To get anywhere, strike out for somewhere or you’ll get nowhere
- Chaos
- Discipline
- The Psychology of Survival
- Survival of the Richest
Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick!”
Dinner’s ready, the kids are screaming.
Cat’s jumped on the sideboard.
It’s making its way to the birdcage … the door’s ajar.
Dog’s jumped towards a chair to bite the cat that’s now got the budgie.
Dog’s slipped in the baby sick, misses the cat.
Cat spits out the budgie, stepped in the soup that’s oh so hot!
Bird lands in the baby’s lap, is spotted by the cat which pounces.
Baby stops screaming, begins to giggle.
Cat sinks fangs into budgie.
Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick again!”
Cat retreats licking scalded paw and vomit from back.
Dog barking.
Boot removed from hound’s rectum … CRASH!
Wounded budgie limps onto washed and not so neatly stacked dinner plates.
Ridden them to the floor.
Chirps its last chirp.
Knock on the door as the phone rings.
Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick again!”
Dog stopped sulking, now chasing baby.
Baby starts resuscitation on budgie.
Baby tosses budgie aside, attention turned to dog, now howling
Baby holds firmly its tail.
Budgie lands in the dinner …
And so does the cat.
Baby bored with the dog, joins cat and budgie in dinner.
Washing machine starts to cycle as the tumble dryer seizes.
Huuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy! “Baby’s been sick again … and she’s filled her nappy.”
“WHY DON’T YOU DO SOMETHING?” screams my harassed and thoroughly stressed out wife.
“Because I’m trying to !@!&*ING work!”
…
Discipline
There are only five things you need in order to work successfully from home:
Discipline, discipline, discipline and discipline … and somewhere to work!
When you first leave a job to start your journey, you will probably be working from home. Even when you run your business there will often be many hours spent in the home environment.
Working from home is expanding at an incredible rate.
The main and most logical reason is, that when you rent office space you have to cover two sets of overhead. 1) the rent on the office etc and 2) the rent/mortgage on your home — before you make a penny cent of profit.
Even large multinationals are letting their staff work from home these days because of the massive benefits it brings.
But on the other side of the coin there are just as many drawbacks. The first major problem with doing business from home is that it is not a working environment. It is extremely difficult to drag yourself out of bed and sit down at the desk to begin your day.
You lay longer in the pit because there’s no boss waiting for you in the office, and also there’s nowhere to commute to.
Second, is the problem of space. Most people do not have a spare room to dedicate to an office so they try to work on the kitchen table. It is very, very difficult to do a full day’s work from home. There are simply too many distractions.
Having said that, I am writing this section right now in the comfort of my own home. We do have offices, but I have purpose built offices in my home.
Regardless, when I wrote the first draft for The Omniscience Principle I managed to create a favourable work atmosphere in the back of the house. I was lucky enough to have a spare room to dedicate as an office.
I still have the odd distractions, the wife and kids, but they have learned that when daddy’s in his office, he’s working and to enter head bowed, cap in hand and wary that I might bite their heads off at any given second!
Seriously, they have learned that I am disciplined and if I’m in the office I really do need to be left alone.
I have almost got the balance right and it’s great.
There’s no getting up at some ungodly hour, kicked out of my cozy, warm bed by an alarming alarm to face a miserable journey in rush hour traffic.
I get up, answer a few emails, get washed and go into the gym. I arrive in my office at around 10.00am, fresh and ready for a day’s work. I can watch the birds in the garden, even have a break and sit with them in the summer whenever I want. I can stop when I want and start when I want. The only boss I have is me, although I am a hard task master!
If I do need to drive to the office, I enjoy a leisurely jaunt through the forest at mid-morning when there’s only the wildlife about. There’s a relaxing cruise along a clear motorway and I arrive a happy man … most of the time!
To work successfully from home takes far more organisation and dedication than working from an office.
There’s no accountability for a start.
If you decide not to go in one morning, who’s going to know, who’s going to kick your arse?… no one that’s who!
You are your own boss and there is no one in this world you can blame if things aren’t done.
If you haven’t a spare room in the house DEDICATE SOME SPACE.
Section off a working area and ensure it is precisely that. An area for work. It’s no good having all your papers and computer on the kitchen table if it has to be cleared every time you want a meal. There’s no way, in a month of Sundays, you’re going to stay organised.
Tidy Desk, Tidy Mind!
