fame or money?

There are a thousand forms of success more valuable and important than fame or money. However if you want the kind of success that is condoned by society there are only two sorts: money or fame. Most writers and artists aim for fame. Some businesses do too. They then hope to convert that to money. Because you can spend money. But it isn't that easy to do. Many of the 'celebrities' who are quite well known are not nearly as rich as you would think. I remember being shocked that Joe Strummer of the Clash lived in a normal terraced house in the 1990s- not the mansion with pool and rolls royce I imagined all super famous pop stars owned.

My old friend, wealthy 'successful' and philosophical Aussie rug salesman, Fat Frank Nasre wrote this to me:

"I was still mixed up about fame and money like most people in the West. We see famous people and assume they are rich. Often they are scraping by- being USED BY FAME rather than using fame to their specific advantage.

You can turn fame into money but it isn’t always obvious how to do it. Take the UK publicist Max Clifford- he is famous for getting newspapers to pay famous people for their life stories. He is much less ‘famous’ than his clients. Only his name is known- we don’t know his wife’s name, what car he drives or any other details. But he is FAMOUS FOR DOING SOMETHING that earns money, rather than simply being famous for being famous. If I become famous for being the man who has the best rugs in town that’s a useful fame. If I am simply a well known ‘face’ then that’s useless except for getting free into nightclubs. I concluded that attending Trade Shows was mainly just building my ‘face’ rather than my reputation for something useful.

The useless kind of celebrity fame fades with time. The useful kind of fame is more impervious to time, it is more like the old idea of a solid reputation.

I sold rugs to make money. If a rug show could make money than I would attend. But I did not know for sure. On the other hand I knew that advertising sales really did make money."

more on happiness

What does it mean when people say they aren’t happy?

It could mean, I’m discontented, I am not content RIGHT NOW.

Or more likely, I’m not happy with my general SITUATION which I am trying to improve but it isn’t improving fast enough.

The idea of putting most of your effort into trying to improve your state of happiness paradoxically creates the greatest feelings of discontent. You bust a gut trying to get or do the things you think will make you happy, and in the process feel unhappy, knackered, pissed off with life, bored.

When people say they are unhappy often they mean bored. Not in the sense that they haven’t a new box set of the Shield to watch or a new book to read or a dinner party to attend. They have STUFF TO DO that’s pretty interesting. But in a deep sense that it doesn’t provide much nourishment. Their life isn’t nourishing their inner soul, their inner hidden bit that is hidden almost from themselves too.

This sense of frustration, of swimming in mud, of seeing a destination dimly that doesn’t really get any closer is something you don’t really want to admit to yourself because it seems like your STRATEGY failed. You came up with this big plan and all these goals and you’ve achieved a lot of them already and now it seems like…kind of a bore.

Time to change the central plank. OK, five years ago I was living in Oxford in the UK and feeling this same sense of deep boredom- not in my daily life which was pretty interesting, but deep down. I think this deep boredom is when the zone of possibilities seems unnecessarily limited. You look out, intuitively know there is more, that this isn’t IT, but can’t see what to do.

Then I moved to Egypt and whole lot of new possibilities emerged- even though my day to day life was, actually, more boring. I had no friends, I was working a lot of the time, didn’t even have my own place. Now I have all those things but this creeping sense of dissatisfaction is coming around, knocking on some inner door at 5am, or in the evening when you’re thinking shall I watch TV, maybe not?

Of course you can live with it, but wouldn’t it be better to get rid of that feeling?

I think there has to be some sense of excitement in life which comes from either adventure or meeting new and interesting people. Which is why travel is so addictive. I think one needs to build in a way to meet many more new and interesting people than before but in a way that isn’t boring. I think the problem is the SETTING where we meet new people is often BORING too. A dinner party, someone else’s house, an event, something to do with work. The settings are all so familiar to all the parties involved that nothing new is revealed. Jim Haynes, the Paris salon host, when he meets people touches elbows rather than shakes hands. It’s just weird enough to shake you out of boring habits of opening conversation. Maybe all one needs are different ENTRY strategies?

how to be happy

A 26 year long, 60,000 person survey by the German Socio-Economic Panel, has unearthed the following keys to happiness:

Marry someone who's not neurotic.

Focus more on friends and family, less on material goods.

Get involved in making the world a better place.

Have a job but also enough time for leisure.

Stay physically active.

For men, don't be underweight. For women, don't be obese.

The whole drift is to streamline your life so that, over time, it becomes less self-oriented and more self-less. But you don’t do it by going head-on for being ‘self-less’. You do it by avoiding things that CAUSE greater self-orientation: being with the neurotic, having weight problems, worrying about career so you have no time for friends. So being self-less isn’t something holy and good – it is simply a strategy you can program into your environment over time. You put in place a few activities that force you to focus on others not yourself.

Even if it has no other benefits at least you’ll be happy.

get ya money making boots on #3

Get ya boots on! Get making some money and stop sitting around reading blog posts…or maybe just this one. This is the third and final instalment of my fairly free examination of A.E. van Vogt’s ideas in his book The Money Personality. Which is a far more interesting book than its title might suggest.

