Umarbek

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. — Mark Twain

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. — Oscar Wilde

Life doesn't have to be so damn hard. It really doesn't. Most people, my past self included, have spent too much time convincing themselves that life has to be hard, a resignation to 9-to-5 drudgery in exchange for (sometimes) relaxing weekends and the occasional keep-it-short-or-get-fired vacation.

People don't want to be millionaires; they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy.

How do your decisions change if retirement isn't an option?

These individuals have riches just as we say that we "have a fever," when really the fever has us. — Seneca

I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. — Henry David Thoreau

He explained that he had spent more than 30 years with people he didn't like to buy things he didn't need.

Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W's you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. I call this the "freedom multiplier."

Options (the ability to choose) is real power.

The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.

Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.

If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are subpar, this is the time to ask, What if I did the opposite?

Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons:

It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter; nothing can justify that sacrifice.

Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.

The NR aims to distribute "mini-retirements" throughout life instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for the fool's gold of retirement.

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness.

Let's define "laziness" anew, to endure a non-ideal existence, to let circumstance or others decide life for you, or to amass a fortune while passing through life like a spectator from an office window.

Focus on being productive instead of busy.

The timing is never right. For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.

Conditions are never perfect. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.

Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission. If it isn't going to devastate those around you, try it and then justify it.

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitant to get in the way if you're moving.

It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor.

Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don't want.

"If only I had more money" is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment; default should be now and not later.

The problem is more than money.

Named must your fear be before banish it you can. — Yoda

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. — Benjamin Disraeli

Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?" — Seneca

There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh, it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything," and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyway." Either way, nothing happens.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.

If you don't pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years?

If we define risk as "the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome," inaction is the greatest risk of all.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw

It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.

It is easier to raise $1,000,000 than it is $100,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal.

The fishing is best where the fewest go.

What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.

The question you should be asking isn't, "What do I want?" or "What are my goals?" but "What would excite me?"

Boredom is the enemy, not some abstract "failure."

I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have.

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. — Viktor Frankl

Life is too short to be small. — Benjamin Disraeli

There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want.

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. — Bruce Lee

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

Pareto's Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.

Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness, lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective, doing less is the path of the productive.

Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

Parkinson's Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.

If I give you 24 hours to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials.

Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. — Herbert Simon

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. — Albert Einstein

Problems, as a rule, solve themselves or disappear if you remove yourself as an information bottleneck and empower others.

Lifestyle design is based on massive action: output. Increased output necessitates decreased input.

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence.

Learn to ask, "Will I definitely use this information for something immediate and important?"

More is not better, and stopping something is often 10 times better than finishing it.

Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate. — Dave Barry

Learn to be difficult when it counts.

It is your job to train those around you to be effective and efficient. No one else will do it for you.

Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.

Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it.

There should never be more than two mission-critical items to complete each day. Never.

If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?

Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?

Do not multitask. If you prioritize properly, there is no need to multitask.

If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?

You are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker.

Eliminate before you delegate.

Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined.

Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production; using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.

It's amazing how someone's IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.

People are smarter than you think. Give them a chance to prove themselves.

The goal is to free your time to focus on bigger and better things.

Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It's about building a system to replace yourself.

Creating demand is hard. Filling demand is much easier. Don't create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market (define your customers) then find or develop a product for them.

It is said that if everyone is your customer, then no one is your customer.

Think narrow and deep rather than broad.

It is more profitable to be a big fish in a small pond than a small undefined fish in a big pond.

"Expert" in the context of selling product means that you know more about the topic than the purchaser. No more.

In the context of business, there is a difference between being perceived as an expert and being one.

Presenting the truth in the best light, but not fabricating it, is the name of the game.

The most basic of foods and good friends proved to be the only real necessities, and what would seem like a disaster from the outside was the most life-affirming epiphany he'd ever experienced: The worst really wasn't that bad.

To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren't as serious as you make them out to be.

Don't save it all for the end. There is every reason not to.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. — Mark Twain

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. — Niels Bohr

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. — Albert Einstein

Gold is getting old. The New Rich are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility.

