An open letter to anyone who considers themselves a leader:

Have you ever witnessed an injustice so unfair that you felt compelled to stand up and yell, “FOUL!!!”

Perhaps someone else got the credit for work you’d done. Perhaps you witnessed racial discrimination.

Yesterday, a close friend accused two of my mentors of being charlatans based on speculation they had read on the internet.

The conversation went down like this:

ME: “Seeing as you’re in Bali, maybe you can connect with Roger” (one of my mentors who lives in Bali)

HER: “Yeah… lots of scams going on with him…and there’s also a huge money scandal with Werner…” (another one of my mentors).

And what followed was a stupid power struggle with me defending my mentors and her defending her point of view saying “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire…” Read the rest of this entry

Jean and Sir Richard

The Secret Of The Elders…

Last week, I had the great privilege of befriending Jean Oelwang – the CEO of Virgin Unite – Sir Richard Branson’s not-for-profit organization.

Jean has met some pretty influential leaders in her time working for Sir Richard, and she told me a story that inspired me and confirmed something I’ve suspected for a long time.

Jean shared with me that she spent a few days on Nekker Island with The Elders.

The Elders is a group of the greatest peace makers and social revolutionaries of our time. It was founded by Nelson Mandela, is chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and includes people like Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter.

Recently, Sir Richard charged Jean with the task of observing and studying The Elders (during their time on his Caribbean Island) to find out what they all had in common.

Want to know what Jean discovered?

It’s not what you might think… Read the rest of this entry

Ever wished you had a magic wand that you could wave and all the angry, upset, depressed people that you waved it at would suddenly start smiling, laughing and even jumping for joy?

Well, I have such a wand… and I made you a quick video showing you how you can get one free and how to use it….

By the end of the video you’ll know 5 essential communication skills for turning an angry person into a purring pussycat…

Once you’re done watching the video, you can download a free pdf printout of these 5 conflict resolution tips.

Let the games begin… Now go share this video with your loved ones and begin practicing!

P.S. As always, your comments are welcomed and always read. Let me know how this video impacted you and if you loved it, I’d be forever grateful if you LIKED it on Facebook and Google +1.

Have you ever wondered why some days you feel PHENOMENAL and other days you feel just… BLAH?

In this short 3 minute video, you’ll discover how you create both… and how to have more phenomenal days…

If you do the exercise the way I describe it in the video above, you’ll discover something truly valuable about yourself and how you go about creating your reality. This is a high leverage exercise, and I recommend doing it right now.

Here are my highest leverage activities that energize and drain me. I’d be curious to hear yours in the comments below.

P.S. I’d be very interested to hear what energizes and drains you? Feel free to leave me a comment below.

In this article you’ll learn a time tested technique for becoming the kind of person that commands respect and has people knocking down their door wanting to help them succeed. An added benefit is that the opposite sex will find you

A few questions before we get started…

• Why is it that the doors of love, wealth, power, achievement and joy seem to naturally open for some people, while for the majority of the population these things seem like pipe dreams their entire lives?
• What magic makes people who are successful at dating and relationships different from those who are not?
• What magic allows Richard Branson have so much influence that just by saying he plans to invest in a business increases it’s share price?

Is it their track record, their network, their skill set, their personality, luck even?

Actually it’s all of those things and more, but if you were to put a magic umbrella over them all, the answer to that question would be TRUST.

The One Single Character Trait That Will Get You Further In Life Than Any Other Read the rest of this entry

I just got this great question in from one of my personal coaching clients and I wanted to share it with you as I think you’ll find it useful…

The Question

My Answer Read the rest of this entry

I was working next to my girlfriend on my laptop this morning when I heard her exclaim “Oh crap!”

“What’s up, honey?” I asked, sensing she was really upset?

“I just missed a Skype call with an important client,” she confided.

Tears began to well up behind her eyes and I knew she was beating herself up for missing the call and probably thinking that she had potentially tarnished her professional reputation in the eyes of an important new client…

“What’s wrong with me that I can’t even make a simple call on time?” she exclaimed in exasperation…

This was the second time in one day she had missed a scheduled call and she was understandably frustrated.

