If I had any hair I may well have pulled it all out this morning. However, after some technical difficulties our web guy has done us proud and we're finally good to go with the 1,000,000 Giveaway. As of now, because I have made the final affiliate payments, 90% of the proceeds or every sale will be going directly to print the physical versions of How To Be Rich and Happy.

At this stage (and it could well change as we move forward) we have targeted 4 separate groups of people to give the free books to, high school/university age kids, single parent families, unemployed people and homeless people.

We have no idea how long it will take to generate the money we need to place our first order, so to give ourselves a head start we are ordering 3,000 copies and will pay for these ourselves.

It takes about 12-16 weeks to get the books printed and shipped to the US and we still have a final edit to do. So realistically speaking it will be June before we have them in our hands ready to start giving away to worthy causes and our supporters.

If we waited until we raised the $5,000 or thereabouts we’ll need for the first print run, it may take us a few weeks to get there and we’re very impatient to make this happen now!

We have set 3 price points with varying goodies thrown in to help entice you to part with your hard earned cash. The eagle eyed amongst you will see we have set a lower price point than was originally the recommended retail.

The reason for this is not to invite people to pay as little as possible. It’s purely that we realize not everybody can afford $47 no matter how much they want to buy the book and help other people.

Seeing as the whole project is to help people that may not have the financial means to help themselves, it seemed somewhat counter-intuitive to then price hundreds of thousands of people out of the market.

We still really, really need your help to make this happen and yes I am on bended knee groveling. This is only the beginning of what I personally hope will become an ongoing project that spreads overseas to tens of millions of people across the globe.

Yep, I like big, hairy, audacious goals.

If you like this blog, then the book is 100x better!

It's actually also 100x better than my own blog at The Discomfort Zone.

The best material from both blogs is in there, but it’s improved upon because it’s been re-written expanded on and organized to flow in a logical and easy to follow order.

Plus there is all of Johns great stuff to boot, and trust me he’s very knowledgeable on self-development and finances.

The single worst bit of feedback we have received about the book is when somebody left this blog comment:

“I have read How To Be Rich and Happy and I quite liked it”

I felt stunned and a bit like I’d been damned with feint praise when I first read that. Until I realized I’d had almost 100 pieces of feedback and that was the worst by some way!

Can You Help?

If you have the book already or it doesn’t really appeal to you in any way shape or form, you can still help us if you would be so kind?

Tweeting this post would be ubercool as would mentioning it on Facebook or Stumbling/Digging it.

In fact any social media mentions would be brilliant as well as forwarding on to your friends.

If you could link from your own site directly to the How To Be Rich and Happy site that would be even cooler and would lift you up to Saint status as far as I’m concerned.

I’d love to do any interviews and I’m prepared to whore myself in pretty much anyway to publicize the project, as is John to a somewhat lesser extent!

So that’s pretty much it I hope you can help with this, and if you do so, please accept our sincere thanks.

Cost maybe, because even though it started off life at $97 for a week or so before we dropped it to $47, it’s still not cheap. How about not providing the formula to being Rich and Happy? That would be a fairly damning indictment if people were telling us that, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it’s boring and doesn’t flow well? That would certainly concern me as I'm sure it would John.

As you can imagine, it’s none of those. In fact, I can say with my hand on my heart that we haven’t had a single response like that from the several hundred people that have bought and read the book.

Actually that’s not totally true. The day after the book originally launched on September 22nd I did get one guy ask for his money back saying it didn’t work. Well c’mon he gave it his best shot and if it doesn’t work in 24 hours, it’s not likely to is it?

The single biggest complaint I have received and I know John is in a similar situation, is that there is too much information in How To Be Rich and Happy and that a few people have felt overwhelmed.

That’s actually quite a nice problem to have for us as authors, but nevertheless it still needs to be taken seriously, because for those people it is a real issue.

When we were writing the book we had a few goals in mind, but one front and center was that we didn’t want any filler whatsoever. We believed that if our book could be condensed into a small pamphlet then we should sell it as a small pamphlet.

With that in mind we stripped 25,000 words out during the last 2 or 3 re-writes and that equates to about a third the length of the current book or a tad longer than my first book, ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions’.

So what we really want to discourage is ‘skimming’

The book really will not help people if they skim it, especially the exercises. We know only a fraction of people that buy a book such as this bother to do the exercises, but we know our readers are smarter than average

There’s a chapter in the book that John wrote entitled, ‘Be Patiently Unrealistic.’ In it he talks about overnight successes that are seldom overnight successes. We see people catapulted into the public limelight, but seldom see the years of work they’d put in prior to that.

TV leads us to believe that one day they were walking the streets and the next walking down the red carpet. The reality is usually somewhat different and we urge people to take it easy, enjoy the ride and feel relaxed in the knowledge that things will work our Rich and Happy.

We really do not expect anybody to blitz through the book and when they turn the last page discover their life has moved into a permanent state of bliss, that comes with How To Be Rich and Happy - The Magic Kit and will retail at $9,997.00.

I was only exposed to the financial side of the book in any meaningful sense after the book was published when I could sit down and read it at my leisure. As such, 40 years of being a completely laissez faire attitude toward money hasn’t miraculously disappeared.

