The common principles and practices of success of all men and women who became millionaires in one generation.

1. Dream Big Dreams - How to visualize, imagine and create an exciting picture of personal wealth and prosperity;
2. Develop a Clear Sense of Direction - Learn a powerful, proven goal-setting exercise that can change your life;
3. See Yourself As Self-Employed - How to take complete control of your career and your financial life;
4. Do What You Love To Do - Identify the ideal work for you and then get paid well for doing it;
5. Commit to Excellence - How to move into the top 10% in your field and be paid more than ever before;
6. Work Longer and Harder - How to organize your time so you get more done and contribute more value;
7. Dedicate Yourself to Lifelong Learning - How to continually upgrade your talents and abilities to earn more money;
8. Pay Yourself First - The most powerful process of wealth accumulation ever discovered and how you can use it;
9. Learn Every Detail of the Business - How to become an expert in your chosen field and double your income;
10. Dedicate Yourself to Serving Others - The starting point of all personal fortunes and how to begin;
11. Be Absolutely Honest With Yourself and Others - How and why personal integrity goes hand in hand with financial success;
12. Set Priorities and Concentrate Single-mindedly - The importance of focusing on your most important tasks all day long;
13. Develop a Reputation for Speed and Dependability - How to give yourself the winning edge in everything you do;
14. Be Prepared to Climb From Peak to Peak - Learn how to recognize the cycles and trends that can make you rich;
15. Practice Self-Discipline In All Things - Develop the most important quality for financial success;
16. Unlock Your Inborn Creativity - Learn how to solve any problem, overcome any obstacle, achieve any goal;
17. Get Around The Right People - The important of surrounding yourself with winners at each stage of your career;
18. Take Excellent Care of Your Physical Health - How to develop and maintain high levels of energy and fitness;
19. Be Decisive and Action Oriented - How to identify the most important action steps you can take immediately;
20. Never Allow Failure To Be An Option - How to overcome the fears that hold most people back;
21. Pass the “Persistence Test” - Learn how to bounce back from defeat and never, never give up.

By Brian Tracy International
These are just some of the powerful principles, methods and techniques you will learn in the Brian Tracy’s book or audio program.

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Money can’t buy you love. It can’t buy you happiness either.

Today’s materialistic world often urges us to buy the coolest gadgets, the trendiest clothes, bigger and better things, but research shows that possessions and purchases don’t buy us happiness.

According to an article on CNN:

By and large, money buys happiness only for those who lack the basic needs. Once you pass an income of $50,000, more money doesn’t buy much more happiness, [according to a happiness studies].

 
So while we are being pushed towards materialism, it’s for monetary gain by corporations, not for our own happiness. Unfortunately, it’s hard to escape the trap of materialism, and find happiness in other ways than buying stuff online or finding joy in the mall. But it’s possible.

Here’s a guide to finding a materialism-free life and discovering true happiness.

Escaping Materialism
All around us, there are messages telling us to buy stuff. On the Internet (blogs included), we see continuous advertising trying to get us to purchase a product or service. It’s the main reason for television, and movies are continually made with products placed throughout, so that we aren’t always sure what is advertising and what was put in there by the director.

Flip on the radio or open up a newspaper or magazine, and you’re bombarded my more advertising. Go to a shopping center/mall, and the urge to buy comes from every direction.

This message to continually buy, buy, buy … and that it will somehow make us happpier … is drilled into our heads from the days of Happy Meals and cartoons until the day we die. It’s inescapable.

Well, almost. You could go and live in a cabin in the woods (and that actually sounds nice), or you could still live in our modern society, but find ways to escape materialism.

