When I was a younger man, the world looked a very different place. I thought that success was largely down to a mix of talent and luck. Two things that you could not possibly ever control. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had entirely defaulted to the standard victim thinking that the majority of people adopt.

They say that youth is wasted on the young and I believe that's completely right. Over the years I have watched how people respond to the challenges and obstacles of life. I have even had the privilege of being a father and observing how two new people get to grips with the world and struggle to find their place in it. What I have concluded is that most people never manage to bust out of victim mode. Most people spend an entire lifetime throwing a pity party of massive proportions, and everyone is invited!

Life is not like a box of chocolates at all! I believe that life is like a train journey. Most of the people taking the trip are passengers, very few people decide to be the driver. Now, these passengers are a diverse bunch. Some of them know where the train is going and don't mind one bit. Some of them know where the train is headed and are mighty annoyed at the driver because of it. Others haven't got the first clue where they are going or how long it will take to get there. However, despite their varied states of mind, they all share one common position. None of them are completely content and at peace with the journey.

Even the relatively happy passengers have no say in where they are going, how fast the train will travel or how comfortable the journey will be. Only the driver has that privilege. The driver of the train gets the very best seat, right up front with the most amazing views. He gets to decide where the train is going, how quick it will get there and he even takes control of environmental controls so that he can set the temperature and humidity to suit himself entirely.

What it comes down to is this. The path of least resistance is to buy a ticket and just get on the train. The more difficult path is to apply for the position of a train driver, undertake many months of intensive training, spend the first few weeks of the job way out of your comfort zone. As you become responsible for the lives and safety of several hundred people every time, you take that train out of the station. Only after you have invested time, effort and money in your decision do you get to reap the rewards. This is a perfect analogy for life.

Everything of value lies just outside our comfort zone.

It's true that I have had many people argue with that statement. Have you ever noticed that some people are always looking for ways to be offended? Especially on social media. I guarantee you that if I post that very same statement on Facebook today, by tomorrow, I will have dozens of very offended people commenting.  They will state that family and friends are inside the zone and they are perhaps the most valuable aspect of life. But maybe they won't phrase it as politely as that.

They are as right as they are wrong!

It is true that your family, partner, and friends are gifts that no money or amount or hard work could ever replicate. However, there is a huge difference between having children and being a father. There are a million miles between spending time with other people and being their friend. If you have little ones of your own, you will no doubt agree with me that you discovered with a shock that the role of being mother or father to those kids is a long walk from the outer edges of your comfort zone.

So, I will say it again. Everything of value lies just outside of our comfort zones. That is exactly why most people never get the life that they really want. That is why tens of millions of people endorse the dross they churn out on television every night, and that is why the majority of people will work a job they don't like, for a boss who doesn't appreciate them to stay in a relationship that doesn't fulfill them. But enough of this bleak outlook, this book is not for those people. This book is for the driver of the train, or at the very least the person who aspires to be the driver of the train.

Over the years I have listened to a lot of motivational speakers, and I do not doubt that you will see little inflections of my favorites in my style of writing here and there. Some of the inspirational authors who have inspired and motivated me over the year include Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle and Zig Ziglar. These men write the sort of wisdom that my father would instantly dismiss as snake oil or worse. I was brought up by working-class parents from a background of hardship and hard knocks. My mom and dad would even keep a coffee jar on top of the TV to pop coins in, to save up for the electric bill. But eventually, my father shook off his background and escaped poverty by bloody hard work and persistence. His journey out of the abyss would lead him to look at anything that suggested an easier way of doing things and declare it a scam or downright lies.

When I would quote motivational speakers such as Zig Ziglar, who made grand statements such as 'you can have anything you want in life' and 'you were born to win.' My father couldn't help but discard it all as new age nonsense. I can understand this skepticism because most people experience life sitting on the sidelines watching other people get lucky and get more than their fair share. Individuals in the 80% (the term that I use to describe the passengers on the train) are told over and over again that life is hard, life is not fair, and the system is stacked against them. They are taught this mantra by the people who they love and trust the most, their family. Despite how it first appears, this message is not being passed down the line to cause misery. Rather, my father told me all these motivational speakers I was listening to were peddling snake oil because he wanted to protect me. God forbid we get our hopes up and dare to dream that life can be deeply fulfilling, more than fair and profoundly rewarding.

As I sit here at my desk at the age of 43 I can tell you that is exactly what life is. My life is breathtakingly beautiful. I am about the marry the woman of my dreams, I live on a Greek island in the sun, my house is 3km from the beach, I have more money than I know what to do with and I don't ever go to work. Good for you Craig, and thanks for rubbing my nose in it. Is what I hope you are not thinking! I am not telling you that to boast because I firmly believe when you get an Unstoppable mindset the very same or much better is possible for you too.

I don’t know if you have noticed this, but the universe is always in perfect balance. As much as we fight against it, there can never be anything other than harmony. Birth is counterbalanced precisely by death; nobody has ever got away with it. No matter how much you pray, beg or plead, ain't nobody getting out of this alive. There is as much love as there is hate, although the media can skew our opinion on this.

The black and white wheel of yin and yang is always spinning, success balancing failure and love equaling out hate. I believe that virtually all of our misery comes from the refusal to accept the way of things. Our utter refusal to accept that the wheel keeps turning, nothing is permanent. This viewpoint is then combined with our instance that things and events that appear to be opposite are separate from each other. We want success, but we do not want failure, we assume that because both outcomes are at polar ends of the spectrum that they are two different things. Most self-made individuals understand that success and failure are the same things. You can't have success without failure. To fall short of your goal and suffer is merely a waypoint on the route to your destination.

The passengers on the train don't want failure so much that they are willing to forego success to avoid it. They incorrectly assume that if taking action put you at risk of failure then doing nothing will prevent that outcome. However, the problem with this sort of thinking is it still incorrectly assumes that you can split success and failure in two. If this were possible, then the universe would be out of balance as a result. By doing nothing, you may avoid the risks and pitfalls of opportunity, and you are free to chalk that one up as a success if you want. But you will still arrive at failure regardless. 

We get very hung up on giving labels to things. We lose $50 in the street and declare how terrible it is and yet if we find $50 we skip to work with a spring in our step, announcing to all who will listen that we are one lucky son of a gun. The person who lost the money labels the event as bad, and the lucky individual who finds the money labels it as good. How the same 'thing' be both good and bad at the same time? The answer from our point of view is, it can't. However, we are not viewing reality, only our narrow band of reality. The universe does not see good and bad as individual states. They are both connected to the same wheel of yin and yang. Black is bad and white is good, but they are partners, not enemies. 

Have you noticed that many of the world's wealthiest, most successful businessmen have a trail of destruction in their wake? It is not uncommon for highly capable entrepreneurs to have multiple bankruptcies and company liquidations in their past. I am sure at the time those experiences were harrowing and were therefore labeled as terrible times for the individual. However, when you look at the big picture, they turned out not to be 'bad' but lessons, valuable lessons.

When I was 35 years old, I got fired for the first time in my life, and it hit me like a sledgehammer. I was a very highly paid radio personality in the United Kingdom, but those types of job were like rocking horse poo, tough to find. I was being paid handsomely, but I was broke. My outgoings were way beyond what was coming it. So, when I lost my job and knew that it was going to be close to impossible to replicate the opportunity, I went into a blind panic. I felt like my whole world was collapsing around me. I had visions of my family and I being rendered homeless. I saw my children in dirty clothes, scraping by in abject misery. Without this traumatic event and the powerful lessons I learned from it I would not be where I am now. I let me tell you, I really love where I am now.

No matter which path you choose, whether you take the risk and excitement of being the driver or opt for the apparent safety and security of just being a passenger. You are going to experience failure - there is no avoiding it. The only decision you really have to make is, do you want your successes to mean something? You can be successful at avoiding risk, or you can be successful at following your passion and living the life of your dreams.

Choose one!

Human behavior appears to be complex and multilayered, but in reality, it comes down to two simple elements. All human motivation is essentially a binary process, meaning that we are moved to either do something or avoid doing something by a single switch in our head being in one position or the other. All decisions, actions, and deeds are made as a result of us either avoiding fear or pursuing pleasure, and that is pretty much it. The reason for everything we do comes down to this simple premise.

We can spend hours debating the issue (as I have done many times before) but trust me on this one, even the apparently self-sacrificing actions of a parent for their child are still motivated by the emotions of fear and pleasure.

In the case of self-esteem and confidence, the fear that prevents us from performing as we could is 99.9% misplaced. Of course, sometimes the fear we feel most definitely has a place and I am not suggesting you ignore that little voice in your head that suggests you can’t safely jump from one tall building to another. The fear you feel just before you do your first parachute jump is a process of the human mind operating exactly as it should. Making you feel afraid in these moments is a form of self-preservation. It is the brain’s way of saying, ‘hey if you continue doing what you are doing, there is a very good chance you will die, and you will most likely take me along with you!’

But the fear that suggests that you are not attractive enough to talk to the hot girl is a misfire of this process. The gut-twisting anxiety you experience as you step up to make a presentation to the whole office is this life-saving feature of the human mind misunderstanding the situation and trying to force you to exit an environment it has incorrectly judged to be dangerous. 

Confidence, or rather the lack of it, is a simple throw back to our earlier times as hunter-gatherers. Putting it another way, we are witnessing and experiencing the time lag of evolution trying to catch up with and adapt to what modern life involves. The life of a human being in the western world today has changed so dramatically over the last few hundred years that it is almost incomparable to what our forefathers had to endure. Today we get upset and feel like we have had a bad day if we can’t find a parking space in the lot or spill our latte on our favorite t-shirt.

Compared to the life-threatening events that happened on a daily basis to the generations that went before us, our problems are embarrassingly trivial. As relatively recently as the 1800’s, the average life expectancy of a human male living in the United Kingdom was 39 years. With disease, unsafe working conditions and vigilantly justice commonplace, someone at my tender age of 40 would be considered an old man. Perhaps my children have been correct all along when they insist I am incapable of appreciating their musical taste because I am so decrepit.

Bearing in mind that evolution is a painfully slow process that takes hundreds of thousands of years to make even the smallest adaptations to the design of our species, you can see why it is struggling to keep up with our rapidly changing modern lifestyles. While Apple may bring out a new model of its products every year, Mother Nature does not!

Back when we were at constant risk of being attacked by not only wild animals but also our fellow uncivilized man, the human mind developed systems to try and keep us alive despite the inherent danger around us. Perhaps the most famous of these is what we call the ‘flight or fight’ response.

When our fight or flight response is activated, sequences of nerve cells fire and potent chemicals like adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol are released into our bloodstream. If you want to see how dramatic these chemicals are, get food poisoning and watch what happens. I can tell you from recent experience that your body uses these neuro chemicals to make you dance like you are nothing more than a puppet on a string. When the body detects you have ingested something dangerous, like rotten food or too much alcohol, it needs to force you to evacuate the offending material, and it doesn’t want to waste time debating this with you. Vast amounts of chemicals are released by your central nervous system that makes you feel incredibly ill, almost to the point where you feel like you are going to die. The next thing you know you are holding onto the toilet bowl as your life depended on it, screaming projectile vomit into the water. As a reward for doing as you were told, the body now releases mind-bending amounts of dopamine, which has the effect of making you feel instantly better—almost high. I don’t advise you to experience food poisoning to verify this for yourself, just trust me.

My apologies, a rather unpleasant tangent sidetracked me there for a moment, though it was a good example. Now, getting back to how the mind instigates the flight or fight response. These patterns of neuro reactions and chemical releases force our body to undergo a series of very dramatic changes. Our respiratory rate increases. Blood is shunted away from our digestive tract and directed into our muscles and limbs, which require extra energy and fuel for running, fighting or maybe even both.

•    Our pupils dilate

•    Our awareness intensifies

•    Our sight sharpens

•    Our impulses quicken

•    Our perception of pain diminishes.

•    Our immune system mobilizes.

•    We become prepared physically and psychologically for fight or flight.

•    We scan and search our environment, looking for the enemy or threat.

When our fight or flight system is activated, we tend to perceive everything in our environment as a possible threat to our survival. By its very nature, the fight or flight system bypasses our rational mind—where our better thought out beliefs exist, and instead it moves us into "attack" mode. This state of alertness causes us to perceive almost everything in our world as a possible threat to our survival. As such, we tend to see everyone and everything as a possible enemy. Like airport security during a terrorist threat, we are on the lookout for every possible danger.

We may overreact to the slightest comment. Our fear is exaggerated. Our thinking is distorted. We see everything through the filter of possible danger. We narrow our focus to those things that can harm us. Fear becomes the lens through which we see the world.

Our fight or flight response is designed to protect us from the proverbial saber tooth tigers that once lurked in the woods and fields around us, threatening our physical survival. On those occasions when our actual physical survival is threatened, there is no greater response to have on our side. When activated, the fight or flight response causes a surge of adrenaline and other stress hormones to pump through our body. This surge is the inexplicable force responsible for mothers lifting cars off their trapped children, and for firemen heroically running into blazing buildings to save endangered victims. The surge of adrenaline infuses us with heroism and courage at times when we are called upon to protect and defend the lives and values we cherish.

While this protective routine still has a valid place in our lives, it does not need to be activated nearly as frequently as it is, and certainly not in situations that lack true danger, such as making a PowerPoint presentation at work!

But I think that ‘flight or fight’ is an incorrect moniker for this instinctive response to stress. There is a missing F in that much-quoted saying. Actually, the more common reaction in situations deemed to be high risk is not to fight or flee, but rather to freeze.

Fight, Flight or FREEZE

I am sure at times you have felt that ‘deer in the headlights’ sensation, where you know what is expected of you but somehow just can’t bring yourself to move. There are no mistakes in nature and obviously removing your conscious ability to move, is a feature designed by evolution. If a giant brown bear enters your immediate environment and your subconscious programming decides that the best chance you have to remain alive is to play dead, then the last thing it wants is your pesky (and weak) conscious mind to have a say on the decision. So it locks you down, and despite how much you want to move, you find that it is virtually impossible.

When you freeze before making a speech or feel like your tongue has been paralyzed the very moment the beautiful woman starts to talk to you, this is simply the mind misreading the situation as dangerous and firing off one of your self-preservation routines. Of course, the big question is, how do you stop doing this?

The answer to this question and the beginning of a life full of abundance and success lies in the following pages. All I ask at this point is that you don’t try to skip ahead and find the magic bullet. You will find no such thing; there is no one sentence that can independently build your confidence. Success, as with everything else in life, is not about the final destination. It is all about the journey.

What I have discovered in life is that pretty much anything worth having is just slightly outside your comfort zone. Whether it’s launching your own business, winning the league in your chosen sport, getting the career you have dreamed of or ending up with the man or woman who makes you feel like you just won the lottery every moment you are with them. None of these things are inside your comfort zone, they all require you to stretch and grow before you can reach them. As most people know, the walls of your comfort zone are made of a very strong material called fear. To smash through these barriers you have to stare fear straight in the eyes and charge ahead regardless.

Fear (false evidence appearing real) is just an illusion, and I don’t just mean certain types of fear. You might quite reasonably argue that the anxiousness you feel when you stand on the top of a tall building is a very valuable sensation to experience at that moment. Of course, sometimes fear serves you in the short term, but the biggest problem we have as an intelligent species is that we believe that we have something to lose. The quote from Steve Jobs that I opened this book with is perhaps the most profound paragraph I have ever heard, and for that reason, you will find it quoted verbatim in many of my books. You are going to die, not one of us is getting out of this alive. One day everything you ever worried about will become irrelevant dust. You are already naked, you always have been, and there is not a single reason why you should not be following your dreams and living a life full of happiness, peace, and purpose!

When this ride is over nobody is going to mention the day you risked it all and unsuccessfully went after that big promotion at work, nobody will recall the day you threw caution to the wind and gambled with rejection by approaching that beautiful girl you saw in the street. All this stuff is only significant to your ego.

Law of attraction books like The Secret tells you that if you want to be rich then act like a rich person, think like a rich person and express gratitude for your wealth before it arrives. I am telling you this will never work UNLESS you believe you deserve it.

When you consider what you want in life, ask yourself this, does it lie beyond a wall of fear you are never going to cross? If so, then you will always use the divine power within you to hold your dreams just slightly out of reach. No matter how positive your thinking gets, no matter how many affirmations you make or how much gratitude you express, fear is going to prevent you from manifesting magic into your life.

In this book, you will make friends with fear. I will show you how I recognize fear, not as a warning or obstacle, but rather as an indicator of an opening window of opportunity. I have learned that when I am afraid to do something, the universe is telling me clearly and specifically what I have to do next. Fear is a very strong sign to me that an opportunity to learn, develop and grow has arrived. What most people see as an obstacle, I see as the most powerful gift anyone can get, and I am going to give the same paradigm to you, starting today. 

The major significance between drivers and passengers is the harder life hits the driver, the faster he/she gets back up. Passengers, on the other hand, are down and out for a count of ten after the first punch. I believe the level of your success and the beauty of your life is dictated by how hard you can get hit and still keep moving forward.

It wasn't until relatively recently that I realized that most people don't have this default reaction to life. My younger brother Mark has always looked at my life and declared I am the luckiest son of a gun he ever met. He has repeatedly expressed his frustration that I get more than my fair share of luck. He recently complained to me that he doesn't understand how I can just see something I want and then almost by magic it appears in my life a short while later. I will tell you what I told Mark; it has nothing to do with luck. Getting what I want out of life comes from an outrageously stubborn insistence that there is no other option. No matter how many times life says no I keep demanding what I want. I wonder whether sometimes I just wear the universe down until it gives me what I desire just to shut me up.

Let me pause here for a moment because I want to make a major disclaimer. I am British, and as such, I find it very uncomfortable to blow my own trumpet and boast about my achievements in life. I am already finding it quite painful to talk about my success thus far and in such a nonchalant fashion. I hope you will not take my words as bragging; I would be horrified if you walked away from this book with that opinion of me. My motivation for writing this book is to dissect my life, and how I got to this beautiful and abundant position, by doing so, I can show you how to replicate the journey for yourself.

A driver in life has three essential driving components. They are stubbornness, persistence, and passion. I don't know if these personality traits are with us from birth or if they are learned but they are crucial to manifesting the life of your dreams. From a very young age, I have repeatedly been told that what I want to achieve is unrealistic, unreasonable and often just downright silly. When I was a teenager, I told my father I wanted to be a famous radio presenter. I was ordered to quit being so stupid, get on with some serious school work and get a career. My father would have been much happier if I had declared that I wanted to be a plumber or an electrician. A trade he could understand and encourage, but all this flight of fancy about announcing music on the radio was some joke.

If my head I was thinking 'F you, just watch me, I will show you.' It is this downright refusal to accept authority and a stubborn belief in myself that has got me this far in life. I can recall hundreds of occasions in life where I have been chastised by those around me for chasing an impossible dream.

You can't become a radio presenter - F you

You can't become a photographer - F you

You can't become the director of radio stations - F you

You can't quit your job and hope to survive - F you

You can't become a millionaire like that - F you

Please forgive the language but no other words seem to sum up my attitude better. I have never accepted anyone's opinion that I can't-do something. My response to such judgments of me has always been, oh really - well you just watch me and see what happens. Over my career running radio stations in the United Kingdom, I assumed for a long time that everyone has that attitude to life. I was quite shocking to me when I found out that a lot of people just fold and hit the mat when you tell them no or you can't.

The first time I was introduced to the passenger mindset was one cold night in November about fifteen years ago. I was running a radio station in Wigan, Lancashire. The roadshow truck was parked up in the town center, and we were preparing to host the official switching on of the town's Christmas lights. A lineup of minor celebrities and pop stars had been booked to perform and entertain the thousands of people who had wrapped up warm to watch the celebrations.  The radio station's morning show host was to host the proceedings, which included warming up the crowd and getting them nice and excited for the acts that were to perform later.

The morning host was a guy called Steve; he had been employed by the station for a few years. I was relatively new and had only worked with him in the confines of the studio building, never on a remote location like this. When it was time to start the event, I passed Steve the wireless microphone and told him to go out on stage and get the crowd cheering and making some noise. Having done the same job myself many times in the past, I knew that you had to explode onto the stage with a crazy amount of energy. The crowd will mirror your personality and energy levels. So if you want a excited crowd and good atmosphere you have to go a little over the top.

However, Steve walked onto the stage like he had been forced to go and announce the death of a box full of puppies. He stood at the center of the stage with his back to the audience, mumbling something inaudible. As you would expect the crowd responded with deafening silence. For fully twenty minutes he continued this half-hearted monologue of dross. Meanwhile, I was in the wings silently screaming abuse at him. I imagined what it would be like to put my hands around his stupid neck and strangle him to death.

Eventually, the nightmare came to an end, and he walked off stage right. I walked right up to him, the veins in my neck throbbing with rage. I tore strips of the poor guy. I told him it was the most pathetic, limp and impotent performance I had ever seen. I said it was the worst stage work I had ever seen in my career and he should get back out there and prove to me that he even has a personality at all.

Why did I treat him like this? Because if anyone had spoken to me like that (and they had many times before), my response would have been to think 'F you, watch what happens next.' My response to any attack has always been to wipe that condescending expression of their face and blow them away with my reply to their abuse. At this point in my life, I just assumed that everyone thought the same way as me. I naturally expected Steve to flick me a finger, go back out on stage and have the crowd screaming in extasy and excitement within minutes. He didn't. Steve started to cry and told me through his sobs that I was a disgusting human being. He informed me that he couldn't work for an asshole like me. At which he promptly resigned and walked off toward his car. He never returned to the radio station again.

I was genuinely shocked; I wasn't trying to upset him. I wanted to motivate him, and I had only said the words that would have worked on me. For several weeks after that event, I felt bad that I had got it so wrong with Steve but what was causing me sleepless nights was that he hit the mat and stayed down for a count of ten so easily. I wondered if this was indicative of the level of fight in most people? It taught me a valuable lesson as a manager of individuals. What I discovered over the following years is that people are typically a lot more fragile than I had ever expected. It seemed to me that I very rarely met someone who would respond to being knocked down by bouncing up harder and faster.

The hardest challenge I have had to face in this area is that of being a father. Both my kids are grown up now, and I see flickers of that oh so necessary 'F you' attitude, but I genuinely wish I could reach inside them and turn up the flame. It's hard to watch from the sidelines as your children set off on a path, hit an obstacle and instantly declare themselves out. Perhaps it is my fault for doing too much for them when they were younger. I do wonder whether we spoil our kids with too much love these days. But that is a subject for an entirely different book.

