566. On Fame

You may become immortal in the eyes of a few scholars but still be laughed at by an infinite number of others because there is an infinity of fools but the wise are few. It is sometimes wiser to keep silent even for decades especially if what you have to say flies in the face of old established thoughts and beliefs.

565. Envy and Malice

Keep alert for signs of envy and malice in those around you for when you become successful, happy, rich and well known and liked, those of an evil disposition will try to do you down.

564. Philosophy and the Scientific Method

"It appears to me that those who, in proof of any assertion, rely simply on the weight of authority without adducing any argument in support of it act very absurdly. I, on the contrary, wish to be allowed freely to question and freely to answer you without any sort of adulation, as well becomes those who are in search of the Truth." - Vincenzio Gallilei, father of Gallileo Gallilei. The lesson here is to verify everything by experiment rather than simply accepting the conclusions of the so-called experts. In life, philosophical, material, scientific and financial you should follow the rule never to accept or reject blindly any proposition given but to attemtpt to put it into practice for yourself and see what the actual effects are.

563. Retirement

Retirement is not a function of your age. It is a function of your income. When you have built up enough passive income to fund your lifestyle and continue to grow your investments then you can afford to retire - if you want to.

For so long as you can still hack it and you continue to enjoy your work, you should keep at it.

562. Banks

Banks are institutions that exist in society for the purpose of making bonuses for their directors. Despite their protests to the contrary, they do NOT exist to serve their customers. So long as there is a profit in it for them, they will serve your needs. Once your agenda and theirs diverge, you can no longer rely on them for any kind of support.

Banks can be a useful place to store your money but they will only pay you a paltry rate of interest and will put as many obstacles as they can in your way when you try to take it out again. Today, using electronic methods to move your money around is your best bet. You do need this facility so banks are a necessary evil.

Banks and bankers are not known for their high level  of intelligence or their fine communication skills. They are prone to losing your paperwork and telling you incorrect things in their letters to you. They also make errors when conducting transactions such as misplacing decimal points. You need to watch them carefully and NEVER trust them to get it right.
To achieve great things, it is necessary to exert leverage. This means that you may have to borrow money from the bank once in a while. Once your objectives are clear and you are protected on the down side, this is fine.

DO NOT, HOWEVER, RUN YOUR LIFE ON DEBIT FINANCE (BORROWING).

Do not borrow money for day to day expenses. Keep as large a reserve of cash at the bank as possible so that you never, ever, ever go overdrawn. A suitable amount is one month's gross income. Learn to live within your means and do not give the bank any leverage on you. Leverage is power and the pettifogging little toads will squeeze you at every opportunity. Don't give them the satisfaction.

The key to staying out of debt and living within your means is to master the art of budgeting. At a simple level, this means knowing how much money you have coming in and how much you must pay out. You need to know these figures for the year, quarter, month, week and day. Using spreadsheets makes this exercise very easy. The secret is to set your budgets so that for every day of the plan there is a surplus. The next stage, once you have created the budget is to STICK RIGIDLY TO IT and do not deviate. If you haven't budgeted for it, DON'T SPEND IT !

If you live by this plan, you will have a surplus at the end of the year. Reward yourself by spending 10% of it and invest the rest.

561. What you Show to the World

There is a difference between what is called in Japan "Honne" and "Tatame". This is the difference between what you really think and what you show to the world. If, for you, the two things are too close, then you are giving the world too much of a lever with which it can manipulate you. Do not let anyone ever know what you really feel or think. Be very clear in your own mind where you stand but don't let those outside know.

Keep the stiff upper lip. Don't let them know what hurts or offends you or what things give you satisfaction. Maintain your outward persona carefully. You can use humour to great effect in keeping the outer world out of your inner thoughts.

If you maintain this outer ring of defense around your mind, you will protect yourself both from those who would be deliberately cruel to you and those who would hurt you through ignorance or through their neutral pursuit of their own ends without a care in the world for your welfare.

Very often, too, if you reveal too much about your own personal inner thoughts, you will not be believed. If, for example, you genuinely want to be good, generous and helpful, without the slightest care for your own gain, you will not be believed because everyone else is thinking one thing and saying another and will assume that you are too.

In particular, do not reveal your true thoughts about business, work, investments etc. The system, economy and the institutions are all set up to keep the wealthy wealthy and the poor poor. Any knowledge that you have that works in your favour and against the status quo is knowledge that has been hard won and is not to be shared with those who would misuse it or use it against you.

This is a very practical application of the principle of Omerta.

560. Warren Buffett on Creditworthiness

"Creditworthiness is like Oxygen - you don't notice it when it's around." - Warren Buffett.