Here are some suggestions:

• Limit television. Do you really enjoy watching TV for hours? Think about which shows you really, really love, and only watch during that time. When the commercials come on, go do something else. Or use Tivo to watch TV. You can even give up cable TV entirely, if you’re brave — I have, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.
• Eschew the news. Journalists will never tell you this, but if they’re completely honest, they’ll confess that the most important part of any news company, from TV or radio news to Internet or print new, is the advertising division. It’s the division that pays the paychecks of the rest of the company. The news is important in driving traffic to the advertising. So when you’re watching or reading news, you’re really being sucked in to advertising. Try this instead: boycott the news for a week. I’ve done it for about two years, and it hasn’t hurt me a bit. In fact, it’s helped me a lot.
• Limit Internet reading. I’m not saying you should cancel your cable Internet subscription or anything. I love reading blogs. But find just those that you truly love reading, that give you the most value, and limit your reading to those. And just do it once a day, for 30 minutes or so. If you can do that, you’ve gone a long way towards tearing yourself away from advertising.
• Give up magazines for books. Magazines are also designed with advertising in mind. And they rarely give you much value. Try reading an ad-free book instead. It’s a much better use of your time.
• Don’t go to the mall or Walmart. The only purpose of these places is for you to spend money. If you just want a place to spend your Saturday afternoon, find a place where you don’t need to spend money to have fun — a park or a beach, for example. If you need to buy something, go to a single store (not the mall) and go in and get what you need. Don’t browse and walk around looking at stuff. You’ll get sucked in.
• Monitor your urges. When you’re online, or watching TV, or at a store, keep track of the number of times you want to buy something. Keep a little notebook or index card, and just put tally marks. Once you become more aware of your urges to buy things, you can start to control them. If you could control them, limiting your consumption of media (see above tips) isn’t really necessary — although I would argue that it still gives you a better quality of life.
• Use a 30-day list. If you still really want to buy something, put it on a list, and write down the date you added the item to the list. Now tell yourself you cannot buy that item for 30 days. It might be difficult, but you can do it. When the 30 days have passed, if you still want it, then buy it. But you can’t buy anything (besides essentials like groceries) without putting it on the list for 30 days first. Many times, our urges to buy something will pass during this waiting period.
• Declutter. I find it pretty amazing to see all the crap I buy over a period of years, when I go through my closets and other possessions and start getting rid of stuff I don’t use or want anymore. It’s a gratifying process, and at the same time, it makes me realize how useless all our consumer shopping is. I don’t need any of the stuff! When you do this, you may be less likely to buy more stuff. Especially if you enjoy the decluttered look of your house as much as I do.
• Find other forms of entertainment. There are other things to do besides watch TV or movies or read magazines or newspapers or the Internet. Try playing sports or exercising, or playing board games or creating art or writing or reading a book. Try doing fun things with your kids or visiting relatives and other loved ones. Try volunteering with a charity. I’m sure you could come up with 100 free or cheap things to do.
• Buy used. When you get the urge to buy something, and you’re convinced that it’s needed, try finding it used instead of new. Look in thrift shops or garage sales or flea markets or similar places.

A True Path to Happiness
So, if you’re able to escape materialism, how can you find true happiness? There are many ways, and each of us is different, but here are some things I suggest trying:

• Grateful list. Make a list of things about which you’re grateful in your life. Give thanks for them daily.
• Think positive. Try eliminating negative thinking from your life, and thinking positive instead.
• Small pleasures. Make a list of small things that give you great pleasure. Sprinkle them throughout your day. Notice other small pleasures as you go through your day.
• Kindness. Practice random acts of kindness and compassion. Do it anonymously. Help those in need. Volunteer. Make someone smile.
• Love. Make an intimate connection with your loved ones. Develop your friendships. Spend time with them, converse, understand them, make them happy.
• Health. Exercise and eat healthy — it sounds trite, but it can bring great happiness to your life.
• Meaning. It’s often useful to find meaning, either through a church or spiritual way, or through those we love in life or through the things we’re passionate about. Give yourself a purpose.
• Flow. Eliminate distractions, and really pour yourself into whatever you’re doing. If it’s writing an article, like this one, really put yourself into it, until you forget the outside world.
• Know yourself. Become attuned to what brings you happiness. Study yourself. Learn about what you love, and about your ability to love. Increase your capacity for compassion.

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People used to obsess over frequent-flier miles. Now, with lending standards getting tighter, they’re applying similar energy to improving their credit scores.

