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There are tons of reasons you don't want to be overweight. For me, the most important is that extra weight makes you slow and sluggish. High-value value men need to be nimble and full of energy and enthusiasm. There are a few myths about losing weight that you need to know. Exercise will not make you lighter - in fact, it might even make you heavier. When you train, you turn fat into muscle. Muscle is more dense than fat and it weighs more. Also, the more you exercise, the hungrier you get and often you replace more than you burn. The only way you can shed weight is through diet. The maths is simple- you need to burn more calories than you consume. Intermittent fasting is one way to turn your body into a calory-burning ninja. This is how it works. Your body has two sources of energy - sugar (also known as glycogen) and fat. Sugar is your body's default energy source. It burns quickly. If you are feeling low in energy, you going to hit a chocolate bar - not a t-bone steak. When you are eating, your body is feeding. When you are not eating, you are fasting. Let's say you have dinner at 8 pm. Assume you wake up at 8 am - your body has now fasted for 12 hours. If you eat something, you break the fast - hence the term "breakfast". After 12 hours of fasting, your body has burned through all your sugar reserves and therefore kicks into fat-burning mode. Burning fat is good. The longer you can stay in this fat-burning state, the more fat your burn. Intermittent fasting suggests you fast for between 16 and 20 hours - between 4 and 8 hours of fat burning. For me this many benefits. It makes me feel more nimble physically and mentally. I also find it helps me lose weight in the medium term. I aim for the 16-hour6 pm fast. I try to have dinner at 6pm which means I need to power through to 10 am the next day. When I wake up in the morning, I hit a couple of black coffees without any sugar. That keeps my body in a fasted state. You can also have unsweetened tea - you need to stay away from the sugar. I also exercise in a fasted state - this means that my body is burning fat during exercise which increases the rate of burn. The first thing people say when I tell them about intermittent fasting is - isn't breakfast the most important meal of the day. Do you know who invented that phrase - the founder of Kellogg's because he wanted to sell you his sugar-coated cereal. You are not going to pass out if you skip breakfast but you need to approach this smartly. It will take your body and mind a while to adjust. Here are two hints to get you through the 16-20 hours: 1) drink lots of water. 2) get a good 8 hours of sleep. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

High-value men transform their relationships with their bodies. Instead of it being a source of shame and limitation, they optimize its functionality so they can make their dent in the universe. Bodies are machines. Their performance depends on how they are fuelled. If you fill them with shit, they will perform like shit. If you fill them with high octane, high-quality fuel, they perform optimally. In this blog, I am going to help you differentiate between shit and high-quality fuel. All food in its raw and natural state is filled with goodness. Over the decades man has processed all the goodness out of food. So the rule is simple - the more a food has been processed, the lower the quality of the fuel. So how do you know if food has been processed? It is simple, when you look at it, you haven't got a fucking clue where it came from. If the food comes in a box, it is probably processed. Take a big fat juicy doughnut. Do you think some farmers planted doughnut seeds and then harvested a crop of doughnuts? Of course not - doughnuts are full of processed shit - sugar, flour, fructose, glucose, colorants, preservatives, etc. Add to this list food like bread, cookies, chips, fruit loops, and other sugary cereals, sweets, etc. Let's now move across to high-quality foods. When you walk into a supermarket, what foods do you ordinarily find close to the walls? Fruit, vegetables, meat, chicken, fish, milk, cheese. When you look at these products, you have a pretty good idea of how they existed in their pre supermarket state. These foods have not been processed. This is high-quality fuel. This is a simplistic look at diet and serves as the first filter. The next step is to work out what foods work for you and what foods make you feel shit. Food is more than fuel. It also affects the way you feel. Your stomach is a second brain. What does that mean? Firstly, have you ever noticed how you can be eating and then all of a sudden you feel full. Your stomach brain is a little retarded. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach brain to tell your cerebral brain you are full. That is problematic. If you are eating dinner and you are stuffing your face, at 6 pm you are full, but you don't feel full so you keep shoveling calories into your face. By 6.19 pm you have offloaded another 500 calories into a full stomach. At 6.20 pm the signal arrives and you feel stuffed. You feel lethargic and you want to take a nap. You may also feel a little guilty as you move to the couch, loosen your belt, and collapse onto the soft cushioning like a big lump of lard. So this is what you want to do. 1) Eat slowly - you want to limit your calories per minute consumption. If you pack 500 calories in 20 minutes, that is 25 calories per minute. If you can cut that to 10 per minute, in the 20-minute delay between stomach and brain, you will only overload by 200 calories. 2) Pay attention to what foods affect your stomach. Lactose has become public enemy number one. I love dairy - milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream all make me excited, but lately, they have been upsetting my stomach and putting me into a shit mood. I feel less energetic and powerful so I try and stay away from them. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

We think we control our lives, our destinies, and our outcomes. The problem is that we are more manipulable than ever. Everyone is vying for our attention – there is fierce competition for real estate in our brains. Corporations and governments make it their top priority to understand us. If they understand us better than we understand ourselves, then we are fucked. They will play us and we don’t even know it. People who believe they have free will are the easiest to manipulate. Capitalism hides behind the myth of free will – the customer is always right! We don’t tell corporations what we want – they tell us what they want to sell to us. We believe we are in control, but that is bullshit. Henry Ford said that he never asked people want they wanted because they would have said, “we want faster horses”. Steve Jobs also did not spend much time on what customers wanted, and neither did Elon Musk. People do not know what they want. We are sheeple (sheep + people). Most people live their lives based on a list of lies. These lies have been passed down through the generations and are now "conventional wisdom". The fact that everyone believes something is not enough reason to believe it. The time has come to become a functional rebel. You need to rebel against these lies. Here are 10 of the most dominant lies that are fucking up your life. Lie 1: All You Need is Love Romanticism declares that love means the end of all loneliness and that one special person will make your life complete. You know you are in love when you are overwhelmed with that special feeling. The Beatles declared "All You Need is Love". They then followed it up with "Elanor Rigby", and the line "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" The Beatles turned loneliness into evidence of pathology. Modern society makes it mandatory to have a partner and a large cohort of friends, and an empty diary has become an emblem of social deformity. Being committed to the friendzone is a death sentence. So let's take a few minutes to throw love and friendship into the boxing ring to test the thesis that friendship is love's puny, ugly cousin. In the left corner, we have the champion - Love. Feels great at first. Fresh and tingly - you feel invigorated, like a sprig of eucalyptus up the nose. But after a couple of rounds, love starts to play a little dirty. Blood, tears, and frustrations start to rear their ugly heads as fatigue sets in. The viciousness of insults also starts to increase. Scenes that can unfold between lovers would scarcely be considered imaginable outside of conditions of open pugilistic hostility. Romanticism has delivered a debilitating body blow to love. This notion that one special person will complete us has created untold misery and heartache. We settle for someone very nice in a few ways (she has great tits, or laughs at our jokes), but fucking awful in many other ways (she is possessive, moody, and just a massive pain in the ass). After a couple of weeks, months, and maybe years (if you are lucky), the relationship turns into a fucking disaster when compared to previously high expectations. But we ignore the red flags because we are terrified of being alone for two reasons. What will people say when we spent Saturday nights alone watching Netflix? They will think we are social lepers, and secondly, being alone means you have to deal with all the shit in your life that you have been running away from – like answering the most difficult question in the world – who the fuck am I? Let's now move to the right