559. Muhammed Ali on Vision

"The man who has no vision has no wings." -Muhammed Ali

558. The Purpose of Trading is Profit

When trading, remember that the purpose is profit. It is always better, therefore, to lose the opportunity than the money.

557. Information is Money

All information, even if old, is money but CURRENT information is always the best !

556. The Snowball System for Clearing Your Debts

The best system I have found for clearing debt is what I call the Snowball system. I call it this because the amount of money you can use to pay off your debts increases (like a snowball) with each stage.

The first thing to do is to find an accelerator, an extra income that you can use to "get the snowball rolling". This could be a part-time job or a sideline business that pays for example €100 per month.

Next list out your debts in 4 columns, the payee, the amount owed, the monthly payment and the date of the final payment.

Now re-write the list in the order of how soon the debt ends.

Apply the accelerator to the nearest debt horizon (the one to be soonest paid off) and speed up the payments on that so that if you were paying €250 per month to this debt, start paying €350 per month until it is cleared. In the meantime, continue paying the normal repayments on ALL other debts. You must not rob Peter to pay Paul here by stealing the accelerator from other debts. This is very important. The accelerator must be genuine extra income or genuine extra savings from reduced spending.

Once the first debt is cleared, take the new full payment (€350 in our example) and apply it to the next shortest horizon debt (say this is costing you €500). You are now paying €850 off this debt and you continue to do this until all your debts are cleared.

Once cleared, you can then start applying all the money you were spending on debt to building up your investments.

555. Why We Should Pay Our Debts

Pay off your just debts. When you do this you become wealthier (paradoxically) because it is always more expensive to owe money than to be debt free, even with the "tax-breaks" that sometimes attach to debt. It can be difficult to pay your debts but if you take the decision and focus on the process, it can be done. Use the Snowball technique and attack each debt in turn until you are clear. All the money you have been using to clear the debts can now be diverted into investments and you will begin to accumulate wealth. Being debt free makes it cheaper to stay alive.

554. Living Within Your Means

Always live within your means. Drive a pickup truck rather than a Ferrari. The biggest tax that most people pay is their own lifestyle. A life spent "keeping up with the Joneses" will leave you poor, old, tired and miserable while you could be better off being happy, comfortable, retired and independently wealthy.

553. Invest in Your Own Education

The best investment of time, money and effort that you can make is in your own education, but only if you apply what you have learned in practical terms. Apprendre pour apprendre is the French expression that carries the sense of learning for the sake of learning. This is a fine and noble idea but it is a luxury. Make sure you can afford it. Your learning should follow a plan. There should always be a practical, material benefit to your learning. It should enhance your career (i.e. give you a better paycheck) and it should bring benefits to those around you. (i.e. the practical application of your new skills for the benefit of the less fortunate). It is a never-ending process.

552. The Pain of Breaking Old Habits

When breaking yourself of habits that you have identified as being harmful to you, you should know that it will be a painful procedure. You WILL get cut. All you can do is to make sure that you are cut with the sharp butcher's knife, not the blunt butter knife. When breaking the habit do it once and for all time. Do not try to ease out of it because that way you just stay in the comfort zone and before you know it the habit has re-established itself. The butcher's knife is fast and clean, the butter knife slow and painful.

551. When Should I Sell ?

Sometimes, you hold a profitable investment and wonder whether or not to sell it. Do not be in any doubt. If you are asking the question at all then you should sell. Nobody ever went broke by taking a profit. As part of your financial plan, you should already know your selling price and if the investment has reached it then you should sell and move on. Remember that your profit is made on the day you buy not the day you sell.

550. Verbal Assault

When you are attacked verbally, before walking away, one of the most effective put-downs (if you could be bothered) is to say "That remark says more about you than me." This is because it is the truth. When you judge someone you define yourself as someone who needs to judge.

549. Silence and Combat

In a combat situation do not speak. Try to still your mind so that there is no "silent" inner conversation. Both types of speech will steal your energy and prevent you from taking action. When you talk about doing something, you are not doing it.

548. Good Sense

The first rule in Martial Arts is : If you are walking down the street and someone says "psst ! come into the alley!", DON'T GO !

547. Informed Decisions

Never, ever, make any important decisions without being in full possession of all the facts relevant to the decision that you can muster. Keep very good sources of high quality information. Never rely on underlings in an organisation for your information - always speak to the engineer, not the oily rag. Remember you are the Chief Executive Officer ( The Boss ) of your own life and as such you are an equal to the CEO of any organisation, from a stamp collecting club to the president of the country.

Learn to interpret all the facts calmly and cooly.

