How to use Social Proof to build Brand Trust online in 2024
To build brand trust online, you really need the right strategy on the digital platform. And Social Proof will be one of the most important factors that you must involve in for the success of this branding game.
When you CAN gain trust, you can SELL anything.
Social proof is a term that was presented by Robert Cialdini in his 1984 book named “Influence”. People also know this term as informational social influence. It describes a psychological and social phenomenon wherein people copy the actions of others in an attempt to undertake behavior in a given situation.
In modern marketing, especially in digital marketing, social proof is a vital factor that will decide the success of a marketing campaign for the brand or not, by helping to turn the viewers into buyers.
However, the question about what kind of social proof is important for the business and how to apply it correctly is still a hard question for many businesses to deal with.
So, in this article, I will share with you the top 6 popular social proofs that you can apply directly into your digital marketing campaign to turn the viewers convert into buyers.
It’s stupidly easy to apply to increase your brain power but it doesn’t mean that anyone can do.
Control the mind power is one of the most difficult things to do in the world. But it also brings the best benefit for our life when we can control what happens inside our minds.
Because our mind is a superb source that has full of the amazing potential that even the top smartest people in the world just only can use 9 –10% of its ability.
But there is one thing that I believe anyone can do, we can adjust the way how we use our minds to think more positively and work more effectively on the things that make our life to be better.
We don’t know how much power our mind has.
But we can adjust the mind to focus on the positive goals and help us to achieve more.
For me, understanding how the mind works and trying to apply good habits to adjust the mindset to be positive and help me to grow more in life is my primary priority.
Although each person will have different abilities and talents. But we all need the same thing to be successful, this is the right mindset.
“Our mindset will decide 80% of our success, and just 20% from the skills” — Tony Robbins
Let have a look surrounding you, do you see a lot of people who are working very hard while still don’t earn enough money for standard living?
Yes, we have a lot of people like that in the world. It’s not because they are too bad for success, or because they are not lucky enough. This is mainly because they use their mind power in the wrong way.
If you want to catch giant fish, you need to go to the sea, not go to the forest — Anonymous.
When we go in the wrong direction, obviously, we can’t achieve the things we want although we have a lot of potential powers. And the mindset is your compass, so if your compass is wrong, how can you target where is the ocean, where is the forest!
The following methods are the ways that I apply for myself roughly a year until now to adjust my “compass” — my mind, to do the right thing for me that can lead to the wanted results.
It helps to change my life a lot when I become more positive with anything that happens in my life; have bigger goals and am ready to put more hard work to achieve the things I want.
1. To Increase Your Brain Power: Daily grow mind with positive information and self-learning
What do you do the first thing in the morning when you wake up?
Do you scroll Facebook or Insta?
Or do you spend some more minutes sleeping?
Or do you hurry to work or school because of waking up late?
…
Or do you make something to inspire your mind?
For me, there is a couple of motivational speech videos on Youtube that I listen to when I just wake up. While I brush my teeth, my eyes still close but my mind is waking up with the speeches or Toby Robbins, Gary Vee, Grant Cardone,…
Their success stories give my mind the fuel for starting the day, as we all know the tough time will create tough characters. And successful people are the people who always see the opportunities and positive things in negative situations.
And the stories about their journey to achieve success that helps to inspire and build up a positive character in my mind. It helps to strengthen my brain before starting a day with a lot of things happen, some things can be good, many will be bad.
But I know that the things that happen in my day are
“The life lessons to help me grow more in life”, as Gary Vee said.
The idea of adapting positive information daily to improve mind power is a method that is verified by a lot of scientists around the world when it comes to benefits for the brain.
As Mr. Brian Tracy said, “In fact, the idea that your mind can change your world almost seems too good to be true”. And it will happen when you have a positive mind.
To do it, one of the most important steps is to put more positive input into your life by reading, watching, and consuming more positive content. Within the mind that has full of positive thoughts, this is an amazing weapon to help anyone can get over any obstacles that happen in life to achieve success.
2. To Increase Your Brain Power: Try to avoid all the negative news around.
Because I understand that the more negative information I consume, the easier my mind to be negative.
Do you like to watch the news? If you say YES, well, it’s all good. But you should rethink it soon.
The breaking news helps us to update the information all over the world, and I used to like to watch it daily. However, there is a reality that the news is always full of negative information, from terrorism to viruses, thefts, crimes,…
Because these kinds of information actually are the most attractive to the audiences. Everyone wants to blame the bad things that happen and use it as the reasons why their lives are full of drama; because of the government policies, the laws, the economic crisis, etc.
YES! That’s all right for you to blame the bad luck you have based on the negative news. But can you change your situation if you blame more on the negative things surrounding you?
The answer is NO!
Blaming the negative things from the news doesn’t make your life to be better. It makes your brain feel lost, and step-by-step make your mind believe that you don’t have any power to change your life because the society where you are living has full of negative things.
And when you let it really happen, you already lost the power to control your mind away from the negative information that you consume from the news.
So, don’t let it happen!
How we can change it?
You can change by stopping watching the negative news on social media or TV. As I do, normally I don’t check the TVs or social media of news channels because I know that I will get into a lot of negative information.
Instead, I just try to find good and positive pieces of content to consume on the Internet, from Youtube videos, Medium, or some blogs with good content on it.
And if something is urgent or necessary to be noticed, luckily, I have a lot of good friends on Facebook and Instagram where they will update the hottest news for me if I need to pay more attention to, such as the new rule in Melbourne for lockdown during COVID 19.
3. To Increase Your Brain Power: Set a specific time to focus on the specific tasks.
It helps my mind to really focus on the thing that matters at a specific time.
Concentration is super important, especially when you want to increase your productivity and achieve more things in a limited time.
So, instead of letting thing happens, I always try to arrange everything in advance in the night before or do it as the first thing in the morning.
It helps my mind to know exactly what I can expect to do and focus on the specific time in a day. Therefore, my mind is always in a proactive situation to face any issue that happens in the day.
