by Steve Wolf | Mar 9, 2014 | Business
So if you are in Sales, you are going to get an absolute kick out of this blog…..
and if you’re struggling in sales, reading and applying what I speak of below will change the game for you 🙂
If you have ever heard me speak at a seminar or were mentored by me one-on-one, you will always hear me speak of the M&M analogy when it comes to recruiting or sales. It is a very simple and straight forward way to get emotionally unattached from the sales experience with the customer or client and remember that you are there to do a job, sell stuff.
At the end of the day for most sales people, (especially those who work off of straight commission) if they don’t sell, they don’t eat. We have no time to waste in getting upset about the deal that didn’t close or the ones that got away because we cannot feast off of last weeks bread.
So here is the single most relevant story/experience that ever helped me as a sales person:
It’s a numbers game. If I know 1 out of 5 will buy, then the only way to truly track and measure that is to do the same great high energy pitch exactly the same all 5 times knowing that if the first 4 said no, then number 5 is probably going to go for it, if not #5, then statistically your chances of getting a sale go up every single person after that exponentially as you hit the ratio break.
Making sense? If not I explain in a different way.
I use this analogy about finding the green M&M’s. The Green M&M represents the person who will buy from you, it’s your job to find it! Confused yet? Ok let me explain.
One summer day I was sitting around in between meeting prospects that I was attempting to recruit in to the company I was working for. After being shot down earlier that day by a potential prospect, I was eating a bag of M&M’s waiting for my next appointment. As I poured a couple more out I started to wonder how many I would have to go through before I got a green one out of the bag. I poured a couple more out. It took 6 M&M’s before a green one came. 2 Brown, 2 Red, 1 Yellow, 1 blue and then the green. I thought to myself, “wow, that’s about how many people I have to go through until I find someone who will sign up in my business.” Over time, I would continue to do this with a bag of M&M’s and the ratio continuously stayed the same, about 1 to 5 if looking specifically for a green M&M. Then a light bulb went off in my head, the M&M colors represent the personalities of the person, and the “Green” is the only one who is going to sign up or buy from me. So I developed a methodology around this called “Finding the green M&M.”
Here is the Methodology Explained….
Take a bag of M&M’s, you have Brown, Red, Green, yellow, and blue. Think of them as personality traits. I’ll list them as if they were customer types.
Brown – The “you’re trying to F$%^ me type.” No matter what you do, what logic you try to use with this customer, they don’t believe you. Why? Because they don’t believe anyone or trust anyone, as a result they have probably missed lots of opportunities in life including the one you are about to pitch them, bottom line, no sale! They will beat you up and make you feel like shit, it’s not worth your time, and even on the rarest of occasions where they do buy, the abuse usually isn’t even worth the commission that you will earn on the sale. Don’t take that abuse, be polite, and professional, but never take abuse for no reason, and fire back if necessary! You may not get the deal, but you will walk way with your dignity which is funny because when they realize that you’re not a door mat, they may change their attitude and actually buy something from you 🙂
Red – “The Big Timer.” This person has perfected the art of what I call “big timing.” This larger than life person comes off more like a cartoon character then a human being. They are always trying to tell you what a big deal they are and how lucky you would be to have them as a client or customer. As if they are God’s gift to the earth and everything they touch turns to gold. Truth is, maybe they got lucky once or twice , but they are 95% full of shit, and 5% actually telling the truth. Bottom line is when you start asking the “hard” questions or try to run their credit to get them financing they recede back in to their shell and go on the defensive retracting some earlier statements and trying to explain their situation, and they always have a situation 😉
Yellow – “Mr. Indecisive” This person cannot make a decision if their life depended on it. If you were tied up on the train tracks and the person with the yellow personality was the only person around to save you, it’s highly like you will be run over and killed by a train while you sat there and watched the person pace back and forth weighing the options of saving your life. Will I get hit by the train? What if I try to save him and the people who tied him up come after me? Maybe he/she deserves to get run over by the train? etc. Bottom line is this person is so easily influenced by everyone that it makes it extremely difficult for this person to make a decision about anything, and on the occasion that they do actually make a decision, they are still never sure and will require 10 times more than the time it took to close them to have you re-convince them that they made the right decision after the fact. = Brain damage for you.
Blue – “Mr. Too Cool for School” This person is a control freak. They need to feel like they are in complete control of the situation all of the time. They are not teachable, they are not coachable. They get a crazy idea of the how the experience, product, or service that you are selling should work in their head and then run with it no matter how far from reality it actually is. Trying to use logic to reason with this personality is about as effective as pushing a wet noodle through a tiny hole. If they do buy or sign up with you, they will usually come back pissed off when it doesn’t work out the way they had planned it to in their imaginary world and worst of all, they start talking all kinds of shit about you and your company after the fact to justify their place in the world. You see, if they actually had to take responsibility for their actions, they would have to admit that they were wrong, and that they were unwilling to follow directions or the procedures set in place and failed as a result those actions.
Green – “The perfect sale or client” This person gets it. They are logical, have the ability to reason and negotiate, and most of all they understand that a sale isn’t a situation where someone is getting taken advantage of or “winning’ over the other person, they approach a sales rep knowing that having a good relationship with him or her can add serious value to the product or service they are about to purchase. Bottom line, they just get it, and you will know when you meet people like this when a person doesn’t end up buying from you but you walk away from the situation not pissed off and actually feeling good about the dialogue you had… Seems like that wouldn’t make sense but it actually does because even though you will usually get the sale on a Green M&M personality, on the rare occasion that you don’t you will still walk away from the situation not resenting that person for wasting your time. The only reason they didn’t buy or sign up with you was due to a timing or technicality issue, but keep in touch with that person because they will eventually buy in the future or in the very least refer you business.
Conclusion:
Getting upset or thinking that you suck at sales is about as crazy as opening up a bag of M&M’s and when the first one or two come out not being green ones, you say “F%^$ this stupid sales S%^*, I suck at this and I will never sell anything” then you quit and walk away with your tail tucked in between you legs. Sounds crazy right? Well it’s not because that is exactly how I have seen thousands of people get flushed out of a sales position in 2.3 seconds and quit before they ever even get a start.
Remember:
In the beginning you suck the most. If sales was easy, everyone would be doing it. If you do get lucky the first time, do get a big head because no one is immune to the numbers game or closing ratios. Sales is a craft and skill that you can work on and hone over time. The more time you spend perfecting that skill, the better your closing ratio will become. So keep your head up and always be closing!!!
Now go kick some ass 🙂 Hope this helps, now please enjoy the greatest selling scene off all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0
by Steve Wolf | Feb 8, 2014 | Business, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
So, as most of my readers know, my blogs have a lot to do with business, working hard, making a life for yourself an most importantly living. All to many times, we get caught up in our day-to-day grind and lose perspective. If you lose perspective for too long, the mind starts to slip and unless you do something about it, you might end up like Jack smashing through doors with an axe trying to kill your wife and child.
Although that may be an extreme example, a life of monotonous mediocrity is really no life at all, or at least to me it’s not. Think of all the movies you have seen with this type of protagonist plot-line, Fight Club, The Shinning, Life of Walter Mitty to name a few, These stories are so commonly told because they relate to so many people.
You see, you don’t need to take a trip around the world, or start a fight club to break out of your daily grind, however, if that is what you want to do, then go for it and I will come with 🙂 Most people simply miss the little things. I know, because I do it too, it’s easy to get caught up in your daily grind, but today I intend to explain how to escape it.
Today, I am up in San Francisco, with a very busy week of clients to see, things to do, and deals to sell. The days can fly by real quick. The funny thing is that my performance across the board is in direct correlation with how I am feeling. If I am in a place of scarcity, I am may very well come off desperate blowing a sale or a potential investor. People have an innate sense for that kind of thing. If you walk in to place to sell anything gleaming with anything else but confidence and a bright smile, the person will know something is up with you automatically, and it will severely hinder your chance of success.
A sale by definition is “a transfer of energy,” and that is my favorite definition because at the end of the day, it’s a performance, and if you blow it, the customer is not going to buy your product or invest in your company. Why? Simple, because no one want to buy or invest in to a person who suck, is sad, desperate or incompetent. What ever your product is doesn’t really matter, nor the company you represent, it is you who they are buying, and if they don’t like you, they probably will not buy or invest.
Here is a great example of what not to do…. Love this movie
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1EyN9xTK94
So, if getting to correct state of mind is imperative, what you do before and after your performances (aka sale / investment pitch). Coming prepared and making sure that you are in a peak state will change the game. Whether or not you get the investor to invest, the buyer to buy should have no effect on you.
So how does one get there? Well in order to come to the table calm, collected and prepared, you have to take care of your mind, body and soul. For example, if you spend all of your time hustling and making money, you probably don’t worry about what kind of food you are putting in your body. I know this all to well especially when traveling, some days I get going, get caught up in appointments and realize I haven’t eaten anything all day and it’s already 3PM. Not good.
Then what about my body, sometimes after being out all day long driving around the city and using all of my brain power to convince customers and investors to buy me, the last thing I want to go do is shed my suit and tie, and take my ass to the gym. You see where I am going with this?
The hardest thing I have found to do especially when traveling for work is keeping a routine, and of course it is, you are away from your comfort zone and everything you know. It’s ok though, because if you can find out how to manage this routine even while your on the road, then it will become even more reinforced when your back on your home turf. The point is that you can’t afford to get caught up in the hustle, you have to take time for yourself and make sure you are taking care of your body, exercising, eating right and taking small breaks to appreciate where you are.