Don't just ask for the good news, ask what all the news is. In fact be very suspicious of those who only bear good news - they are probably only telling you what they think you want to hear. These people are called yes-men and will lead you into error.

Learn also to distinguish between hard data and mere opinion. Only give weight to an opinion if the person knows what he is talking about and if he has a reputation for being right more often than he is wrong. Don't for example agree with the opinion of a brick maker when he is talking about jewels.

546. Mastery

Make Mastery into a way of life, your way of life. We are life-long apprentices. The process is circular : Learn, try, correct, practice, improve, learn... Mastery is a never-ending cycle. You must get in line for learning and stay in line.

545.Perseverence and Breakthroughs.

Whenever your mind says to you "I'm just not getting this", then you are just about to make a breakthrough and learn something new. At times like this, it is crucial that you DO NOT GIVE UP! Most people give up when their mind tells them discouraging things but these thoughts are actually tell-tales you should read to let you know that a new discovery is just around the corner.

If you persist at times like this, your learning curve steepens and you begin to make profound changes in your knowledge base and you become capable of fundamental paradigm shifts.

544. Wealth

The acquisition of wealth is simple but not always easy. If, however, you find that you do not have the time to make the odd €1,000.000 or so, then there is something wrong with your thinking. Plato says : "Every man should be wealthy, for that allows him the leisure to associate with the wise."

543. Study, but What to Study ?

All of your life, study Life, Love, Philosophy, Politics, Martial Arts, and Business. Keep abreast of Technology. After that, you should study what you please.

542. Power and Truth

"Power and Truth have different demands." - Samuel Peppys.

Power, for instance, demands that you maintain it at all costs. Power must be exercised from time to time so that it is believed and to encourage the others. All that Truth demands is that you discover it. In practical terms, it is well to remember what Peppys has said and be clear in each situation which of the two are the priority.

541. Franchises

Generally speaking, you never want to buy a franchise. The real winners where franchises are concerned are the people who started and run  them. If you ever do set one up yourself, a clever way to do it is to give away the territories free of charge or for a nominal cost and then charge 10% of the gross in each region. This is equivalent to giving away the razor and charging for the blades. Make sure you hold the freehold of the property where each outlet is located (Mc Donalds do this) and charge the franchisee rent. Set your advertising spend at 9-14% of turnover (Specsavers).  Set total salary limits at 30 - 35% of turnover.

Register the name worldwide as the cost of doing this will be the cheapest legal fees you will have to pay.

Once you have your system up and running you can licence manufacturers to make product under your name. This will attract licence fees, of course. A good example of this is Weight Watchers, sweets, scales etc. Develop simple and effective financial control systems for the franchisees and maintain tight quality control.

540. Be Prepared to Defend

When out and about in the world, keep your mind present in the here and now. Let your attention be open and free, do not let it get captured. Keep your knees slightly bent and your guard up at all times.

539. Be Eclectic in Designing Your Own Character

Sculpt and develop your own character. Do not model yourself on any one person alone. In all people, there are elements of character you can admire. Take only the good ones. Be eclectic.

538. Enthusiasm and Imagination

Try to avoid allowing the daily grind of your routine to blunt your enthusiasm and imagination. This can be a difficult thing to do because as we evolve systems for doing things, and they become routines, we tend to forget that there may be better ways and become bored with our own methods. The key to dealing with this is to keep everything under regular review.

537. Colour Inside the Lines

Wherever possible, avoid doing anything illegal. If you are not sure whether or not something is legal, find out first. Certainly never do anything illegal at anyone else's request for when the crime is discovered, as it certainly will be, the other person will place the blame firmly on you without a second's hesitation. Being legal is obeying the rules and that is fine as far as it goes. Better than legal, are being moral and noble. Morality and Nobility are principles, laws are mere rules. If, as a motorist, you follow the principle of driving while keeping the needs of the other road user in mind, then you will automatically be obeying the hundreds of "rules of the road" without having to memorise them all.

536. Double the Speed and Reduce the Effort

Practice the exercise of doubling the speed at which you carry out your tasks while at the same time reducing your efforts to the minimum. This exercise will increase your efficiency.

535. Planning and Attention to Detail

In every activity, enthusiasm and single-mindedness are absolutely vital if you are to succeed but they will only take you so far unless you also employ meticulous planning and absolute attention to detail. "For want of the nail the shoe was lost ...etc."

534. Doubting ? Yes ?

Whenever you have a doubt about something, someone else alwais gains - Mark Mulvey.