And not only do I do but also a lot of millionaires and billionaires in the world are doing the same way.
They separate their daily tasks and focus on the specific task at a specific time as a way to help them maximize their productivity and focus ability.
4. To Increase Your Brain Power: Using obsession technique
This is a new technique that I learned and applied last 6 months from a book name “Be Obsessed or be average” by Grant Cardone.
This technique basically means everyone will have their own obsession with something in life.
And if you can adjust your mind to be obsessed with the positive things that can bring success and happiness to you, let do it. And if you are obsessed with the negative things, let stop it and start to learn to obsess on something better.
Grant Cardon used to admit that he is obsessed with drugs and spends time doing the poor things because it helps him to feel better about himself a little bit, but makes him lose everything else.
Then when he self-recognized he doesn’t want to live this terrible life, he started to adjust his mind to be obsessed with success and his million-dollar dream.
So he can work harder on himself daily as the motivation from his obsession. And now, he becomes a well-known social media influencer, a top public speaker, and a millionaire with thousands of apartments for rent.
Everything just comes from his adjustment in mind obsession.
Final thought
These are the four methods that I apply for myself, some last for years, some just newly established for the last couple of months.
But when all of them are combined together, they give me a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm in my mind that helps me to go through a lot of tough times while still keep working and believing in my entrepreneurship road.
And I hope that these methods will be in some ways help you to figure out what is the best thing to do for you to control your mind power and help you achieve more things in life.
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
To focus on goals required a lot of effort, hard-working and the right approaching methods.
And having goals in life is an indispensable part of being successful.
If we don’t have the goals to achieve, we will get lost on the life journey when we don’t know what should we do and expect from it.
For me, the journey to find out my life goals and achieve them is the best gift that I can have in my life. It helps me to feel fulfilled and have more energy to work on myself every single day to reach my goals.
Normally, if it takes time for us to find which goal we want to achieve in life in one hour, we will need around 10 hours at least to execute and make the goal comes true. It means that the time to make the goal really happen in life is far more than the time for us to figure out which goal we want to achieve.
And it has a reality that most of us have goals, but many will never completed it.
The problem is not about how big your goal is, the real problem is about how you take action to make your goal come true. And to do this, it requires you to really “laser-focus” on your goal to make it happen.
The question about “How to laser-focus on goal to achieve it?” is my biggest question for a long time that lead me to try to work on many different methods, reading a lot of articles, analyses about how to achieve goals to figure out the best answer for myself.
And after 4 years from the time I figure out the best technique to create the laser-focus for any goal I set in my life, I believe that now is the best time for me to share this technique with you.
Because I have a strong belief that if we all know how to laser-focus on the wanted goal, we can achieve it easier and faster than we expected. And knowing a great technique to help us strengthen the “laser-focus” ability is an integral part to make the goal comes true.
In summary, the technique that I use to focus on goals can call “One–Six–Three” (1–6–3).
It means that:
Only have one focus goal at one time, every day commits to complete maximum six important tasks that help you to achieve this goal firstly in a day; and optimize it all in the first three productive hours of the day.
It will be a little bit vague for you when just reading this summary technique for the first time without knowing the meaning inside it. So let me clarify the meaning of this technique.
1. Let talk about the number “ONE” first in “focus on goals”.
It means that at once time, let set up for yourself only one biggest goal. And this is the way how I have always approached my goals in the last 4 years.
So while only has one goal, why don’t we choose two or three at the same time, if we are the kind of people who can do multitasks?
Well, that’s fine if you want to do multitask, but if you want to achieve your goal faster in a more effective way, you need to just focus on one goal.
Because when you do two or three goals at the same time, it means that you need to divide your time and energy into two or three areas.
While we all have the same 24 hours in a day, and if you have 3 big goals to achieve in a month that required you to pay attention daily to them. It means that you will spend around 3 hours per day on each goal (For example that every day you will work for 9 hours to achieve your goals — Let think about your work as an entrepreneur).
But when you just have one big goal need to achieve, and you still have 9 hours a day to work on it. It means in just 10 days, you already can create the same results as you need to do in a month when you have 3 goals to try at the same time.
By doing this, you already save 20 days to work on your goal and also can pay full attention to this goal only. As the scientists have found out that this full attention will help you to come up with better solutions for the tasks you need to do to achieve this specific goal.
Because you are totally focused on only one thing at a time, so your brain will be sharped to solve any problems related to this goal in more effective ways.
2. Meaning of number “SIX” in the technique in “focus on goals”.
It means that we will set up our daily tasks to a maximum of six vital tasks for a day to help you prepare better in achieving your big goal.
Firstly, we need to understand that achieving the goal is a process, it will take a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years for you to achieve your goal — depending on how big it is.
Therefore, your ability to focus on goals during this journey is very important.
But it will require the daily commitment to do the small tasks to achieve this big goal. And it is also the priority factor to decide if you can make your goal come true or not.
The reason why I choose a maximum of just 6 tasks a day to focus on is because of several following reasons:
a. Fewer tasks lead to more focus and reduced stress:
When you have more than 6 important tasks in a day, it is too much for your day and makes you feel overwhelming. However, when you have less than 6 tasks a day, you become more concentrated on doing the tasks while still feel enjoying your day.
b. Boost the motivation to complete tasks:
I used to play with 20 tasks a day to complete. And it makes me feel so crazy at that time because I rarely can complete all the tasks in a day and move them to the next day.
Because when you have so many tasks to do, you feel like you can relax a little bit and leave it to the next day. And it used to lose my motivation to complete my tasks for a long period of time before I can change the way to work more effectively with fewer tasks.
c. Figure out what really makes sense for your day:
When I have the limitation of 6 important tasks a day. I know that I need to pay more attention to choosing what really makes sense for my day to do.
Instead of based on my feelings to choose, now, I will base on my mind to consider really carefully to choose the important tasks to complete.
