So this weeks post is about my first experience using Freelancer.com. I used Freelancer to make some changes to my site, xenosmash.com. I wanted to have a few things changed around like my top navigation my search button and a page layout for my tutorials. I put my project online on Thursday and wanted to spend no more than $250. I mostly wanted to test things out and seeing that this was my first experience using a freelancer (outsourcing in general) I didn’t feel like spending more than $250 just in case things went bad.

So I put up my project online and within minutes I had quite a few bids on my project from all sorts of people. On the first night they had a “Recommended” freelancer who bid on the project for $75. He had some decent reviews but I didn’t want to pick the lowest bidder especially considering I wanted some quality work done on my site not just someone who’s in it to make a quick buck. Still though he had a pretty good track record. On Friday evening I decided to make my decision as I had just gotten paid that day. So I looked at a few, and the newest recommended freelancer was a company that bid on the project for $247 and said it would be done within 15 days. Right underneath the bid price they have the amount of days they say it will take to get done. I didn’t want to wait over two weeks to see these results, especially if I was going to pay near the top of my allocated budget. So I went with another who asked for $125 and said it could be done in two days.

We talked briefly via chat then I decided to “award” him the project which basically means I chose him to complete the project. Mind you this guy was in India which meant it was Saturday morning. I told him I gave him the project to do and he said he would get it done by end of day Monday. I wasn’t sure if he meant end of Monday my time or his but I figured it would be done by end of Monday in the US. After he accepted the job he noted that he didn’t work on Sundays which was fine as long as he would still meet his end of the deal by getting it done in two days as he asked.

I sent him some images of everything I wanted done, which basically entailed screenshots of my site that I edited to contain how I wanted the site to look like. First thing I wanted change was my navigation. The theme I had was the Gigawatt theme and the logo was centered in the middle of the page which didn’t look good with my logo so I wanted it moved to the top along a black navigation bar. I also wanted my pages in my nav at the very top with a nice drop down menu for sub-pages. I also wanted my search bar to be moved to this top nav as well and provided what it would look like. Lastly I wanted my post thumbnails to have a white border around them to make them stand out a bit. I also asked to have a page template edited since the layout for all the video thumbnails for some reason would all show up on the left side of the page.

Looking back on it, it was probably something I should have paid more to get done, but the freelancer said he could do it so I trusted his judgement. So the first day nothing was changed, nor on Monday. Monday evening came around and I could see some very small changes being made. He had access to my FTP account that I created for him and he also had a freelancer account on my WordPress site. I sent him a few emails here and there to make sure he was on track and if he needed time to notify me. He didn’t reply until Wednesday to tell me “Ok I’m done please look over it and tell me if anything needs to be changed”. There were a few things he didn’t do and some things he did that ultimately made it harder to work with on my site. For one he made the top black bar only extend out a short distance rather than span the entire length of the site, so it looks off. Second, the search bar is a small white box that when clicked on expands. I wasn’t a big fan of this but I let it go and lastly the search function was completely messed up. Also he had hard coded things in using HTML and whatever else he used so the flexibility I once had in those areas of my site were now gone. If I try to add a new page it doesn’t show up at all.

It’s not all bad though, after all I only paid $125 to get all this done and I never had any issues with who I hired. He fixed a few of the things I wanted and I eventually paid him after doing so. Another hiccup I had was with the Freelancer.com site itself. I hadn’t logged into the site in some time so I didn’t noticed that they required a phone verification in order to release any funds. Needless to say I ended up having wait a full day since my account was locked out and their customer support just gave me the “sorry that’s our system, you’ll have to wait” response which I thought was pretty ridiculous especially since I could have called THEM to get this resolved.

So in the end would I go through all this again? Yes, but I would be more selective about who I’ve picked. I’m not sure if I’ll go through Freelancer.com anymore, I might try my hand at Elance as I’ve heard they tend to have better quality workers although they are a bit pricier. I want to really add some nice stuff to my site but I think I’ll wait till next month to get any more work done as I’m trying to see which areas need the most work. Most things I want to change I can currently do myself so I’ll do that first. I hope this gives you some good insight into using sites like freelancer.com to get some custom work done!