533. Your Most Valuable Skill

In an age when events move ever more swiftly and information overload threatens to swamp your mind, the most valuable skill you can acquire is to be able to tell for yourself what is true from what is false. This is done by polishing your mental faculty called Buddhi, or conscience. Meditation is the way to do this and when your mind is still, it will be able to see clearly what is true and what is not.

532. Improvements

Whatever you are practicing, learning, doing, trying-out etc., love the fact that you are getting better and better at it, not that someone might praise you for it.

531. Doing What is Right

You need to develop and maintain a strong sense of the difference between doing what is right and fair and those things that you merely feel like doing.

530. Public Speaking

If you want to give a good talk, be witty and good humoured but if you want to give a great talk, remember that what comes from the heart goes to the heart.

529. Transformation and Power

Once you have learned how to transform misery into something better, you will have power over it. Our duty, as humans is to remove misery wherever we see it. Misery is not natural. Our true nature is infinite Joy.

528. Flexibility

Strive to remain flexible in mind and body and at the same time hold true to yourself all your life long. Find and define your values, the virtues you hold highest, and live by them all the days of your life. This is the meaning of steadfastness. If you remain flexible, it will not be rigidity. Remember that if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

527. Denial

When you say to yourself "I am not in this situation, I don't care." when in fact you are in that very situation, then you are in a state of denial. Denial equals Delusion. This is a very unhealthy mental state and should be avoided at all costs. When you deny what you know in your heart to be true, you are practicing Active Ignorance. In short you are lying to yourself. It leads only to misery and pain.

Denial is a major gateway to mental illness and ultimately, if taken to its logical conclusion, leads one to madness and destruction.

When a situation that you do not like develops, rather than going into denial, stand back and review and evaluate it thoroughly. See what, if anything, is to be done about it. Work out what the most appropriate response is and take action on it. Then let the bally thing go and move on from it.

You do not always have to respond immediately. Oftentimes, you have enough time to meditate and consider all your options before rushing in.

526. Judging

Do not judge people, for when you do, you take on their burdens. When you judge, you cannot be happy until the other person changes, and guess what ? They will only change if and when they want to. By judging, you are saying as much if not more about yourself than about the one being judged. Judge not lest ye be also judged.

525. Victimisation

Never allow others to victimise you by getting you to do things just to prove your own self-worth. Your self-worth is self-existent. It is a given simply by virtue of your own existence. It is not reliant on your actions or the opinions of others. Remember the description of your own Self :

The Self knows all
Is not born
Does not die
Is not the effect of any cause
Is eternal
Self-existent
Imperisable
Ancient
He lives in all hearts
That Thou Art

The victimisation spoken of here is a form of manipulation and a guilt-trip. Do not allow it to happen, even once. Repeated manipulations of this type build up resentment in your heart and mind. This is a form of mental and emotional cancer.

524. Back It Up !

Always keep backup copies of everything you do, write, build, create, whatever. File them neatly under a sensible system. Keep one copy at least off site. Better still, keep 3 or 4 in 3 or 4 off-site locations.

523. How to Double Your Intelligence

Every time you add a new distinction to a subject, you double  your intelligence with respect to that subject. This is how you measure true intelligence - not by IQ numbers which only measure how good you are at doing IQ tests and are not at all a true measure of intelligence.

522. Paradox

Sometimes, when seeking the Truth, you will find two or more things that are equally true but also equally utterly opposed to each other. This situation is called a Paradox. It is a rare and golden opportunity for your mind to resolve the apparent conflict. These situations challenge the mind to see the bigger picture. It is only in this way that the paradox can be resolved. By referring the situation to the next level up, the true relationships of the elements in the paradox can be seen. Even when you do this, sometimes the paradox remains. Then the right thing to do is to let your mind rest with it. One of the characteristics of Leonardo da Vinci's mind was that not only was he comfortable with ambiguity, he actively embraced it. He even deliberately used it in his paintings as a conscious technique called Sfumato - smoking.

521. Mind Your Own Business.

It is a fool's errend to take up someone else's burden.
"To do the duty of another is fraught with danger." -Bhagavad Gita.
You will get no thanks for doing it, you will probably be reviled and you will alienate others.

520. It's Not About the Money...

"Whenever someone says 'It's not about the money...', it IS about the money." - H.L.Menken

519. Roots

Even when you become a Rugby International, or a Silat Grand Master, never forget your old club. Remember your roots and keep them close to your heart.

518. Power and Vulnerability

Very often the thing that makes you most vulnerable is the power you give away to others. Work from respect and expect nothing less in return. Enforce it where necessary. For those who disrespect you, do not give them the energy and power over you that they seek. Do not waste time trying to argue with the uneducatable.

