A magical place where all the sacred hidden knowledge you could ever want is held...

I am sure that the title of this post sounded a little like something out of the Da Vinci code, Nah its not nearly so convoluted and you don't even have to work out any complex hieroglyphics left from the ancients to gain access, or find any hidden access points beneath masonic landmarks...

I assume that if you are here then you do already have an interest in health, wealth and happiness, and if that's so, then there is a place where you can find all the answers that you could ever want on any specific aspect of any of those topics

I'm sure that some of you already know the great wisdom that I am about to impart...

It's called a library and I have a specific way of using mine, Yeah like most people, I pick up a couple of fiction titles, I love horror novels and have recently gotten into some crime fiction lately usually featuring serial killers, (this is not research for a future career path you understand...No honestly).

I do enjoy these novels, they provide a bit of entertainment, escapism and develop a better vocabulary and a more creative brain than watching some trashy movie whilst gorging on chocolate and popcorn while only a half step above comatose, but that is not the point that this post is getting round to...

You see dear reader, recently I have taken to choosing a non fiction book on a topic that I am even vaguely interested, It may be a "how to" guide, a diary following alongside real life achievements for example "how I made 50 billion pounds selling hamster nappies" or they may be on technology and explain in great detail about using the interfaces on sites like blogger.com, (I did actually read that book recently). I even borrowed a book on how to use youtube, with regard to uploading and suchlike.

These books have given me an insight into what it takes to become skilled in certain areas of interest to me, but interestingly they have started to get me thinking more creatively too and I must say that my brain feels a bit sharper of late, (those that know me would probably argue that wouldn't have taken a lot, but I think they are just being a little harsh!)

I in no way intend to sound patronising, and I am sure that you already had a fair inkling of the general purpose of the library, but you may not have wandered any further afield than the fiction section or your favourite authors. There are so many amazing manuals on a diverse range of topics that Maybe it's time to pick up some different reading material on your next visit to the library.

The last thing I wanted to mention is my favourite type of reading material, and it should come as no surprise if you've caught my posts thus far...

Self help/self improvement books, I LOVE THEM!

A lot of people find them a little condescending, and cringe at the books that feature practical exercises, but I find a lot of value in them and although a lot of the tips and tricks to be used for your personal betterment are often amazingly simple yet amazingly effective, but it's a fact that to achieve success in any of the areas of your life that we have discussed doesn't take gargantuan superhero type effort, but just small changes of direction and a focused eye keenly trained in on that evil word so full of accusation and recrimination...you know the one, it makes grown men shudder at the slightest mention...DISCIPLINE.

When you have found some reading material that inspires you and gets you focused on those goals that are most important to you, then and only them do you head to the bookstore to part with your hard earned cash for the very best titles by those authors that leave you feeling empowered and positive, think of the library as an information "try before you buy" store

As a matter of coincidental happenstance, I am off to the library tomorrow, I hope to see you there you miserable sinner, picking up some titles that get you heading in a new direction.

I will shortly (over the next few days) post a list of recommended reading for those of you whom are interested in being proactive in improving your lives to ensure that you are fighting fit for some harsh times ahead. I don't care what bloomberg and their overpaid financial analysts say, things are gonna get worse before they get better, I have studied this in great detail and all previous data from previous times of turmoil throughout our history say that it's not over yet.

Take care of yourselves you wonderful people and I expect to see you back here soon ready for the fight.
                                                                                                                                                      Steven ; )

Happy birthday to me...Happy birthday to me, I wonder if I'm having a midlife crisis?

Well the title wasn't exactly vague now was it?

Yes I am another year wiser, not older... just wiser...Ahem!

This has prompted me to wonder, Is this subconsciously the reason for my new blog ?

I'm coming up to the age when I am consumed with ensuring that my health, wealth and happiness are at the forefront of my mind and constantly held within it's focus. In truth we should all be consumed with this these goals at any age, after all what is there that could be more important in this short adventure we call life?

We all have the tendency (even if it's just inwardly), to take an inventory of where our life is at on these annual milestone dates, birthdays, anniversaries, (and January 1st of course.) And I'm sure that's a good thing but perhaps we should do this a little more often, monthly or weekly even.