It’s certainly been fascinating going back over this book which I picked up years ago from a library sale for a £1 and immediately knew was very different from all other self-help/get rich quick books. Cheaper for a start! Van Vogt doesn’t look at habits and behaviours so much as how someone looks at the world, how they make sense of it. If you look at the world differently, or manage to change the way you look at the world then your life will change. Seems obvious but who isn’t resistant to having their ‘world view’ altered, even a little? Comfort lies on the shore not out to sea.

When I look at the twelve traits of the ‘moneymaker’ now they seem self-evident and yet if I had to pass on to someone what I have learned it boils down to: 1. don’t take your eye off the ball. 2. See where the money is in any business idea. When I asked a very successful oil selling entrepeneur what he thought, he told me luck was the main ingredient in money making as far as he was concerned!

What this reveals I think is a)people who make money may not be very good at knowing exactly how they did it- just as a top athlete might not be able to say how he kicks a ball in a certain way and b)many of the traits that van Vogt picks up on we hardly realise we have, or don’t have- though they may be crucial. Take his 8^th trait: have the ability to make an idea real. Sounds easy but this is not an easy thing to do. A fair number of people manage to write, say, 60,000 words- but this isn’t a book. You’re about half way there when you’ve got your words. Then you need to get them into good order and get them out as a book. Make them real. It’s at the last stage that many fail. So this trait covers in an unusual way other, more commonly espoused, habits such as persistence and visualising success. But for me it strikes a chord- ‘make it real’ I can say to myself and that helps me to refocus.

OK. The last six traits (see the previous articles for the others):

7. acquiring the common touch

8. making things real and important

9. giving generously

10. becoming sensitive to ‘signals’

11. maintain winning habits

12. escape an orientation to failure

Acquiring the common touch

Everyone can talk to people who resemble them. Nerds get on with nerds. Bankers talk to bankers. Even writers, notoriously cranky individuals, often have a whale of a time with others writers. But can you talk to people outside your group? That’s what having the common touch means. It doesn’t mean the guy cleaning the street thinks you’re a diamond geezer. It means can you talk to anyone.

Van Vogt calls this ‘the key to confidence’. I love the way he takes confidence, that mysterious ethereal thing which somehow we always think is ‘inside us’ somehow and roots it in just three external behaviours. These are, according him:

“The ability to say ‘hello’, ‘congratulations’ and to clearly enunciate your name, and to be able to hear one word when it is spoken- the other person’s name…or, if, you do not hear that word the first time, to have the courage to ask that it be repeated.”

That’s it.

Even though we think we have to have ‘a congratulatory feeling’ inside before we congratulate someone that’s nonsense. If you waited around for that you’d probably only congratulate people on marriage, birth, promotion…not a lot of opportunity here. Any time someone does something that succeeds- congratulate them. And if you can do that you have confidence.

Don’t like saying hi? Say it. Mumble your name? Say it clearly. Forgotten theirs? Ask again. Done that? OK, you have confidence.

All the rest, all the ‘feelings’ inside are pure subjectivity. When some actors go on stage they suffer momentary dread. Should they listen to that ‘feeling’?

Just do it.

Now you have confidence. You can increase your confidence by just saying and doing all of the above with greater cheerfulness and greater volume, clarity and greater warmth. In Egypt people are usually confident- and they always are pleased to see you- even if you saw them only a few days ago. It’s catching too. Once you start ‘acting’ pleased to see people you start to ‘feel’ it too. So it gets easier and easier.

What’s the point? I mean what are these people to you?

The point is that if you can only talk to people like yourself you are stuck on appearances. You mistake a similar outward appearance for a certain similarity inside. Life is about moving towards greater and greater appreciations of what is real and what isn’t. By ignoring superficial appearances, labels, one is freer to observe what is really going on.

How does this make you money? By being able to talk to anyone you have the ability to pick up all sorts of useful information, the ability to sell to anyone, the ability to manage others different from yourself.

Making things real and important

There are people out there with ideas, good ideas- any one of which, if realised, would probably make a fortune. Except these people never do anything. Now if that’s you then you either need to meet someone who can make it real, or, better, learn to make things real yourself.

If you have a special, intense and meaningful interest in your work then you will be able to make ideas real.

As someone who has written novels I can say there is a point when a character ‘comes alive’. It doesn’t happen by accident. You have to focus on that character, imagine them with real interest. Even if they are horrible you have to be interested in them.

On the long expeditions I have made we succeeded despite many setbacks largely because that was, at the time, our sole aim. On the last trip there was a chance to visit a spot never before recorded (and unvisited probably for the last 5000 years) but it meant a hazardous 20km trip over steep dunes- leaving the camels behind. Balancing the effect of this on water supplies, Bedouin morale and our own strength we didn’t do it. We refocused on the main aim of finishing the 670 km walk.

Things aren’t realised because usually attention on them is diluted. Diluted because of distraction or because of lack of interest. Wars are lost when they are fought on two fronts. By focusing on one front you increase you chances, and, this serves to increase interest as well. When you are more interested you focus harder- it’s a winning cycle.