When I see people hit the deck on the first punch, I often tell them to Google a guy called Nick Vujicic and then come back and explain why they believe they can't continue.

Nick Vujicic was born without any arms or legs. The closest thing he has to a useable extremity is what should have been his left leg. Looking nothing like a human foot, it is a small protrusion that he affectionately refers to as his chicken drumstick. He uses the limited motion of this appendage to control his electric wheelchair.

Can you imagine what childhood was like for this guy? He grew up always feeling different, always feeling left out. Watching his friends run, jump and play soccer. Always the spectator and never the protagonist. Sure he has had his moments of despair and openly admits that he has been to some dark places, but he chooses to do the opposite of what you would expect. Rather than wallow in his misfortune, he chooses to embrace the life he has been given. Despite all the odds, he is an exceptionally talented and popular motivational speaker. He tours the world speaking to schoolchildren about positive thinking and self-esteem.

If you have never heard of this guy, I encourage you to get on YouTube and watch some of his videos, if he doesn’t move you to tears within a few minutes I insist you get checked for a working heart as soon as possible.

When Nick goes to speak to a group of children they normally watch in stunned silence as he is helped onto a table at the front of the assembly hall. The severely disabled and yet smiling man in front of them mesmerizes the ordinarily raucous group of youngsters. Such is the stillness in the room that you could hear a pin drop. Nick breaks this profound silence by challenging them to a game of soccer, and a nervous laugh fills the room. Nick Vujicic is so full of positive, loving energy that it causes the whole room to radiate with the most incredible and tangible peace.

By the end of the talk, the dozens of girls who had previously cried themselves to sleep thinking about the words of a bully are now crying in joy and love for the man who found happiness against all odds. Love pours out of every cell in this guy’s little body as he sits there propped up on a table and dares to ask the kids if they think he is beautiful. Without a flicker of hesitation or doubt the whole room agrees that he is an amazing and stunningly beautiful person. There is a very real mass awakening as children realize the true gift of their own life. The child who hates her freckles suddenly realizes just how perfect she is. The boy who is bullied for being overweight suddenly understands his true worth. Every child sees their potential.

But surely when it comes to sex and women Nick has a valid excuse, right? No, a few years ago Nick Vujicic married his sweetheart, and let me tell you, she is stunningly beautiful. They now have an amazing, healthy son and if you see pictures of Nick and his wife you will see two of the happiest people you ever saw. The beautiful woman at his side is a reflection of the man inside the body. Nick Vujicic is full of love, he is aware of his limitations, but he believes that he is a valuable human being with the ability to enhance the lives of all those around him. But the single most important aspect of Nick’s success is he is not a victim. Of course, he had the choice to become a victim, many times. But he chose to see the opportunities rather than the obstacles.

If you think Nick is a one-off and you still believe you have a valid excuse to defend not having the wealth, abundance, happiness and amazing life that you desire then I will remind you of the story of W. Mitchell:

In 1971, June 19th, he was 28 years old.  He didn't have a care in the world.  He was a very good-looking guy.  He was driving down the freeway in America on his motorbike and not a care in the world.  Something caught his attention to the left in a field, and he looked to see what it was.  When he turned back to concentrate on the road, he realized he was traveling at 80 miles an hour towards the back of a truck.  He was only 5 ft. away from the truck. 

The only thing he could do to save his life was to slam the bike onto the floor so he would slide under the truck.  As he slid under the truck, the fuel cap came off the motorbike and covered him in gasoline.  The sparks from the motorcycle ignited the fuel.  He was ablaze.  Sixty-five percent of his body had third-degree burns.  His face was nearly burnt off.  His fingers were stumps.  He was unrecognizable.  People would visit him in the emergency ward of the hospital and pass out when they saw him.  He was that bad. 

He was in a coma for two weeks and when he came round would you have blamed him if he said, I can't go on; life is just not worth living?  W. Mitchell chose a different path.  He realized after a time that he didn't have to accept society's notion that to be happy a person must be healthy and good looking.  Mitchell came to see it, as he put it I'm in charge of my spaceship, my own ups, and downs.  I can choose to see this as either a setback or a new beginning.

Instead of being overcome by his apparent problems and the pain of the therapy he'd have to go through, Mitchell decided to turn those problems into challenges.  He joined two friends, and he founded a new wood-burning stove company.  A few short years later he helped build Vermont Castings into a multimillion-dollar company.  He was a millionaire.  If you think that's the happy ending of the story, think again. 

In 1975, November, disaster struck again.  W. Mitchell was sitting on the runway in his private jet with three friends in the back.  He'd forgotten to check the wings for ice and as you probably know ice can cause disaster for planes.  As he attempted to take off the plane crashed.  His three passengers got out without a mark on them.  W. Mitchell was paralyzed from the neck down.  Mitchell chose to survive, and those negative people went up to him and said, somebody must really hate you up there, how are you going to continue?  He said, before all this happened there were 10,000 things I could do.  Now there are only 9,000.  I could spend my life dwelling on the 1,000 that I lost, or I could choose to focus on the 9,000 that are left, and that's what he did. 

In 1982 he married his sweetheart, and in 1984 he ran for Congress.  He went door-to-door campaigning, and he used the catchphrase, vote for me and I won't be just another pretty face.  Mitchell says that he had two big bumps in his life and he chose not to use them as excuses to quit.  To become a success, to become wealthy, concentrate on the positive. 

Exercise

Take out a pen and paper and think of goals and objectives you have had in life where you know you folded too soon. It could be anything from trying out for the soccer team at school to setting up your own business. Perhaps you registered the domain name for your new idea but when you realized you would have to risk money on employing at web designer you gave up the project. Go through the list of incomplete and failed ventures and select the one that most excites you. Today do something to breathe life back into that project and make a commitment to yourself that you are going to see it through to completion. No matter how many times you get beaten to the ground, you are going to jump back up and start fighting again.

Every time something goes wrong, or you hit a seemingly insurmountable obstacle I want you to look it square in the eyes and proudly say 'F you.'

I will include myself in this exercise. Last year I started to learn Greek, I have always wanted to be able to speak another language, and in 2016 I set about it. My partner Daniela can speak three languages, and it is a constant source of shame and embarrassment for me that she has to act as translator for me.

I got started with the Greek lessons, and I will be honest it nearly melted my brain. I was shocked by how tremendously difficult it is. The alphabet, genders, and tenses just seemed ridiculously complicated. After four months of learning the teacher asked me to read two words out of the exercise book. For twenty minutes I made a series of horrible grunting sounds. I just couldn't say the words; they just seemed like a random jumble of letters on the page. Eventually, with sweat running down my forehead and a huge migraine building behind my eyes I gave in, and the teacher read the words.

Jenifer Lopez

In Greek letters, the words were Jenifer Lopez! Jenifer Fing Lopez, are you kidding me? I went crazy; I couldn't believe I had spent twenty minutes trying to say, Jenifer Lopez. I felt like I was the most stupid and mentally disabled individual the world had ever produced. I was so furious that I stood up and walked out of the classroom, on the way to my car I threw my Greek books into an industrial garbage bin. I drove home and announced to Daniela that there would only ever be one member of our household that would speak Greek, I was done with it.

In the spirit of leading by example, I have just booked myself on a week-long intensive Greek language course in Athens this December. I am proudly saying F you to Jenifer Lopez and I am getting back up from the mat on a count of nine. I will learn Greek because I am not being beaten by this.

It is common for people to get confused between what they want and what they need. It might sound like a subtle difference, but the outcomes you generate can be worlds apart. If you ‘need’ something then you are automatically coming at it from a position of weakness. For example, I ‘need’ oxygen to survive, if you take it away from me, it’s a pretty big deal. It is fair to say that if I can’t get ahold of a fairly constant supply of oxygen, it is going to put a fairly major crimp in my day. If somebody who can’t swim falls into a lake, you see this neediness demonstrated with a reaction of panic to the situation.

However, I do not respond so dramatically to the knowledge that I do not have the speedboat that I ‘want.’ Not having a speedboat will not kill me and my life is not negatively affected by its absence in a dramatic or meaningful way, unless I believe I ‘need’ a speedboat to be happy.

‘Need’ is the cause of many failures, stress, and discontentment. People so often get attached to the illusion that happiness is a destination. They believe that if they would only get a better job, a better house, a faster car, and sexier partner, then suddenly life would be better somehow. Sadly, this is virtually never true. If you ask most people how much of an increase in salary they would need to be truly happy, the average response is to state that double the current amount would be fair and reasonable. However, as sure as night follows day; if you grant this wish and revisit the same person a few years later, they will still be unhappy, and likely still citing the amount of money they are paid as a reason. Happiness comes from within, and nothing external (including the numbers on your pay slip) can ultimately deliver the state you desire. Of course being happy and rich is a lot more exciting perhaps than being happy and poor, but we must get rid of the notion that it is the wealth that creates the desired state.

You see, the numbers that we state as being the catalyst for our happiness are entirely subjective and transient. If a guy who earns $30,000 a year believes that $60,000 would be the amount needed to be secure, and at the same time a guy at $50,000 believes that $100,000 is the magic number to deliver happiness, then which one of them is correct? Bearing in mind that both will more than likely return to dissatisfaction eventually.

The easiest way to witness the weakness of ‘needing’ is watching guys in a bar trying to pick up girls. You will notice that I frequently reference dating and attraction when I make my analogies, and it is because this environment best demonstrates men and women selling their heart out. I don’t care how cold-hearted a guy is, landing a date with a stunningly beautiful woman is better than any sales bonus he will ever get. And it is because of this that most guys who dare to ask a woman for a date, start from a position of needing rather than wanting.

In any bar or club around the world, what is the single most commonly used line by guys hoping to pick up women? Yes, it is ‘can I buy you a drink.’ This is the default line for most guys attracted to a woman they do not know. It is a spectacularly weak approach and fails to achieve the desired result more than nine times out of ten. Have you ever wondered why, if this approach is so desperately poor and ineffective, that us guys continue to use it? The answer is in the ‘needing,’ or perhaps more specifically the desperation to avoid rejection. When a man sees a woman he likes, he opens himself up to being rejected—something us guys are particularly bad at dealing with.

Once you start worrying about being rejected, whether in a professional environment (such as making a sale) or personally approaching a man or woman you are attracted to, then you instantly place yourself lower on the totem pole of life than the other person. By offering to buy the lady a drink, he is stating that he does not believe what he has to offer as a male is enough to warrant her spending any time with him. Therefore, before they have even spoken he attempts to sweeten the deal for her by including a ‘free drink.’ If you are currently doing this yourself, stop it right now—it is insane!

Let me explain why this is so ridiculous. Imagine you are a car salesman, but you have so little faith in the automobiles you sell that as soon as a prospective buyer walks into your showroom, you run up to them and push a hundred bucks in their hand before begging them to take a look at the cars you have for sale. Do you think the prospect now believes that the cars here are amazing or do you agree they are more likely to be thinking ‘boy these cars must be shit, I will pretend I am interested for a bit and then get out of here with my $100.’

About fifteen years ago, I interviewed for a job running a commercial radio station in Carlisle, England. Carlisle is a very small town in the middle of nowhere. It is close to the Scottish border, and the weather is terrible. While I am sure the people are lovely, I could not think of a single positive reason to justify moving my family several hundred miles to this part of the world. At the time I was only a deputy program director at another radio station in Preston. One day I was walking from my office to my car in the lot of the radio station when my cell phone rang with a number I did not recognize. I answered, and a woman introduced herself as the managing director of CFM, Carlisle. She said she had heard good things about me and would like to invite me to interview for their open program director vacancy. I was flattered, of course, and said I would travel up to meet her the following week.

I arrived at the radio station and was warmly greeted and given the tour of the studios before we sat down in the boardroom. It wasn’t really like an interview at all, it was more like a chat with a friend. I answered honestly and casually, and even criticized various things I had heard the radio station doing. Not because I wanted to offend her or even because I was trying to impress her with my strength of character. I was telling her because I thought it was valuable feedback she could use, and I didn’t particularly care if she agreed with me or not because I had already decided that Carlisle was not the place for my young family and me.

I left with mixed emotions, feeling like I had interviewed badly, very badly. I didn’t want the job, but I felt like I had let myself down and left a bad impression with another leading professional in the UK media industry. However, later that night my cell rang again and the CFM Managing Director was jubilantly singing my praises and informing me how amazingly I had come across in the interview. She offered me the job then and there, detailed the generous bonus package and asked if I could start as soon as possible. She very disappointed when I said I would need to discuss the offer with my family, and that I would call her in the morning. I could tell she was crestfallen, but while I certainly did want to be a program director, I didn’t need it so badly that I was prepared to move to the ass end of nowhere to get it.

The next morning, I called and informed her that I was flattered and appreciative, but would not be accepting the position. We ended the call politely, but without any of the previous day's pleasantries. From my point of view, that was the end of it, but CFM went on to make two further approaches with rapidly increasing salary and bonus packages. I was even accused of playing hard ball at the end. I wasn’t; I just didn’t need the job. Take food away from me, and we have a problem, take away my home and shelter, and I am going to struggle, but taking away a job in Carlisle has no real impact on my life.

Whether you are selling real estate, pitching for a promotion at work or asking a woman for a date, your attitude and mindset should always be, ‘I want you, but I don’t need you.’ I’ll wager that if you think back, you will be able to recall amazing things that happened to you when you weren’t expecting them. Equally, you will have been in situations where you sold your heart out and got nowhere. When you are selling because you need just one more sale to hit your target, you are coming from a position of weakness, and your prospect can smell the fear on you like a cheap suit.

The reason this happens is the emotions of wanting and needing, create completely different vibrations. It is the not your conscious desires that get you what you want but instead it is your internal beliefs that automatically and invisibly align with events, people and things of a similar frequency.

If you go out looking for friends you will find them few and far between. But if you go out looking to be a friend you will see them everywhere you go. The act of needing creates a vibrational frequency of scarcity, which can only attract more poverty in this area of life. Conversely, when you want something but don't need it, the internal implication is that if you are so laid back about it, you must already have plenty in your life. The frequency emanating from this position is one of wealth. The law of attraction, therefore, dictates that you can only pull in more abundance in this instance.

Zig Ziglar used to say 'you can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people to get what they want'. Zig would say this as a matter of fact, as though it was the undeniable truth. Of course, that is precisely what it is. One of the first lessons I teach over at my Millionaire University course is that you do not get rich by going after money. This is perhaps the most common mistake of people looking to increase their wealth. It is entirely logical to assume that you should focus on the thing you want more of but to do so is to fail to consider what vibrational state you are creating by doing so. If you don't have enough money in your life then fixating on money is only going to create a vibrational state of scarcity within. As a result, you end up attracting into your being more of the things you don't want. Passengers then leap to the conclusion that the system is stacked against them. They throw a pity party and declare that only corrupt individuals get rich.

Next, to justify their failure and make it more palatable they come out with such pronouncements as 'there are more important things than money' and 'I am not going to stoop to their sort of greed just to get more money.' Stating that love and family are more important than money sounds like a very laudable and lofty statement to make. If you have an abundance of money, you may even feel a little twinge of guilt when someone makes such a statement in your presence. However, a fundamentally flawed assumption is at the root of this grand statement. Claiming that love is more important than money is a bit like saying it's better to have hands than feet. Yes, maybe it is but why not have both? The assumption here is that you must choose either love or money but not both. Such holier than thou declarations are nothing more than cleverly veiled excuses.

Here is the truth about wealth. Money is not the indicator of success; money is merely the byproduct of success. If you want to create a business that makes you wealthy, then come up with a solution to a common problem people face every day. The more people you can serve and help the more successful your enterprise will be, and ergo the byproduct of this achievement will be a steady torrent of money flowing into your life.

The passengers in life have a scarcity mindset, especially around money. They tightly grip the small amount of savings they have and protect it with their life, in the belief that money is hard to get. This sort of fear means they will miss many of the opportunities that present themselves on a daily basis. The driver, on the other hand, took a risk and sacrificed the money he or she had to train and invest in themselves. No matter how much the passengers look at the driver in envy, they would never be prepared to sacrifice what little they have today for the possibility of a better future tomorrow. This mindset means that the single mum may choose not to buy the $20 book that could have inspired her to set up a successful home-based business. The risk adverse employee decides not to spend $500 on a training course that would put him in the position to apply for a promotion and the $15,000 pay rise that comes with it.

In all areas of life apply the principle 'I want it, but I don't need it' and then get to work on being a provider to other people. When you become Unstoppable you switch from being a consumer to being a provider. This is a powerful way of thinking because it opens the door to countless possibilities and opportunities to help other people. Instead of hitting an obstacle in life and thinking 'I wish someone would invent something to make this easier,' you become the sort of person that thinks 'how can I make this easier for people.' Now your focus is on serving others, your vibrational state changes to one of abundance and giving. The universe responds by acting in a generous reciprocal way with you. Money, happiness, peace, and purpose all start arriving in your life purely as the automatic byproduct of your actions.

Exercise

I want you to take a moment to review your goals in life. Ask yourself this. Are you chasing anything because you believe you need it to be happy, successful or to achieve some other label your ego is particularly attracted to? Do you want the Porsche because you think you need it to appear successful? Do you think you won’t be happy at work until you get that promotion?

I want you to shift your thinking on these things. If you need something, then you probably are not going to get it anytime soon. Disconnect yourself from the outcome, and understand that you are perfect just as you are. Everything you need is already here—everything else is an accessory, and not getting it isn’t going to kill you. 

When I first explained the ‘F You Attitude’ to Daniela she frowned and said ‘but it’s not as simple as that, people come from very different backgrounds. Many people have suffered trauma when they were young’. She is completely correct, and no amount of positive thinking or motivational mumbo jumbo can erase the sometimes, horrific events of the past. However, there is a choice to be made about the future. Some of the most successful and wealth individuals I know of come from abusive and dysfunctional backgrounds.

A traumatic childhood can either give you amazing motivation or a perfect excuse. The choice is yours! If a bad childhood automatically meant a life spent as a passenger on the train and nothing more then all people who had suffered during their formative years would be failures. The past is important, because it brought you to this moment here and now. But as far as the future is concerned it is an irrelevance. The past no longer exists and if you are serious about getting an Unstoppable life it’s time to let go of whatever ghosts you are keeping alive.

It is almost a certainty that many years ago you buried some demons alive. The bad news is that these beasts don’t die, they just change shape and eventually they invariably escape the grave. If you are holding onto any resentment, especially from your childhood, now is the time to let it go. Sometimes these issues are obvious, if you had an abusive childhood, then you probably have a very specific person in mind already. However, sometimes they are a little subtle, despite this, they are still capable of causing significant disruption to your inner state of peace. I am a good example of this latter situation.

Many years ago I recognized that I had two very profound issues. I had a very strong fear of rejection and also a fear of being constrained (not physically, but mentally restricted). It’s always much easier to deal with a problem you know you have than to stumble around in the dark looking for the cause of your pain. However, what perplexed me with these specific problems was that I had no idea where they had come from. My childhood was as close to perfect as you could get. I was lucky enough to grow up with both sets of parents; I was loved and wanted for nothing. I simply couldn’t understand why I was such a ‘fuck up’ in various areas of my life.

One day I was in a spiritual bookstore in New York, and I was talking to a woman who was also browsing the books on meditation. Her name was Anne, and she had such a peaceful aura about her. We ended up talking for about an hour, just standing there in this little store. We started to get into quite a deep territory as we talked about our lives, and I told her of this long-standing conundrum of mine.

She listened carefully and asked a few pertinent questions. Specifically, she wanted to know if my mother had been very strict or overbearing. I told her that was not the case at all, but that my dad used to infuriate me. He was a real no-nonsense sort of guy, and he always seemed to spoil my adventures by telling me the outcome before I had a chance to try them. I would get excited by a new project, sport or activity and he would spoil it by telling me that I would get bored with it within a week and it will all have been a waste of my time. The only thing I hated more than him doing that all the time, was the fact that he was virtually always correct.

When I turned thirteen, I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked if my parents would pay for me to live at school. (My school had a small boarding contingency, as many students had parents who were serving in the armed forces.) I wanted to be around people my age and out from under the scrutiny of my father. I needed the freedom to make my mistakes and learn my own lessons. I told my parents what I wanted to do.

At this point in the story, Anne became very interested, “What did they say?” she inquired. When I told her they were fine about it and had stated that they would support whatever I wanted, Anne thought this was terrible.

“What? You mean they didn’t even try to stop you?” she asked, with a very concerned expression. I told her again that they had not tried to stop me, and had just said I could do whatever I wanted.

Anne then explained that she felt this was surely the cause of my fear of rejection; that my parents didn’t fight to keep me close. That it had been no hardship for them to be free of me at such a young age. I had never thought about it like that before, and I don’t know if that is the only cause of my issue or not. However, since this revelation—and my acceptance of it—I have felt significantly more peaceful in almost every situation.

It doesn’t matter whether you have huge hulking scars from immensely painful events, or just a collection of minor scrapes and dings, all must be forgiven before you can move on. This subject is worthy of a whole book by itself, and I can’t do it justice in one chapter. However, I encourage you to address, this challenge as soon as possible.

Here are several things you can do that may help:

1.    One of the most effective ways to address buried feelings about events and people from your past is a technique called Timeline Therapy. This is a talking therapy where you mentally revisit past traumatic events under the guidance of a trained counselor. Rather than experience all of the painful emotions again first hand, you are encouraged to view the event as a third person, watching the situation unfold as though you are floating above it. This way you can detach yourself from the all-encompassing feelings you experienced at the time and try to see what was motivating the other person to treat you in such a way. It is good to remember that very few people are inherently evil, most negative behavior comes from fear in the other person. Bullies, for example, are the not super strong, tough individuals they appear to be, but are the opposite! Bullies are deeply afraid of something unspoken, and use violence and intimidation as a coping mechanism to try and suppress their distress.

2.    Timeline Therapy would be my preference, but there is no doubt that any good, trained councilor will be able to help you release resentment and find peace with the traumatic events of your past through one of a several very effective methods. Perhaps you already know what your major fears and phobias are, and if so, you have already taken the first step towards a solution. So why not decide right now that you are going to take action and deal with this once and for all. Unless of course, your major demon is procrastination, then you’ll probably just do it tomorrow, right?

3.    Perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective solution can be found in the online member area of my VIP Club. Once you get started, you will get access to my Demon Slayer Hypnosis downloads. You will find a complete range of subliminal reprogramming tracks designed to deal with everything, including, fear of rejection, body confidence, and social anxiety issues.  