3. The meaning of the number “THREE” in “focus on goals”.
It means that we will spend 3 productive hours in the morning to complete all the most important tasks for a day.
Following researchers, in general, people have the peak productive time around 8 a.m to 2 p.m. During this time, you can fully focus on the task and create double or triple results compared to the other times.
For me, my peak time is a little bit early, it is normally from 8 a.m to 11 a.m. This is the time that I feel most fresh and have a lot of energy to work on the hard tasks.
So during this time, I will focus on solving from 3 to 6 most important tasks in a day. Three are the minimum tasks I need to finish while six is the maximum I will plan to do at this peak time.
However, for the important tasks but consuming a lot of time as writing or making video content, if I just work in 3 hours, it is not enough time to create a proper product. Therefore, during peak time, instead of trying to write 1 or 2 blogs, I will spend time planning ideas and drafting the content carefully.
Figure out the outline of contents and make sure to have all the vital points that will be mentioned in my stories is my important task during this time. And after that, I will write or make videos later in the day.
The technique “1–6–3” creates a great impact on my life because it helps me to be more concentrated on doing the things that create real value for me.
In our life nowadays, with a lot of distractions surrounding us, it is very easy to get lost in our minds and forget about the things that really important to focus on. Therefore, learning how to focus on goals, then achieve them by doing selective tasks during peak time helps me to do everything better and achieve my goal faster.
Let try it out by yourself to feel how it works for you to laser-focus on your present goal. And I love to hear your story when you try this method that helps your life to be better.
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
How to be a minimalist in 2024? What are the rules of minimalism?
These kinds of questions are very popular recently when we see many influencers and KOLs promote this kind of lifestyle.
However, do we actually understand the right meaning of being a minimalist?
I don’t say that I’m an expert in this field, but after conducting a lot of research (as I am also inspired by many celebs about this lifestyle). I think that I can figure out the meaning of this lifestyle by this short sentence for myself (and you too if you read it and think it right for you).
Live LESS and Live SMARTER are totally different.
In recent year, the trend to be a minimalist are becoming more and more popular, especially in Gen Y and Z. As I and many of my friends also doing this trend, we totally love the positive and advantageous of this lifestyle bring to us.
It makes me feel more comfortable and satisfied with my life when I can control my input more carefully to bring a better outcome.
But yesterday, when I just browse websites to find something interesting for learning, I find the way how a very famous website defines what is minimalist means.
“A person who favors a moderate approach to the achievement of a set of goals or who holds minimal expectations for the success of a program” — Dictionary.com
Because this definition is too vague and doesn’t really reflect what is the real meaning of minimalist.
So, I decided to write this article to share with people a deeper and better understanding of what it really means for being a minimalist from the perspective of a person who is following minimalism.
Basically, the concept of being a minimalist is using “less”, which is true but not totally right. And the right point of view should be
Living smarter with less unimportant things.
No.1 rule to be a minimalist: Collects moments, not things
This is a big misunderstanding that many people have about minimalists. They think that the minimalist people are people “who are very stingy, who don’t consume things, focus on saving, and try to use less of everything”,…
These are some of the popular misunderstandings about minimalists that people usually have and I heard a lot of them in life.
But the reality is
NO! We don’t!
A person who has a minimalist life means that he/she will spend less money to focus on material things, the things that don’t really necessary for them.
Instead, they spend the time, money, and energy on the things that more important — it is to create valuable moments with people who they love.
As a simple example, I am also a minimalist person who believes that if I want to go jogging, I just need a good pair of shoes. And just only one. I don’t need to have two or three pairs of shoes at the same time just for one purpose.
So a minimalist is more focused on the function of things before deciding to do or buying it rather than trying to own as much as they can.
But what I really care about is the moments with my friends, my family, the people who I beloved with. It means I can spend more money to have a trip with them or having a fine-dining to create special moments for special occasions with my family members without concern about spending money.
Doing these mentioned activities normally cost me more than buying several pairs of shoes or a luxury bag. But in advance, it is valuable for me because it brings the special moments that I can remember and keep in my heart about the moments I spent with people who I love.
So being a minimalist doesn’t mean that I or you need to spend less money, or living a harder life. It all about the way how we use our resources.
It is more about changing the mindset about the way we approach things, instead of focusing on material things, minimalists will focus on improving the quality of life with less material things and add more life experiences while collecting the precious moments with the people they love.
The reality is that minimalist people want to spend more money, more resources on the moments. They want to spend the weekend meeting family members, having a picnic with friends, or just go for walk in the park with their lover. These things can be free, but some can cost more money for the trip compared to buying a luxury bag or material things.
But what really makes sense here is the memory that the minimalist people have with their beloved friends, family members.
So even we spend more money — not less as many people think, but we use it for creating more beautiful moments together, not for material things.
No.2 rule to be a minimalist: Be assertive with your choices
This is a special character that a real minimalist needs to own. It helps you to say NO to the temptation from things that don’t really add value to your life.
And one of the most important things is to learn “how to say NO with your friends.”
Because there are many decisions in our life be impacted by our friends, from the decision to buy new clothes, change the new phone, or adding more stuff in your life to make you feel busy and being luxurious.
For me, I remember before I become a minimalist, I love to spend time with my friends (that’s totally good, and I still recommend spending more time with people who you love to create more great moments together).
But we normally add time for shopping after having coffee catch-up together, and from the intention of just meeting for fun, I turned to spend a few hundred dollars to buy the pieces of stuff that I have no plan to buy before.
And this is when I am unconscious to add more material things to my life and waste a lot of money on things I don’t really need.
But when I become a minimalist, who are assertive with my choice and decide to just consume the things that really make my life be better. I say NO to all unnecessary shopping time with my friends.
I still join in the coffee time with them, hang out with them to create great moments together. But I will not go shopping or buy the things they recommend for me if I don’t really need it or I already have something similar at home.
By being assertive with your choice, you will be a smarter consumer who can control your spending in a conscious way.