517. Paul Bear Bryant's Prayer

This is the beginning of a New Day.
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it or use it for good.

What I do today is very important because I am exchanging one day of my life for it.

When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving something in it's place that I have traded it for.

I want it to be a gain, not a loss - good, not evil - success, not failure, in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it. - Paul Bear Bryant.

516. Two Important Daily Questions

Ask yourself every day :

1. Am I being productive or just being active ?

2. Am I inventing things to do just to avoid the important things ?

515. Effective vs Efficient - What to Do, How to Do It.

From a state of complete rest, become effective. i.e. engage only in those activities that move you closer to your goals. Simply doing something unimprtant very well does not ever make it into something important. Learn to distinguish between what is effective and that which is merely efficient. Efficient gets the job done. Effective advances your plans.

In financial terms, effectiveness means gaining maximum income from the minimum necessary effort and this includes the minimum number of customers. Apply Pareto's Rule, (The 80:20 Rule) and eliminate the 80% that cause you the most effort.

514. Eliminate. Less is More

"The height of Civilisation always runs to simplicity." - Bruce Lee.

Every day decrease the amount of rubbish around you. Do not add to it. Eliminate noise, ornamentation,  excess paper, fat etc from your self and your enviornment. Learn to listen. Learn to meditate - reduce the clutter of sounds and ideas rushing around in your mind. Cultivate an appreciation of the simple line drawing of Japanese Art that brings the mind to rest when you simply let your gaze fall gently on it.

513. Be exceptional

Never underestimate yourself. You are far better than you think. Competition is always fiercest at the mediocre level. It is therefore easier to do the unrealistic than the realistic. Go for it !

512.Risk

If you define risk as the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome, perhaps the greatest risk of all is inaction. As risk is a 4 letter word ending in k, you should be as risk averse as is compatible with progress. Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without it.

511. Beware !

Beware of the company you keep. It is all too easy to become S.N.I.O.P.ed - i.e Subject to the Negative Influences of Other People.

510. Strengths and Weaknesses

It may be more fun to leverage your strengths and you should certainly do so but you should not fail to strengthen your weaknesses. From time to time, (about every 90 days) you should carry out a SWOT analysis. On a quadrant, you should list your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Keep these in front of you for the next 90 days and repeat and so on and so forth.

509. Not Playing the Game

Learn how to play the game by not playing the game - look for the loopholes.

508. Second-best

"Beware : Once you say you're going to settle for second-best, that's what happens in your life." -John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

507. Open-mindedness

Keeping an open mind means regularly replacing your assumptions. Mental cleanouts require that you replace all your out-dated and redundent assumptions when they no longer support the facts.

506. See Things as they Really Are.

One definition of a wise man is one who sees things as they really are and not how he would like them to be. This is called the faculty of discernment. Avoid fooling yourself and remember that self delusion is the worst form of delusion - you yourself will always be the easiest person you can fool. Self-delusion is the most widespread mental illness that there is and it is the root of serious loss of sanity. Strive always to see things as they really are. You should always look below the surface in any situation and try to see what's really going on. If you don't like what you see, devise methods to make things how you would like them to be, but never fool yourself into thinking that they are as you would like when in fact they are not.

505. Hold the Bucket by the Handle

It is better to own the trains and hire someone to make them run than to be the driver or the boss.

504. Methods Vs. Principles

There are millions of methods but only a few principles. "The man who tries methods and ignores principles is on his way to trouble." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

No one method is permanently infallible. Times change, methods improve or deteriorate but principles will always be true. If you choose do do something one way today because every step of the method conforms to a principle, it will not be the right way tomorrow because the circumstances will have changed. You should always adapt your methods to conform to the principle under which the task is governed.

503. The Enemy of the Best

Because the Good is so often the enemy of the Best, you can never afford to be completely satisfied with what you are doing. Every day, try to see how you can do what you did a liitle better, a little different tomorrow. That way, you can stay ahead of the game. If you do that, after 1 year you will be better by 365 points than anyone who is still doing things exactly the same way that they did them last year.

502. Revenge

If you set out on a journey of revenge make sure you dig two graves.

501.Advice from Napoleon Bonaparte

     "Never interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake ! " - Napoleon Bonaparte. This one kind of speaks for itself !

500. Fighting for Your Rights

     In the world of work (or school), you will only have those rights that you fight for. "You may have to fight the same battle more than once in order to win it." -Margaret Thatcher.

499. Living Life on Your Own Terms

As long as it's not illegal, it is better to have to beg for forgiveness after the event than to ask permission beforehand. Just make sure you won't be fined or jailed.