Have you ever wondered how these hugely successful Hollywood stars, who appear to have everything in life that anyone could want, end up committing suicide? Despite their outward appearance, these people believe they are trapped in a situation that cannot ever get better, and their misery appears to be permanent.

Permanency does not exist in any form in our world. Everything living, everything nature placed here and everything we build will eventually crumble and fall. Nothing is saved; death and destruction are like the outward breath of God. He breathes in, and life is created, trees grown and buildings emerge. He breathes out, and people die, trees burn to the ground and buildings collapse.

Saddam Hussein spent a lifetime building as many statues in his image as possible, he commissioned hundreds of portraits to be painted and even officially named Iraq’s main airport Saddam Hussein International Airport. He did all of this in a vain attempt to live on after his death, but he failed. Virtually all of the statues were pulled down and the airport renamed.

If you are pinning your happiness and success in life on achieving permanency in some way, then you are destined to fail. In your final days as you lay on your deathbed considering your vast property portfolio and the millions of dollars in the bank, most would happily trade it all for just one more week of life.

More subtly than that, we all also display our attachment to the idea of permanency when we give ourselves labels. Do you not think at some point when Adolf Hitler was growing up his mother sat him on her knee and told him he was such a good little boy. Was she wrong, or was right but perhaps only at that moment?

All too often we take these labels and decide that they are a permanent description of who we are.

•    I am a good person (how do you know you always will be?)

•    I am a fast sprinter (will that always be the case?)

•    I have high standards, and will never stay in a hotel with less than a 5-star rating (Never?)

When I coach people one on one, they normally approach me with a label that they have decided is permanent. They come up to me and say, ‘I am a terrible public speaker, I always make a fool of myself’ or ‘I have the worst bad luck, nothing ever goes right for me.’

If you believe there is anything about your life on this earth that is permanent, then I want you to spend some time thinking about how that could be true in a world where it is impossible. I apply this just as much to the ‘good stuff’ as the things we call ‘bad.’ I would call myself a ‘good parent,’ I love my children deeply and without question. However, I am willing to admit that at times I have made mistakes, given bad advice, shouted when I should have hugged and generally been a ‘bad’ parent. Especially during the challenging teenage years when my kids were striving to break free and be individuals. So which am I? ‘A bad parent’ or ‘a good parent?’ In reality, no label serves any useful purpose beyond the moment it is expressed.

Good times will end, and life will blindside you with events that spoil the fun. During periods of dark times, the storm will come to an end, and bright sunshine will once again fill your life. This is the ebb and flow of the universe— God will breathe in, and God will breathe out.

On the 4th July 2017, my ex-wife and the mother of my two children died suddenly. Denise was only 50 years old when she died, and it was the most painful and traumatic event I have ever experienced. So many horrible things happened to our family that month. Having to tell my son that his mother had died was something that will always be an ugly scar in my memory.  The grieving process starts with denial and the first thing Jordan did when I told him was grab his cell phone to call his mother. My heart was breaking for him as I watch him refuse to accept what I was saying to him.

We all struggled to accept her death and stayed in denial for a very long time. When someone unexpectedly dies, it makes everything feel unreal, as though it is just a bad dream and soon we will wake up, and everything will go back to normal. Death is something that we don't talk about in western culture, and as such we are unprepared for it when it happens. When someone gets ill and slowly starts to fade, while the final event is still painful at least the process gives us a chance to accept what is coming. Sudden death forces us to embrace something we spend most of our lives trying to pretend does not exist.

Yes, we all know that our loved ones are going to die, but we universally agree that this should happen in the future and never right now. But it has to happen 'now' for someone, and there is no getting away from the fact that if you are born, as sure as night follows day you will die.

Why do we have to die? The simple answer is because we get to live. Immortality would render life meaningless, there would be no context to give it a point. Think about it; there wouldn’t even be a point to the word ‘alive’ if there was nothing else but ‘alive.' The universe is in perfect balance, and this equilibrium is maintained without exception. The more we open ourselves up to pleasure, the more our capacity to suffer expands in equal measure. Or putting it in rather simpler terms, the higher we climb, the further we have to fall. This universal law is why people limit their potential so much, only the very few live an extraordinary life, and it is the unspoken fear of death that keeps us restricted. For if you spend your time trying to avoid death, you will also end up avoiding life.

Not everyone attempts to deny the concept of death. Many people try to defy it by leaping from planes and climbing mountains. Of course it provides a distraction, but in reality, it is just another way of avoiding accepting the end that will inevitably follow, and perhaps a lot quicker than it should if they keep jumping out of perfectly operational aircraft.

For the majority of society, the fear of dying is not a conscious thing. It is a fear buried deep at the heart of their subconscious, and it presents itself by creating a scarcity mindset. The vast majority of people get stuck doing a job they don’t love, living for the weekend or their next vacation. Life becomes about these brief moments of extravagance and not about the day to day. Unless you make peace with the concept of death, then to a lesser or greater extent, there will always be an underlying concern that life is pointless. With this at the back of their minds, people believe that happiness comes from external things, such as getting a new car or going on an expensive vacation. Happiness, peace, and purpose become not only an external destination but something in the future to aim for. We get so distracted by what we think we need to be happy that we miss the moment in which we are living and in desperation to get to that future destination, we sell the one thing we can’t afford to lose: our time. We trade our time for dollars so that we may save up cash to buy the things and experiences that will ultimately fail to placate our anxiety. They can’t do anything but fail because they are merely deflections from the genuine concern.

You cannot have life unless you accept that with it, comes death. This is how the whole universe is balanced, and there is nothing that escapes this rule. Without loneliness, hate, and hostility we could not appreciate or give context to love. We want world peace, but it is impossible to find this utopia because it is a scenario that is out of balance. What we still have not understood as a species, is the harder we try to force our will on the universe, the harder it will push back to maintain the equilibrium. Take for example ‘the war on terror,' has it succeeded in destroying terrorism or does it appear to be getting worse? Of course, it will get worse. The western world seems to be continuously hitting a revolving door, harder and harder and then getting angrier and angrier, because we keep getting hit in the back of the head!

Of course, you may think this theory sounds familiar. This balance is often referred to as karma, but beyond Buddhist circles, you are more likely to see the concept of karma used as a threat. Certainly, if you observe social media, you will notice that karma seems to be more about revenge than it is about balance. Someone will post a status complaining about being treated unjustly by another person, and a well-meaning friend will chip in with a ‘don’t worry honey, karma’s a bitch’ comment. This is not how karma works. I think this entirely misses the point and implies that God, the universe or whatever you want to call it, is someone or something on a mission to avenge misbehavior on our behalf. As I mentioned before, the universe is a river, and if you jump in and consequently get knocked over by the rapids, it is not that the river wanted to punish you, but rather the result of your actions in applying force against the water and pushing in an opposing direction to the flow.

You might be wondering if it is true, that striving to create happiness will be automatically balanced with the potential for pain in an equal measure. Then, is it not better to do nothing and live with the hand that we are dealt? Don’t you see that this conclusion brings us back to the whole point of the book, to the reason that people stick in miserable jobs, living hand to mouth for a lifetime? If you avoid dealing with life, then you will also avoid dealing with death. If you have a crappy job that you don’t like, then how much of a loss would it be if you got fired? Providing you could quickly replace it with another crappy job then it would be no loss at all, correct?  But if you landed the opportunity to have the career you dreamed of since being a child, and get paid for it, then losing that would be painful and difficult to accept, would it not? But hopefully, you can see that sticking with the crappy job is not a route to happiness. It may protect you from an event that may or may not happen, but in the process of constructing a safety net against your anxieties becoming solid, you also make yourself miserable as a by-product.

I want you to understand that I am not standing atop an ivory tower, dishing out this advice. I do not see our relationship as master and student. I believe we are kindred spirits making a journey together, learning and discovering together. I tell you honestly about my faults and past mistakes because I want you to know that you are not broken. Our struggle to understand the gift of life is commonly shared and what I have discovered, is the more intelligence you have, the harder your struggle will be. I have often joked how wonderfully peaceful it must be to be blissfully stupid, but of course, I don’t aspire to achieve stupidity, that would be… stupid.

Passengers of life sit in the carriage with no idea how long the train journey is going to be. They cling to the assumption that happiness and peace lie at the end of the trip. Life's drivers understand that success, peace, and purpose are encapsulated within the journey and are not a destination to arrive at one day. Life is temporary, and you have no say in when the game is up.

I have a friend called Mark who infuriates me beyond words. He is the ultimate Scrooge McDuck. He never spends a penny; saving is an obsession for him. He pays the absolute maximum into his pension and his whole focus in life is to retire early and only then will he relax and enjoy himself. Perhaps that sounds very sensible and admirable to you, but I have a massive problem with this way of thinking. It makes three dangerous assumptions, and you know what they say about assuming... it makes an ass of u and me.

Firstly, Mark's plan assumes that happiness is a destination, this is always a colossal error. So many people have this delusion but in a different form. Passengers often believe that if they were only made partner at work, were to win the lottery or meet the man or woman of their dreams then finally they could be happy. The truth is, if you are not content with life right now at this moment, then a change in external circumstance will make very little difference. Did you know that nearly 70% of people who were broke before a big lottery win will end up broke again within a decade? Unless you change the internal state of things, then any external input will be pointless.

My second problem with the 'live miserable now, to live happy later' way of thinking is it assumes that you will be around at this magical future date. My friend Mark has always wanted to retire at fifty, the same age that just took Denise. Yes, we all hope that death is some event way off in the distant future, but it doesn't always work like that. Why not choose to be happy right now, after all, it is the only time that we can ever guarantee to be around for?

The third problem I have is that after spending fifty years living a life of scarcity, what makes you think you will be able to suddenly change? Habits are the things that we repeatedly do, and they get hard-wired into our brains. Changing habits requires a dedicated and committed amount of effort. Imagine if I strapped your right hand behind your back for fifty years and then one day untied it and said 'now you can use both hands,' do you think anything would change? After fifty years of just using your left hand, the chances are good that you would continue to do so, even with the right available.

If you are serious about living an unstoppable life, then you must do the things that most people refuse to do. Start by accepting and embracing the temporariness of our existence. Don't push death away like some evil curse that only affects other people. One day you will die, and everything you ever worried about losing will be rendered irrelevant. If you knew for certain that tomorrow you would die, would you be able to accept that? Or would you be full of regret at the things you never did or said?

Do not die with your music still in you, share your passion, power, and love with the world now. Repeat this daily until the day you die. 

I want you to understand why you bought this book. Stating that you want to quit the dreary day job and tell the man to f*ck off is not enough! Why do you want this, what is that going to get you? I need you to be very clear about what your goals are and what you want to achieve at the end of reading this book.

I love the story that Zig Ziglar tells about Howard Hill, the archer.  He describes this story to demonstrate the absolute necessity of setting defined goals. You see, Howard Hill was the world's most excellent archer; nobody was better with a bow and arrow than Howard.  It's said that he never lost a single archery contest that he entered.  He could shoot an arrow from 50 feet and hit the bull's-eye dead center.  Then he could pull a second arrow out of his quiver and split the first one in half.  This guy was terrific, exceptionally talented.

But I'm going to make you a promise here and now.  If you spent 20 minutes alone with me coaching you, I could get you to beat Howard Hill in an archery competition. Oh, but of course we'd have to blindfold Howard first.  Oh yes, and spin him around a bit, so he didn’t know which way he was facing.  Now you're probably thinking, well Craig, that's just stupid.  How on earth do you expect Howard to hit a target he can't see?  That's a good question.  Here's another one.  How do you plan to hit a target you don't even have?

You might be thinking ‘well Craig this all seems a bit pointless, my goal is to do what I am passionate about and earn a living from it – that’s why I bought your book dummy.' But you see, escaping the rat race, having an unstoppable life or an exceptional life is not a goal – it is the byproduct of a goal. In precisely the same way that money is not a goal, it is only what happens automatically when a plan comes together with passion and commitment.

If you examine the top one hundred self-made entrepreneurs in the world, you will find virtually none of them had a goal to get as much money as possible and become rich. These people will have become the best or first in their field and committed blood, sweat, and tears to their endeavors. While they were busy being passionate about their purpose in life, no matter what they did or how fast they spent it – the money just kept rolling in. I do believe that old Zig is right when he says you can get everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

“Escaping the rat race is not a goal, quitting the day job is the byproduct of achieving a goal.”

There is a reason why you haven’t already taken the great leap into the unknown. Most people say they are afraid of what could go wrong. Fear can be useful, but you have to understand where it is coming from. If fear is coming from real indications that charging ahead in a certain direction is going to lead to financial ruin then fair enough – sit up and pay attention.

However, if the fear is being generated by lack of confidence, then an entirely different response is required. Spirit can’t be built by setting a goal to be confident. If you came up to me and said ‘Craig, show me how to be more confident,' I would say ‘at what’? Do you want to make killer sales presentations, do you want to speak publically for a living or do you want to attract the man or woman of your dreams? Your goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely (S.M.A.R.T). For example, I could set a goal that I am going to play professional football for the Niners.

But let's look and see if that fits In with our rules for goal setting. Sure it’s specific and measurable – I would certainly know if I were out there on the field in the famous red and gold. However, is it achievable? I am a 43-year-old British man who has never played football in his life; I won’t leave the house if it is raining and I don’t particularly aspire to move any faster than the speed I get up to while walking my dogs in the Cyprus countryside. I don’t care how passionate I get or how much positive self-talk I can muster, the chances of me achieving this goal are somewhere between slim and none. That doesn’t mean it can’t ever be a goal because I do believe anything is possible if you want it bad enough. But perhaps I need an intermediate aim to bridge the huge gap between where I am now and where I want to be.

What I would like you to do is just stop reading for ten minutes and grab a pen. Write down, as many goals as you can, there are no rules at this point – it doesn’t matter whether your goals are big, small, crazy, impossible, childish or X-rated. If you want to be an astronaut, then write it down, if you want to get the house painted by next summer write it down. But do try to think of things that you think you could do if you only had high enough confidence to do them.

Next, I want you to go back through your list of goals and give them a timeline. Make up a target date to achieve them by, make this a stretch so that it puts some pressure on you. There is no point having a tiny goal such as ‘say hello to the cute receptionist at work’ and then setting a ridiculous time to achieve this of ‘within the next six months.' As you consider each goal ask you ‘what is stopping me doing this right now or tomorrow’?

Now, take a separate piece of paper and write down the seven goals that are most achievable in the shortest period.

Example:

1.    Join a gym and start getting fit – 1 Day

2.    Start planning my escape from the Rat Race – 3 Days

3.    Get to know Julia and ask her for a date – 2 weeks

4.    Lose 10lbs – 6 weeks

5.    Establish two new recurring revenue streams – 7 weeks

6.    Raise money for charity skydive – 2 months

7.    Do my first skydive – 3 months

Put this list somewhere where you will see it at least several times a day. I keep mine taped to the side of my computer monitor, but you could have it in the car, on your desk at work or even taped to the bathroom mirror. Make this a living-breathing document, as you achieve one goal replace it with another. I am reasonably confident that you could be alive for a thousand years and never struggle to find seven things you want to achieve. On my list at the moment are things like ‘Take my son to watch the Forty-Niners play at the Levi Stadium, San Francisco – 6 months’ and visit the ‘World War II museums of Munich, Germany – 3 months’.  Visit Australia for the first time.

The strange thing is, I have been doing this so long now that I am at the point where if I write it on the list I know it is going to happen. This makes writing something on the menu almost as exciting as the day it comes true.

But remember a piece of paper in and of itself is powerless. If you write a list of goals and do nothing then guess what will happen, that’s right – nothing, zip, zero, nada! As Henry Ford said ‘Nothing happens until something moves.' Even the biggest multinational companies such as Microsoft and Toyota started with the actions of just one man. One man or woman having an idea and deciding to take action forced companies that now employ hundreds of thousands of people around the world into reality. I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason and you ignore your intuition at your peril. Those little ‘Eureka’ moments that burst into your consciousness apparently from nowhere are little gifts of opportunity from the universe, and if you don’t take action and accept the present, it will be given to someone else. It is almost like the universe knows what it wants to be done and it wants you to have the opportunity, but if you don’t take it and run with it, then it will pass the baton to someone else.

By now you've hopefully concluded that you need to start doing things difficulty. If you've been shying away from risk and wallowing in self-pity/low energy, it's time for a change. If you've been putting off going after the things that you want and instead just going 'with the flow' because it's easier… then again you need to change.

One of the best ways to do that is, to begin with a plan. You need to know what it is you want, and you need to know how it is you're going to achieve it. Thinking Outside the Box Once again, let's start by reiterating that you don't need to shy away from the big stuff. You can make pretty much anything happen if you put your mind to it by merely taking that massive action and having the right strategy.  Sometimes that plan though involves taking a slightly different approach from usual. For instance, you might not have thought about releasing a thousand Kindle books as a good way to make money online. But by coming at your objective from the most natural angle with the least resistance, you can overcome the odds and succeed where others might have failed.

A great example of someone else doing this is Sylvester Stallone, the actor, bodybuilder, painter, entrepreneur, and all-round superstar. Don't let Sly's muscles and drawl fool you; he is an incredibly smart, driven and inspirational guy. When he decided he wanted to be a famous actor you see, he took an entirely different route than most people by leveraging one of his most significant skills: writing. Sly had been acting in bit parts and even soft porn for years and made no headway in the industry. At the time, in fact, he was close to living on the streets and also had to sell his dog.  That's when he wrote the script for Rocky and started showing it to directors and producers.

As the legend goes, one company liked the script so much that they were willing to pay him a considerable amount of money for it – which would end all of his financial troubles. But Stallone stayed steadfast and instead said that he just wanted to star in the movie. He refused all kinds of offers and remained utterly rigid on the deal that if Hollywood executives wanted his script, they'd have to cast him in the movie. Of course, they eventually agreed, he bought back his dog, and the rest is history. The point is that Sly overcame tremendous odds by making a plan and taking a different route into the industry. Today there are more ways than ever for you to do this. Say you want to become a Hollywood star… what could you do to make that happen? Of course, you could move to LA, hire an agent and go to auditions like everyone else. Or you could try going Stallone's route by writing your own vehicle and offering to star in it.

Or you could do something completely different. For instance, you could create your own YouTube channel making amateur movies every week (teaming up with hobbyist filmmakers) and eventually you would probably generate a fan base and a following and Hollywood would come-a-knocking. Or you could take to Kickstarter and get a film made that way. Or you could become a day trader, get super rich and then buy your own production company. Here's a question: how do you go about launching your own space project like Space X? That's a goal that sounds impossible right? Well, it's also something that one entrepreneur – Peter Diamandis – has taken great strides towards. How did he do that? By taking the 'line of super credibility'.  Basically, Peter launched the 'X-Prize Foundation' which awarded a colossal cash prize to any company that could build a commercial craft capable of space travel. He didn't have the skills himself but by using this strategy, he motivated those that did have the resources to move towards the goal he set for them. There was another problem though: he also didn't have the money.

How does a guy with no money, no authority and no business in space travel motivate big companies to invest time and effort into such an unbelievable task? Simple: he took the line of 'super credibility'. What that meant was that when he announced his prize – before he even had the money to put behind him – he did so by going on stage with a bunch of former astronauts and leaders in the industry. Because those people were there that meant that everyone believed in what he had to say. Those people provided the 'super credibility' and they changed him from being 'some dreamer' to someone who appeared to have the means. The cash money then came from various backers following that announcement. But the point is that this was one guy with a dream who used a smart strategy to help push forwards the pursuit of commercial space travel. That's an incredible story of success and it really should tell you that you can accomplish anything. If you're smart about it. The trick then is to make a plan that you completely believe in – which means assessing what your skills are, what your resources are, who your contacts are and what's achievable in the shortest amount of time. Later in this book we will be talking about something called 'functional fixedness' in regards to creative thinking. You might want to refer to that when coming up with your plan.

Minimizing Risk

What's also important when creating a plan of action is to minimize your risk. We've talked already about how people tend to talk themselves out of taking action for fear of putting themselves on the line and due to the risk aversion that we all experience. Throughout this book, we'll be largely focusing on how you can change your thinking with regards to risk aversion so that you can overcome it and make it a thing of the past. In the meantime though, we'll also be approaching this from another angle: by removing the risk in the first place. To create a plan that you're actually likely to stick to, you need to find ways that you can remove the elements of risk that are currently putting you off.  Because if you're smart you see, there needn't be any risk with a lot of different projects. For instance, many people will put off changing jobs even when they're very unhappy with the place they work. Their boss might be breathing down their neck, they might feel that the work they do isn't rewarding and they might think that they aren't listened to or respected in the workplace.

Bearing in mind what a vast proportion of our lives we spend at work, this is enough to make pretty much anyone wholly miserable and it's something you should indeed seek to change. The problem is that when someone suggests that these people change their jobs, they will freeze up. They can't leave their job! What if they don't find another one? What if they then end up with no money? Who is going to pay the rent? Where will their children sleep? But no one said they had to quit their job. You don't have to leave a job in order to start looking for other jobs, you just need to start applying for other jobs in the evenings. You don't leave your current place of work until you've got something else lined up. That way there is zero risk. The same goes for starting your own business. Say you want to start selling computer equipment instead of working your current job but you're too afraid to leave your work.

What do you do?

Simple: you buy some wholesale items at a low price, then you start trying to sell them on eBay or through your website. Once you manage that, you invest some of that profit into more stock. You send out the deliveries in the evening, and you keep your inventory in your basement. Over time your turnover will increase and so will your profits, and it's only once you have a stable income that you need to leave your job. And it doesn't just apply to business. How do you minimize risk when it comes to meeting members of the opposite sex? The danger here is that you get laughed at, turned away or have your feelings trampled on. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's more than enough to prevent a lot of people from going ahead and introducing themselves to that hottie over at the bar. So to minimize risk, try not going over. Instead, find a spot where you're comfortable and relax with a drink in your hand. Now look round the bar for people you like. When you see someone who looks attractive and pleasant, just try smiling at them or even winking at them. If they're at all interested, they will laugh or wink back, and that will give you the permission you need to go over. They may even come over to you! But if they don't, then what you need to do instead is just to move on and find someone else. This way there's no risk – you haven't even gone over there so they can't 'turn you down.' The worst outcome is that nothing happens.

Zero Limits, Zero risks?