One of van Vogt’s informant, a very successful entrepeneur said:

“The main point is concentration, singleness of purpose, intensity of interest in what you are doing, one product for the manufacturer, one character for the writer.”

Giving generously

It’s a nice idea but where’s the profit in this one?

Come on!

The weird thing is, giving generously is one of the most selfish things you can do. The man who begs, who looks to get and not give is subconsciously reinforcing his self image as a child, as someone who needs to be looked after. The man, or woman, who gives generously is reinforcing their self image as someone with more than enough, someone who can not only survive but prosper and help others.

Van Vogt recommends giving little and often, giving a lot if you can, and if you are not well off, giving time and assistance, piling up help for others but taking none in return.

By being psychologically ‘a giver not a taker’ you’ll find you feel stronger, braver and more in control.

Wow!

Becoming sensitive to signals

Van Vogt’s most mysterious trait, being sensitive to signals is really about being perceptive and making better judgement calls over time.

As a writer I am not sure I have improved my word skill that much since writing novels. But I have improved my judgement calls on what will and won’t work. I am more sensitive to certain ‘signals’ when editing such as ‘the desire to skip’ (means cut this bit out) or a certain jerkiness in transitions. Small signals but vitally important when you want to create a story.

I was once with Egypt’s top desert tour operator. He had with him a group of Italian tourists, and one, when it was time to leave, held everyone up with his taking of photographs. The message was clear: I paid for this and I’ll take my time even if it means everyone else is late to camp.

He wanted to show he was important.

Back in the car my friend engaged him in a long chat, giving him attention asking about his job in Italy.

The guy was fine after that. My friend told, “He is a kind who can make real trouble if you are not careful.”

He could read the signals and act before disaster struck.

To improve signal sensitivity you need to hold the idea of what is important and what is not important in the forefront of your mind. The signals are there, so by cutting out the background noise and distraction, you should perceive them.

Again, by copying others who have succeeded at what you want to do you will get a fast line into what signals to pay attention to and what to ignore.

Maintaining winning habits

Not those seven bloody habits again!

You know they make sense, but I venture to suggest van Vogt can add a few extra that are unexpected. These include:

Begin with one product; develop ‘warding off thoughts-mantras such as ‘this too will pass’, ‘every experience is a learning experience’, ‘what will it matter in 100 years’ to keep you from being knocked down; be persistent; make a start now; use precise language.

I’ve written elsewhere on habits, which I often also call ‘addictions’ because it makes them sound more fun and easier to acquire! (see the blog article the 7 addictions of highly successful people)

Escape an orientation to failure.

I am a little league soccer dad and of course an expert on the failings of every one of the ten year old players…But one thing I’ve noticed time and again- the OK player who scores a lot and the great player…who doesn’t. You’ve all seen that player, he dribbles the ball up the field, he defeats every member of the opposing team but he either passes at the last minute to someone in a worse position than he, or somehow miskicks and fails to score. There’s no need to analyse such behaviour- it just is.

Some people are oriented towards failure according to van Vogt. What it means is they are usually of a highly dependent nature and unless massively ‘helped’ find a way to screw stuff up, thus confirming their need for help. But this dependent nature could just be an habitual way to get attention. If they find a better way to get attention they can break free of the need to fail.

A pessimistic outlook may be well hidden in ‘optimistic language’. But look at what the person does. If they take no risks and are very worried about the future then they reveal their pessimism. Lots of terrible things never happen! Lots of marvellous things do!

The final ‘failure’ trait is stepping back at the last minute- like the soccer player. Often there comes a point in every project where the gap between success and failure is tiny. A little push is all you need, even though it may look impossible. So you have to keep up the habit of pushing until the end is reached, until the money is in your account.

So there you have the twelve traits of the money personality. I think, whenever you engage in a project that aims to make money, it’s worth thinking about some or all of these traits- especially when the going gets tough. Often you can recharge your enthusiasm and get over a problem by simply reading what others have done to succeed. It may not be an exact solution but it may inspire one. 

get ya money making boots on #2

In this series I am looking at the idea that there is such a thing as a 'wealth creating' personality. It's a nice idea, especially when the man who originated it, A.E. van Vogt, also provided a method for getting this personality.

His belief, which is worth considering, is that there are 12 traits shared by all wealthy people. If you want to be rich(er) it pays to develop these traits. In the previous piece we looked at trait No. 1: don’t be a victim.

In this article we’ll look at:

2. Giving yourself a task you take seriously that makes money.

3. Looking for where the profit is- in any activity.

4. Maintaining a high energy level.

5. Being good at ‘human mathematics’.

6. Becoming realistically competitive.

Giving yourself a task you take seriously that makes money.

Lots of people can only do things when they are told by others within a work type situation to do them. A man employed to keep a factory floor clean will do it meticulously- but his own house will be dirty. Others can work as an accountant in a company but could not conceive of doing the same work for their own profit. A journalist can write 3000 words a day for his newspaper- but do nothing if it's for a book that he plans to sell off his own bat. If you can’t motivate yourself with the thought of making money unless you’re told by another to get moving then you better stay in employment type situations.

How much of a ‘self starter’ are you? And in what areas? Maybe you can start a club or group but are fearful of turning that into a business?

