The 3 Decisions That Will Change Your Financial Life

There’s nothing worse than a rich person who’s chronically angry or unhappy. There’s really no excuse for it, yet I see this phenomenon every day. It results from an extremely unbalanced life, one with too much expectation and not enough appreciation for what’s there. Without gratitude and appreciation for what you already have, you’ll never know true fulfillment. But how do you cultivate balance in life? What’s the point of achievement if your life has no balance? For nearly four decades, I’ve had the privilege of coaching people from every walk of life, including some of the most powerful men and women on the planet. I’ve worked with presidents of the United States as well as owners of small businesses. Across the board, I’ve found that virtually every moment people make three key decisions that dictate the quality of their lives. If you make these decisions unconsciously, you'll end up like majority of people who tend to be out of shape physically, exhausted emotionally and often financially stressed. But if you make these decisions consciously, you can literally change the course of your life today. Decision 1: Carefully choose what to focus on. At every moment, millions of things compete for your attention. You can focus on things that are happening right here and now or on what you want to create in the future. Or you can focus on the past. Where focus goes, energy flows. What you focus on and your pattern for doing so shapes your entire life. Which area do you tend to focus on more: what you have or what’s missing from your life? I’m sure you think about both sides of this coin. But if you examine your habitual thoughts, what do you tend to spend most of your time dwelling on? Rather than focusing on what you don’t have and begrudging those who are better off than you financially, perhaps you should acknowledge that you have much to be grateful for and some of it has nothing to do with money. You can be grateful for your health, family, friends, opportunities and mind. Developing a habit of appreciating what you have can create a new level of emotional well-being and wealth. But the real question is, do you take time to deeply feel grateful with your mind, body, heart and soul? That’s where the joy, happiness and fulfillment can be found. Consider a second pattern of focus that affects the quality of your life: Do you tend to focus more on what you can control or what you can’t? If you focus on what you can’t control, you’ll have more stress in life. You can influence many aspects of your life but you usually can’t control them. When you adopt this pattern of focus, your brain has to make another decision: Related: Tony Robbins on the 7 'Forces' of Business Mastery Decision 2: Figure out, What does this all mean? Ultimately, how you feel about your life has nothing to do with the events in it or with your financial condition or what has (or hasn't) happened to you. The quality of your life is controlled by the meaning you give these things. Most of the time you may be unaware of the effect of your unconscious mind in assigning meaning to life’s events. When something happens that disrupts your life (a car accident, a health issue, a job loss), do you tend to think that this is the end or the beginning? If someone confronts you, is that person insulting you, coaching you or truly caring for you? Does a devastating problem mean that God is punishing you or challenging you? Or is it possible that this problem is a gift from God? Your life takes on whatever meaning you give it. With each meaning comes a unique feeling or emotion and the quality of your life involves where you live emotionally. I always ask during my seminars, “How many of you know someone who is on antidepressants and still depressed?” Typically 85 percent to 90 percent of those assembled raise their hands. How is this possible? The drugs should make people feel better. It's true that antidepressants do come with labels warning that suicidal thoughts are a possible side effect. But no matter how much a person drugs himself, if he constantly focuses on what he can’t control in life and what’s missing, he won't find it hard to despair. If he adds to that a meaning like “life is not worth living,” that's an emotional cocktail that no antidepressant can consistently overcome. Yet if that same person can arrive at a new meaning, a reason to live or a belief that all this was meant to be, then he will be stronger than anything that ever happened to him. When people shift their habitual focus and meanings, there’s no limit on what life can become. A change of focus and a shift in meaning can literally alter someone's biochemistry in minutes. So take control and always remember: Meaning equals emotion and emotion equals life. Choose consciously and wisely. Find an empowering meaning in any event, and wealth in its deepest sense will be yours today. Once you create a meaning in your mind, it creates an emotion, and that emotion leads to a state for making your third decision: Decision 3: What will you do? The actions you take are powerfully shaped by the emotional state you're in. If you're angry, you're going to behave quite differently than if you're feeling playful or outrageous. If you want to shape your actions, the fastest way is to change what you focus on and shift the meaning to be something more empowering. Two people who are angry will behave differently. Some pull back. Others push through. Some individuals express anger quietly. Others do so loudly or violently. Yet others suppress it only to look for a passive-aggressive opportunity to regain the upper hand or even exact revenge. Where do these patterns come from? People tend to model their behavior on those they respect, enjoy and love. The people who frustrated or angered you? You often reject their approaches. Yet far too often you may find yourself falling back into patterns you witnessed over and over again in your youth and were displeased by. It’s very useful for you to become aware of your patterns when you are frustrated, angry or sad or feel lonely. You can’t change your patterns if you’re not aware of them. Now that you’re aware of the power of these three decisions, start looking for role models who are experiencing what you want out of life. I promise you that those who have passionate relationships have a totally different focus and arrive at totally different meanings for the challenges in relationships than people who are constantly bickering or fighting. It’s not rocket science. If you become aware of the differences in how people approach these three decisions, you’ll have a pathway to help you create a permanent positive change in any area of life.