If we could cultivate the required discipline (yes, I know nobody likes that word, myself included),  maybe these are the things we should assess and measure at the end of each day, after all if you have a car, how often do you check that you have enough petrol or diesel in it?, can you imagine the effect of waiting until pre-determined date off in the dim and distant future to take stock of how much fuel was in your tank?

We all have the tendency to leave things unchecked and let things slip a little, because the stresses of modern life place seemingly endless obstacles in our path to take our focus away from doing all that we can do and being all that we can be.

Do you even know what it is that you want from life, and would you know if and when you had achieved it?

I sometimes think that upon birth we should be given a "map for life", the only downside to this is that it would be too generic, after all who wants to live the exact same life that countless billions that went before lived, doing nothing of real note, and not deviating one iota from the set formula for a "happy fulfilled life"

But at least we would know where we were at in relation to this epic journey.

So maybe the answer is to create our own "road map", setting out our eventual destination outlining the many "checkpoints" along the way, then we could assign a timescale to reach of these points so that we would know if we were making good time or spending a sizeable proportion of our journey stuck on the hard shoulder.

Health and wealth are reasonably easy to work towards because we have either numbers or physical capabilities to check against, but happiness, aah well that's an altogether different prospect isn't it?

How do you become happier, I am sure that we would all aspire to be happier if we believed that it was something that we had the control to create.

BUT WE DO!

Most people believe that happiness is determined by a random series of events that "just happen" to us at apparently random intervals, well maybe there is a modicum of truth in this because only the most unyielding "control freak" would believe that they had the ability to steer every single tiny event and happenstance in their lives and not bend to the fates, life and cause and effect.

But happiness is not and certainly should not be "random", because to admit that would be to climb bleary eyed from our bed each morning constantly wondering if maybe a little joy may track us down this day. No thank you...Not for me, I prefer a slightly more pro-active philosophy than that.

Might I suggest an easy and fum exercise...No REALLY it is easy and fun!

Keep a happiness diary, this would take seconds to do at the end of each day, simply note down the things that made you smile or laugh or gave a warm fuzzy feeling inside throughout the day, If you leave this till the end of the week or even the end of the month, (you habitual procrastinator you), then you will likely forget the small incidences that made you feel joyful last Thursday morning. 

After only a few days of doing this, you will note that the small things are the ones that count with regard to your happiness, occasionally you will offer a wide beaming smile to a random stranger who holds open a door for you, or maybe somebody smiles at you in such a warm genuine way that the memory elicits much the same joy when revisited.

The things that struck a cord with me when I tried this are the small pleasures felt from such apparently trivial things as a painting drawn by one of your children, a compliment you were not expecting or a loving look from your partner. I'm telling you these things are gold, and we DO appreciate the minutia of life as it's happening, but forget so soon afterwards so recalling these blissful moments again at the end of each day is incredibly rewarding.

Even if you doubt this, please, please give it a go, C'mon, what have you got to lose ?...a few seconds at the end of each day for one lousy week of your life, and I truly believe that you will keep it up, because when life is at its most miserable, when we are suffering or feeling a bit "down" or even in a full blown depression, your happiness diary can give you an alternative perspective that can drag you through it and remind you of just what you have in your life.

You are probably not the sort of person who would USUALLY try this stuff, Its a bit errm... California for many people, but hey

So what!

If it works and I can categorically tell you that it does, then isn't it worth trying? Who wouldn't want a tap that you could turn on at will and fill your glass with happiness, (No that wasn't a metaphor for whiskey and gin, I'm still talking about the diary), So trust me and more importantly, trust YOU, and give yourself this gift.

An unexpected added benefit (I find), is that you begin seeing your loved ones, and people in general in a more positive, less critical light. This can do wonders for your relationships.

Next and you may think this sounds "happy clappy" and I can't help that, I can only tell ya this stuff as it is, I would be doing you a disservice by doing anything else and I wouldn't be true to myself either!

Give Thanks...