What does an igloo-dwelling millionaire do that a cubicle-dweller doesn't? Follow an uncommon set of rules.

I can't give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.

Everything popular is wrong. — Oscar Wilde

Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them. — Bill Cosby

Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life. — John F. Kennedy

Economic downturns produce discounted infrastructure, outstanding freelancers at bargain prices, and rock-bottom advertising deals; all impossible when everyone is optimistic.

There has never been a better time for testing the uncommon. What's the worst that could happen?

This period of collective panic is your big chance to dabble.

The objective is to create freedom of time and place and use both however you want.

Top academic institutions are wonderful, but there are unrecognized benefits to not coming out of one. Grads from top schools are funneled into high-income 80-hour-per-week jobs, and 15–30 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path.

The using $500,000-per-year investment banker is less "powerful" than the employed NR who works ¼ the hours for $40,000, but has complete freedom of when, where, and how to live.

To be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner. To own the trains and have someone else ensure they run on time.

To make a ton of money with specific reasons and defined dreams to chase, timelines and steps included. What are you working for?

To have more quality and less clutter. To have huge financial reserves but recognize that most material wants are justifications for spending time on the things that don't really matter.

You spent two weeks negotiating your new Infiniti with the dealership and got $10,000 off? That's great. Does your life have a purpose? Are you contributing anything useful to this world, or just shuffling papers, banging on a keyboard, and coming home to a drunken existence on the weekends?

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard P. Feynman

Doing that which excites you is the goal. Inactivity is not.

Get good at being a troublemaker and saying sorry when you really screw up.

The choice is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become mediocre.

Pacifists become militants. Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less.

Busy yourself with the routine of the money wheel, pretend it's the fix-all, and you artfully create a constant distraction that prevents you from seeing just how pointless it is.

Is a dollar is a dollar is a dollar? The New Rich don't think so.

Distress refers to harmful stimuli that make you weaker, less confident, and less able. Eustress is stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.

There is no progress without eustress, and the more eustress we can create or apply to our lives, the sooner we can actualize our dreams.

The New Rich are equally aggressive in removing distress and finding eustress.

How has being "realistic" or "responsible" kept you from the life you want?

How has doing what you "should" resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done something else?

What will I sacrifice if I continue on this track for 5, 10, or 20 years?

Many a false step was made by standing still. — Fortune Cookie

Conquering Fear = Defining Fear

On a scale of 1–10, my so-called worst-case scenario might have a temporary impact of 3 or 4. On the other hand, if I realized my best-case scenario, it would easily have a permanent 9 or 10 positive life-changing effect.

There was practically no risk, only huge life-changing upside potential.

Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will improve with time or increases in income. This is fear of the unknown disguised as optimism.

Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago? If not, things will not improve by themselves.

Your life is going to be LONG. Nine to five for your working lifetime of 40–50 years is a long-ass time if the rescue doesn't come.

The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort. — Jean Cocteau

Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. Would it be the end of your life? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?

What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it's easier than you imagine.

What is it costing you financially, emotionally, and physically to postpone action?

It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction.

If you telescope out 10 years and know with 100% certainty that it is a path of disappointment and regret, inaction is the greatest risk of all.

What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the concept of good timing, the answer is simple: You're afraid, just like the rest of the world.

Develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action.

Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve.

"What do you want?" is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer. Forget about it.

When people suggest you follow your "passion" or your "bliss," I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement.

If you're five years old and say you want to be an astronaut, your parents tell you that you can be anything you want to be. If you're 25 and announce you want to start a new circus, the response is different: Be realistic.

If you don't define the "what I want" alternate activities, the X figure will increase indefinitely to avoid the fear-inducing uncertainty of this void.

The worst that could happen wasn't crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.

The goals have to be unrealistic to be effective.

Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things and not just owning enviable things.

People are fond of using the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" adage as an excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends. Nonsense.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. — Samuel Beckett

Most people can do absolutely awe-inspiring things. Sometimes they just need a little nudge.

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. — William of Occam

In the strictest sense, you shouldn't be trying to do more in each day, trying to fill every second with a work fidget of some type.

After all, there is a far better option, and it will do more than simply increase your results; it will multiply them.