So this weekend has been very uneventful. I have a three day weekend and when I first found out I would be off for three days I was overjoyed particularly because I thought I would really be able to work on my training site as much as possible. Needless to say that hasn’t been the case. I was almost tempted to not even write this blog post today because I’ve just been feeling burned out lately. I don’t know what it is, but all day today I didn’t feel like doing anything at all. I’d come up with amazing ideas for my site and great video series I could start but wouldn’t even start to do anything. I realize that my weekends are no longer “week ends” but rather times when I would double up on my business work.

I believe I’ve come a long way with my site since it’s birth last month but I also believe that I may be running too soon. I’ve hired a freelance worker from Freelancer.com to help with my site design as I hated the layout of the site but really loved the framework that the theme was based off of. It’s supposed to be done tomorrow so I’m hoping that everything is as I hoped it would be. He seems like a reputable worker judging from the reviews and overall confidence that he gives. This is my first time getting involved with freelance work but I really do want to start leveraging my resources, namely the stash of money I’m saving monthly. I figure the money will be spent regardless, and while I don’t intend to spend everything I do plan on putting some away to invest in myself and in my business. If I’m serious about going through with this, then I need to show it by improving the site and showing others that this is worth it.

At first I was opposed to the idea of hiring someone. Not because I didn’t want to spend the money but more so because I had a big ego that wanted to do everything. Back in my younger years I was a web designer and even though I only knew HTML and Flash I thought those credentials would lend themselves towards WordPress. I was wrong, dead wrong and it led to many a night stressing out over minutiae like the spacing between my logo and the slider on my front page, or how a certain link would display a page layout I didn’t like. I was even going to dedicate the time to learn WordPress myself to make these small changes but constantly kept getting frustrated. I finally gave in and posted my job on Freelancer.com and within minutes received multiple offers ranging from $75 to as much as $247. I went with who I believed would do the best job in the allotted time that wasn’t too pricey but not the cheapest either. You get what you pay for. I’ll find out the truth to this tomorrow when I’ll be seeing the finished product.

I realized through this process that learning to leverage my money to help build my business would do me more good than to stash away my money and spend endless hours trying to learn every aspect of it. In the end my goal in creating this business is to develop content. Building my WordPress site from scratch was detracting from that and more importantly meant that the job would probably take much longer and not be of quality due to my experience.

Since then I’ve decided that I’ll be setting aside a “business fund” to which I will use to pay for work to be done on my business, whether that’s custom site design, Logo design or even just purchasing things for my site like Aweber. Just an hour before writing this blog I purchased a custom animated logo from Splasheo.com for $47. Now I love my intro, but after seeing the stuff on Splasheo I realized that I would attract so many more people with a professional looking intro than the one I had up. I see it as money well spent and it just adds to my brand. I could have easily took the time to learn how to make a custom intro, after all I have all the software needed, but the point is I would once again be losing precious time towards learning something that wouldn’t benefit my customer base.

I have so much ambition and great ideas (you should see my notes) yet I’m truly limiting myself by trying to control everything. I’m running with all these ideas and trying to do them all when I should be focusing on what I need to do and let others help with the rest. Today I was listening to a podcast from the SmartPassiveIncome.com blog and on one of the podcasts he interviewed someone who made software for a living. He himself didn’t do any of the coding he hired others to do it he was namely responsible for finding out what the problem was that needed to be resolved. The thing is in the interview he talked about knowing when to let go and not control everything. When you control every aspect of you business your liable to suffocate it and at best you’ll stall the growth of your business. I’m slowly learning all these principles but I wanted to pass this on to whoever is just starting out like me and struggling to get by. Don’t be afraid to get help from others. Work on your strengths, find out what your true goal in your business is and work on it. Leave the rest to others. Hire great people to do work for you. Leverage your resources, learn to use your time effectively on what matters most!