In fact, I’m still at the conscious competence stage in which I have to think about how I deal with money rather than instinctively making the wisest choices.

But and here’s the rub. I’m being patient with myself and as long as I am moving in the right direction, I’m cool with that because I know I’ll get to be where I want to be. I know you can too, if that is you adopt the same approach.

If you have the book and it’s overwhelming to you, slow down! It’s not a race and we know nobody can absorb it all in one go, that’s not the point. We called it a manual for life for a good reason, it’s for life!

There is nothing wrong with doing one section per week or even one per month until you have fully grasped it. Equally, there’s no problem with putting it down for a period of time whilst you read other books or just contemplate your brilliant future.

There’s no need to be overwhelmed, although if you are, there is help in the book about how you deal with that.

Remember, it’s only life and none of us get out alive.

“Not too bad, but I’ve had better weeks and my leg hurts a bit where that 320 lb lineman fell on it. On the other hand, I suppose it was better than shoveling snow….but not much”

Maybe fate conspires against people like me from ever being famous so we can only think flippant thoughts rather than expressing them to a perplexed public, but I digress.

The guy in question actually gave a much more coherent and sensible answer than I just offered. He went on to say it was the best day of his life after the days when his kids were born.

That’s a Rich and Happy mindset right there. Sure fame and glory are nice for some people, but they alone don’t make anybody Rich and Happy and more often than not they are highly transitory.

A few days later I was watching American Idol (the secret is out, this Life Coach isn't perfect) as the singing wannabes moved onto the Hollywood stage of the competition.

Mike Lynche (one of the competitors) wife was heavily pregnant and shortly before he was due to go on stage for his audition, her waters broke.

This was pure gold for the producers of the show as the guy chatted with his wife on the phone (on the external speaker of course so everybody else could listen) in the privacy of his room with only a camera and sound crew to keep him company.

In the following program it got even better for Fox and the program makers, as the women kindly went in labor live on the show just before her hubby was due to go on stage.

By now they had a camera crew with her too and there was one surreal scene as the father-to-be showed pictures of his wife in labor on his phone when it was obvious they could have simply cut live to the birth.

Let’s leave aside whether this is reality TV gone a tad too far for a moment, because that’s another post for another day. I have no doubt lots of people around the country were oohing and aahing as the shots of the 19 second old infant and proud mother were flashed on the screen.

The real point is this.

The father is without doubt a very good singer, whether he’s good enough to win Idol remains to be seen, although my highly untrained ear doubts it very much.

However, compare the footballers attitude toward the birth of his kids, with the guys on Idol. The footballer was saying winning the Superbowl which is one of the biggest occasions in sport and the pinnacle of achievement for any football player, came second to the arrival of his children.

Whereas the singer was saying with his actions, that the long-shot of winning a singing competition was more important than witnessing the birth of his first child.

It sounds harsh when you say it like that. I do understand if he wins the entire competition or maybe even gets to the last 3, he may be set for life financially, but it’s only money for goodness sake and there are things way more important than money.

I also realize that I am looking at this situation through my own lens and with my own values and that is distorting my view. And also if I’m being fair, I have no idea what his personal circumstances are or were at the time.

Having said all that I just cannot believe his decision was a Rich and Happy decision and I doubt he’ll look back on it in twenty years with pride, especially if he fails to make the last 24 on American Idol.

I’d really like to hear your take. Do you think I’m being harsh or do you agree that some things in life are way more important than chasing money and fame?

It’s a process that we speak of in some detail in How To Be Rich and Happy and it is one that in my experience, is used by all Rich and Happy people even if only unconsciously.

Think of your favorite picture in your house for a moment. Obviously I have no idea what it looks like or why you like it, but that’s not important anyway.

What I do know, is that I can change your perception of that picture without changing the picture itself. Yep, that’s what I said, I can move you from loving it to recoiling in disgust when you see it, without altering a thing about it.

Now before you get excited thinking I’m about to reveal I’m a magician and all your worst fears about my state of mind are confirmed, it’s not quite like that.

Imagine I snuck into your house in the dead of night and removed the frame from the said picture. In it’s place I put the most hideous ugly frame that have ever stained the face of this earth. It’s the kind of frame that has children bursting into tears, adults feeling nauseous and small farmyard animals scurrying for cover in fear. Yes, it really is that ugly.

What do you think of your lovely picture now?

Not so great eh? I’ve really ruined it for you haven’t I? Yet it’s still the same picture in all its former glory, I’ve just re-framed it for you.

If you work in, or are familiar with sales, you will have heard of objection handling. I also imagine if you have ever read anything about politics or following the news that you also have heard of ‘spinning’ a story.

With objection handling all the sales person is (usually) doing is representing the same information, but in a more favorable light.

So the goods being late could be,

“Yes Mr Customer, that’s because we were taking extra special care with your order to ensure everything is absolutely perfect”

Or you’re more expensive than your major competitor.

“That’s true and it is because we use the finest quality components and the best engineers to produce a product that will last a life time”

It’s the same in politics. I’m sure you have seen two politicians deliver the exact same information with one say it’s great for the country whilst the other declaring it’s the death knell for all civilization.

How can that be, after all facts are facts, right?

Well yes and no. Think back to the picture. The information (in this case the picture itself) has not changed, but the way you view it has. The fact is the picture is still there, but you can no longer look at it without wanting to give me a damn good thrashing, and rightly so.

