

Before you answer that question… ask yourself… in your spare time, do you go out for beers with your mates, or do you endlessly search forums and people for answers to your questions? Do you wake up late, wane in productivity throughout the day or do you work on your goals pretty much every second that you have? Do you hang around people who are either not successful in your field or are simply not IN your field? In general, do you have the discipline in your life to be able to SEARCH FOR, let alone MAKE, the desire change? If you responded the wrong way to any of these, then you living in Slobdom. It takes energy to reach the velocity to get out of your situation. And you can’t get terminal velocity while in Slobdom. So these are the first variables that you need to change.

So, let’s say you have evolved out of “slobdom” and have cultivated the habits to be able to frantically work to find a solution to your problem. What do you do next? You scour contacts or forums, friends of friends, meet ups, conferences, etc. to find knowledge or mentors. Although it’s the topic of another post, the key to finding mentors is to have the attitude of always delivering value whilst also being a good person and genuinely having a lot of internal integrity. Often, being a good person is the only currency that you have when starting a relationship with a mentor.

Understand that this process may take very long time. It took me three years to find numerous affiliate marketing contacts to allow me to get to the level to where I am at now. A lot of the time, I just had to continue delivering value to people, hoping that one day that value would come back to me. It eventually did and I’m doing OK now.

In summary, keep the perspective that failure is an opportunity to learn, because it’s this paradigm that will get you to “virtuoso”, in whatever you do. In terms of getting over that failure, you  have to work hard to to search for the knowledge and people that can show you HOW to get past that failure, but when you do, you evolve as a person and move onto the “next level”. This process never ends, but does continually make you a better person. So start seeing failures as opportunities and work towards identifying the things, people and knowledge to be able to overcome them.

The answer was (c).

Something I have been thinking a lot about recently is how to decrease the friction between different activities in my life. Everyone has different tasks. And we all know the violation of efficiency that comes from multitasking – it’s hard to get into the flow and create something of real value while multitasking.

For example, in one hour, I may be affiliate marketing. In another hour, I may be trading. In the next hour, I may be producing music. These activities require different parts of my brain and the act of changing activities causes ‘friction’ between these activities. What do I mean by ‘friction’?

Friction is the wastage of time and concentration that exists when you switch activities, as well as the difficulty in getting into the ‘flow’ of the new activity, while letting go of the ‘flow’ of the old activity. The quicker that you can transfer from one flow to the other, the less time is wasted and the more productive you can be across the various things that you do in your day.

So how do you reduce ‘friction’?

Get Closure

How do you get over an ex girlfriend / boyfriend? Closure!

One of the best ways that I can tell to reduce friction is to put CLOSURE on the last activity (by completing it fully or by setting a timer or a set event which alerts you to go back to the activity if needs be). This enables your mind to cleanly focus on the new activity without having ‘excess baggage’ from the last activity.

Note that this isn’t multitasking. This means fully completing an activity (e.g. creating and launching a campaign on traffic source) and then moving on to the next activity cleanly without thinking about that last activity. To do this, you may need to do things like put a cap on the amount that you spend on each campaign, or stop loss if you’re trading, or an alert if you’re looking to enter a position. However, it is crucially important that you do not commit the cardinal sin of focusing 75% on one activity while having 25% of your mind concerned about the other. Full engagement is the only way to true mastery and to exceptional results. So condition your mind and set the constructs to be able to be fully engaged in whatever you do.

Change Workspace and Physiology

If you work lying down, or at a certain desk for say, Activity A, then you may want to change this as you seek to “solar flare” into the next activity. A change of physiology and location can really help with changing focus. I mean, Tony Robbins says that it can help with changing state, let alone focus, so it can definitely change focus.

For example, while I am editing something that isn’t important, I use my couch and I am lying down. However, when I am doing something important – like marketing or trading, I use my desk. When I am producing, I use my bedroom. This allows me to have clean “separations” between different areas but even moreso, it allows me to adopt the physiology that allows me to have peak performance in whatever task I am focused on.

Respect The Transition Phase

Aside from the above, it is also crucial to realize that THERE IS actually a transitionary phase that you should respect from one activity to another.

Nurture your ability to identify and develop rituals around this phase by recognizing it as a phase, taking a break if you have to (to disengage from the last activity) and consciously put effort into beginning the ’solar flare’ of the new activity (my buddies Aaron and Thanh over at Asian Efficiency outlined what Solar Flaring is… a term I once coined actually ).

Realizing that when you end an activity, or even seek to end the activity, that you begin a new phase (which is not the new activity, but rather the “transition phase”) is the first step in allowing you to cleanly finish the first task and move on to the second. Get through this transition phase and you will be able to perform various activities during your day while staying fully engaged, in a peak state of learning and achieving great results in the areas of things that you do. What I usually do is take a brief walk, look out the window, do SOMETHING different, and then refocus with a distinct goal for the next activity.