So this week I learned plenty but the one thing I realized is that in order to become truly successful you have to be passionate. There are tons and tons of ways to make money online doing something you love. I don’t think there is a business out there that cannot survive online in one way or another. If you’re passionate about something you will find a way to make it happen. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately and reading up online on inspirational people who made it happen no matter what. They all said it was hard work but not one regrets giving up on themselves, especially since they love what they do.

So it just keeps me on track to continue doing what I’m doing. I love what I’m doing now and I’m slowly making progress towards reaching my dream. My dream is to become a game designer, not only just a game designer but to be a game designer who works for himself. Now being in this particular field, least in my eyes, means that I have unlimited potential. I won’t give out my ideas, but I believe that I’m well on my way to opening a door to unlimited possibilities for growth. There are just so many ways to make money and I intend to pursue my goals. Video games are my passion, it’s a massive industry but the money isn’t really what attracts me. Sure I’m building a business around this field and I intend to make myself quite successful at that, but it’s not the money that motivates me to get into this field. It was never really about the money for me. I want to make great money doing what I’m doing but more so I want to create amazing things that people really enjoy.

To me video games represent that inner voice in all of us to want to become something bigger, do something exciting and live in new worlds. It’s the reason why the gaming industry is so big and profitable. Everyone loves to get immersed in these digital worlds. I absolutely love this stuff. Some of my best childhood memories revolve around video games, so I grew up wanting to create them. It’s the reason I joined the military; to get money for school to become a game designer.

All of that pretty much fell through when I realized that the schools I wanted to attend just weren’t going to cut it for me. I have a short attention span and didn’t feel like spending four years to find out what I could learn in less than a year. I had the school money but time was more valuable to me than anything. So I set out a goal to own my own game company and that’s where I’m headed. I’m slowly putting together a great site that I’m passionate about and plan on making it so big that it’ll compete with the big boys and maybe even compete against online schools. It’s ambitious, yes, but I believe this is what will keep me going forward.

I believe if you are to be successful in business or in anything in life you have to have the passion for it. I truly enjoy getting into game design. I really love modelling  something in 3d or seeing a really awesome animation sequence. I get giddy when I find out a way to script an event in my games. One such thing happened yesterday when I figured out how to animate a cut scene style sequence using a camera in my game. It’s those little surprises that keep me going. Now unless you have the same passion as I do with gaming, most of you will probably scoff and think that’s nonsense, but that’s because it’s not your passion. There is probably something in your life that makes you incredibly happy to do and you’d do it no matter what. I had been in this field since I was  a kid. I had stacks of Gamepro magazines under my bed, every $20 spent on games and hours upon hours playing the newest games. I live this stuff and I finally decided to create them myself.

You know before I would have a hard time contemplating if this was the direction I wanted to head into with my life, but now that I think about it I should have never strayed off this path to begin with. I believe we all have a calling and we all have a passion in life for doing certain things. It’s a shame that more people don’t go after what they want. I believe that if we all pursued what we truly wanted to do with our lives and gave it our all we’d all be just a bit happier around the world. It’s not easy, I know, hell I’m still learning myself but I don’t think you should live out your life always saying “what if?”. Will it really kill you to start something on the side? Will it really be that bad to stop watching TV just one hour a day to learn more about what you want to do and how you can make a living from it? I don’t think so.

I will end this weeks post by saying that I am still in the military but I have dedicated myself to spending my free time to build a business around something I truly feel passionate about. It may take months or maybe even years but I know I would kick myself if I just let others dictate how my life should live. I don’t intend on living a life that isn’t suited for me. Get out there, go after what you want. Stop watching TV, stop going out to the club and dedicate more time to yourself and where you truly want to be in life.

So today’s post is all about making progress little by little. This past week I learned a lot of lessons that I would not have learned had I not tried new things and adjusted as I went along. Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning continual progress and that is a phrase I like to live by. So this week I continued with my video training site and made great strides but also learn a few things along the way. So my goal for the site was to create one video a day, and after about a week of doing this I realized how inefficient it is to wait till the last minute to put up content online. I was doing good at first, then one day I ended up making a video that was way bigger than all the others. The video itself was like 13 minutes long and due to all the edits and transitions I had to make the video ended up being about 1.6GB in size.