All of the above examples are the same, they are all reframing and it is possibly THE most powerful Rich and Happy tool you can learn.

Reframing is simply taking a negative event and looking for the positive aspects of it. It is NOT lying to yourself, it’s NOT twisting facts and it’s NOT being unrealistic.

Being unrealistic is actually refusing to see any good in a situation, even though adopting that approach makes you feel crap.

The sad thing is, most (poor and unhappy) people do see reframing as being unrealistic and prefer to hold on to looking at the world in exactly the same way as they have always done, weird huh?

To them losing a job is a catastrophe not an exciting opportunity to find a better one.

A traffic jam ruins their day rather than gives them a chance to chill and listen to their favorite music or self development program.

An argument means their marriage is a sham rather than the time to open up honest lines of communication.

A news story about a child abduction is depressing rather than being a chance to say enough is enough with local news.

I honestly could go on and on, and I usually do, but today I’ll spare you because I like you.

If you want to adopt a Rich and Happy mindset and presuming you don’t already have that, you have to change the way you look at things. It really is that simple and if you’re not prepared to do that, then it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever become Rich and Happy.

Reframing takes practice, but it is a skill anybody can learn, if that is, they can be bothered.

Can you be bothered?

By way of proving my point, I’m happy to help you reframe anything negative in your current life if you leave me a note in the comments.

Now before you rush to call the men in white coats and tell them to have their very best long sleeved jacket at the ready, let me explain what I mean and offer you 7 reasons that will prove most dogs are indeed rich and happy.

1. Dogs Don’t Hold Grudges

When my younger dog thought it was fun to bite my testicles a few weeks ago, I wasn’t happy and she knew it. After rolling around in agony for a period of time, I then shouted ‘NO!’ at her whilst pointing at my traumatized genitalia.

She sensed I was unhappy with her and skulked away in disgrace to lick her wounds. And before you ask, no I didn't want her licking my wounds by way of reparation.

Within ten minutes she was back complete with a waggly stump and wanting to play. How can you stay mad at somebody that is so forgiving and happy to be alive?

The answer for me is, I can’t and I suspect you can’t either. Happy dogs are like those people that are always in a good mood, always fun to be around and have charisma by the boat load.

2. Dogs Know Their Values

One of the things that rich and happy people understand is what drives them at a core level. The also understand that aligning with their values is absolutely critical if they are going to live the rich and happy life.

So if peace is a top value they seek peace. If love is at the top, they demonstrate love and if their number one anti-value is stress they do whatever is needed to get the proper recovery time from stressful events

Dogs know this too. Dogs may not have the range of values that humans do, but maybe that’s a problem with us rather than our four-legged friends. Loyalty, family, trust, love and in some cases independence are all important values to rich and happy dogs and ones that they never slip out of alignment with.

3. Dogs Don’t Judge People

My dogs don’t care whether you’re the Pizza delivery guy, the mail man, the Pope or even my mother-in-law, they are still happy to see you. They also don’t care if you’re black, white, beautiful, ugly, straight, gay, tall, short or even French. They love everybody that makes a fuss of them.

What would the world be like if it was ruled by rich and happy dogs, eh?

4. Dogs Don’t Waste Money

I have lived with dogs a a good deal of my life. Not once in all that time has one ever returned from the Boxing Day or Black Friday sales and said, “look how much money I’ve just saved!” And then proceeded to hold up a dress the cost of which could have wiped out the national debt of a small Caribbean country.

Now you may be thinking dogs don’t usually carry cash around with them and you would be right. However, if they did, they wouldn’t spend it on luxuries they didn’t need thinking they would make them feel more rich and happy.

Certainly they may go a bit nuts on the pigs ears order and I think steak would take the place of Pedigree Chum, but I doubt they’d be changing cars every two years or borrowing money to buy a home that has four guest bedrooms….you know, just in case people we haven’t seen in ten years want to come and stay.

5. Dogs Don’t Worry

We ran out of dog food one day last week. Did the dogs worry about it?

Nope.

Did they pace around wondering what they were going to have for dinner?

Nope.

Did they have a disagreement with each other over who had to get the car out and fetch some food?

Nope.

They just napped whilst I fetched the food.

Rich and Happy people don’t worry excessively and chronically. Rich and Happy people would prefer to take a nap than worry, and for the most part they would prefer to act than nap.

Worrying serves no purpose, taking action does. Rich and happy dogs take action….or have a nap.

6. Dogs Don’t Try To Keep Up With The Jones’s

Rich and Happy people concentrate on what THEY want out of life. Their happiness isn’t based on some imaginary score card kept by other people, it’s tied to how they feel about themselves and their life.

If they want a boat, it’s because they want a boat and not because their best friend has one. It’s also because they have run it through the ‘rich and happy return’ to decide whether it is going to improve the quality of their life by giving them more rich and happy minutes in proportion to the expenditure.

I take my dobermans to the dog park every day and guess what? They seem completely oblivious to what the other dogs are wearing. They never complain that their collars aren’t diamond encrusted or their leash made of the finest Mongolian Yak hide, they just run around and have fun sniffing each others buts.

