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.

what if you had $10 million?

It's a fun game to play- what would you do if you had $10 million? Or $20 million or $30 million? It's one way of finding out if what you are doing RIGHT NOW is what you really want to be doing, or are just doing to earn money. But is it?

A good friend of mine is a therapist in Hollywood. He has counseled some very famous and very highly paid movie stars, including THE STAR, whose name I won't mention but who is one of the top earning movie actors in the world, earning in excess of $25 million a picture- and he's made lots of pictures.

THE STAR became very keen on my friend because my friend is a great listener and listened to THE STAR complaining about all the problems money brings: how he can't trust people anymore because he's not sure if they like him or his money. THE STAR also wanted to travel and my friend is well traveled. My friend had been to India a lot and THE STAR was very interested in going to Varanasi. OK said my friend, I'll take you. One day, out of the blue he gets a call. It's THE STAR. He wants to go to Varanasi next week. But next week is Christmas and my friend has his family and friends to think of so he says 'how about the first week of the new year?' But THE STAR, like most stars and all children, wants to party right now so he goes on his own to Delhi because Varanasi is like too much of a leap in the dark. He stays three days and comes home disappointed. He says he got scared and freaked out.

This guy is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And he can't even go on holiday.

So how much do you need?

what if I'm just coasting?

Recently I received an email where I was asked, “You've mentioned the "Why didn't I do this sooner?" feeling after a lifeshift has been made.  I've had frustrations for years, and I find it amazing that I've coasted along for so long.  Things weren't all that bad.  I just couldn't think of any other alternatives.  Sure, I've had lots of micro-adventures along the way, and I was doing interesting things in my free time, but the problem remained - most of my time and energy was being spent on a job that didn't really fulfill my doing-something-really-meaningful needs.  A thought:  Is there some benefit to coasting along, or is it just another example of the laws of inertia? ... or is it both?”

I wrote that I'd done my fair share of coasting too. I think it's a good point that inertia could be mixed in with something useful too. One useful function of 'coasting' is to build up 'pressure' so that when you finally make the change you stick at it through the bad times. In Japan when they teach aikido they let you make the same error many times until they correct you- that way you remember it better and are more grateful. If a foreign teacher appeared they'd always correct straightaway and the student would go back to the old way the next day.

Secondly coasting can often be useful later, in unlikely ways. The time I spent driving a delivery van in London gave me good driving skills, a load of stories and material I later wrote about- so you never can tell. 

Having said all that, there really is never a perfect time to change, only a possible one. You can expect possibilities but expecting perfection is a little too much!

what if I don't give a damn?

I've been getting an increasing number of emails from people who have been inspired to lifeshift after reading what I have written on this site. I've decided to concentrate on providing materials for anyone who wants to do the same- change your life so that it is centred around what you want to do rather than what you feel trapped into doing.

The main issue for most in the modern age is the MONEY QUESTION. Many people would lifeshift if only they could make the 'same money' as they do in corporate skullduggery. But overemphasis, or undue emphasis too soon, on the money making side of a lifeshift is wrong. You need to find your 'passion' first. But what if you don't feel passionate about anything? I mean you hear those TV chefs going on and on about their 'passion for cooking' and you may think- hmm. I just don't care that much about anything.

This is the biggest secret of lifeshifting to put it in dramatic terms. No one cares that much at the start. No one pops out of the womb passionate about acting or daffodils or marathon running. All passion is, is addiction. Yep, the A word. Humans can psychologically addict themselves to anything (aided by physical addiction sometimes but not always) and this is what you tap into when you 'grow and nurture' your passion. You addict yourself. Sound bad? Well, that's the unvarnished truth of it. By doing something often, regularly and with interest you will become passionate about it. And this passion will improve your life, because any interest is like a light that sheds a little light on everything.

I'm not saying you have to become a bore- there is a difference. A bore is someone who lacks a sense of humour. Humour is the filtration process par excellance. It is a key way we sort the important and the useful from the useless. Humour is the way we connect to others, very often, and the bore lacks that ability. So growing your passion whilst retaining a sense of humour, is the way you develop a nose for what you need to learn and what you don't. It's the way you can foster an addiction to a new interest without getting buried by it.

Anything else on addicting yourself to a potential passion? Use your imagination- read everything you can on the subject, meet people who are doing what you want to do, search the internet for similar interest groups (though with a pinch of salt for the net bores in every thread), go on courses- a great way to increase addiction as you meet others with a similar growing passion, and finally look for ways to teach it to others- often the fastest way to learn.

go wild in the country

Time for a new header I think and recently I have been thinking about wildness- wild places and acting wild. Playing around with the idea wild means the opposite of tame- and tame means owned, imprisoned, rulebound. When you talk to some folk they actually think making MORE RULES will solve all the world's 'problems'. I went to a kid's party recently (easier to crash than the adult version) and there was a fifteen minute wait to get in- why? Because a couple of mums thought no one should enter without a ticket. But the party- for Halloween- was way out on the edge of town- you'd be mad to go there on the off chance of getting in ticketless- plus- an honour system where you showed your ticket (instead of being shaken down for it) would have worked just as well and 500% faster. Maybe two or three would have sneaked in. Big deal.

So, go wild. A bit wild. As you get older you get more staid. But when you're young it's no better- you live within a mental prison, things you can't conceive doing. Go wild- get the best of both worlds. Though there is a big attention factor in the attractiveness of deviant behaviour there is also a wildness factor. By building a bit of wildness into life you also straighten it out, so to speak.

Go wild in conversation. I find that if you can raise the stakes and make conversation a bit wild, a bit dangerous it gets a) a lot more interesting and b) you actually connect with who you are talking to. 

Go wild in the country. Instead of taking all the normal gear wear quick dry shirt and trousers and amphibious trainers. Aim to wade and swim rivers, plough up streams cross swamps and climb trees. Go without map or compass and find your way home using the direction of the wind, the lie of the land, the stars.

yang bandits

Ever known someone who actively likes you being a bit down, a bit subdued? These are the yang bandits, people out to boost their own yang by forcing yin type behaviour upon you. And maybe you've found yourself doing it, putting people down, subduing their energies? Yang banditry is rife in a world where the forces of yin are on the ascendent and everyone is trying to yang up wherever they can, unconciously often.