Some generals wait for orders. Others- Alexander the Great and Napoleon- gave themselves orders. How much of a little Napoleon are you? Come on- let it out!

You have to start somewhere. Van Vogt talks about ‘moving up the assignment ladder’. Give yourself a small task that makes some money and achieve it. In our travel/adventure business the explorer school we started by asking our friends to come out with us on desert trips. They contributed expenses. Then we did longer trips and got people to pay.

What’s the biggest task you can give yourself that you KNOW you can achieve? I don’t mean just saying “I could sail round the world singlehanded…if I wanted to”, I mean find your own level of ‘self-task giving and accepting’. You might be surprised at how low it is. You might find you always have to get a kick up the backside from above to get it moving. Many writers only do books if there is a commission. But really this is a weak position. You’re going to have to write the book anyay so why not now? Why wait for some guy ‘above’ to give you permission.

In some ways this is all about NOT asking permission to do what you want to do. Just do it. We live in a culture where we are conditioned to ‘ask permission’. One needs to observe this and work against it.

Looking for where the profit is- in any activity.

When you think of buying a boat do you compute how much you can resell it for, whether you can charter it out and what it's going to cost you in mooring fees each year? If you do then you have a built in ‘profit sensor’. 

Keeping an eye on where the money comes from and where it goes is a basic skill of any entrepeneur. Forget balance sheets and losing money for the first few years: a business should look good from the word go. There are exceptions but then four out of five businesses fail- and it’s the longshots that fail.

But all of this is theory unless you can CHARGE a profit. A while ago I bought a Toyota 4x4 for exploring the desert. I bought it off a young very successful Egyptian businessman. He had bought it for, my guess, half of what he sold it to me for. He had fixed the gearbox, added fat tyres and a special gastank, and repositioned it as a ‘desert car’ rather than just ‘an old 4x4’. He told me he’d only sell to ‘people who got the desert’. In other words people like me who knew that such cars were hard to come by. Which was true. It’s like the amateur rejecting a real diamond in a junk shop as glass whereas the professional knows its true value. He was looking for ‘pros’ (and flattering them in the process). But as soon as I bought that car- which was excellent in most every way- I started to think I could sell it for ‘just about what I got it for’. In other words I had no built in profit instinct. I felt bad about taking my profit. The same guy advised me to sell a satphone I had ‘because they’re hot now’. Even though the thing didn’t work. Let them fix it was his answer.

Some people feel guilty charging a profit. If that’s you then you need to con yourself a little by saying “this is for all the effort I put in learning this trade” like Whistler, justifying his high prices, saying of his painting, “A half hour to paint but a lifetime of preparation”.

Often when good people start a shop they charge too little. People love it but they make no money. But if people really want your stuff they’ll pay a high price if it really is good.

My way round this is to add value. Whatever you sell on, even if you are merely cleaning it, you are adding value and therefore deserve your profit.

People who keep costs low feel they must pass this on to the buyer. Up to a point Lord Copper! Either way, you need to be able to see the absolute right to a profit all traders require.

Maintaining a high energy level.

You hear this a lot and it used to confuse me. I thought being physically active equated with a high energy level. But then I met several top athletes, who, when they weren’t playing sports drank beer or slept. Not exactly ‘high energy’. Then there is the type you meet who is physically lazy but will work all day and night meeting people and working at a computer.

The kind of energy we mean here is ‘doing stuff’ energy. Do you like to ‘keep busy’ or do you prefer to ‘veg out’? If you like to keep busy maybe that’s because it keeps you cheerful.

This is the type of energy I think that counts: an upbeat, lively sort of energy, enthusiasm or the ability to become enthused about something.

What we are talking here is not just about stamina, there is also the undeniable attractiveness of someone who is energetic. People want to be around them. People want to hear them sing, read what they write. Energy, literally, makes the world go round and we instinctively avoid energy vampires and gravitate towards energisers.

So one sense of ‘having energy’ is that it attracts opportunities to you. If you work, with energy, but for free as an intern, say, then your energy will be appreciated and they’ll offer you a job.

The other sense is keeping going, keeping enthused, keeping motivated when all the rest have dropped out. Michael Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, has a saying, “We do the stuff other athletes aren’t wiling to do- simple as that."

But even the best enthusiast needs physical energy. Van Vogt suggests building the physical reserves through exercise and/or drinking lots of coffee. Coffee can kick start you very well but then you may find you lose momentum throughout the day. Everyone probably has to find their own personal caffeine level. Exercise definitely raises physical energy levels- as long as you do no more than two hours a day. Beyond that and you may find your mental abilities impaired by fatigue. When I dug holes for a living on building sites I didn’t do any writing when I came home- I had a beer and watched TV. When I taught at a school I still managed to write a couple of hours each day after work.

Being good at ‘human mathematics’.

Human mathematics boils down to this: where’s the money coming from in this situation? And how does it end up in my bank account?

I’ve had several potential book and TV program deals die with the words, “I promise you this is going to happen.” Actually when I hear the ‘p’ word now I begin to get nervous. Nothing counts until the money is in your personal bank account. Not your friend's. Not your agent's. Yours. Then it's done.