corner and friendship. In friendship, we find our highest and noblest virtues. We find patience, tolerance, encouragement, and kindness - qualities that have no real place in a boxing ring. Friends stick by us no matter what we do or say. We always bring out our best selves in front of our friends. I am amazed at how underrated friendship has become. Lovers soon become bored. Friendship is more profound. It is an arena in which people can get a sense of each other's vulnerabilities - reassure one another of each other's value. Million Man focuses on the forging of deep and meaningful friendships between members. I teach men not to chase women, but to chase excellence and high value in their lives. I do not discourage romantic connection, quite the contrary, I just do not believe that it should be high on the priority list. Lie 2: Nice Guys Finish Last I am a nice guy. I am pleasant, positive, and take a genuine interest in other people. I am not a dickhead who plays macho alpha male head games to get what I want. Lately, however, I have been embarrassed by my “niceness”. Motivation speakers have started to hate on niceness - "nice guys finish last", "if you want to be successful in life, you need to be less agreeable", "women relegate nice guys to the friend zone", and "nice guys are betas and get no pussy". "Nice" has become a dirty word. In some twisted way, it is now associated with boring, predictable, agreeable, weak, insipid, and exploited. You do not want to be nice because then everyone will walk over you. Instead, the world encourages us to be competitive, cutthroat, and ruthless. I have seen a notable uptick in Machiavellian-inspired motivation that preaches how the nice guy always finishes last in business and relationships. Men are led to believe that women are looking for men who are edgy, domineering, unpredictable, and brutal. The question is posed - do you think women would rather have lunch with a nice guy on a park bench, or be down inside a dungeon with a stranger and a whip? They would tell you that women want danger. Most women do not want this. Adventure is good. A degree of unpredictability and spontaneity is good. But being in a relationship that always moves you into the danger zone is not sustainable. Women want a man who will take control, which knows what he wants, who is confident, who understands his value and is also capable of making a deep and meaningful connection. In business, no company can survive without trust and the bonds of affection. We love to praise the exploits of Steve Jobs, but he was a fucking tyrant. His management style was not inclusive. He did not trust his colleagues and created an environment of survival of the fittest. Take a look at what the Apple share price has done since Jobs passed away and was replaced by a more inclusive and nurturing Tim Cook. In the last five years (2016 to 2021 -Jobs died in 2011) the stock is up 5x. You are mistaken in thinking that business is 100% dog-eats-dog. Money and the bottom line is not the sole motivator. As for the sexual thrill of nastiness, it can only be pursued in an environment of trust. Some women may fantasize about a night with a ruthless conqueror, but the idea of living with Attila the Hun seems less appealing. If you still believe that "nice guys finish last", look no further than the biggest dickhead of the 21t century, Lance Armstrong. I am a fan, but he is a self-confessed dickhead. He lied, cheated, bullied, and intimidated his way to seven Tour de France titles. Almost everyone in the 20 years between 1990 and 2010 was heavily doped in the Tour, yet cycling's governing body (UCI) only stripped Lance. Do you wonder why? Because he acted like a dickhead! Lie 3: Life is Too Short The phrase “Life Is Too Short” in 1741 by Thomas Love Peacock. Back in the 18th century when this phrase was coined was very different than it is today. You would get married in your teens and have kids, be a grandparent in your early thirties and die in your late thirties. Today, life expectancy has almost doubled. Humans have an unusual relationship with time. Bill Gates said we overestimate what we can do in one year, and underestimate what we can do in ten years. Our problem with time can be explained by our lack of patience. We are living in an age of instant gratification. The Internet and technology mean we never have to wait for anything. When I was growing up, SportsCenter aired on Friday at 6 pm for one hour. After it ended, I had to wait six days and 23 hours. Today everything is on tap, on-demand, same-day delivery, etc. This lack of delayed gratification is lethal in your management of two fundamental parts of your life - your money, and your relationships. 1) Time and Money Anyone can be rich. All they need is patience. The reason why most people are not rich is that they are impatient. We want to get rich quickly. Theodore Johnson worked for UPS and never made more than $14,000 a year and yet, in his old age, was worth more than $70 million. Even though he made little money, he took 20 percent of his money and it went straight into the stock market. Over more than five decades, that compounded to make him $70 million. Let us look at the numbers. You invest $1,000 per month into the stock market which delivers a return of 10% per annum. If you do this for 5 years, you will have $68,000. Let us say you have a little more patience, and you double the time horizon to 10 years – you will have R155,000. Notice how doubling the time horizon gives a little more than double the money. Look now what happens if you go to 20 years – you will have $411,000, and if you double to 40 years, you will have $1.5 million. Do you notice the snowballing effect of patience? The more patience you have, the richer you get because you earn returns on returns – this is known as compounding. Albert Einstein said that the power of compound interest is "the most powerful force in the universe" and went on to say..." he who understands it earns it; he who doesn't, pays it." Compounding only happens with patience. 2) Time and Relationships You move to a new city and you have no friends. You are lonely and feel the world is judging you for your loneliness. You jump onto Tinder and hook up with the first person that expresses an interest in you. Before you know it, you are unhappily married, with 3 kids, living in the suburbs, and commuting 2 hours a day for a job you hate to finance the life you are starting to despise. We are impatient with our relationships because we are scared of being alone. Time alone is seen as being a poor reflection of who we are as people. It seems to indicate that we are socially undesirable and that there is something inherently wrong with us. Would you go to a restaurant by yourself? Would you go to the movies by yourself? I would wager that the majority of you would answer NO to both of these questions. Why? Not only are you afraid of being alone, but you are also afraid to be seen alone. What will people think? Make some friends first. You need to find a tribe centered around a common interest. Join a motorcycle club or a running/biking/swimming/surfing club. This will reduce the probability of making stupid and unhealthy relationship choices. This patience will not only make you happier but will also make you more prepared to enter serious long-term relationships. Lie 4: Freedom is a Life without Responsibilities For many, freedom is the absence of responsibilities and obligations- the chance to do whatever you want, to pursue a passive lifestyle of limited exertion and physical effort. It is lying on an exotic beach sipping a colorful cocktail. I told a former work colleague that I exercise every day, and she replied by saying that I am a product of an unhappy childhood, to which I told her to fuck off (in my head – I was working in a large multinational that prided itself on political correctness). People think that routines are restrictive and they impede our liberties and freedom. Freedom is not anarchy – freedom comes through self-control and discipline. You decide to go to the gym every weekday morning at 5 am. If you hit every session of the week religiously and set a routine, are you free or a slave? To answer the question, consider how you feel if you decided to hit the snooze button and miss the session. You are racked with self-guilt – you feel like a failure and a piece of shit. Those negative feelings will weigh you down for most of the day. They will hold you back like a ball and chain. Are you free or a slave? The answer is obvious. Freedom is actively pursuing responsibilities, disciple, and routine. It is the process of turning yourself from a slave into a master. Freedom, and happiness, is the process of finding the chains that control you, that make you anxious and depresse, and then working on dismantling those chains. Notice how I said “dismantling” and not “breaking out”. Liberation is a process – not an event. This is not like busting out of Alcatraz. It is more like the French Revolution which took more than a decade. It is a long and agonizing process of self-observation, self-correction, and control. The brain can handle periods of idleness for a couple of days and maybe up to a week, depending on how lazy you are. Pretty soon it will resume with its worries, and questions and will force you to account for yourself by asking “so what have you been up to?”