Look how beautiful Pacifica is
It can be as simple as taking an afternoon to yourself and enjoying the beauty of the place you’re in. I did it just the other day. Again I’m in San Francisco on business, so there is plenty to see but the city doesn’t calm me, it’s fun to hang out in and catch up with friends, but it doesn’t put me at ease. So what I did was took the afternoon off in Pacifica (That’s a little city in south San Francisco on the beach) and spent some time just watching the waves and taking in the beauty that was surrounding me. I was a little worried because I was really trying to get another deal closed for the week, but knew that if I didn’t give myself some down time, it would hinder my performance.
I also found a Krav Maga Gym in San Francisco, for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a style of hand-to-hand combat / Mixed Martial arts that I have been practicing for almost 2 years. Click here link for an explanation. It beats going to the gym and I go about 4 times a week back at home so to be able to keep that in my routine while traveling up here has been a bonus, usually I’m stuck going to good ol’ 24 hour fitness or if I am lucky finding a boxing or jiu-jitsu gym that will allow me to drop in for a couple of days knowing very well that I am not going to buy a membership or even return there in the near future. Either way, taking care of my fitness is also crucially important to my sate of mind, so adding that in with my day in Pacifica was healing to my soul.
Then, just like that I closed a deal later that day. Went back to the hotel, got a good nights sleep, woke up at 5 AM to trade on the FOREX market and then closed another deal that day!!! AWESOME, absolutely crushed it this last week, and it’s not just because I am a good sales guy but I attribute much of that success with being able to keep the routine and take care of my mind and body which always comes before making money!.
So here are a couple of tips for what to do to stay in a positive peak state while traveling
1. Get situated – When you arrive, go to google, plan your week, figure out where everything is, the gym, appointments, dry cleaners, post office, basically all of the places that you will need to go through out the week.
2. Pick out some fun things that you want to do in between appointments while you are there. This includes catching up with friends who live where you are traveling and things you are interested in that you can only see or do in that place you are traveling, something you couldn’t do back home. For example, I am going to see Alcatraz on Sunday! I have been to S.F. many times, but have never gone, so I’m doing it!
3. Get to bed early! I am up at 5 AM everyday trading on the FOREX market, I’m not saying you need to get up at 5 am, but I will tell you that I have a huge competitive advantage over any competition simply based on the fact that I have been up using my brain, showered, ready to go with all my shit together for literally hours before I see my first client. It’s a very empowering feeling.
4. Take pictures and Check-in on Facebook – Duh, you want to remember the experience, bottom line is even if you had a bad sales week, at least you got to travel to a new place on the companies dime and saw/experienced some cool stuff so have fun with it!
5. Work-out! You always feel better after you do, not only will your body love you for this but it is a great way to network to meet new people and get out of the hotel room.
6. Eat right, and if possible, never eat alone. A meal is a great opportunity to have someones attention for 30-45 minutes. Also when dealing with clients, they can tell a lot about you by what or where you eat, and vice-versa for them. Never eat alone if you can help it, it a waisted networking opportunity or simply a reason to meet someone new.
7. Check in Back home – Whether your married, have a significant other, or are a single person, checking in with familiar people back home will always raise moral! I do this often for a couple of reasons but mainly to reconnect because hotel rooms can get a little lonely sometimes and it’s important to remember that you are there on a mission and will return home soon, a friends and supporters back home remind us of this.
8. Have Fun. If you leave on a trip and go to a new place and don’t have fun, the only one to blame is yourself. I can find something interesting, exciting or beautiful about any place I have ever been, and I have been to some shitty places. The beauty is in the ey of the beholder. Boring people get bored. You can look at it as a shitty work trip in Wichita or an exciting adventure to a place unknown on a mission to find something cool about. That is up to you, but even I can’t fix a person who doesn’t want to be fixed, and I sure as hell can’t make a person who is hell-bent having a horrible time have fun.
I hope this brightened up your day! Ok now Im off to go explore the city, enough blog writing for today!!!
-Steve
by Steve Wolf | Feb 2, 2014 | Business, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
So as I am watching Super 48 come to a close I can’t help but think what a guy like Payton Manning does from the time after tonight to the pre-season months from now. Most athletes are kind of like Entrepreneurs: they never work in offices, they travel a lot, they are paid for performance not time spent on the job and sometimes things don’t always go down the way you have planned.
I think for a guy like Payton, even though he missed this attempt at another super bowl championship and there will be hours of 
ridiculous commentary on what he could have done differently for weeks on end, this isn’t his first rodeo. In fact, I think that it is any professional football players dream to play and win in the Superbowl just like every entrepreneur myself included wants to build a fortune 500 company take it public and get the BIG money.
Unfortunately that isn’t the reality for most, in fact most players don’t make it to a Super Bowl in their career, and if they do, it doesn’t mean they won. Further more, think how hard it is to actually get in to the NFL, and after that factor in your chances of doing all that more than once. Bottom line, is that Payton has a lot to be happy about even though he didn’t get this one, and much like Entrepreneurs you may only have one big hit in your business life. Most of the entrepreneurs you have heard about in your life time all sound like they just had an idea and hit a home run with it, but that’s about as ridiculous as saying Payton Manning woke up one day we he was 25, decided to play pro football and won multiple super bowls.
To win and succeed, it takes work, time, and practice but one thing it also takes is LOSING. I know what your thinking, how can you win if your losing, well you can’t, but you can’t actually win all the time either. If you did, people would just think you’re cheating. The resilience it takes to get your ass kicked and get back up to do it again is only known by few, athletes and hardcore entrepreneurs fit comfortably in that category.
For me personally, I haven’t had my home run yet, but I’m early on in my career, and to my credit, I have only had one major failure due to the market crash in 2008. One thing I have always devoutly believed in is averages. Remember, and incredible baseball player has an ERA of 300 or better. (a 500 ERA us unheard of) and what this mean is that the best in the league hit 3 out of 10 times and strike or fly out the rest.
Business is very much the same way, and all so many times I see young entrepreneurs get bounced out of the atmosphere on their first attempt at business and it makes me sad because they could be the next Bill Gates, but they are just to scared to look bad, you have to get a thick skin to survive. Much like the Athletes, Entrepreneurs go for broke all the time. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. At the end of the day we go in to it knowing that we my fail every time and never get that 100 million dollar idea, and you know what, it’s no t so bad.
Think about guys like Dan Marino, Warren Moon, and Dan Fouts, these were some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, who are in the hall of fame and know what they have in common, not one has a super bowl championship, and by no means does that mean they failed in life, the stars just simply didn’t align for them to get a super bowl championship under their belts.
I really believe in going the distance. Life isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. I think most people can get lucky once or twice, but to have the type of repeat success that guys like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet have takes skill, wisdom, patience and the ability to take risks. After your 3rd million dollar company you launched, no one can claim the luck card, it’s habit.
But just like the Sammy Sosa’s, and Ken Griffy Jr’s of the MLB world, you don’t get to lead the league in the most home runs unless you get enough times at bat. So for us entrepreneurs, what we do, and most importantly what were a part of before we hit our “home-run” says a lot about what we are going to do once that train ends. Will our product become out dated, will we get bought out by a competitor, will the technology become out dated. Maybe the government will regulate something that will go against us. So how do we stay on top, stay innovative or on top of our game?
Well a mentor of mine Perry P would tell me the story of the big oak tree and the skinny palm tree. The oak tree would make fun of the skinny palm tree that even a little gust of wind would blow around until one day a monsoon came knocking the oak over and killing it completely. The moral of the story was that in order to survive, you need to learn how to bend and fold in all of life’s situations. Furthermore we need to be prepared for what ever life is going to throw at us.
So this is what I have always done. In my last book I wrote, “The Young Entrepreneurs Guide to Life” I write about 100 entrepreneurs who dropped out or never went to college. Some of the people on that list include folks like, Steve Jobs, David Geffin, Sir Richard Branson, Walt Disney to name a few, and I have read these guys biographies, in fact I recommend doing that to any aspiring entrepreneur if in the very least to protect them from throwing in the towel when their first deal doesn’t work out.
This picture resonated with me when I first saw it because I identified with it. When I got my ass handed to me a couple of times in business it was refreshing to meet very successful people who told me they to had bitten the dust a couple of time before they knocked it out of the park. They encouraged me to always continue on. At the end of the day, if my life is spent pursuing my dreams and trying to make the world a better place never wavering against what I believe my purpose is here on this planet than I successfully lived. Whether or not I have a bunch of money in the bank or cars and shit doesn’t matter to me, how I get there though means the world.
I’m a smart guy and I can sell. I could get a sales job that pays well, work my ass off all week and take home 120K per year. I could get a corporate job as well, do a 9-5 Mon-Fri Gig with benefits and 401K, and during some of my failures in my own entrepreneurial endeavors those jobs starting looking amazing, but when I played the tape out, I could just never bring myself to sitting in a 10X10 ft space 40 hours a week selling some shit I could care less about only having the weekends and small trips away from reality to look forward to. I would always take the path less traveled.
If your Dan Marino, or Steve Jobs, my decision makes perfect sense to you, if your everyone else, you just think we are crazy, and that’s ok, because if everyone thought like we did there would be no one to run our companies or play tight-end as well as all of the other positions that are crucial in winning games or in life for that matter.
The bottom line is to stay in the game as long as possible. The longer you stay in the game, the better the chance to have to win. So if your reading this and thinking of starting your own deal for the first time, good for you. Go out there and fail a couple of time, get it over with, get your ass kicked and back up again, it’s all a part of the process. If your down and out, don’t worry, you’ll get it as long as you stay in the game, just don’t give up, consult those mentors and elders, go in to accumulation mode, learn some new things, bend and fold and most importantly get back in to a positive mental state.