498. Too Much Information

A wealth of information creates poverty of attention. Balance your information receiving time (lectures, reading etc.) with an equal amount of time dedicated to Meditation and Creative Thinking. Meditation will restore attention. Learn to develop selective active ignorance by deliberately ignoring information that is :

(a) Irrelevant
(b) Unimportant
(c) Un-actionable

The same goes for interruptions.

"There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

498. Perfection and Frugality

"Perfection is not when there is no more to add but when there is no more to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery.

Less is always better than more. On the spiritual path, we need to shed our attachments to material things and to the mental and emotional burdens we seem to constantly pick up.

"It is vain to do with more what can be done with less." -William of Ockham.

497. Achievement and Your Sphere of Comfort

"There is always a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want." -Tim Ferris

496. The Safest Investment in the World

"U.S.Treasury Bills are the safest investment in the world." - Richard Suttmeier. Unfortunately they probably have the lowest returns in the world. Science, Technology, and China's Drive for Modernization (Hoover international studies)

495. Adaptation and Adaptability

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the UNreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw.

494. Goal Setting vs Wishful Thinking

There is a distinction between goal setting and wishful thinking. When you set an effective goal you are giving a direct command to your subconscious. It has quantity, measurability and a time frame attached to it. The setting of goals gets you past your perceived limitations and allows you to spot opportunities that were unseen up to now.

493. How We See the World.

When making judgments about the world or about people, it is good to rember that, as a rule, we do not see things as they are but rather as WE are. Learn to strip out the ego (i.e. your ego) from the equation when evaluating things.

492. The Open Mind

The future exists in infinite possibilities. By developing and keeping an open minded approach we capture our highest opportunities. Minds are like parachutes, they only function properly when they are open.

491. Achievement

"The first formal condition for achieving anything great is that you should be independent of public opinion." -Hegel
Public opinion is fickle. It can be with you one day and against you the next. When all is said and done, it remains only that, an opinion. Opinions are worthless. True judgements based on examination and analysis of the facts are much more valuable. Mere unsupported opinion is worthless.

490. The Discipline of Writing.

The discipline of writing something down is the first step to making it happen. Boldness has magic and power within it; begin now !

Writing down your plans, goals etc. creates the bridge between the thoughts in the subtle world (your mind) and the actual reality in the here and now.

489. What State are You In ?

You have the coice to be in one of two states of nature; green and growing or ripe and rotting. These are the only 2 games in town !

488. Never Retreat

A Mulvey never goes backwards, never retreats and never gives in. We may change our tactics or direction from time to time but we are continuously pushing forward towards our ultimate goals.

For us, moving backwards is the equivalent of decay, decline, mental and emotional breakdown, physical undoing, fatigue, tamas and death. We cannot be truly stationary. If we are not advancing we are retreating. Mulveys never repeat a year. If we say we have 20 years experience that is exactly what we have, the experience of 20 different years, each moment fresh and unique, not 20 experiences of the same year.

487. Goal Setting

I will keep on coming back to this subject. It is absolutely essential that you master the art of setting goals, targets etc. Mark Twain said "Plan for the future because that's where you'll spend the rest of your life. Set your goals then act as if it were impossible for you to fail. It is only in the active pursuit of your goals that you will truly grow.

Having a goal is the equivalent of having a target and a motive. These are the things that keep you moving so that you don't stop and fall over.

486. Starting Over

You can make a fresh start with your last breath. It is never too late. Learn to set your best intentions on who you want to be and what you want to achieve and you'll be on top of the world. The Universe has no choice but to bring you the physical manifestation of those things on which you focus your thoughts.

485. What it means to be Rich

To have the ability to live your life on your own terms, according to your potentials, NOT your limitations is what it is to be rich.

484. Einstein on Interest

According to Albert Einstein, Compound Interest is the 8th Wonder of the World. Here is the formula :
A = P(1 + r/q)nq

The nq outside the brackets above does not mean "multiplied by nq" but "to the power of nq".

P is the principal (the money you start with, your first deposit)

r is the annual rate of interest as a decimal (5% means r = 0.05)

n is the number of years you leave it on deposit.

q is the number of times per year that the interest is to be calculated.



Sweet's modern business arithmetic: A treatise on modern and practical methods of arithmetical calculations for the use of business and commercial colleges, ... in other educational institutions

484. Financial Freedom

Work every day towards your financial freedom. Each day take a new step along the path that you have planned out to create financial freedom for yourself, even if it's a negative one like cutting up that high end credit card. Rather than putting yourself to work for money, put your money to work for you. Working for money is a necessary evil sometimes but you should always aim for making an investment at least once a month. "Profits are better than wages." -Jim Rohn

483. Deserving, Negotiation and Work

Generally speaking, you do not get what you deserve in life; you get what you negotiate. The Law of Sewing and Reaping will tell you that you get what you sew. It does not tell you that you get what you deserve.You should only spend time working with people who deserve your efforts, people who go at least half way to meet you in your efforts.