And what's better, is that this strategy also allows you to play the numbers game. You can wink at a thousand girls or guys in one night, starting from the ones you're most interested in and moving your way down. Eventually, one of them is bound to be receptive and that way you can quickly and efficiently find where to spend most of your time. Online dating is also great because it's so risk-free – the only worry is that you might end up wasting time sifting through people who don't respond to your attempts at contact. Here's a quick solution to that: try outsourcing it to your friends and family. They're always poking their nose into your love life anyway, so why not use that to your advantage? Identifying Your Goals Hopefully as you read this, you're starting to get ideas for ways to approach your own goals – methods that will be more efficient and more risk-free and that will make the unachievable seem achievable.  There's just one problem though: which might be the fact that you don't know what it is you want to achieve. Don't worry if this is the way you feel, it's the case for countless people, and it's quite reasonable. Some of us are fortunate enough to know exactly what it is we want to be from the day we turn 10 and can then work on flawlessly executing that plan at every step of the way. But what about the rest of us who want abstract things and can't quite put our goals and ambitions into words?

A few things can help you to try and define what it is you want from life:

 Look at your role models – Look at the people you admire most and think about what it is that they all have in common.

 Think about the things you would change in your life right now – Instead of starting from scratch and coming up with a 'vision' instead try looking at specific things about your life that you would change right now.

 Imagine your happy place – Imagine your happy place and what your vision of success is. Where are you? What are you doing? It might be that you're on a sunny beach somewhere in a mansion – in which case it would seem you need money.

 Think about the essence of your goals – In some rare cases you might have multiple goals, or you might have goals that are genuinely unattainable. If you want to be a T-Rex for instance, then you're in trouble (for Will Ferrell fans, that was indeed a Step Brothers reference). In these cases though, think instead about what the 'essence' of that ambition is. Do you want to be a T-Rex or do you want to be powerful? Do you want to own your own business, or do you want respect? Do you want to be an astronaut or do you want adventure?

 Think about what it is that you wanted to do as a child, often that's still what you want you've just been taught to deny yourself those more childish sounding objectives.

  Imagine your eulogy and what you would want people to say about you. How do you want to be remembered when you're gone?

 Imagine what advice you would give to someone who was in exactly your position. What would you tell them to focus on or to fix?

 Think about when you were last happiest – What was it that made you so happy and how can you recreate that?

The most important thing during this process is to be completely honest with yourself. Don't leave out the things you think are unrealistic or you'll just be lying to yourself.

You want to be a superhero? Great: that's what you're going to work with. At the same time, don't worry if your goals don't fall neatly into a box or if you can't quickly outline them on paper. You might find that you have 20 goals, or that your goal isn't inspiring. Maybe your goal is to have a huge garden. Great. That's a great goal – go with it. Don't try and change your goals to fit other people's expectations. Go with what you know will make you happiest. Your goal might be completely and utterly weird – maybe you want to recreate a level from Sonic the Hedgehog in your back garden. Go for it! No one knows what the meaning of life is and as such, there is no right or wrong answer regarding the way you choose to live yours. Be free to go after whatever it is that you want.

Likewise, don't worry if your goal isn't anything to do with your career. That's a good thing – you don't have to define yourself by your job. And stop worrying about 'being too old' (the cause of so many mid-life crises). As the old saying goes, 'it's never too late to be what you've always wanted to be.' In fact, often being older can be an advantage. Want to be an actor? Great! There are tons of bit parts for older actors, and you'll have the spare time to go to lots of auditions. Want to live somewhere sunny? Being retired means, you should have the funds and the lack of ties to make this possible. Want to be a rock star? Take that YouTube route – it's pretty easy to imagine a geriatric electric guitarist going viral.

Don't overcomplicate matters either, or take unnecessarily tricky routes to get to where you want to be. If every time you close your eyes you imagine yourself on a yacht somewhere sunny, then you need to be a millionaire right? Wrong: all you need is to move to a sunny country and then invest all your disposable income into a yacht. Sound reckless? Not if it is genuinely what will make you happy. Of course, you do need to think about the mitigating factors like your family.

Perhaps your partner doesn't want to move country. This does complicate matters, and it's okay to feel tugged in multiple directions – you just need to slightly alter your plan. Your plan doesn't even have to be a static thing. People change with time, and so do our objectives. If you find that you don't have a concrete 'dream' right now then use the advice in this book to focus on just changing small things that will make you happier. You can add more to that plan as you go. Having the Plan is All That Matters What's important though, is recognizing the importance of simply having a plan and having a goal. It doesn't matter all that much whether your goal works or not. What's important is simply that you go ahead and try. That might sound like the moral that belongs at the end of a Disney movie, but it's true. You can be anything you want to be. It's only success that's hard. Want to be a writer? Then start writing – congratulations, you are now a writer!

Want to be a rock musician? Then start playing music on YouTube – congratulations, you are now a rock musician! Sure, you might not be professional, and you might not be making a living, but you're still doing what you love, and you can always get a lot of meaning and happiness from that. Having a goal gives life meaning, direction, and purpose and it means that you will no longer be defining yourself by your 9-5. When someone at a party asks you about yourself, do you tell them your job as the central point? Is that 'what you do'? Is it 'who you are'? Instead, tell them about your side project. That's what should get you going, and that should tell them a lot more about who you are and where your passions lie. If you take nothing else from this book, then just focus on this one message: get started.

Time seems to erode our patience and persistence. If we could only harness the energy and willingness of our youth and hold onto it through life, we would all live much more full lives. I remember being twelve or thirteen years old and coming to the decision that I wanted to be a radio broadcaster. All my birthday and Christmas money got thrown at building my bedroom radio station. I would spend hour after hour doing fake radio shows to nobody. At one point, tired of having no audience I wired a speaker into my younger brothers bedroom so he could listen, whether he wanted to or not.

I would make a new demo tape every week and send it to every radio station in the country. I was convinced that I was about to be discovered at any moment. Afterall my Grandad had confirmed that I was bloody good at being a DJ. He would tell all his drinking friends in the pub that his grandson was on the radio, so it must be true I thought. Every wave of demo tapes going out would result in an equal swell of rejection letters coming back in.

By the time I was seventeen years old and had received over 500 or so rejection letters from radio stations around the country. I had them all filed and could proudly show you the seven times I was rejected by Metro Radio in Newcastle or the three times BRMB in Birmingham had told me that I was not good enough. The theme to the replies was always similar; not enough experience, not quite ready, you have potential - come back in a few years. The rejection letters never upset me or even indeed registered in my consciousness. I had this deep certainty that eventually I would get a chance. There was not even 1% of my DNA that considered I would fail. I didn't care if it took a thousand rejections or ten thousand rejections I would do whatever it took.

Then one day my mum called me downstairs to take a telephone call. I asked her who it was and she said 'some posh sounding woman called Stephanie.' The woman on the phone explained that she was calling from Radio Wyvern in Worcester. She said that 'The Boss' wanted to meet me and would I be willing to come down for a chat? I said yes immediately, and then I looked at a map and discovered that Worcester was a four-hour drive from my hometown of Darlington. I had only passed my driving test a few months earlier, and the furthest I had ever driven before was to my friend's house, 5 miles down the road.

The big day came, and I got dressed into the only suit I owned, the suit my parents had bought me for my Gran's funeral. I jumped in my little Mini and set off on the journey. This was before the days of mobile phones and sat navs. I got lost a couple of times and ended up being fifteen minutes late for my meeting with 'The Boss.' This was not a good start, as I was about to find out.

The Boss was a balding Geordie by the name of Norman Bilton; he eyed me suspiciously as Stephanie ushered me into his office. I sat down in the chair facing his desk, and his first words to me were 'who said you could sit down'? So I stood up again and apologized profusely. He stared at me for what seemed like a fortnight before he said 'you are late and you look a mess, your suit is crumpled.' I tried to explain it had been a long journey but he interrupted almost straight away and asked 'where is the free car you promised me'?

I thought he was mental.

"I am not sure what you mean," I said

Norman put his glasses on a picked up my letter from his desk "It says here, items enclosed 2, CV. So I presumed you were bringing me a free Citroen 2CV".

This was apparently a joke of some sort, but the problem is he had a face as serious as an undertaker. I didn't really know how to take him, and I never did work that out. He put the letter down and looked over his glasses at me and asked 'do you know why you are here?' I said I presumed he had liked my demo tape and might have an opportunity for me. He smiled and said 'no, your demo was terrible. You are here because you wrote to me on bright yellow paper - nobody has ever done that before. It made me think you might be a little different from all the other wanna be's'. I explained I had only done that because I run out of white and he looked decidedly disappointed.

It was the weirdest most stressful conversation I had ever had with anyone before or since. However, it ended with a job offer of sorts; The Boss said 'I am not sure you have what it takes but you can come for a month, and we will see. I will pay you £100 a week, start on Monday and we will find something for you to do.

It was the least flattering job offer I have ever had, but I was over the moon with it. Over the next eighteen months at Radio Wyvern I would present every show around the clock, service the cars (despite not having the first clue what I was doing) and look after the vending machine - all these things fell under my remit for the first year.

When the morning show guy Jason Harold left the station, my big opportunity came. The Boss said he was going to give me a chance on the Breakfast show, but he didn't trust me not to upset his friend in the pub so he would come in with Stephanie each morning and produce the show. This meant I would sit in the North studio while The Boss and Steph would sit in the South studio shouting at me every three minutes over the intercom.

The 'behind the scenes' conversation over the intercom would go like this:

BOSS: Talk about it being the first day of spring and do a phone in asking if anyone has heard a cuckoo yet.

ME: Do I have to?

BOSS: Yes, you bloody have to.

I would do what the boss told me, using the exact words and phrases. To my ears, it sounded like I was on acid.

BOSS: What the hell was that? That was the worst radio I ever heard in my life. Do it again.

ME: What do you mean 'do it again'?

BOSS: Are you stupid? Do the link again but this time do it correctly.

I think I managed a week on the breakfast show before the Boss declared it a disaster and I was dumped back repairing cars and vending machines.

I eventually left Radio Wyvern, and it became the start of a two-decade-long career in the UK broadcast media. I have never worked a job because I needed the money, I have always found a way to do what I wanted, and the money just seemed to follow my passion. What I worry about the most is that my children, who are now both grown up will look at my life and oversimplify it and miss the fuel for this sort of life. It is all very well setting lofty goals, but without an unrelenting persistence, most people will quit long before they hit the target.

Forget about positive thinking, education and good old-fashioned hard work. The secret to an exceptional life is persistence.  Once you have determined precisely what it is you want to accomplish, you must take massive action on a consistent, persistent basis to succeed. Think of it like building a muscle. If you have never weight trained before, the first time you walk into a gym, chances are you will not be able to bench press 250 lbs. However, if you are persistent, and you consistently go back to the gym, you will find yourself getting stronger and closer to your goal with every visit.

One of the things you'll notice on your journey towards your goal is roadblocks. That is, you will encounter obstacles that seem to jump out of nowhere in an attempt to halt your progress. Count on these obstacles. They are a part of life. Everyone would have every success they ever wanted if there were no obstacles. Your job is to be persistent and work through those obstacles. If you find little or no obstacles along the way, chances are you are not challenging yourself. And when you do reach your goal, you won't experience the feeling of 'sweet success.' Make your goal a challenging one!

If you take the time to study any successful person, you will learn that the vast majority of them have had more 'failures' than they have had 'successes.' This is because successful people are persistent; the more they stumble and fall, the more they get right back up and get going again. On the other hand, people that don't get back up and try again, never reach success. For example, Walt Disney was turned down 302 times before he got financing for his dream of creating the "Happiest Place on Earth." Today, due to his persistence, millions of people have shared 'the joy of Disney.' Colonel Sanders spent two years driving across the United States looking for restaurants to buy his chicken recipe. He was turned down 1,009 times! How successful is Kentucky Fried Chicken today?

Having said this, keep in mind that you must constantly reevaluate your circumstances and the approach you are using to reach your goal. There is no sense in being persistent at something that you are doing incorrectly! Sometimes you have to modify your approach along the way. Every time you do something you learn from it, and therefore find a better way to do it the next time.

Today is the day to begin your journey, using consistency and persistence, towards tomorrow's successes!

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.  Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.

An uncle of R.U. Darby was caught by the “gold fever” in the gold-rush days and went west to DIG AND GROW RICH.  He had never heard that more gold had been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth.  He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel.  The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.

After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore.  He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface.  Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the “strike.”  They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped.  The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

The first car of ore was mined and shipped to a smelter.  The returns proved they had one of the most productive mines in Colorado!  A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts.  Then would come the big killing in profits.

Down went the drills!  Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle!  Then something happened!  The vein of gold ore disappeared!  They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there!  They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again – all to no avail.

Finally, they decided to QUIT.

They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars and took the train back home.  Some “junk” men are dumb, but not this one!  He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating.  The engineer advised that the project had failed because the owners were not familiar with “fault lines.”  His calculations showed that the vein would be found JUST THREE FEET FROM WHERE THE DARBYS HAD STOPPED DRILLING!  That is exactly where it was found!

The “Junk” man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.

Most of the money which went into the machinery was procured through the efforts of R.U. Darby, who was then a very young man.  The money came from his relatives and neighbors, because of their faith in him.  He paid back every dollar of it, although he was years in doing so.

Long afterward, Mr. Darby recouped his loss many times over, when he discovered that DESIRE can be transmuted into gold.  The discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance.

Remembering that he lost a vast fortune because he STOPPED three feet from gold, Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work. he did this by saying to himself, “I stopped three feet from gold, but I will never stop because men say ‘no’ when I ask them to buy insurance.”

Darby is one of a small group of fewer than fifty men who sell more than a million dollars in life insurance annually.  He owes his “stickability” to the lesson he learned from his “quitability” in the gold mining business.

Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure.  When defeat overtakes a man, the most natural and most logical thing to do is to QUIT.  That is precisely what the majority of men do. This is what the passengers on the train nearly always do.

More than five hundred of the most successful men this country had ever known, told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them.  Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning.  It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

Unstoppable go big, passengers go home. When you dream, you should dream big. Don't just plant a tree; plant an orchard in your imagination. What you sow in life is also what you reap.

Are you living 10X?

" Being cautious needs you to act warily, and there is no chance that you will ever reach 10X activity levels by being so careful.", Grant Cardone

Examine your objectives for this year. Chances are good; they demonstrate at least some fearful reasoning and less-than-creative thinking. I have no doubt (without even meeting you) that your targets are much less demanding than you can deal with. Trust me on this; you are a higher manifestation power than you currently understand. You can deal with much more than you believe.

You can change and adjust to just about anything life throws at you.

As an illustration, if your target this year is to make $50,000, I challenge you to improve that intention to $500,000.

That may seem insane but let me ask you, would you rather hit a target of $50,000 or fall short of a target of $500,000. Even if you fall short by 80% of your outrageous goal you still have double what you would have had if you had pursued the smaller and much more comfortable aspiration.

When you 10X your objectives, you will be compelled to handle your aspiration in non-conventional and ingenious methods. The conventional strategy does not work with 10X planning.

Not only does your consciousness have to develop in what you prepare and pursue, but your day-to-day energy has to transform too. Equally, as individuals undervalue their potential, they also undervalue how much work and time something will take. Therefore, a lot of people are often late for meetings and fail to complete ventures they start.

Instead of insisting on and assuming you will always have perfect conditions, prepare for adversity. As opposed to undervaluing just how much effort and time a specific thing will take, overestimate those factors. Put way more hard work into your objectives than you presume really needed to get there.

If you're going to think 10X, you need to also invest 10X personal energy. Without having invested the hard work, it does not matter how "outrageous" your goals are. As soon as your energy, effort and actions compliment (and surpass) your objectives, your Unstoppable dreams will swiftly come true.

Call to action:

" How can you accomplish your TEN-year plan in the next six months?", Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal

Examine your objectives, how can you 10X them? How can you constrict your focus? Or get inventive? Or approach things in different ways to achieve unorthodox outcomes?

Ready to get inventive and get daring?

Go "All in"

" As soon as you decide, the cosmos colludes to make it come about.", Ralph Waldo Emerson

Individuals are often scared of real responsibility. We 'd rather keep our options open than commit 100% to an endeavor. We 'd rather vary our financial investments to reduce risk.

But if you intend to go big, you have to put all your eggs in one basket. It sound’s scary, but it's far more straightforward and less precarious to concentrate on just one basket than many baskets. And yes, of course, failing is a risk but are you here to linger in the 80% or are you here to step out of the congestion at the bottom of the mountain and join us at the top?

The moment you figure out what you want, over-commit to that project. Go all in. Pass your point of no return. When you do this, you'll discover the genuine implication of security and safety, which can only originate from within.

Once your safety and security are apparently coming from inside yourself, instead of anything outside of you (like a consistent salary, medical insurance, or pension plan), you'll see yourself in an entirely new light. Your belief and faith in yourself and your capabilities will drastically intensify.

The challenges that at one time held you back will end up being devices to push you ever onward. Your peripheral environment will complement your inner aspirations.

Call to action:

How you set the game up is more crucial than whether you are playing in the game. To succeed before you play, make daring decisions and vows of what you will achieve in advance. Public pledges that demand you to perform to an exceptional degree.

Eighteen months before my business crossed the million-dollar point I told my closest friend and family that my goal was to be a millionaire within the next two years. I stated as a fact that within one year I would be comfortably past my first half million and I would reach my full goal shortly after that. Yes, of course, many of them told me I was unrealistic, my father told me to stop being so bloody ridiculous.

But you see, I wasn’t asking their permission, seeking validation or even testing the feasibility of my dreams. I was stating my intention publically. I was expressing the facts as I saw them. My goal was so clear, so sharp and so real in my mind's eye that it felt impossible for me to consider it not happening.

Like preparation, your energy and implementation should complement (and surpass) your decisions and pledges.

I encourage you to get clear in your mind about what you are going to achieve. Make your objectives public and commit big to your dreams.

I want to tell you about Katie, I am sure you know her already, perhaps not the same Katie, but certainly ‘a Katie.’ Poor Katie drew a bad hand in life; she didn’t do great at school because, as she tells the story, the teachers were idiots. She always dreamed of a cool apartment overlooking the sea, with a little dog called Jack. Unfortunately, because her boss is an asshole she has to rent a crummy little studio apartment in a rough part of town, and since the landlord is a total douche and doesn’t allow pets, she is not even allowed to have a dog.

Talk to Katie yourself, and she will tell you how unfair life is and how she deserves so much more. Way more than ‘so and so,’ ‘whose it,’ or ‘what’s her name,’ yet they have everything she wants. She will tell you that nobody understands her and that all her friends are two-faced bitches who are out to cause as much trouble as possible.

Is it conceivable that Katie just got an unlucky break in life? Is there any chance that she is correct in her assessment? Let’s put it this way. Move over Mother Teresa; there is more chance of Donald Trump becoming a Saint than of Katie being accurate in her assessment of why she is not living the life she says she wants. Katie is a victim, and these victims are everywhere—we can’t move for them. These are the people that believe life owes them something, and they often spend an entire lifetime furious that the neighbor got yet another new car, or so and so got promoted at work.

Victims not only suck the energy out of their own lives but do the same for anyone who comes close enough to get caught up in their vortex of doom. I call them mood Hoovers and I am almost certain you can think of at least a few people who fit perfectly into this description. Let’s first talk about how you deal with this trait in other people, and then I want you to look within. We’ll have a little honesty session and examine areas of your life where you may have adopted the roll of victim because it is easier than facing the hard truth.

How do you help a victim? The short answer? You can’t because they don’t want to be helped. They like being the victim; it gives them a convenient explanation as to why their life blows chunks. On their deathbed you could ask them ‘why didn’t you live the life you were truly capable of,’ and they will have enough plausible deniability to stubbornly point at something or someone and say ‘because of that.' All the time they are pointing a finger of blame at everything and everyone else around them, they are blissfully unaware that they have three fingers pointed right back at them. It is frustrating to care about this type of a victim because you can see the huge untapped potential in them, but they cannot. When they look in the mirror, all they see is someone who has been badly treated by life.

If they are a friend or family member, perhaps even your son or daughter, you will desperately try to help them see the truth, but in my experience all you will end up doing is expending vast amounts of time, money and energy to get precisely nowhere with them. The harsh reality is this; we are all divine creations. We each have a fragment of God embedded within us, and we all have the power to perform our own miracles. If we take decisive action and flow with the universe instead of kicking violently trying to go back up stream, we can manifest breathtakingly amazing lives for ourselves. Victims have this power too, but they choose to ignore it.

How to spot a victim

Victims have reasons, lots of them and often they seem like entirely logical and plausible explanations.

•    I am ill because the doctor gave me the wrong medicine.

•    I am poor because my boss is a jerk.

•    I got fired because I am a woman.

•    I became redundant because I am black.

•    They won’t employ me because I am white.

•    I can’t quit drinking because it’s the only pleasure I have left.

•    I am too stressed to stop smoking.

The list goes on and on, and all of it is 100% bullshit. There are four certainties in this life. You will be born, you will die, and in between, you will pay taxes and life will repeatedly knock you down. As Rocky Balboa says, ‘Ain’t nothing going to hit as hard as life.’ Getting knocked down is not bad luck any more than turning on the tap and getting water could be considered good luck. Life is getting knocked down; the choice is getting back up again, looking it in the eye and saying ‘is that all you got, hit me again, but this time put some effort into it!’ The reason you can’t help the victims is because when they do get knocked down, they love it. It gives them what they want, an excuse not to get back up again, and proves the point they’ve been trying to make all along. They are like boxers who are too tired to keep fighting and are hoping for one decent punch so they can fall with dignity and stay the hell down until the referee counts ten.

Exercise

Stop reading for ten minutes and think about the victims in your life. Ask yourself who they are, how long they have been there and most importantly, how much time you are spending trying to make them feel better. Which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is like trying to push oil uphill. Once you are clear about who these people are, I want you to make a conscious decision to spend less and less time in their company–until they are no longer a part of your life. That’s right; I am asking you to fire the mood Hoovers in your life. You can’t help them, and they are not helping you, so it’s time for them to go. There is a way to help, but it is almost certainly not what you are doing at the moment. If dumping them out of your life is not possible, or you are not comfortable doing that, then at least reduce the amount of time you spend with them.

But wait… what if you are the victim?

Are you a victim? This is a pretty easy question to answer; think of something in your life that you are not happy with. For example, you need more money. Now with that problem in mind, explain to yourself why this is your current situation. If you find you have answers and excuses readily available (such as because my boss keeps overlooking me for promotion), then you are operating in a victim mindset around this topic. If your response is more positive and places responsibility on your shoulders. Then you are in an abundance mindset (for example—I took a pay cut to change the direction of my career, but I know if I give this new job 100% I am going to earn far more than I would have in the old role).