If your on the other end of this and you just won your “super-bowl,” congratulations, you worked hard and deserve it. So celebrate and soak up every awesome moment, but when it’s over, you had better get back to work because there is going to be 1000 more coming to take it from you next year!
Have a great week everyone!!!!
Now For a little Fun…. Enjoy
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn5zytfm9No
by Steve Wolf | Jan 3, 2014 | Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
Well, it’s official, the world is another year older. As we start another new year, resolutions are being made, good habits are attempting to be formed while we try to break the bad ones.
With every New Year, new hope is brought to lots of people. Something I never quite understood because to me it’s just another day. Maybe some people just need to see that year marker change from 2013-2014 to tell themselves that it’s different now. Perhaps we tell ourselves that: just because it’s a different year, that somehow things will be different now. Well, if you really believe this, I’m sorry to say it, but things are not different.
The only thing that is different is we write 2014 when we write the date. I would also make the 
assumption, that if you believe that a new year brings magical hope and success through osmosis, then your last couple of years have probably looked something like this…. Don’t worry, you’re not a bad person, according to the New York times, only 8% of people actually stick with the new years resolutions that they set out to do. And the other 92% lose their steam within 7 DAYS! Yes, seven days and those new years resolutions and thoughts of bigger things in life, more time, more money, dream vacations, getting fit and healthy are out the window. If you don’t believe it, go to a Gym today on (The 3rd of January) count the amount of people who are in there and then go back a week later and watch the number DROP matching that statistic.
So why do we do this. Why do we set these unattainable goals. Do we do it because that what everyone else is doing? Do we do it because it’s the trendy thing to do? I mean, I know that there is some truth to it all, meaning that the things that all of us would like to change about ourselves. I have never met a person that honestly could tell me there wasn’t one are of their life that they wanted to improve (myself included). So again, I ask, why do we set ourselves up just to let ourselves down?
I am going to answer these questions in the rest of this blog. I’m going to share with you some of the deepest wisdom that I have acquired in answering these questions and what I can tell you is that if you listen to them and learn how to apply them, you will never need to make a new years resolution ever again for as long as you live.
So, just to get a couple of points clear, I’m not saying the resolutions are bullshit or that setting positive intentions are without merit or a waste of time. I am simply laying out why they don’t work without action. So lets demystify a couple of things. New Years is just a day signifying an approximation of the Earth’s orbital period in a given calendar. A calendar year in the Gregorian calendar (as well as in the Julian calendar) has either 365 (common years) or 366 (leap years) days. The word “year” is also used of periods loosely associated but not strictly identical with either the astronomical or the calendar year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year or the academic year, etc. Basically, the earths cycle, so we set our clocks and calendars to it. It gives us structure, but I take more like a suggestion, except when it comes to taxes, definitely not a suggestion.
Nothing really changes. Remember Y2K. Exactly, everyone thought the millennium was going to be some kind
of Apocalyptic event, that the computers would stop working and people would go crazy but it didn’t. We woke up the next day and it was the year 2000 and went on business as usual. Then the Mayan Calendar ended in 2012 and there was talk of the end of the world and “the rapture.” Yet, nothing happened, time just went on. Are you getting the point. We put so much significance on things that don’t matter or really affect us personally at all. Time only works because we all agree on following it.
So then, why don’t people follow through on their resolutions or goals they set? That’s the million dollar question, and when I have been asked to answer this before usually people never like my answer. Here it is, People don’t follow through on the goals they set because they didn’t want them that bad. You probably wanted to hear me say some Freudian answer that place the blame on a persons up-bringing or the fact that their parents didn’t encourage them enough. Maybe it would make you feel better if I told you that the economy, or the negativity in the media is the problem for people’s lack of accomplishments. The bottom line is that people let their dreams go to shit because they realized the work and sacrifice that would have to ensue to achieve them, got scared, and walked away. It’s the idea that it’s safer to keep that status-quo, then to push forward in to new frontiers. Fear of the unknown is a powerful force for those who have never ventured in to the unknown, but for people like me it’s the complete opposite.
The Unknown is the only place that makes me feel alive. If I traded in my life’s of ambitions, start-up companies, self-employment, jumping out of Air Planes, surfing big waves, traveling to desolate places in the world and my entrepreneurial endeavors for a desk job in a corporation with a safe salary and benefits, a super safe car like a Prius, and spent my vacations at a Club Med tourist factory, a little piece of my soul would die everyday until I was depressed to the point of suicide, or I realized that the safety I thought I had in this “Job” or “Life” for that matter is really a prison holding me captive from recognizing my true human potential.
I realized a long time ago, that my soul was never worth the sacrifice. At the end of the day, it does not matter really all that much how I feel, but how my soul is doing. If you think making a bunch of money will fix this, your wrong. Greed kills the soul. In fact, to much of anything will throw you soul out of balance. I believe that most of us, especially those of us who have grown up in America, give very little weight to how important our soul really is. Unless you have been to a place or experienced a culture that values love, family, and health above wealth, you won’t really know what I’m taking about internally, you may be able to intellectually understand, but you won’t be able to feel it unless you have experienced it. 
I had this profound experience during my travels through South East Asia. It’s actually kind of funny you know, I was watching the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio last night. It’s an old movie from 1998ish about a traveler who goes to Thailand trying to find himself and ends up on a secret island near Ko Phi Phi where he meets another bohemian group of travelers who had just left their lives and stayed living together in their own community off the grid. I loved the idea, but when I saw that movie, it seemed like a novel idea, a nice fantasy story and wrote it off. But then, all of a sudden, I was there in 2012 looking out at the same beach the Leo was looking at and it clicked, it all made sense to me. I could finally understand why someone would just leave it all behind. You see out there, time moves slow, life is simple and all of the things that are important to us like cars, big houses, and name brand clothes just don’t matter out there. Almost as if your money is cool and all, and they are happy you brought but they will only take what they need and leave the rest. Up until that point in my life had never been in a place like that.
Beach from the movie “The Beach.” I was there man!
I was amazed. By the time I got back to Bali for the second time, I almost didn’t come home. I fell in love with that place. So much to the point where when I saw the movie last night, and I was physically saddened because I was not back there on that beach. I have never missed a place that much, shit, I have never even missed home that much, what ever “home” means. Either way, as I was laying in bed at hotel where I am staying in Phoenix, and I realized the same thing I realized when I got back home from S.E. Asia the first two times. Not much of a realization, more of a rhetorical question asking myself “why did I leave?” Truth is, a part of me never did leave. It stole my heart and seduced me with all of it’s beauty and slow-paced way of life. Long summer days, incredible surf, and plenty of fresh raw coconuts to drink under a palm tree while you watch the Sun sink in to the ocean on a warm beach.
This was a place where my soul was healed. It snapped me out of my everyday life and gave me perspective. It wasn’t the destination specifically, but where my soul went to when I got there. I can’t remember being any happier in my life then I was during the time I spent out there. I think about it everyday, and all I could hope for is that everyone finds a place like that because even though it’s half way around the world, and a piece of my heart is there, and I brought a little piece of it back with me that lives on in me.
When I get sad, upset, hurt or depressed, I think of my ambitions, my family, my why. I start looking for all of the things to be grateful for like my family, my close friends, food, shelter, wisdom, my mentors, and above anything else, God who had allowed for all of this to be possible.
In the end, all we have is our memories and experiences. A goal, is a potential experience which will never become a memory good or bad if you don’t attempt it. The funny thing is that you can any time you want. You don’t have to wait for the new year. For me, I have made it a ritual that I start reviewing the progress of my current year and planning my goals for the next year at the beginning of November so that by December 1st I am ready to execute the plan. This puts me ahead of everyone else because while everyone else seems to be recovering from a new years hangover and trashing your body during the week of Christmas to new years, I’m completing my 30th day of my transformation which by the way happens to be tomorrow.
Here is what my december looked like.
– 1. 10 Days Cleanse – Lost 9bls under 10% body fate
– 2. Picked up a new sales job, ran the weeks of X-mas and New Years and raked in an extra 3.5K
– 3. Signed up and paid for a Forex trading school that starts next week.
– 4. Prayed every day, meditated every other day
– 5. Completed my 13th year of sobriety.
– 6. Cut ties with people in my life who don’t serve me.
– 7. Reviewed goals from 2013, saw where I did great, and where I need work and then set goals and started them for 2014.
-8. My partner and I raised money, and signed a contract with our developer to build the prototype for the website and apps for our start-up with a time-line to have a fully functional Beta version by May 2014
-9. Straightened the relationships with the people around me, family, friends and girlfriends.
-10. Got serious clarity on what I am to get accomplished the next year.
Not bad for a historically slow business month with lots of over eating, wastefulness and outright disregard to your body 🙂
My advice for you is to go out from here, get clear on what you really want. If you send the universe a mixed message, then that is exactly going to be what you will get in return. Be specific, I can guarantee you that the 8% of people that will stick to their new years resolutions were extremely clear on their intentions. In fact I know they were because I am one of them and I have very close friends and mentors who live by this stuff.
So I wish you and incredibly successful, happy, joyous and free new 2014 and life in general. I hope that you get all of things in life that you want, and I hope you want them as bad as I want them from you 🙂
Lots of love!
