Competition has a lot of negativity to it these days but it’s a key ingredient to your success. One of the reasons why my brother and I mastered adsense so fast and completely was because we competed against each other to see who could earn more in the early stages of our “make money with adsense game”. Our other competitors were the guys posting on forums and thier blogs on how much they made. We wanted to beat them. But along the way, it was mainly my twin and I in head to head competition.
Even though my twin and I are on the same team so to speak we are fiercely competitive against each other and feed off of each other’s acheivements. It was Henry who first started “banking” with adsense about 2 years ago. We both had accounts that were just sitting there earning pennies a month if any for the first few months. When we got our first checks we really played to win and competed against each other and fed off of each others achievements. One whole dollar a day to 10 to 100 to 1,000 bucks a day. All throughout the way, the key driving force or motivation was competition with each other. Sharing our breakthroughs with each other propelled both of us to new levels.
I see the same thing happening with affiliate marketing right now. My twin and I are in “fierce” competition with each other for the last month or so in trying to master the affiliate marketing game. We have both setup new accounts to our favorite affiliate networks which include: neverblueads, azoogleads, clickbank, hydramedia, maxbounty, copeac. And are basically “going at it.” My strategy is going narrow in focus while Henry’s is going very board. So far, I am beating him but he is a quick learner and will adjust fast. Also its real early in the game and Henry’s profit margins are better.
I recently played the popular World of Warcraft game. With over 5 million people playing online at any given time, this game has certainly become well known for its addictive nature, fun, and captured the imagination of many. The creator behind this game is Blizzard entertainment which also created the highly addictive games like Diablo and Diablo 2. I remember that I used to play Diablo 2 a lot with classmates in college. I also remember some of my friends and older brother (not my twin) play this game for the first time. A character starts out clean and at level 1 with almost nothing. But as you put more time and energy into the game you can become very powerful, rich and wealthy with the advancement in levels and collection of rare and hard to find items.
One day I was just curious to see what my brother was doing in the game, so I looked over his shoulder and watched him play for a few minutes. He was basically at very low level at probably level 4 in a cave. During his raid in the cave, monsters occasionally dropped items and gold. My brother would pick up every gold dropped and check almost all the items the monsters dropped for their value. In several instances an armor or weapon dropped and my brother would open his character’s menu and inventory and compare the stats on the dropped weapon with the current equipment he had on. He would equip and use just barely slightly more powerful items he found. If you ever played Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft you can see how insignificant items are in these low levels. However as I continued to watch my brother playing the game for the first time, I could see that we all basically did that. We all tried to improve our items little by little. In his perspective, it was a large improvement in his character with each new “upgrade” and it was fun for him.
Much is the same in real life. Success, wealth, health, and well-being come from small steps. I remember having the desire to make more money one day at work. I remember wanting the feeling of more security and freedom – to not have to depend on my job and physical efforts for money. So I took some action and the results were very small at first and could have been missed if not examined carefully (lack of business-intelligence). I remember breaking a profit for the first time with just over 5 cents. In comparison to my normal paycheck and effort I put into it, it could have been seen as a “a waste of time”, or failure for most. But I was just like a kid playing the game for the first time. Any small step forward was a big improvement and motivator to continue and try new things. Today, I can’t even imagine living without the passive income I generate. And the 5 cents profit look very weak with what I’m generating now. However, the lessons, the trails, the experience, and knowledge I have gained from making that 5 cent profit will always be with me. And truthfully, it can be seen as the entry for “level 1” in one of the business I’m in.
This also brings up the topic of compounding interest which many of you already know if you are into investing. But in your life, compounding interest can be seen as compounding improvements. If you take even a small action to improving any area of your life – maybe 0.1% or even 0.01%, you may not see any changes immediately because the improvements are so small. But the improvements are not linear, they stack on top of each other and the overall improvement can be astronomical if viewed over a longer time frame. You should also be aware that just like in investing, you have to be there in the “big moves up”. You have to be disciplined to see that temporary setbacks and periods of plateaus are just part of the game. In the end you will see the gain if you are in the game and playing it.
