You Don't Have to Know Everything

Dear friend,

One of the major barriers to learning is that we sometimes feel daunted at the thought of learning hundreds of new skills. The reality though, is that for the most part there are only about a half dozen things that make most of the difference.

Take a professional golfer for example. He doesn't need to master hundreds of different skills. The most important skills in golf are driving, chipping and putting. If he thought that he had to master every hole of every major golf course on the pro circuit then he may well give up before he even started!

The same is true in many areas of life. If we want to create a unique lifestyle for ourselves and our families then there are just a handful of things that we need to master. Here is a short list of some of the most important areas of our lives that we need to master in order to be successful in life and business.

Relationships - We need to continually work on and develop our relationships with family and friends. Our family and friends are our inner circle of influence. They are the people we have most influence on and the people who most influence us.

Finances - The ability to use, manage and invest money efficiently is an important skill that has a major bearing on our most areas of our lives. Financial independence is a worthy goal, but in order to achieve that goal we need to know how to keep track of the numbers and how to make money work for you rather than just you working for money. Money and business are a numbers game, so it is important to understand and keep track of income and expenditure.

Goal Setting - Setting realistic goals and knowing how to effectively work towards achieving those goals is essential. Lists are great and nearly all of us proclaim our new years resolutions, but unless we have a plan to achieve our goals then they are nothing more than a list.

Exercise - Regular exercise and a healthy diet are essential. We need to keep the 'engine room' in top shape so that we face each day with as much zest and enthusiasm as we can. A healthy body keeps the mind sharp and allows us to focus much easier on the things that matter in our lives.

There are only four points in that short list, but if you were able to master all of them then you would be almost assured of success in your life, your relationships and your business. Success, like a healthy body, isn't something that happens over night. It is something that you work at each day and with each hour you sepnd on these skills you are accumulating equity in your life.

Technology and efficiency have made us tend to want everything yesterday, so there are some times that we need to be able to look ahead one year, five years or ten years and see what the accumulated outcome of our efforts will be. Fifty dollars saved each week for example, is twenty six thousand dollars plus interest in ten years time. It may not sound like a lot of money, but if you learn how to invest effectively then it's not difficult to multiply that amount many times over.

Yours Truly,

Tony Chai

Is Money The Root Of All Evil?

Dear friends,

I'm sure you have heard it at least once in your life - that money is the root of all evil. That is actually a mis-quote as the original quote is a verse from the bible which says "the love of money is the root of all evil". There is quite a big difference between those two sayings as one says that money is a bad thing and the other says that loving money is a bad thing.

Some people do actually feel guilty about the thought of having more money than they need. It may be that they were raised in a family with a fairly modest income, so the thought of having too much money or being extravagant isn't at all appealing. It may be that they feel guilty, knowing that there is so much poverty in other countries.

It raises an interesting question though. If you are capable of making much more money than you currently do - should you?

If having more money than you need is an issue then perhaps it would be a good time to consider the organizations in your local community that could put that extra money to good use. Having more money than you need could be an opportunity to make a real difference and change other peoples lives for the better. Giving money to organisations and people who really need it certainly is not something to feel guilty about.

Loving money is an entirely different subject. It isn't difficult to become obsessed with making more money - particularly when you don't have much to begin with.

Success isn't just about making money though. It's about becoming a better person all around. Money won't give you a better relationship with your partner or family, better health or a better life.

There is an interesting phenomenon that seems to occur all too regularly - when people win large amounts of money in a competition or lottery and find that they are broke within a year or two. The problem, most often, is that they simply didn't know how to use money effectively in the first place. We've all heard stories about people who were struggling to make ends meet before they won a large sum of money and then somehow managed to blow it all and have little to show for it.

To quote Earl Shoaf - "Become a millionaire not for the money, but for what it makes of you to become one". In other words, don't just set a dollar goal and think about the money. Learn how to manage your money and think about what you could do and who you could help if you had more money. If you need a bigger house, then think about the house. Imagine how it would look inside and out, and the difference it would make to your lifestyle and your family. If you have no specific need to make more money then think about who you could help and how you could help them.

Manifesting Miracles Isn't Hard Work At All!

Regards,

Tony Chai

Attracting Abundance - Don’t let the negative influences wreck your life!

Dear friends,

We experience negative influences almost every day of our lives, right from when we are children. Throughout our formative years we were told "No" or "You cannot do that" or "You cannot have that" many thousands of times. We are lectured about the evils in our world and many negative aspects of life are constantly being reinforced at school and at home.

It's no wonder that by the time we reach adulthood, we tend to lean towards the negative rather than towards the positive. There are some exceptions of course - but for the most part, we can expect to experience considerably more negative external influences than positive external influences in our lives.

Once we reach our adult years, most of us will read newspapers, watch television news and listen to the radio. We will mostly hear about war, famine, murder and all sorts of crime and violence. It would be silly to ignore these things as this is the world that we live in and we wouldn't want to pretend we were in some sort of "positive fantasy land". However, we do have control over how these negative influences affect us and how often we expose ourselves to them.

Have you ever noticed how one person will be visibly distressed to hear that a flood in some foreign country has caused several hundred deaths, while another person won't react at all?

It all comes down to how we process the information when we hear about the event or disaster. Certainly we should have sympathy for the people who have lost their lives or their families, but if we can't have a direct effect on the plight of those people then the most we will get from any deep thought will probably be despair and cynicism. We shouldn't spend too much time worrying about things that we have no control over.

That may sound a little cold, and there are exceptions such as having direct family who are fighting in a war, or being directly involved in a foreign aid organisation. But the reality for most of us is that you can spend so much time worrying about everything that is going on in the rest of the world to the point that it can have quite a devastating affect on you and your family - yet there is little you can do to fix or change anything. You have control over Your World - you don't have control over an event that happened in South America or Europe.

It is right to be caring and compassionate, but it also make sense to care for yourself, your family and friends as these are the people that you do have the power to influence in many positive ways. Spending an hour with your family instead of reading the newspaper or watching the television news can have a major effect on everyone involved. Walking the dog instead of reading the latest celebrity magazine will be much better for your health - both physically and mentally.

Try it some time. Completely remove all television radio and printed news from your life for a few weeks and see how much clearer and more positive your mind and your general outlook on life is.

This Sounds Too Good To Be True!

To Your Success,


Tony Chai