I have made a good living working out of home. I’ll tell you what worked for me whilst I was on the up, I still work hard but have as much time off as I want.
When working, I have very strict hours: 10.00am till generally 4.00pm, Monday to Friday.
I always start the day with a shower. If you haven’t got a power shower, and I mean a powerful one, I would highly recommend you get one at the first available opportunity.
I discovered the extraordinary benefit in a hotel in the States a few years ago, and no, I’m not about to go into some debauched and perverted story.
Everything in America is big, and that includes their showers. This particular one was amazing, the jet was especially powerful.
I stood with my back to it, and it was then that I discovered the Power of the Shower!
I’ve read about this phenomenon since and it’s well known to the medical profession, but it was a revelation to me at the time!
If you direct a powerful, hot jet of water around the base of the skull and neck, just where they join, the result is exhilarating. Massage this area by moving slightly from side to side so that the water hits the whole area.
Apparently, this stimulation causes the body to release chemicals called endorphins. I have no idea what actually happens, but I can promise, it really sets you up for the day.
You’ll be hard pushed to find a shower that matched the ferocity of the American one, but a reasonable power shower will do the job.
This is my working week. I will work longer if I have to, a lot longer, but I try to get everything done within my set time frame. I fully understand that starting a business takes total commitment, dedication and anyone who believes it doesn’t, is quite frankly, deluded.
I have a dedicated home telephone line and a business line. I will not answer the business line out of hours unless an appointment is made. I have found that the boundaries between the workplace and home life can blur. If they do, it’ll be your work that suffers AND your family life.
Some people tend to work 24–7 when starting up.
They roll out of bed, crawl into the dedicated work area, finish late, and drag themselves onto the sofa, bad tempered and grizzly, where they fall asleep.
Next morning the cycle begins again!
This isn’t the grim and inevitable reality of working towards freedom.
Work productive hours … eventually things will get easier, and you always have a clear picture of what you are toiling towards, which is why we went through the goal setting exercises.
You are only truly productive for a few hours a day.
This can sometimes be stretched out to five or six hours, but peak performance cannot be sustained for long periods. I can assure you, if you try to work too hard, you’ll end going round in square circles.
Yes, we do have to put in many hard, extra hours in the early days and when a deadline has to be met, but as a rule, aim to stick to a productive, constructive, disciplined working schedule.
When you have got to finish time … FINISH!
Close your books, shut down the computer and go and spend some quality down time. Establish your working parameters.
They do not have to be nine to five. One of my friends loves working through the night. I get e-mail from him at 4.00am in the morning just to prove he’s working at some strange hour.
It works for him!
You should be dedicating one or two evenings a week to contacting people and introducing them to your new business. This doesn’t mean overtime. If you spend two hours on a Monday night phoning, take two hours out in the morning — don’t start till 11.00am.
Decide what hours you are going to work and stick to them!
Discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline!
…
The Psychology of Survival
Some of you will be on their way right now.
Some of you will, at this moment have savings in the bank. Some of you will be in the enviable position of having already started to build.
Some of you will be sowing on fertile ground.
Some of you will be laying the first slabs of stone, the inception of your very own Great Pyramid.
Not a temple to a king, a temple in honour of you. A POWER TEMPLE, a legacy that will remain long after you are dust in the ground. When you took the decision to make a difference in your life, to take control of your own destiny, you took a monumental leap.
You stepped out of the light into darkness … into this foreboding landscape.
You took a quantum leap. You are learning to fly and only you know where you’ll be when your feet next touch the ground.
Imagine having left the warmth and sanctuary of your home. Imagine getting into your dependable, reliable motor car, air bags, crumple zones, side impact protection, ABS, traction control. You glide along well drained roads prudently keeping to the speed limits which are rigorously enforced to ensure your continued existence as a taxpaying motorist.
You arrive at your way-point.
The Airport, a marvel of human achievement and engineering. The most expensive buildings in the world, per square metre are air traffic control towers?
All that technology, all those people. They’re there to look after you, they’re working 24/7 committed to your survival.
It’s a smooth take off. Why shouldn’t it be?
The pilot has thousands of hours flying time; he is as highly trained as is humanly possible. He is regularly re-trained. You are in safe hands now.
You’re off on an exciting break. You’ve splashed out and are spending a fun packed weekend skiing in Alaska. What you hadn’t planned on was the catastrophic failure of both starboard engines.