We all have goals we would like to acheive in one time or another. Some of us have put deadlines on them or just have them set up in their minds to be accomplished in their lifetime. A question that was asked - "Is putting deadlines on a goal helpful or hurtful?" The answer is yes and no. It really boils down to who you are and how you react to due dates. You have to ask yourself – "Does this date motivate me to get something done when I’m down and tired? Does it inspire me when I’m about to quit? Does it FORCE me to commit myself to getting the goal?" Like many of you, setting dates help somewhat but hurts more often. You see, sometimes you have to feel the pain or not getting something done in order to get yourself going to try to get what you want. Whatever it is you want there is an opposite of it. Everything you want really boils down to what you think you will feel from having, experiencing, owning, and controling it. An emotion in your body has two ends to it. Due dates helps you confirm what you want and pushes you to reach for your goals.
Due dates help out on this when it is set with authority and one that you fully commit yourself to. If not, you just won’t feel the pain, you will probably just push the date back and not get started at all. Due dates also increases a commited person’s intensity level as time gets closer and closer to the the due date. Read the next article on intensity levels on how we see it and how it can help you get what you want.
This often reminds me of high school or even college when a major project is due with a very clear and realistic timeframe and due date set by our professors or by us – our theseses and graduation dates -getting an MS and BS in 4 years.. I am not sure about most people but for me and my twin, we would usually just think up of all the things we would be doing in the beginning – maybe just 1-2 hours and then FORGET about the project until time was getting closer and a closer to the due date. It would not be until about past 50% of the timeframe do we do "real" work on the project. But once this "real" work started our results were usually expontential in growth and we always managed to make our projects on time and get the passing "A" grade. We usually looked at our friends who actually started maybe earlier or even later than us. Most of the time they would either get the project done on the due date but get a lower grade, or just not get the projects done. Not to be mean or anything but this is the truth. And it was brought to our attention from one of our friend in High Shool – David K. It was on a project to design and construct a fully functioning infared transmitter-receiver from scratch with a time frame of about 4 months. Past half way though the schedule, our friend Dave already had a fully working trasmitter – which was basically half of the project completed, while we were still getting started on buying the parts from Radio Shack. But at the end we somehow got it together and got our project to fully function while our friend ended up with a non fuctioning one but started much earlier.
When David stated that "Somehow you guys always seem to pull it all together at the end. I just don’t know how you guys do it," that stuck with me and I started to see what we were doing differently than others that gave us an edge. Below are a few things I noticed and contuinue to use today which will be discussed more in future articles:
- Intensity Levels
- Pain Vs More Pain or Pleasure vs Pain
- Motivation and Procrastination
- Habits and training
- Self-impowering Beliefs
- Working smarter and harder is much more powerful that just working harder
- Destroying Barriers with just a thought
- Taking a stand with full commitment vs whimiscal wishing
- Somehow someway I will type of thinking
and
- Controling one’s emotions and thoughts
Robert Kiyosaki’s game – Cashflow 101 is about getting out of the “rat race”. My twin and I bought it almost a year ago. The main goal is to get out of the rat race by first getting your passive income to be greater than your expenses. Once you have completed this, you will be on the fast track and the goal will then be to reach your dreams.
I will not be giving a review of the game here just yet (maybe in the near future) but I wanted to mention the game because I have a hypothetical question: What if you created or invested to a point where your passive income is greater than your expenses? Would you stop working? In RL (real life) I already have created or invested in projects that have constant passive income streams that are greater than my expenses and I do not have any debt; fortunately also no college loans neither. So technically, I am officially out of the rat race if my RL financial statements were to be used in Robert’s cashflow game. In the game, the next step after getting out of the rat race is simply to move your playing piece to the fast track and smile a big relief that you no longer have to roll the dice and wait for another paycheck and instead you can play the real game which is trying to reach your dream now that money is taken care of. What would you choose to do if you don’t depend on a paycheck in order to live month to month? Would you continue working anyway? I believe you should continue to invest and create passive income while continuing your professional career to the point where your passive income is greater than your expenses and at least 3 times greater than your worked income. After that you should really evaluate what your dreams and goals are in life.