. I travel frequently to Colombia. A common greeting is “Que has hecho?” which means “What have you done?” Not familiar with Colombian slang, I was often confused by the question – do I need you to give them a brief resume of my entire professional life, or would a quick recap of the last few days suffice? I then realized that this phrase should not be directly translated, and was simply a common greeting of “how are you?”. The human brain, however, is far more literal in its persistent persecution. It does require you to give an immediate account, and often the honest answer is “well, actually, not that much”. You are then engulfed with feelings of unworthiness – irrational as they may be. We start to believe that no achievement will be enough – not even climbing Mount Everest and that we are doomed to a lapse of despair. Lie 5: You Have to Go to University After finishing school, we are overwhelmed with a sense of urgency. We need to get into university, get our degree, and make money as soon as possible. We don’t take the time to think carefully about what we want in life. We jump into a career that we think we want, but it turns out that we are doing what is expected of us. Five years into the degree, we drop out and take a year off to travel and discover ourselves. You need to take a deep breath and not be in such a rush to plunge into the workforce. Travel first (if you have that luxury). If not, take a gap year and pursue your interests locally. Meet people, understand the business and social world outside of school, and make every effort to understand what you truly want out of life. Another factor to consider before embarking on an expensive trip through a tertiary education institution is the value of a university degree. In 2018, job-search site Glassdoor compiled a list of top employers who no longer require applicants to have a college degree. Companies like Google, Apple, and IBM are all in this group. In 2017, IBM’s vice president of talent Joanna Daley told CNBC that 15 percent of her company’s U.S. hires do not have a four-year degree. The message from these companies is that a traditional college degree does not necessarily equip graduates with the requisite skills to operate in their world. The market value of a university degree has declined while the cost of that education has increased. In the 1980s, a college degree almost guaranteed a job in a specific field of study. This is no longer the case given the higher number of degrees and the shrinking number of jobs on account of technology and automation. In the face of this, the cost of a university degree in the U.S. has more than doubled since the 1980s. Student debt in the U.S. in 2019 stood at $1.4 trillion. University education in the U.S. is now more expensive than marrying a Las Vegas showgirl. The problem is not only the debt. The problem is also that the skills acquired in the accumulation of this debt no long correlate with what is required in the real world. Lie 6: Risk is Bad Helen Keller said: Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Everybody wants to be more than they are. How else can you explain the growth in the self-help/improvement industry? Surely, if these self-help gurus were so fucking effective, this market should be contracting and not expanding. Everyone who buys the courses, the books, and the expensive 1x1 sessions should be crushing it. The single biggest reason why businesses grow is loyalty – clients keep coming back. There is no industry in the world with more repeat business than self-help. It is a drug – it gets you hooked and keeps you high long enough to attend the next course or buy the next book. So why is it that we are all so depressed, unfulfilled, and operating so far below our full potential? We are terrified of what people might think if we start to take risks and do radical things or make big changes in our professional lives. We are all so worried about what people will think if you quit your job as a doctor and start writing screenplays for Hollywood movies, or you post a video about your new sneaker business or start a podcast to brand the wines you sell. You use these excuses: I have a face for radio, or I don’t have a funky studio, or my voice is more irritating than Marge Simpson. NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOU. This is a cruel thing to say but most people are too busy dealing with thei ow shit to be concerned about your squeaky voice. Sure, there are deeply hurt and conflicted people that will hate on you, post negative remarks and tell you you are a piece of shit – but in all honesty, do you care about the opinions of these sad and broken people. There will always be haters. Go to your favorite song on YouTube, what is the probability of finding zero dislikes? Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team. Tom Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft. You need to get over yourself and start taking risks. Risk is your friend – not your enemy. The secrettof success, happiness, and fulfillment in lifeares not being enslaved and paralyzed by self-consciousness. I know this is not easy because we are all hardwired to be concerned about the opinions of others. But you need to move away from that. If you want to launch a personal brand on social media and tap into millions of potential clients, you need to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. People are going to say you are ugly, stupid, full of shit, a piece of shit, etc. Many people in the world are so sad and miserable, and have lives that are so empty, that they will take the time to write you a nasty comment. Instead of being hurt, feel sorry for these miserable fuckers. Don’t ever lose sight of your mission and purpose. The same is also true of the praise. When people say how fucking great and awesome you are, this too should not be taken too seriously. You do not need external validation. You know who you are, you know your value, and no one should be allowed to change that. Lie 7: The Media is a Reliable Source of News About the World What do you think the media's top priority is? To inform you or to scare the living crap out of you? In theory, the media plays a very important role in a functioning democracy. It is tasked with the job of finding problems in the political system and then pressurizing politicians to make changes. The problem is that weaknesses in the system are not sexy news and do not drive traffic. What does drive traffic? Scandals and sensationalism. People want to read about the member of parliament that held a 3-day orgy at a 5-star hotel and then made the taxpayer foot the bill. The media wants to deliver content that will excite and titillate so we remain engaged throughout the news cycle. Power, fame, disaster, and sex are the four horsemen of the apocalypse off of which the media feeds. People are guaranteed to click on this shit - me included. Our appetite for sensationalism is the same as our weakness for junk food. We are not evil, we are just weak-willed and predictable. We secretly want to do the same things that were committed during the scandals. The media is not your friend. Do not rely on it to generate informed and objective opinions about the world. Lie 8: You Need Lots of Material Shit to be Happy Mercedes, BMW, Louis Vuitton, Gucci – the list goes on. They refer to this as aspirational shit. Beautiful smiling influencers on Instagram in their luxury cars, on their mega-yachts, sipping on Verve Cliquot champagne, with their perfect bodies and brilliant white teeth. Corporations know that we are weak, impressionable, and desperately seeking happiness, and they attack us with all this shit 24 hours a day through our phones. In the old days, it was only when you watched TV, read a magazine, or saw a billboard. Now, it is relentless and the fucking algos know exactly what you like. The richest people I know are almost always the most miserable. They are surrounded by beautiful material possessions, and they are unhappy because they don't own this stuff, this stuff owns them. It defines them and prevents them from discovering their true selves. Lie 9: The Pursuit of Money will Lead to Fulfilment There are two different kinds of money people – those that want to have enough to survive and those that are obsessed with making it. In the first group, “enough” money is that amount that covers basic physiological needs. For the second group, money is an eternal pursuit - if you have a million, you want another million. If you have a billion, you what another billion. It is like climbing Everest, but when you reach the summit, you discover that another 100m has been added. For the super-rich, money is a game and a measure of who is winning. The rich want to be honored and revered. Wealth and honor have become intertwined in the modern world. This is a hollow and vain pursuit. Lie 10: Money will Cure your Insecurities We are all insecure about something. We question our intellect – are we smart enough to contribute to the conversation? In our relationships, we may be unwilling to trust the other person. We worry about what we look like and are self-conscious about our bodies. In our jobs, we are afraid that we don’t have the necessary skills to perform and that we will be fired. Guess what – money will not make any of these insecurities go away. Money is physical and these insecurities are emotional – they do not exist in the same realm which means that one cannot meaningfully impact the other. