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WIRED FOR SUCCESSOr maybe, just maybe, your vision is completely bizarre to most people.Maybe your vision involves playing World of Warcraft all day. Maybe yourvision isn’t even physically possible.Don’t Let Others Define Your GoalsAll of this is fine – and the first crucial lesson we need to learn here is thatyou have to be honest with yourself. You need to be 100% brutally honestand if your dream is to enter a beauty pagent – as a guy – just admit it.Maybe your vision is just to be a bum and lie around the house!Too many of us feel as though we have to live the life that others set out forus. We feel as though we need to achieve what is considered the traditionalview of success. We feel the urge to please our teachers, our parents.And so when someone asks us ‘what is your goal?’, we will often say ‘to bea lawyer’.We’re too embarrassed to say that we just want to spend more time withour kids. And we’re too embarrassed to say we want to be a pop star.But what is the point of chasing someone else’s dream? Go after the thingsthat you feel passionate about and never feel ashamed of whatever theymay be!16

WIRED FOR SUCCESSYou Can Do Anything No, Really!When you write these goals, it is really important that you don’t hold backand that you write down the things you really want to achieve – no matterhow far fetched or unimpressive they might seem to others.If your goal – like the Dad from Step Brothers – is to become a dinosaur then heck, write it down!The problem is, that as we’ve already examined, too many of us have oursense of pride and even our identities tied up in ‘what we do’. It’s the firstthing we ask at parties!But there’s no reason it should be like this. Why not work simply as ameans to fund the lifestyle you really want and get your sense ofaccomplishment out of your achievements outside the office? How aboutusing your free time in the evenings to write a novel? To compose amasterpiece? Or to set up a side business?There is absolutely nothing stopping you, so get out there and go for it!Want to be a rock musician? Fine – then all you need to do is to set up yourown YouTube channel where you play your instrument. If you can build abig enough following, then you’ll enjoy a modicum of fame and someincome from your music. You might even land a record deal! The samegoes if you want to be a comedian, or an action star.17

WIRED FOR SUCCESSWant to be a writer? Just start writing! You can be anything you want to be– it’s just success that is the hard part!Want to have a mansion? Then create an epic budget and put all of yoursavings into making that happen. You might have to build your ownproperty but there’s no reason this can’t be done if you buy the land – andit’s more affordable than you probably think. There are ways you can getwork done more cheaply too.But actually, you might not need a mansion to fulfil your vision. Maybe it’snot the size of the home that matters but rather the décor. Maybe you’d bejust as happy with a large, modern and beautiful home with some stunningcenterpieces.And as it happens, this is highly achievable for less if you know how. Aminimalist décor for instance means that you can spend less money onthings you don’t need and more on just a few stunning centerpiece itemsthat will make your home truly memorable for instance.And this is also how you’re going to achieve that dream of becoming adinosaur Because so often, it turns out that what we want is often not so simple. Youmight dream of being a dinosaur but ask yourself why you have thisunusual aim. Is it because you want to be big and powerful? Do you wantto be completely free? Do you love the natural habitats they live in? Allthese things are achievable and so you can be a dinosaur in ‘essence’.More likely, you might find that even though it’s hard to become anastronaut, you could still indulge your love of space, the unknown anddiscovery by becoming an astronomer. Or maybe you could launch a18

WIRED FOR SUCCESScamera into space as a hobby? Write a blog about space? Become anexplorer?To get to the bottom of what you want to achieve and to get to the‘essence’, you can use something called ‘The Five Whys’.The Five WhysThe Five Whys is a series of questions that you can ask yourself in order toget to the ‘bottom’ your own motivations on pretty much any subject (and italso has a ton of other useful applications too). In this case, you’re going toask yourself ‘why’ you want to achieve a certain thing.Why do you want to be a movie star?Why?Why?Etc.The first time you might answer that you want to be a movie star so thatyou can get a sense of accomplishment by sharing your work witheveryone. The next ‘why’ you might answer by saying that you loveperforming and you love getting feedback from others. The next ‘why’ youmight answer because you like to make others happy and so on.19

WIRED FOR SUCCESSAnd by getting to the essence of your goal and your vision – the emotionalhook that is motivating you – you’ll be much better at making yourselfhappy.Write Those Goals and Let’s Get StartedNow you know how to go about writing goals and having a vision, I wantyou to follow those steps and get a real picture in your mind of what youwant to achieve and some steps on paper as to how you’re going to getthere.Here’s the thing though: you’re going to write them down no matter howcrazy they sound, no matter how off-the-wall they are.20