5 Ways to Sustain a Long-Term Career Focus

1. Become a professional student. I don't necessarily mean return to school for an MBA or doctorate. What I urge you to do is to consistently engage in the process of learning new things, both within and outside your chosen field. Today's entrepreneurs live in an era when free and readily accessible information is at their fingertips -- more so than ever before. If knowledge is power, then it's what businesspeople need to achieve the professional goals found at the finish line. 2. Remember that mistakes are simply expensive tuition. I have learned that wisdom comes from taking more from mistakes than what they take out of you. Replay mistakes? Yes. Obsess over them? No. Look at mistakes as a very necessary part of your education -- another way to test your resolve and prepare you to succeed. In the book Great by Choice, author Jim Collins put it brilliantly: “Treat mistakes as expensive tuition; better get something out of it, learn everything you can, apply the learning, and then don’t repeat.” 3. Rely on the old-fashioned work ethic. Every week headlines announce yet another tech company that sold for millions, leaving the former owners instantly rich. One could infer from news like this that luck or a single stroke of genius is the impetus for success. But if you question these entrepreneurs about the real reasons, the phrase “hard work" will pop up in every answer, I'm willing to bet. A strong work ethic has a way of leveling the playing field. Put in the hours and you’ll be in the right place and luckier more often than those who don’t. Remember that time doesn’t discriminate. Everyone has the same number of hours in a day to work hard and move forward. Related: The Real Person's Guide to Finding Your Passion and Loving What You Do 4. Work with a purpose. There's work and then there's working with focus -- and the latter is always preferable. While you’re involved in a project, the intent should be mastery of the task at hand. Do I believe hundreds or thousands of hours of deliberate practice will always accomplish the impossible? No. But if you're in a field or business that you're passionate about and work with unbreakable focus, then more times than not you’ll remain a step above the competition. 5. Weigh decisions with the long view in mind. The battle between short-term versus long-term gratification has been waged for eons by the best and brightest. It's captured in this everyday question: Should I eat this piece of cake or hit the gym? Devouring the sweet treat will undoubtedly make you feel better in the moment, but you know the gym is the better long-term decision.