Having an abundance mindset always starts with you taking 100% responsibility. Let me give you an example from my own life. In 2007, I bought a villa in Cyprus. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was investing at possibly the worst time in the last century. Property prices were hugely overinflated, and there was a mad rush of eager buyers trying to get in on what was being touted as a gold rush. Realtors promised anyone who would listen that you could easily double your money within a few short years. I had always wanted to live in the sunshine by the sea, so I went all in. Three months after I collected the keys to my property the Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the whole western world went into a financial meltdown.

Overnight, my property lost 40% of its value, but that was irrelevant, as the whole market had evaporated. Due to a concrete explosion over the past few years, the tiny island of Cyprus found itself with thousands and thousands of new build property and absolutely no buyers to be seen. To make matters worse, I had taken a mortgage in Swiss francs on the advice of the bank. Because Switzerland was considered a safe haven outside the crashing dollar, pound, and euro, their currency value went through the roof. My mortgage payments tripled overnight.

Whose fault is this disastrous investment? The victim would say it’s the realtor for advising me badly; it’s the bank for selling me a volatile product or any other number of villains that could be pointed at and labeled as the ‘fault’ behind this mess. But at the point where you create an excuse, you become a reaction to life. You are a passenger who is responding to the events of life that are thrust upon you. Conversely, when you accept 100% responsibility for the events around you, then you are in the driver’s seat. Let me tell you when you are alone in a runaway car, the last place you want to be sitting is in the passenger seat.

Here are my thoughts about the house in Cyprus. It is my responsibility, I created it and I will solve it. I don’t believe it was a mistake; I believe it is a blessing here in my life to push me in a specific direction, to challenge me, to teach me and ultimately to make me stronger. When the time is right, the situation will resolve one way or another.

Exercise

Stop reading and grab a pen. I want you to write down every negative thing in your life that you believe is there because someone else put it there. Then next to each bullet point I want you to come up with a new and positive spin that gives you 100% responsibility for the event. Now wait, let me be clear. There is a huge difference between blame and responsibility. I am not asking you to take the blame for the day you got mugged in broad daylight or the night your car got stolen. Fault and blame are pointless actions of the ego, blaming the mugger for attacking you doesn’t undo the act of violence that occurred.

What I want you to do here is accept the situation as being a part of your life. You may not have chosen to have it happen, but for whatever reason it did. It’s a part of you, and that means you are the only person who can heal it within yourself. Make peace with it and try to give yourself a point of view that does precisely zero finger pointing and has a high expectation that a positive outcome will result.

These exercises are very easily skipped and forgotten about, but please try to do them because they make a huge difference to the speed at which you can bring positive change into your life. 

Your lifestyle and environment can have more of a significant impact on your success than you may realize. Individual lifestyle choices can drain your energy, your bank account, and take away your motivation and drive.   Often, decisions and choices which you make that are seemingly not related to achieving your goals and becoming successful can be massively influential.   To become unstoppably successful and re-program your mind for success, it’s also important to delve into your current lifestyle and work out if there is anything that you are doing or failing to do which could be having an indirect impact on the results that you achieve.  

An example of this would be your diet – you may not realize it, but the food and beverages that you consume can affect your mind, encouraging or discouraging motivation and proactivity.   When examining your lifestyle choices, start at the most basic level – the things that you put into your body. If you have a mostly unhealthy diet and consume high levels of processed food, saturated fats, and sugars, this can have a tremendous impact on the health of your mind and your energy levels.   Although foods that are high in sugars or ingredients such as caffeine can often give you a temporary ‘boost,' consuming too many of these foods or beverages can leave you feeling tired, putting you in a situation where you ‘crash and burn.'   Unstoppable minds are often healthy minds – switching to a more robust, cleaner diet with plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, and pure water may yield results that could even surprise you.  

Staying Active 

Did you know that exercising is hugely beneficial to your mental health? With studies showing that the ‘feel good’ hormones released by cardiovascular exercises such as cycling, swimming or running can relieve the symptoms of depression, it’s no surprise that increasing your level of activity could help to improve your level of success.  

Exercising is a great way to de-clutter your mind and enable you to think in a more precise manner, making it one of the best things to do when you are feeling completely overwhelmed with working towards your goals.   If you feel that you’ve been working at something for far too long and not getting anywhere, taking a short break to go for a run, swim or other exercise could be just what you need.  

Looking After Yourself 

In short, when aiming for success, you should strive to make as many smart decisions as possible when it comes to your lifestyle. Looking after yourself should be the most significant priority – after all, being successful is often not easy, and you need to be both mentally and physically prepared to take on whichever goals that you have in mind.   Specific goals may involve making lifestyle changes directly – for example losing weight, training for a fitness event, or even quitting smoking. On the other hand, also if your goal for success doesn’t involve your lifestyle directly, the choices that you make can probably still make a huge impact.  

Getting Enough Sleep 

Last but not least, it’s essential that you don’t lose any sleep over achieving your goals for success.   Although at times it can be tempting to stay up through the night working on a particular part of getting closer to the results that you desire, having a good sleep routine and making sure that you get enough sleep during the night is one of the most important things that you can do to help and support yourself.  

Rest is essential for proper mental function, and without it you may end up unable to think straight, putting yourself at risk of making bad decisions that are detrimental to your success.   Aim to sleep for around 7-8 hours per night to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the challenges that the day has in store.   

Cutting Out Negativity

Negativity is one of the most harmful things that any Unstoppable University student can face. Whether it be your negative thoughts or the words and actions of others, anything short of remotely positive can severely hinder your success if you allow it to.   Cutting the negative factors out of their lives is something that all Unstoppable people need to do.  

Negativity will find its way into your subconscious mind, hindering the re-programming that you have already done and got in the way of achieving success. When it comes to getting rid of negativity, those who want to be successful in life should be ruthless.  

Toxic People 

These are the type of people who thoroughly drain the life out of you and know exactly how to push your buttons.   Often they are surrounded by a cloud of negativity, toxic people can be one of the most significant obstacles to your success, especially if you are related to one or have one nearby, such as in your workplace.  

Toxic people often have negative opinions that they are not afraid to share; this can result in you feeling severely disheartened as they voice their negative views about your goals and plans to achieve them. Toxic people should never, ever be involved in your plans for success – they will most likely never have anything constructive or helpful to say or do.  

Cutting out toxic people is not always easy. Perhaps you are related to one, living with one, or working with one.   Maybe the toxic person in your life is a parent, housemate or even your boss. So, what does one do in this situation? If you cannot cut a toxic person out of your life altogether due to close ties or responsibilities, it’s important to cut out talking to them about your plans for success.   Limiting your conversation with anybody who has a history of adding a negative twist to things and creating doubt in your mind about your ability to achieve your goals is a hugely important part of becoming successful and re-training your brain for success.   Even if you try not to take any notice of the negative and unhelpful things that these people have to say, it’s vital to remember that your subconscious mind takes on board everything without you even realizing.  

Your Negativity 

Getting to know yourself, as a human being is essential to your success. Knowing your patterns and habits and understanding any recurring negative responses to situations is key to changing your mindset and becoming a more successful person.   What is it that you do negatively on a regular basis? Perhaps you feel the need to drown your sorrows with alcohol when things go wrong, or maybe you take risks that are far too high when you’re feeling desperate.  

Whatever it is, knowing your negativity can go a long way in proactively changing your patterns of thought and action and achieving the goals that you have set for yourself.  

Anticipating Negativity 

Unstoppable people know how and when to expect negativity – whether it be people, situations, outcomes, or their own thoughts and actions. To honestly be successful, you will need to learn how to anticipate negativity and prepare for it.   Having a plan of action for when negativity enters your life and being able to tackle it head on is the absolute key to becoming more successful. Although you’re not expected to be able to predict the future – there’s no way of telling when negativity is around the corner sometimes – it’s good to get to know different patterns and understand the telltale signs.  

Being familiar with negativity might seem like something you should shy away from to become successful, but actually, the opposite is true – the more of an expert on negativity you are, the better you can fight it.   

Being Prepared 

The road to success is, unfortunately, a long and winding one with many, many obstacles.   It’s very rare to hear of somebody who became a huge success story over-night – whether your goals are modest or massive, achieving them will usually always take some work and effort.   Along the way, do not be surprised to experience some setbacks and adverse situations. Being fully prepared and having a specific plan of action in place for when these cases come about could be the difference between whether or not you achieve the goals that you have set out to attain.  

For example, knowing that at times, you might feel like giving up, is beneficial to your success. When you accept that these feelings could from time to time arise, it’s easier for you to have a plan in place regarding what you are going to do to tackle them, clear your mind and start over.

I want this to be a tool you can use to release you from the life-limiting and defeating loops created by fear. When we use the word fear, we normally apply it to situations where we wrongly or rightly predict that we are at risk of harm. For example, standing on the edge of a tall building generates a sensation of fear and anxiety, so we become acutely aware of what could happen if we act up in those situations. We can be afraid before a job interview because we have become attached to a particular outcome and don’t want to experience rejection followed by the loss of that outcome. Remember, however, that fear usually isn’t this obvious or dramatic, but it can still be a hugely limiting factor in our lives.

When people go on a diet, they start out with good intentions and a desperate desire to improve the way they look and feel. An honorable pursuit, but why do nearly 95% of them end up not only putting back on all the weight they lost in the first place, plus an additional few pounds for good measure? The answer is fear. At the start of the diet, the pain of looking in the mirror or not being able to squeeze into their favorite jeans anymore creates low-level fear. What if I just keep getting bigger? What if I have nothing to wear to the party? What if they start calling me names at school? So, we launch the diet motivated to move our chubby body away from the fear. Then we lose a bit of weight, and the original fear subsides, but it is often replaced by a new concern. You see, we enjoy our tasty treats and take-out in front of a good movie. Suddenly, we feel like we are depriving ourselves of some of the fun bits of life we’ve enjoyed. We fear that if we carry on being strict with ourselves, we are going to be short-changed by life and have less fun. Thus begins the yo-yo diet routine that dominates the life of so many good people.

I am writing this section of the book in the business class cabin of a British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Austin, Texas and even here fear is present. I am not talking about worrying about the plane crashing or running into some scary turbulence. I have been on board for just two hours, and so far I have been offered free alcohol at least half a dozen times. I can’t drink alcohol because it has a nasty habit of trying to kill me. If you have read my book Alcohol Lied to Me, you will know that I had a near two decade-long battle with booze and I became a teetotaler about six or seven years ago. I don’t have to struggle to stay away from drinking, no part of me wants to go back to where I was, but there is an element of fear at the back of my head every time the flight attendant comes down the aisle with the trolley. I turn down a very expensive French Bordeaux and instead ask for a cheap glass of water. The northerner in me feels like I am getting ripped off—I feel like I am getting a much poorer value for my money than the guy next to me who has knocked back $100 worth of wine and brandy so far. I am 99% certain that I won’t buckle in the name of value, but I am acutely aware and afraid of that 1% still lingering in the back of my mind.

Fear is present on a daily basis and in a myriad of ways. We are taught to be careful, to listen to fear and respond accordingly, and the vast majority of society obeys this unwritten law. The result is a safer, more boring and less fulfilling life. This is the world of the Average Joe and the Average Jane—safe and steady, but beige. What I am encouraging you to do is respond to fear in a highly counter-intuitive way. Instead of seeing fear as a warning, I want you to see it as an opportunity light blinking on the dashboard of your life. Essentially, if you are afraid of it, then you must do it!

I can’t begin to tell you how many people I meet who are full of regret, and it is virtually never about the things they have done in their life. Much more common are regrets about the things they didn’t do. The last time I saw my aunty Angela, she had a coffee with my parents at their home in Darlington. I joined them all for a short while, and as I sat down, Angela was expressing her regret that she had never learned to drive. She had started to learn but got too afraid to ever put in for the test, and it just became one of those things we label shoulda, woulda, coulda. Two years previously, Angela had sadly been diagnosed with C.U.P. cancer (cancer of unknown primary origin). She was still her old lively self, but her prognosis was not great, all treatment had ultimately failed. The doctors estimated she had between six and nine months to live. Angela decided that before it became impossible, she was going to take and pass her driving test.

She never got the chance, as she died three weeks later. The moment she died, passing or failing that driving test became irrelevant; as did all the fear about taking the test in the first place. There are dozens of things that you want but don’t have because fear is preventing you from going after them. One day in the future all that fear will be rendered pointless by the same event that Angela went through, the event that no one has ever managed to avoid. What I am saying is that your ego is trying to protect you from harm by encouraging you to avoid risk by using fear as a virtual 2x4 to hit you over the head with.

Your body is like an apartment shared between two tenants. The ego and the soul, or if you prefer, the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. These are the tenants of your body. The soul is eternal and divine, it is essentially a fragment of God and it knows this for certain. It is also acutely aware that the apartment it is renting is temporary, and when the lease ends it will just move to a new place and start over. However, the ego knows that when the lease ends that’s the end of the story, its game over. This creates a sensation of blind panic for the ego, which just flat refuses to accept the situation. It kicks and screams trying to prove that it can prevent the lease from ending. Hey perhaps if you fill the apartment with more and more stuff, and then never leave so they can’t come in and dump your possessions, then perhaps the lease will continue evermore, right? The ego is so terrified of the end; it has been rendered insane by the constant thought of it.

Out of this insanity, we get all the self-limiting beliefs that hold us back.

•    Save for a rainy day.

•    What can go wrong, will go wrong.

•    She’s too hot for you; she will reject you.

•    You are not ready for your driving test.

•    You are not good enough for that promotion at work.

The ego uses the past as a reverse projector in an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Fear is liberally applied to all areas of your life with the hope that it will keep you safe, albeit completely unfulfilled. You are alive but miserable, that’s good enough. The ego doesn’t particularly care how happy you are; its primary focus is trying in vain to avoid the inevitable final act, at whatever cost.

What I am about to ask you to do is acknowledge that one of your tenants is insane, and while you can’t evict, you can decide to stop listening to his/her insane ramblings. From this point on, fear should be seen as the screams in the night of your troublesome tenant. All the predictions of doom, gloom, terror, and trauma are nothing more than a desperate illusion.

Start living in the knowledge that the only moment that exists is this one, right here and right now. The past and the future do not exist and they never will—this is it, and this is all there will ever be.

There is a percentage chance that this nineteen-year-old Boeing 777-200 aircraft will crash before I reach Austin, Texas—so should I just stop writing now just in case? No, of course not, because right here at this moment I am alive, and as long as that situation continues I have a message to deliver.

Exercise:

I want you to stop reading at this point and take a little life inventory. Grab a pen and paper and write down everything you can think of that you have ever wanted to achieve but have been prevented from doing so by fear. Perhaps you have always wanted to skydive, but can’t quite bring yourself to sign up for a jump. Maybe there is a senior position opening at work, and you have told yourself that you are not quite ready and might try again in a few years. Perhaps you have been head over heals in love with Nicola in reception for years and never done anything about it?

On a blank piece of paper draw four columns, in the first column write your goal, in the second write down how fear is preventing you from achieving this goal, in the third column write down what will happen if you continue to let fear dominate this area of your life. In the final column, I want you to imagine how you would feel if you ignored the ‘Danger, Do Not Pass’ signs hanging on the wall of your comfort zone and charged on through regardless.

One of the most positive motivational speakers that America ever produced was Zig Ziglar. He would describe the start of his day in such a beautiful way. He used to say, ‘Every morning at 6 am my opportunity clock would go off and wake me up. I don’t call it an alarm clock because that’s negative. That bell signals the start of a whole new day full of fantastic opportunities.’

Nothing happens until something moves, as the saying goes. That thing has to be you. Even the biggest companies in the world started with one man or woman and an idea. However, getting started is always the most challenging part of any venture. If you've already done the hard bit and got started on a project, and you still can't muster the required amount of motivation, then perhaps you are working on the wrong thing. But we will come onto that more, later on. First, let's deal with that pesky procrastination problem that so many suffer with.

Tips to get you moving down the road to beat procrastination.

Always start Your Day with a Plan

Planning your day is crucial as vagueness opens the door to the sorts of fears and doubts that may lead to procrastination.  Ideally, you’ll know how to create a manageable plan that reflects your core values and what's important to you. If not, at least come up with an easy schedule that states explicitly what you're going to be doing or working on each hour of the day. Attempt to produce your plan the night before so that the act of scheduling itself doesn't itself become a sort of procrastination.

Be Prepared

The Boy Scouts and Girl Guides got this one right. For the same reason as #1, above to prevent confusion that may throw you off your course. You have to start your day with all the data, tools, and materials required to achieve your work right out there in front of you.  That signifies everything: books, paper files, PC files, phone numbers, writing implements, even paper clips. It ought to all be available, organized and in perfect working order.

Note: If despite repeated tries, you're unable to show up for work prepared, that might be a sign that you have a high level of fear that's causing you to procrastinate.

Approach Your Work Without Hesitation

Remember how productivity action #1 is showing up to work on time, and productivity action #2 is getting right to work on the right stuff? While practicing those actions, attempt not to hesitate. Hesitation gives your thoughts time to wander, and if you’ve got a procrastination habit, they'll frequently walk directly towards your fears. (Now you comprehend the meaning of the proverb “he who hesitates is lost.”)  Rehearse gliding over to your desk and beginning your work with no hesitation.

Stay Calm & Carry On

Strong emotions, ricochet you off your course. They likewise make it harder for you to stay centered on the present so that you can practice the three productivity actions. Work, therefore, to keep calm as the clock ticks towards your start time. If you catch yourself feeling fear, anxiety or uncertainty, gently reassure yourself. (E.g., “I’m just going to write for 10 minutes – that’s all. Then I may take a break.”)  If necessary, put yourself in a little “trance” merely long enough for you to glide over to your desk and begin working, as our dreads are frequently strongest before we begin our work and disappear if we just persist for a couple of minutes. 

Don’t Make Your Work Harder Than It Needs To Be 

Don’t fall into the trap of presuming that procrastination is inevitable. Popular culture likes to portray the act of production as a sort of epic battle because it makes high drama, but that’s the inappropriate model to follow. Instead, you ought to approach your work with a light touch, and the experience should be enjoyable, simple, safe and fun.  If your project appears scarily insurmountable or failure is not an option, attempt breaking it down into small no, tiny chunks and working on those one at a time while brushing off, for the time being, the big picture. This sounds like petty advice, but it’s essential, and many successful, ambitious dreamers have learned to do this mechanically. (And don’t forget to have fun!)  Frequently, all the same, when our work isn’t fun, it’s because we’re fearful or panicked, either about the work itself or something else in our life. As you now know, attempting to work past that dread is frequently futile, particularly if the effort is accompanied by self-criticism. Our only correct course is to bravely face down and explore our dreads, and the conditions surrounding them. 

Even in moments of non-motivation, act as if you're incredibly motivated. This is because of a fantastic thing that behavioral scientists have discovered: that not only do our emotions order our actions, but our efforts often order our feelings.  Research has demonstrated, for example, that we don’t merely smile as a result of being pleased, we, in reality, get happier when we smile. The grin on our face is the generator of happiness rather than the reacting to it.

A smile generates a sequence of hormonal events that relaxes us and makes us feel great.  Professional sales people, who have to be “on” close to a hundred percent of the time to make their quotas, are familiar with this phenomenon: they're taught that their posture, expression, and other physical attributes impact not only their mood but their customers’.  They're taught to grin even when talking over the phone, as although the client on the other end of the line can’t see them do it, the salesperson’s voice sounds much more forceful and dynamic when she grins. Try it.

A lot of sales executives, stage actors, athletes and other peak performers formulate a personal collection of tricks, rituals, and physical and mental exercises to help themselves get and stay pumped for their work. You should try to do the same thing.  And here’s the icing on the cake, the astonishing secret that empowered individuals in every field eventually learn: that with enough practice mimicking peak performance; you'll begin experiencing the real thing more frequently. Essentially, fake it until you make it.

Let’s assume that procrastination is not a significant problem for you. If it is then that's a whole different subject matter and something for you to address independently of this book. Passengers are rarely in love with their jobs. That doesn't mean that they are not good at what they do. Some of the most qualified and experienced people in their field are not in love with what they do for a living.

My friend Brian is an airline pilot. I know, super cool, right? Well not if you ask Brian, he describes himself as a glorified bus driver. Brian and I became friends at a wedding we were both attending. The conversation started in the usual way that guys do. We asked each other what we did for a living. When he said, he flew Airbus A320's for a national carrier my eyes opened wide, and I couldn't help but exclaim 'wow, that's so impressive.' Being an astronaut or flying planes for a living is every little boy's dream, right?

Of course, I asked excitedly asked him about his career. How long he had been flying, any emergencies and finally I asked him if he still enjoys his job. His reply, 'no I hate it. But it pays good, and I am only ten years away from retirement.'

Is Brian good at his job? Yes, in fact, he is a trainer for the airline. He instructs other pilots who are looking to progress from a first officer position to captain. There is no doubt about it if you fly a plane that Brian is at the front end of you are in good hands. But is Brian motivated? Does he jump out of bed each morning and shout 'yay I am a pilot'? Absolutely Not!

The same was true of me in the latter days of my radio career. I started out in the UK media industry as a broadcaster. This is the exciting and fun side of the business, but it is also the least secure and most risky. You can get fired just because a new boss takes over the radio station and he doesn't find you amusing. Let me tell you nothing quite hurts as much as being fired for not being funny. The list of entirely subject reasons you can lose your job goes on and on. As a result of this treacherous situation, when I became a father I decided I must look for a position within the industry that came with more security and responsibility. It was apparent to me that to avoid being fired for no reason the best course of action was the become the man who did the firing.

For ten years I loved running radio stations. I took particular pleasure in finding new talent and coaching these eager individuals to be big stars in the industry. As I sit at my desk writing this, I am listening to a BBC national radio station. The news has just been read by a journalist called Liam Smedley. Liam first came to me when he was fifteen years old with the ambition to be a radio broadcaster. He was very raw and if I am honest, not very good. However, what he had was a willingness to learn and the determination to succeed. I will take that over talent every day of the week. He worked for me for six months without getting paid a single penny. I let him host the overnight show on the weekends so he could get some experience.

I worked with Liam on and off for nearly ten years. My last conversation with him was five years ago. He sat in my office and told me he had accepted a job on a tiny commercial radio station in the North East of the United Kingdom. I think he was looking for congratulations. Instead, I told him that the position was beneath him and a fast track to nothing. I explained to him that I believed that he should be aiming higher and the BBC was a better path. We have not spoken since, but it makes me extremely happy to hear this ambitious young man now working on one of the most significant and listened to radio stations in the country.