For them a rich and happy life involves doing whatever they want (sniffing buts), whenever they want (any time they’re not eating or sleeping)

7. Dogs Don't Feel Guilty

Tori (the black one in the photo) ate a pair of $600 glasses with progressive lenses in about a week after I got them. Since she got told off about it I haven't noticed he struggling to sleep because she is racked with guilt. In fact I haven't actually noticed her looking guilty about anything. She will pull off a sheepish look when trotting past me with my boxer shorts in her mouth, but that's about as far as it goes. She knows rich and happy dogs have no time to feel guilty when a raid on the sock drawer is to be planned.

Of course I could come up with lots more parallels, but I'm intrigued to know whether you think dogs are richer and happier than human beings on the whole?

I was listening to one of the brilliant phone ins and have to confess having a chuckle or two to myself. It seemed all the Dallas fans that had been phoning in the week before to say how they were going to kill the Vikings were phoning in again to say how they felt like killing themselves.

If only they had to support the Rams for a year I thought, then they’d have something to whine about.

As I was driving along, one particular despondent and unhappy Cowboys fan came on the line. By the sound of it he was already throwing a rope over a high beam and I think it’s fair to say he was very, very pissed off.

At one point he said:

“This is an absolute disaster for the Cowboys”

I did a double take at the radio. A disaster? Really? What the hell does that make Haiti then?

Prior to our How To Be Rich and Happy teleseminar a week or so ago (and by the way we DID record it and will be posting it soon if you didn’t have time to call in), we sent out an e-mail asking people what questions they would like us to cover off.

One of the responses I received was:

“Is the correct use of language that important?”

I didn’t have time to answer it fully on the call although John made a valiant attempt. The fact is, I could have droned on for the entire hour and still not covered off all the bases of why language is not just important, but absolutely crucial.

You have a limited number of ways of making sense out of this world. Primarily you have you five most common senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. As well as those and contrary to popular opinion, you have other senses such as sense of balance, space, temperature, pain etc and they will also sometimes come into play.

Having all these senses at your disposal is very cool and make sure you take them with you always, but you still rely heavily on just two most of the time, and they’re sight and sound.

If you are like the vast majority of us you’re having tens of thousands of thoughts per day. Most of these are not new or original thoughts, they’re just the same ones playing on a loop over and over again.

If you have a thought:

“Why am I such a jerk?”

What do you think will be the net result of that?

Well if it’s a one-off, probably not much at all really, especially if it’s said with a laugh and you’re not being serious. But what if that thought is going round in your head for months even years on end?

What do you think that will do to your self-esteem?

The first problem with that is you’re speaking as though it were a fact, when in reality it’s a belief because you’re not a jerk. Each time you have the thought you embed it just a little bit further and then a little bit further again.

Eventually you have said it so many times you literally cannot believe it’s not true.  I honestly have had clients trying to convince me that I'm wrong and they really are losers!

A rich and happy person would never ask such a question. Firstly, they set their own reality and in their reality they are definitely not a jerk. However, it goes deeper than that because the question is problem focused and also permanent.

What I mean by that is to follow that question to its natural conclusion you have to look for reasons as to why you’re a jerk. It doesn’t offer any other opportunities unless you want to start arguing with yourself and we all know you’ll not win that fight.

Rich and happy people use solution focused questions. Instead of saying “Why am I such a jerk?” they’d ask a question like “What can I do differently next time to make sure I do better?” Or they may even say something like, “I acted like a bit of a jerk there, but no worries I’ll learn from that and make sure it never happens again”

Can you see the huge difference?

This approach forces you to think of a solution rather than focus on the problem. Also by saying “I acted like a jerk”  you’re using a presupposition that you’re not really a jerk, you just slipped into jerkness for a moment or two. And let’s face it, we all do that from time to time.

If you have low self-esteem or confidence I guarantee you’re using poor disempowering language that is also probably very black and white in its outlook. I also guarantee you’ll be giving yourself few options to look for solutions, but plenty of opportunity to beat yourself up.

The Dallas fan that thought the loss to the Vikings was a complete disaster is probably going to take a very long time to get over something that in the great scheme of things isn’t that important. I have sat through enough sporting losses to know they always seem worse at the time than they really are.

I was being serious too when I said “What does that make Haiti?” Seriously, where is there to go from disaster? Maybe to catastrophe, but we’re exhausting our options.

If you start to link something so trivial like losing a football game to a natural disaster that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people you are in danger of losing a grip on reality and thoroughly confusing your unconscious mind into the bargain.

When you have setbacks and/or are feeling down, think of the language you use. Make sure it offers you every possibility to search for solutions. Also ensure it isn’t permanent. Little outside death and taxes (thanks Mark Twain) is permanent and your behavior certainly isn’t.

Rich and Happy people get the value of language in dictating their mood and so can you, if you don’t already that is.

If you take control of your language and by that I mean internally as well as externally, then you’ll take control of your life. It really is that simple.

I have actually done a couple of YouTube clips on this topic and you can check out out How To Feel Better About Yourself and How To Be Miserable by clicking the links.

Last week Tim and I met to discuss the long-term strategy of the book. Things have gone well, feedback has blown us away (in a good way) and the book is having the positive impact on people we both intended and hoped for.

In other words, all is going fantastic.

So we decided to up the ante on ourselves.