Here’s how I coached her back to the point where she was smiling and laughing again…

“Honey, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you…

Instead of thinking about this as a problem with YOU, let’s approach it in terms of a problem with the SYSTEM you use to schedule calls across time zones…”

It was her 4th week traveling on the road with me and she was still not used to scheduling her business calls across multiple time zones.

“How come you missed the call, honey?”

“Well, he’s on Central Standard Time and I’m on South African time, so I proposed a time to him and then added on 7 hours to figure out the call time here in South Africa… except, I counted wrong and entered the wrong time into my calendar, and then missed the call… Dumb, dumb, dumb!”

I suggested we leave ‘dumb’ out of the equation and just look at the system…

“Where was the point of failure in your scheduling system?”

“In relying on my math to calculate the time difference between CST and South Africa time.”

“So, what could you do in future to ensure that you calculate the correct time?” I asked.

“Well, I guess if I entered the time of the call into my Google calendar in Central Standard Time, Google can display it accurately in my local time zone and I won’t have to do the math…”

“Exactly!” I shouted with delight.

“With that new SYSTEM for scheduling calls across different time zones, you’ll always know the right time for the call in your time zone…”

I could see the color returning to her face and she leaned over and hugged me (I like hugs).

“See how changing an element in the system is a more effective approach to fixing a problem than trying to fix yourself?”

“Yes!” She exclaimed with a grin on her face, “I feel soooo much better.”

So, the moral of the story here is this:

If you approach your everyday breakdowns in terms of a system failure instead of a personal failure, you not only bypass the bad feelings of beating yourself up, but can look at your problems objectively and create solutions that would never have emerged had you given in to the trap of trying to fix yourself.

Trying to fix yourself assumes that something is wrong with you… and nothing could be further from the truth.

Here’s the unconscious logic that occurs in your brain when you try to fix yourself:

• Something is wrong with me
• If something is wrong with me, I must be broken.
• If I’m broken, then nothing I try will ever work…
• If nothing will ever work, I will always be a failure…
• If I’ll always be a failure, then what’s the point in trying anything ever again…

THE RESULT: Endless self doubt, depression and no action – not exactly a recipe for success…

Sound familiar?

So, next time you think you’ve screwed something up, STOP – then approach the breakdown in terms of a system fault instead of a personal fault. See if you can fix the system, and then go reward yourself for being so smart!

That’s all for this week…

Your partner in success,

P.S. If you want to create a system for success in the area of money this year, make sure you watch this video about the SYSTEM OF MONEY from my mentor, Eben.

P.P.S. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you learned from this article…

How To Stay Positive, Even Your Inner Voice Is Trying To Sabotage You

I recently received an email from one of my readers asking me for advice on how to stay positive, so I decided to share what I replied to him.

What follows is my response in the form of a TOP 20 list of all the things I do on a day to day basis to stay positive,  keep myself inspired and make sure that little voice in my head tells me great things about myself and my future…

BE WARNED: This is not your traditional positive thinking crap. These are simple, yet profoundly effective tips for staying in a positive frame of mind.

Lastly, please forgive me for not always going into greater detail on each item on the list. It would take an entire book to do each one justice. However, the tips are self explanatory and you can use your common sense to apply them in your life.

My Top 20 Ways To Stay Positive:

The following is a list of things I do and think regularly (if not daily) to stay in a positive frame of mind. If any of these speak to you, use them and let me know your results… Of course, this list is far from complete, but it contains my personal favorite techniques…

Your Body:

Your state of mind is influenced by your energy levels. The following tips will help your body operate at peak performance and keep your head clear. When your body is running like a finely tuned machine, your mind follows suit.

• Exercise daily. This increases blood circulation to the brain, giving you more energy and keeping your mind clear. Make sure you choose exercise that is fun for you.
• Add lots of raw vegetables, nuts and fruits to your diet and stop eating crap. The quality of the food you eat will determine how you feel. How you feel will impact what you think.
  Crap food in = crap thoughts and feelings out…
• Eat a nutritious breakfast – it’s the most important meal of the day. I make a green smoothie every morning. Here is a link to a video a friend of mine made teaching how to make a green smoothie… http://www.theshawnstevensonmodel.com/green-warrior-shake/
• Take some time out every day to do an activity that is fun for you. This will release Serotonin in your brain and make you feel good, promoting a clear mind and good feelings.