The explosion in the first has taken out the second and this in turn has severed the main hydraulics to the aerofoils. The pilot loses control.
Inevitably, inexorably the plane banks steeply, stalls, and plummets like a stone from the sky.
To make matters worse, as if that were possible! You are over Northern Canada, and it’s winter. It’s minus thirty out there, although you’d never have known cocooned in the climate controlled body of the beast. The only indication of the conditions outside is the LCD display in the bulkhead which reads ‘FLIPPIN FREEZING’.
The plane ricochets off the side of an icy mountain. The gradient is just right to absorb most of the momentum whilst not too steep as to create a massive impact. Nevertheless, there is an horrific, gut wrenching sound of metal being torn from the framework as the aircraft is torn apart.
Miraculously, you are thrown clear through a gaping gash as the twisted wreckage plummets over the next precipice into oblivion. Everyone else onboard is killed…
…Silence…
You are injured, but not terminally. You are all alone It’s cold, desperately cold. The terrain is as inhospitable as is survivably possible. This is a barren, icy wasteland and it’s going to kill you if it can.
NOW WHAT DO YOU DO?
Some of will survive.
Some of won’t.
Some of will take the necessary steps to continue living, to go on and recount the adventure in front of the open log fire to grandchildren.
Some of won’t.
Some of will be following the steps to Personal and Financial Freedom.
Some of won’t!
Although you have forged ahead into the abyss this is not uncharted territory. Others have already been there.
If the great explorers hadn’t gone out and mapped the world, others couldn’t have followed.
Great explorers have charted your map … you’re reading it right now!
Stepping out of your world is at best intimidating, at worst terrifying. But, to survive doesn’t mean you have to rely solely on wit and intuition. It’s like you’re not the only survivor in that plane crash…
Luckily another person was also thrown clear. Someone else survived and incredibly, their limp body landed close by. As you cautiously approach, life begins to course through their limbs. His eyes flicker as he regains consciousness. A blush slowly returns to his ashen cheeks.
It turns out that this guy just happens to be a Special Forces Veteran on leave and was flying out to take a well deserved break on the ski fields.
You take him in your arms and talk him round. You manage to get his circulation going and get him to his feet … WHAM!
The gravity of the situation has hit you like a freight train. You break down uncontrollably. The soldier stays calm, he has been trained to think clearly under pressure. Your new friend brings the awesome might of the military to bear. Hundreds of years of accumulated survival and bush craft skills are drawn down. Over the following days he supports you, helps you and teaches you how to survive until you are found. He leads the way.
He saves your life.
The incredible thing is that getting through this ordeal was just a walk in the park for a special forces soldier. He trained rigorously for this very situation, he has fought in these conditions before and survived numerous times. Once he’d survived the initial crash there was never a doubt of his getting home.
Now the question is, would you follow the soldier or do you think you know a better way?
Some are following the rules now and will get to your destination.
Some will know better!!!
You’ll know by now that I spent some wonderful years as a yacht skipper in various parts of the world. During many voyages I was blessed with a lot of time with not much to do, especially on the longer ones.
During a particular Atlantic crossing I was running around the boat in the early hours, as one often did, when the enormity of where I was suddenly dawned on me. I was right on the bow with no harness, not wise or recommended but I knew better!
It was an eerily still night. The moon had waned to non-existence and there was only the blackest of blackness.
There is a beautiful phenomenon which can be seen at sea on nights like these. As the boat pushes through the water, algae suspended in the water light up. The algae emit an glow whenever they are jostled … billions of them light up like fire flies .
It’s called phosphorescence and it’s magical. It is as though the boat is being carried along on a blazing wave of green fire. When dolphins play in front of the bow as it pierces the glassy surface, they leave spectacular trails of light.
It’s hypnotic and as I watched a thought hit me like a wet fish: “if I fell overboard now where would I be?”
The boat would sail on because it was on autopilot, and it could be hours before anyone realised I was gone. I would be treading water in the middle of an ocean. To get to safety I would have several choices:
1. Swim 1,500 miles back to the Canaries.
2. Swim 1,500 miles on to Barbados
3. Swim North
4. Swim South — well there’s not an awful lot North or South.
Phuuuttttt!
I dismissed the thought with a shake of the head. Not healthy thinking when you’re out there.
People survive; they survive impossible conditions in mountains, in deserts, in oceans, in jungles…
This fascinated me. What is it that makes people so different from each other?