Commercial radio in the UK became more and more diluted by fear. People still in the business were watching their friends and colleagues lose their jobs at an alarming rate. Creativity, entertainment, and unique content were forced into a miserable second place by an all-out focus on sales and revenue. For the last five years of my career in radio, I was considered one of the most senior programme directors in the country. I knew what I was doing, and no matter how big your radio station was, if you put it in my care it would perform well and grow an audience. However, I was bored out of my brains. I found that more and more I had to pretend that I cared as much as I used to. I was not waking up every morning and leaping out of bed because I had a radio station to run. I knew it was time to quit and do something new. But just like Brian, I was well paid for doing a job I could do blindfolded. Admittedly it's probably more dangerous for Brian to try that though. It's difficult to give up a well-paid job in an industry where opportunities are few and far between.

All that said, you cannot have an unstoppable life if you are devoting most of your time to an activity that doesn't excite you. If you are serious about leaving the comfy carriage and all the other passenger then you have to choose a more difficult, challenging, and exciting path. Motivation is not a concern when the thing that you invest your time in is the thing that makes you nearly wet your pants with excitement. Do you have to force yourself to play soccer with the guys, or for a round of golf with your buddies at the golf club. Of course not, no motivation is required. Your income should come from a similar source. The path you follow should consume you, not because I am telling you that it must but because it is not possible for any other state to exist. If you have to force yourself to follow a particular prescribed path then you will never reach your full potential.

Back when I was in my twenties a good friend of mine came to me with a business idea. He was so enthusiastic about it; I could feel the passion and energy radiating off him as he spoke. He was one hundred percent committed to the concept, but he needed my help to get started. He wanted me to be a 50-50 partner in the venture. I won’t go into a lot of detail but let me tell you that the project involved bulk importing socks and retailing them around the United Kingdom. I turned him down; actually, I turned him down more than a dozen times in the end. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of passion for what he was proposing. I knew I couldn’t get excited about socks and I knew my purpose here in this life was not to warm the feet of my fellow man. I could have given it a go with my lukewarm mindset and done my best, but I knew even back then that the most we could achieve would be something between mediocre success and abject failure.

This is why I am continually telling people that if they are currently doing a job that they don’t love then their first mission is to change that situation and as soon as possible. You will never get rich by pushing a bolder up a hill for someone else. If you don’t jump out of bed in the morning and run into work, then you my friend are in the wrong line of work. Sadly most people realize this but get trapped in the loop of making ends meet and never have the courage to change the thing that is making them the most miserable.

Yes, you need desire by the bucket load if you are going to become a wealthy man or woman. You need to be working on your passion, a project that burns in your heart and soul like a raging inferno. There is a monumental difference between what you want in life and what you are driven to achieve. A burning desire is not the same as what you wish for. You might wish you will win the lottery, but surely you can see that can’t be the whole point of your life. A burning desire is not the same as what you want, you may aspire to own a Bentley, but if you get it will it mean your life is complete? A burning desire is something that it is a MUST for you. You cannot live without it.

Just imagine, if you are in a desert now, it’s so insanely hot, and you have been exposed to the blazing sun for so long that you know you can only survive a little longer in these conditions, death is approaching fast. Suddenly you see a man on a camel approaching, and he is holding a bottle of water. You straight away scramble to him and ask for water. Now, what if that person doesn’t want to give you his water? Would you accept no for an answer, would you shrug and say ‘oh ok, no problem’? Or would you do whatever it took to get some of his water?

Let me give you another example and make this clear for you. Assume that you don’t know how to swim. While on vacation you go out for a walk in the middle of the night and you accidentally fall into the deep end of the swimming pool. You wouldn’t shrug and think ‘it would be nice to get out now.' You would kick and scream as if your life depended on it. Getting out of that pool would be a burning desire; you would do anything at that moment to get the outcome in your mind.

Many people want to quit their day job and pursue their dreams, but most of them will never get anywhere near achieving it because it is not a must for them. If something is a must for you, you will do whatever it takes to get it. This is the burning desire that you need if you want to succeed in your life. Success never comes automatically; you will need to spend a lot of time and effort on it. If you are serious about committing all your energy to this goal in your life, then carry on with this book. If you can’t get yourself to one hundred percent committed then stop now, because you are just wasting both our time. Getting the Fuck You Attitude I talked about earlier in the book is a bit like pregnancy; you can’t be half-hearted about having a baby and decide just to get a little bit pregnant.

The concepts behind what people learn at Unstoppable University are a binary proposition, you either want an exceptional life or you don’t. There is no position between driver and passenger; you have to choose one and one alone.

I was going to close this chapter there, but I am aware that to do so may leave some readers with the wrong message. I understand that stating that you have to do what you are excited about may by default suggests that doing tasks that don't thrill you have no value. This is not true; there can be no argument that members of the armed forces get something of value from the discipline of making their bed and diligently polishing their boots every morning. 

It is not all about the task, and if you are the sort of person who refuses to do anything unless it excites them, then you are just as likely to be a passenger as anyone else. Motivation, like almost everything of value, comes from within, regardless of the task at hand. It is entirely acceptable to work hard and diligently at a job you don't particularly like, as long you have a result in mind that leads you to a place you want to be.

You will find many powerfully motivated people in any industry who don't particularly enjoy what they are doing. However, they have a strength of character to ensure that they do everything to the best of their ability. These people are not waiting for hurrahs from colleagues, financial bonuses from bosses, even congratulations from spouses or parents. They are laser focused on their goals because they have a fire within.  This chapter suggests that this fire can be kindled, that it’s not something a person is born with, necessarily. It’s true that our early life experiences can give us ample self-motivation, such as experiencing discrimination, being told consistently that we can’t do something or other, feeling the hurt of being neglected or ignored because of our family’s social status, and any number of other slights that we felt when younger. Many people use this ―edge throughout their lives to prove to the world that they are better than they were told they could be expected to be. If you don’t have that type of edge already, don’t panic. You don’t necessarily need to feel slighted to achieve what you want to in life. You might have come from a very loving family in which you were affirmed throughout your childhood and adolescence.

Great! You still have a life to live and goals to attain. How can you get the unquenchable fire of self-motivation that others have? Perhaps you have heard of the technique of visualization. It has been proven to improve performance in everyone from Olympic athletes to concert violinists. In a nutshell, as you reflect on where you want to go, who you want to go there with, and what your result will look like, you can create a compelling mental picture of what the Big Prize will be in your life. Then, you need to summon these images in your life on a regular basis to remind yourself of what you are working toward and why it is all worth it. A helpful way to understand this practice is to consider it a mental rehearsal of excellence in any given area of life. This type of mental imagery can continually refresh your motivation as you reach high for lofty goals. To get to where you have an understandable picture of where you want to be, the excellence you want to achieve, you need to set aside some time to formulate this. That could be a weekend away from the noise or continual thoughts over several months time, as the picture comes into focus.

What would such excellence look like for you?

A marriage that brings deep joy to your life?

A family that functions well and is a lot of fun to be around?

An income that enables you to be comfortable and give to others? Living in a place that you have long desired to live?

Working in a particular occupation that you are sure that you’re geared for? 

As you prepare this mental rehearsal for life, it should have some connection to reality. This has been mentioned earlier in the eBook, but you should probably not dream of being an NBA star if your height is 5’5 (1.65 meters). This type of visualization will be wasted effort. At the same time, don’t always think in ―realistic terms.

Dream a bit, believe that you can accomplish more than it seemed you were destined for when you grew up in the wrong part of town, in an apartment building with a single mother, etc.      

Once you have this mental image of where you want to be in 25 years or 25 weeks, you now need to think carefully through what it will take to get there. Will you need to attend college, graduate school, law school, medical school? Hey, maybe you need to sign up at Unstoppable University (seamless plug there).

Rehearse these steps mentally as well, anticipating success. Rehearse walking arm in arm with a handsome husband, walking across a platform to receive a degree, being handed the keys to the corner office. Whatever applies to your dream, picture it first. This will not only have an impact on your conscious mind, but psychologists also say that it works on your unconscious mind as well. Thanks to that, your unconscious mind will push you towards your image without you even being aware of it. That gives you two parts of the brain working in concert to achieve your objectives.

That’s a great place to be. Researchers have found that active visualization tricks the mind in a way, making it believe that what you have envisioned has occurred already. This has led some to dub this phenomenon as ―psychology as destiny. Then, as you move towards your aim, consciously and unconsciously, something else begins to grow in your heart and soul: motivation. As you believe that what you have envisioned will occur, you become motivated to make it a reality. This technique, of course, can apply to the shortest term objective that you can imagine, even something that is scheduled to happen in the next five minutes.

Run a movie of what you want a particular date to be like, focusing on what you can control because there are two parties involved. Think about when you want to arrive, what you want your vehicle to look and smell like, what you want to wear, what you will say at specific points during the outing, what restaurant will have the best atmosphere for your date, etc. This type of mental rehearsal will produce a surprising amount of motivation to wash your car, to groom yourself, to do research on local restaurants. It’s a little surprising how powerful these brief ―movies of what we want to come can be.  Of course, this ties in with everything that has been covered in this eBook. When minor irritations threaten the unfolding of your anticipated movie, you brush them aside and welcome the unexpected. You meet any challenge to your plans with willpower and relish the chance to show self-discipline and to grow in the process. 

As you advance through the date (to stay with our example), your motivation grows as you see the time together unfold much as you rehearsed. Your motivation will increase the closer you get to your goal. Many times, it will put you over the top in terms of meeting your aims. Imagine applying such a powerful technique to all areas of your life: mentally rehearsing your next run or workout, mentally anticipating the next project at work, mentally preparing for driving a new car off the lot to celebrate your huge raise and promotion.  People do succeed without such preparation, but more and more studies are showing that this type of visualization helps the vast majority of people who practice it. In order to do that, you will need some quiet time and space.

One classic example of this type of visualization as a way to persevere through all of the ups and downs of life on the way to the Big Prize is the story of actor Jim Carrey. When he was having a hellacious time breaking into Hollywood, he used to spend hours and hours sitting on a hillside that overlooked Los Angeles. As he thought for a long time about what he wanted to accomplish in that city, he set a target to work towards. Shortly thereafter, he wrote a check out to himself for $10 million, his goal for payment on a future movie role. He carried this check with him to all of his auditions, both successful and unsuccessful. It should be noted that Carrey came from an extremely lower-middle-class background if that. Eventually, Carrey landed smaller roles, then bigger ones, then was finally paid $10 million for a single movie. His check to himself was now able to be cashed. He used that check as a continuing motivation, which came out of many hours of thought.  You might need to spend a long stretch of time thinking through your goals in life, too, and then visualize the various steps to get there. The first step, apparently, is carving out think time, something we do less and less of in our Wired Age. The more you visualize various steps to success in your life, however you define that, the more real it becomes to you. Again, this does not mean that life will proceed precisely like the movie that you have created in your mind,

but in specific instances when you can control your actions, your fantasy and reality can entirely meet, as it did for Carrey.

You can say ―I quit in a forceful way to your boss precisely as you planned it, once you have saved the money to invest in a restaurant franchise. You can propose to the one you love just as you visualized it, down to the tiniest details. You can take that degree in your hands and dance a jig, just as you planned to for years, even though no one in your family had ever finished college. Without a vivid picture of what we want to achieve, we can plan for days, even years, and never make a tangible move towards our dream. Whatever the end goal, a visualized end helps immeasurably to prod a person into action.  People who practice this type of visualization make statements like: ―All right, now I see where I need to go. I believe it’s possible. I need to take action tomorrow to move towards this objective. 

Visualization, obviously, is not enough to physically move our body into action, but the likelihood of response increases exponentially when an outcome has already been visualized. Another benefit of Big Prize visualization is that it reinforces how far we have to go to reach our destination, which also has a highly motivating effect.  Here is another concrete example of the power of visualization: let’s say that you visualize winning salesman of the year in your company, yet you have difficulty speaking without a stutter. As you visualize taking the certificate from your supervisor’s hand for winning the award and seeing on your bank balance a $1,000 bonus, you quickly begin to think of what you need to do to get to that happy ending. You admit for the first time that you will need intensive speech therapy to become an effective salesperson. Without the visualization of grabbing that prize for top honors, you could muddle through sales presentations with a stutter, and earn a low income, for the rest of your career. Visualization has a power that presents itself both immediately and over a long-term, perfect for reaching small targets and eventually grasping the Big Prize. Visualization done well engages emotions and the mind, which adds a powerful element to motivation. Emotions can play a major role in psyching ourselves up to do even the hard things as we advance towards achieving our dreams. You also will need emotion to see obstacles as challenges to be overcome, and to bear down with your iron-strong willpower.

To return to the Carrey example: he did not just lounge on a California hillside and dream. He worked very hard to improve himself as an actor, asked many questions of others further along than he was, observed the best actors plying their craft and went to innumerable auditions. His visualized success enabled him to keep his motivation high during the many years before he made it big. You will discover if you look at the lives of successful people that almost none of them were an ―overnight success. There were many hours, perhaps 10,000, invested before these people made a fortune or burst onto the public scene.  Visualization grows internally not externally. Motivation, which burns brightest and longest, a central tenant of the Unstoppable mindset. 

How correctly should visualization be done?

Here are several bits of advice on how to meld goals and visualization:

Write your goals down somewhere. As you do this, you will often begin to visualize right away, which can give you a healthy dose of clarity about what you want. Write these goals with a positive angle and include a lot of detail so that your small targets and large aims will be measurable. Include deadlines to further sharpen your focus.

Review these goals often. Taking a look at them frequently will help you to shape your movie and break down your objectives into smaller pieces. 

As part of your visualization preparation, read about people who have achieved enormous goals. Find a few choice quotes that can help you on your way. Who knows? They might inspire you on a day when you have not met your smaller targets and feel like giving up. Facebook can be a good source for this if you have friends who are also striving to make something out of their lives

As you begin to fill out your mini-movie, which can include a scene from later in the day or 40 years from now, make sure that you include plenty of physical action in your mental picture. If you envision buying a particular item that you’ve long coveted, picture yourself walking into the store, locating the object, walking to the cashier and paying for the thing. This is just one example; tailor your physical action in visualization to your specific aims.

Add other detail to your movie, including sounds, smells, types of light, even individual people. Those who practice visualization best like to force themselves to use all of their senses. They might start their visualization with very slight movement, such as leaves rustling under a tree, then moving to a view of a given race course, with the smell of freshly cut grass invading the scene. Try your best to include all of your senses for the best visualization experience. This will take effort and time

Add not only physical actions and other sensory experiences, but put emotions in your clip as well. If anger is called for, picture yourself and imagine your feelings as that anger is expressed. If joy is the central emotion in your visualization, place a smile to your face and laughter in your heart as you tell your colleagues that you have been transferred to a different (preferred) division in the company. 

If any adverse elements enter your movie, cut them out. You have enough of those in real life for them to intrude on your visualization. Keep your scene free of negative people, emotions, and other elements, unless it adds to the triumph of the final stage. We don’t usually want to visualize anything negative, however. That is not the point of this type of exercise. 

With your visualization composed, practice it every day. Take a few minutes to close your eyes and walk through your film—standing at the wedding altar, spending time with great friends, relaxing on a beach after earning your first million dollars. You can add another fun element to this by talking through your visualization, lending an exciting narrative to the images: ―I am crossing the finish line in my first marathon, bone tired but feeling a broad sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, deeper than I’ve ever felt before. 

As you apply these steps above pick the right time for maximum effect. Visualization will not work as well when you are negotiating traffic on a busy street or cooking dinner or watching your child’s tennis match.

Visualization requires a certain level of concentration and calm so that you can see clearly and add narrative without someone thinking you have lost your mind!  Here are some more specific pointers on making the most of your time for visualization:

Get comfortable. It will be a challenge to relax and visualize a tremendous future result if your body is uncomfortable. All you will be thinking about is how must your knee hurts or your back aches while you are in a particular position. You don’t want that. Pick out a favorite chair or couch, try a yoga position, whatever it takes to put your mind on visualization, not lack of comfort.

Slow your breathing down. You can do this very quickly by taking deep breaths. This leads to a quiet calm and unhurried visualization. You don’t need a lot of time to practice visualization, but you don’t want to be in a hurry, either. Five minutes is probably not enough time, for example.

Relax. You can do this by thinking of one body part at a time, from head to toe, or try to relax all body parts simultaneously as you become more comfortable and breathe slowly. 

Clear your mind. This will necessitate getting your thought off of your present concerns. This can take the most extended period as you warm up for visualization. It can take several minutes to empty your mind of your current checking account balance, the errand you need to run, the item you forgot on your grocery list. Take as long as is necessary to empty your brain of one bunch of random thoughts and replace it with your film. 

Repeat your edited visualization frequently, perhaps for 10 or more minutes, depending on the length of your movie. Beyond a few minutes of action will be tough to fill out in any visualization, so even if it is repeated several times, you can probably have a great visualization session in 10-30 minutes.  Motivation does come from thought, and visualization is a proven technique to keep motivation high, even when the going gets tough. As you take time frequently to think about where you are going in life, in pursuit of your goals, you will again become motivated to achieve them. 

If you have no plan to reach your goals and have never even thought of what goal attainment will look like, it can be straightforward to have your motivation waver when you seem to be losing ground towards your desired life. When you begin to feel as if you are falling short, that’s the critical moment when your entire self-image can come caving in.  Keep your motivation high through extended thought and visualization, and you will have a greater probability of hitting your small targets and building self-confidence.   

People look around at the world, and they see dishonest and unscrupulous individuals successfully climbing the ladder. Yes, it is true that you can escape the passenger cabin of life without integrity, but you are reducing your chances of staying at the top for the long term by a significant margin.

Does integrity matter when it pertains to your success? Ask Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton or Harvey Weinstein.  The problem with integrity is similar to that of virginity; you only get one chance to lose it. When it's gone, it's gone. Think about it, when Bill Clinton lied to the nation on TV did he instantly become a less talented politician or more ineffective speaker? Of course not, nothing changed with Bill, he was still the same man and politician he had always been. The problem was the opinion of other people turned. Suddenly everything got a little bit more difficult for Mr. Clinton. Falling on matters of integrity is like throwing a handful of grit into a petrol engine. Sure you may still chug along at a slow pace, but that engine will never run as well as it did before.

When your integrity is shot then clients no longer trust that you are out to do good work for them. People are reluctant to do deals with you, everything you say and do is put under the microscope, and you can get away with a lot less. Yes, you can get to the top without character, but you are climbing the mountain without a parachute or safety net. A fall is coming; it's not a matter of if but when and it will be dramatic and painful.

It is not only careers and business that can suffer greatly from a lack of integrity. Relationships are also prime contenders for damage. Daniela is my soul mate, she is the most beautiful part of my life, and next year we will get married. There is no doubt at all in my mind that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I consider myself a fortunate man to have her by my side. However, because life is always in balance, you have to be aware that if you accept such love into your life, you must also take the risk of what comes with it. While Daniela and I love each very much, the mistake would be to assume that we have achieved permanency in that state. Having someone in your life like that is like owning a priceless china vase that you must always carry with you. Ideally, you would lock that vase away somewhere safe where it can't get damaged, but life doesn't work like that.

I travel a lot, at least once a month. It would only take one act of infidelity while I am alone in a hotel somewhere on the other side of the world for the most priceless part of my life to be shattered beyond repair. Both Daniela and I both have the power to keep safe our vase or toss it about and risk destroying it. That is what makes the relationship so valuable.

What is integrity?

I believe it is treating people with love and kindness wherever you go and whether they are aware of your actions or not.

I very rarely quote religious texts because doing so is open to a lot of negativity. However, there is one aspect of religion that is common to all faiths of the world. It doesn't matter whether you are a Catholic, Protestant, Jew or Muslim there is a part of your core theological teachings that is also present in every other faith system you care to name. It is called The Golden Rule and it tells you everything you need to know about acting with integrity.

Christianity    All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

      Matthew 7:1

Confucianism    Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.

      Analects 12:2

Buddhism    Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

      Udana-Varga 5,1

Hinduism    This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.

      Mahabharata 5,1517

Islam    No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

      Sunnah

Judaism    What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.

      Talmud, Shabbat 3id

Taoism    Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.

      Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien

Zoroastrianism    That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself.

      Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5

Fundamentally I believe integrity comes down to two things, how you treat other people and what you do when nobody is watching. Let me give you a dilemma to chew on: If you were presented with a magical button, and you were told that if you press it, you will instantly become wealthier than you ever could imagine. However, there is a catch. Another random person's life will get dramatically worse as a result of your decision to press the button. They will lose their wealth, health, and happiness in the same instance that you gain your new fortune. Of course, you have to consider that it may happen to someone you know and love but in all honesty, it's a one in six billion chance, so it's unlikely. Would you press the button?

What if nobody but you would ever know you pressed it?

You and I may not press the button. However, there are countless people who would, and most of them won't admit it. People fall over on issues of integrity because there is too much ego and not enough soul present in their life. They believe in the illusion of separation. At first glance, it does appear that we are billions of separate entities all struggling through life. This is a bit like the branches of a tree believing they are independent and fighting with each other as a result. Not knowing that any damage they do will be an act of self-harm.

There is no separation, from anything or anyone. We are the same, and this can be easily proved by science of all things. Under an electron microscope, we are all comprised of the same material; I don’t just mean human beings, I mean everything. People, animals, the earth, the sea, everything is made of tiny subatomic particles of energy vibrating at a specific frequency. Insisting that we are separate from each other is similar to taking a cup of water out of the ocean and saying ‘this water is no longer the ocean.' You may be the correct in that a cup of water cannot be ‘labeled’ as an ocean but it’s quite clear that the separation is only a temporary illusion. As soon as you pour the water back into the sea, it once again becomes the ocean, but the question is; did it ever stop being the ocean?

In reality, we are not separate from anything. Our earthly bodies just create the illusion of individuality. To give you a simple example of what I mean; imagine you have a giant ball of modeling clay. You pull a chunk of the material from the ball and make a little figurine of a soldier. You keep repeating the process until all the clay is used up and you have two armies of toy soldiers in front of you. In a mock battle played out on your modeling table, army A destroys army B. This is the illusion of separation; in reality, of course, all the soldiers were mostly the same piece of clay. There are no winners or losers of this battle because at the end of the game you scrunch both armies back into one giant ball of clay again, ready for a new adventure but in a different form.