Your People:

I’ve heard it said that our lives are the sum total of the 5 people we spend the most time with…

• Hang around with high quality people who support where you are going in life.
• Share yourself vulnerably with the people in your life. Vulnerable does not mean weak – in fact, it takes a lot of courage to be totally open and honest with people. Being this way regularly will grow relationships built on trust and honesty. These relationships are your support line when you’re not feeling great. Also, don’t pretend that everything is OK if it is not. Just sharing your challenges with another person you trust can get rid of a lot of the anxiety you may be feeling at the time.
• Contribute to the people around you regularly in whatever way you can. It will make you feel good about yourself. Also, what comes around tends to go around, so by contributing, you can be sure that you’ll be contributed to in some way in the future.
• Personally, I have made a commitment to myself not to withhold important communications from the people I love. When we don’t say something you know needs to be said, we bottle it up inside, and that pressure causes tension in our mind. This tension often manifests itself in the form of negative thoughts and low energy. So, say what needs to be said (with love of course) and most times you’ll immediately notice a sense of relief.
• I also have a commitment to love my family. I believe that our relationship to our parents is of FUNDAMENTAL importance to our happiness. Notice that I said our relationship to our parents and not with our parents. Even if your parents are no longer alive, you can still relate to them with love. If you know you are harboring resentment towards a parent, seek counseling or get the issue resolved. Whatever the case, LOVE your parents and you’ll love yourself. I wish I had the space to write more on this topic, but I’ll have to save it for a future post…

Your Thoughts And Feelings:

The way you see the world directly impacts the thoughts you think and how you respond to life. Here’s a list of ideas and beliefs I have. Try them on and see if they fit you…

• I have a commitment to myself not to judge anything as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. It is what it is…
• I have a commitment to myself to find the blessings in any circumstance. This way, I ALWAYS benefit, even when at first it appears as if life is throwing me a curve ball…
• I have a commitment to myself to feel grateful as much as possible and I focus on cultivating gratitude.
• I have learned to trust that the tough times always pass, and that I am always looked after by Life (or some higher power). I consciously cultivate this belief and look for evidence of it, so I see it every day. This is a VERY powerful belief to cultivate and can remove all future based fear.

Your Work:

Given that most of us spend about a third of our life at work, here are some basic, yet powerful tips for staying positive and focused while working:

• Take regular breaks and if you can, nap once a day for 20 minutes. A nap will recharge you and clear your mind of clutter.
• Focus on your strengths at work and if possible, delegate your weaknesses… If you’re an entrepreneur, go take the Wealth Dynamics test to find out your entrepreneurial strengths.
• Complete the tasks you set yourself. Set yourself one important primary priority task to achieve every day and get it done. It will give you a sense of satisfaction and help you experience making progress. Feeling like you are not making progress in life sucks (at least for me it does)!

Habits To Adopt:

Your results in life come from your habits. I have made many of the things on this list a habit, and do them daily. Try some of these out and watch how your state of mind improves magically.

• Before I go to sleep I run over my day and congratulate myself for everything I did well and let go of any judgment about the things I did not do well. This keeps me feeling like I am making progress and doing a great job in my life.
• When I’m feeling really low, I pull out a pen and pad and begin writing down my feelings and my thoughts. This helps me get clear on what I am really feeling and seeing it on paper helps me understand what is going on. I don’t stop writing until I feel better.
• Perhaps most profound for me, I have managed to ACCEPT my life just as it is and as it isn’t. As a result, I rarely get upset. Practice not resisting things the way they are.
• Perhaps the most powerful habit I have adopted is waking up and immediately visualizing my day going well. I do this to keep my focus on where I am going and why I am going there. It motivates me and keeps my mind in the space I need it to be in order to be successful in my life.  To help me visualize, I use the Relaxation For Manifestation audio program. It’s the best.

Print this list out and try out a different tip each day. Notice the results and keep doing what works for you.

VERY IMPORTANT: Smile, take a break and get outside today and always remember… You are amazing!

P.S. I’d love to hear your ideas to add to this list. Please leave them below. I read each one.

P.P.S. If you liked this post, please share it with your friends using the links below.

Are there people in your industry you’d love to meet, but just don’t know how to get their attention?