Jeffrey Sheldon, a 36-year-old Purcellville, Va., computer-systems administrator, has an enviable credit score of about 740. But he’s planning to refinance his adjustable-rate mortgage in June and knows that lenders will be taking a particularly close look at his credit record.

when Mr. Sheldon was shopping for an auto loan last fall, he first compared rates online. Then, he allowed only two lenders to pull his credit report because he knew that lots of inquiries could drag down his score. Now, he’s making extra payments so he can pay off the five-year auto loan in 3½ or four years. He figures the lower debt level will boost his score, which already is near the upper end of the 300-to-850 range of the FICO score, the widely used measure of consumer creditworthiness.

“It’s a game you have to play,” Mr. Sheldon says. Once every few months, he charges something on one of his lesser-used credit cards because he fears that issuers will close inactive accounts, reducing his total available credit and damaging his score.

The behavior of credit-score strivers can appear bizarre to the uninitiated. Many rejoice over joining the “700 club,” feverishly apply for new credit cards they don’t need, keep drawers full of old credit cards they barely use and fight for the removal of the smallest blemish on their credit reports.

Even consumers with good credit, like Mr. Sheldon, are pushing to improve their FICO scores — and with good reason. Whereas just a year or so ago a score of roughly 680 to 720 would qualify for the best rates from many lenders, that bar has now been raised to 720 to 750, credit experts say.

Many lenders are demanding higher scores because they’ve been burned by rising delinquency rates. In the fourth quarter, consumer credit delinquencies hit their highest level since 1992, according to the American Bankers Association.

“The rules have definitely changed,” says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com. “Back when they were giving money away to anyone who could fog a mirror, you didn’t have to have those stratospherically high scores unless you were going after something really high-end.”

At the same time, new scoring systems may complicate consumers’ efforts to monitor and improve their scores. Fair Isaac Corp., the developer of the FICO score, is introducing a scoring model, dubbed FICO 08, that the company says will do a better job predicting the likelihood of a borrower defaulting on a loan.

These days, a clean credit record isn’t just important if you’re shopping for a loan: It could even affect your career. Potential employers, landlords and insurers routinely examine credit reports. “Having a good credit score is far more important now than it ever has been,” says Ken McEldowney, executive director of Consumer Action, an education and advocacy group based in San Francisco.

Yet many consumers battling to improve their credit score have found the fight frustrating, costly and even futile. Some pay hundreds of dollars to credit-repair services or adopt strict credit regimens, only to find that their scores won’t budge.

That doesn’t discourage people like Simon Hernandez, who spends hours each quarter studying his credit report as part of his quest for a score of 750. The 34-year-old Denver respiratory therapist plans to buy a house sometime next year and fears his score in the mid-600s won’t get him the best rates. He has two credit cards that he uses for gas and groceries and has sworn off applying for any other type of credit. Despite his diligence, he occasionally sees his score drop for no apparent reason. “I’ve spent hours looking to see if I’m missing something on my report,” he says.

The basic steps to build and maintain a good credit score haven’t changed: Pay your bills on time and don’t max out your available credit. Payment history accounts for about 35% of the FICO score, while the amounts you owe — including the number of accounts with balances and the fraction of available credit used on credit cards — accounts for another 30%. Other factors include the length of credit history and the types of credit used.

Another key step: Get a copy of your credit report. At annualcreditreport.com, you can get a free report from Equifax Inc., Experian Group Ltd. and TransUnion LLC, the main credit-reporting companies that provide records to lenders. (Consumers generally must pay to get their actual FICO scores.) Search reports for mistakes — more than a quarter of reports contain errors, according to a survey by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a Washington-based advocacy group. Dispute errors with the credit bureau as well as the lender. If the lender can’t verify the information within 30 days, it will typically be removed from the report.

Also note whether credit-card issuers are reporting a credit limit for your account. Issuers don’t always report these limits, and that omission may cause your highest balance on the card to be treated as your limit. That can make it appear as if you’re using most of your available credit, dragging down your score.

Consumers shopping for a loan can protect their credit score by moving fast. The FICO system, aiming to distinguish between a search for lots of new credit and comparison shopping for a single loan, ignores all mortgage and auto-loan inquiries made in the 30 days before scoring. If you find a loan within that period, the inquiries won’t drag down your score while you’re rate shopping.