No.3 rule to be a minimalist: You need to ease with your present time
Before being a minimalist, I always try to fill up my schedule from early morning until late at night. Because I believe that if you want to be a successful person, you need to work hard every single day without wasting your time.
But when I approach the right concept of minimalism, it teaches me that we can “make less to live more”.
So instead of trying to fill up my schedule all day, every single day, and feel disappointed about myself when I can’t complete all of them in a day. Now, in my schedule, I always put a couple of free hours without any plan as a way to ease my present and reduce the pressure for myself.
And in this free time, instead of thinking that I waste my time, I reframe my mindset to be spending this free time to recharge myself and reflex on what I did well and what I can improve.
As a result, it is awesome for me. It makes me be more focused on the things that really important for me instead of working on everything. And I also have more time for myself to improve my health and come up with new ideas for business and writing.
Let spending time for yourself, and focus on the really important things instead of everything. This is how you ease your present time as a real minimalist.
No.4 rule to be a minimalist: Pick your favorite first
At the beginning of my journey to become a minimalist, I faced very big trouble is
I don’t know what I should remove in my life to become a minimalist.
Because basically, the concept of minimalist somehow is about the way how you reduce the things in your life to live a simple but fulfilling life.
But from a list of hundred things that you have already so familiar with and present in your life for a long time, and now, you need to try to choose what to reduce is not an easy game.
It took me a month to choose the things that I can remove from my “necessary list” but then at the end I still feel my choice is not the right one, and still so confused if I choose to remove these things are good or not.
Luckily, when I shared my concern with one of my friends who is also a minimalist for nearly 10 years, he gave me great advice that opened my mind completely.
He said, “Instead of trying to remove things from your list, while you don’t try to choose the most important and favorite things firstly to add in your list?”.
Yes, That’s right!
Why I didn’t think about it before??? I mean.
When I change to approach in this way, just in 30 minutes, I already can figure out what are the most important things for me that I absolutely need in my life.
Then, I can reduce nearly 60% of the things I used to have in my previous list that I believed I must have in my life.
So actually, being a minimalist actually comes from your mindset, the way you approach the things and problems in your life rather than from anything else.
When you have the right mindset about living a better life with fewer unnecessary and material things. This is the time when you start to be a real minimalist.
Living smarter with less unimportant and material things is what a real minimalist does!
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
What should you do for health improvement during the pandemic time? When we are stuck at home for months. This blog will share with you the ideas of how I turn out the lockdown time to be my health improvement moments.
Doing it for 3 months, 2 kgs fat gone and 1,5 kg muscles increased.
But I get it! And it helps me to lose 2 kgs of belly fat while increase 1,5 kg of muscles in just 3 months
And I write this story to share with you the strategy that I used to complete this challenge every single day in lockdown time that you can apply for yourself immediately too.
Six months — Or probably can be more for Melbourne, where I live to be lockdown because of COVID 19. After the new restriction rules were applied, all areas in this most liveable city were used to celebrate hundreds of events and activities per week become so quiet now.
People are stuck at home and just can go out for 4 essential reasons. It is not an easy time for me or anyone else who lives in this city at this moment. But luckily, we still can go out for exercise.
However, the nervous feeling about the coronavirus makes many people afraid to go out to do exercise, as many of my friends lock themselves in the home for months and just go out to buy some foods or for necessary reasons.
Many of them start to be more toxic, grumpy and face issues related to physical and mental healths because of staying home too long.
I don’t say that I encourage people to go out more in this lockdown time for entertainment reasons or chill out. But as the government still encourages people to do exercise and allow us to go out for this purpose.
I believe that everyone should take this opportunity to develop physical health instead of feeling upset and laziness.
For me, I keep trying to reach 10,000 steps every single day during the lockdown time. But I also make sure to protect myself carefully by having my own strategies to achieve this daily goal.
1. Health Improvement Time Tip: Keep workout but always wear the mask when going outside
This is compulsory for me when I do my workout outside. Although I can do exercises at home, the feeling of sticking at home all day is very terrible. When you just go around your bedroom, toilet, and kitchen, then you also stay in your room for doing exercise.
It makes me feel like I’m being in prison. So I try to spend some time running outside to enjoy the environment as well as keep fit.
And wearing the mask makes me feel safer when running, although it is a little bit inconvenient. But it can make sure that I will not get risks when running in the parks near my home where also have many people come here to work out.
So if you want to workout, and still feel safe, always wear your mask.
At the first lockdown in Melbourne, I hear a lot of people say that don’t wear marks if you feel OK. And in the public areas such as my University, tram, public transportations,…all these places don’t recommend people to wear the mask in the first lockdown.
But in Vietnam, my hometown, the restriction is very strict when the COVID 19 just starts. It means that everyone needs to wear a mask, and it becomes compulsory for months.
So, if you also want to run outside as I did during this lockdown time, and make yourself feel safe and avoid the risk, make sure to have your own mask all the time.
2. Health Improvement Time Tip: Short walking daily
I split the time to go out for short walking several times a day
If the COVID 19 doesn’t happen, the steps that I need to walk to the office, buy coffee, and hang out with friends already can reach 10,000 steps or even more.
But from the time this pandemic happens, it makes everything change, and I can’t do anything as usual. This is also very hard if I just run one time a day and reach 10,000 steps.
So normally, I just run for 2 to 3 km during my workout time and spend the rest of two or three km walking around my neighborhood during the day.
I did it when having a rest after every one hour focused on working. It helps me to relax my mind after concentrating time on doing my work.
Just spend around 5 to 10 minutes walking around my surrounding areas, so I can complete around 500 to 700 steps each time like this.
During a day, I normally have 7 or 8 times walking like that, so I can complete around 4500 to 6000 steps easily by doing this way. And one important thing is I always wear the mask when I go out, although I just go alone and the street is super quiet with just a few people.