Eben Pagan

One of my friends and teachers, Eben Pagan, shared an idea with me that he has used many times to build relationships with some of the biggest players in his industry. I started applying it in my life in 2008 and have quite simply had spectacular results. I want to share it here with you so you can benefit from it too.

The principle is quite simple and goes like this:

Find a way to use your skills or resources to contribute something valuable to the person you want to befriend. Lead with your giving hand contribute freely with NO EXPECTATION of ever getting anything in return.

It a stupidly simple concept and it’s also totally counter-intuitive to most people living in a world where scarcity thinking seems to be the norm - where taking rather than giving seems like the only way to survive.

I had yet another powerful experience of this principle in action recently that I want to share with you.

When I decided to move to Cabarete (where I now live) in the Dominican Republic, I didn’t know anyone here, I had never been here before and I did not speak Spanish.

One thing I did know is that I wanted to create a great community of people to surround myself with when I arrived. I have made the mistake of not doing this in the past and it cost me dearly. So, why is community so important to me? Well…

“Your life is the sum total of the 5 people you spend the most time with…”

I truly believe that…

So, I wanted to make sure that when I arrived in Cabarete, I  befriended the most awake, enlivened, successful, conscious people, who are doing something spectacular with their lives.

Laurel Flying High (click to enlarge)

I set my intention and started searching  for people on Facebook  that matched my requirements (above).

Quickly, I discovered an interesting woman… Her name is Laurel Eastman and she was once ranked 4th in the world for Kitesurfing. Laurel owns three Kitesurfing schools around the world and is a very well respected celebrity name in the Kitesurfing community.

Something in me told me that she was going to me one of the FIVE people I spend the most time with. Don’t ask me how, but I knew.

So, I shot Laurel an email on Facebook asking her a few questions about Cabarete wind, accommodation, food availability etc…

Laurel actually called me back and spent 30 minutes on Skype helping me answer my most pressing questions about Cabarete. I was bowled  over. This amazing woman just reached out to me (a total stranger) out of  the blue and contributed her time and expertise to me – with no expectation of anything in return.

A month later I arrived in Cabarete…

I immediately set out to get to know Laurel and see if she really was someone I’d like to let into my inner circle of friends.

I invited her to dinner and began looking for ways to contribute to her life. After chatting with her, I quickly saw an opening for me to share my marketing expertise, so last week I  asked her if I could help her with her marketing and help her double her profit at her Kitesurfing schools.

She agreed and we spent two evenings together brainstorming marketing ideas for her businesses. It was a super-fun experience shared over Sushi and a bottle of red wine.

Something magical happened…

Laurel Eastman

Laurel and I connected and bonded in a very natural and easy way.

As Laurel began to trust that I did not have an agenda other than to have fun and help her double her business profit, she allowed me into her life, her home, and opened up her circle of friends to me – so much so that she has become my closest friend on the island.

I am sure that there are many people who would LOVE to become a close friend of this extraordinary woman – not only because she is a Kitesurfing icon, but also because she is a warm, generous, compassionate human being – however, I suspect that she only allows a handful of people into her private world.

So how did we manage to grow such a strong friendship in only a few weeks?

I suspect that it had everything to do with the way we both contributed to each other with no intention or expectation of getting anything in return.

Can  you do the same thing with powerful people you want to meet in your life?

Of course you can. Just begin looking at how you can contribute to them and then contribute generously, without expecting, wanting, asking, or needing ANYTHING in return other than the pleasure of being able to contribute to a fellow soul on this planet of ours. You’ll get massively more back than you give – often in a form you don’t expect.

In my experience, this is the most effective way to win best friends and influence influential people.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be friends with someone who gives without needing to get something in return?

So, this morning, Laurel sends out a newsletter to her instructors and friends around the world. Here is an excerpt:

Reading this gave me so much joy! I have an awesome new friend and the first of my FIVE people I plan to spend the most time with.

In closing, I want to thank my friend and teacher Eben Pagan for sharing this idea with me and Laurel Eastman for welcoming me to Cabarete with such open arms, being such great friend, and quickly putting  into action many of the ideas we came up with.

Talk soon,

Bruce

P.S. As always, your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Just finished making an informative new video on Billionaire Wealth Strategies. Watch it below:

www.myWealthDynamicsProfile.com

Cant see the video playing? Watch it on YouTube…