10 Reasons You Have to Quit Your Job

My boss screamed at me in front of my colleagues. I had done something wrong of course. I had sent a product to the client without debugging it thoroughly. It was my fault. But I don’t like being yelled at. And fortunately I was sitting on a job offer that I decided to take that moment. So the next day I said the magic words, “I quit”. And then a few years after that, I quit again, and never went back to work in the corporate world. And now it’s too late. Now the course of history has finally written its next chapter. There’s no more bullshit. I’m going to tell you why you have to quit your job. Why you need to get the ideas moving. Why you need to build a foundation for your life or soon you will have no roof. 1. The middle class is dead. A few weeks ago I visited a friend of mine who manages a trillion dollars. No joke. A trillion. If I told you the name of the family he worked for you would say, “they have a trillion? Really?” But that’s what happens when ten million dollars compounds at 2% over 200 years. He said, “look out the windows”. We looked out at all the office buildings around us. “What do you see?” he said. “I don’t know.” “They’re empty! All the cubicles are empty. The middle class is being hollowed out.” And I took a closer look. Entire floors were dark. Or there were floors with one or two cubicles but the rest empty. “It’s all outsourced or technology has taken over for the paper shufflers,” he said. “Not all the news is bad,” he said. “More people entered the upper class than ever last year.” But, he said, more people are temp staffers than ever. And that’s the new paradigm. The middle class has died. The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing scam. And it was. The biggest provider of mortgages for the past 50 years, Fannie Mae, had as their slogan, “We make the American Dream come true.” It was just a marketing slogan all along. How many times have I cried because of a marketing slogan. And then they ruined it. Related: Multi-Tasking Will Kill You (LinkedIn) 2. You’ve been replaced. Technology, outsourcing, a growing temp staffing industry, productivity efficiencies, have all replaced the middle class. The working class. Most jobs that existed 20 years ago aren’t needed now. Maybe they never were needed. The entire first decade of this century was spent with CEOs in their Park Avenue clubs crying through their cigars, “how are we going to fire all this dead weight?”. 2008 finally gave them the chance. “It was the economy!” they said. The country has been out of a recession since 2009. Four years now. But the jobs have not come back. I asked many of these CEOs: did you just use that as an excuse to fire people, and they would wink and say, “let’s just leave it at that.” I’m on the board of directors of a temp staffing company with one billion dollars in revenues. I can see it happening across every sector of the economy. Everyone is getting fired. Everyone is toilet paper now. Flush. 3. Corporations don’t like you. The executive editor of a major news publication took me out to lunch to get advice on how to expand their website traffic. But before I could talk he started complaining to me: “our top writers keep putting their twitter names in their posts and then when they get more followers they start asking for raises.” “What’s the problem?” I said. “Don’t you want writers that are popular and well-respected?” When I say a “major news publication” I am talking MAJOR. He said, “no, we want to be about the news. We don’t want anyone to be an individual star.” In other words, his main job was to destroy the career aspirations of his most talented people, the people who swore their loyalty to him, the people who worked 90 hours a week for him. If they only worked 30 hours a week and were slightly more mediocre he would’ve been happy. But he doesn’t like you. He wants to you stay in the hole and he will throw you a meal every once in awhile in exchange for your excrement. If anyone is a reporter out there and wants to message me privately I will tell you who it was. But basically, it’s all of your bosses. Every single one of them. 4. Money is not happiness. A common question during my Twitter Q&A (that I give every Thursday from 330-430 PM EST), asked at least once a week, is “should I take the job I like or should I take the job that pays more money”. Leaving aside the question of “should I take a job at all”, let’s talk about money for a second. First, the science: studies show that an increase in salary only offers marginal to zero increase in “happiness” above a certain level. Why is this? Because the basic fact: people spend what they make. If your salary increases $5,000 you spend an extra $2000 on features for your car, you have an affair, you buy a new computer, a better couch, a bigger TV, and then you ask, “where did all the money go?” Even though you needed none of the above now you need one more thing: another increase in your salary, so back to the corporate casino for one more try at the salary roulette wheel. I have never once seen anyone save the increase in their salary. In other words, don’t stay at the job for safe salary increases over time. That will never get you where you want – freedom from financial worry. Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of mankind. 5. Count right now how many people can make a major decision that can ruin your life. I don’t like it when one person can make or break me. A boss. A publisher. A TV producer. A buyer of my company. At any one point I’ve had to kiss ass to all of the above. I hate it. I will never do it again. The way to avoid this is to diversify the things you are working on so no one person or customer or boss or client can make a decision that could make you rich or destroy you or fulfill your life’s dreams or crush them. I understand it can’t happen in a day. Start planning now how to create your own destiny instead of allowing people who don’t like you to control your destiny. When you do this count, make sure the number comes to over 20. Then when you spin the wheel the odds are on your side that a winning number comes up. 6. Is your job satisfying your needs? I will define “needs” the way I always do, via the four legs of what I call “the daily practice”. Are your physical needs, your emotional needs, your mental needs, and your spiritual needs being satisfied? The only time I’ve had a job that did was when I had to do little work so that I had time on the side to either write, or start a business, or have fun, or spend time with friends. The times when I haven’t is when I was working too hard, dealing with people I didn’t like, getting my creativity crushed over and over, and so on. When you are in those situations you need to plot out your exit strategy. Your hands are not made to type out memos. Or put paper through fax machines. Or hold a phone up while you talk to people you dislike. 