3. Health Improvement Time Tip: Early morning for a fresh start
Let wake up early to start your day. For a free and fresh morning to boost your mood and inspire yourself to do things.
I mainly do exercise in the early morning.
Maybe many of you can think that why I am so brave or could be a little bit crazy to workout in this environment when Melbourne every day has from 400 to 700+new cases daily.
Actually, I am also very afraid about it and try my best to keep my healthy workout habit while keep distance from other people. So I mainly do exercise in the early morning, before the sun rises, around 5 or 6 am.
This is a great time for a morning bird like me, I have a lot of energy and feel fresh to work out while don’t have many people on the street or in the park.
But if you go a little bit later, around 8–10 am or 5–7 p.m, the parks nearby my houses look like prepare to have a festival with hundreds of people running, doing exercises there, even now, in the middle of the pandemic.
So I try my best to avoid workout at this time by trying to wake up a little bit earlier and go alone to do exercise there.
And the fresh feelings in the morning is so great. It makes me feel very motivated to workout on myself.
And these are the ways how I keep my promise to have a healthy body during this pandemic time when around 5 million people are stuck at home in Melbourne now.
A lot of mental health and physical health issues happen because people can’t go out to enjoy life and are limited to catching up with each other. But good physical health will help to boost your mental health, this is a precious lesson I learned during the time I studied my master of trainer in Australia.
When you have a fit and healthy body, you can easily get over the mental issue and feel fresher about your life and the things surrounding you. And keep walking 10,000 steps every day is my healthy choice during this pandemic time, how about you?
Note:
This is an old blog that I wrote on Medium in 2020 when I was stuck in Melbourne during the first lock-down. Therefore, some numbers here will be changed, but the vibe of it is still the same!
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
These daily habits can change your game to improve your memory ability. Let ready to discover some science backup methods that can blow your mind.
I always looking for ways to improve my personal memory because I want to remember the lessons longer, get more knowledge and valuable information to apply in real life.
Because as Warren Buffett says
The more you learn, the more you earn.
It is totally right, but if we just learn and can not remember the things we learned to apply in life, to solve the real issues, the second part of “the more you earn” that Warren Buffett said will not work.
Therefore, having a good memory is always been my priority in my goal list. Because it helps me to do more things in a better and faster way.
Let say, when I learn Chinese and I have a good memory that can remember all the words just after a couple of times read it. So I can read the stories with these words easily without spending time searching in the dictionary the meaning of words again.
And as learning Chinese now, I know how it takes time for searching for new words when I don’t have a good memory to remember the Chinese characters.
Time is money and energy.
If I can improve my memory better. It means that I can save more time, money, and energy to do the other things that I need to do.
In this list, these are 4 methods that I’m using right now to improve my memory daily. All of them have scientific evidence to show the benefits of each method.
As I am a person who is very careful about the origin of the methods that I use to make sure if I choose any to apply in my life and make it to my habit, it must be a good one with having the scientific backup.
1. The first method to improve memory ability: Recall by doing exercise
I love to do exercise. This is the truth.
But I didn’t know that doing exercise actually can improve my memory until the last 2 years ago when I have read a study about regular exercise that can improve memory recall.
In particular, spatial memory is the most beneficial when we keep a habit of daily training. Because training frequently helps the brain to increase the size of the hippocampus — the part of the brain that plays a vital role in remembering the information.
Personally, after doing exercise, I normally feel very inspirational and exciting to learn something new.
It looks like the morning workout is my fuel for a day, and when my “mind tank” has full fuel, I am ready to learn and remember anything in a better way.
But I also know that many of my friends don’t familiar with doing exercise daily, and think that just need to read more books, spending more time on learning can help them to boost their memory without needing to take care of their physical health.
Well, actually, it is not true!
Because your body will control your mind and vice versa.
None of them can lack.
2. The second method to improve memory ability: Drinking coffee.
A cup of coffee per day for memory consolidation
I’m a big fan of coffee for years. So, I totally love this technique when hearing it for the first time.
Yes, that’s true.
Coffee can help to improve memory consolidation. And in a study that is published on Nature Neuroscience, the scientists found that taking a caffeine pill after a learning task actually improved memory recall up to 24 hours later.
For me, every morning will start with a cup of coffee to refresh my mind and get inspired to start working on my creative job.
And whenever I feel tired or forget what I need to write down or do, just take a rest for a couple of minutes while enjoying a cup of coffee that helps to bring me back and remind me what I really need to do or focus on.
This is a great personal experience that I have had with coffee for years. But I also know that overusing coffee is not good for me. So I try my best to limit only one cup per day is enough for me.
And sometimes, I also try to use tea instead, especially when I come back to my hometown with my grandparents. Because tea is also very good for the memory, as I also see my grandparents used it for years.
Now, when they are both over the 80s and 90s, they still have a very good memory and good health. And what they love to have every day for years is a bottle of tea every morning.
3. The third method to improve memory ability: Reduce sugar intake
When I was a kid, I’m a sweet lover and it was very hard for me to say NO to sugary foods.
But after a year of studying for my second master’s degree in fitness and learning about the negative impact of sugary foods on physical and mental health. I know that I must reduce it as much as I can.
As research from 2017 shows that a diet with high sugary intake has a link to Alzheimer’s — one of the diseases that reduce the memory ability of patients.
And whenever I really want to enjoy sweet things, I try to use natural sweet foods like fruits, not processed sugars. It helps me to have a healthier diet while still can enjoy the sweet.
4. The fourth method to improve memory ability: Eat dark chocolate
This is a habit that I keep for nearly 3 years until now. Eating dark chocolate every single day. Because this is a superfood for the brain. And keep eating daily this kind of food will be great for brain health.
As research about the impact of cocoa flavonoids on brain function that is published in 2011. It evidences that the active compounds in chocolate will help to boost brain memory and other functions effectively if the number of dark chocolate is consumed daily.
But before, I also wonder if eating chocolate more will be good while chocolate normally has a high sugar intake as I ate when I’m a kid?