Steve
P.S. If you ever forget where you come from, here is a little clip from one of my favorite movies of all time that reminds me where I come from and helps me remember whats really important in life.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-wkv8gW6k
by Steve Wolf | Dec 30, 2013 | Business, Giving Back, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
The Self-Help Buddah
80% Mental, 40% Physical equals 120% Confusing right? Yes if you are used to giving only 100%, but it makes perfect sense if you play at 120%
I’m in the final week of my 30 day transformation and my brain is firing on all cylinders. I’m so pumped for 2014, and I have a lot running through my mind so I want to get it all out on this blog before I forget. I’ll post one more blog from the 30-Day transformation series at the end of the week re-capping the entire experience. In the mean time, enjoy this one!
Is this just mental masturbation or am I actually going somewhere with this? Well, let me explain. As I was driving out to Lancaster CA,( known for its gangs and the home-based Meth Lab Industry) I was listening to the audio version of “The Secret.” Weather or not you’re a fan of this type of spiritual quantum physics or even know of the book there is definitely something too it. Here is a brief synopsis
The Secret highlights gratitude and visualization as the two most powerful processes to help manifest one’s desires. It asserts that being grateful both lifts your frequency higher and affirms that you believe you will receive your desire. Visualization is said to help focus the mind to send out the clearest message to the universe. Several techniques are given for the visualization process, as well as examples of people claimed to have used it successfully to manifest their dreams..
Finally it introduces a 3-Step process on how to receive anything that you want in life, 1. Ask 2. Believe 3. Receive. Now before I go in to this I want everyone reading this to know that I started out not believing in personal development / self-help in general. I thought it was cult-like pseudo science and only really impressionable people got caught up in it.
The world of personal development was first introduced to me at 23 years old in my first network marketing company. At first, I thought it was all a bunch of bullS*&%. When I was first exposed to it, this scene best describes how corny it felt to me.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJqr6LBFelI
Then over time, I started to pick up a couple more books, audios and even attended my first Personal development seminar, it was a Millionaire mind intensive based off of the teachings in T-Harv Ecker’s book, “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.” The event was a sell-fest, and half way through it, I realized that this wasn’t the first P.D. seminar I had ever been to. Turns out that these concepts were first introduced to me at the ripe young age of 12 when my mom sent me to a Landmark Seminar for children. I though it was cult-like, and can’t remember all that much from the actual seminar but all the people seemed to be happy and really motivated. Maybe they programmed something deep in to my sub-conscious and are planning to activate me later like some kind of Manchurian candidate situation, but I doubt it because when you start to understand how personal development “gurus” use phycology, you can dive deep in to what makes them so successful at what they do, but before I get into that, lets back up a second to where it all began for me.
My first real exposure to any kind of personal development concepts was actually in Alcoholics Anonymous. I got sober when I was 16 years old and haven’t had a drink since. I am still an active member in AA and work with new members constantly. I didn’t realize how much personal development is embedded in the 12-steps until I was re-introduced to the P.D. world later in life at 23 years old. Now keep in mind, I had been sober going to AA for more than 7 years before I was re-introduced to the personal development world. When I saw the concepts that were being taught in the world of P.D. for the second time in my life, I was much more open to it because I was a product of what success can be had from a 12-step group oriented self-help organization which in many ways has similar results of any good P.D. system.
You see, there are a lot of critics out there. In fact you can find a whole world of people who will call anything that comes from the personal development world pseudo-science and throw out any value it creates because there is no scientific merit behind it and the curriculum is not being taught by people with a Ph.D behind their name. Instead, most of the big names from the P.D. world like Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Zig Zigglar, and Jim Rhone to name a few don’t even have a college degree let alone a high school diploma. Instead they speak and teach from personal experience and everything they have developed comes from interaction and experiences with real people. Much like AA, there are no doctors, no professors, or Ph.d’s, just a couple of normal everyday people who have had some pretty incredible experiences in life and then decided to share those experiences as a way to help others breakthrough problems and barriers that are in their life so they can go on to actually living again.
To me, none of the semantics matter. It either works or it doesn’t, and that is the only measuring stick that I need. AA was the last place that I ever thought I would end up at 16 years old. In fact my only knowledge of it was what I had heard here and there combined with the satirical portrayal seen in movies and on T.V. I though AA was for homeless people who lived in dumpsters and drank Mad Dog 20/20 out of a paper bag. When I got there, it was quite different from anything I could have anticipated. I was shocked to find out that the only requirement for membership was a desire to stop drinking, no dues or fees, and to my surprise were not affiliated in any way, shape or form with a religion, political, governmental, scientific or even non-profit organization. It was started by two guys, “Bill and Bob” who stumbled on to the idea of creating a support group to help other alcoholics through an experience they had together. What they found was a way to help themselves and others stop drinking and using drugs where science and religion had failed to do so. Moreover, they orchestrated a method or system of how to have a better life or in many cases, get any kind of life at all back.
Strangely enough, to this day, all the doctors, scientists and governments in the world have not been able to “Cure” alcoholism or addiction. Since AA was founded in 1935, millions of people have not only been able to quit drinking, but their lives changed dramatically for the better. I wrote a paper about AA back in college arguing that Alcoholics Anonymous is the most significant social movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, but because it’s anonymous no census or accounting has ever been done, and will never be done because it violates the traditions. There is an estimated 2 million+ members with over 160,000 meetings all over the world. The most significant part of all of this is that until 1935, the only option all of those people would have had was to spin dry in a sanitarium, go to jail, or just die. It starts to become exponentially significant when you begin to think of all the people, families, kids, employers etc. that have been positively effected by all of those generations of people who stopped being a down and out drug addict alcoholic and turned in to a positive productive member of society. Now multiply that number 6 times, and you will have you get 6.4e+37 aka a lot of f^%#$%^ people. That ripple effect equates to roughly the earths total population a couple of times over.
So what does all of this have to do with personal development. Simple, not everyone is meant to go to AA. You may not have a life ending alcohol or drug problem. You might just be a normal person looking to find deeper meaning to your own life. For me, I found that I needed AA but desired to have what the self-help personal development world taught as well. AA to help me recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body and then the philosophies from the personal development world to help me take that life I got back thanks to AA and turn it in to something incredible.
Most people think that sharing feelings and showing emotion makes you weak. Kind of like if you see a psychologist you don’t shout it from the roof tops, you keep it private. The P.D. world has a much different formula, usually group settings and as one on one time with a guru, well that can get expensive. I have seen a type of human interaction being done in large group seminars which is completely contrary to anything most psychologists would think is a good idea, but something happens there. You feel elated and empowered by the group and a feeling of community and togetherness knowing that you are not the only person in the world who experiences pain, suffering, loss and hardships. This feeling is usually experienced at a church of some kind which is why a lot of the religious world frowns upon personal development because they are stealing the churches age-old techniques and giving people something a little more tangible the a bible and a confession box. Not to say church or God are bad in any way, I’m very spiritual myself just not religious. You should see some of the people who have bridged that gap and have turned a religiously motivated personal development method in to a CASH COW like Joel Olsteen with an estimated net worth of $40-Million. I’d say having Jesus on your side doesn’t hurt 🙂
My belief is that if it works for you do it. There is no set way or one simple cookie-cutter method that is going to work for everyone. Personally it has taken me more than 10 years to find my spirituality, and I was actually searching for it the whole time. My journey will never be the same for any other person, similar perhaps, but never exactly the same. What worked for me, may not necessarily for you but what I can tell you is that I have learned some capital “T” truths through my years in the personal development world. I’ll take this time to share a couple of the profound nuggets of wisdom with you know.
– Faith without work = Jack Shit
– You can manifest positive things, but if another person is manifesting the same thing and willing to work 40 more hours a week for it, he or she is probably going to get it before you.
– Spending money on Personal development is great and I believe in it 100% do it, it’s worth every penny.
– If you start something, finish it! If you don’t plan to finish it, don’t even start it, just go back to sleep.
– Never stop learning!
– Always keep your belief system negotiable, be stubborn, stick to your morals, but if presented with a better way, be quick to adapt it and then slow to change it.
– Mentor’s aren’t just a good suggestion, they are imperative to your success in life in any and all situations.
– You are the company you keep, meaning the 5-closest people to you define exactly what your habits, morals, and what your net worth probably equates to, if you don’t believe me, write those names down and do the math.
– A mentor is not a friend, he or she is the person to kick you in the ass and give you life saving advice. So don’t get mad, upset or hurt when they tell you something you don’t want to hear, that’s the point.
– You don’t know what you don’t know, because if you knew you would have, and to know and not have is not knowing at all. 🙂 (Thanks Casey, I think I got that one right)
– People/Friends are assets or liabilities. Know what you can afford.
– If you can’t manage $10 you will never be able to manage $1,000,000
– Delayed gratification is the truest sign of maturity and wisdom.
– Keep it real, stop lying to yourself, and be great, don just think it, talk about it, or write about it, do it!
What I love about most personal development is that it is so simple, that it’s kind of hard to accept. I mean seriously, I’ve read some books that I thought were going to give the most profound pieces of paradigm shifting information, instead I got catch phrases like “keep it simple” and “mind your business.” What? Are you kidding, I paid 4 grand to go to a 4,ooo person Tony Robbins event, and he told me that “my past doesn’t define me?” Exactly, and that precisely why it works. The times where I thought “this shit is stupid, I could have come up with this!” But then the next questions I asked myself spelled out exactly why I needed it and why it was so valuable: It was because even though it was so simple, I didn’t come up with it, or simply overlooked it because I believed that nothing that profound could be so simple.