It is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory.

How is it possible that all the people in the world need exactly 8 hours to accomplish their work? It isn't. 9–5 is arbitrary.

Since we have 8 hours to fill, we fill 8 hours. If we had 15, we would fill 15. If we have an emergency and need to suddenly leave work in 2 hours but have pending deadlines, we miraculously complete those assignments in 2 hours.

The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.

Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important.

If you haven't identified the mission-critical tasks and set aggressive start and end times for their completion, the unimportant becomes the important.

Love of bustle is not industry. — Seneca

Am I being productive or just active? Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?

We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to. I don't feel that anymore. — Oprah Winfrey

The key to having more time is doing less.

Emergencies are seldom that. People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae to fill time and feel important.

Don't encourage people to chitchat and don't let them chitchat. Get them to the point immediately.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.

If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker. Remove the splinters and you'll thank yourself for it.

Don't ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without a clear list of priorities. You'll just read unassociated e-mail and scramble your brain for the day.

Trying to brush your teeth, talk on the phone, and answer e-mail at the same time just doesn't work.

Divided attention will result in more frequent interruptions, lapses in concentration, poorer net results, and less gratification.

Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. — Ralph Charell

Having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.

The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.

There is an inescapable setup time for all tasks, large or minuscule in scale. It is often the same for one as it is for a hundred.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau

The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet. — William Gibson

Fun things happen when you earn dollars, live on pesos, and compensate in rupees.

It is an exercise. Can you manage other people? Given the proper instruction and practice, I believe so.

If you spend your time, worth $20–25 per hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour, it's simply a poor use of resources.

Don't limit yourself. Just ask us if something is possible.

Request someone who has "excellent" English. Be fast to request a replacement if there are repeated communication issues.

Sentences should have one possible interpretation and be suitable for a 2nd-grade reading level.

Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, come from clear thinking. Think simple.

The automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. Automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. — Bill Gates

Refine rules and processes before adding people.

The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what's going on so they can do a lot more than they've done in the past. — Bill Gates

Just set it and forget it! — Ron Popeil

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Create" sounds more involved than it actually is.

Be a member of your target market and don't speculate what others need or will be willing to buy.

Keep it simple. Apple did an excellent job with the iPod. Instead of using the usual industry jargon with GB, bandwidth, and so forth, they simply said, "1,000 songs in your pocket." Done deal.

The more middlemen are involved, the higher your margins must be to maintain profitability for all the links in the chain.

Higher pricing attracts lower-maintenance customers. This is HUGE.

Price high and then justify.

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. — Vida D. Scudder

Information products are low-cost, fast to manufacture, and time-consuming for competitors to duplicate.

Expert status can be created in less than four weeks if you understand basic credibility indicators.

Becoming a recognized expert isn't difficult.

D for Definition turns misguided common sense upside down and introduces the rules and objectives of the new game.

E for Elimination kills the obsolete notion of time management once and for all.

A for Automation puts cash flow on autopilot using geographic arbitrage, outsourcing, and rules of nondecision.

L for Liberation is the mobile manifesto for the globally inclined.

One who shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher yield.

"So, what do you do?" I never enjoyed answering this cocktail question because it reflects an epidemic I was long part of: job descriptions as self-descriptions.

How can I possibly explain that what I do with my time and what I do for money are completely different things?

I work less than four hours per week and make more per month than I used to make in a year.

I've spent the last three years traveling among those who live in worlds currently beyond your imagination. Rather than hating reality, I'll show you how to bend it to your will.

D: To work for yourself. NR: To have others work for you.

D: To work when you want to. NR: To prevent work for work's sake, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect ("minimum effective load").

D: To retire early or young. NR: To distribute recovery periods and adventures (mini-retirements) throughout life on a regular basis.

D: To buy all the things you want to have. NR: To do all the things you want to do, and be all the things you want to be.

D: To reach the big pay-off, whether IPO, acquisition, retirement, or other pot of gold. NR: To think big but ensure payday comes every day: cash flow first, big payday second.

D: To have freedom from doing that which you dislike. NR: To have freedom from doing that which you dislike, but also the freedom and resolve to pursue your dreams without reverting to work for work's sake.