482. Benjamin Franklin On Education

"If you think Education is expensive, try Ignorance. - Benjamin Franklin.
Whenever you are offered a course of any kind, jump at the opportunity.

481. Good Deed for the Day

Practice the exercise of doing at least one good deed per day, something that will make someone else feel better. This is something that will spread throughout the world if you start it and it will keep you from feeling gloomy.

490. Being Unreasonably Happy

You control your thoughts. Your thoughts run your feelings. Therefore you control your feelings. Holding a positive frame of mind in the face of disaster is what the author Dan Millman calls "being unreasonably happy". Within every disaster, tragedy, upset, set-back, adversity, sorrow, defeat, loss, pain, injury etc., whether or not you caused it, lie the seeds of an equal and opposite benefit, joy, success etc., that you can nurture into a good that soars above the disaster that gave rise to them.

Remember that all previous failures are over and done with, past and gone forever. Yesterday is as dead as the Crimean War.

489.Permanent Health Insurance

What is your Primary Asset ?

Whatever puts most income into your pocket is your primary asset, your job, your main business, your best agency. This is the asset that initially allows you to purchase your buy to hold other assets, your passive income providers. It is vital that you protect this asset. A Buy to Hold Asset is defined as one that you keep forever (unless you can trade it for one that provides even greater income.) For this reason you should have PHI, Permanent Health Insurance a.k.a. Permanent Income Indemnity or Income Protection Insurance. It will pay a percentage of your income if you cannot work. If you don't have it, when you stop working, your income stops too. Your expenses do not stop just because your income does. The result is that you start to strip out your other assets, cash first, in order to survive. You then start to sell off your assets in order of decreasing liquidity just to live. Please note that I am using the term "asset" here in the sense that an accountant would. Once they are gone, you still have no income and nothing left to feed you.

Once you start to work for money, you should put this insurance in place and review it annually adjusting upwards by 5% to allow for inflation. Beware of the sales people - shop around for the best deal because you do not want to pay too much for it. At review time, shop around again and change provider if a better deal comes along. Counterintuitively, this is in fact a part of your master plan to create wealth for yourself. It gives you the peace of mind to be more creative in your thinking.

The Dream Game

488. For Your Eyes Only.

All the advice given here is for your use only. If you tell people that you are following it, you will reduce its power by 50%. The whole power of it can be destroyed very easily if you share it with negative people or those who don't want you to do well.

487. Rules for Speech

Do not Swear or Blaspheme.
Do not Lie.
Never Cover up for another.

It saves a huge amount of time and energy if you have a rule that simply says that you never lie swear or cover up. That way, your decisions about what you will say have already been made for you.

This should not stop you from being careful, economical, if you will, with the truth. It is a powerful thing and not everyone is entitled to the whole truth. If you are ever asked a direct question, you must tell the truth but you don't have to go out of your way to get someone into trouble or give away too much information.

486. Work Hard but Don't Let it Show

Never let anyone know how hard you work. No matter how hard you do work, let the World believe that you are coasting, that it is all effortless. One day it will be.

485. Planning and Success

Always have a plan. Have a plan for Sport, Study, Income, Expenditure, Work, Play, Love and Life itself. Without a plan, how would you know if you were a success ?

484. Criminality

Remember that the criminal mind does not have to have a reason. It sees you as prey. In a room full of saints, the thief will only see pockets to be picked

483. Wisdom and Problems

Remember that no matter what happens or whatever challenges arise, if you are wise, it is never a problem. The wise man never has problems, merely situations that require his attention.

482. Your Most Powerful Asset

The most powerful asset you posses is your brain if you learn to run it properly. If you use it improperly, it can become your most powerful liability.

481. Definition of Ingenuity

The definition of ingenuity is that it is the invisible thought process that turns a liability or neutral possession into an asset.

The real power that you have is your thought process. The secret of this power is in developing your follow-through. Acquire the practical skills needed for follow through.

Do not work simply for money. Your real job is to create assets.

The acid test of an asset is to ask if you can pass it on to your loved ones. If you can and it continues to put money into their pockets then it truly is an asset.