Now, I am a "stuffy Englishman" (O.K we will try and avoid the stereotypes), but am obviously very aware of the American holiday "thanksgiving".

Observed in the correct spirit this holiday can be incredibly liberating as it frees up that tendency that we have for listing all the absolutely terrible things that happen to us, reveling in ghoulish glee and listing in glorious technicolour detail just mow much bad luck we have and being amazingly self deprecating about our skills and talents and obstreperous with regards to our personal woes so that everybody for miles around knows that "we've got it so bad"...

Acknowledging what is good in our life and the world at large can defragment our "negative energy circuit", if it's not repelling bad energy the way it once did, when we were younger and more optimistic. Does this negativity taint our relationships?...

Well you know what they say, (whoever the hell they are!)

"Misery loves company"

So don't hang with a negative crowd, and if you do don't be surprised when you wind up embittered and miserable.

The very last thing I want to mention in regards to making happiness "happen" on demand, is your own personal physiology and body language.

• How do you stand or carry yourself when you feel depressed or sad?
• How does somebody who is grief stricken appear? 
• What about somebody who is happy, excited, vibrant?
• how does a proud person hold their head and confidently stride, compared to the hunched shouldered sagged body look of a person with no self esteem

But the big question is this, does that physiology make you feel any better or just perpetuate the way you feel already sending you into a spiral of unhappiness or self pity?

I am here to tell you this...and it is MASSIVE,

When you feel down or miserable get yourself over to the mirror and do something that you may usually find mad or at the very least eccentric...

GIVE YOURSELF AN ENORMOUS WARM SMILE AND SAY

"I bloody love you"

This probably works best when you are alone as you don't really want your family thinking that you've "lost the plot", then again if they see it, you may set a very wonderful precedent, but I wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable so early on.

Next, lift your shoulders and stride away from that mirror like the happiest guy or girl in the world.

THIS IS SO SIMPLE, BUT IT PAYS IMMEDIATE, MASSIVE, "TWICE YOUR MONEY BACK" RESULTS.

Are you really gonna be so stubborn as to not try this stuff because it sounds "a bit silly", if so, that is absolute craziness. You can teach yourself to be happy at will That is amazingly powerful!

I probably reacted to this in much the same way that many of you are right now believing that

"It won't work", "I'm too busy", "I haven't got time to play games"

EXCUSES, excuses, excuses...excuses for what?, to stay miserable just to prove a point?

Anyway time to get down from my soapbox, (AGAIN), and let you get on with your day. I hope that this day brings you many incidents of happiness and joy, and not necessarily of the "Receive a brand new Ferrari variety"

If you try any of these ideas that I suggest, then let me know the results, because I absolutely positively KNOW they can't feel to cultivate happiness in your life and would love to hear about it because you can bet that will make me feel happier.

Anyway folks I'm off to blow out 39 candles, (remember when I talked about upcoming milestones), before they create a scene akin to a forest fire.

Have an amazing day.
                                  Steven ; )

What is Paltry, what is princely - YOU decide...

Well I've stated or at the very least intimated several times already in my (thus far), few short posts, that one of my over-riding goals is to become financially independent.

Well there is a problem for you there already dear reader, because how can you possibly relate to such an erroneous statement, you see from the second that I selected that particular phrase, our paths with regard to the rest of this conversation may have started to meander gently off in different directions.

OR THEY COULD HAVE VIOLENTLY SWERVED OFF IN SUCH OPPOSING DIRECTIONS THAT A DIAGRAM ON PAPER WOULD LOOK LIKE 2 JUVENILE DELINQUENTS BOTH DOING HANDBRAKE TURNS IN A McDONALDS CAR PARK, ONE HEADING NORTH AND ONE SOUTH!

You see the reason for this is that phrases like "financially independent", mean such radically different things to different people!