Some popular strategies to boost credit ratings can actually backfire. While some consumers assume that applying for new credit will raise their available credit and boost their score, “You don’t want to increase your limits in a short period of time because that can be a great sign of risk,” says Rod Griffin, senior manager of public education at Experian. And though it may seem prudent to close old credit-card accounts that you’re not using, that can also sink your score.

New credit-scoring models, meanwhile, are putting new wrinkles into the credit-repair game. Fair Isaac’s new FICO 08 scoring model, for example, disregards “authorized user” records when calculating scores. Bottom line: People’s credit scores will be affected by cards on which they’re named as account holders, not authorized users. Experian and TransUnion plan to offer lenders the new scores in coming months.

Fair Isaac took this action after concerns were raised about credit-repair companies charging consumers to be listed as an authorized user on a credit card of a stranger. The new FICO model means people who have little credit history aside from their authorized-user status should apply for their own cards or get listed as a joint account holder.

Relative to older versions of FICO, the new model also generally places more emphasis on having a variety of credit types, such as installment loans and revolving accounts like credit cards, while increasingly penalizing people who use a big chunk of their available credit. Since the credit bureaus have developed their own scores to compete with FICO, consumers should know which one they are getting when they order their credit score. FICO scores from the three main credit-reporting companies are available at myfico.com.

Some consumers are discovering that all their tinkering is having little effect. Darrell Booker, 30, a database administrator in Richmond, Va., has tried all sorts of strategies to boost his score. Over the past year or so, he has tried to get some late payments removed from his credit report, disputed a paid account that showed up on his credit report as unpaid and paid hundreds of dollars to a company that promised to help him clean up his credit. But the only real boost to his score came when he focused on paying off his credit cards.

“Let me focus on things I know I can totally control,” he says, “and that’s reducing my debt.”

by Wall Street Journal Online

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Money and happiness are two of the most powerful forces in our lives, but what’s so interesting to me is how we’ve convinced ourselves that there’s a powerful connection between them: We seem to think that if we were rich, our lives would be perfect. My friends, I hope I can convince you otherwise.

The Money Myth
In my years of talking to thousands of people who’ve had no money, some money, and heaps of money, I’ve found that it doesn’t create or sustain happiness. That’s not to say that money isn’t an important factor in our emotional state—if we can’t pay our bills and support our families, we carry a great deal of stress on our shoulders and in our hearts. But it’s seriously flawed logic to jump from a position of “money is important” to “money is the key to happiness.” Need some proof? How about the articles we’ve all read about lottery winners who buy a ton of goodies after they hit the jackpot, but within a few years tell the world how out of control and miserable their lives are? It reminds me of how some of us have a screwy relationship with food. When we’re unhappy, we gorge on comfort foods that we believe, either consciously or subconsciously, will make us feel better. Sure, that hot fudge sundae might give us a nice temporary lift, just like buying a great new handbag or outfit—but it’s temporary.

Truth and Consequences
The average U.S. household has a credit card balance of about $8,000. It’s hard to be happy when you carry an $8,000 balance on a credit card that charges 18 percent interest. My message to you is that happiness is not tied to how much money you have—how much you had in the past or hope to have in the future—but how you deal with what you have right now.

I want to be very clear that I fully understand that it’s far more difficult to live on $20,000 a year than $200,000. I know this from personal experience; until I was 29, I was a waitress bringing home $400 a month. But I also know that we all have the capacity to take control of our lives—regardless of our bank accounts—and to commit to making the right decisions for ourselves and our family. When we do that, we’re on the road to happiness. When you’re happy, you create your own financial stability by living within your means.