Well, let clarify it a little bit. What I mean here is “dark chocolate” — normally use for chocolate with 72% cacao content at least. This kind of chocolate doesn’t use added sugar, instead, they use real cacao as the main ingredient.
So now, I normally choose the 95% cacao content from Lindt that I can buy for 5$ a pack in the supermarket. As I did, one pack I normally divide into 7 days to complete. This is a good amount of intake for me daily.
And if just 5$ for a week for dark chocolate to boost your brain function and memory, I don’t think it is expensive, right?
To sum up,
These techniques are great for me to apply on a daily basis to improve my memory and brain functions.
Maybe for some, all of them will work very well while some people will just adapt to one or two methods. And it is totally fine.
If someone has an allergy to chocolate, I can’t tell this person that
Hey! You MUST eat dark chocolate to boost your memory ability.
It’s not work in this way.
But all of these 4 techniques to boost the memory that I recommend are the best fit for me and what the scientists also highly recommend.
And I just remember a very famous sentence of Lao Tzu is
The journey of thousand miles begins with a single step
So, a good memory is built up just from the small adjustment in the daily routine that I started for a couple of years until now. And you also can make your memory to be better by changing your daily habits a little bit from day today.
Anything wants to be better all need to take time, and the process to improve your memory ability is also no exception.
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
To achieve goals, we need to work as a student more than work as a teacher.
I always remember when I was in secondary and high school, I always want to grow up quickly. So I can quit school and stop be doing tests, make homework, … the things that every student needs to do.
Because I used to believe that when I grow, I don’t need to be a student anymore, and it will be great for me.
But I was wrong!
Growing up means I leave my childhood schools and move to a bigger school —Its name is life school.
And this school you must go to every day in your whole life without a single day off.
In adult life, I recognize that it is still the same model as in school life, you also have a “teacher role” — the people who have information and skills to share the information for the other. While the “student role” — people who want to learn and grow from the thing they don’t know.
And the important is what role you will play in this life school?
From my personal experiences for many years in “this school”, I recognize that being a student in this school is far better than trying to be a teacher. And in this story, I will share with you the reasons why I have a strong belief in this point of view. As it changes me a lot and helps me to grow in many aspects of life.
1. To achieve goals: Learning and asking for the things you want.
This is a technique that we all learn when we start to go to kindergarten as a student.
Every day, the teacher will teach the kids to learn something new. To discover the things surrounding their living environment, and encourage them to ask if they don’t understand or need somethings. For example, if they need some toys, or go to the bathroom, or need some foods to fill up their hungry stomachs.
When we grow up, life school also operates in the same way.
If you really want to have something, you need to learn the skills to do it or ask someone to help you do it.
And let make a basic example, if you want to open a company, you need to learn or find someone who can help you to register your company, recruit the staff, how to do tax,…
All of these “How to” are the primary questions that you need to learn to start your new journey as a business owner. But the difference is you need to seek or ask for questions from different sources, maybe from someone you know or from people you have never met before.
It is very different compared to your childhood school, where you can find the specific answers for specific objects from the specific teacher.
It means if you want to solve the math question, you can come to ask the math teacher how to do it, and you know exactly where to find your math teacher.
But in your life school, the “teacher” who can teach you to solve your “ life puzzle” normally doesn’t appear when you need it, and you need to really seek hard to reach out to this person to help you to answer your questions.
So you still need to keep learning and asking for the things you want, because if you don’t do it. Nobody will come to you and say “Hey, you should do this and shouldn’t do that to become successful”.
Because your success is your responsibility.
2. To achieve goals: Doing your homework
A teacher is a person who gives students homework that needs to be done at home before going to school.
In the real-life, your homework is the task that you need to self-solving and spend a lot of time finding the answer if you want to be successful.
You will not have a teacher who stands next to you and explain to you why you are wrong and ask you to fix it one more time to make everything be perfect as you are a child.
In the “life-school”, you will know your answer is wrong if the outcome is not as you expect, or we can call it — the failures. And nobody will come to you after your first failure and say that
This is a right formula, let use it and in the second time, you will make the right answer perfectly.
Well, life school is not that so kind.
If you fail for the first time, you need to self-adjustment and start to do it again, the second time, the third time,…until you can find the right answer.
Because nobody will help you to solve your homework, except you. And the life school is full of “error and trial”, not just one or two times to get the right answer directly.
3. To achieve goals: Be fresh with anythings
Always approach the things with a fresh mind
This is a lesson that my mother always told me for years. In her mind, she believes that if we can approach everything the first time we learn about it, it will make the learning process to be more interesting and encourage us to learn more and grow more.
It is the same way to approach new knowledge of a student. When we don’t know about the things we going to learn, we feel really excited to discover more about it.
Let remember the first time you learn how to write when you were a kid, you are so fresh and love to write and draw everywhere in your house, even when you don’t have a real pencil.
Your mom lipsticks, dad’s ink, cosmetics of the sister,… all can be your pen to learn to write.
But when you approach the thing as you already know somethings, you will have the mindset of the teacher that you already know about it and keep the doubt about what you going to learn.
The reality is everything changes, nothing is the same forever.
And if you keep the mindset that you know all, you can’t learn a new thing effectively. Because your mind will always say that you already have enough things to know about this topic and limit your ability to adapt to the new knowledge.
4. To achieve goals: Listen carefully and take the lessons
Teachers love to talk, and students love to listen
To be a success in life, you need to have good communication skills. And obviously, when you can speak well like a teacher, it will be great for you to communicate with others.
However, communication skills not only come from speaking but it is also come from listening. And if you can improve your listening skill, you will achieve more than you can expect.
Because when you speak, it means that you are sharing something you know for others; to spread your mindset; your knowledge. It helps to present you as a well-knowledge person in this field, but you don’t get any new information for yourself.
But when you become a good listener, it means that you are learning valuable information from others.
Because they give you their experiences; their success and failure lessons.