I started to upload this video on Youtube late at night only to realize it was going to take two hours to upload. I figured I would stay up a little late to make sure it was all going well and even had my website ready to link to the Youtube video through a blog post. Needless to say when it came close to being uploaded it somehow jumped back up to 90 mins so I ended up cancelling the video upload. I went to bed late, and felt bad that just one week into this site I had already missed a deadline I set for myself. I realized then that it would be so much more efficient and easier to create batches of videos which I can then upload daily. This was also needed because I was starting to despise making these videos since it was taking up so much of my time and I wasn’t able to learn myself. I got through the week and now thankfully the weekend has arrived which meant I could build up a nice stash of videos to use throughout the week.

I wanted to create projects online that people can watch from start to finish. The intent of the projects was to create a full series of videos around a certain subject. For instance in one project I would have a beginner series of tutorials which would go from start to finish and show people how to get started and build a nice foundation of knowledge. I successfully created all the videos for that project this week and I had no idea I would actually create it. I wanted to have a project completed this week and thankfully I had the idea to create a back to basics style project to help the newbies just getting started.

I also started learning more about WordPress and how to use plugins to maximize certain parts of my site. I had some issues with a slider that came preloaded with my theme and after much worrying and griping about it I finally found a plugin that would do exactly what I needed and I was thrilled. I went to sleep that night really feeling accomplished even though it was something so small. I had a similar feeling later when I was having issues with page links in my navigation to which another plugin came to the rescue. I still feel the site needs plenty of polish, but I feel like I’m making small gradual steps in the right direction.

On another note, I finally took the plunge and decided to upgrade my broadcasting equipment. By that I mean my mic setup. I’ve been using headsets to record my video training and it’s been a bit of a pain. No matter how much I spend on headsets none of them quite give off the crisp clean sound I wanted so I finally decided to do some research and found a nice mid-end mic and a nice mic “arm” stand and pop filter. I realized that 99% of professional video training sites used something similar including one that first gave me the idea to start my own training site. I purchased it last week and realized it came in on Friday while I was out, unfortunately I wasn’t able to pick it up in time so I have to wait till tomorrow to pick it up. I’m quite excited though as I’m ready to start taking my training videos to the next level, audio wise anyways. I also want to start creating a podcast for this blog and more important I want to get more comfortable behind a mic. I’m my own worst critic and I critique my own voice plenty. I’m hoping that this new mic setup might alleviate some issues I was having, but I think the biggest issue is just being comfortable speaking on the mic. I usually don’t have these issues when talking on the phone with my family, so I know it’s a matter of confidence.

So this week has been quite busy and I’ve learned a lot, this coming week will be even crazier. I won’t say what I’m up to just yet, I want to keep things a secret until I’m ready to reveal them but stay tuned, more great things to come! Thanks for reading!

So I was pumped and ready to start a podcast this week. I started listening to Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcasts and really got me motivated to start my own. I don’t know the first thing about podcasting other than you’re recording yourself and posting it online. I want to start a podcast to reach a bigger audience and to help others who are going through the same struggles towards financial freedom as I am. This blog has gone through many ups and downs, but I wanted to keep this blog as an online journal to inspire others who are going through the same journey. So last night I was ready to write up a few bullet points and start recording with my headset before I came upon Pat Flynn’s Podcasting tutorial series on youtube. He went over the different microphone setups for those wanting to start their own podcast and I realized that I should upgrade my own setup before I start podcasting.

I don’t really like to wait and say “well once x y and z are in place then I’ll start” but I believe in producing quality content for others. After all if you’re going to provide content it should be the best kind that you can provide. So hopefully in a week or two I will have enough knowledge to know how to properly start a podcast and even more so hopefully I’ll have a really nice mic setup. I’m looking to start small but it’ll be a big upgrade from what I have now. I will be using an Audio Technica mic and I plan on getting a nice “arm” that will hold the mic above my computer that way I can use it for my training videos as well.