Likewise if you can’t see where the money is going to come from then you’re lacking in ‘human mathematics’. Lots of dotcom businesses failed because people didn’t know where the money was going to come from.

I once invented and marketed a product for the homebrew industry in the UK. But that business is worth in total less than £2 million sterling a year. Even if my tiny product had succeeded wildly it would still not be much of a money maker. The pond was too small.

With relative ease our company The Explorer School has made money. Why? Partly because it sells a travel product. Travel, including the daily variety, is the single biggest expenditure in the world today. Bigger than housing and food. Even a small part of an ocean is worth it.

A ‘human mathematician’ gets this. He or she won’t want to start a business selling novelty tea cosies because that market is too small. Go where the money is and get a small chunk of something big.

The second part of human mathematics is ‘game optimization.’ If a strategy works repeat it. If it fails ditch it ASAP. I used to wonder how shops in Egypt could make a profit- they seemed so chaotic. Actually they are highly efficient- at optimization. You see the stock changing way more often than in the UK or US. If a line sells- next week they have a whole shelf load. They put out lots of test examples and see what works- then they concentrate on the winners and ditch the slow sellers. If you are too attached to your product you can’t do this. You’re deficient in ‘game optimization.’

One nice line here is Steve Pavlina’s ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’. In fact this is how snipers work in reality. They ‘get their aim in’ by firing a few shots at the same range as the target, or even at the target itself. That way they get an idea of wind and air pressure experientially rather than theoretically. Then they take the shot that counts. Ready, Fire, Aim is all about taking note of feedback, adjusting and optimizing.

When you make a campfire as long as the smoke is increasing it will eventually catch even if there is no flame. Well done- you've succeeded- now go and find even more firewood to make it flame higher- when it eventually catches, which it will. But if the smoke is decreasing that fire is going out. Likewise with any activity that makes money- as long as something is increasing then this is a sign of eventual success- concentrate on that thing rather than the ‘fires where the smoke is dwindling.’

Becoming realistically competitive

Some soccer players dive to get freekicks and penalties. It’s ‘cheating’ but it can win games. Football is played for money so you could say these guys are simply ‘increasing their competitive edge’. Any diver will tell you that he’s prepared to take the consequences such as being sent off, so that makes it alright- in his mind. Whatever the moral aspect the fact remains: people set their own limits to how much they will do ‘to compete’.

Recall Bob Bowman, “We do what other people are not prepared to do.” Phelps swam harder and longer in training than anyone else- and it paid off. The size fifteen feet helped a little too, but you get the picture. I meet people who ‘want to write’ but won’t give up the salary of a job, time sent watching sports on TV, holiday time at the beach, 9 hours rest. They won’t make the sacrifices you have to make to get in the competition starting gates.

You have to realise what level you’ll need to compete at in the game or business you choose. I once met a world jet boat champion who told me, “When the boats go 100mph then you have to go 100mph too.” You have to be up to what the job demands. And if you can work longer, harder, better than others in the same game then you’ll make serious headway.

Van Vogt talks about the perils of ‘labeling’. Once you label yourself a whole lot of expectations come with that label. Call yourself ‘college professor’ and you’ll find yourself saying, “But I just DON’T repair old TVs for money”. I found that once I stopped labelling myself ‘literary writer’ I started being far more productive because ‘literary writer’ is a label that includes spending years tormenting yourself with writer’s block and other ailments that more commercial writers mysteriously suffer from far less.

Label yourself ‘specialist’ and you’ll find your mind automatically closing itself to lots of great money making ideas. After all – your label tells you to download expertise and that’s that.

Be polymathic, avoid any label except, perhaps, entrepeneur, money maker, potential or actual millionaire.

get ya money making boots on #1

Everyone needs money- even the most idealistic amongst us- the question is- can we make it more easily than we have been doing up until now? 

The best way to master something is to find someone already doing it and copy them. 

So if you want to learn how to make money find some rich people to copy- the thing is, what exactly do you copy? Writer A.E. Van Vogt (more on him later) studied three exceedingly rich men who, in 10 years, he had observed actually getting rich while he was 'just sitting and thinking up stories'. So he decided to investigate and came up with twelve traits all 'wealth creators' have.

Here's some of my own experiences it that area:

I once met an exceedingly rich man for one night only at a book party. He was the friend of my agent and he’d made a fortune – several hundred million dollars- in the waste business. 

He was very personable, very short, wore a loud shirt when everyone else was in a suit variation, was interested in other people, spoke only about his next plan- financing a movie- rather than what he had done. What I remember most was that he bought a sailing dinghy, a special kind, for my friend because he’d remembered once how she’d said she’d always wanted that particular type.

I know a little better two guys I was at college with who are now both multimillionaires. One has made at least $80 million. Both have ‘energetic’ personalities though one gets tired easily and both sleep 9+ hours a night- so much for the idea that all self-made millionaires sleep four hours a night. Both are ambitious and like to get what they want. Both have a lot of friends and are sociable.

Another friend, a very wealthy carpet dealer, told me he got rich only after his father died and he ‘had to get serious’ about making money. No more playing around. He’s one of the great jokers and story tellers I know.