After years of repetitive work, you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near extinction.

I spent 98% of my time chasing the remainder, as the aforementioned 5 ordered regularly without any follow-up calls, persuasion, or cajoling. I was working because I felt as though I should be doing something from 9–5.

Working every hour from 9–5 isn't the goal; it's simply the structure most people use, whether it's necessary or not.

I had a severe case of work-for-work (W4W), the most-hated acronym in the NR vocabulary.

I fired their asses and enjoyed every second of it.

The effect on my self-esteem and state of mind just wasn't worth the financial gain. I didn't need the money for any precise reason, and I had assumed I needed to take it.

More customers is not automatically more income. More customers is not the goal and often translates into 90% more housekeeping and a paltry 1–3% increase in income.

Maximum income from minimal necessary effort (including minimum number of customers) is the primary goal.

I duplicated my strengths, in this case my top producers, and focused on increasing the size and frequency of their orders.

If I make $100 per hour but only work one hour per week, it's going to be hard for me to run amuck like a superstar.

The top New Rich mavericks make at least $5,000 per hour. Out of college, I started at about $5.

Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress.

It is destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms. People who avoid all criticism fail.

What would you do if there were no way you could fail? If you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?

If you have difficulty identifying what you want in some categories, consider what you hate or fear in each and write down the opposite.

This is an exercise in reversing repression.

Be sure not to judge or fool yourself. If you really want a Ferrari, don't put down solving world hunger out of guilt.

If something will improve your feeling of self-worth, put it down. I have a racing motorcycle, and quite apart from the fact that I love speed, it just makes me feel like a cool dude. There is nothing wrong with that.

What would you do, day to day, if you had $100 million in the bank?

What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day?

Things often cost much, much less than expected. A Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, fresh off the showroom floor at $260,000, can be had for $2,897.80 per month.

It often decreases over time as you trade more and more "having" for once-in-a-lifetime "doing." Mobility encourages this trend.

I'm not a big believer in long-term planning and far-off goals. I generally set 3-month and 6-month dreamlines.

The variables change too much and in-the-future distance becomes an excuse for postponing action.

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now!

The most important actions are never comfortable.

It is possible to condition yourself to discomfort and overcome it.

I've trained myself to propose solutions instead of ask for them, to elicit desired responses instead of react, and to be assertive without burning bridges.

To have an uncommon lifestyle, you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others.

Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions.

"Can I make a suggestion?" "I propose…" "Let's try… and then try something else if that doesn't work."

Practice gazing into the eyes of others (whether people you pass on the street or conversational partners) until they break contact.

In conversation, maintain eye contact when you are speaking. It's easy to do while listening.

If a passerby asks you what the hell you're staring at, just smile and respond, "Sorry about that. I thought you were an old friend of mine."

For the next two days, do as all good two-year-olds do and say "no" to all requests. Refuse to do all things that won't get you immediately fired. Be selfish.

The objective isn't an outcome but the process: getting comfortable with saying "no."

"I really can't, sorry; I've got too much on my plate right now" will do as a catch-all response.

I never check voicemail when abroad. Never ever.

My contacts now know that I don't respond to emergencies, so the emergencies somehow don't exist or don't come to me.

I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn't at least two of the four: time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence.

I read the front-page headlines through the newspaper machines as I walk to lunch each day and nothing more.

In five years, I haven't had a single problem due to this selective ignorance.

"Tell me, what's new in the world?" And, if it's that important, you'll hear people talking about it.

I voted in the last presidential election. I made my decision in a matter of hours.

I let other dependable people synthesize hundreds of hours and thousands of pages of media for me. It was like having dozens of personal information assistants, and I didn't have to pay them a single cent.

I only read accounts that are "how I did it" and autobiographical. No speculators or wannabes are worth the time.

Rediscover the power of the forgotten skill called "talking." It works.

Go cold turkey. Information is too much like ice cream to do otherwise. "Oh, I'll just have a half a spoonful" is about as realistic as "I just want to jump online for a minute."

No newspapers, magazines, audiobooks, or nonmusic radio. Music is permitted at all times.