Yes many people have already discussed this topic and showed how by just changing the words you use will greatly affect who you are. But I want to just point out some real life examples of how much this really does affect ones’s being. I have a bunch of internet friends who I speak to on a regular basis in our private VoiP server to play games with. Now recently there was a new guy in our voip server who we were introduced to. Right from the bat this guy seemed to always be the first one to lose, had the “bad luck”, and was getting destroyed in the games his friends told him to come play in. Upon listening to the words he used, besides the abrupt profanities, he would always say what he is “pissed” about and how he “hated something that was done to him” in the games he played before and even after such game events. It was like he is expecting to lose and expecting to get destroyed in the games he played. Of course it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy most of the time.
Now it was obvious that everyone really wants to play games to enjoy it and to “see what they are made of” but somehow this kid just forgot about this. Another guy in our server put it like this: “So young and already so angry – it must be the rap these kids are listening to.” I can’t really say anything on rap because I hardly ever listen to it. But it might actually be the root cause. Anyway, I pulled the kid to a private channel and told him that he could improve his game in an instant if he just changed the words he was to consistently use during the games we played with him. Of course he thought it was boloney and that we were all just messing with him. But his friends didn’t want to listen to the rubbish coming from him in our voip server. Nor did we want to ban him or mute him in our server. After a while of pushing him to change, he gave into our demands and did what we told him to do. It was probably the “instant” word we kept using to finally sway him to our thinking.
He was to replace his constant phrases of†[this and that] pisses me off so much” or “I hate [this and that]” with just the opposite – “[This and that] pumps me up” or†[This and that] makes me happy.” We would work on the profanity later. But right away we noticed how his skill level in the game jumped up. He said it was silly and felt weird doing it but “it just worksâ€. Now he was not focusing on the failures and things he did not like. Instead he was directing himself consciously towards the things he really wanted – enjoyment of a game, victories, support from teammates, reaching personal goals, etc. That’s where the enthusiasm in life comes from, that’s where the passion and desire to become more for yourself and for others stem from. You can really hear it in his voice after a few days the dramatic change in character.
Now this has a parallel in other “games” in life too, such as wealth. How does one ever become truly rich if he is always focusing on “pinching” pennies, paying debts, finding ways to make a quick buck without benefiting others, working extremely hard in stress, anger, bitterness, and hardship WITHOUT a purpose and clear vision in mind, trying to save and scrimp on necessities, not living up to ones own ideals, and focusing on petty things, focusing on how much GAS cost, or how much the electric bill was this month or how unfavorable circumstances are on them right now. You see, what you focus on in life grows and magnifies. You have a choice to focus on what you TRULLY want or just focus on the circumstances you don’t want into reality faster and stronger in proportion to your negative or positive emotions. Go out there and ask what you are really grateful for, what you are happy about, what you want to see more of, what you can give to others, and feel the feelings of already being wealthy – for it is all relative. The choice is always yours and yours alone. Try it for a week and see the dramatic change as with the kid in our server.
An article I wrote some time ago:
“A good indication of skill, or in this case, lack of skill is to see if someone has defeated Combat Blindness. Now, what the heck is combat blindness and what does it have to do with skills in CS? Have you ever spectated someone with less skill than you (Maybe a noob?) and see that they just totally ignored or “didn’t see†an enemy that was right in front of them and their crosshairs? Or maybe just a gun sticking out of a corner or the top of a crouching enemy’s head sticking out of a box? And the noob usually walks away or turns around. And at that point the guy that the noob ignored pops out and blows the noob’s head clean off? Then everyone in the server who was spec’ing the noob just bursts out laughing and calling the noob a ‘NOOB’ and type “How the hell did you not see him?†or “He was right there in front of you – NOOB!†How many times have you seen this happen? Don’t these pure noobs you are spectating just seem to ignore these other filthy noobs? Do they not see them? Clearly that is not true because the filthy noob was defiantly on their screen and everyone else in the server (even you) saw the filthy noob on the NOOB’s screen. So what happened here? This noobness might have happened to you too at on point. The Pig has a term for this and it is called combat blindness. This is mainly contributed to your brain when it is not actively looking for a noob or target for you to kill.