I know another millionairess who is again very generous, sociable, organised and lively, great company.

I never knew such people when I was younger and had the same notions as most- that the self-made millionaire was likely to be a crook, a bastard or just plain lucky. Over time I started to investigate what psychological traits these people all shared. Not that these would guarantee making money, but they may, I reasoned, be a necessary condition for actually making yourself wealthy.

Most are familiar with the Biblical quote: "the love of money is the root of all evil." For love, how about 'giving an excess of attention to'; it is also commonly observed of entrepeneurs that they only started really making money when their activity was more important to them than the money it yielded. Dr Johnson wrote, "no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money" but that doesn't mean the content and meaning of the writing is LESS important than the money.

I, like most people, probably, love the idea of thinking the right thoughts, chanting the right mantras and hey presto- money turns up. Of course all the guides to this type of money making emphasise YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE to make it work. In my view that kind of self-belief is the hard bit, and you only get it through developing the right personality traits. It’s like the cartoon character running up the imaginary stairs- as long as he believes- they remain- as soon as he doubts- bang crash he’s back on the ground again.

In other words self belief can only get you so far. In 1934 Maurice Wilson tried to climb Everest using the power of prayer alone- with little gear and no skills or food. He got pretty high -22,000 feet- but died in the process. You have to actually do stuff, and practise it and get better if you want real world results. Just as if you want to win the lottery you at least have to buy a ticket.

How do you buy a ticket? OK, there are things you should do- like finding something to sell and selling it, or writing a book and selling it, or finding a niche and providing added value that people will pay for- all that kind of thing. But, and here’s the big but, it will fail to generate much income unless your ‘money self’ is in the driving seat.

What do I mean?

One of the tenets of lifeshifting is the multiple self. None of us is a single self except in the sense that we have a single ‘observing self’ who watches all the others as they roll in and out of action during the day. (See the lifeshifting entry above for more on multiple selves.) What we think of as ‘ourselves’- our ideas, beliefs, habitual actions- all these are aspects of just one of many selves that inhabit our body. You may have one ‘self’ for work, another for the family, another that only seems to roll out when you’re with pals from years back. Some try to weld them all into one- never works- others try and keep them separate, use them in the situation they best suit. For example, here in Egypt you have to be pretty loud, direct and no nonsense in a service type situation. Not always but in the main. That behaviour in the UK would count as a bit rude and pushy and would backfire sometimes. Here it gets respect. So when I go shopping in the UK I reign myself in and disengage my ‘over assertive’ self. Another example: when I did aikido in Japan I put myself in ‘student’ mode which actually meant I mimicked how I was as a kid. What I didn’t realise, as a student I was mainly good at ‘appearing a good student’ ie. getting in the good books of the teachers. Because I was naturally fast at lessons I also got good marks but this had nothing to do with my ingratiating style. But to progress in aikido, for which I had only a modicum of talent, I needed a different personality, one that didn’t care about getting it wrong, who loved the rough and tumble of it, and relished being a bit tough. Only when I did a full time course did this personality get to emerge.

So what has this to do with making money?

I think it is observable that certain traits characterise a ‘money perosnality’ just as certain traits characterise an ‘entertaining personality’. But don’t take it from me. Go and try and meet some self-made wealthy people, successful entrepeneurs and people who are able to make all they need doing what they like doing.

You may not want to be like that but you’re still going to need money so maybe it would help to know what traits comprise a ‘money personality’.

In this series, then, I want to outline and examine the 12 traits A.E. Van Vogt stated were those of the Money Personality. Van Vogt was a fascinating polymath, a sci-fi writer, insightful psychologist and businessman and in 1972 he wrote his seminal The Money Personality. It’s deeply idiosyncratic and some parts need careful study, but the ideas are still clear, fresh and compelling. What I want to do is bring out those ideas and give them a more modern setting- but for reference you can’t go wrong getting an old copy of the book which is pretty easy through Amazon.

In each one of this series I’ll go over a different trait in the order Van Vogt deals with them. What he emphasises is that each trait ON ITS OWN will not make you money. However, if you have all of them then you’ll, almost automatically, be on your way.

One clear example is the simple skill of being able to hang on to the money you already have. Mike Tyson has made in excess of 300 million USD in his life. Now he’s in debt. Minus money. Some people have every trait to make money except the crucial last piece of the puzzle- being able to hang on to it. A fool and his money are soon parted- so don’t be a fool, I guess, but also observe ways to hold on to money by first realising that may be a problem. Everyone who cannot hold on to money either hasn’t thought about it or thinks it ‘isn’t a problem I can’t handle’. Merely by sincerely identifying a problem we are already solving it, one way or another.

None of these traits will help you make money directly. But if you have all 12 then it would be very unlikely if you didn’t become wealthy, or ‘wealthy enough’- if that is your aim. You can even start chanting and beaming out money acquiring thoughts once you have all the traits in place.

So here’s the first: Be a non-victim.