These lessons help you to avoid mistakes and get a lot of valuable lessons for your future without spending years trying and making errors. And it helps you to go to success faster when you have this skill.
So listening carefully and taking the lesson is not only a great way to get high marks in your childhood schools but it also can change your life a lot when you are a student in life school.
5. To achieve goals: Not being a teacher
When you think you are a teacher, you tend to show that you know everything, you speak more than listening, do the same things again and again. These are the signals to show that you are having the mindset of a teacher.
Being a teacher means you are really focused on one specific area and keeps using your own knowledge to spread out again and again to the “new students”. It could be a good way to earn money by teaching people about what you are an expert in, but it is not good for you as a person who wants to grow to be a better version.
If you want to make your self-development process go up smoothly and effectively, you need to keep the mindset of a student, always feel curious, and have a lot of energy to learn about different things in your life.
Because life is a journey of learning and experiences, so don’t let you feel regret when you are old because of the things you didn’t do or learn.
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
With these techniques, let boost your mood immediately to deal with pressure and manage stress.
Extreme pressure is the feeling when we feel so stressed about the things that happen in life. It can happen because of the relationship, financial issues, accidents, failures in business, etc.
Everyone will have their own extreme pressure time. Some will experience these feelings early in life when they are young, some will experience them later.
Because it is a part of our life, we all have the time “up and down”.
Therefore, learning to deal with pressure and manage stress is an essential skill nowadays.
As everyone feels enjoys and relaxed when the quality of life is going up, but most feel afraid and don’t know how to deal when life goes down rapidly, especially during this pandemic year — 2021.
We never can imagine that in the 21st century, we have a virus that can cause the global pandemic that leads to 47 million Americans jobless. And if count on globally, it makes a hundred million people be unemployed.
There are millions of people who are feeling extreme pressure because of losing their jobs, feeling alone, and lack of connection with others.
For me, I totally can understand this feeling when I live in Melbourne, the city which has the hardest restriction in the world for COVID 19 now. By using these methods to get over the extreme pressure time, especially during this pandemic period is super useful.
Personally, when I started my journey as an international student in this city — Melbourne, I used to experience the feeling of extreme pressure when my language is poor, money is limited, no friends, and can’t find a part-time job.
All of these things happen at the same time that makes me feel so stressed and pressure for nearly 3 months before I can find out the way how to control my mind and get over the grim time with a positive mind.
From the moment I applied the following 5 methods to improve my mind, I become more positive and recognize that the extreme pressure time just in the short term and if I can keep a calm mind, I will get over it faster.
During the first month of lockdown, I also fall into extreme pressure feelings when I never can imagine that I will be stuck in the room for a month. But until now, it already 6 months since I stuck here and I feel totally comfortable, positive, and full of energy to work on my career as I did before lockdown.
It all from changing my mindset and health condition based on 5 things that I did for years and recommended for many of my friends during this tough time. And I believe that these 5 methods will help you as well to get over your extreme pressure time in life, such as this pandemic time.
1. To deal with pressure: Let learn to breath
Have you ever heard that just by controlling your breathing, you can control your mind and body to be more relaxed and calm?
This is absolutely insane when the first time I heard my mentor, Berry share with me this technique.
I mean, I never think that we can change the way how to feel just by adjusting the way how we breathe. And when I try to apply this method for the last couple of years ago, it creates an incredible result for me to control my stressful feeling.
Basically, it means that you will control your body and mind by the way how you inhale and exhale the air.
And there are 2 ways that you can choose to do are: “4–2–4” and “4–7–8”.
The “4–2–4” means that you will inhale the air for 4 seconds, then you keep your breath for 2s before exhaling all the air in your body in 4s.
The “4–7–8” is a little bit more challenged when you will inhale for 4s, keep your breath for 7s before exhaling for 8s.
And you can choose to do any of these techniques, depending on your present health condition. For me, I started with the first way for 2 months before completely moving to the second way.
I do this breath technique whenever I feel tired, exhausted, or stressed. When I close my eyes, open the binaural beats and relax my mind without concerning anything, just focus on my breath. My body and mind feel totally calm down and my energy recovers just in 5 minutes of practicing this breathing method.
You can start to try it now, just close your eyes, focus on your breath, and count 4s for breath in, 2s for keeping the air inside the body, then 4s breath out. Keep doing it a few times to see how your body will feel, how your mind will be relaxed.
2. To deal with pressure: Let share your feelings with others
This will help you to reduce the level of pressure in your mind when you have someone trustworthy to share how you feel.
Because the feeling of pressure will become more extreme when we just keep it into ourselves. And when you share your feelings with others, let someone just need to listen to your story, you already can reduce a lot of pressure and stress.
So don’t try to be a strong person by keeping your pressure in your thoughts, let share it, let make your mind be relaxed. You become stronger when your mind is full of positive thoughts that help you can do more things in life, not by trying to show that you are strong by keeping all the pressure under your mind.
And after years to use this method, I have an important note that I want to share with you and you should be serious about it. This is
You need to learn how to share your feelings with others, and let choose the right person to do it.
Because you don’t want to share your stories with the people who can’t keep secrets and will use your stories to gossip with others.
I used to face this situation before when I share my pressure story about finance with one of my best friends with the thought that just need him to listen and empathy with me. But then, he gossiped the story to many people about what I told him. And this even makes me feel more pressure when I knew that my story is known by the people with who I don’t want to share.
Therefore, letting you choose the right person to share, not mean everyone. Someone who you can trust and keep secret. For me, my mom is the best option. She always feels happy with whatever stories I want to share with her, and usually give me a lot of valuable advice while helping me to keep all secrets properly.
3. To deal with pressure: Let learn to write a journal.
I always have a small notebook in my pocket that I keep everywhere I go. And I use it to write my ideas, my learned lessons, and the feelings I have in a day.
The great point of having a journal is you can use it to keep all your feelings inside and can have look back again later to see what you did and figure out the lessons you can earn from these experiences.