The Ten Principal Upanishads

480. Your Most Valuable Resource

The most valuable resource you have is your time. It is finite. That means it will run out some day. You should invest your time wisely. The 3 Es are what you should invest it in :

Education (Philosophy and Finance)
Experience (Work place, volunteering, charity)
Excess Cash (management and re-investing)

479. Become a good Investor

Keep your earned money secure by converting it into property and shares that will become assets to return income to you. It is your responsibility to determine whether your securities become assets or liabilities. This is called Risk Assessment. Be a good investor not a risky one. There are no risky investments, only risky investors.Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

478. Passive Income

It does not matter where you earn your money or what job you have. What matters is that you convert the maximum percentage of it into portfolio and passive investment as efficiently as possible.

477. Losing Money

Every time you lose money, you destabilise your financial position. Never deliberately make a loss just so you can take a tax break. It is ALWAYS better to make a profit and pay the tax if you must. Better still, make the profit and avoid,(not evade), avoid the tax.

There is a distinction between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Tax avoidance is LEGAL, evasion is illegal. This distinction can keep you out of jail.

476. Your Business

Make sure that as the captain of your own ship, you do exactly the right work. Work ON your business rather than simply IN it. Do not manage your business by luck, manage it by design. Smart money shortcuts to becoming rich

475. Arrest and Trials

If ever you are arrested by the police or military in a "civilised" country remember and remind them too that you have the right to remain silent, that you have redress under the law in cases of wrongful arrest and cases of defamation, and that they can only hold you for a limited time without charging you. Ask for your solicitor and until he arrives, you are better off remaining totally silent, keep schtum (omerta).

Do not reply to remarks, comments, suggestions etc., that are designed to lull you into a trap by sounding innocent or inoffensive.

Offensive remarks are designed to provoke you into saying something unwise or self-incriminating or to rising in anger. Do not answer any questions that are clearly just a fishing expedition.

Do not volunteer any information or opinions.

If you ask a question and they say "You tell me." stay silent.

When they stray off the point stay silent.

Do not give them anything to twist or turn. Anything that is not a straight answer (Yes or No) is only giving them a handle on you.

Remember they will try to push all your buttons by making insulting remarks about you, your parents, your wife or girlfriend, your children, your dog even. Do not let them provoke you. They will try to make you feel guilty about the "disgrace" and how your parents will feel. It is all hogwash. Don't fall for it.

474. Civilisation ?

Where we live today, despite all our advances, is still in many ways quite primitive. Furthermore, you will find primitive people where you least expect them. They exist in the ranks of society where better people might be expected.

473. Live in the Present

Live in the Present. Remember the Past and learn from it. Study your History but do not let remeniscences impede your progress here and now. Look to your duty. Your duty is what is right in front of you.

472. Follow Up

Life nearly always arranges things so that your best efforts can easily be thwarted by the wrong-doings of others. It is never enough to simply give an instruction, ask a question or place an order. You need to constantly follow up to make sure your wishes are carried out.

471. Victory

Whenever you gain a victory celebrate it quietly. Do not crow. Real men don't crow. Do not let it go to your head for if you crow you will stir your enemies up against you needlessly and if you let it go to your head, you will inevitably wind up doing something foolish that can set you back to a point on your path that is worse than before you gained the victory.. It may even lead to your destruction. Therefore, you should beware of your victories as much as your defeats.

470. Iteration (Repetition)

Iteration is like friction, it is likely to generate heat rather than progress. Whenever you keep repeating yourself, you only succeed in agitating your mind and the minds of your listeners. You will certainly irritate them but do nothing to advance your plan.

469. Education

"It is better to spend a few thousand Euros more on your children's education than to leave it to them in your will." -George Elliott.
Once you have determined that a course would be valuble, sign them up then find the money to pay for it.

468. On Being a Lender

"Neither a lender nor a borrower be." - William Shakespeare. This is advice that is a little over-simplified. If someone asks you gor a loan, examine what it is for. If the project looks like a winner and the person has a good track record, offer them a convertible loan. (No, this is not a loan for a sports car !).

A convertible loan is a properly legally binding loan agreement with repayment schedules and details all worked out and forming part of the agreement.

If the project is successful and profitable, you have the option to convert the debt (to you) into equity (shares) in the project and this will give you a share in the profits.

Two things to remember about convertible loans are that you should make sure that your equity is made up of VOTING shares, and that the loan is SECURED against their property, so that you will still get paid if anything goes wrong. This degree of due dilligence will sort out the wheat from the chaff.

467. Role-Models

Among others, you should pick the following people as role-models :
Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, Paul Mc Cartney, Alan Sugar, James Dyson, Peter Kellner and Charles Schwabb. These are all hard-working men. Study their biographies for inspiration.

Work hard, work smart. There is no virtue in working hard for little or no reward. Work hard, but only on projects that will give you Assets.