Once you buy this principle, it miraculously changes your view of everything in the world. There can be no such thing as strangers; we are as one, connected to all others and them in turn to us. If there were a physical or visible connection rather than just a subconscious one and we directly felt the pain, we inflicted on others, how different a place would the world be? It’s easy to see that fear-based beliefs such as racism could not exist at all, but also when you pause and consider it further you realize that traditional religion would also cease to be.

If a physical connection would make the world a better place, why didn’t God create us with one?

Don’t you see that is the whole point of life! In spirit our souls are all interconnected as one, there is no separation. Everyone is equal; nobody is better or worse, weaker or stronger, more prosperous or poorer; we are everything and know everything. Our existence is perfect; we can’t experience anything but pure love because we inhabit an environment where negative behavior can’t possibly exist. All acts are committed against ourselves, and we are acutely aware of that. Hatred, jealousy, and aggression are instantly rendered redundant by our oneness. 

People get very confused about the concept of karma, especially on social media. They talk about karma as though there is a deity looking down on us whose primary objective is to hand out punishments to the people who do us harm. This is to miss the point entirely. There is no external force monitoring our behavior. All harmful acts we do unto others are things that we do unto ourselves.

People acting without integrity get caught out not because the universe insists that they are punished but rather because it is the automatic and logical conclusion of their action. Life is a big boomerang; what you throw out there is coming back to you.

If you treat people with disrespect and use them to make a fast buck when their back is turned, guess what sort of energy is on its way toward you and at speed?

They say you can't love someone else until you first learn to love yourself. Integrity is the ultimate act of self-love. When you act with character and in the best interests of other people the vibrational frequencies, you send out into the universe harmonize and return to you the same generosity of spirit.

Unstoppable Legend - Steve Jobs

Jobs is widely regarded as the most significant business leader of all time. By the time he died of cancer in October 2011, Apple was the most valuable company in the world. His one-of-a-kind approach to business made the Apple brand stand out above its competition-- and above every organization in any area. He reached the height of success in the physical world, but there is so much more to be obtained from the human experience.

Jobs possessed the unusual capacity to focus like a laser on his objectives. "I've freed up some great engineers who could work on new mobile gadgets, and eventually got it right when we moved on to iPhones and the iPad," he said. "This ability to concentrate saved Apple." At the time, Apple was attempting to make an incalculable number of gadgets. Jobs reduced that down to just four: one desktop computer and one portable device each for both the consumer and the professional.

The word focus can refer to calibrating the lens of a camera to center on sharply on one object. We can cultivate this capability figuratively. Focus is a fundamental tool for success. Few have it. Even less have the ultimate success focus.

Steve Jobs was the best CEO ever, so it's no surprise that he gave the most-quoted commencement address of all time at Stanford University in 2005. Here is an excerpt:

I was lucky, I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation-- the Macintosh-- a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the business with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30, I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down-- that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me-- I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company called Pixar, and fell in love with a fantastic woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. Laurene and I have a beautiful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

There always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself-- to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't. Well, you know what? It's been that way with [almost] every major project at Apple, too. ... Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for this iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one Monday morning, I said, "I just don't love this. I can't convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we've ever done." And we pushed the reset button. We went through all of the zillions of models we 'd made and ideas we 'd had. And we ended up creating what you see here as the iPhone, which is dramatically better. We had to go to the team and say, "All this work you've [done] for the last year, we're going to have to throw it away and start over, and we're going to have to work twice as hard now because we don't have enough time." And you know what everybody said? "Sign us up."

Steve Jobs shows us that living an unstoppable life has very little to do with talent. Steve wasn't a programmer, a designer or an engineer. He is most often referred to as 'a visionary.' What is a visionary? Well, put simply it is someone who sees possibilities. Steve Jobs saw opportunities and used pure passion and persistence to harness the skills and talent of other people to materialize his dreams. Steve Jobs is the very epitome of an unstoppable ninja.

1 Optimism:

We've already discussed why this is important and it's very self-evident when you speak to any of the world's biggest achievers. They all have a sense of optimism and happiness.

Have you ever wondered why the rich seem to get richer while the poor never seem to be able to catch a break? Passengers devolve themselves of responsibility in this area by claiming that the system is stacked against them and the rich get rich because they are corrupt, well connected or more probably… both! This judgment of what is going on is highly unlikely to be the real reason. In truth like attracts like and your vibrational state about anything will strongly dictate your ongoing experience.

My advice is always to walk around with a sneaking suspicion that the world is out to do you good. The reason my brother calls me a lucky son of a gun (or worse) is because I expect good things to happen to me on a regular basis and they do. Of course, bad things still happen to me but as we have previously discussed there is no such thing as a ‘bad’ thing or a failure in life. There are only valuable lessons. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it when life sucks but I am starting to understand the value in these moments. I kick and scream a lot less than I used to when I was younger, let’s just say that.

2 Risk Taking:

Likewise, successful unstoppable people appear to be risk-takers. Higher risks have higher rewards, and if you don't try, you won't know. There is a bell curve here though: if you're too prone to risk-taking, then it can go the other way. There is a monumental difference between a calculated risk and just plain stupidity. Gambling the mortgage money on red or black at the casino is high risk, but it is also foolish. The sort of risk we are talking about at Unstoppable University is investing in yourself or taking a chance on an endeavor that scares you a little. Perhaps you doubt you are ready to be promoted to partner at your firm. However, instead of cowering away from the walls of your comfort zone, instead, you assess the risk and charge on through regardless. It doesn’t mean you will get the outcome you want, but you have 100% better chance of getting it than the passenger who decided he or she wasn’t ready and did nothing.

3 A ‘F*ck You’ Attitude:

The Unstoppable ‘Fuck You’ Attitude is the ability to take hits and bounce back harder and faster. It's what gets you to keep trying even when things look bad and when people are telling you to give up. If you don't give up, then you haven't failed.

Remember Thomas Edison took ten thousand attempts to invent the electric light bulb. Throughout the journey people around him thought he was crazy and told him that what he was trying to do was impossible. Even after he had successfully invented the incandescent light, journalists focused on the negative rather than the positive. They quizzed him whether he was ashamed to have taken so long and to have failed so many times. He famously replied that he had not failed at all but rather had successfully found ten thousand ways not to create electric light. Primarily he was looking the young journalist in the eye and saying ‘fuck you, my friend.'

When you step out of the agreed-upon way of doing things or strive to exceed your fellow man you cause them a form of psychological pain. Human beings confronted with fear have very few choices. The path of least resistance is to try and make it go away. If you are efficacious in your attempts, then you will appear to be raising yourself above others around you. They could, of course, drag themselves up to your level but it seems to be much easier to try and pull you back down the totem pole of life. Remember, passengers are inherently lazy. Passengers on the train of life only want to sit on their fat asses and spectate. ‘Doing’, in any form is always the last resort. 

4 Creativity:

Creativity is a crucial skill for coming up with new ideas and solutions to problems. Creativity tends to be highest when you're most relaxed, so make sure you are regularly taking time out to chill, and you should increase your creative juices.

The solution to most problems doesn't involve the discovery of some new element, technology or mathematical equation. It requires merely somebody to stop thinking like everyone else and see the issue from a slightly different angle. 

Henry Ford had a huge ambition, he was determined to build motor vehicles that the majority of people could afford. He said, "When I'm through, about everybody will have one".

However, there was a challenge that he had to solve to make his fantasy a reality. He had to discover a way to construct automobiles more efficiently to lower the cost so the general public could afford one.

Ford had been trying to increase his factories' performance for years. Step-by-step his simplifying technique got better but he was still constructing vehicles like everybody else - one at a time, and it was not good enough to make his ambition a reality.

He kept considering how he might increase output to lower the cars cost, and one day in 1913, Ford got a notion that drastically changed the whole approach.

The question that changed everything

Ford was monitoring the assembly of the vehicles when he thought to himself that employees were moving to the tasks that needed to be accomplished and spending additional time on that particular movement. So he asked himself, how might the projects come to the employees to save time.

This very important question changed everything.

By thinking differently than before, Ford noticed an opportunity that resulted in a fantastic innovation. This innovation reduced the time it needed to construct a car from more than TWELVE hours to just 2 and an one-half hours.

This idea introduced assembly-line production to the world and started off a manufacturing transformation. Ford was able to make his goal of "putting the world on wheels" a reality and on June 4, 1924, the 10-millionth Model T rolled off the Highland Park production line.

By asking, how can the process come to the workers, Ford got the idea of using an assembly line to produce the vehicles more productively and this absolutely had terrific impact.

The power of thinking differently

This account of Henry Ford is a fantastic illustration of how one question can have a considerable impact. How stopping and paying attention can make dreams become a reality.

The good news is that we are all capable of formulating fantastic ideas that can change our daily lives, grow our business, improve our customer's lives and even the entire world.

Creativity can strike out of nowhere, nevertheless, if you just wait for it you will most likely not get much accomplished.

So, take action today and start exercising your creativity.

5 Resourcefulness:

Unstoppable men and women are resourceful, meaning that they can make the most of the options they have available to them. Like Tony Stark who builds the Iron Man suit while in a cave. The trick to resourcefulness is to overcome 'functional fixedness.' Stop thinking of things as tools and think of them as materials. You don't just have a hammer: you have a hammer, you have metal, and you have wood. Those are a lot more resources around than most people see.

You would not believe how many inventions started out as a solution to an entirely unrelated problem. Take for instance the story of how post-it notes were invented:

No one set out to invent Post-It notes. Instead, in 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M Company, developed a unique, low-tack glue that would stick to things but also could be repositioned numerous times. He was trying to invent a super-strong adhesive, but he created a super-weak one instead.

At that time, it was a solution without a problem! Dr. Silver had an innovation, but he did not know what to do with it. For the next five years, he pushed his new invention within 3M, but nobody could think of a way to use it.

In 1974, Art Fry, a colleague of Dr. Silver's at 3M, was performing in his church choir. He became irritated when the book markings he used to mark his place in his hymnal kept falling out.

He recalled Dr. Silver's adhesive and tried some on his bookmarks. It worked incredibly! The markers stayed in place, but he could relocate and reattach them easily without harming any of the pages. The rest, as they say, is history ...

Art Fry came up with the concept of using Dr. Silver's glue on little notes. 3M launched the product under the name "Press 'n Peel" in 1977 in 4 cities. Sadly, it was not an immediate success.

After a sufficient product test in Boise, Idaho, 3M released the renamed Post-it ® Notes across the country in 1980. They quickly turned into one of the most popular office products in the world. And that original canary yellow color? That was an accident, too! The 3M team that first developed the product used residual canary-yellow scrap paper from a nearby laboratory.

6 Networking:

Very few people genuinely succeed to a considerable extent solely on their own. You need to be willing to put yourself out there and to form a team with people who can help you make your ambitions a reality.

If you an introvert like me you will have to force yourself to get out there and meet people. You never know what a chance meeting will lead to. Back in 2013, I was asked by a German author if I would mentor him and help him get his book published. He wanted to fly to England, where I was living at the time and spend a weekend with me so that I could give him some intensive one on one coaching. The part of me that just wants to go home, close the door and sit quietly with the little furry zoo of rescue animals that share our home was shouting very loudly to decline the request. However, something made me agree, and a week later I found myself driving to the airport to pick up a very excited future author from Germany called Jurgen.

We had an enjoyable weekend together, and Jurgen went on to secure a publishing deal in the homeland. But the point of the story is not my German friend's success, but rather what happened to me as the result of one little thing he said to me on the final day of our time together. We were having lunch at a nice restaurant in the city center and wrapping up our conversation over coffee. Jurgen mentioned a German website he had seen online that had impressed him. He suggested I take a look and see if I could replicate the idea for an international audience. A few months later I casually looked at the website he was referring to, and it gave me an idea. An idea that today generates $10,000 of revenue for me every month, regardless of whether I work on the project or not. The moral of the story is clear to see.

7 Passion:

Passion is crucial to success. If you want to live an unstoppable life then you need to pick something you love doing so that you feel as though you're never really working – you're just doing what you were born to do. This will come across in everything you do. It will even make you gesticulate more which is the secret to appearing charismatic.

People don't buy products; they buy people. If you are in love with what you do for a living, this will become an infectious quality. Want proof? Watch the TV show Shark Tank (or Dragon's Den in the UK); you will see countless people come on with business ideas of average quality but pitched with enthusiasm and passion. Often the investors will outright say 'I am investing in the business because of you.' It is equally observable that better quality ideas are wholly overlooked because of the half-hearted pitch of the hopeful entrepreneur.

8 Gratitude:

If you were living the life of your dreams already, how would you know it? Appreciation means being thankful for what you have already, and many successful people count their blessing each morning as a matter of habit to encourage this trait.

In my Law of Attraction University course, I tell students that we will attract into our life the things we think about and focus on the most. This is a law, just like the law of gravity. By that I mean, it operates whether you believe in it or not. With that in mind wouldn't you want more of what you are thankful for? (I think I already know the answer to that!) Remember that when you are purposely aware of your gifts in life and are thankful for them, you are focusing more clearly on what you do desire in your life - and are drawing in more of those items into your life.

Gratitude will have a quick impact in all areas of your life, including your relationships. We learn the significance of saying "thank you" as little children. We are taught that habit because it is "good manners." This childhood lesson is incredibly practical. Think about those people that you know who are most supportive of you - and let you know it. How do you feel about them? Does their appreciation positively impact your relationship with them? Undoubtedly it does! Be thankful for people, their contributions, their abilities and their actions - and ensure you let them know how you feel.

Gratitude makes rule one (having an optimistic outlook) much more natural as an aspect of your daily life. It is difficult to be cynical about your life when you are thinking about things for which you are grateful. One of the quickest ways to improve your emotional state or expectation of life is to count your blessings. My 421 Journal is a great way to do this on a daily basis; there is a video explaining all about it at my website.

Gratitude improves problem-solving skills. Frequently we look at problem-solving with a very jaded perspective. "Something is amiss. We have barriers in our way. Then, we have to put in energy to fix it." Alternatively, when we consider what we are thankful for we open our minds up to brand-new opportunities and connections. We also enter a problem-solving scenario with a viewpoint of improvement and possibilities instead of challenge or problem.

Gratitude helps us avoid giving events labels. Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Behind every problem lies an opportunity. Being thankful for our situation - even though we do not like every little thing about it - enables us to be grateful for the possibility to learn something new. For example, 2011 was one of the worst years of my life, everything that could go wrong did go wrong that year. It sucked big time, and I hated pretty much every second of it. However, the things I learned about myself that year wholly transformed my life. I believe a good deal of my success today is directly attributable to the horrors of 2011.

9 Exercise:

Exercise boosts health, intelligence, mood, and it teaches you to stick to your goals. Billionaire Richard Branson gets up at 5:00 am daily to start on the right note: by exercising. He's an avid runner and bicyclist. The Virgin Group founder has completed several marathons and has his own charitable triathlon.

Branson says that exercising helps significantly boosts his productiveness and has helped him get to where he is these days.

" I absolutely can accomplish twice as much by keeping fit. It keeps the mind performing effectively.", Says Branson.

Science shows that exercise can help you become Unstoppable too.

A. Improves memory and cognitive accuracy

If you feel like work is a hassle, but can't identify what is off, working out can help considerably. Exercising releases brain chemicals essential to better memory, focus, and mental intensity, according to Harvard Medical School's journal.

When you exercise, your gray matter discharges a chemical called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), which boosts brain capability.

B. Reduces stress

If stress is a daily part of your life, know that you are among many across the country. Seventy percent of adults in the U.S. say they cope with stress or anxiety every day, reports the Anxiety and Depression Affiliation of America.

Studies demonstrate that physical activity, like a brisk walk, run, game of basketball, or time put in at the gym, will help you better manage stress by releasing endorphins.

A research company based at Princeton University found that physical activity actually "restructures the brain to ensure that its reaction to stress is decreased and anxiety is less likely to disrupt normal brain function."

For Branson, exercising regularly "keeps the endorphins running."

C. Promotes creativity

Even a short stroll gets your artistic juices flowing.

Stanford researchers found that the act of walking raised an individual's creative thinking by an average of 60 percentage points.

So if you're stuck on a work problem, take a couple of minutes to get moving. You'll be increasing your efficiency the way Branson does.

10 Meditation:

Tim Ferris interviews some of the most successful people in the world on his podcast and something they almost all have in common is that they meditate.

Meditation brings the brainwave patterning into an alpha state that stimulates restorative healing. The mind emerges as fresh, delicate and beautiful. It purifies and nourishes you from inside and soothes you, whenever you feel overloaded, uncertain, or psychologically shut down. With regular practice of meditation:

• Stress and anxiety reduces
• Emotional durability improves
• Creativity improves
• Joy and happiness surges
• Intuition develops
• Gain clarity and confidence
• Challenges lessen

Meditation hones the consciousness by gaining purpose and expands through relaxation. A sharp mind without expansion creates tension, anger, and irritation. An expanded awareness without sharpness can result in lack of action/progress

The equilibrium of a sharp mind and an expanded consciousness delivers precision. Meditation makes you aware - that your internal mindset ascertains your happiness and effectiveness in life. All that sounds lovely, but I have to admit that I am not very good at meditation in the traditional sense. My mind is always racing at a mile a minute, and while this is very good for creative thinking, it can lead one to worry and stress more than is necessary or helpful.

As you know, I am an all or nothing sort of guy so you won't be surprised at the lengths I have gone to in an attempt to master the art of meditation. Including traveling to a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Nepal. I assumed that if men who had dedicated their whole lives to stilling the mind and achieving enlightenment couldn't help me, then nobody could. Of course, I was making a fundamental mistake thinking like that. The solution to any problem is never external; it is always an internal issue.

I know the members of my Stop Drinking Expert website would much prefer me to give them a magic pill to take away their cravings, but the same law applies to addiction as to meditation. Nobody can do this for you or even make it easier for you. Persistence and dedication are the keys.

Also, don't make the other mistake I made; to overthink meditation and make it more complicated than it is.  These days I recognize that I don't have to label what I am doing as meditation for it to be meditation. When I sit down in the morning to write out my gratitude journal or when I jump on the bike and go for a ride through the beautiful Cyprus countryside, these are all ways of stilling the mind and being present.

11 Ask Better Questions:

Steve Jobs said that the secret to success is just to keep asking 'why doesn't it work?'

As soon as we ask a question of ourselves, our brains go to work, dishing out solutions. It is practically automatic. The responses have a means of reinforcing the assumptions instigating the thought.

For example, if you ask "What's wrong with me?" you are presuming there IS something wrong with you. Your brain instantly begins contemplating possible answers. If you start out with a question like 'why can't I get the promotion at work,' you are offering your consciousness a leading question. Behind the apparently innocent inquiry, you are stating something speculative as being a fact. Additionally, the human mind tends to deal with negative statements by reversing them for processing. This is why when someone says 'don't think of a pink elephant,' you instantly ignore the command and think of an elephant. Your brain twists the negative around, so it receives the command as 'think of an elephant, don't.' If you ask your self 'why can't I get the promotion' it becomes 'you can't get the promotion, why?'

Taking the first part of the statement as an undeniable fact, your mind will speculate that perhaps it's because:

• You're too old.
• You're too young.
• You're inexperienced.
• You're overqualified..

Whatever the question, the responses bolster the assumption and justify why you are not getting the results you want.

But suppose you ask a different question?

• What could I do to make my interviews more memorable?
• What are the two or three attributes that make me the best possible candidate for the job?
• How do I make it easy for people to see how valuable I am.
• How can I show people how passionate and determined I am.

Now, these are powerfully constructive questions. They inspire and create new opportunities. They lead to action. And they will generate results.

12 Positive Affirmations:

Positive affirmations are a tool you can use to bolster success. Like meditation, this is a technique that many successful people say they use.

Bestselling personal development author Brian Tracy famously advises people to stand in front of a full-length mirror and repeatedly state "I like myself." It sounds silly, but he really does insist there is a massive benefit to chanting this simple phrase at yourself dozens of time every day.

So, why does it appear to work so well?

Why does something so simple deliver such benefits even though, you may not even like yourself that much at all? The theory at play here is that your consciousness can only sustain one thought at any given moment, and as you fixate on yourself and say this "I Like Myself" declaration over and over, you're essentially programming your mind with these positive assertions. Each time this proclamation is verbalized (even if you just think it) your body's emotional vibrations cannot help but pick-up this statement/signal (after all at an atomic level you are nothing but energy) and your unconscious tunes right in. When repeated 15-25 or more each day, you literally cannot help but feel much more positive about yourself, your situation and your environment. In fact, the crazy thing is, as you "like yourself" more you make better choices, foster better decisions and guess what? That's right; other people quickly pick up this new level of self-confidence too.

Give yourself the "I LIKE MYSELF" evaluation for just ONE WEEK! Use this affirmation anytime you might feel insecure or angry or dissatisfied. Just test it.

13 Sleep:

Successful people recognize the importance of sleep. Don't ignore this at any cost. I am famously a lightweight when it comes to bedtime. I consider 10 pm to be late; this is a big problem in Cyprus where the culture is not to even leave the house for an evening out with friends until 11 pm. When I first moved here and was trying to make new friends, this was a major worry for me. People would ring me and say 'hey do you fancy meeting for a drink tonight?' And I would excitedly agree and ask what time and where. My heart would sink when they would nonchalantly reply "Let's meet in town at half eleven." I am afraid that these days I just point blank refuse such nonsense, I will admit I have lost some friends as a result but I am most productive in the morning and I will not sacrifice that for the sake sitting in a smokey bar late at night.

British prime minister Margaret Thatcher used to claim that she would survive on 3 to 4 hours sleep at night. Quite often you will meet people who can survive on very little sleep, and they sometimes boast about their stamina and endurance despite the limited time they spend in the land of nod. But new scientific studies reveal that a lack of sleep causes many significant changes in the body and raises your risk for substantial health and wellness concerns such as weight problems, disease, and even early death.

Sleep is an essential function for many reasons. When you sleep, your brain signals your body to unleash hormones and substances that help:

• Decrease risk for health conditions
• Manage your hunger levels
• Maintain your immune system
• Maintain memory

But you can't catch up or make up for a loss of sleep. In fact, regularly sleeping greater than six to eight hours a night can adversely affect your health. Read on to learn why seven to eight hours of sleep a night is ideal.

LIVE A LONGER LIFE

The healthy and balanced amount of sleep for the average adult is around seven to eight hours each night.

Researchers in the UK and Italy analyzed information from 16 different research studies carried out over 25 years, covering greater than 1.3 million men and women and more than 100,000 deaths. They released their results in the journal Sleep. People who slept for less than six hours a night were 12 percentage points more likely to experience a premature death. People who slept more than eight to nine hours per night had an even higher risk, at 30 percent.