Why do two fit and healthy people with virtually the same attributes cope so differently when the cards are stacked heavily against them?
Why, when two people abandon a sinking ship in a storm for the relative safety of a life raft, does one stay alive for months while the other dies within days?
I was intrigued by this and studied many real life survival stories, amazing tales of pain, tenacity and suffering. It never ceases to amaze me how much the human body can endure.
So what is it that intangible thing that makes some go all the way yet leaves others by the wayside?
Eventually, the answer dawned on me and as it did it took my breath away. It’s almost inconceivable that something so seemingly insignificant can make such a fundamental life or death difference.
It defies belief that the gift the true survivor has is nothing more than this:
THE ABILITY TO BREAK AN EXTRAORDINARY SITUATION DOWN INTO SMALLER ‘MANAGEABLE’ PARTS.
That’s it!!!
I believe that this is the only difference between the survivor and the dead.
Stranded person #1 says: “Oh my god, I’m in a life raft with no food and water, thousands of miles from land, we’re all going to die!”
Stranded person #2 says: “Bloody hell we’re in trouble now! This is day number one of what could be a very long wait. What do I need to do today in order to
survive until tomorrow?”
I’m telling you, that’s the only difference. I’ve read hundreds of accounts and that’s it, that and a bit of luck!
Person#1 dies because the task seems too immense.
Person#2 lives because they don’t dwell on the task as a whole, they concentrate on the smaller things needed to get through TODAY.
They survive that then proceed to concentrate on the next day, the next task and they survive that.
Their all important ‘overall’ goal is in place: ‘to get back home to family and friends’. They get there by tackling each day and each problem as it happens. They deal with them, move on and eventually achieve the ultimate goal … SURVIVAL.
Many people end up in difficult situations and because they sat down on day one and said: “Blimey, how am I going to survive one hundred days at sea, no food, no water”, they were dead by day 3.
If they’d have simply changed one small thing, ‘their attitude’ and said to themselves: “I’ll achieve what needs to be done today, and tackle tomorrow as a fresh set of problems”, they’d have stood a far greater chance of getting through.
People have survived against all odds when many others failed because they broke the task down into small, manageable parts. People have got through one hundred days and more, at sea with no food and water because they didn’t let the enormity of the task overwhelm them.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO BECOME PERSONALLY AND FINANCIALLY FREE???
This is day 1, and that’s the massive task you have to overcome.
If you dwell on this one question I’ll tell you right here, right now that it ain’t going to happen.
You’ll not cope with the enormity of the task and you’ll give up … you’ll fade away and die.
It’s a lot easier to die than survive. There’s no effort required in giving up!
To survive and win? Now there’s a whole new ball game!
Your question isn’t: “How do I become a millionaire?”
The question is: “What do I need to do ‘TODAY’ to survive, and what do I need to do to achieve TODAYS’ goals?”
Get through each day and overcome its obstacles, that’s an achievement,
and do not lose sight of the ‘overall’ plan for tomorrow.
Don’t get so blinkered by the smaller tasks that you lose sight of what you are aiming for. Conquer the small problems of today, you can then go on and survive tomorrow.
One of the most time consuming things is to have an enemy
You surmount tomorrow’s challenges, tomorrow.
Eventually, when you have made your millions, or whatever your main aim was, you will look back. You will have achieved that ambition by overcoming hundreds of little goals, one by one.
You’ll look back and see that all those days you struggled and survived cumulatively broke the back of hopelessness.
What small steps do you need to take TODAY in order to achieve the great goal of tomorrow?
…
Survival of the Richest
In days gone by it used to be a case of survival of the fittest. In the 21st Century this no longer applies … Survival of the Richest is now the rule!
It used to be the case that the ‘alpha’ animal would rule by intimidation and strength through sheer physical presence.
They would flex their muscles and beat the living crap out of any ‘lesser’ upstart who would dare to think they were worthy of the top spot! And don’t forget, the alpha animal can be male of female too!
Nowadays, it’s the rich who flex their wallets to beat off any challenge and achieve dominance!
If you have cash you can pretty much do anything … and get away with it.
Just look at the cases of Michael Jackson and, O J Simpson.
These days, the weakest, most insipid little creep can flatten the strongest ‘poor person’ with a swift flash of the cash!