So, onto other news. I have start creating content for Xenosmash.com and it’s starting off small but I’m really enjoying it. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t have much content to share with others but it seems like everyday I have 4 or 5 different videos I want to teach. It’s a great learning experience for me because I’m learning how to properly edit video, how to explain things that I’ve never explained before and best of all it’s helping some people. When I returned from the Philippines I checked the mail for my account associated with Xenosmash and a user sent me a message telling me that the videos were a big help to him and he hoped that I would continue to make them. That was probably the biggest boost I could get to keep going. More so than seeing dollars in my account, it’s the gratifying feeling of knowing others enjoy my work and benefit from it. So this week I’ve created one video a day and I continue to do so for the rest of the year.

I’ve been lucky enough to find everything I want to learn to teach others, including some really incredible stuff that others have created but that has been lost in the massive repository that is the internet. So I’m constantly updating the site and continuing to upgrade it with new plugins and changing the look little by little. I didn’t think this would be so time consuming but every time I get off work I spend hours just tweaking the site and learning new ways to drive more traffic to it or improve some functionality for it. It’s a pretty awesome hobby and I’m glad I finally just started doing it.

So for everyone out there who has all these grand ideas in their head, all I can tell you is start doing it. It doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. The thing you have to do is just put that foot forward little by little. Trust me you will gain traction and you will get better and better as the days go by. I’m still amazed that we’re still in January and I’ve already done so much more than I’ve done all last year. This is going to be a pretty incredible year, and so I’m here to document all the ups and downs. Hope you all have a wonderful year, thanks for reading!

Well lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my future and what I want to do with my life. I intended this blog to be about investing but I’m thinking I’m going to keep it as an inspirational blog to track my progress throughout this year while I become financially free. I hope to keep a digital record of all the ups and downs in my journey and to inspire others to do the same for me. I will continue to update this blog on a weekly basis and provide others insight into what I learn as I go along and share resources I’ve found helpful to myself as well. Last night I decided to write out a big goal of mine that I want to accomplish. That goal is to become financially free by the time I turn 27, which would be the anniversary of this blog and it’s also a little over six months from now. It’s a lofty goal, but every day I grow closer and closer to achieving it.

With that being said, I’ve noticed something in my lately that I haven’t before. I know it’s been there the whole time but just today I noticed it more profoundly. I believe it’s something that everyone embarking on something big has inside them. I notice that every time I want to accomplish something that would benefit myself my mind tends to want to spend time doing something else. Rather than sitting and writing out my book my mind wants to go out and mindlessly window shop for things I don’t even care to buy. This weekend alone I went to see three movies at the movie theater, all when I should have been at home doing the things that will bring me one step closer to becoming truly independent.

I believe the first step is acknowledging that you have a problem and I’m glad I’ve noticed it now. Some may call it procrastination but I feel like my mind is willfully trying to sabotage my efforts to achieve something better. It’s as if it tries to pump me up with all these great ideas, but when I want to accomplish them it quickly shuts down and makes the process that much more difficult. So as hard as it’s going to be, I have to know when the resistance in my starts to over power my intentions and shut it down. How? Well every time I feel scared or nervous about doing something I know I should be doing, I’m just going to start working on it. That’s the biggest step towards success, just putting that foot down and continuing forward. Sometimes you just need to stop thinking and just do it. Once you get going it’s much harder to stop than it is to keep going.

So with all that said I don’t know what this blog will truly be about. I have no idea where it’s headed. For all I know I may end up shutting this blog down in the future, but I want to keep this blog up until my 27th birthday at least. I want to keep record of accomplishing my goals. It’ll be a great memento to see where I was a year ago and the struggles I went through to get where I’ll be 6 months from now. It’ll be a great way to show others that if you really commit to yourself you can achieve great things. I can feel it already this year. I started to stress out a bit about what I wanted to do and trying to achieve so much and I realized “this is just January!”. I’m already pushing myself and learning so much and the first month isn’t even over year, so I feel truly optimistic about what I can achieve in the coming months.