We started asking crazy questions like what goal would it take to get us over the top excited for 2010?  What could we do with the book that would be so ridiculously cool that not only would we be digging it, but so would lots of other people too.  What would not only do all of that, it would, in the spirit of the book, make a HUGE difference in the lives of lots of people.

And we liked the energy behind that.

So in a moment of tremendous clarity, or insanity, or something in between, we decided.

Our great big goal for 2010 is to partner with the world to give away one million copies of How to be Rich and Happy.

We are undaunted by the logistics, unfazed by the obviously huge hurdles, and unsomething else by all the reasons why this looks impossible.

For us, we came up with a core group of people that we most want to get the book into the hands of.

• - Kids ages between 15 – 20
• - Single parents on income support
• - Unemployed people
• - Homeless people

Why those people?  Why not?  Also because we think those are the people who REALLY would get a life boost from some insights into the Rich and Happy formula.

We don’t expect every person who is offered the book to read it.  But think of the positive difference it could make in the lives of those who do!

Who would you give it to?  Keep that answer handy as you read some of the thoughts below.

To help you understand why we need your help in this goal, and in case you might be thinking about dismissing the ideas as not that big of a deal, let’s break it down a little.

First, we have to raise about $1,000,000 to pay for the books. So far we’ve raised $100. (Tim and I each put in fifty).

Then we have to get the books into the hands of the people we’ve picked.  No small logistical issue there.

Considering we have 40 physical copies so far (it was designed as an e-book after all) that means we’re 999,960 short and the clock is ticking.

Even if we had all the books paid for and in storage as I write this, that would still mean we have to distribute about 20,000 books per week until the end of 2010!

That’s an enormous number and quite frankly without the help of a nationwide distribution network it’s hard to picture that one happening.

As Tim and I bantered back and forth about ways to make our goal happen, we took a step back and realized we were getting caught up with ‘Mad How Disease’.

We were focusing too much on the how and not enough on the who. We were doing the exact opposite of what the Rich and Happy formula has proven to be true.  WHICH WE EXPLAIN IN THE BOOK!  How ridiculous is that?

So who is the who you may be wondering? Who is the person who can help us?

Well, it could very well be YOU!

We’ve decided to ask the people that already read our stuff if they can think of cool ways to help make this happen and if they want, to get involved.

I’m going to tell you the three options we’re thinking of.  I’d love to know which one you think is the approach most likely to succeed.  And of course, tell us any other one’s you think of.

Option One – Reverse Tithe

We keep selling the e-book version only we reverse tithe the proceeds.  90% of all money that comes in from the sale of the book goes toward achieving the goal of giving the million copies away.

10% may be a tight margin to maintain the website and other sundry costs and it may need to be closer to 15%, but that’s the general idea.

If we go this route, we thought about making the cost of the book variable but with a minimum amount. So if someone wanted to pay the $47 full price and be a major part of this effort, great.  If they can only afford $15, that’s great too.

Another variable of this is that for every person who buys the e-book at full price, we send THEM a case of 25 paperback books (or so, don’t hold me to the number) which they can give to people THEY feel would most benefit from it.

They win, the people they give it to win, and we get lots of help.

Pros

Please advise if we are slightly or COMPLETELY wrong.

We think people who want to buy the book but are on the fence, would get in the game knowing the money would go toward the giveaway goal.

The lower price option would make the book affordable for more people.

This option is probably the most likely to go viral, although that’s in the lap of the gods and not something we’d ever want to bank on.

Cons

We’re a little concerned about ticking off people that have already bought the book at full price.

Need to get an awful lot of people to buy the book at any price to get us where we want to go.

Shipping is costly.  It’s about $10 to ship a case of books.

Option Two – Ask For Donations

We continue to sell the book as we’re currently doing. Then as a separate entity running parallel, we work on getting a multitude of small donations that are filtered off to be used to get the book printed and shipped.

Pros

Easy to do.  We just set up another link on the website and do our best to create buzz about it.

Cons

Could be a long slow process to get to our goal.  Lots of people raising money for lots of good causes out there.

Option Three – Find A Wealthy Sponsor or Foundation

This option is the one that could move us from zero to a million in no time flat.

There are definitely people who have access to the kind of funds required to pull this off.    So what would make them get involved with this project in particular?

Pros

If we hit on the right person it’s a done deal. $1m is not a huge commitment in the great scheme of things and it would be fun having a huge name behind the project.

Tim has said he would literally sacrifice a small cute furry stuffed animal to have Sir Richard Branson on board*.  I said I’d sacrifice Tim, but I was mostly joking.

We are more than happy to have the book branded so that the sponsors name is on it.  Yes, we want this to be a win across the board for everyone involved.

Cons

We could spend all of 2010 working on bringing in the right person/organization only to be turned down flat for reasons out of our control (economic crisis part two).

In order to get someone on board, they probably need to read and get excited about the book.  So how the heck do you get it in front of them?  And how the heck do you help them find time to read it?

How Can You Help?

This is a truly monstrous goal. We realize the odds are against us, but that’s what makes it so compelling.  We do know this.  The odds of us pulling this off are infinitesimally small without your help. And yes, I do mean YOU!

What would it take for you to say YES, I’M IN?