Then one day while I was getting interviewed on a nationally syndicated radio show, I was asked the questions “Steve, you do so much, your so successful at such a young age, how do you do it?” What came out of my mouth astonished me to, and I said: “lists, I make lists of things I need to do, and then I cross the items off one-by-one until they are all done.” The radio host looked puzzled, as if she was waiting to here the rest of the answer, but that was it, if I added anymore it would have just been me adding fillers to make it sound better.
In the theme of keeping it simple, here are some of my favorite clips from Will Smith being asked very similar questions and giving very simple answers. I guess I’m not the only successful dude who believes in keeping it simple and just sticking to answers that even 3rd graders can wrap their head around.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5nVqeVhgQE
In conclusion, I will to circle back to where i started. 80% mental and 40% physical. A very wise man once told me that I could push myself 100 times harder than I even thought I could, and until he told me that, I never thought it was even possible. Much like if you asked 100 people in a room in the year 1901 if humans would ever fly, 98% of them would have thought you were crazy, and maybe 2% of them would be optimistic enough to think it’s possible, but if you asked that same question in 1903 after the Wright Brothers flew for the first tim, 100% would agree that it is was the capital “T” Truth type possible!
Quantum Physics, Metaphysics, and spirituality pick up where modern science and religion ends, and to me the study of the unknown or imagining what could be possible is the only way to move humanity forward. If fellas like Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein didn’t think like that, we might still be living in the dark and have never gone to space. Crazy right? Wrong, makes perfect sense actually. The line between genius and insanity is a fine line, and it takes a real confident (and a tad bit crazy) human being to continue to have faith and believe when 98% of the people in a room don’t think what you’re doing or saying is possible and that you are some kind of charlatan.
This is what the message of personal development always meant to me. It reinforced the fact that anything is possible if I set my mind to it. It gave me tools to deal with the people who would try to pull me down and shit on my dreams. It gave me a community of like-minded people who believe that we were put on this earth to do a little more than work a 9-5 job for 40 years and retire with a gold watch. P.D. helped shape and develop my entrepreneurial mind because god knows they don’t teach that shit in college, and finally and most importantly, It restored faith and gave me hope that as long as there are people on this earth pushing to move us forward then we may just pull this whole thing called life off with out killing each other and starting wars and conflict with our fellows.
I like to think how far we would have advanced as a human race if we spent all of the time, money and effort we have spent on fighting with each other and put all that to advancing the human race across the board in Science, phycology, renewable energy and educating the masses. Maybe we can start that type of campaign in 2014 🙂 Whoever that guys is, he’s got my vote!
To find out more about the books I have written and a more in-depth look in to what I have learned through my years of personal development, check out my book “The Young Entrepreneurs Guide to Life.” I hope this blog motivated you. Happy NEW YEAR, let’s make 2014 incredible.
by Steve Wolf | Dec 21, 2013 | Business, Lifestyle, Mental, Wellness
PART 2
3 Weeks ago, I took a sales job to help keep me going while I continue to bootstrap my start-up company. Sure I still make a little money from my Multi-Level-Marketing company, but not nearly enough to live off of and definitely not enough to take any kind of Mini-Retirement Vacations. I have never been an advocate of full-time multi-level-marketing anyway, that is NOT the model! A good MLM company gives the person who has a day job the ability to add income and then after about 18-36 months produces enough income to replace what ever that person was making at their job. This idea of being a full-time networker with no experience in that space is a bad idea, you will most likely run out of money and burn through your savings before you get profitable forcing you to go back to your job with your hat in hand. Trust me, I know, I’ve made that mistake before.
All to many times I see people jump from company to company trying to “Find the right one” and that is just a bad way to go about. Do I believe in MLM? Yes, from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t believe that putting all of your eggs in to one basket in life is ever the correct path.
I think the correct path should look something like this, and keep in mind, it doesn’t matter how young or old you are, this still applies.
- 1. Preparation – Get a money plan for any and all income, if you a 1099 guy like myself here is what I use for all income……
- – Say I make $10,000 from work, investment, play what ever
- – 20% ($2,000) – Goes to interest bearing savings account for Taxes
- – of the 8K left it gets divided as follows
- – 50% (4K) for living expenses i.e. Rent, mortgage, gas, food, travel etc.
- – 20% ($1,600) Savings / Retirement / Long-Term-investments
- – 10% ($800) – Education i.e. books, audios, personal development/investing seminars etc.
- – 10% ($800) – Big ticket item saving i.e. new car, toys, vacations etc.
- – 10% ($800) – Play fund money to spend on what ever I want, when it’s gone, I’m done playing
- – If you have debt to pay off, take 20% off the top before you adjust for Education, Big ticket items and play fund. Put it towards your highest interest debts 1st eliminating any all debt
- 2. Job – Income coming in on a weekly/bi-Monthly basis (30-40 hours a week / 3-10k per month)
- 3. Find the balance – Mind, Body, Soul, Relationships, Pocketbook. If these aren’t in balance, the next steps wont matter because you will never get there.
- 4. First 2nd Stream of income w/ little to no investment – This can be an MLM or a side business like flipping cars or selling stuff on eBay. This should make you money fairly quick, and the start-up cost should be small. A couple thousand dollars that you will see a return on in a couple of months. Any proceeds from the business.
- 5. Do Something Your Passionate about that Makes Money! – This could be from a side job you started or something that you always wanted to do. With enough money coming in and savings in the back subsidized with side income you now bought yourself the freedom to quit your job and find something that you’d much rather do.
- 6. Deals – Once you have conquered all of these areas, then it’s time for you to graduate from Owner to Deal maker, meaning that by now, making money has become easy to you, it’s no longer emotional and trivial, it jut is. When you get there, and you will know when you do, then life becomes more about the challenge instead of making money to survive.
Now, if at any point, you get knocked on your ass which you will, you simply start the steps over. It is what I am doing in my life right now, what I’ve done in the past and what 
I will do in the future. Why, because none of my financial decisions are based on emotion, if they are, you’re losing at the money game. Even when I’m down, I still strive to make logical decisions when it comes to money. That kind of delayed gratification is what allows wealthy-minded people to stay rich, and poor-minded people to continue to stay poor or loose you wealth. If you are anything like me, you will find that you become much more resilient to the ass kickings life throws at you once you have been through a couple of them. For me, it’s never about how hard I fall or what I lose, it’s all about how quickly I can get back up. This time around, I didn’t lose much as I was 10 times more subsidized and protected than I was when I went through some similar circumstances at the age of 23. I predict it will take me less than 6 months to clear all debts, and be in a cash flow positive situation traveling around the world by the end of 2014.
How am I so sure? Great question. Let me ask you this, if you were 23 years old and woke up one day and found out you were all of sudden $160,000 in debt, what would you do? If you make 50k a year, you would be shitting bricks. What if I gave you the same scenario, but you made $190,000 a year before. Probably not so bad right? Ok set that aside for a second and let’s assume that you have been in debt most of your young adult like I was and like most Americas are. We’re conditioned from a young age that it is ok to live like this. This is why you get credit card applications in the mail @ 18 years old and high schools, colleges and employers never even teach the most basic of finance. “The Man” i.e. your boss, the government (IRS especially), super rich people and the owners of banks and lending institutions etc. don’t want you to figure this out. They want you broke, tired, hungry and pre-occupied with shit that doesn’t matter like video games, American Idol, and spectator sports so that you are not paying attention to the fact that they are ROBBING you blind. If you don’t believe me, enjoy this video.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
Debt, should be used as a tool, not as a way to get instant gratification to buy yourself things that you cannot afford, or even need in most cases for that matter. With the exception of college loans (Which I think is another racket anyway) you shouldn’t have any debt unless you own a business that produces income, or own a home. The fact that no one ever told you that you shouldn’t be in debt isn’t really an excuse and if it is, I’m telling you now. Don’t worry, it’s not like our country leads by example, they’re 16 trillion in debt, so don’t worry about them, because policy isn’t going to fix our problems here on the ground right now today as it pertains to you and your family or future family.
The point is that all those institutions make money off of our continued ignorance. Why does everyone hate them? Simple, because they’re smarter than us and no matter what recession we go through, the good people at Goldman Sachs or in Congress don’t seem to mind all that much our struggles doesn’t affect them. While were slaving away everyday trying to collect their scraps going to work every day to run on the mouse wheel they are taking million dollar bonuses from our bail out money and buying yachts. Do I not believe in Capitalism? Of course I do, and in order to achieve the types of results that they have been able to achieve you simply must understand their game.
Solution: Stop borrowing money. If a bank sells money, and we’re not buying it, the bank can’t make money. If we bought houses cash, we wouldn’t need a mortgage. If we cut up our credit cards, we could only spend what we had incurring no negative interest. If we took a job we didn’t like as a means to buy us some time to find something better, then we would all be doing things we liked and wouldn’t get stuck in the rat race. If we were always educating ourselves with the same materials the richest people in the world did, wouldn’t that level the playing field a bit? If we could all wrap our heads around this idea of delayed gratification, wouldn’t we become less impressionable to consumerism thus driving all prices of consumer goods down substantially because fewer people are “willing” to buy.
Ask yourself, do you really need a new car every year? Do you feel so left out because you don’t know who won the game on Sunday? Would it kill you to watch a little less TV and maybe read a book? Don’t you think you were put on this earth for more of a purpose than running on the hamster wheel, getting your food pellet, drinking water, playing a video game and getting back to running on the wheel again?