Weird eh? What’s that got to do with making money? And if I’m already a non-victim does that mean I am set to make some money out of it? Well, no. Being a non-victim is a habitual stance you’ll need in your money making activities. You’ll probably find it will also appear in all your activities, including ones that have nothing to do with making money. That might be a pain, and in time I am sure you can learn to switch it on and off. But you must be able to switch it on. Anytime you need it. And that takes practice. Start right now.

Next time you buy something that breaks- take it back and don’t leave without a refund or replacement. Be calm, be quiet, but be implacably firm. Make it into a game. Take other people’s stuff back for them. Develop tricks. One I have employed is to tell bank staff- “I’m that kind of customer who’a real pain- so connect me to the special person you have who deals with the problem client.” Works great at getting to the people who actually listen.

When you’re employing someone and they don’t do a good job point it out. Point it out without anger but point it out. When someone you employ says they will do something and doesn’t, remind them, don’t let it slide.

If, in the context of a relationship you feel the language used is carelessly abusive tell the person to stop. They may not, but tell them anyway. The point is not whether it works everytime, the point is developing the attitude.

You need the attitude not the ‘win’. Because with this attitude you’ll look after your project, keep it on track, and not let other people’s agendas bend you off course.

Van Vogt states males are 80% victim personalities, females 20%. So if you are a woman chances are you are not a victim type. If a man, there’s a high chance you are. Remember- this is not about being tough, good in a fight or macho- it’s about not being given the run around, not being told one thing and given another. Men hate to ask directions? Why? Because then their victim personality will show up- how? Because they feel ‘they’ll have to take the directions offered’ even if they are wrong. Or they might be ‘insulted’ or made to look ‘not in control’. Women don’t think like that. If the directions come from an idiot they’ll ignore them. They cut to the chase: tell me the right way. Give me the information.

Men hate to appear ‘uncool’ so they don’t ask the price in advance. Then when they get stuffed they pay it to avoid ‘looking like a cheapskate’. Get the picture, men are vain about appearing petty and this allows them to be manipulated.

Now being petty is a hateful characteristic, and herein lies a few of the paradoxes of making money. Some of these traits, taken too far may make you rich, but they may also make you unbearable.

There is a difference in being petty, and appearing petty.

Being not-petty involves being generous- with time and money- but on your terms- not when someone sticks a gun in your face. Not when a waiter breathes down your neck- in fact make it a rule to give double tips – but only if the waiter applies no ‘pressure’- any pressure and they get nothing.

Being a non-victim is basically about: not being afraid to ask for the information, not being afraid to appear naïve or foolish, not being afraid to talk straight and not in jargon.

Every entrepeneur I’ve met talks so simply about money it’s refreshing. They aren’t afraid, like an MBA is, to appear naïve in their search for the information: where’s the money? Who’s paying? How much? You don’t need jargon to talk about this.

But as a non-victim you need to avoid the desire to go one further and ‘get even’. When it gets to that you should be out of the game. Getting even is a good political skill, don’t get me wrong, and gangsters live by it. But to make money all you need to do is walk away. You see once you have been victimised you’ve lost that little game. Walk away. The object is to get in there first so no victimising takes place.

How? By having accurate complete information. By being calm and prepared. By having a fall back plan. By being in a playful mood that allows you to walk away from any deal that looks bad. By not caring what people think of you. Victims are people who try to control appearances because they think appearances matter. Forget it. Look at the reality, look at what is really going on. You need never be afraid to ask what is really going on, or to take a closer look. And if people won’t tell you- then you’ve found a victimiser, which is the hypertrophic version of a non-victim. A non-victim on overdrive, a bully in other words.

Bullies are found evenly divided throughout the rich and poor, it certainly isn’t a money making trait. Just in case you were thinking…

If you’re already a non-victim fine, but if you aren’t then work on it. Doesn’t have to be forever. It’s a game, a work out. But you need the skill.

the 7 addictions of highly successful people

It is interesting to look at the notion of a habit, since, we all have programmed into us the notion that establishing good habits will lead to health, wealth and success. But this goal tends to obscure the nature of the beast. It obscures the fact that a habit is an addiction by another name.

Humans are addictive by nature. That’s part of being us, how we operate. We do something, we like it or we get some pay off, so we do it again, and again and again. And each time takes less effort because that is the way the brain works- by rationalising the amount of neural activity to achieve any given result.

But only if you are feeding the addiction. Addictions wax and wane unless you trap and trammel them into becoming default settings. Habits, being addictions by another name, wax and wane too- until you create enough 'furniture' (ie. stuff that supports the habit, makes its feeding automatic) that it becomes a default setting.

The problem I have with the word habit is that it means both things: the behavior that is repeated and the default setting. They are not the same. Once you have 'furnished' a would-be habit or addiction it becomes a default setting.

Some drugs tempt us back again and again. I still feel ‘at risk’ if I’m sitting in a cosy bar after a good meal and someone lights up a nice cigar. The ‘at risk’ neon flashes in my head and I relax and eat a cashew nut instead. I have strong associative ideas about how good smoking used to make me feel. I have also supplemented this with strong ideas about how bad it made me feel too. So this addiction, which has no physical component (having not smoked for four years) still engages at the psychological level. The IDEA of a pleasure is enough to kick start it again. But the change is: I have ‘eliminated the furniture’.