WIRED FOR SUCCESSChapter 3: Start Making Better DecisionsWith your missions statement, your vision and your goals now more clearlymapped out, the next thing to do is to start following that blueprint to makeyour goals happen.And this starts by recognizing what will support your goals and what isn’thelping you to get any closer to them. Too many of us work incredibly hardthinking that we’re getting closer to our goals, when actually we’re justmoving ourselves further and further away from them. We’re justprocrastinating Misguided StrategiesBut wait didn’t we say that you could make your goal anything? Didn’t wesay that it was okay to make your goal becoming a movie start? Or21

WIRED FOR SUCCESSbecoming a dinosaur? How are you going to make the decisions necessaryto make those plans happen?And what if you have responsibilities? Things you need to achieve? What ifyour kids are relying on you to pay their way through school – can youreally just drop everything and go travelling around the world?Again, this comes down to mindset and I hope I’m about to help you have afew ‘eureka’ moments here.Firstly, recognize that fulfilling your dreams needs to take priority over mostother things. That might sound selfish but think about what kind offather/mother your children would rather have: one who is exhausted andunfulfilled, or one who loves what they do and feels excited to go to workevery day. What kind of example are you setting for them by spending yourevenings in an office you hate, doing a job you hate, and still not havingenough money to live comfortably?The next thing to realize is that you can actually accomplish a lot of thingsmuch easier and more quickly once you stop thinking that your life shouldentirely revolve around your work.Here’s the irony – a lot of people will work incredibly hard and spend extrahours in the office just so that they can have more time with their family!They dream of being retired and they work so that their family can livecomfortably.If your goal involves spending more time with family, then this is absolutenonsense. All you are accomplishing is actually taking yourself further awayfrom your family and providing for them less.22

WIRED FOR SUCCESSYour salary is not what dictates your wealth apart from anything else. Youcan get a raise of 2K a year by working incredibly hard and putting in extrahours, or you could rent the spare room out to students. Or you could selltrinkets on eBay. Or you could cancel that cable TV subscription and getslower WiFi. You could stop paying for Netflix too.What would you rather: pay for Netflix and more TV channels and take onhugely more stress at work, or just fix your budget and get more moneythat way while having more time to spend with family. You could move intoa smaller house and pay less on your mortgage repayments, or you couldsell your car and get a smaller, cheaper one.A lot of people work incredibly hard because they want to ‘save the moneyto go travelling’. Except, every time they get to that junction when theyshould just up and go, they realize that they’re doing too well at work andthat they can’t leave right now So wouldn’t it be better to change and get a job you can do online? Thenyou could travel while you earned money? Or how about taking asabbatical from your current position? Or leaving work, only to find morework when you get back?Why spend your youth working incredibly hard and making yourself ill withstress just to travel when you’re too old to enjoy it? Why not just take longholidays now and live your life?Why is working harder always the first answer that most of us think of?The answer is that it’s what we’ve been raised to believe by our schoolsand by the state. It’s not their fault – it is the very central conceit of23

WIRED FOR SUCCESScapitalism that you have to work harder in order to get what you want. Andwe’ve been taught by others that working hard is the responsible thing todo for our families.Too bad they’re wrong No matter what many people tell you, there is nothing inherently ‘great’about wasting your life working at a factory, or at a company that sellsstaplers. You can work incredibly hard and feel like you’re doing your jobbut at the end of the day, the world would keep ticking on even if youstopped. Meanwhile, your family and your dreams have been put on hold.Often, the quickest way to achieve our goals is actually to take a pay cut, tomove to a poorer part of the world. Often, we will find that we actually haveenough money right now to build that dream house, travel the world or lookafter our families; if only we’d focus a little less on work.But we keep pushing harder and harder to ‘succeed’ in the traditional sensebecause we want to be seen to be successful and because that’s whatwe’ve always been taught to do.Even if your vision of success is the traditional one and you want to be thatCEO, you’re going to need to detach yourself from your current role inorder to focus time and effort on your own business.It’s hard to break out of this mindset and this mentality but it is absolutelycrucial if you’re going to be successful.The key here is to stop working blindly hoping things will get better and toinstead ask what you actually want and what is really the best way to get it24