A house I used to own backed on to open farmland. We had bought a small bungalow on a decent sized plot with the intention of making substantial extensions and the subsequent killing that can go with property development!
We had been drawn to this particular place because in our deeds we had access over a lane running alongside the perimeter to the fields behind. This was great because it meant we could convert garaging at the front of the property to living space and incorporate it into the development, then place new garaging at the rear.
We completed the deal and got to work. Anyway, the time came to have a chat with the farmer who owned the access because it’s the right thing to do.
It turned out he had no idea that we had a right of access over the lane, the old lady who had lived in the property previously, had never used it, talking to him proved a big mistake though!
Not only was he the most unreasonable, vile, inbred, miserable, horrible, cantankerous, greasy old git to have ever walked the Earth, he was vindictive too.
He tried everything to stop us using our access from writing to the planners to driving up and down the lane in his tractor whenever anyone wished to use it. He would lay in wait down the road and if a delivery driver or tradesman stopped for more than a nano-second on the driveway, he’d be there in his tractor and his son.
They’d sit there revving the engine being rude and especially ignorant to anyone in their way. I’m sure they had became totally used to getting their own way and bullying anyone and who encroached on their territory over the years. They were the landed and we were the pests to be swatted.
On one occasion they turned up and growled at the steel-man, he moved … they then barked at the carpenters who eventually moved ensuring they returned a hail of verbal abuse in return. Then they ordered the scaffold team to “get out of the way” This insult backfired as one particularly burly looking one nearly dragged them from their tractor cab.
During this time I would try to sit back and was quite diplomatic. I even wrote the old waste of human flesh nice letters and sent him whiskey but apparently his son nicked that!
It caused such problems for me was because the farmer had the power, he was the millionaire, land rich property owner, I just happened to own a relatively small plot next to his massive acreage. And luckily for me, he was thick as shite. His only form of attack was to grunt and moan a bit and fire off a few letters to the wrong people.
If I had been in his shoes it would have been a different story let me tell you … I thought of many ways in which he could cause me pain, the worst kind of pain, a good old-fashioned kick, right in the wallet!
If I was him I’d have dropped a forty foot shipping container in the field right at the bottom of my garden to block the views over the farmland and would have painted it bright Barbie pink!
Eventually I did sell the house.
This experience only served to motivate me more to become the alpha male, the one with the fat bank account, the land and the power.
I am the one with the land, I am the one who owns the roads around my property.
The alpha animal no longer flexes its muscles, it can’t.
There are so many crazy, half-baked laws that physical confrontation is outlawed. You can’t even tell someone to “fuck off” these days without committing a public order offence of some sort.
The alpha animal now builds a great big house on top of the hill so all the lesser mortals have to look up and know their place. If any of them fall out of line the Top Dog will grease the right palms to have their credit rating affected or to block their applications for planning permissions or the right licenses for their proposed new business. They’ll have words with their fellow ‘funny handshake brigade’ members and ensure the offensive peasants are thoroughly violated during the strip search they now have to endure whenever they go on holiday; the search always instigated on information received.
They’ll be stopped and breathalyzed every time they leave their home.
The alpha animal will hire the best lawyers to defeat enemies and to get themselves out of the mire.
The alpha animal will know the right people to get their own plans through for the telephone mast which will be sited right outside the enemies house or they’ll simply drop a forty foot container at the bottom of their garden and paint it pink!!!
So, you see, it’s all well and good being big and strong but there’s no ‘real’ power in it. The rich man can always hire someone or some people, or some army, bigger and stronger to slap you down.
IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY YOU NEED TO BE WEALTHY TO HOLD THE POWER.
I have always said that I try to the very best I can in anything and everything I do. I try to live firmly by this rule and try to get on with people I meet but however hard I try, there is just no accounting for the vile people in this world. It’s a great feeling to know you always have vast reserves of strength through the power of wealth to bring to bear whenever needed.
It is said that the quickest way to bankrupt someone is to start a court action … especially if you have more money!
The rich can survive most things that the world throws at them, they can afford the hurricane-proof houses in hurricane-prone areas. They can afford to charter a plane to escape if some crazed despot decides to invade the land on which they have a holiday home. They can afford the best medical care in the event of illness … so to survive in the 21st Century you need to get rich!
The strongest simply get used, abused, trampled on or sent to war!
SO THE ANSWER TO POWER AND FREEDOM IS TO CHANGE AND GET RICH.