Analysts also found that people who decreased their sleep period from seven hours to five hours or less had 1.7 times the risk of mortality from all causes.

WEIGHT REDUCTION

Poor sleep patterns can boost the body's energy requirements. In the evening, motion and need for calories are lowered. But when you are sleep-deprived, your brain will release chemicals to signal cravings. This can result in eating more, exercising less, and gaining weight.

Scientist conducting a study of nearly 5,000 Asian adults with type 2 diabetic issues found that those who slept fewer than 4.5 hours or greater than 8.5 hours had a higher body mass index (BMI) and increased A1C values. An A1C is a measurement of a person's average blood glucose levels over the course of three months. Those who slept between 6.5 and 7.4 hours a night had the lowest A1C levels of all the subjects.

Sleep starvation also impacts kids. A 2014 study revealed that children who slept less had a raised risk for weight problems and high BMI. These risks can affect children as they mature.

IMMUNE SYSTEM ENHANCEMENT

When you sleep, your immune system releases substances called cytokines. Some cytokines have a preventive result on your immune system by helping to overcome joint inflammation and infection. Without sufficient sleep, you may not have enough cytokines to keep from getting ill.

A 2013 research investigation discovered that sleep constraints increase the amount of inflammatory compounds in an your body. These are the same compounds connected with disorders like bronchial asthma and allergies.

The researchers examined men and women who had extended sleep deprivation as well as limited sleep deprivation of four to five hours a night for a full week. In both cases, the analysts found that the participants' immune systems were impaired by a scarcity of sleep.

ENHANCED MEMORY

Along with helping you concentrate, sleep helps safeguard and strengthen your memory. Research reveals that sleeping after learning can help with memory retention. It also reduces interference from external events.

People who are sleep-deprived:

• Have a harder time receiving information due to the mind's overworked nerve cells
• Can interpret events differently
• Often have impaired judgment
• Lose their ability to access previous information

Unstoppable people get a good night’s sleep because they know it leads to:

• More creative thinking
• Better procedural memory
• Improved long term memory filing
• Faster memory processing

Whether you have to start going to bed earlier or getting up later. Do whatever you need to do to ensure you get around seven to eight hours sleep a night. Oh, and another thing, don’t ever call me after 10 pm.

14 Curiosity:

That constant questioning comes from interest and likewise being curious is what will drive you to learn, to experiment and test. And that's how you make breakthroughs.

Curiosity has always been a dominant character trait in me and to be honest; it is a surprise I am still alive to write this book. When I was a kid, I was regularly taking things apart to find out how they worked. This included but was not limited to my toys, my bedroom furniture and various household electric items such as my parent's record player and television.

My mother would even boast to her friend how talented her son was. She would tell people I could take something apart and lay it out on the living room carpet in a thousand pieces and then put it back together correctly. I am 43 years old now, so I think it's about time I confessed to something!

My mother is correct in that I would indeed dismantle pretty much everything down to its component parts. However, what she doesn't know is I can't remember a single time where it went back together perfectly. I always ended up with a handful of parts that I couldn't remember where they were supposed to go. When nobody was looking, I would throw them in the garbage. I would just lucky that nobody ever noticed that the fast-forward button no longer worked or Dad's music sounded a bit distorted.

I also remember getting a pretty nasty electric shock when I was twelve years old. I had taken apart the TV and forgotten to disconnect it. Two hundred and forty vaults sent me flying across the room and gave me the worst headache I have ever had. However, it's pretty obvious that on that occasion I was very lucky. I was tinkering about with something that could have killed me.

Curiosity killed the cat as the saying goes and I indeed used up one of my lives that day. But stupidity aside having a curious mind is a powerful thing. Don't hold it back, ask a million questions and dig deep into the stuff that interests you.

15 Drive:

Unstoppable people are driven, and they are self-starters. That means their power and commitment comes from inside and is not reliant on the approval of others. You won't succeed until you're willing to put in the hours, get up at the crack of dawn and weather the storm.

You won't succeed in the long run if you are doing it for someone else or because somebody told you that you must. Drinkers who come to my Stop Drinking Expert website stating that they have to quit drinking because their wife/husband has said they are leaving them, are very unlikely to get back in control anytime soon.

Whether it's losing weight, quitting drinking or starting your own business you must do this for you and you alone. Be assured that the people you love will automatically benefit as a by-product of your success but don't make them your primary motivating factor. If you do, when times are hard, and you hit an obstacle you will only feel resentful that they are putting you through this challenging time in your life. 

16 Integrity:

We have already talked about the power of character at length. However, let me remind you that Unstoppable passion and integrity go hand in hand, and if you want to be successful, then you can't cut corners or deliver a shoddy product. People who cheat almost always get their comeuppance and if you're tempted to try and swindle people, it means you're not in the right line of work. You need integrity, and you need professional pride to succeed.

17 Patience:

Success doesn't come overnight, and it's all too easy to get bored when you don't see the results you want right away. Patience is a virtue.

Patience is just another way of reminding you that persistence is the most critical key to building an unstoppable life. When I first started my website to help people quit drinking, I expected people to flood through the doors as soon as I launched the site. What greeted me for many months was nothing but silence. I had worked extremely hard building the program, designing the website and spent thousands of dollars in marketing. I remember, every morning I would wake up, and the first thing I would do is check how many people had joined my program overnight. For about three months I never managed to attract more than one or two people a week. This was a long way from the hundreds of people a day that I have envisioned in my mind's eye.

Over the next year, I tried absolutely everything; I changed the design about a dozen times, I split tested many pricing options and invested a lot of money upgrading server speeds and performance. Every day I wrote a blog piece for the site and recorded several videos a week addressing many of the problems drinkers face as possible. This level of effort carried on for longer than I can remember and for the most part with absolutely no reward. For many months even having the website live was costing me money, not making me money.

However, I had complete conviction that what I had could help thousands of people escape a miserable affliction. I know that if people would only invest in my course, they would be able to avoid the same terrible loop that I had spent a decade of my life trapped within. Today, I have no doubts that the runaway success of The Stop Drinking Expert is purely down to my stubborn refusal to give up.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, persistence is the most potent character trait you can possess. Nothing beats it! Persistence will beat education, talent, and environment any day of the week. If you take just one thing from this book, I hope it is an understanding of just how extraordinary a stubborn refusal to quit is.

18 Intelligence:

While many people think of intelligence as something to talk about in hushed tones, there's no denying that intelligent people are the people most likely to succeed. However, if you didn't get straight A's at school do not despair.

In our crazy busy world, most people do not have time to become bookworms, but practically all of us can become "audiobook worms." (Or "podcast worms" or "CD worms" ... you get the picture.).

A study by the University of Southern California showed that if you live in a city and drive an average of 14,000 miles a year, you can obtain the equivalent of two years of university education in just three years' time by listening to motivational and inspirational material in your automobile. This is what legendary speaker Zig Ziglar referred to as automobile university. Since the average American adult spends between two hundred to seven hundred hours each year just sitting in a car, this is fantastic news.

Stephen Payne is a classic illustration of what can transpire when you take advantage of your commute time. He was 18 years of ages when he qualified for his GED and 22 before he received his high school diploma. After an up-and-down battle in life, at age 43 he decided to change the course of his life by enrolling as a full-time student of Automobile University. Full time, that is, when he was in his car. Consequently, he now speaks Spanish and French so fluently that he is employed translating and interpreting for his firm. He also speaks Italian and is in the process of studying both German and Japanese in addition to Latin and his own Cherokee language.

Tom Corley studied the day-to-day activities of 233 wealthy individuals and 128 poor people. He wrote Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals. He found that 85% of the prosperous read two or more books on a monthly basis while only 15% of the poor men and women did; 63% of the rich listen to audio books during their commute to work, while only 5% of the poor shared this habit. The rich tended to center their reading on self-improvement books and biographies. He discovered that 67% of wealthy people limited TV time to one hour or less per day, as compared to only 23% of poor people. Harry S. Truman said, "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers."

Think about it. You can learn everything from Oriental art and the Scriptures to economic management, leadership skills, sales techniques, communications styles, childhood education methods and various other subjects from some of the best-informed, most knowledgeable people in our country.

These days you have access to the "wisdom of the ages" as an MP3 download while driving to your occupation, shopping, errands, on vacation, etc. People in the 80% listen to the worthless celebrity gossip, and scandal churned out by commercial radio stations. People living an Unstoppable life understand that time is an opportunity that cannot be missed. Remember, if you are not learning and growing you are just slowly dying. Every second is a gift, a chance to learn something exciting and new.

19 Confidence:

We've gone over this many times, but the point is that if you don't believe in you: no one else is going to either. The dictionary defines self-confidence as being in a state of having belief in one’s abilities. But in reality, confidence is so much more than that. Take two equally qualified people and put them through the same job interview process… the one with more confidence will win nearly every time.  I know this from first-hand experience, have you ever witnessed someone at your place of work get a promotion that they were far too inexperienced to rightful achieve? Have you seen the water cooler talk moments where jealous colleague berate the recently promoted newcomer who ‘simply must be sleeping with the boss / have something over on the boss / be related to the boss’?

Salesmen know that people don’t buy the product on offer they buy the salesman. If you have belief in yourself and what you are pitching this makes a monumental difference. I firmly believe that with enough self-confidence and perseverance you can enter the top 5% of society and start living the life of your dreams.

But wait… why is 95% of the population not already operating in this life-enhancing state of mind?

We are born with virtually no skills beyond knowing roughly where to get milk from. We are not born knowing how to use a knife and fork, and equally, we also don’t know how not to use a knife a fork. We are completely unaware of our lack of knowledge, and this means for many years we will be a filter-less sponge for information. If we are taught that the feet are used to control a knife and fork, this will be our reality until we are old enough to notice that everyone else is using his or her hands. We not born confident or lacking confidence – neither state currently serves any purpose, when was the last time you heard a midwife declare ‘my goodness this baby is a confident one’?

We are supposed to develop this ability during our formative years. But confidence brings along with it some trouble for our educators to deal with, and quite frankly they could do without any more on their plate. We in the western world educate our children in a very methodical, boring and often-ineffective way. We essentially tell them facts and insist they remember them. We then set them an examination to make sure that they have indeed remembered what they have been told. If they pass, then they are considered to be intelligent.  If they fail, then we label them with some negative description ranging from stupid to disappointing.

The evidence that this one size fits all technique of teaching doesn’t work is best seen in some of the most successful entrepreneurs of the world, who for the most part were highly unsuccessful at school (in the academic sense of the word). Teaching like this requires the student to accept as the truth everything the teacher says. If a child applies his or her filters to some newly acquired information and questions the logic of it, they are often rebuked and labeled as ‘being disruptive.'

When the objective of the lesson is for the student to accept the submissive position that they are an empty vessel, merely waiting to be filled with information. The last thing the teacher wants during this process is the ‘empty vessel’ to have the self-belief to start questioning the data. We are taught to suppress our self-belief and assume that the other person knows better than us. We are breeding submissive sheep and not strong-willed and confident children, so it would be foolish to expect anything more of our adults.

You see, confidence is not found in an external location it comes from within us and is a state of mind, a reflection of how we value ourselves. Our default position is to see ourselves as perfect. We come into the world with no negative judgments upon ourselves. Everything we learn to question about ourselves is exactly that, learned. We are repeatedly told that other people know better. Our teachers, our parents, our religious leaders and even such a broad proposition as ‘our elders’ are said to know better. Once we accept that we are inferior, we start to hide behind the permission of other people. We look for their approval and encouragement, and if we do not get it, we start to apply labels to our behavior and our character in general.

If we do as our superiors demand we are told that we are good boys and girls. But if we ignore their opinion and act in accordance with our own thoughts and feelings we are chastised and punished, labeled as being anything from naughty through to downright evil. Pretty much anything a parent says to their child before the age of 5 or 6 will be accepted as a pure fact. Children believe in fairies, the Easter bunny and Father Christmas because they see their parents as infallible.

Repetition is the mother of all learning and If you tell your child that they are ‘bad’ enough times you create the outcome you most want to avoid. Without realizing it, you are programming your child to misbehave.

Let me show you what I mean.  Picture the scene.  A mother and her small child are in a china shop or a glassware shop.  Now, it may very well be that the picture you’ve just painted in your mind is a memory you have of a similar situation from your own life, and that’s fine.  The mother’s goal is that little Johnny doesn’t touch anything because she doesn’t want to have to pay for any breakages.  So, as she walks into the shop, she turns to her son and firmly says, ‘don’t touch anything.'  Moments later, the purse-shattering sound of beautiful, very expensive china smashing against the hard tiled floors fills the room. 

The mother gets the very outcome she dreaded because the command was phrased in the negative.  I’m pretty sure if she’d said, ‘I’m the only person allowed to touch the china’ or ‘please make sure your hands are in your pockets all the time,' she would have got the outcome she was looking for.  I realize I’m spending a great deal of time on this one subject and that’s only because once you understand the principle, you will see it every day, and everywhere you go. 

20 Originality:

Originality in ideas, temperament and everything else is one of the most valuable traits there are. To be truly successful you can either be the best or the first. Guess which is easier? True originals stand out, they're remembered, and they have no competition.

From a young age, we are aggressively taught to suppress our uniqueness. Sometimes we learn this lesson in a painful and traumatic way. Trying going to school these days with the wrong brand of sneakers or an old-fashioned cell phone design. You will be picked out and ridiculed for being different, how dare you! However, when you examine the inspirational individuals who have lived genuinely unstoppable lives, you will see they were and are unashamedly different from the norm.

The likes of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are not your typical everyday people. Without the fame and fortune, you might even describe them as an eccentric or just downright strange. However, you should be aware that striving to fit it is a trait of the passengers on the train. We are born with the seeds of greatness within us, and at our core, we recognize that we are here to do something of significance. Passengers on the train of life try and suppress this nagging doubt by using the principle of 'safety in numbers' to reassure themselves. If they can look around and see many other drones operating in the same way, then they can label their behavior as 'normal.' Ergo, anyone who deviates from the accepted norm must be considered to be strange.

If you want an unstoppable life full of wealth, health, happiness, peace, and purpose I strongly encourage you to deviate from the 'norms' of life at every opportunity.

This book is designed to profoundly change your life, in just the same way the knowledge I share in it changed mine. It took me thirty years of struggling to swim upstream in life before I discovered the secrets in this book. I was an overweight, alcohol addicted and angry man who never quite lived up to his potential. I suffered depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem for many, many years. No matter how much money I earned, no matter how much I drank, no matter how many things I bought, the vacuum inside me just kept growing bigger and bigger.

Since I discovered the material you have read in this book, I have lost over sixty pounds, quit drinking, given up my boring office job (to follow my dream of being a full-time author), and moved to a beautiful island in the Mediterranean that boasts three hundred days of sunshine a year. I am forty-three years old, and these days I step out of my villa pick up my surfboard and spend my days on the beach with the girl of my dreams. Yes, I am insufferably annoying to be friends with on Facebook… and you will be too!

Forget all that ‘positive thinking’ nonsense, and the ‘get rich quick’ notions of the ‘law of attraction’ and other such new age bandwagon chasers. Yes, you can have everything in life you want, but I will warn you here and now! The chances are high, better than good at least, that what you are here to do, what that vacuum inside you needs to be filled with, is a million miles away from what you currently think you need.

Just as a building without a foundation will not be habitable, you cannot turn your world around and start living an exceptional life with just the click of your fingers. Books and gurus are claiming that things like the ‘law of attraction’ and ‘reality creation’ are easy, simply aren’t telling the truth. Sure, on paper it may appear to be easy, but the same is true when I watch my mother bake and decorate a beautiful wedding cake. As I watch the icing and decorative piping almost jump right onto the cake, it seems like the easiest thing in the world.

However, I know that the flow, expertise, and precision of my mother’s hands are all the direct result of decades of experience, doing this intricate artwork over and over again. I don’t need to attempt to replicate her work to know that it would be an abomination in my hands. Yes, in theory, getting the exceptional life you dream about is easy, but only if you have changed your whole mindset and approach to life first—and this part is not easy.

‘Thoughts become things’ is an often-quoted saying, and is a cornerstone of books such as The Secret. The principle is simple; you get what you think about the most. So, if you think like a wealthy person, you will become rich, think like an ex-drinker and you will stop drinking, and so on. There is a slight problem with this theory—it is completely wrong and doesn’t work! Let me tell you why; thoughts are predominately generated by your ego (the insane part of your mind), but the ego doesn’t have the power to manifest (or attract, if you prefer). A single thought in and of itself is powerless unless it becomes a belief.

Essentially, thoughts are conscious (weak), and beliefs are subconscious (powerful).

For example, you don’t have to constantly remind yourself not to jump off tall buildings—you have a deeply embedded belief that this would be dangerous and most likely fatal behavior. Your subconscious protects you from the wild rambling desires of your ego by ignoring virtually everything it says. This is a very good thing—how many times have you caught yourself wishing harm to someone who has hurt you in some way (a cheating ex or a pressuring boss) only to calm down and realize violence wouldn’t have helped. If your subconscious listened to every command of your ego, chances are you would be reading this from inside a prison cell, perhaps with me as your cellmate.

Exercise

I would like you to spend one week doing something significant. I want you to become aware of your ego. It’s imperative that you recognize where your desires and motivations are coming from. The reason we do this is to reduce the power of this part of you, to make space for you to hear the silence of your subconscious. In that silence is the answer to all of your most key questions, we just never stop to listen to what is waiting to be said. In fact, most people go their entire lifetime without ever hearing the message that could have changed their life. The voice of the ego is so constant that we come to believe that this is who we are. But this voice in our head passing judgment and making demands is NOT who we are, it is merely an illusion.

But how do I know when my ego is speaking?

This is simple—any thought or statement that begins with ‘I’ is the voice of your ego!

•    I drive a Mercedes.

•    I only stay in 5-star hotels.

•    I need a drink in the evening to help me relax.

•    I won’t accept people disrespecting me.

•    I don’t think she is good enough for him.

•    I expect good service when I dine out.

•    I deserve the promotion more than him.

We all think we know who we are, but really, most of the things that we decide to label ourselves with are purely statements of the ego. Even positive labels—‘I am a great parent,’ ‘I am a dedicated employee,’ or ‘I am a loyal and reliable friend,’—all these pronouncements come from a part of our mind that is unstable. The ego lives only in the conscious mind, and every time you make a statement that begins with the word ‘I,’ you can be sure it was created by some false belief in this part of your physical being.

All statements of ‘I’ are subjective, and as such is pointless. Our body and mind are not who we are; they are just things we own for a short while. When people ask me what I do for a living, I answer by saying, ‘I am an author.’ But is that really who I am? I think not. The ego cannot cope with having questions left unanswered, so we are forced to find comfort in applying a label to describe our reason to be…the point of our existence. Then we become attached to this security blanket and set about embedding it deeper into our identification with life. Photographers get up each morning and take photographs—because that’s what the label dictates. This is how we can spend an entire lifetime avoiding the point of life. Eventually, we become so attached to the name that our ego tries to own it. We start to compete with other people who have selected the same direction. We need proof that we are the best, first, quickest or any other illusionary piece of evidence that suggests we have achieved permanency in our label. 

A person might proudly declare, ‘I give generously to charity, I am a good person.’ We know this pronouncement is the pointless bleating of the ego. Money is relative if a billionaire makes a million dollar donation, and at the same time a homeless man gives ten bucks, all the money he has—who is the more generous. The correct answer is neither, because any judgment on that is still just an assessment of the ego, which, as we have already established, is insane!

All pain and suffering are created directly by this part of us and by our insistence on laying claim to labels. On a personal level, it can be felt in the sensation of jealously we experience when our neighbor pulls into his driveway with a brand new sports car. On a global level, it has been demonstrated countless times when nations declare war on each other. Mostly, these acts of violence erupt when one country attempts to take something that another country has declared as its own.

The ego is tiny and yet believes itself to be big and powerful. The subconscious is infinite but believes nothing at all. It feels no need to question or judge, it simply does.

We are prevented from consciously accessing the limitless and divine power of our subconscious because we can’t be trusted not to act like power crazy, narcissistic idiots. Apart from that, we would most likely kill ourselves in seconds, as the ego assures us that it knows what it is doing as it lifts the hood on the engine that beats our heart and fills our lungs with air. This is the same voice that assures us that we don’t need to read the instruction manual when we buy a new piece of electronic equipment or flat pack furniture. I don’t trust this voice any more than I trusted my friend at school who insisted that washing powder has the same effect as cocaine. He spent the afternoon in the hospital foaming from the nose. 

We can only access the power of the subconscious by two very different methods. Firstly, it can be achieved through a lifetime of deep meditation and constant cleaning of the mind. Most people don’t have the patience or dedication to take this route. However, the second course is practiced by all of us, and we do it every day. Repetition is how we fool the gatekeeper of the subconscious into allowing us access to this amazing super computer. The conscious mind is so limited that it can only complete one task at a time, and so when we do something often enough, the mind creates a physical pathway to complete this function automatically, thus freeing up processing power for other tasks. This would be a fantastic benefit of the human mind if we only did things that were founded in love and respect for ourselves and others. For example, what if you started a routine of ringing your mother at 9 am each morning and telling her that you love her. After a while, you would not even have to think about it, at 9 am you would gravitate to the phone and start dialing, even if you were thinking about doing something completely different.

Sadly, we don’t always tend to use this power for good. We prefer to repeatedly stick cigarettes in our mouths, eat junk food and drink alcohol until we are sick. These are the programs that we allow to inadvertently bleed though into our subconscious. Once past the gatekeeper and inside, there are no further filters to protect us, as this part of the mind does not judge or question, it only completes.

The ego loves something else apart from these labels… outcomes! When we get attached to a specific outcome, we create the possibility of failure. It is not possible to fail at anything until we decide, subjectively, what failure looks like. Sometimes even when we get the outcome that we have pre-decided will indicate that we were successful, we still end up miserable. For example, about a decade ago I successfully interviewed for a director level position running a large regional radio station in the North East of England. In my head, landing this job was a success and failing to get the position was a terrible thing. I got the outcome I had pre-decided as being ‘good’ and went on to have eighteen months of the most miserable time in my life working for this radio station. For six months of that time, I was under the care of a doctor suffering from severe anxiety and stress. Ridiculously, if I had ‘failed’ to land this job, I would have beaten myself up and felt miserable. I would have been blissfully unaware how much pain and misery my ‘failure’ had saved me.