WIRED FOR SUCCESSeasily. And if that means spending less time at work and maybe raising afew eyebrows, then you mustn’t be afraid of that!Making Steps Out of Your GoalsSo now you have a vision for what you want to accomplish and you haveembraced the things you really want from life, it’s time to actually startmaking progress. And this is where you actually start creating goals andmore specifically – steps – that you want to accomplish.25

WIRED FOR SUCCESSSo you want to get in shape eh? Get in line – so does the rest of the world,and most of them are still struggling to climb the stairs. And maybe it’s thatdesire to ‘get in shape’, which is perilously vague and unhelpful, which iscausing the problem.The problem you see is that ‘getting into shape’ is not a goal. It’s far toovague, it depends on your definition of ‘shape’ (round is a shape youknow ) and it’s not directly within your capabilities to control.In order to be successful in any endeavor, you need to know how tocorrectly phrase what it is that you are trying to accomplish in your mind.Why ‘I Want to Get Into Shape’ Is UselessJust saying you want to get into shape is so moot that I don’t know whereto start pointing out the problems. Of course you want to get into bettershape – everyone does. And if you make this your target then it’s a targetyou can never accomplish (because you can always be in better shape)and never fail at (because you have an infinite amount of time toaccomplish it). That’s already incredibly disheartening, and when you trygoing to the gym and pushing yourself hard for a week only to notice you’reexact same shape as you were before and you’re not really any closer toyour goal then you’re actually quite likely to just give up.So how should you have gone about creating this goal?Where Do You Want to Be?First of all, decide where it is that you want to be and what specifically youwant to accomplish. The reason for this is that different health goals require26

WIRED FOR SUCCESSdifferent methodology – it’s a different story burning fat compared tobuilding muscle and it’s no use lumping them together.So decide what would make you happy – increasing your biceps by aninch? Losing 1 stone? Note what your end goal is and write that down. Butthat’s not your goal. This will come from the vision that you pictured earlier.What specifically does that vision entail and how can you go about writing agoal to get there?The StepsRather your next step is to write down exactly what it will take you to reachthat destination. This will probably mean for instance going running threetimes a week for forty minutes. Or it might mean going to the gym toperform a split routine four times a week.Now that is going to be your target – to repeat the crucial steps on thatbasis without fail for a certain amount of time. So for instance your goalmight be to ‘go to the gym and lift weights four times a week for an hourwithout fail for the next three months’. Or it might be to ‘eat no puddings forthe next month’.The time limit is on there simply to act as a light at the end of the tunnel – inother words to help you stay focussed and dedicated and not getdisheartened (so that you can say ‘it’s only a week left’). What’s reallyimportant though is that your goal is the process. That’s because this issomething that you can actually control directly and this can give you muchmore of a sense of satisfaction while keeping you structured and focussed.Now you’re not even going to worry about how much weight you’ve lost orhow much muscle you’ve built – because that will take care of itself.27

WIRED FOR SUCCESSThe same goes for pretty much any other objective – writing goals in thisway is nearly always superior. So if you want to write a novel, don’t aim towrite a novel – aim to write two pages a night. If you want to travel theworld, look at how much money you’d need to accomplish that and thenaim to earn X amount every week to bring you closer and closer to thatgoal.Work out your goals one step at a time and you’ll find this approach ismuch more effective over all.Fear SettingEven with these perfectly laid out steps though, you’re going to find that itcan often be hard to actually take the necessary leaps and become thething you’ve always wanted to be, or to do the thing you’ve always wantedto do.Why? Very often, the simple reason is fear – we are too afraid to take thesemassive leaps into the unknown and to take massive risks like quittingwork, going part-time or putting ourselves on camera in front of the world.It’s understandable too – quitting your job will often mean losing your mostimportant form of income – and in all likelihood you will have a lot offinancial commitments that make that hard and scary. You probably havebills to pay, rent, a mortgage perhaps and you probably have to look afteryour family and make sure that they get fed.Maybe this is a particularly bad time – maybe you just got a promotion ormaybe your wife is pregnant.28

WIRED FOR SUCCESSBut here’s the thing: there is never a good time to risk everything. If you areputting off starting a business because you are waiting for the right time,then

WIRED FOR SUCCESS 2 Disclaimer This e-book has been written for information purposes only. Every effort has been made to make this ebook as complete and accurate as possible.