Mine 2 Shine

In 1902, the sociologist Charles Horton Cooley wrote: “I am not what I think I  am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” Let that blow your mind for a moment. Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us—or, more accurately,  what we think others think of us. Not only is our self-image tied up in how we think others see us, but most of  our efforts  at self-improvement are really just us trying to meet that imagined  ideal. If we think someone we admire sees wealth as success,then we chase wealth  to impress that person. If we imagine that a friend is judging our looks, we tailor  our appearance in response. In West Side Story , Maria meets a boy who’s into her.  What’s her very next song? “I Feel Pretty.”  As of this writing, the world’s only triple Best Actor Oscar winner, Daniel  Day-Lewis, has acted in just six fil lms since 1998. He prepares for each role  extensively, immersing hi...

  Three Friends Let’s take three buddies who all grew up together. They live in  the same neighborhood, with very similar sensibilities. Each makes  around $50,000 a year. They’re all married and have average health  and body weight, plus a little bit of that dreaded “marriage fl ab.”  Friend number one, let’s call him Larry, plods along doing as  he’s always done. He’s happy, or so he thinks, but complains  occasionally that nothing ever changes.  Friend number two, Scott, starts making some small,  seemingly inconsequential, positive changes. He begins  reading 10 pages of a good book per day and listening to  30 minutes of something instructional or inspirational on  his commute to work. Scott wants to see changes in his life,  but doesn’t want to make a fuss over it. He recently read an  interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz in SUCCESS magazine and  chose one idea from the article to implement in his life: He’s...

The Craving Brain    One day in the early 1900s, a prominent American executive named  Claude C. Hopkins was approached by an old friend with a new  business idea. The friend had discovered an amazing product, he  explained, that he was convinced would be a hit. It was a toothpaste,  a minty, frothy concoction he called “Pepsodent.” There were some  dicey investors involved— one of them had a string of busted land  deals; another, it was rumored, was connected to the mob— but this  venture, the friend promised, was going to be huge. If, that is, Hopkins  would consent to help design a national promotional campaign. Hopkins, at the time, was at the top of a booming industry that  had hardly existed a few decades earlier: advertising. Hopkins was  the man who had convinced Americans to buy Schlitz beer by boasting  that the company cleaned their bottles “with live steam,” while  neglecting to mention that every other ...

The Cost of Thinking   Despite their many differences, all human species share several defining  characteristics. Most notably, humans have extraordinarily large brains  compared to other animals. Mammals weighing sixty kilograms have an  average brain size of 200 cubic centimetres. The earliest men and  women, 2.5 million years ago, had brains of about 600 cubic  centimetres. Modern Sapiens sport a brain averaging 1,200–1,400 cubic  centimetres. Neanderthal brains were even bigger.  That evolution should select for larger brains may seem to us like,  well, a no-brainer. We are so enamoured of our high intelligence that we  assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more must be better. But  if that were the case, the feline family would also have produced cats  who could do calculus. Why is genus Homo the only one in the entire  animal kingdom to have come up with such massive thinking machines? The fact is that a jum...

  Rule #1: You must know the difference between an asset and a liability, and buy assets. If you want to be rich, this is all you need to know. It is rule number one. It is the only rule. This may sound absurdly simple, but most people have no idea how profound this rule is. Most people struggle financially because they do not know the difference between an asset and a liability. “Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities that they think are assets,” said rich dad. When rich dad explained this to Mike and me, we thought he was kidding. Here we were, nearly teenagers and waiting for the secret to getting rich, and this was his answer. It was so simple that we stopped for a long time to think about it. “What is an asset?” asked Mike. “Don’t worry right now,” said rich dad. “Just let the idea sink in. If you can comprehend the simplicity, your life will have a plan and be financially easy. It is simple. That is why the idea is missed.” “You ...

 Start with Why There are a few leaders who choose to inspire rather than manipulate  in order to motivate people. Whether individuals or organizations, every single one of these inspiring leaders thinks, acts and  communicates exactly the same way. And it's the complete opposite  of the rest of us. Consciously or not, how they do it is by following a  naturally occurring pattern that I call The Golden Circle.  The concept of The Golden Circle was inspired by the golden  ratio—a simple mathematical relationship that has fascinated  mathematicians, biologists, architects, artists, musicians and  naturists since the beginning of history. From the Egyptians to  Pythagoras to Leonardo da Vinci, many have looked to the golden  ratio to provide a mathematical formula for proportion and even  beauty. It also supports the notion that there is more order in nature  than we think, as in the symmetry of leaves and the geometric ...

  10000 hr rule Is the ten-thousand-hour rule a general rule of success? If  we scratch below the surface of every great achiever, do  we always find the equivalent of the Michigan Computer  Center or the hockey all-star team—some sort of special  opportunity for practice? Let's test the idea with two examples, and for the sake  of simplicity, let's make them as familiar as possible: the  Beatles, one of the most famous rock bands ever; and Bill  Gates, one of the world's richest men. The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George  Harrison, and Ringo Starr—came to the United States in  February of 1964, starting the so-called British Invasion  of the American music scene and putting out a string of  hit records that transformed the face of popular music.  The first interesting thing about the Beatles for our  purposes is how long they had already been together  by the time they   reached the United St...