No news websites whatsoever.

No television at all, except for one hour of pleasure viewing each evening.

No web surfing at the desk unless it is necessary to complete a work task for that day. Necessary means necessary, not nice to have.

Unnecessary reading is public enemy number one during this one-week fast.

What do you do with all the extra time? Replace the newspaper at breakfast with speaking to your spouse, bonding with your children.

Stop this as soon as you realize that the answer doesn't affect your actions at all.

Focus on "just-in-time" information instead of "just-in-case" information.

Starting something doesn't automatically justify finishing it.

If you go to a movie and it's worse than Matrix III, get the hell out of there before more neurons die.

If you're full after half a plate of ribs, put the damn fork down and don't order dessert.

Develop the habit of nonfinishing that which is boring or unproductive if a boss isn't demanding it.

Being sure to maintain eye contact, ask for the phone numbers of at least two attractive members of the opposite sex on each day.

The real goal is not to get numbers, but to get over the fear of asking, so the outcome is unimportant.

"Excuse me. I know this is going to sound strange, but if I don't ask you now, I'll be kicking myself for the rest of the day. I'm running to meet a friend, but I think you're really cute. Could I have your phone number? I'm not a psycho. I promise. You can give me a fake one if you're not interested."

Never check e-mail first thing in the morning. Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M.

"Hi, I'm right in the middle of something. How can I help you out?"

Don't give people the chance to say no. Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitant to get in the way if you're moving.

The Puppy Dog Close is invaluable whenever you face resistance to permanent changes. Get your foot in the door with a "let's just try it once" reversible trial.

"I'd really like to go to the meeting, but I'm totally overwhelmed and really need to get a few important things done. Can I sit out just for today?"

Learn to imitate any good child: "Just this once! Please!!! I promise I'll do X!"

If a boss asks for overtime "just this once," he or she will expect it in the future.

Don't reflect it back with, "Well, what do you want to…?" Offer a solution. Stop the back-and-forth and make a decision.

If you check mail and make bill payments five times a week, it might take 30 minutes per instance. If you do this once per week instead, it might take 60 minutes total.

There is a psychological switching of gears that can require up to 45 minutes to resume a major task that has been interrupted. More than a quarter of each 9–5 period (28%) is consumed by such interruptions.

How much problems cost to fix in each period. If the cost is less than the time savings, batch even further apart.

Some of my scheduled batches: e-mail (Mondays 10:00 A.M.), phone (completely eliminated), laundry (every other Sunday at 10:00 P.M.), credit cards and bills (every second Monday after e-mail), strength training (every 4th day for 30 minutes).

Empowerment failure refers to being unable to accomplish a task without first obtaining permission or information.

Keep the customer happy. If it is a problem that takes less than $100 to fix, use your judgment and fix it yourself.

This is official written permission and a request to fix all problems that cost under $100 without contacting me.

I am no longer your customer; my customers are your customer. Don't ask me for permission. Do what you think is right, and we'll make adjustments as we go along.

The first month cost perhaps $200 more than if I had been micromanaging. In the meantime, I saved more than 100 hours of my own time per month.

I want one-stop shopping and am willing to pay 10% more to have it.

Per-hour cost is not the ultimate determinant of cost. Look at per-task cost.

As cool as it is to say that you have people working for you in three countries, it's uncool to spend time babysitting people who are supposed to make your life easier.

I don't like being dependent on one person. In the world of high technology, this type of dependency would be referred to as a "single point of failure."

My outsourcers now know an alarming amount about me, not just my schedule but my cholesterol, my infertility problems, my Social Security number, my passwords.

Never use debit cards for online transactions or with remote assistants.

If your VA will be accessing websites on your behalf, create a new unique login and password to be used on those sites.

I asked him to schedule interviews but didn't indicate that it was for an article. He assumed I wanted to hire someone.

Ask foreign VAs to rephrase tasks to confirm understanding before getting started.

Request a status update after a few hours of work on a task to ensure that the task is both understood and achievable.

Use Parkinson's Law and assign tasks that are to be completed within no more than 72 hours. I have had the best luck with 48 and 24 hours.