So lets start moving in the right direction, let’s stop trying to look good and actually do good. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my friends, and people I love find themselves in life and achieve great success. So much to the point that I have dedicated a large part of my own life to help people do just that. The help is there for those who seek. I sought it out when I was young and it got me to where I am today. As it turns out, all the successful people I met growing up were happy to help guide because they saw my willingness to learn and the way I sought out enlightenment. Let’s stop lying to ourselves and get honest with each other about where we a really at now, and get very clear on finding just what our real purpose is here in this life.
So if you have a Job, work your ass off at it, find something you actually love doing and then get out of there before you forget your dreams. There are no shortcuts in life that lead to the top of the mountain, you’re going to have to climb it, and the first time is always the hardest and scariest. I know because I have tried a couple of shortcuts while climbing the mountain and they always led back to the hamster wheel. The irony is that once you master that mountain and you can afford to buy a helicopter to fly to the top, it doesn’t seem all that hard to climb anymore anyway 😉
I wish you the best of luck out there, and take it because you’ll need it.
-Steve
by Steve Wolf | Dec 19, 2013 | Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
I know everyone raves about cleanses, the longest I have gone is 3 days with no food. My good friend and mentor Casey Combden has been raving about this particular one for the past months. He lost like 20LBS from it and you could tell.
Because I come from a network marketing background I have seen just about every health and wellness product from magic wands to rubber band bracelets that regulate your electro-magnetic-spectrum. Needless to say, there is a lot of bullshit out there. So I thought I put this one to the test.
Knowing that I was doing a big month-long transformation coming in to the new year, I figured why not? However, I didn’t know that I was signing up for not eating the whole time and for an active guy like me, you can’t workout and train MMA on purely supplements and green juice so when I found out exactly what was expected, I knew this one was going to be difficult.
Of course, just like every other diet thing that’s being advertised, I did before and after photos and took serious measurements as to make sure of exactly what was going to take effect with my body. I went in to this being a non-believer making only the commitment that I would stick to the plan, track my results and give fair feedback.
So, here are my before’s and my day one specs.
Day 1 (12/9/13)
- Weight: 178
- Hips: 34′
- Waist: 37′
- Forearm: 11.5′
- Bicep: 13.25′
- Thigh: 22.75′
- Calf: 15.5′
- Body Fat: 13.2%
Side
Front
Back
Side
Front
Back
Day 10 (12/19/13)
- Weight: 169 (9 Lbs Lost)
- Hips: 33.25′ (.75′ Lost)
- Waist: 34.5′ (2.5′ Lost)
- Forearm: 11.5′ (Same)
- Bicep: 13′ (.25′ Lost) 🙁 That was muscle
- Thigh: 21′ (1.75′ Lost)
- Calf: 15.5′ (Same)
- Body Fat: 10% (2.5% Reduction) I’m the most pleased with this and hit my goal for the year!!!!
My goals in doing this was simply to see how much I would benefit from it all around. I don’t really need to lose a lot of weight and I eat pretty clean as it is, so I wanted to see what a cleanse could do for a guy who is pretty fit and eats well. Next is my daily journals.
Day 1: Pigged-out yesterday eating candy and bad food because I know it’s all over today. Felt extremely hungry by thing end of the day following my 1.5 hours of MMA training at the club. Met all goals on meals and supplements. Don’t feel anything yet.
Day 2: Woke up with a massive headache 🙁 Felt dehydrated which was weird because I have been drinking water like CRAZY! Got really hungry today, and after I worked out for 1 hour in the gym doing light cardio and heavy-bag I got a migraine. This cleanse is killing me, I hope this is all part of the process.
Day 3: After consulting my Purium rep, I learned that I wasn’t supposed to be working out really at all. Probably should have put that together. If you are burning 4500 Calories in a day and taking in less than 1000, it’s not a fat burning mega session, it’s a body shock and you get sick, just like I did. So after this I ate some veggies and nuts on top of my allowed flex foods to balance me out. Felt better by the end of the day.
Day 4: Spent most of the day at home in front of the computer doing admin work for my new job project I took on, thus not much movement = no excess burning of calories and I didn’t feel hungry or sick. Good day.
Day 5: We had the 5th annual ugly sweater party at our house and I totally cheated and ate some real food that was definitely not on the plan 🙁 Today I get a C, and not an F only because I cheated at night and stuck to the plan the whole day.
Day 6: Feeling guilty about my slip I went to the gym and did a light workout, felt very weak and tired. The amount of Aminos I am taking should prevent any loss of muscle, but I’ll be the judge of that on day 11/12 when I eat a full meal, get a good nights sleep and go spar at the MMA gym. That’s the quickest way to find out how much stronger, or how much endurance was gained in any diet/exercise program to me.
Day 7: I really miss food. I’m used to not really eating by now. All food is to me is fuel. I’m not working out for the rest of the cleanse and am going to stick as close to the suggested regiment as possible to maximize the end result. I felt a little bit of my energy come back and I am literally pooping green! Yuck, but in this case, green means healthy.
Day 8: Felt good today, no hunger, no real loss of energy, I think my body has finally adjusted. I do however miss working out and being active. I would have been really upset if I missed the surf today because of this cleanse, but work kept me from doing that which was cool because I closed my first deal at the new job today and it was my first day 🙂 NICE. (That’s the pocketbook part of my transformation, Ill be blogging about that over the next week or so).
Day 9: God I want this to be over! Actually today wasn’t that bad. With my new job and in a stressful environment, it’s easy to forget to eat, this actually worked in my favor today and I closed another deal! MONEY$$$ So yea, It’s all down hill from here. I am already planning what kind of meal I am going to have the day after tomorrow and it will be glorious. I can’t wait, felling great today, high energy, high spirits.
Day 10: So stoked that this is almost over, don’t even know what I am going to eat, I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’m in the clear feeling great, energy and high on life from the accomplishment.
Overall
Overall I thought the cleanse was good, however I will suggest that if you are very active and in descent shape already, this might be more than you need. If you do want to go the 10 days, I would suggest supplementing more food in there so you can continue your workouts.
If you just want to lose weight, this cleanse is Ideal, I lost about 1 lb per day which is pretty amazing! So if you are a person that needs to cut 20+ LBS, this deal is the ticket for you.
I went to the gym tonight and did my normal work out which is a mix between plyometrics, cross-fit and heavy bay training with boxing gloves (KRAV MAGA Style). I felt weaker in my punching and kicking and more easily fatigued than normal. I think I can be back to normal in a week. The good news is that my body and digestive system is SUPER clean, and my metabolism is running fast. All I have to do now is stick to a clean meal plan (with one cheat day a week of course), some light lifting and endurance training and Ill have 6 pack in 30 days!!!!
All in all, I’m a believer. I will say this last thing though. My mom is a registered dietitian in practice for almost 40 years. She puts it very simply. “If you want to lose weight, take in fewer calories than you’re using on a daily basis.” I always loved that because in essence you could eat cake every day and as long as your willing to bust your ass in the gym for 2 hours after, eat all the cake you want 😉 , everything in moderation right. It’s all about balance, find something that works well for you, stick to it, and track results to see if what you are doing is actually working.
For information on this cleanse and how you can get it for yourself, please email me directly @ [email protected] and I’ll hook you up!!!!
by Steve Wolf | Dec 17, 2013 | Business, Lifestyle
Your Job isn’t so bad after all is it?
So about money. One thing has been said about money that has always stuck with me is: “Money is only emotional if you don’t have enough of it,” and this is so true. Most of us have had a struggle or two at some point in our lives in this area. For me, making money has never really been the problem, it’s the “keeping it part that has always hoodwinked me.
I have adopted a new saying over the years, and it goes like this. “In business, when you go up against a person with education and experience they will leave with your money and all you will be left with the experience and boy is it true. This happened to me in 2008, I had a good amount of money in real estate, stocks, and annuities. I was making a killing in the mortgage business, and I felt invincible. I went from owning a clothing company to running a brokerage firm pulling down 15-20K a month with my eyes closed by the age of 21 years old. For a 21-year-old, that’s more money than most know what to do with. Off my brothers advice I started investing but didn’t pay attention. What I mean by that is I was unwilling to learn about investing. I trusted a financial advisor to do good things with my money, and I followed the methods of millionaires when it came to real estate investing. End result, when the market turned I lost everything and went in to debt. About $160,000 of debt. At age 23, I closed the brokerage, took my lickings and left that industry.
I had no income coming in, and couldn’t get unemployment because I have always owned my own business or been 1099’d and was staring at a pile of debt that no 23-year-old should ever have to deal with, although I do believe 20 something’s are becoming more accustom to swallowing that reality these days which makes me very sad that we ever got to a place in this country where being 22 and 80K in debt was ever ok. Either way, I was in trouble and needed to do something. I chose joining a network marketing company (aka a pyramid) and everyone thought I was crazy. I was ok with that because I have never chosen a traditional career, job or project in my entire personal and professional life.
After struggling to wrap my head around the new industry, I got successful quickly and was back on my feet paying off that mound of debt which by the way I never claimed a bankruptcy on. I’m not a deadbeat, I ran up the debts by not managing my risk properly, therefore, I am responsible for fixing it.
Speaking of Risks, here is a quick little history of my untraditional professional life.
Me Modeling in the AEF 2000 Catalog (My Clothing line)
18-21 : Started a clothing company in LA and sold clothes internationally, traveled, made money and had fun. Most thought it was a bad idea/investment including my partner I bought out in the first year. End result, I had a crash-course in running your own business, saw the world and gained some priceless real life entrepreneurial experience while turning a profit and doing something I loved and believed in.