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Mark Twain said, “whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes away”. If you subscribe to the Mark Twain school of exercise, not all is lost. You don’t need to go out and run marathons. Exercise is not binary – you don’t have to go out and push yourself until you see black spots in your peripheral vision to get good results. The key for lazy people is to start off small and not make any sudden violent movements. In other words, saying you are going to run 10 miles a day every day for 2 weeks is a big goal and a violent movement – you are not going to do it. Not even I could do that and I do Ironman triathlons. Here are 6 easy hacks to get you going: 1) Take the Stairs – Unless You Work/Live in the Burj Khalifa This building in Dubai has 163 floors. If you live or work on the first 10 floors of your building, skip the elevator and take the stairs. After a couple of weeks, you can build groceries into the workout. After a couple of months, furniture, and after a couple of years, medium size kitchen appliances. 2) Stand Up Regularly Sitting is the new smoking. If you do not have a stand up desk, set an hourly alarm that forces you to get off your ass and walk to the watercooler, or the toilet, or go and have a quick peak at what the cute girl in accounting is wearing. As for the cute girl, only do that once per day. Every hour will get you a strongly worded e-mail from HR! 3) Walk for at approx 40 Minutes Per Day This is easy if you live in a big city like London or New York which is geared for pedestrians. Most modern cities are incorporating “active environments” to encourage people out into the open air. Parks, running tracks, open-air gyms are all the rage. The cool thing is that you will not be the only person power walking - and you may stumble across some good-looking girls to help you keep your pace up! 4) Ignore the Watch I know what you are thinking – wtf dude. You just said walk for 40 mins. I said “approx. 40 minutes”. The reason why some people hate to exercise is that exercise freaks get all religious and inflexible. Time is not important – what is important is getting your heart rate up and feeling the positive effects of the endorphins. Doing something – anything – is better than nothing. 5) Run for Just One Song Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven is 8 minutes – that is the goal. But start with a shorter song - Start off with Yesterday from the Beatles at 2 minutes. Then, Mumford & Sons – I Gave You All at 4 minutes. Then Bohemian Rhapsody at 6 minutes. Then hit Stairway to Heaven and do it like a ninja! 6) Get Your Rocks Off 25 minutes of good sexual activity burns more than 100 calories – do that five times a day, and you will have a six-pack, and you will leave your lover with a big smile on their face! #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

What would you say to this challenge: in a couple of weeks, I can make you stronger, younger, sexier, smarter, and healthier, and all you have to do is lie on your back, side, or front and close your eyes. You may think I am smoking crack, but let me clue you in on something – every man, woman, and child has the same superpower. It is supremely easy to activate, yet many men consciously choose not to activate it. What is it? SLEEP. Let me throw out some cold hard facts. Men who sleep 5 hours per night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7-8 hours. Men who sleep 5 hours per night have the same testosterone levels as men 10 years their senior. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, when asked who/what his biggest competitor was, replied "sleep". This is what happens when you choose to watch another episode of Breaking Bad instead of hitting the sack. 1) It Makes You Stupid A bunch of medical geeks ran an experiment. They created two groups – one that got a solid 8 hours of Zs, and another that was deprived of sleep. Everyone was then placed in an MRI scan while a list of new facts was communicated to see how the brains reacted. Both groups were then tested on their ability to retain these new facts. The deprived group performed 40% worse than the rested group. Million Men are masters of education and knowledge. To be a high-value man, you need to be continually learning – finding new ways to make money, solving complex problems, understanding client needs, interacting with a dynamic and vibrant world, being exposed to new and potentially life-changing experiences. If your brain is not firing on all cylinders, you are missing opportunities and living below your potential. If that doesn’t scare the living shit out of you, consider sleep spindles. These are big powerful brainwaves that occur during the deepest phases of sleep. What the fuck does this mean? It is simple, it is your brain backing up your short-term memories/experiences and moving them into a more permanent file that can be called on in the medium to longer term. This file transfer does not take place as effectively if you are sleep-deprived because you are not benefitting from those deep phases of sleep. As you get older, you start to sleep less. This explains memory loss and dementia. If that doesn’t get you lunging for the remote control to turn off Netflix and into bed, then you are an idiot. 2) It Weakens Your Body What happens twice a year and confuses the living shit out of hundreds of millions of people? Daylight savings. It is the practice of setting clocks forward by one hour in the spring ("spring forward") and setting clocks back by one hour in autumn ("fall back"). In short, and I had to think about this, you get 1 hour less sleep in “spring forward” and 1 hour more in “fall back”. Here is the fact that will make your testicles shrink to the size of raisins: in the US, hospitals reported a 24% INCREASE in heart attacks the day after spring forward and 21% DECREASE in heart attacks the day after fall back! Coincidence? Not bloody likely. If a one-off 1-hour adjustment can have such a huge impact, imagine the impact of sustained multi-hour deviations? We all have immune systems. These systems have immune cells – cold-blooded snipers that are highly trained in the discipline of eliminating foreign attacks on the body. You want these fuckers to have a deadly aim and be ruthless killers 24/7. Studies have shown that sleeping only four hours per night, for one night, reduces the accuracy of these snipers by 70%. Your snipers become distracted - it is like taking them to a strip club and throwing 18 Jägermeisters down their throats. In June of 2019, a working group convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC] concluded that “night shift work” is probably carcinogenic to humans. Fuck! This is a fatal body blow to a phrase we often use “I will sleep when I am dead”. It is now becoming apparent that death will come sooner if you don’t sleep. So what does this have to do with becoming a high-value man? High-value men are masters instead of minions. What is a minion? A minion is a follower, a slave, a yes man, a lackey, a parasite. He has no backbone – he is controlled by others. Everyone walks over a minion. He is a passive victim – life happens to him, he does not make life happen. A master is in control. He makes things happen. He takes charge and takes responsibility for his successes, and his failures. He takes control of his mind, his body, and his money. Good quality sleep allows masters to optimize their minds and bodies. Good quality sleep is the quick and easiest life hack to mastery in your life and becoming a high-value man. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Disruption is everywhere. Businesses and sectors are being disrupted like never before. Technology, disintermediation, and the climate are making previously dominant companies vulnerable, while startup companies run by millennials in hoodies are becoming increasingly dominant. While all this is happening on a micro level, on a macro level we are also seeing a shift in global power from the west to the east. Failure to identify, understand, and exploit these changes will be fatal for any entrepreneur. Businesses fail principally due to their inability to anticipate changes. Charles Darwin said that it was not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the species most adaptable to change. The twenty-first century has been fascinating from an investment and capital market perspective. We have witnessed three mega stock market crashes. The dot.com bubble burst in 2000, the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007/2008 brought capitalism to the brink of collapse, and the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 reminded us of the fragility of human existence. Here are three signs your business may be vulnerable in the twenty-first century: 1. You are a Traditional Intermediary We are living in a century of technology, and one thing that technology does very well is shrink the middle market. I returned to my native South Africa in 2020 after living abroad for 25 years and was amazed to find that travel agents still exist – but being isolated on the southernmost point of Africa means that we are often 5 or 10 years behind global trends. Take a second to consider how the internet has destroyed the industry of the travel agent/intermediary. Twenty years ago, if you were planning a wine tour through the Bordeaux region of France, you would jump into your gas-guzzling car and drive to your travel agent. You would sit in front of them, and they would start tapping away at their keyboard and rattle off several options which in theory would be in your best interests. The only way to know if this was the best deal was to go to another travel agent for a second opinion. If you had real trust issues, you would go to another for a third opinion. Today, you can see ALL the available options in milliseconds using sites like Expedia. If you operate in financial services and have never heard of the DeFi movement, then you better bone up on it. Cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and crowdfunding have now made possible a life without banks. If you want to transfer money or pay accounts, crypto accounts allow you to do so. If you want to borrow or invest money, you can go to crowdfunding sites like Moneytree or Lending Club. If you want to buy and sell stocks or mutual funds, you can do so through apps like Robinhood. At the core of this disruption is the desire for disintermediation. Financial companies are classic middlemen. You want a loan, go to a bank. You want to pay for your lights and water, go to your bank and pay. If you want an insurance contract, go to your insurance broker. If you want to buy and sell stocks, you go to your stockbroker. As people become more informed about the limited value these intermediaries offer, they look for ways in which they can bypass them and go straight to the source. Disintermediation is the Robin to Batman's Fintec. 