(Note that despite this post, I’m a large supporter of being focused on one task. However, there are only so many campaigns you can launch in a day and so much analysis you can do in markets, in my case. I’m sure this applies to you too. Thus, having other activities (within limits), is natural for these sorts of professions, and potentially others).

Hey guys

The picture below really struck a chord with me.

When I was in Australia, I was a banker, lawyer and all round success story. The issue was that I hated it. I lived someone else’s dream – I lived a job, mentality, reality, perspective, social life, personal life etc which society told me was right. It was only when I was pushed to the brink of hating my life that I decided to do something about it.

Sure, I went 180 degrees. I don’t think you have to do this to the extent which I did, but still… if you are young (or older and making important life decisions), and reading this, then my pointers are:

• Don’t do what other people say is the “right thing”. Forge your own path and work hard at it.
• Make mistakes. Lots of them.
• Don’t be afraid of the road less travelled.

It’ll make you a happier person, and you’ll begin to love every second of the story which is your life.

Now, back to furk!

As you know, a few weeks ago I attended the Kyprianos / Smartline Trading Seminar in Cyprus. It has now been two months since I commenced the course, and here is an update so far.

On the plus side, I feel like I understand the markets infinitely better than prior to the course. Although I came in to the course as a relative newbie, the understanding that I have now is solid, especially from the technical analysis point of view. I’m also calm and logical in my trading, so psychologically, things are feeling pretty good. I have learned lessons such as never be rushed to trade, to control my fear and my greed, to act in accordance with the system and not out of emotion and to always put a stop loss on my trade. This will no doubt increase in longevity that I have as a trader (as well as save me a lot of money!).

On the downside, not much happens between the months of July to September as many traders take a holiday during this period. Consequently, there have been very few opportunities to create profitably using the system. I have thus not traded much at all. This has been good for my discipline, although my bank account has not been going up! While I am hungry to see results, Kyprianos and his team coached me to wait patiently for the right market circumstances to arise. My friend who also trades in accordance with the system also confirms that this “waiting period” is just a part of the cycle of markets. A lot of the time, traders just do not trade during this period. And rushing or having pressure to trade can get you into the wrong mindset, so it is important to stay calm and patient.

So, in summary, I am currently on breakeven on my account. It’s been two months since the course. But the markets will no doubt move during the months of September and beyond, at which point I will have more to update you on. So far, it’s been just a waiting game. But then again, one of the things that I was taught was that it is important to have patience in this game. And to not let greed to make money cloud your better judgment.

So patience I will have. Stay tuned… and hopefully expect a few more trading fireworks after September.

Happiness and achievement are related. Let’s face it. You are happy when you achieve / win / do something worthwhile.

• You won the football competition? You are happy.
• You finally make $10000 in a day from home? You are happy.
• You achieve x and x is worthwhile? You are happy.

This is the conventional way of looking at things… and it’s not wrong. The main issue is usually that:

• Training hard for that football competition… sucks.
• Testing and failing to get to $1000 per day… sucks.
• Working to achieve x? Sucks.

So, if you are happy when you ACHIEVE, how in the world do you “enjoy the journey”!?

I’ve discovered that the key to “enjoying the journey” isn’t actually enjoying the journey. It’s seeing progress towards your goals on your way to the top. So, for example:

• On your way to winning the football competition, you practiced, and managed to “bend the ball like Beckham”. Were you happy when this happened? Did you not exclaim “Yessss!” when that happened? Of course.
• On your way to making $1000 per day, you made $100 per day. Were you happy when that happened? Hell yes.
• On your way to achieving x, you not achieved x-2? Did this give you a jolt of happiness? Definitely.

My point here is to realise that you get real joy out of the small achievements as long as you (1) notice that you are achieving them and (2) they are perceived as being on the path towards your goal. Moreover, every time you fail, you see what you did wrong and what you will do better next time, making you naturally… better. You see, you are almost at your happiest, when you see constant, rapid improvement towards achieving your goal. It’s the natural tendency to indulge in PROGRESS.

Progress is happiness if you can see it and appreciate that its a signal that you are getting closer to the top. Now, if you are NOT progressing, you are usually frustrated, and that is when you need to make a change – i.e. find the knowledge or mentors to help you break through to the next level. Do whatever you have to do… but do not stay in that frustrated area.

The Wave Theory Of Happiness

The way I like to see movement to a goal is like an uptrend on a chart – with the x axis as time and y axis as progress (see diagram below).

On the chart below, the line goes up – towards whatever goal you want. You will have peaks and troughs, but you should always be going higher and higher through a two steps forwards and one step back motion. On the wave, it’s the “upswings” that make you happy. It’s the upswings when you are going 100 miles per hour closer to your goal where you feel truly alive. You are in flow and you can see your improvement. But how do you get there? You get there through setting up your life so that you can work hard and have the knowledge and mentors to get on those upswings.

