I listened to the audio book version of “This I Believe” book, which was narrated in most cases by the original authors of the essays. Very enlightening to hear people’s stories and how they became what they believed. Some of them are funny: be cool to the pizza delivery dudes; it’s a practice of humility and forgiveness. Some are American patriotism like forgiving some young foreign visitors tab when they ate at a restaurant more than they could afford. Some are in parenting: believing in handing off the world to our next generation in a better form than we received it. There is one essay on believing in their parents who believed in them. Some are about optimism: believing in a better days ahead. Some believed in religion and some believe in non-religion.

There are several essays from famous people like Bill Gates, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller, and etc, though the audio quality of the older essays (due to reproduction from the old “This I Believe”) were poor and hard to understand.

Overall it was a treat to hear the diverse beliefs from a diverse set of people and their stories. This brings up the interesting question about what I truly believe.What do I believe? I believe we only live on this earth once and we ought to give it our best to learn, enjoy, love, and be loved and make the world a better place than we found it.

This is book is highly recommended.

1. Stay Calm. Say “This shall pass.” Resolve to be positive. Refuse to be upset and angry.

2. Be confident in your ability. Keep saying “I like myself.” “I can do it!” “Confidence comes with the forward motion toward your goals.” Remind yourself you have handled problems before.

3. Dare to go forward. Vision and courage are for the leaders. Draw on the courage. “Act as if it’s impossible to fail, and it shall be.” Courage to launch and endure (persist in the face of disappoint) – a true test of leadership.

4. Get the “true” facts. The reality principle – facing the world as it is, not what it should be. Ask “What and how are we trying to?” “What assumptions are we making and what if we are wrong about the assumption?”

5. Take Control (of your mind/emotion). Focus on what’s under your control and what can be done. Accept 100% responsibility and take charge. Keep saying “I’m responsible.” Focus on the future, not the past.

6. Cut your losses – don’t cry over spilled milk: Use “Zero-based” thinking – “is there anything what I’m doing today, knowing what I now know, I wouldn’t get into.” Ask “how do I discontinue this product & service?” Get back to basics.

7. Manage the crises: It’s the testing time. Preserve cash. Get the facts. Discipline yourself to think of solutions. Become action oriented. Crises anticipation: looking ahead to future and ask what could happen to my business and personal life. What steps would you take and react? Extrapolated thinking: describe how you handle in such a crisis. What’s the worst that could happen in this situation? Make efforts to make sure they don’t happen.

8. Communicate constantly. In crunch time, keep key people informed. “No surprises” policy for everyone. Explain what’s going to happen. Ask for ideas. Do not hide the crises. Offer to pay interest only until turn around. Do not delegate to others.

9. Identify your constraints. Be clear about your goals. What are the limiting factors to achieving this goals? Why am I already there with my goal? 80/20 rules seem to apply. 80% of constraints are internal and 20% external. What’s in me or my business that’s holding me back? Fear of failure or rejection. External constraints are outside of your control. There are things you can affect. Focus on one major constraining factor. Get on with it.

10. Tap into your higher power – “holy spirit” or “infinite intelligence,” or “super conscious mind” or “power of God.” Use meditation, solitude or prayer. Let your mind relax – think about water, deep pool of still water – to calm your mind. Develop an attitude of faith. Goal: “peace of mind” and “happy resolution” of the problem. Be open to whatever happened around you. Whatever you want wants you. Be alert. Expect the miracle to come around you.

Remind yourself that life is full of tests and you only fail when you give up. Resolve to persist.

This is a comprehensive book about creating income stream to earn residual income. I did learn quite a few new things about the affiliate program, network marketing, info-preneuring (feel like writing a book now!), licensing, variable life insurance, and about protecting your empire. Very informative but some of the things he mentioned sounds a lot easier than actual. Each stream of income may require a book or more to understand and practice profitably.

The key outlines:
1. Investing in stock market: a) start investing right away, b) index funds are safest, c) dollar cost averaging, d) long-term investing. The efficient market group vs. beat the market group.

2. Accelerated stock strategies: a) let the master (Warren Buffet) manage your money, b) Select the mutual funds with the longest-term track record, c) select only the financial advisers with the longest track records, d) let your portfolio go to the dogs (of the DJ), e) consider enhanced index funds (2x, 1.5x), f) Consider high-powered stock section funds.

3. Double your money in the market: How to multiply your investment dollars. a) writing covered calls, b) Buying and selling call options. Six rules: a. paper trade first, b. never invest money you can’t afford to lose, c. study, d. establish a mentoring relationship, e. don’t overcommit, f. don’t confuse brains for a bull market.

4. Winning big on real estate:
A. finding motivated sellers (DON’T WANTER CONDITIONS, acronyms). Use a property selection grid (3 pts for each of below categories) 1. Sellers motivation and flexibility, 2. location, 3. financing, 4. price, 5 Property condition. Needs to be 12 pts and above.
B. Funding: 1. Nothing down: ultimate paper out. 2. Lease to own option, 3. ABC (anything but cash) 4. OPR (other people’s resource)
C. Farming: How to harvest your profits: flipping or buy & hold.

5. Fortune in foreclosures and flippers: lots of case studies on how to acquire foreclosures and flip them.

6. Paying other people’s taxes: buy tax liens.

7. Network marketing: a. select the right company, b. use the right marketing system, c. use the right leadership system.

8. Infopreneuring: How to turn a tiny classified ad into a fortune. 5 rings or riches in infopreneuring: 1. succeeding in your core expertise, 2. Teaching others specific know-how to succeed in your core expertise, 3. Using your specific experience to teach general success skills, 4. Marketing other products to your database, 5. Support services to infopreneurs in the other four rings. Seven steps: 1. select a subject that matches your passion/expertise, 2. find the hungriest fish in the lake; et a copy of the standard rate and data survey, 3. Discover the kind of bait your fish have been biting on. 4. Design your own unique bait, 5. Test your bait, 6.Roll out your marketing campaign in a major way. 7. Add other ring 2 versions of your winning info-product.