I advise sending one task at a time whenever possible and no more than two.

"Since I'm in a rush, get started after your next e-mail and stop at 3 hours and tell me what results you have."

There are hundreds of companies that exist to pretend to work for someone else and handle these functions, providing rentable infrastructure to anyone who knows where to find them.

Think Microsoft manufactures the Xbox 360? Guess again.

Our target product can't take more than $500 to test, it has to lend itself to automation within four weeks, and when up and running; it can't require more than one day per week of management.

Our goal is simple: to create an automated vehicle for generating cash without consuming time. That's it.

I will call this vehicle a "muse" whenever possible to separate it from the ambiguous term "business."

So first things first: cash flow and time. With these two currencies, all other things are possible. Without them, nothing is possible.

The more competing resellers there are, the faster your product goes extinct.

In no time at all, no one is making profit from selling your product and reorders disappear. Customers are now accustomed to the lower pricing and the process is irreversible. The product is dead and you need to create a new product.

I had one single supplement for six years and maintained a consistent profit margin by limiting wholesale distribution.

If you offer someone exclusivity, it can work in your favor.

Start Small, Think Big. Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment.

Danny Black rents dwarfs as entertainment for $149 per hour. How is that for a niche market?

Low media cost and lack of competition enabled me to dominate with the first "neural accelerator" in these niches.

The "minimal customer base"

The minimum number of customers you need to convince of your expertise to fulfill a given dreamline.

I personally aim for an 8–10× markup, which means a $100 product can't cost me more than $10–12.50.

A price range of $50–200 per sale provides the most profit for the least customer service hassle.

You get 1,000 questions from every customer: Can I eat bananas with your product? Will it make me fart during dinner?

Purchasing an existing product at wholesale and reselling it is the easiest route but also the least profitable.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. — Woodrow Wilson

Invent, let someone else do the rest, and cash checks. Not a bad model.

Their annual revenue-per-employee is more than $2.7 million. Incredible.

Join two or three related trade organizations with official-sounding names. This can be done online in five minutes with a credit card.

Read the three top-selling books on your topic and summarize each on one page.

Give one free one-to-three-hour seminar at the closest well-known university.

The M.D. is what I term a "credibility indicator." The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators is often the most successful in the marketplace.

Call at least one potential superstar mentor per day for three days. E-mail only after attempting a phone call.

I recommend calling before 8:30 A.M. or after 6:00 P.M. to reduce run-ins with secretaries and other gatekeepers.

Shoot for "A" players (CEOs, ultrasuccessful entrepreneurs, famous authors) and don't aim low to make it less frightening.

"I know this might sound a bit odd, but I'm a first-time author and a longtime fan. I finally built up the courage to call."

"I have wanted to ask you for a specific piece of advice for a long time, and it shouldn't take more than two minutes of your time. May I?"

"If I have the occasional tough question, very occasional, is there any chance I could keep in touch via e-mail?"

The Criticism Sandwich: First praise the person for something, then deliver the criticism, and then close with topic-shifting praise to exit the sensitive topic.

"Here's the thing. There is a lot of work coming down on everyone, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed."

No one can argue with your feelings, so use this to avoid a debate about external circumstances.

"I'm sure it's just me, but I'd really appreciate it."

"Before I forget" is a great segue to the closing compliment, which is also a topic shifter.

I reply to e-mails when it's convenient, but I time it to arrive when it's also convenient for me. In Outlook you can delay e-mail delivery to any time of day.

This is how e-mail was meant to be! It's mail, not a chat service.

Use a PO Box. It encourages you to get the mail less and deal with it in batch. At least 60% of the mail doesn't even come home with us.

For families, the four-hour workweek doesn't have to mean four months on a sailboat in the Caribbean unless that's their dream.

Even the simple ideal of having time to take a walk in the park every evening or spending weekends together, makes taking actions to implement this program worthwhile.

Why not combine a mini-retirement with dentistry geoarbitrage and finance your trip with the savings?

I lived in Thailand for four months and got root canal treatment and a crown for ⅓ of the price that it costs in Australia.

The savings often finance my airfare.