Well forgive my absence the past couple of weeks. Things have changed in my life. The newest addition to my life is that I am now a happily married man. I married the woman I love most. It was a goal of mine to marry her and I have done so finally. Just because I haven’t been writing for this blog in a couple weeks doesn’t mean things have gone south. I plan on reviving this blog into something much more than it was before. I have big plans for this blog that revolve around investing. As I said previously my intention for this blog is to turn it into an investment blog that teaches others how to properly invest their money. I had a great idea for this blog to which I will showcase starting tomorrow. I will not openly discuss my plans for this blog but will reveal them as they come along. I’m excited and motivated again to start fresh. Just this month alone I feel like I have taken a big step in the right direction. I will update this blog again tomorrow if all goes well with a new addition that I would like to add to this blog on a weekly basis. Something I feel will help others with their investing goals and something that will also keep me on track to continue learning all I can about investing in order to share it with you all. If you were a reader of my blog before please stick around. I have not abandoned my goals I have just decided that in order for this blog to truly be great it has to help people rather than just helping me. I want this blog to grow and mature and not just die off because it was too focus on me. I hope this blog will help many hundreds of thousands if not millions of people around the world to achieve great things by empowering them. Stay tuned for great things to come.

Well another week down and I’ve achieved another goal I set for myself. That goal was to visit a new island in the Philippines. As I’ve mentioned before I am currently in the Philippines with my wife to be. We both decided to visit Palawan which was a new place for both of us and I’m glad we did. This place is quite beautiful, it’s almost as if they live in a completely different world. The typical Philippine lifestyle is here, but on a much smaller and quieter level. There aren’t loads of Jeepney’s and busses screaming past you, or tons of cars on the roads. The “nightlife” here is almost non-existant other than a few tiki bars around. The city is very peaceful and quiet. We’ve been having fun going on different tours and tomorrow night we will stay in and go out at night near the bay to watch the fire works.

So tomorrow is the end of 2012, and I’m excited for 2013 to come. I’m going to say the cliche thing and say that many great things will come in 2013 and it will truly be a time of change. I also decided this blog will take on a completely new topic altogether, but one I feel I need to share with others. I want to become financially free and become an expert in making money and helping others to do the same. I had been wanting some way to teach others what I currently know and what I will know about investing and making money and realize this blog is the perfect medium for that. So starting in 2013 this blog will focus on investing and teaching others how to become financially free. I will document and share with everyone what I have learned and also include some training to help others who want to become financially free themselves.

I still plan on continuing with my goals, but I may take a different approach with them and altogether may even just keep it to myself. My goals are for me to enjoy and track and I’d rather share something else through this blog that will truly help others. I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog posts about my life and I hope you will continue to keep reading as I provide something that will help others become free financially.

Well I finally made my way back to the Philippines after 10 long months away from the woman I love most. I was looking forward to it then entire year. We plan to get married on the 10th of January and have already made all the preparations to do so. this is a very important step in my life and hers as well. It feels like I had to fight tooth and nail just to get down here, which is pretty sad. Either way I’m here and ready to get married and start a new chapter in my life with my new partner. On that note, I’m glad the world didn’t end, especially considering I was still flying over the Philippines on the 21st of this month. Being here has made me realize how much more I want to be independent, truly on my own to enjoy all that life has to offer. Why be chained to someone else you hate? By that I mean work, not the person you marry. I often fantasize about becoming self sustained within 3-4 months that I can put in my “discharge paperwork” and start living the life I’m meant to. It’s scary, but I think fate itself got tired of me not doing anything and is starting to make my last year in the military hell so that I can finally get off my ass and start doing something.