100 years from now your hands will rot like dust in your grave. You have to make wonderful use of those hands now. Kiss your hands so they can make magic. One can argue, “not everyone is entitled to have all of those needs satisfied at a job.” That’s true. But since we already know that the salary of a job won’t make you happy, you can easily modify lifestyle and work to at least satisfy more of your needs. And the more these needs are satisfied the more you will create the conditions for true abundance to come into your life. Your life is a house. Abundance is the roof. But the foundation and the plumbing need to be in there first or the roof will fall down, the house will be unlivable. You create the foundation by following the Daily Practice. I say this not because I am selling anything but because it worked for me every time my roof caved in. My house has been bombed, my home has been cold and blistering winds gave me frost bite, but I managed to rebuild. This is how I did it. 7. Your Retirement Plan is For S**t. I don’t care how much you set aside for your 401k. It’s over. The whole myth of savings is gone. Inflation will carve out the bulk of your 401k. And in order to cash in on that retirement plan you have to live for a really long time doing stuff you don’t like to do. And then suddenly you’re 80 and you’re living a reduced lifestyle in a cave and can barely keep warm at night. The only retirement plan is to Choose Yourself. To start a business or a platform or a lifestyle where you can put big chunks of money away. Some people can say, “well, I’m just not an entrepreneur .” This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An “entre-ployee”. Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to any body, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a carer. What is your other choice? To stay at a job where the boss is trying to keep you down, will eventually replace you, will pay you only enough for you to survive, will rotate between compliments and insults so you stay like a fish caught on the bait as he reels you in. Is that your best other choice? You and I have the same 24 hours each day. Is that how you will spend yours? 8. Excuses. “I’m too old”. “I’m not creative.” “I need the insurance.” “I have to raise my kids”. I was at a party once. A stunningly beautiful woman came up to me and said, “James, how are you!?” WHAT? Who are you? I said, “hey! I’m doing well.” But I had no idea who I was talking to. Why would this woman be talking to me? I was too ugly. It took me a few minutes of fake conversation to figure out who she was. It turns out she was the frumpish-looking woman who had been fired six months earlier from the job we were at. She had cried as she packed up her cubicle when she was fired. She was out of shape, she looked about 30 years older than she was, and now her life was going to go from better to worse. Until…she realized that she was out of the zoo. In the George Lucas movie, THX-1138 (the name of the main character was “THX-1138″) everyone’s choices are removed and they all live underground because above ground is “radioactive”. Finally THX decides better to die above ground than suffer forever underground where he wasn’t allowed to love. He wasn’t free. He makes his way above ground, evading all the guards and police. And when he gets there, it’s sunny, everyone above ground is beautiful, and they are waiting for him with open arms and kisses. The excuse “but it’s radioactive out there!” was just there to keep him down. “This is easy for you to say,” people say to me. “Some of us HAVE to do this!” The now-beautiful woman had to do it also. “What are you doing now?” I asked her. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Consulting.” But some people say, “I can’t just go out there and consult. What does that even mean?” And to that I answer, “Ok, I agree with you.” Who am I to argue? If someone insists they need to be in prison even though the door is unlocked then I am not going to argue. They are free to stay in prison. [Or, you can see my Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Dealing with Excuses.] 9. It's OK to take baby steps. “I can’t just QUIT!” people say. “I have bills to pay”. I get it. Nobody is saying quit today. Before a human being runs a marathon they learn to crawl, then take baby steps, then walk, then run. Then exercise every day and stay healthy. Then run a marathon. Heck, what am I even talking about? I can’t run more than two miles without collapsing in agony. I am a wimp. Make the list right now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author. I want to reduce my material needs. I want to have freedom from many of the worries that I have succumbed to all my life. I want to be healthy. I want to help all of the people around me or the people who come into my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help to people. I want to only be around people I love, people who love me. I want to have time for myself. THESE ARE NOT GOALS. These are themes. Every day, what do I need to do to practice those themes? It starts the moment I wake up: “who can I help today?” I ask the darkness when I open my eyes. “Who would you have me help today?” I’m a secret agent and I’m waiting for my mission. Ready to receive. This is how you take baby steps. This is how eventually you run towards freedom. 10. Abundance will never come from your job. Only stepping out of the prison imposed on you from your factory will allow you to achieve abundance. You can’t see it now. It’s hard to see the gardens when you are locked in jail. Abundance only comes when you are moving along your themes. When you are truly enhancing the lives of the people around you. When every day you wake up with that motive of enhancement. Enhance your family, your friends, your colleagues, your clients, potential customers, readers, people who you don’t even know yet but you would like to know. Become a beacon of enhancement and then when the night is gray, all of the boats will move towards you, bringing their bountiful riches.