2. Your Business is in a Major Global Counter-Trend To know if you are in a counter-trend, you need to understand the key global trends. In a long sentence, I would summarize them as follows – the wholesale move from fossil fuel to renewable energy, the rethinking of the concept of ownership due to the sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, WeWork), disruption in traditional banking, the move towards ESG investing, cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens on the blockchain, virtual and augmented reality in the metaverse, the worldwide legalization of marijuana, the global scarcity of water, the aging population and the strain that is placing on health care, incorporation of technology in education. So if you are looking to drill for oil in the middle of the desert, or buy a taxi medallion in New York City, or invest in a traditional brick and mortar bank, or start an auto company that will produce cars with internal combustion engines, or start a business that pollutes, discriminates against women and has no corporate governance, etc, your business is going to be vulnerable in the long term. 3. Your Primary Focus is Making Money Henry Ford said that a business that focuses only on making money is a poor business. Money should not be your why. Your customer should be your why. Jeff Bezos from Amazon says you "should start with the customer and work backward". Most companies do the opposite – they start with the product or service and then work towards the customer. In every Amazon internal meeting, there is the rule of one empty chair. If there are five Amazonians in the meeting, there need to be six chairs. Whom/who does this chair represent? It represents the customer. Bezos does not want decisions to be made without taking the customer into account. I worked in investment banking for decades. This is an industry notorious for putting its needs above the needs of the client in the pursuit of profit. Look at what happened to the major investment banks in 2008 – they were instrumental in almost bringing down the global banking industry. Lehman Brothers collapsed in September, Merrill Lynch followed quickly and had to be rescued by Bank of America. Mega regulations were put in place after the crisis to change how these banks could make their money in the future. This was a clear wake-up call that a business that is only predicated on making money is not a good business. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

When Elon Musk was in university he asked himself what his mission in life would be. He looked at the world to see what it needed most urgently, and then he looked inwardly to see what his talents and passions were. He came up with four potential missions: space exploration, electric transportation, artificial intelligence, and rewriting the human genome. After further thought, he decided to eliminate the last two and focus on the first two. How can we, normal average human beings, adopt a mission mindset? 1) Look at Your Own Unhappiness We live in a world of overstimulation. With so many things vying for our attention, we have developed too many interests. The time has come to get super specific and a great place to start is your own unhappiness. Find what makes you unhappy, anxious, and frustrated – and then find a way to alleviate these maladies. You need to dig deep and be honest about what pisses you off, what frustrates you, what causes anxiety. You only need to look back at great businesses to understand the needs they were solving. Facebook was founded on the need for companionship and social connection – the fact that it has morphed into something exponentially larger is beside the point. Uber, Lyft, Didi, and Bolt come out of the frustration of finding a safe, clean, and reliable taxi at 3 am. Tinder is deeply embedded in our fear of loneliness and the inherent sadness of trying to meet single people in the produce section of your local grocery store. Airbnb was borne out of the desire for new and unique experiences that avoided having to check-in at the lobby, the inconvenience of being accosted by a handful of bellboys trying to grab your luggage and being ripped off for a bag of peanuts from the minibar. You get the idea. 2) Align Your Talents I am going to use a crazy example. Let's say that cancer makes you angry – you are righteously indignant about this horrible disease. Your grandmother recently died of lung cancer and you want to find a cure. Let's also say that you got a D in high school biology. Although your cause is noble, your personal genetics is a huge roadblock in the execution of this mission. You need to find a cause that more closely aligns with your talents. Musk has a degree in physics – it is not quite the same as a degree in rocket science, but the man is a master in reverse engineering. He has the intellectual talent and curiosity to throw himself into a highly technical engineering field and execute like a ninja. 3) Align Your Interests Can you see how we are narrowing things down and going nice and deep? In professional sports, there are hundreds of people with talents that are off the charts. Tiger Woods is as talented as dozens of other golfers – what is the ingredient that made him one of the greatest of all time? He had an intense and obsessive interest in the game – you can call it passion. You may be a talented structural engineer, but you have no interest in building bridges for a large multi-national engineering firm. You may have a passionate interest in bringing clean drinking water to thousands of people in Africa. You would be better suited to align with a non-profit organization that has a similar mission. 4) Get Super Focused Your mission does not need to be grand, it needs to be super precise. Your mission may be to solve world hunger – this is a grand mission but it is far too broad, you need to narrow it down. Missions are about helping other people. Of all the problems that currently present themselves, what are the ones that properly interest me, and do I have the skillset to find the solutions. The only way you can answer this final question is if you get specific. Maybe you want to start by alleviating hunger in your community, and then your municipality, etc. 5) Write Down a Plan You may have come to notice that I am a huge fan of writing – I am the girl in the front row showing my tits when writing is on the stage. Writing is formalized thinking – it forces you to put your scattered and dispersed thoughts in order. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

So what is the most common question when you meet someone new? What is it that you do? What is really being asked is what are you worth, and do I want to get to know you. Society is judgmental and cruel. Unless you can come up with a satisfactory answer, you will be cast into the dark and bitter world of indifference. Society is snobbish – it takes a very small part of your existence and then uses that to extrapolate the total (and fixed) judgment of your worth. The world is becoming increasingly individual. In the past, when we were members of tribes, villages, and towns, some of our identity was attached to these collective units. This meant that some of our value was linked to factors in which we did not have a direct hand. Possibly your village was well known for making exceptional whiskey, and your sense of self-worth would have been bolstered by this recognition. Given the wholesale deconstruction of these collective units in the modern urban world, our ability to lean on these supports has weakened. This means that our worth is now punitively close to what we have personally done – or not done. We live in a world where the possibility for individual performance has never been greater. Anyone can do anything – amass the wealth of nations (Elon Musk is now worth more than the majority of small and even medium-sized nations), become the leader of the world’s most powerful country (Donald Trump), or self-publish a book that sells 150 million copies (Fifty Shades of Grey). The flip side is also true – if you do not succeed, you feel all the more pathetic. You have failed in the face of unlimited and overwhelming possibilities. This is particularly true when you are born into a land of opportunity like the US, where success, opportunity, and entitlement are inculcated at a very early age. For these people, failure must be a bitter pill to swallow. Musk, Trump, and the Fifty Shades lady are extreme examples. Society would not unfairly judge us if we did not publish a best-selling book. It does give us some leeway. How does society define a “successful life”? We typically break down life into two areas -work and life. A successful life would look like the following: 1) You are fulfilled in your work. You make smart decisions, perfect work/life balance, you are well-remunerated and recognized in line with your efforts. You find work fun and the work is completely in line with your talents. 