Power Moves
In my experience, most people are unhappy because they aren’t being honest with themselves. Being truthful with yourself plugs you into your inner power. Whether it’s your relationship with money or with a partner, you aren’t going to be content or successful until you are connected to your heart and operating with all your energy. Quite simply, by making the right choices from a position of strength rather than weakness, you are bound to be happy. In part you’ll feel better because your finances are in good shape, and also because you took the initiative to create a life based on honesty. In my book, that’s the priceless route to ultimate happiness.

by Suze Orman,  O, The Oprah Magazine

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Are you restless in your current job? Or, if you haven’t been working outside the home, are you feeling like it might be time to do something else? You certainly wouldn’t be the only one. According to numbers just recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of women-owned businesses grew 20 percent between 1997 and 2002—twice as much as other businesses. (The number of businesses owned by women of color are growing five times as fast as the national average!) All told, women own 6.5 million businesses, accounting for nearly 30 percent of all the businesses in the United States and generating $950 billion in revenue. Are you thinking you might like to join their numbers? I’ve outlined some key steps for you to follow.

In Serendipity, one of those movies I can’t help watching every time it reruns on cable, Jeremy Piven has one really great line. His best friend, John Cusack, has just spent the past hour and a half completely upsetting his romantic life—including calling off his wedding to a beautiful woman right before walking down the aisle—because he can’t stop thinking (and chasing down) another woman he spent a single, remarkable evening with seven years before. He knows he’s acting crazy…he just can’t help himself. And Piven tries to tell him that he did the right thing by reminding him: “The ancient Greeks asked only one thing about a man when he died, ‘Did he have passion?’” Piven was talking to Cusack about love, but he could have just as easily been talking about work.

And the answer, in the case of most Americans, would be “no.” Only about half of us are satisfied with what we do every day. And whether you’re considering dropping out of corporate life or giving up your time as a stay-at-home-parent (or making some other kind of big switch) to start your own business, I’m guessing you’re among them.

The good news: today—more than ever before—it’s possible to start your own business. And we’ll get to that in a minute…but first let’s concentrate on figuring out what you love. That’s right, love. Why? Because people who are happy with their jobs are four times more likely to be very happy with their lives. Four times! In fact when you look at all the factors that figure big in a person’s happiness, their jobs or careers (in other words, what they do every day) weigh very high on the list—after marriages and self-esteem, but before health, finances, children, friendships and appearance. Being happy with your work life also makes you more likely to feel useful, confident and content—and less likely to feel stressed, restless and hopeless. Clearly, it makes sense to find an occupation that satisfies your soul as well as your wallet.

Understand that there are three different ways to look at work. There’s work for hire, otherwise known as a job—if they didn’t have to pay you to show up, you’d quit. There’s a career—that’s when you’re on a track and you feel a personal drive to move from point A to point B to accomplish some of your goals. And there’s a passion—that’s something you’d do even if you weren’t getting paid. Getting paid for their passion is, for many people, the ultimate goal. For others, who have come to terms with the fact that no one is going to pay them to fly-fish (or whatever), the goal is finding a job that pays a livable wage but leaves enough free time to pursue their passion. The career—in the middle—is where most of us end up.

Aristotle called the ultimate satisfaction “eudaemonia: a state characterized by engagement flow and immersion in life activities.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, former chairman of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago, simplified it and called it “flow.”

Flow is when you’re so caught up in what you’re doing that you stop watching the clock. You’re not overwhelmed. You’re absorbed. Time sails by. You look up only when something finally distracts you and you realize that it’s three-and-a-half hours later. You skipped your midmorning cup of coffee. You haven’t bothered to check your e-mail. You even forgot to go to the bathroom. In other words, you’re involved. And being involved in something you enjoy doing—where you can use your skills to accomplish a task you feel is meaningful and important—makes for a satisfying work experience.

Chances are you find yourself in flow only occasionally. Csikszentmihalyi’s research has shown that 15 percent of people say they’ve never experienced flow and 15 to 20 percent of people experience it every day (some several times). And the rest are in between. The more often you can get to this place while you’re working, the happier you’ll be. Why? Again, workplace happiness is a big contributor to lifetime happiness.

Unfortunately, I can’t describe the scenario—the new business, career or passion—that’s best for you. Rob, a creative director at an advertising agency, knows his passion is throwing pots, and he’s trying to come up with a business idea sound enough to allow him to transition. My brother Dave, who works in accounting for a mutual fund family—a job he likes—would eventually like to support himself with his music. But I can tell you a little bit about the characteristics that next phase of your life should have.

by Jean Chatzky,  O, The Oprah Magazine

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