If you have an idea no matter how off-the-wall or silly you think it may seem, please, please, let us know in the comments.

Think six degrees of separation.  Who do you know that might know somebody that might know someone who can help?  Please forward this blog post to them.

The person could work in the media or the charitable or distribution sectors. Who would ship for free???

They may work for any large organization that has the kind of pull we need to make this happen or whatever else you can think of.

If you know of reasons why one of the ideas will simply not work, please say so.  Even better, throw us an alternate suggestion too.

If you have a spare million dollars lying around let us know.

If you have a blog or a Twitter account and you can help us publicize this, that would be amazing, thanks!

Even a Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit or Facebook mention would be appreciated.

I’m sure there are ways you can help that we haven’t even thought about, but you have, so we’re open to all options.

Tim and I are massively excited to hear your ideas and hope you’ll help us make this happen.  Not to mention have a lot of fun in the process.

And by the way, this is game on already.  It takes 12 weeks to get the books printed.  I’m committing that although I don’t know the way it will all come together, we will be distributing the first of the books come April 15th.

Nothing like a little insight into the Rich and Happy formula on the day income tax is due.

Even gift cards are a bust.  27% of the gift cards gifted last year have never been used.

The problem is, most gifts don’t keep giving.

I know, it sounds a little cliche, but there really is the opportunity to get, and give, gifts that do keep on giving long after the holiday season.

As you are finalizing your wish list this year, go through it and check to make sure that at least something on there actually helps you grow in some way.

What retreat would you like to attend?  Is there a skill you’d like to learn?  What training has always been interesting to you?

These are gifts that keep giving because once you’ve received the initial piece of the gift, the benefits keep going for the rest of your life.  Think about it.  If you attend a yoga retreat, you get to apply your learnings to your yoga practice for the rest of your life.

If you take an immersion course in a language, the benefits of that go far beyond the duration of the course.

If you become certified in something you really love, then once the training is done you can get paid to share that knowledge with someone else.  (Zone three all day long, for those of you who have already read How to Be Rich and Happy and remember the matrix.)

The idea for this post came to me because of a very nice email I recently received from a single mom with two kids who lives in Canada.

She wanted my help in enabling her to take a Big Five for Life certification training I’ve got coming up in January.

Her biggest obstacle, as she noted in her email, was a lack of money.  And I couldn’t help thinking that I bet if she asked people to help her go to the training instead of giving her other Christmas gifts, she’d probably get pretty close.

Here’s something else to keep in mind.  Many times people have gifts to give that they don’t even know they have.  Maybe someone can’t chip in a couple of hundred dollars for you to attend a yoga retreat, but they might be able to give you airline miles so you could fly there for free.

Or maybe they have hotel points to cover your lodging, or can hook you up with a friend of theirs who lives close to where the event is, and who would let you stay for free.

Perhaps they work for a car rental company or hotel chain, or have a friend who does and they can get you a major discount.

In the case of the woman who emailed me, maybe her friends could offer to watch her kids for a few days while she attended the training.

The point is this.  It’s the holiday time of year.  People are in a gifting mood.  They are feeling generous.  They want your holiday to be special.  They are ready to give you things.

Often times they have no idea what to get you.  So pick out some cool gifts that keep on giving, and tell them what you need in order to have those gifts.

And do the same for the people on your gift list.  How special is it to give someone something that not only is in the sweet spot of what they really want, it helps them log RIch and Happy minutes for the rest of their life.

Enjoy the holidays!

John

It may or may not be a New Years resolution per se. In fact, it may not even be written down, but I bet there’s something specific you’d like to achieve or change in the new year, right?

It could be to quit smoking, lose a bit of weight, run a 10k race, spend more time with people that are important to you (hint: that probably isn’t your boss) or even starting your own business. I don’t need to be a mind reader to know I’m almost certainly right because the end of year causes a great many people to take stock, and at least temporarily, reflect on their life.

I applaud your desire to make improvements, but the sad fact is statistically speaking you’re almost certainly doomed to failure.  In fact, so much so, that the original title of this post was going to be ‘Why New Years Resolutions Fail’

I’ve seen many figures quoted as to how many people succeed in making lasting change with new years resolutions and it’s never more than about 5% and quite honestly, those odds stink.

Then I thought to myself, hang on a minute, I’m writing for people that are on a Rich and Happy journey here, these aren’t the kind of folks that care about the odds or what other people do. These are go-getters of the highest order and people who defy the odds, not conform to them.

Hence the rather more appealing title you see before you today and my complete conviction that you will succeed in the challenges you set for yourself.

There’s an old saying that goes “If nothing changes, nothing changes” and it perfectly describes the situation for most people when setting new years resolutions.

Trying harder to do something that has normally failed is not as likely to yield success. To make lasting change you need to do adopt a different approach and Rich and Happy people get that.

By following the advice in this post I guarantee you’ll exponentially increase your likelihood of achieving your goals in 2010 and what’s not to love about that?

By the way, there is no way I can cover all the bases in this one post. So where necessary I have linked through to specific posts that may be helpful to you.

Write It Down

As a Life Coach I’m almost embarrassed to be typing this. Almost, but not quite that is. Written goals are far more likely to come to fruition than goals that are just floating round your head. Trust me on this one, there is enough scientific data to make it unequivocal and a sound investment of your time.