9 Licensing: Intellectual property at warp speed. Types of licensing: a. Celebrity licensing, b. Character licensing, c. Information licensing. Profiting from licensing: a. Start from scratch with your own idea, b. Use licensing to add multiple streams of income to your existing business. c. Acquire the license to someone else’s idea and grow it from scratch. d. Use licensing to add multiple streams of income to someone else’s existing business. How to get there? a. saturate your mind with tollgate thinking, b. pretend you’re a license mogul, c. spend a day at the local library or bookstore, d. find a manufacturer or end licensee. e. enjoy lifetime streams of royalty checks.

10. The internet. Successful business models: a. Information marketing, b. network marketing, c.affiliate programs.

11. Tax cuts: plugging your biggest leak. Variable life insurance (not variable annuity): single premium variable life (SPVL) and variable universal life insurance (VUL).

Financial fortress strategies: shielding your multiple stream of income – asset protection, estate planning, legal strategies (the Nevada Corporation)

This is an innovative book about how to write a journal capturing the life moments. The entire book is practically hand drawn as a journal should be. My key takeaways:

1. In addition to writing down your inner thoughts, hand sketch of interesting things you come across. Start sketching some mundane things like a coffee cup but doing it from memory.

2. Include edited photos and write over the photos to keep it interesting instead of dropping them into the photo box. On photography: 1) Pick a good subject. 2) Get to know your camera in an intimate way, 3) Learn what good composition is. Practice the art of “glancing” (without looking into the lens) 4) Learn to wait for a really good moment.

3. Placing natural things you collected on to the journal pages. Keep your crystal clear tape, razor knife, tweezers, magnifying glass handy. Collect free stuff like stamps, postmarks, ticket stubs, fruit stickers, letterheads, cartoons, logos, window stickers, and etc.

This is a motivational book for someone who’s inspired to capture the life’s moments. It’s a very small and short book that can be read within an hour. Especially the drawings make reading the book like a comic book. I think I’ll try a few tricks I learned from this book but I would like to keep the journal digital for ease of safekeeping.

The author goes through his success formula to become a CEO at his young age of 26. Ephren is definitely a good model for all young kids. In fact, this book should be a must-read for teenagers who are searching for what they want to do when they grow up.

The essence of his success comes from his inner drive and his ability to learn all he needs to learn from books, coupled with the selective mentors. It’s hard to find a good mentor like John Vandewalle, who taught him about evaluating a business and turn it around for profit. Boy, I wish I had that kind of mentor during my MBA years.

Some good questions to ask your potential mentors:
– How did you get into your business?
– What kind of education or training helped you most?
– Who helped you along the way?
– How much money does it take to get started?
– What’s the best source for capital for this kind of business?
– What does it take to be successful?
– What are the hardest things about the business?
– What do you like best about it?
– What do you like least about it?
– What brings you the most customers?
– What organizations do you recommend for people in the business?
– What local organizations have been the most useful and beneficial to you?
– What would you do differently if you were starting out today?
– What have been some of your biggest mistakes?
– What was your biggest triumph?
– Where do you see the business going in the future?
– Would you recommend it for someone like me?
– What’s the best way for someone to get started in the business today?

A lot of the growth/success recipes mentioned in the book is no different than “Think and Grow Rich” and other author’s ideas. But the messages are put in the way appealing to the youths. This is a good thing.

I particularly like the way he pushes the young people to be become entrepreneurs. They definitely have a lot more to gain and less to lose when they’re young. But it’s never too late.

I believe Ephren still has a lot to prove himself. He’s still young and inexperienced. I suspect his success image may be over-marketed. Checking the stock value of his company, Capital City (Symbol: CTCC), I saw its market cap is at only $12M, not much to speak of. I guess you can not call it “success” until you’re truly successful, though his success criteria may be different.

Look forward to seeing more success from him. The youths need more models like him.

This book investigated into the Lincoln’s mental wellness or lack thereof from this early life (fears stage) to his determination to re-enter political life (struggle stage) after a brief pause and then his presidency (transcendence stage). A couple of times, Lincoln sought to end his life due to his deep depression; he was suspected to author a suicide poem. He struggled with failures in his early political life. When the Missouri Compromise was repealed. Lincoln’s belief in abolishing slavery rose to the occasion and awoke him from his constant deep depression to make it his mandate to bring an end to slavery because he loved this country so much to see it put in less than a moral high ground.

There are several tragedies in his life that may have sunk him into a deep blue – deaths of his two sons, a few defeats in his political life, his declining friendship with his best friend, Speed, due to different opinion about slavery, the general wear and tear of a 4-year civil war that resulted in more than 650,000 deaths.

The author emphasizes the “melancholy” undertone and the opposite persona – his sense of humor – from Lincoln’s early life to the end of his life. He was able to laugh at himself and not taking himself too seriously because he had stared death at a close range. It’s through the sense of purpose he brought himself out of his death spiral – a classical case of hero’s journey. Though he died of sudden death to assassination, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him not come out of the spiral once his life goal (freeing the slaves) has been achieved.

This book is a bit long (10 hours of audio). It went into a lot of the technical/clinical definition of depression, and others. I’m not sure I understand them all. Nowadays, depression is a widely known and accepted form of illness. But in those days, it could be a political suicide to admit to it. Lincoln had the courage and determination to overcome his handicap and rose from it, enabling the United States to become a powerful union/country without the dividing topic of slavery. This country owed a lot to Mr. Lincoln.