You can have an ACE-fighter pilot’s vision and ace the eye exams with 20/20 scores. But still get killed by noobs that are clearly visible on your screen and get a score or 5 kills with 30 deaths from being NOOBED-UP! You see but you don’t see. SO, do you see? You must not only have a clear image of the player on your screen, but have training for your eyes, brain, and way of thinking. ”
Here is an extension of it:
Same goes with any other game. In business, people pass by good deals everyday just like noobs in CS and never stop and realize that they have to change what they are thinking, doing and the way they are looking at things. Combat blindness in finances is what I call financial blindness. In this world, people are just like the kids we used to be in the blog entry at richtwinpoortwin.com – in a world of MAKE BELIEVE – where we only saw money and finances in terms of the physical world. For grownups, its almost the same; as in cold hard cash, or what BIG house you live in or what fancy car you drive.
To master finances and to see the guts of a business we must all learn and know how to read financial statements – income statements and balance sheets. Simple as that. We all have personal financial statements just like any business. Some choose to ignore it or just lie to themselves and stay in the land of make believe and just continue working in their jobs and not changing anything they do, and just let life pass them by. Some will just LIE through their teeth and say ” Money is not really important to me.” Some will say “I’m still young, I’ll deal with finances when I get more money” or “My wife takes care of my money.” Some might not even want to hear all this and say this is just a bunch of “goobly-goop” I’m saying and that’s just fine by me. Then they will go back to college for 5 more years not knowing the difference between an asset and a hole in the ground. And some want to actually hear more and thats fine too. But ultimately, it is up to you to become a PWNER or noob in finances; Rich or Poor, your choice.
Many have already asked me about what they can do to master their finances and stuff like that. They think to be rich they have to “save and be a penny pincer and to not spend on fancy cars and stuff”. That is one way of thinking that got some people “rich” but in I my eyes they are cheap, miserable, fools living like poor people no matter how much money they got in the bank. I have a different definition of rich and its definitly not hording money. I see an alienware PC I want – I force myself to create new streams of money to get it. Now some even think that you have to work HARDER in their job to eventually get recognized or worse blame their bosses and stuff like that. Well if these people keep acting and thinking like that they will be poor for the rest of their lives. ” So how do I start Pig?” some would ask. “Read my blog” is my reply, start changing how you think and then you will start seeing progress in the direction you want to be in. “Your so harsh, piggy.” some noob would usually say. However Its really a lot a person can do to start. The first is just taking responsiblity and waking the hell up – with full counciousness decide to be rich, decide to be a PWNER.
I remember back in grade school when we had field days – days of sports competition. My twin and I looked forward to the races, especially the three legged races. I recall that there was a lot of confusion and always desperation from the other children to find a race partner for the three legged race. Some chose their friend, some chose others with the same height, others chose partners based on speed, and some even chose the “smart” kids, probably because they thought they would know how to win the race.
And before the three legged race, you can always see these teams rehearsing what they would be doing during the race: “let me lead, left leg first, then count to 2 before the inner leg…” But when it was go time – right off the bat when the gun went off and the race started, some kids fell, others would hobble and stumble, others were yelling, there where other teams with one that was bossy – they were all going nowhere . . . fast.
My twin and I would see this every time and we would always be on the same team. You might not know this, but my twin and I can run like the wind, even in three legged races. We RAN the three legged races. It took us literally seconds to finish the race when it took every other team minutes. We hobbled the first step or two, but we ran the race because we knew the goal was to win the race by running. Sure there were other identical twins teams, but they were having the same problems the other teams faced.
The problem is, the other teams were focused on the strategy, the procedure, the technicals, or trying to lead, but they did not have a common goal nor the bigger picture. They forgot that the objective and goal was to win the race – not to decide on which leg to start first, who is supposed to lead, etc. This lesson goes for other games in life as well; look for teammates that have the hunger, drive, dream, heart and determination to win with you.