I am doing something, and something that will make me very wealthy. After attending the millionaire mind intensive, it really set in my mind what I need to do to achieve my goals. It wasn’t much different than what I already thought, but just being surrounded by like minded people many of which are actually living the life they want really brought it to perspective for me. They spoke of three “pillars” that successful wealthy people obtain their wealth from: stocks (paper investments), Real Estate, and businesses. I plan on becoming an expert in stock trading. I know it’s something that has made many people wealthy and will continue to be around as long as businesses are still up and running. Best part about it is, it fits perfectly into the type of business I want to run. I love businesses that can be done from anywhere in the world, at any time. Stock trading can be done with as little as 15 minutes a day. It could very well be my only source of income, but I want to be “well balanced” overall. I’m still continuing with my business as I take great pride and joy from what I am creating. I’m also going to try to invest in real estate by way of tax liens to start. I’m doing research right now as I’m not too familiar in how to invest in them, but it’s another useful tool in my investment arsenal. I’m going to dedicate myself more than ever this year. It’s basically all or nothing at this point and as much as it scares me, I have to show that I’m willing to give 100% to achieve what I want, otherwise why bother?

I’m a big believer that your thoughts and actions vibrate through the universe and the universe replies back with what you are focusing on. If I only give half-assed work, then I should expect half-assed results. I have a fond love of perfecting things and working on those things which I find I can learn a lot from. I don’t want the easy things in life. I remember a quote at the seminar that read “If you do the hard things in life, life will be easy. If you do the easy things in life, life will be hard”. I truly believe that and once you’ve learn to master those things which you thought were hard, everything else seems easy in comparison. I’ve achieved a lot of difficult things in my life that I didn’t think I would so why wouldn’t it work for my financial freedom?

Now that I’m in the Philippines I will be starting a second book to go along with my first. It’ll include some tips and tricks for those looking to get married abroad and how I did it. I’m also going to be shooting small “shorts” of different aspects of Philippine life. I love the way Vice does their documentaries so I plan on emulating some of their style. Just want to expand my horizon and try new things, always continuing forward. Getting married will mark the start of my new life so I need to shed my old lifestyle and start becoming the man I need to be.

Well this week’s post will be entirely dedicated to my “review” of the Millionaire Mind Intensive. I’m not here to critique it by any means, I’m here to share my experience with it. First off I will say it was the most amazing seminar I have ever attended and the most inspirational thing I’ve done in my life. Reading books and hearing others talk on TV and online is great, but it’s nothing compared to going to a seminar like this. So lets go back to how I found out about this. When I was deployed I was reading a lot and I came across a book called “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” by T Harv Eker. This book is phenomenal in it’s own right, but the seminar truly embodies everything that he says in the book. I looked up dates for his “Millionaire Mind Intensive” which is usually a 3 day seminar done around the world. I told myself that I would attend one after hearing great reviews on it. Lucky for me I didn’t have to drive to California to do it as they had their very first Las Vegas appearance this past weekend. Even better was that I was able to attend this seminar for free. It would be hard to justify not going at this point, so I signed up. I arrived right after work on Friday and we spent about 3 hours being motivated for the things to come over the weekend. Friday night was really an “intro” to the whole seminar and we filled out our work books to see where we were at as far as what we thought about money and being rich in general.

There was a decent amount of people, but not nearly as much as I thought there would be. Friday night was great, but it wasn’t exactly everything I had hoped for. So Saturday roles around and I realize this is going to be a long day. The second day was from 8 in the morning until 11 at night. Needless to say the day went by fairly fast because it was so jam packed with amazing guest speakers and information. On this day I learned about Tax liens and how to invest into them. My thoughts of investing in stocks were reinvigorated by hearing a speech made by Courtney Smith who has made millions upon millions trading stocks. I decided then that I would give stocks another try and to this time fully commit to learning everything I can about investing in them. I know there is money to be made there, but more importantly it’s a vital skill to increasing my income sources. I also learned about self directed IRAs and how I could use them to make money as well. It was just a great day to absorb all this wealth of information from these guys who clearly have become professionals in their respective fields. The energy, the vibe in the room was just magnetic. Sure there were people in there who were “pretending” to care, including one old man who sat next to me a few times. He wasn’t motivated at all and showed up late into the second day and said ‘what did I miss?’. I humored him the first time, but he left again a few hours after he arrived on Saturday and didn’t return into midday Sunday, to which he said ‘So what did I miss’. I was tempted to tell him ‘Why do you care? You obviously don’t want to learn the lessons being taught here’, but I humored him again and pretty much ignored him the rest of the time. I was lucky enough to have some truly amazing people in the row I was sitting at and the row behind me. Next to me was a professional stock trader to which I picked his brain and got some honest advice. Next to them was a kind couple, a German guy around my age and his Israeli wife. He owned an online publishing company and I thought it was amazing considering I wrote my book not too long ago. Behind me was a man who said he was once in Fortune magazine for his business, and his wife (or who I believe to be his wife) who was a successful real estate investor.