2) Your love life follows a similar path. After several passionate and fulfilling relationships, you meet one special, kind, beautiful, and devoted person. The sex is sensational, you have beautiful kids and day-to-day domesticity never grinds you down. If you take a look at the statistics, the probability of your life turning out like this is in line with winning the lottery, which is about 1 in 14 million. Given that the are 7 billion inhabitants on earth, approximately 500 people will see their lives follow this course! Let's go back to the lottery – you have a better chance of being struck by lightning three times in the same place than winning the lottery. People, however, continue buying lottery tickets. Ambrose Bierce said that the lottery was a tax on people bad at maths. The human brain does not understand this probability and imagines that a life of bliss, as explained above, is within your reach. Let's look at the cold hard facts – half of the marriages end in divorce (100% of my 2 marriages ended in divorce). Sixty percent of people are stressed by money. Seventy percent of people feel that no one really loves them. The media does a great job of making us believe that success is the rule and not the exception. It spotlights the achievements of billionaires, athletes, philanthropists, and great leaders. The world is not full of beautiful, happy, fulfilled, and kind people. If we could be a fly on the wall and see into the lives and minds of everyone, we will quickly notice the following: how much-unfulfilled ambition is circulating, how much bitter disappointment there is, and how much uncertainty and anxiety is being played out in private. Then you will see just how cruel the goals are that you have set for yourself. So where am I heading with this? Maybe we should redefine success. Consider Luigi. He drives an Italian sports car, lives in a mansion, and has a large collection of Swiss watches. He is deemed to be successful. He has numerous beautiful homes and his Instagram account is filled with photos of glamorous parties with beautiful people. Let’s also say that he is in constant physical pain brought on by years and years of tireless work and sleep deprivation on account of his relentless work ethic. He hates the business he does and feels completely unfulfilled? Is Luigi successful? Should success not be based on a more holistic definition? Defining success in terms of wealth, respect or fame is far too narrow. To get to a better definition of this subjective term, you need to scratch below the surface of a person and not limit yourself to what is only visible to the outside world. Maybe happiness should be given more weight in the equation of modern success. A Harvard study set out to understand the secret of happiness. It analyzed a large group of people over the decades. It was not a snap survey on a random sample. It selected two groups and then followed the evolution of their lives over a long period. The findings from the study were fascinating. For over 75 years, the study tracked the physical and emotional well-being of two populations. The first, known as the Grant study, analyzed 456 poor men growing up in Boston from 1939 to 2014. The Glueck study followed 268 male graduates from Harvard's classes of 1939-1944. The multiple generations of researchers analyzed blood samples, conducted brain scans (once they became available), and dissected self-reported surveys, as well as actual interactions with these men. The researchers found that professional success was not a source of fulfillment. The more people progressed up the corporate ladder, the more money they had, the more assets they acquired, and the more complicated their lives became. With this increased complexity came increased anxiety and with this increased anxiety higher stress levels. Also, they found themselves less fulfilled. They were, however, able to overcome this sense of emptiness by immersing themselves in their jobs. They filled their days with professional activities and their weekends with social engagements that left no time for reflection. Consider two jobs. Job one pays $100,000 per year working in a toll booth in a dark tunnel. Job two pays $50,000 working as an English teacher in a rural school in the Italian Alps. You will select the second job, even if you hate teaching and suffer from vertigo. Chasing money, fame and recognition will not make you happy and fulfilled. It may even do the opposite. Everyone of us needs to sit down and reevaluate their priorities if they want to have meaning in their lives. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

I am amazed by the volumes of resources we waste every day. Being a financial guy, the first thing I noticed is how people spend too much money buying stupid stuff to impress people they don’t even like. We are living in a culture of fake it until you make it – you need to give the impression of success, and the way you do that is to project it through physical things and possessions. People buy fancy cars because they feel so self-conscious and believe the world is watching them, and they need to impress. But this is not only limited to money. People also waste an inordinate amount of time doing stupid shit – watching pointless videos on TikTok, scrolling through Instagram and being impressed by other people's perfect lives. I want to break down the implications of both of these wasteful behaviors. 1) Wasting Money on Stupid Shit The US leads the world in terms of the percentage of immigrants that make up the total population. A study from NBC shows that immigrants are financially more successful than native-born Americans. The reasons given are fourfold – they are strongly entrepreneurial, they work harder, they have less debt and they don’t buy stupid shit. They are savers and investors – they are not spenders. If you want to be financially successful, you need to earn more than you spend, and you need to invest the surplus into high-quality assets like businesses, real estate, and the stock market. The less you spend, the more you invest. Do not buy a fancy car, or a fancy house, or fancy clothes, or go on expensive lunches and dinners, or buy overpriced double skinny lattes. Let us take a quick look at gym memberships. I am a huge fan of exercise and staying in shape. Gyms are a way that millions of people get into shape every day. The only problem with gyms is that it is a business model predicated on the belief that most members will stay at home. According to the website www.exercise.com, 67% of gym memberships go unused. I am a fitness fanatic -I have done Ironman triathlons and run numerous marathons. I canceled my gym membership 12 months ago after coming to the realization that I was using it twice a month. If you are paying a gym membership and not using it, you are pissing away a large chunk of change. The average gym membership is $50 per month. In my country, South Africa, that is approximately R750. If you invested this money into the stock market assuming growth of 10%, how much would you have after 20 years? The answer is almost R600,000 – or $40,000. That is a lot of long-term investment capital that you are needlessly pissing away. If you are complaining about not having enough cash to invest, or not having enough money to live, take a couple of hours to understand how you spend. For each item, ask yourself if the spend is necessary, and if it is necessary, is there a cheaper option. Here are a few examples: a) Buying brand name products – generic/instore products are the world’s best-kept secret. When you go to the pharmacy and they offer you branded or generic, always go generic. Generic medication is not inferior to branded. Once the patent expires, other manufacturers duplicate and market their own versions of the drug. Since the manufacture of these generic drugs does not involve a repeat of the extensive clinical trials to prove their safety and efficacy, it costs less to develop them. Generic drugs are, therefore, cheaper. The same is true for house-branded food in the supermarket. Instead, of buying Kelloggs Corn Flakes, look to see if there is a local grocery store brand. b) Shopping for Groceries when you are hungry – this is a no-brainer. Shopping when you are hungry is going to lead to overspending on unnecessary shit. c) Don’t Focus on the Expiration Date of Foods Too much good food is being thrown away every day. People take the expiration date as gospel. Before throwing food out, inspect it and give it a smell. If it is growing a beard and smells mankier than your gym shorts, throw it away. If not, bite into it like it is your last meal. d) Check Your Banking Charges Check what your bank is charging on your credit card, your savings account, and other services. Then you can shop around for cheaper options. When drawing cash from the ATM, make