20-23 : Started working as a Jr Loan officer at a small brokerage in Los Angeles and made my first 6-Figure income at the age of 20. Later went on to opening my shop and tripled my income before 22. At the 21 I bought my first house,bought my first car cash (2003 BMW 330ci), and took a 3 month vacation to Europe where I studied Spanish in Spain. I also decided to go back to school to complete my degree as I had dropped out years earlier to pursue the clothing company
Down payment on my first house 87k
23-28 : When the financial industry went down I joined some Multi-Level Marketing companies. I have been in a total of 3 thus far. Mona-Vie (23-24) where personally recruited 30 people and hit a 6 figure rank in 10 months, that’s the fastest I have ever done this in any business. 24-28 With RevvNRG as a founding distributor where I built an organization of 7,000 people in 5 countries while traveling around the world enjoying the freedom that I had from this line of work. Then when RevvNRG fell apart, I joined ARIIX where I currently am now.
Presently: Although I am still a part of ARIIX, I started my company Roommatefax.com 6 months back. I did this for a couple of reasons. 1. I was sick of not being able to heavily influence the end result of what the company I work with produces. 2. I missed being an entrepreneur and making something appear out of nothing that people love. 3. Have you seen the job market lately?
After having lost my residual income from RevvNRG, I had been looking for some additional work to bring in more income to subsidize the loss of income and boy, I thank God for the fact that I have a background in sales because I attended a couple job fairs and all I saw was a million “fresh-out-of-college” kids desperately looking for jobs competing against people who have 30+ years experience on them with a mile long resume. Bottom line, that shit’s burnt, and all the future young americans have to look forward to is service jobs unless they become willing to work harder, eat some shit, and pay some dues.
I wrote a blog post about paying dues and eating shit sandwiches, if you didn’t read, go check it out, it’s a good one http://aefwolf.wpengine.com/eating-a-shit-sandwich/. Either way, at this time in my life I had to take some of my own advice. So I sacked it up, got humble and took a sales job that seemed legit and had a great training system. I would rather be doing something that generates income while looking for better opportunities rather than sitting around in my house watching movies, getting fat and feeling sorry for myself. Jobs, are only temporary and they serve a purpose, therefore I am grateful for this short term sales job I landed. From a salesmen’s perspective there are a couple of things I know to look for in a sales jobs. Here is the quick list.
- Company in business 5+ Years
- They Provide leads for you (meaning there is an inside sales department)
- You have a manager, or team of managers that are only there to help you, not micro manage you
- They have a good solid and proven training system
- Current agents are happy working there
- If your 1099, you make your schedule, and they don’t f$%# with you when you have to take a couple of days off as long as your closing deals.
- Lastly, that your selling something you can actually sell that you can get behind and that makes enough commission where you can be comfortable.
- Any good salesmen should make no less than 80K per year (for me if I’m not making at least 120K, I’m in the wrong company!)
I have always prided myself on being a smart and wise entrepreneur, but even the best of the best can fall from grace at times. I think most people elect taking jobs where you work for a big company and you have a dedicated salary because it removes the fear of not having something you can count on. This is a prison to guys like me. Keep your 50k a year and give me the opportunity to make what ever I want to based on how hard I am willing to work and how resourceful I can be. That’s the American Dream I was brought up on. My Mom and dad owned their own practices, my grandpa owned his own company and my brother and his wife is a real estate agents (1099 all commission based). I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and trust me when I say that none of us are cut out for a corporate environment, we would fail at it, die of boredom, or just quit and go start our own deal because at the end of the day, when we look in the mirror, we are the masters of our own destiny and the only way to true wealth is from starting your own company or being a part of some line of work that allows you to at least own your time. You know “time, your most valuable asset. There are a couple of exceptions, but I don’t know anyone that has been in a corporate job that has made enough to retire by the age of 40.
The trick I learned is a little something called Mini-Retirements from my main man Tim Ferris author of the book “The One-Hour Work Week.” This is the concept explaining the idea of choosing a business or line of work that affords us the ability to do things like month-long travel adventures, and the ability to take as much time off as possible before your real retirement age of 65 when you are too old to do fun things like you would have done in your 20’s and 30’s. This business of working till you’re 65, getting a gold watch and a pension is for the birds. To me, your best years are pretty much over by 65 and even if we have some incredible medical breakthroughs that allow us to live longer, I’m not going to get caught up in the mouse-on-the-ferris-wheel mentality of working for no more of a reason then to survive. F^&%* all that noise.
To be continued on part 2 of 2 – (Sign up for my blog and get notified when I post) If you like this blog, please re-post and send your friends here!!! Also If you haven’t read or heard about my book “The Young Entrepreneurs Guide to Life” go to the “books” section on my site and pick up a copy or a download the audio book.
BONUS
And Finally, I’ll leave you with this. Jay-Z and Warren Buffet with Steve Forbes. Watch the interview and see the contrast. It doesn’t matter where you come from or your circumstances. If you want it bad enough the world will provide.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRXkW0Eshc
by Steve Wolf | Dec 12, 2013 | Business, Giving Back, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
They say it takes 30 days to start or break a habit, and I say screw all that psycho-babble. It takes one day to break a habit, the day you stop doing it. However to form a habit, that’s going to take some time, 30 days – a lifetime sounds about right.
I gotta say I bit off a little more than I could chew this week. Like usual I’m trying to take on the world. Once I sit down and start writing I lose track of time and after 3 revisions and 2 hours, I have a blog post. So tonight we’re going to keep it short and sweet. I committed to blogging everyday but due to my new job (AWESOME!) and my Forex Trading school that I just signed up for along with the 10 Day cleanse I’ve been on for 4 days, I’m a little overworked, underfed and cranky, but, that’s the point: I’m in the process of forming some really great new habits and getting rid of some old bad ones.
So lets talk about habits. We all have them, some are good, some are bad. We have all heard “everything in moderation, but smoking crack in moderation or at all is really bad and there is no way to justify that one. How about things like, food, sex, or working out. Ever know a person who works out too much? Like the dudes I’ve seen who go to the gym 9 times a week and have an 8-Pack but are driving around a 94 Toyota Tercel (Not that it’s a bad car) but you know what I mean, something is not adding up.
All this represents is a life out of balance, and it can be fixed and moderated fairly easily if you systematize how you behave and how far you are willing to go to discipline yourself. However if you are a really closed-minded person and you love to do things your own way despite what experience, education or others tell you, well then just stop reading this now, because you’re probably going to throw it out and say it’s bullshit like all the other great ideas everyone has been trying to tell you.
Either way, I am always trying to form and KEEP positive habits, and break bad ones. Usually I break this down in to how I can improve on
these fronts: (By the way, if your interested, I included a work-sheet for this in my last blog post you can download and use yourself.)
1. Mind
2. Body
3. Soul
4. Pocketbook
These are what I consider to be all of the elements that make up a balance. If I don’t have all 4 working harmoniously, then my life is out of balance. I have created a “habit” of spotting when this happens so I can quickly analyze, spot, and correct whats out of balance as quickly as possible before a bad habit is formed. Basically, things in motion tend to stay in motion, so if my habits are bad they are usually getting worse and vice versa. The key is to do a little of something in each area every day and strive for that balance knowing full-well that keeping a perfect balance is damn near impossible to do. Remember, progress not perfection.
So to give an example, I’ll show you what a day in the life for me looks like when trying to keep this balance and form great habits.
Mind – Knowledge is power. If you want to be successful in life, you will have to be smart. Anyone can get luck once and sometimes twice, but in order to keep that success long-term you will always need to be educating yourself about new things and filling your mind with incredible content. So I have recently signed up for a program to teach me Forex Trading. For those of you who don’t know what that is, Forex is an abbreviation for Foreign Exchange Currency Trading. This is something I always wanted to learn because it is a way you can make money from a laptop anywhere in the world. (You can also lose your ass if you don’t know what you’re doing.) So I am attending an institute from 5AM – 9AM Monday through friday (because that’s when U.S. Markets open and Europe’s are closing) and reading the book Forex Mindset by Jared F. Martinez. Along with my daily audios of personal development speakers, my mind is getting filled with knowledge on a daily basis, and because I have to go to bed super early in order to be there at 5AM in the morning. Nothing really productive gets done between the hours of 10PM-1Am except movie watching, bad food in-take and bars. This is a great habit to form, early to rise, early to bed. The early bird gets the worm 🙂
Body – Right now I’m on the 4th day of a 10-Day cleanse consisting of 3 Green Shakes, 15 Aminos, 1/2 Avocado, 1 Apple, a gallon of water, and a shot of Apothe Cherry extract. I know what your thinking WTF? Me too, well it’s working, I’ve lost a couple of pounds, and my body is being cleansed. The point here is that I am using a technique called “total-immersion” to jump-start the process, and immediately break any and all bad addictions and associations I have to any kind of junk food that I like. This means that if I’m really serious, I will cut ALL bad food so I can cleanse and then work my way back to a healthy and necessary diet. Along with this I train MMA 3-4 times a week, surf when there is waves and hit the gym once or twice. Diet = 80% and Fitness = 20% of any functional nutrition plan, and for me going to the gym SUCKS! Why, because I am paying money to run on hamster wheels and lift pieces of metal so the only time I’m there is when there is not MMA training, no waves, it’s to cloudy to skydive and its dark, will I go there. Being outside is SOOO much better.