You may want a castle made from solid gold with diamond encrusted ramparts 200 trained meerkat butlers and a liquid cash accumulation of £1.68 trillion pounds, just in case the one castle becomes a little cramped one day, or the meerkats run away to pursue careers in acting and go on to have incredibly successful careers selling car insurance, (If you are from outside of the UK, this may not make a lot of sense but google comparethemeerkat.com TV advertisements, and it will probably make more sense than the rest of my blog)

Conversely, you may want a couple of thousand pounds in a building society account for emergencies and a comfortable "paid for" bungalow with a spare room to display your collection of wonder woman action figures.

Neither of these scenarios is the right or indeed the wrong one. There is no amount of money that is grand enough or not grand enough, this information is not to be voted upon or judged by the masses...Its your own guide stick for how good or bad you are doing on your own pre determined road to financial freedom or independence. I guess what I am trying to convey here, (with far more words than are necessary as per usual), is that this is a very personal thing to assess and only you can decide just what it is that you want from life and when you will have enough for you to feel successful and "financially independent"

Coming up with this "magic figure" may seem far too difficult a task, but I would like to share a strategy that I stumbled across in a "happy clappy" self help book that I read a few short years ago, I've read so many that to recall exactly which one it was would be incredibly difficult, but I did find it a great way of answering the extremely difficult question of how much you "need."

It went something along the lines of...Find the amount that you must have per week to cover all of your expenses, such as

• rent or mortgage
• utilities, gas, electric, water, phone, Internet
• any credit agreements
• loans and the "dreaded plastic"
• food, clothing
• rates, council tax
• vets fees
• medical expenses
• cost of keeping your car on the road
• school expenses

Add up all the values that you have placed next to each expense, multiply  it by 52 (weeks in a year), to find the figure that you would need this is your annual "magic number"

What you may ask is so magical about this number...?

GOOD QUESTION.

Well it is the exact amount that would free you from needing to go to work in the next 12 months, doesn't that sound good?

I should pause to say that of course you may love your job, and that is awesome, and if you are one of the select few who can make this happy statement, then I am genuinely happy for you, but I should point out that a few years ago I had a position as a warehouse manager and despite the fact that I never received more than £7 per hour, I LOVED the job, which was all well and good, but when a period of economic turmoil hit it turned out that I loved the job more than it loved me and I was downsized out of the company!

My point?, well its just this...When you work for someone else you never truly have your destiny in your own hands and I don't see that situation getting much better for at least the next few years, Do you?

And even if you do love your job, it would still be nice to have the money in your life to go to work purely and simply because you wanted to wouldn't it?

Back to the calculations now, once you have ascertained your magic number multiply it by 12,

So for example, lets assume that your figure is £12,000
£12,000 x 12 = 144,000

What is the relevance of this number you ask? , quite rightly...And I think you ask a bloody good question I have to say

Well if you had this amount in the bank, it would pay you in interest each year almost exactly the amount that you decided you needed to take care of all the essentials in life (your magic number), so that you would never NEED to work again.

The reason I have spent so much time on this is that when I did this exercise, I was shocked at how low the amount was in relation to what I had always believed it was, I used to ponder what amount would free me from the need to ever have to work a job again, and I'd come up with figures ranging from £1 million to £2.5 million, but it was sooo much lower.



Any credit agreements, mortgages etc, will be diminishing and eventually disappear from you life over the time of saving or making this amount.

THE TRICK HERE IS TO KEEP WELL, WELL, WELL AWAY FROM OBTAINING FURTHER CREDIT OR LOANS AS YOUR EXPENSES SHRINK.

I hope that you don't see this amount as beyond your wildest dreams or far too insurmountable a money mountain, the likes of which you will never behold with your very own eyes, because that would be incredibly sad. I hope the power of the dreams of the future you are even slightly visible to you now because that will inspire you to move forward into achieving that which you want to make manifest.

A couple of points to help shove you forward in your thinking

• In the United states, there are over 5.2 million millionaire households
• In the United Kingdom there are over 300,000 millionaire households

Does that sound like a feat akin to climbing Everest armed with only a snickers and a surfboard ?, a crazy impossible dream to you?, I hope not, If it does then it's time to dream bigger and better dreams than you ever have before. Keep checking back regularly to see what strategies of becoming financially free I am using, trying or investigating.



                                                                                Steven  ; )