every effort to use your bank’s ATM, otherwise, you will be hooked with penalty charges. e) Paying Full Price for Clothes Retail is for suckers. With online shopping, it has never been easier to find sales. Before the internet, you had to physically go from store to store. Today the Google shopping feature enables you to compare prices quickly and find the best price. Cheapness is the new black, and if you want to take thrift to the next level, you can also consider second-hand clothing. f) Ditch the Energy Drinks Every wonder how Red Bull manages to sponsor Formula 1 racing, the most expensive sport on the planet? Energy drinks are overpriced. Everyone is tired and needs a boost – Red Bull knows this and has cleverly priced their product accordingly. So how about this for a wild and crazy idea - instead of forking out so much cash for energy drinks, sleep more. Maybe you should invest in a higher quality mattress, but do whatever you can to get high-quality Zs. 2) Wasting Time on Stupid Shit Time is a valuable commodity yet most people are under the impression it is free. Here are some tips on how to get organized and waste less time. Make to-do lists. In this way, you crystalize what needs to be done. By writing this down, you are also able to better prioritize. You want to tackle the tough tasks first when you are still fresh and energetic. Avoid distractions. Let's say you need to write a blog on your laptop. Put your phone in the other room to avoid the temptation of opening YouTube and watching another music video. Youtube is my single biggest distraction – I am embarrassed to know how much time I spend on it. Remove the clutter in your house, office desk. If you are working from home, focus on cleaning up the mess. If there is a mess, and you are OCD, you will spend too much time cleaning. If you are a slob, you will spend too much time looking for stuff that you need. Don’t multi-task – multi-tasking means you are not doing anything properly. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing at 100%, and it is impossible to do more than one thing at 100%. Get rid of trash relationships – if you spend time with a person/people, and walk away thinking “that was a waste of time”, you know exactly what you need to do – cut those people out of your life. Spending too much time on social media – we all do it. Download an app that tracks the time spent on certain apps – it will shock you back into coherence. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Should I stay or should I go now If I go there will be trouble And if I stay it will be double So you gotta let me know Should I stay or should I go? The Clash In the old days, the social pressure of staying in a marriage was immense. Now that most countries are secular, and there is a strict separation between church and state, the legal and social impediment of divorce has been removed. I am twice divorced, and I can confirm that society does not give a damn. Psychologists say that if children are involved, they are better off in a broken family than in an unhappy one. Given that two of the biggest obstacles to divorce have been removed, the only factor of importance that remains is how the couple feels. When I went through my second divorce, I had to ask myself the following question: how much of my unhappiness is related to my partner, and how much is related to my own generic unhappiness that I would find in any relationship? There is a general amount of unhappiness that arises after living in close proximity with another person for a long period of time. The 2020 Covid lockdown forced many couples (me included) into close confinement and it is easy to start to blame the other person. What you need to do is realize this is not a situation of black and white -there is a large amount of grey. What percentage of the blame could be apportioned to me on account of the fact I am not a very easy person to live with? So, here are quick guidelines you can use to assist in making this life-changing decision. 1) how much of your unhappiness can be attributed to your partner? 2) what portion of the blame can be apportioned to you? 3) consider all the annoying traits of all your previous partners you have had 4) ascertain how many sexually available and attractive people are out there 5) try to have another conversation with your partner where you calmly explain how you feel and how you have been saddened by numerous things 6) reflect on how you as a child would react to potentially having two new stepparents and a bunch of new half/step-siblings #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Humans have an unusual relationship with time. Bill Gates said we overestimate what we can do in one year, and underestimate what we can do in ten years. Our problem with time can be explained by our lack of patience. We are living in an age of instant gratification. The Internet and technology mean we never wait for anything. When I was growing up, SportsCenter aired on Friday at 6pm for one hour. After it ended, I had to wait six days and 23 hours. Today everything is on tap, on-demand, same-day delivery, etc. This lack of delayed gratification is lethal in your management of three fundamental parts of our lives - our money, our relationships and our education. 1) Time and Money The world is full of wonders. The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis, and the Colossus of Rhodes. In finance, there is one single wonder that stands out above the rest – COMPOUNDING. The majority of humans are not aware of this wonder because it requires a rare commodity – PATIENCE. We are impatient. We want to get rich quick. Getting rich, however, requires compounding and patience. Investing $100 per month at a return of 10 percent per year will deliver $226,048 after 30 years. How much would I have after 30 years if, instead of 10%, I generate returns of 20% year. The human brain, in all its feebleness, would reason like this – if I am earning double the return (20 percent instead of 10 percent), it should have double the money - $450,000. What would you say if I said that by doubling the annualized return you would earn TEN times more? Your $100 investment at 20 percent per annum will yield $2,297,783 in 30 years!! How is this possible? Through compounding. Albert Einstein said that the power of compound interest "the most powerful force in the universe" and went on to say..." he who understands it earns it; he who doesn't, pays it." You earn 10 times more with twice the return over 30 years because you are reinvesting your returns. You are earning returns on your returns. This is best understood with a simple example. Assume you invest $100 on day 1 at a return of 20 percent per year. In one year, that $100 has grown into $120. In year 2, again you earn 20%, but on $120. This means that you made $24 which is actually 24 percent on the original $100 invested. Look at how the returns take off the longer you invest. Year 1: $20 (20 percent on $100) Year 2: $24 (24 percent on $100) Year 3: $28.8 (28.8 percent on $100) ……. Year 10: $103 (103 percent on $100) ……. Year 20: $638 (638 percent on $100 ……. Year 30: $3,956 (3,956 percent on $100) By year 30, you are earning an astronomical return on you’re your initial $100 because the investment has snowballed as you reinvest your returns. So how do we put compounding to work? Many people do not invest because they are under the false impression that the only way to invest is through large lump sum amounts. So they religiously put money away in a low or no interest savings account until they have accumulated enough money to invest. There are two problems with this approach. Firstly your money is laying idle. It is sitting on the couch, binge watching Netflix and getting lazy. It should be in the gym, pumping iron and sweating for you. The second problem is that the money in your savings account is vulnerable to unplanned withdrawals. In moments of carnal weaknesses, there is a temptation to dip your sticky little fingers into the savings jar. You need to get into the investing mindset. You need to invest smaller amounts continually and consistently. You also need to invest your savings into a assets that meet the following requirements: 1) they accommodate small monthly contributions 2) they provide easy liquidity – your investment can be liquidated quickly and without penalty 3) they are transparent – you have pretty good idea as to how they generate returns 4) they have a long track record of delivering inflation beating returns In my opinion, the assets that best comply with these four requirements are publically listed companies, or the stock market. It is easy to create a debit order off your bank account to commit to a monthly investment into the stock market. Secondly, most stocks are liquid. Thirdly, listed companies need to disclose their financial information every quarter and finally, the stock market is an inflation beater. Over the past 30 years, the Standard and Poors 500 Index has delivered compounded returns of approximately 10 percent per year, and this return includes three major stock market crashes – the dot.com bubble bursting in 1999/2000, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the Great Recession of 2008, and the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020. So what is the plan? Step 1: Relax Most people are terrified of the stock market because it exhibits wild and volatile swings and this is true – in the short term. The stock market, over the longer term, tends to be more