7 Tools Every Job Seeker Needs

If you are considering a job hunt or revamping your current search in 2015, these are the tools and apps you need to succeed in finding your next opportunity: 1. Email signature. Your email signature is possibly one of the most important branding tools you're not taking advantage of. It's your chance to let everyone know what your expertise is, how to contact you and where to learn more about you online. Employees are often required to add the company logo, tag line and contact information to email signatures. As job seekers, an email signature is a subtle way to remind people what you do. Quick tips: The most important information to include is your name, phone number, email address, desired occupation and link to your LinkedIn profile. An easy solution is to use an app like WiseStamp to create and insert your signature. 2. Active and robust LinkedIn presence. LinkedIn has become a go-to source for companies of all sizes to seek out talent. While your profile will be similar to your résumé, it is not exactly the same. LinkedIn is a social network where people share information. Besides having a profile rich in content and media, you should also share newsworthy articles to help build your online reputation and stay connected with your network. Quick tips: You must have a headshot, a headline that describes what you do and a summary where you tell your story. But don't stop there. Embed a presentation that summarizes your experience or includes testimonials. Have you downloaded the SlideShare app for LinkedIn? What about the LinkedIn Connected or Pulse apps? These tools give you a better mobile LinkedIn experience. 3. An easily accessible, on-the-go r ésumé . There will be occasions when someone wants you to send your résumé ASAP or when you arrive at an interview and your résumé is MIA. Save your résumés so you can easily access them and share them from your mobile device. Quick tip: Being able to access important documents from anywhere is critical not only in your job search, but at work, too. Learn how to save and share documents using Dropbox or Google Drive, which provide free storage and are easily accessible from any device. 4. Business cards. This may seem old-fashioned, but business cards make life easier. When you meet someone new or reconnect with an old friend, just hand him or her your card at the end of the conversation. Quick tip: Your business card need only include the information you want to share: your name, occupation (or desired occupation), phone number, email address and links to any social media profiles, like your LinkedIn URL. If you want to use something more high-tech, try one of the apps that allows you to share your card from your phone, like CardDrop. Or pick up a business card with FullContact's Card Reader. 5. Your perfected pitch. You only have one chance to make a great first impression. Don't blow it. You'll need it when you meet people and they ask what you do. You'll also need one customized for every interview you take. Your pitch conveys what problem you can solve for an employer. Use words and language to ensure your unique style and personality come through. And avoid résumé-speak or jargon that isn't universally understood. Quick tip: Keep your pitch under a minute, and practice so it sounds natural. If you need some guidance, check out the myPitch app created by Karalyn Brown of InterviewIQ. 6. Target list of potential employers. Rather than searching job boards all day, looking for the perfect job and getting lost in the black hole of applications, why not approach people inside companies you would like to work for? This route is more work up front, but it will help you stand out and rise to the top of the referral pile if you make the cut. Quick tip: There are tons of apps for finding posted jobs, but what you really need is additional help networking. Don't miss Alison Doyle's new app called Career Tool Belt. It's loaded with job hunting tips, including the 30 Days to your Dream Job series to guide you day by day. 7. A dose of motivation. Job searching tends to lead to frustration. Rejection is an unfortunate part of the process. Invest time doing things that rejuvenate your energy and keep you feeling hopeful, such as exercising, volunteering or learning a new skill. Keep moving forward and create to-do lists and follow-up actions every day.

Essel Group pledge to invest Rs.20,000 crore in Bengal

Kolkata, Jan 8 (IANS) Diversified media to education business conglomerate Essel Group Thursday pledged to invest Rs.20,000 crore towards developing two smart cities and and various vital infrastructural projects in West Bengal. The group has submitted a letter of intent (LOI) to the state government to develop the two satellite townships Salt Lake and New Town into smart cities by investing Rs.10,000 crore. "The group was also interested in participating in infrastructural, urban renewal and socially relevant projects worth Rs.10,000 crore through competitive bidding under Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model and/or EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) model," the LOI said. Essel is targeting projects like toll roads with an investment of Rs.3,000 crore, sanitation and water treatment worth infusion of Rs.2,000 crore, and a project to convert municipal solid waste to energy by pumping in Rs.2,000 crore. Besides, it is eyeing projects like, metro, monorails or Light Rail Transit mass transport involving investment of Rs.3,000 crore. The group's integrated utilities company Essel Utilities Distribution Company Limited (EUDCL) is also looking at projects in power and water distribution services, drainage and storm water management, Wi-Fi, cable and broadband, city gas distribution and intelligent traffic management systems, a release by the Group said