If you can’t spare 45 to 60 minutes to sit down and write down what it is that’s important to you in your life, then it can’t be that important, can it? This is an essential stage that Rich and Happy people always commit to, so block out the time in your planner and just do it!

Setting goals should be fun and not a chore. This is the rest of your life you’re planning out here, if you can’t get excited about it then you really need to do some serious navel gazing and shoe staring.

If you need help setting good goals that are likely to work, then read The Ultimate Goal Setting Post.

Change Your Identity

If you see yourself as a smoker, how difficult do you think it will be to quit smoking? If you see yourself as a fat person just trying to lose a bit of weight, how testing and difficult will that be?

The ability to change your identity or more accurately, never get attached to any one identity is one of the most underrated skills possessed by Rich and Happy people. It’s also one that you can acquire if you really want to.

Your identity is not your job, it’s not your dress size, it’s not your kids, it’s not your friends and (fortunately for me) it’s not your favorite sports team. All of those contribute to who you are as a person, but that’s all they do, just contribute to the much greater whole.

If I lose the ability to hear tomorrow life coaching would be a tad tricky. In fact in the short-term it would be more or less impossible. That would be a real downer because I love what I do.

I also realize that it could be taken off me at a moments notice and therefore if I attach my identity to being a coach, what happens then? Do I lose my identity; do I have to build another one or am I just, albeit temporarily, a nobody?

Of course the answer to all those questions is no. I’m still the same person I was before. Ok, I now have the TV volume a tad on the high side and I’ve taken to shouting a lot, but I’m still me. That’s because my job can never equal my identity.

If you’re trying to change a behavior the single biggest thing you can do to ensure success is to change your identity. Using weight loss as an example. If you refuse to see yourself as a fat person, but concentrate all your efforts into believing you are by nature a slim person temporarily in a fat persons body, what effect do you think that will have?

All of a sudden your internal image is directly in conflict with the vision you’re seeing in the mirror. In your mind you’re a healthy weight and that sets up cognitive dissonance between what you see and what you believe about yourself. Fortunately your unconscious mind doesn’t like cognitive dissonance and it will go to work on your behalf to help you meet your internal picture.

If you transform your identity and the way you view yourself, making changes will be far easier because you’ll not spending all your energy on fighting your own belief system.

There are a number of things you can do to help such as being aware of the language you use to describe yourself to others and to yourself. In other words, make it positive and goal focused. Never put yourself down to others or more importantly to yourself because it sends the wrong message to your unconscious.

Learn to believe in yourself. You have created your current identity so you can change it any time you want, just as long as you want to and believe you can.

Visualize

If you have read How To Be Rich and Happy you’ll not only know visualization works, but better still, how it works ! This is not woo-woo stuff it’s a scientifically tried and trusted method of helping make permanent successful change.

The following sequence is a section that was originally going to be in How To Be Rich and Happy, but ended up on the cutting room floor. Even so it explains how visualization works

Imagine walking home from a new job one day. You suddenly realize there is a meadow of long grass you could use to cut 20 minutes off your walk. (If you live in New York, you're going to need a great imagination for this one.)

The first time few times you walk through the meadow, you can barely see which way you had walked the previous day. However, after 10 or 20 times passing through the field, you can clearly see a pathway starting to form. After 100 times all the grass is worn away.

Then one day there's a farmer with a shotgun and large dog waiting for you at the end of the path. Now, let's presume our gun-toting friend is a big softie and he allows you to use that route as long as you want. What are the odds that the next time you walk through the meadow, you take a slightly different direction? Slim to none would be my guess. After all, you know this path works and you have a lovely, easy trail to navigate. Why risk taking another way?

On the other hand, if Farmer Giles starts taking pot shots at you and sportingly lets the dog try to shoot you as well before releasing it to sink its gnashers into your rear end, then you'll probably find a new way home once released from hospital. You opt against reacquainting yourself with Fido.

The next time you walk home, you spot another meadow further along the road. The same process begins to occur. Only this time, the original path you created in the last meadow has started to grow back. That is pretty much what happens when we form thoughts in our mind.

The first time we have a new thought; it is a weakling that gets sand kicked in its face by stronger thoughts and beliefs. Each time you re-think the thought, though, it grows in strength as the physical pathway becomes better defined. Not only that, but if the new thought is a belief that contradicts one that you currently hold, the older belief starts to atrophy and die.

This helps explain why we tend to have the same thoughts repeatedly and why people often have difficulty snapping negative loops of thinking. The pathway is established. It's just easier than trying to think about something new to form a new connection in the brain.

Visualization is an incredibly successful and simple way of speeding up the process. It fools the unconscious into believing that you have already done something before you have done it.

Review

Writing down goals is brilliant. Reviewing them on a regular basis is even better. Your goals should be dynamic and never set in stone. Check in with them to inspire, invigorate and motivate yourself.

Reframe any negative thoughts and use the fact that you’re not doing as well as you’d like as feedback, because that is exactly what it is. Without feedback either negative or positive we’d never know when to make changes and what changes to make.

Try and review where you are at least once a month or even weekly. Don’t go nuts though and become obsessed with measuring every parameter in sight. You’ll have good days and you’ll have bad days, that’s just how it is and it’s the overall long-term trend that is all that matters.