predictable and benign. Your first step is to recalibrate your opinion of the stock market and take a long-term view. You need to be patient and you need to be religiously disciplined in your investment. Step 2: Monthly Contributions – Annual Consultations Every month, you need to commit to investing a minimum amount of cash into the stock market and you are only allowed to check your account statement once per year. Step 3: Choose a Low-Cost ETF ETFs are powerful financial tools. I would recommend a broad-based country or global ETF such as the SPY or IVV. Step 4: At Least $100 (or your local currency equivalent) a Month All you need to do is invest $100 per month. To understand how extremely attainable $100 per month is, I did a quick Google search on what $100 can buy you these days: Eight or ten movie tickets, 10 months of Netflix, four or five new movies on DVD, fifteen used DVDs at a yard sale, lunch for four at a fairly nice restaurant, 40 cheap burgers or 90 candy bars. 2) Time and Relationships You move to a new city and you have no friends. You are lonely and feel the world is judging you for your loneliness. You jump onto Tinder and hook up with the first person that expresses an interest in you. Before you know it, you are unhappily married, with 3 kids, living in the suburbs, and commuting 2 hours a day for a job you hate to finance the life you despise. We are impatient with our relationships because we are scared of being alone. Time alone is seen as being a poor reflection on who we are as people. It seems to indicate that we are socially undesirable and that there is something inherently wrong with us. Let me test something on you. Would you go to a restaurant by yourself? Would you go to the movies by yourself. I would wager that the majority of you would answer NO to both these questions. Why? Not only are you afraid of being alone, you are also afraid of being seen to be alone. What will people think? Make some friends first. You need to find a tribe centered around a common interest. Join a motorcycle club or a running/biking/swimming/surfing club. This will reduce the probability of making stupid and unhealthy relationship choices. This patience will not only make you happier, it will also make you more prepared to enter serious long term relationships. The time alone will help strengthen your self worth and give you a better idea of who you are. Self awareness is a key ingredient to a healthy and happy relationship. 3) Time and Education After finishing school, we are overwhelmed with a sense of urgency. We need to get into university, get our degree, and make money as soon as possible. We don’t take time to think carefully about what we want in life. We jump into a career that we think we want, but it turns out that we are doing what is expected of us. Five years into the degree, we drop out and take a year off to travel and discover ourselves. You need to take a deep breath and not be in such a rush to plunge into the workforce. Travel first (if you have that luxury). If not, take a gap year and pursue your interests locally. Meet people, understand the business and social world outside of school, and make every effort to understand what you truly want out of life. Another factor to consider before embarking on an expensive trip through a tertiary education institution is the value of a university degree. In 2018, job-search site Glassdoor compiled a list of top employers who no longer require applicants to have a college degree. Companies like Google, Apple and IBM are all in this group. In 2017, IBM’s vice president of talent Joanna Daley told CNBC that 15 percent of her company’s U.S. hires do not have a four-year degree. The message from these companies is that a traditional college degree does not necessarily equip graduates with the requisite skills to operate in their world. The market value of a university degree has declined while the cost of that education has increased.  In the 1980s, a college degree almost guaranteed a job in the specific field of study. This is no longer the case given the higher number of degrees and the shrinking number of jobs on account of technology and automation. I have come across numerous taxi drivers in Latin America who hold MBA degrees. Driving a taxi is a noble profession. I, however, doubt whether those entering a two-year MBA programs do so visualizing a career picking up American tourists at the airport. In the face of this, the cost of a university degree in the U.S. has more than doubled since the 1980s. Student debt in the U.S. in 2019 stood at $1.4 trillion.  University education in the U.S. is now more expensive than marrying a Las Vegas showgirl. The problem is not only the debt. The problem is also that the skills acquired in the accumulation of this debt no long correlate with what is required in the real world. So what is the point of all this? You need to extend your time horizon. You need to be patient. Radical short-term goals will mostly go unreached – look no further than mankind’s inability to stick to New Year's resolutions. Radical goals leave you demoralized and passive. You need to set small short-term goals. The changes made in achieving these goals will compound into large changes in the medium to long term. Life is a marathon – it is not a 100m sprint. You don’t need to be Usain Bolt to succeed - you need to be that skinny marathon runner that is prepared to plod slowly along and suffer more than everyone else. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

The human brain is a very powerful piece of hardware, but it is also dangerously flawed. To better understand the brain, we need to go back millions of years. The brain was first designed to alert our ancestors of physical threats - woolly mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, and invading tribes wanting to steal food and nubile women. Fortunately, many of these threats no longer exist. Unfortunately, the brain has not been very successful in adjusting to the myriad of new challenges we face in our complex societies. Your brain is programmed to be paranoid. It is unable to differentiate between real and imaginary threats. This manifests in one of the biggest epidemics of the modern age - rampant anxieties! Let's have a closer look at the THREE inherent defects we have in this hardware between our ears. Defect 1: It Makes Stupid Assumptions The brain processes information assuming it was obtained in rational and objective conditions. It does not consider the possibility of the body impacting the process. For example, we are not ourselves when we are hungry or tired. Your brain might tell you to quit your job because your boss is a narcissist dickhead, or leave your wife because she is a controlling bitch. In reality, the solution may be far simpler - you need a snack or take a nap. In moments of ambiguity, the brain can jump to crazy conclusions. The brain is designed to make quick instinctive decisions. These days, there is merit in taking your time before making important decisions. Before you lose your shit, stand back, count to one hundred, and try to approach the issue in the cold hard light of day. Defect 2: It Comes With a Built-In Desire to be Liked The threat of not being liked does not pose any immediate danger. It does, however, generate a potential future danger. We used to live in tribes/villages/small communities, If you acted like a dickhead, and pissed off most people in the community, you ran the risk of being expelled into the wilderness and devoured by rabid packs of wild dogs. You could also face less extreme consequences. Your status in the community could be downgraded. From deputy chief, you could be demoted to assistant water collector, and with that, curtailment of your access to the most nubile women. Instead of making sweet caveman love with the buxom young hottie in the kitchen, you would need to content yourself with the toothless widow two huts down. This potential loss of life, or sexual privileges, leads your brain to hardwire itself into understanding the need to ingratiate yourself with your fellow cave brethren. The brain also understood the importance of paying special attention to those with the most influence and authority. Defect 3: It is Easily Manipulated Given the strong desire to please others, that defective computer of yours can be hacked. This manifests in conformity and following the crowd because you do not want to stand out and be labeled as the village idiot. Social media preys on this burning desire to fit in and be accepted. The more time you spend on social media, the more you are being manipulated by algos that "tell" you what to buy and what to believe. Google and Facebook are not doing the manipulation – they are getting you addicted to their platforms. The manipulators are the corporations that use these platforms to sell you their stuff. This is different from traditional advertising – TV, billboards, and magazines. The algos are observing you, tracking what you do, and then looking for ways to change your behaviour. They are pushing you to buy that new pair of shoes, to take that expensive vacation to the Maldives. Combine this blatant propaganda with Instagramers displaying how “perfect “ their lives are in these fancy shoes and exotic destinations, and you quickly believe that you “need” these things in your life. You whip out your credit card, make the purchase and then spend the next 12 months digging yourself out of debt. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business