'Eliminating the Furniture' is how you stop an addiction from becoming a default setting.

Default settings are what we do because we appear to have NO OTHER CHOICE. If you live in an apartment where everyone smokes, where there is nothing in the kitchen except coffee and cigarettes, then chances are your breakfast will be coffee and a cigarette.

You live in a house where everyone gets up at 6am, where they are fun people to be with, where there is stuff to do you enjoy- then probably you’ll get ‘addicted’ to getting up early.

When people fail to establish good habits they usually leave in all the old furniture of their previous bad habit. It takes a monumental effort to battle a default setting with just good intentions.

Instead you have to eliminate the furniture and install new furniture that will establish your new default setting.

Take writing. It’s not much fun, especially book writing where it’s day after day with not much feedback. You addict yourself by doing it as much as possible but still you can falter. And when I hear about the furniture people leave in their way I am not surprised: writing at home, at no set hour, with the computer open for would-be skypers and the family making demands for help with DIY and homework.

Get rid of that bad old furniture!

Victor Hugo instructed his servant to refuse to hand over his clothes until he had written his 2000 words for the day. No words, no going outside to play. Eliminate all the obstacles in your way. You get up for coffee- OK get a flask and put it on your desk. You don’t have a place to write- OK find a quiet coffee shop and write there for two or three hours a day after work- that’s what I had to do when I shared a two room apartment with three other guys when I lived in Japan. Eliminate the furniture.

It was discovered in the early 1990s that the level of pure heroin in street drugs in the UK was less than that needed to become physically addicted. But there were plenty of addicts- because they had created a default setting where using the drug, buying it, stealing stuff to pay for it, living with other drug users in cheap accommodation all fitted together to create a default setting. To cure them you didn’t even need to do cold turkey- all that was required was to eliminate the furniture.

In order to achieve success at whatever you want to do you’ll need some good habits. But I think it’s better to think of them as good addictions that you have set up to become default settings.

So how do you create an addiction and then turn it into a default setting?

I use the term addiction here because it encompasses the idea of FEEDING. Habits we think of as static. But they are not. A habit is either growing stronger or weakening. When I was studying Arabic my teacher sensed I was getting ‘into it’ (ie. achieving payback for my efforts) and piled on more and more work. He knew that the more you feed an addiction the more it will grow.

But you need pay back. You need a sense of satisfaction, progress, achievement. So in order to feed the addiction of writing you need to copy down religiously the number of words you write per day, print off your pages, riffle though them and watch them growing- these are the ways you feed the addiction.

If a habit, or addiction, isn’t growing, it’s dying. Nothing is static in this world. As Bob Dylan so rightly said, “You’re either busy being born or busy dying.”

So, too, with that most human of conditions the habit or addiction. So feed it!

Let’s say you need to exercise to get fit. And lets say you hate the idea of exercise, the boredom of it and you aren’t competitive. Well, are you vain? Harness your vanity by checking out body builders- young and old- and measuring your gains against them. Adding vanity may just be enough to keep that addiction fed. Find the exercises you really get a buzz from and avoid those that ‘feel wrong’. Once you are fully addicted you’ll be able to switch to any exercise and take it in your stride. Exercise while doing something else- like watching the news or a movie. In other words- put in the furniture to create a default setting.

A default setting is where you have automatised the feeding of the addiction. You are set.

If you can keep something up for three weeks you can stick at it for life- as long as you automatise the process of feeding the addiction.

First eliminate the furniture of old, bad, unwanted addictions. If you need to get up early eliminate the old furniture of having nothing to look forward to. Get in good breakfast materials, think up some invigorating idea the night before ‘to get you out of bed’, have your clothes right next to the bed.

Eliminating old furniture means setting aside time and space for the new addiction. Again, on the getting up early model- don’t nap or go to bed late- that’s just leaving in the bad furniture. Get an alarm clock and leave it across the room- not where it can be switched off easily. Get a light switch that comes on with a timer. If you can’t resist the smell of coffee get a coffee maker on a timer too.

Now find some food for the new addiction, the right kind of food- and don’t rush in until you have found it. If the object of getting up early was to increase productivity- create physical evidence of that: fill in a wallchart or table showing how much you have done each day. I have a table on the back of my door with the wordcount I have written that day noted on it. Give yourself payback.

Give yourself an open channel- nothing that will interfere like a holiday or a trip- at least for the first month.

A habit is not something only successful people have. It’s something very unsuccessful people have too, only they have the wrong ones. It’s an addiction. You can addict yourself to anything. Get started!

The ability to create good addictions is the starting point. You’ll know what addictions you need by looking at other people who have succeeded at what you want to do. Copy them. But, to be going on with, here are seven addictions (which they have turned into default settings usually, ie. made automatic) that I have observed in highly successful people:

1.Addicted to being energetic and optimistic.

2.Addicted to hard, focused work; feeling the pain but doing it and enjoying it.

3.Addicted to doing the big stuff not the little stuff.

4.Addicted to a high degree of self-belief and not giving up.

5.Addicted to being organised.

6.Addicted to people-connecting.

7.Addicted to a non-paranoid view of the world.