The real meat and potatoes of this seminar was by far the exercises we did. During the exercises we would often partner up with someone and do something that would condition us in the right way. The first one I remember, which is one I had heard about and even done before, was the “pain link association”. Basically during the exercise we recall why pain is the biggest “stopping force” of anything. If you touch a hot oven it’s almost guaranteed you won’t make that same mistake twice. It’s built into your body now and your cells recognize this and naturally you’ll avoid it again. Well in this exercise we had a thick rubber band bracelet on, and every time we would say something negative about becoming rich we would snap the band. So for instance I would say “Money is the root of all evil” and before I finished the last word I would snap the band. The more pain it inflicted the better association. So we picked three that were holding us back. Beliefs that were not true and we’d snap the band three times each time, but we also associated pleasure with the good statements. So after I snapped the band and inflicted pain for saying something bad, I would kiss my wrist and say “Money can provide many good things in life”. We did this 9 times and by the time we were done my wrists look like I had tried to cut it open with a butter knife. It was quite painful and tender and even as I write this it’s still red and a bit welted.

The second exercise we did was one that really shook a few people. By shook I mean really got down into the core of what they believed in. Before we broke for lunch we were told to bring a $100 bill in. Some people didn’t bring it which led to some talk of “if you’re not prepared here, then how are you going to be prepared out there”. So once we were all squared away the real fun started. So before we started we had to agree to not leave the room and keep the same $100 bill in our hands the entire time. Once we all agreed to that, then the staff came running out with lit candles and buckets filled with alcohol. We all got nervous and instantly knew what we were going to be doing. The old man had been sitting next to me at this time, and needless to say he was a bit of a pain during this process. Naturally he didn’t have the $100 so he had $10 instead. He began to tell me “you know you’re going to burn that right?” as if the entire room didn’t already know that. So we all got up and started to form a line to different buckets with a staff member holding a candle. As the tension was building we all began to think “damn”. I wasn’t too down about it, but still felt like $100 wasted and it really showed my attachment to money. In the end right as we were about to light the first bill the trainer said “STOP!”. A bigger sigh of relief could not be had there, and we all felt thankful that it was all just an exercise. It was an exercise to commit to showing who was in control. It had been completed right when we decided to stand up and walk towards the staff member holding the candle.

I won’t go into every detail of the seminar, but the most profound exercise was done today. This exercise was to teach us to “Act in Spite of Fear”.  In this exercise we were told that we would be breaking a wooden arrow with our necks. You know the soft part of your neck? that little dip found below the Adams apple? That is the soft spot where the arrow point would be held, while the other end would be held up by someone’s flat palm applying pressure to the arrow. It’s hard to explain, but you have the arrow being held up by tension between my neck and someone’s palm. The exercise was a great metaphor for “breaking through barriers”. You would each be given an arrow, and you would write something on it that is holding you back. Mine had ‘Fear of Failure’. It took some time for our group to get started, but we finally did it. I was hoping to go first, but I ended up going second to last. I broke it on my first try and I was pretty happy about it. I now have the broken arrow above my desk to always remind me that I have broken through my self set limitation of “fear of failure”. It was the best exercise we had the entire seminar because it was so profound and changing. It’s hard to explain, but if you were there you’d understand.

So to conclude all of this, I have to say that this is by far the most amazing seminar I have ever attended. You owe it to yourself to attend, it’s free and you’ll learn and do more in this weekend than you’ve probably done your entire life.