Have Fun

Like life, goal setting should be fun. If it isn’t, you’re either not doing it right or your dead. Rich and Happy people know that the more fun they are having the better life gets. So make your goal setting fun. Maybe you could set family goals, blog about it or even have a goal setting evening in with friends?

I am in the process of working out my goals for the next year and if you ask nicely I may even share them with you. In fact, I may even share them with you if you don't ask at all

Happy Holidays!

I fully expected my posts to be about the experience of being a student again, and what that means to you as you pursue your Rich and Happy adventures.  As it turns out, today’s post has nothing to do with studying Spanish.

It has to do with surfing.  See, when I’m not in class, I have a lot of time on my hands.  And since the school is literally right on the beach, and since the waves are great, and since I’ve always wanted to surf, I decided to try surfing.

Wouldn’t you know it, within my experience was a great microcosmic example of many parts of the Rich and Happy formula.

For starters, this is not the first time I’ve tried to surf.  A number of years ago when I was backpacking around the world I was staying at a place in South Africa that is known for surfing.  Being an athlete, and a pretty adventurous guy, I went out and rented a board for a couple of hours.

After all, the people out there doing it made it look so easy.  After about thirty minutes of getting beaten to a pulp with the waves, I promptly returned the board and took two ibuprofen.

To say that my efforts were disastrous would be a major understatement.  I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself.

A few other surfing endeavors over the years were not as painful, either in their results, or impact on my body, but they too were far from successful.

So this time I decided to put the Rich and Happy formula into play.  The first thing I did was ask around for WHO of my classmates  had been out surfing.  Then I asked them what they did.  There was a common thread to their answers.

They had almost all been out surfing.  None of them knew how to surf before arriving in Costa Rica.  They had all taken LESSONS from one of the local surf schools.  Every single one of them could get up on the board and ride waves, and they had been able to do that during and ever since their first lesson.

Sounded good to me.  So instead of suffering from Mad How disease, as I had clearly done in my other surfing attempts, this time I imitated my Who’s, and went to one of the surf schools for a lesson.

The lesson was one hour and it cost $25 dollars.  Within the first ten minutes of instruction I learned two very important things I had been doing wrong.  That was before we even got off the sand and into the water.

Within another ten minutes, this time in the water, I had learned three more important things, including how to make sure I didn’t get killed when big waves were breaking in front of me, behind me, and on top of me if I got thrown off the board.

And then, on my very first attempt to catch a wave, stand up, and ride it, I promptly got chucked off the board and thrown into the surf.  And unlike with all the other attempts, it didn’t bother me in the least, because I now knew what to do when that happened.

On my next attempt I was up on the board, and from that point on I was consistently catching and riding the waves.  And I have to say, if you have never surfed before, it is AWESOME.

So here are the big takeaways.

#1. Rich and Happy moments are a lot easier to come by when you get the help you need instead of always trying to figure everything out on your own.

If you have a Rich and Happy dream or interest, ask someone who has done, seen, or experienced it.  No need to be the martyr who did it all on their own.  That is a slow, slow path filled with lots of pain.  Find a WHO.

#2. Don’t be cheap when it comes to your training.

I think part of the reason I never took lessons in the past is because I thought $25-$50 was sort of a waste for a lesson or two.  I kept thinking I should be able to figure it out on my own.  The truth is totally different.  What I remembered through this experience was that I wasn’t paying for an hour lesson.

I was paying to learn the way to surf, which I could then use FOREVER.  In the past I had been making the classic mistake of looking at the immediate cost of the lesson, and not the lifetime value of the information or skills I would learn because of the lesson.

Thanks to my training, I now know how to surf, and how to not get killed while I’m surfing.   I probably logged ten more hours of surfing just the week I took my lesson.  Extrapolate that over my life, and that was a seriously cheap lesson for learning the way to do something that will log me lots of Rich and Happy minutes.

#3. Sometimes knowing what to do in the face of adversity is every bit as important as knowing what to do to enjoy an experience.

Our fears can be very effective barriers to keeping us from being Rich and Happy.  However, once you understand that fear, and the way to avoid what you are fearful of, the barrier goes away.

In surfing there is a fantastically intoxicating, and mildly terrorizing moment when you are facing forward, paddling to catch the wave coming behind you, and you feel the wave start to pick you up and throw you forward.

If you keep paddling, you catch just the right momentum and you can jump up on the board and away you go.  A great ride.

If the fear gets you though, inevitably, you stop one or two paddles short, and the wave slides right underneath you.  You missed it, and now you’re out of position to get all the other waves in the series.

Your fear not only costs you a great ride, you end up having to work hard to get out past the break again.

For me, the fear of not knowing what to do if I got thrown off the board was always a huge barrier to having the confidence to allow the wave to start driving me forward.  After my lesson though, the fear went away.  I had learned what to do if things went wrong, and it was EASY and IT WORKED.

I know, because in addition to catching a lot of waves, there were more than a few that gave me a big heave into the ocean.

So there you have it.  After almost twenty years of research into the Rich and Happy formula I finally was smart enough to apply parts of it to learning to surf.  And because it worked, I can now log lots of Rich and Happy minutes on surfboards all over the planet as I travel around.

As they say here in Costa Rica.  Pura Vida.

John