The key is also dealing with the downswings. Downswings are a necessary part of this process. They tell you that you are stagnating towards your goal and that you need more mentors or knowledge or a change to help you get there. If you are stagnant in any area of your life, or on a downturn, you have to look at making the change that you need in order to “get on the next uptrend” towards your goal. Usually, this has to do with finding the right mentors and the knowledge to be able to make a correction up to the top again. How to get these is the topic of another post, but the point here is that being depressed about not achieving something simply tells you that you need to make a change to be able to progress faster. The greatest amount of joy is achieving the final goal and doing it quickly… so ask yourself what would take you closer towards that goal, and go and do it. If you don’t know, simply ask people who have achieved it first and take massive action towards it. Change everything if you have to, but go towards it with zest and on your way up, you will be happy.

As a final point, this scene in the Peaceful Warrior encapsulates some of this thinking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRShWun7Mc4

Why was he happy? Because he was moving CLOSER to the destination – and he was doing it fast. That is the real measure of how happy you are. How quickly or slowly you are moving closer towards your destination, and your perception of that. My only disagreement is that the end goal does matter. A rock is definitely not that cool (like in the video). You have to choose your end goal wisely because you put so much time in getting there. Again, the topic of another post.

On a deeper level, the trick is to constantly grow and experience – whether in new things, or in old – towards the person that you want to become, through the goals that you want to achieve.

If what you are doing is taking you closer to this ideal self image, and if your progress is fast, and you notice your progress, then I can assure you that you are happy, and on your way to even greater happiness. Ride the happy waves up. And make the waves down short, because you make big changes, seek great mentors and knowledge and work harder to find yourself moving faster and faster towards your goal.

furk
n.
1. Something you do which you are not sure is work or fun.

Consider the following societal shifts -

1. In the industrial age and shortly thereafter (1930’s -1990’s) people had a distinct separation between work and play. This distinction was largely due to the geographic constraints of having to be physically at work. This is obviously changed with the advent of the internet and mobile computing. Nowadays, people may have laptops and blackberry’s while they are travelling. There is thus more blur between my work and play.
2. The second, more profound, change is perceptual. Most people have a very distinct perception of what constitutes work and what constitutes play. In the past, people used to go into work for work. And then do other things for fun. This was until the advent of the “Do What You Love” mentality. After this mentality – what is work? Is it something that you do to earn money? Or is it something that you enjoy? The truth is – it’s all these things, or none, depending on how you perceive what you do and how you perceive “work”.

These have changed my personal perception of “work”. My personal perception of work is that: (1) Work gives me purpose because on one level “it gives me something to do”, but on a higher level, it allows me to achieve my goals. My work is aligned to my goals. (2) I am “working” towards the person I want to be through my “work”/”job”. I want to be a world class trader and online marketer. This is part of my self concept. I like the freedom and scale that these two professions offer. Is the gymnast who gets an Olympic gold, “working”? Perhaps. But she is evolving into the best gymnast in the world. Is the lawyer who is working on a contract “working”? That depends… on how much of that persons mentality is based on him/her doing the job just because he/she is forced to do it, as opposed to how much that work is aligned to the persons self concept of what he/she wants to become.

The point is that “Work” does not have to be something that you do not want to do. Think about this – what would you do if you were not “working”? Some say “sitting on the beach”. I agree, for maybe a week (maybe longer for you), but what about after that? You would want to stay on the beach, but you would want to work, right? Because otherwise you’d be bored crazy. You would find something that you could do which would have some meaningful impact, or that would improve your life – something which validated your self concept – or as in line with “who you are”. Basically, you would become “more awesome” in whatever way you see. Is that more awesome as a DJ? As an entrepreneur? As a businessman? As a teacher? As a travelling blogger? I don’t know. That truly is up to you and your self concept. My point is… is this work? It depends on how you see it. Does it add value to others and yourself? Most likely, yes. And that is exactly my point – it IS work. But at the same time, you would be doing MEANINGFUL things with your life (i.e. work), in order to come closer to the person that you want to become. If you disagree, then you are perhaps you need to reassess your vocation, or your motivations behind undertaking your vocation.

This new concept of work was inspired by observing my most successful mentors doing what they do best. The ultra successful people that I know don’t work, even though they call it “work” because there is no other way to describe it. They seek to be better people, they seek to improve the lives of others and they strive towards worthwhile or interesting goals – and “work” is simply the vehicle through which they “express” what they do. This may not be fun all the time, but nothing worth achieving ever is.

Anyway, the point is that for a large part, the work that I do I consider to be play and self improvement. It cheapens the experience calling it “work”. I’m accumulating the hours to become an expert at what I do, because I am evolving through life. Whilst also doing it on my own terms. This doesn’t mean I don’t work hard. Indeed, I work even harder because it is what I want to do.

So, it’s not work. It’s fun, it is what I want to do, it’s play and yes, it’s work.

I call it Furk.