Soul – Pray, meditate, do some yoga, walk on the beach what ever, but DO NOT neglect your soul. This is your spiritual well-being at stake. This is the people with lots of money who find themselves unhappy and unfulfilled. Well-Duh, if you have all of the material stuff you could ever want and you’re still not happy, obviously there is something a little deeper going on. For me, I neglect this one the most and it takes the most work for me to find a balance in this department. What I do is spiritual group meeting 3 times a week with some light 15-30 minute meditations in between. Sometimes I find myself dreading it but I always feel better when it’s over, kind of like an intense work out. If you have no spirituality or lack there of, I recommend the book “The Art of Happiness” by his holiness the Dalai Lama, and Howard C. Cutler. I’m reading it right now and it’s simple, pro-found and just awesome.
Pocketbook – Money is only emotional when you don’t have enough of it. It is a tool, and when used wrong it will hurt you. Understanding wealth was never learning simply how to make money, but instead learning the practices of how successful people generated and retained “wealth.” So what do I mean by that? A rich person has a lot of money but to be wealthy are two very different things. Rich people make lots of money, wealthy people make lots of money work for them while keeping a balanced life. That’s what I’m going for. Who cares if you’re a millionaire if your to old, to fat, to much of an asshole or don’t have anyone to share it with. This is why the money game needs to be a simple habit of taking the correct indicated actions while managing risk and maintaining a balance.
If you spend all your time making money than that is all you will have, money. I you spend your time making money, taking care of your soul, filling your mind with new and positive things and making sure your body is healthy… Who wouldn’t want to hang out with you!! So, I’m back to it, I shall return in couple days to update you all on the progress and don’t worry, before and after pictures for the 10-Day Transformational Cleanse are coming!!!!
Have a great evening, incredible rest of the week and a fabulous LIFE!
Here is some funny stuff!
by Steve Wolf | Dec 9, 2013 | Business, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Mental, Spiritual & Mental, Wellness
Over the past couple of months I have been flung into a lot of change. Change in my career, changes in my personal life and even some loss due to the transitional period.
It seems that every couple of years, this happens to me. At first, I am usually stunned, shocked and then on the defense. Obviously those are natural reactions to finding out you lost some money, a job, or some people you trusted let you down. After the initial feelings pass, my cycle usually includes a kind of mild-depression. Not the type of severe depression where I want to kill myself or anything like that but a mild depression knowing that what I had been working for didn’t quite pan out and that I had been let down by a couple people I liked and respected in business. More importantly Im dealing with the reality that, like that like it or not, change is definitely coming and the depression comes from knowing the type of undertaking that will ensue to get things back on track again. I have always like this model as I think it describes what I go through quite well. 
All to many times I have fallen in to the trap of this mild depression when things aren’t going the way that I want them to go. It’s sneaky, one day your on top of the world and then boom you get knocked on your ass, and then while you are in the process of getting back up to finish the fight, you get the floor pulled out from below only to find yourself surrounded by shit! At this point getting up seems harder, but in actuality the act of “getting up” or fighting through adversity is a learned behavior, and when it’s dark, and there are no visible friends to help you back up, it is that 2nd nature resilience that will save your life, and get you through the hard times quicker.
Let me give you an example.
Most of the people who know me or I have been friends with over the years never saw me or experienced me before I got sober from drugs and alcohol at the age of 16. Before that point in my life I was a bad dude. I lied, cheated, stole and manipulated my way through life. Some people laugh at this comparing themselves at 16 years old to the story I begin to tell them thinking to themselves, “how bad could you really have been?” Well, the specifics themselves are a whole different story for another blog post and if your really interested, pick up my first book The Rich Kid Syndrome. The point is that you don’t get sober at the age of 16 years old because your mom caught you smoking pot one or two times. I got sober because I had severely screwed up my life and was taking everyone down with me to the tune of 5 felonies, 3 misdemeanors, 3 high-schools, 3 rehabs and 2 drug over-doses and all before the ripe young age of 17.
When people experience me now, envisioning a person with a wrap-sheet like I just described is not something that comes to their mind, and for that I am grateful because that it exactly what I am going for. In fact nothing makes me happier than when I have to convince someone that I was actually that bad because that person’s experience with me is so contrary to how I used to live. It is simply a tribute to how much I have really changed, and God knows I have come a long way.
At that time in my life I was plagued with demons and such a warped view of the world. I was very nihilistic and had no spiritual sense so things like Karma or good will never registered as being a way to live ones life. I liked the idea of Anarchy and just living in the moment. I believed that when you died your body just stops and life as you know it stops the way a TV shuts off when power it down.
When you look at the world through this kind of terministic lens, there is no point to do anything but have fun and just try to feel good as much as possible, and that was exactly what I did and I did it at the expense of everyone who came in to contact with me.
This all changed when I was 16, after barley missing death for a second time, I had a spiritual experience and for the first time in my life had the realization that I may have been wrong about how I viewed the world. Yes I was broken, and yes at that time I was deeply depressed, but for the first time I actually felt hope that maybe, just maybe I was put on this earth to do more than just get high and feel good all of the time.
The next feeling I experienced was fear because a want to do something different is nothing with out some kind of game plan or strategy, and I knew that if I stayed around my old town I would be sucked back in to vortex of my addictions and bad influences. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was going through the process for the first time that would forever re-enforce my ability to bounce back after sustaining sever loss and change in my life.
The following two years I lived in a “all-boys” recovery house. This was a crash course for me in the areas tolerance, patience, conflict resolution, resourcefulness and survival. Most of the guys who went through this place didn’t make it. In fact the program was so intense that guys would literally break down and cry. It wasn’t physically hard like a boot-camp per say, but it was psychologically terrorizing to the people who would not go along with the program. The deal was that we followed a set list of rules, or we could leave. No grey area, black and white. During my tenure in the recovery house, and I was introduced to a 12-step program and met my first mentor, my character was built, and from those experiences I learned how to bend and fold with what ever life through at me, but I still struggled with me depression.
Thinking that there was something really wrong with me I went back and fourth with the idea of seeking professional help. In the end I found that when I
was doing something I loved that was positive and up-lifting I felt great and the depression never seem to come back, but when things fell apart, I would fall back in to it. I needed a better way to deal with it than just allowing it weeks to take it’s course. Basically like medicine for the common cold, although a cold is incurable, their are remedies that help make you more comfortable while your body naturally fights it off. I believe that depression is the same way, and even though that may not be the case for everyone, I think most people are mis-diagnosed and put on medications way before they have exercised every natural option at their disposal. The bottom line is that we can’t be happy all of the time, and life will knock you the F$%^#-out sometimes, but being happy as much as possible and limiting the times I am unhappy to the shortest amount of time possible has been the key to my success. The depression has to run it’s course through you, after a couple days, week or two at the most, you should be naturally feeling a little better, if not, much like the cold, you should go seek some professional help maybe.
As I wrote in the beginning of this blog, I am struggling with some things myself so I though why not share my process and my experience with the world so I can help out some people who may be going through the same thing. So for the next 30 days I will be blogging about my transformation. (it’s 30 days because of the length of the program)
So if your going through some hard stuff yourself, you may want to grab a pen and start righting this down because you can do this to jump-start your life and try to snap yourself out of that funk. My process may not cure your completely, but I promise you that if you follow it everyday to the dot, you will feel 1000% better from where you are right now starting off.
Step 1. – Acceptance – Accept what is happening to you, stop fighting it, you lost this one, it didn’t work out, boo-hoo, it’s in the past.
Step 2. – Ask For Help – If your a prideful person like me, you will struggle with this but I always go through this process because people who really care about you want to help you, and if you don’t ask them, they can’t help. No one is invincible, your not fooling anyone, if they are close enough to you they know you are going through some stuff. One more point here, make sure to only ask people you really look up to and respect for help.
Step 3 – Take the Advice – Once you have been given the help and new opportunities present them self, TAKE THE HELP.
Step 4 – Get Humble – Maybe it’s not the glorious job you thought it would be, maybe it just sucks, well it’s only temporary, and I would rather have income and a shit job in between the times Im looking for a better job.
Step 5 – Get out there – Anything is better than you sitting in your house starring at the wall sending 1000 resumes out to online job posts. Even if your just doing your hobbies, go meet people and talk to people about what your going through especially if your in a career transition, this will help you get hired and keep your head out of your ass.
Step 6 – Game Plan – For me it consists of what I am doing daily to better my Mind, Body, Soul, and Pocketbook. Also What I am committing to giving up in my life that is not serving me (including people) and what I am committing to do everyday to better my situation.
****Here is the worksheet that I made that I use.
SteveWolf30DayTransWeek
Step 7 – Honor those Around You – During this time, the ones who are still around you even though things are falling apart are probably your best friends and family. Let them know that you appreciate everything they do for you, the support and for being there for you in your time of need.
Step 8 – When it gets better, pay it forward – Remember that what ever you are going through will pass. It will stop hurting and things will eventually get better. So when the do and someone comes to you in a time of need, remember what the people close to you did to help you, kind of like what I am doing right now sharing this process with you, they listened, advised, and counseled, so now it’s your turn to go do the same.
Here is a fun quote
“Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.”
-Sumner Redstone
Here is an awesome clip to help give you some motivation and feel good.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHWUCX6osgM
Red – “The Big Timer.” This person has perfected the art of what I call “big timing.” This larger than life person comes off more like a cartoon character then a human being. They are always trying to tell you what a big deal they are and how lucky you would be to have them as a client or customer. As if they are God’s gift to the earth and everything they touch turns to gold. Truth is, maybe they got lucky once or twice , but they are 95% full of shit, and 5% actually telling the truth. Bottom line is when you start asking the “hard” questions or try to run their credit to get them financing they recede back in to their shell and go on the defensive retracting some earlier statements and trying to explain their situation, and they always have a situation 😉