For me, whenever I feel stressed, I will write to my journal, I will try to answer properly these following questions
How do I feel now?
Why do I feel stressed about it?
What do I think I can do to make my mood go up again and get over the pressure-time?
Answer these questions help me to calm down and re-think again about the problem that makes me feel pressured. Normally, after answering the first two questions, I ask myself, do I really need to feel the pressure of this problem? Why I don’t approach this issue in another way that makes me feel better?
It helps me a lot when these questions appear in my mind. Because these questions lead my thoughts to the solutions and help me to stop focusing on the problem itself — the main reason why I am stressed.
We feel stress because we are too focused on thinking about the problem rather than trying to find the solution to solve it.
4. To deal with pressure: Let do exercise
We all know that exercise is a vital part to build up a healthy body. But do you know that daily exercise also helps to reduce the stress level if you keep the workout on your body daily?
“Exercise and other physical activity produce endorphins — chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers — and also improve the ability to sleep, which in turn reduces stress”.
And even just 5 minutes a day of workout like jogging, push up or basic exercise already can boost your mood up and reduce the pressure level that you are facing.
For me, I keep doing exercises for years even before I knew about this research. Basically, because whenever I finish the workout, I feel my body tired, but my mind becomes totally fresh and inspired.
There are many days when I feel down in mood when faced with a lot of pressure and the feeling of laziness. That makes me just want to lay on the bed for a day. But I tried to move my body, did some push-up, and went jogging for half of an hour, even my soul and my body didn’t want to.
The great thing is when your mind and your body don’t want you to do something, it doesn’t mean that they are always right. Especially when both of them feel lazy for doing exercise, but you need to do it.
And after the workout, I always feel myself to be better. And change the way how I see the issues were happening just as the challenges for me to grow.
These things don’t be known as my pressure anymore.
5. To deal with pressure: Let learning from positive contents
This is a life-long process. We all need to learn every single day to live better and understand more about this life.
And especially under high-pressure times, learning can use as a kind of panacea to help your mind be stronger.
“Learning from the positive contents” is my favorite concept not only on the day I am under extreme pressure situations but also be used in my daily routine to help me strengthen my thoughts.
There are many ways to approach positive content nowadays with the internet. For me, I usually listen to podcasts or watch Youtube videos of Tony Robbins, Jay Shetty, Jim Rohn, Tai Lopez,…when I do exercise instead of listening to workout music as I did before.
I don’t know how to describe exactly the feeling when you listen to the motivational content during workout time. It likes “morphine” for me to workout harder while feeling fresher and more inspired.
And I also normally spend around one hour a day reading the contents from the great writer on Medium. These people shared a lot of valuable lessons and inspired stories daily, such as Anthony Moore, Tim Denning, Benjamin Hardy,…
Now, consuming the positive content daily to be my habit, it is not in my “Try To-Do List” anymore.
Because when you plan and take care of your soul with “positive nutrition” daily. The contents themselves be a part of your soul that you want to read, to listen, to apply every single day in your life.
The five mentioned methods are the ways how I used to deal with the extreme pressure moment in my life.
And now, when I face the other big challenges in the middle of my 20s — COVID 19 lockdown, the level of pressure is higher. But the ability I have to control it is far better than my beginning when I didn’t know these methods.
I hope that these methods will help you to work on yourself. That make you feel better and think positive under any pressure circumstance. Together, we will become a better version every day.
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
“The Millionaire Booklet: How to Get Super Rich” is a book that I read recently from Grant Cardone.
For me, this is a great book to learn about the mindset of successful people I have read in this year 2020. And there are so many valuable things that I learn from him, Grant Cardone.
As I used to watch many of his Youtube videos about sale motivations and business lessons, I want to say that his tones, the ways to approach problems, and sharing the solution are very engaged and inspired.
But the contents in his books, even more, inspired me and let me gain more valuable lessons than I expected. Maybe because I’m the kind of person who loves to read and imagine or could be because the contents themselves are so great with real take-away lessons that I can get into.
And in this book, he has presented 8 valuable lessons that can make someone from the average to the millionaire that I believe it is super valuable for me to approach and follow.
So I write this story as a part of sharing what I learned from his book and saving it for myself to re-read again frequently to remind me what I need to do to achieve my millions goal.
One of the most important lessons that Grant Cardone mentioned at the beginning of his book is “The Millionaire Mindset”.
As you want to achieve the things you want in life, you need to have the right mindset to get it. This is the advantage of human beings, we are not limited to achieving anything we want in life except when our mindset is limited.
In his book, he mentioned that the way how to achieve anything in life is just simply to go through 3 periods:
(1) Goal, (2) Target, (3) Commitment to do it.
It means that we need to have a clear goal about what we really want to achieve in life. Because if you even can’t clear what you want, how can you really get it?
And in the case of being a millionaire, the main goal is making 1 million dollars to be a millionaire. That’s what you really need to focus on.
Then, after having a goal to do, we need to have a target to achieve this goal. So if you want to be a millionaire in the next 12 months, what is your target in each of the following months? What should you do and don’t do during this time?
The targets look like the “small achievements” that we try to achieve during the journey to the destination of being a millionaire.
You need to have small achievements to boost your energy, enthusiasm, and willpower frequently in this long-term game.
Because it looks like your fuel to keep you on your marathon track.
And a “commitment to do it” is a compulsory factor. Anything in life you can achieve when you commit to doing it until the end, and it also can’t achieve if you just work halfway and stop it.
Your commitment decides your outcome!
And in the lesson about “Millionaire Mindset”, Grant Cardone also emphasizes the role of understanding the limiting beliefs in your problem.
Because many people are living with a belief that their ability is limited and their ability to succeed stands at a certain level.
But what Grant Cardone confirms is
Success is not limited
Everyone can go to a higher level than they are standing now if they have the right mindset and belief in their ability. We all can do the things we are doing right now in a better way and create a better result.
“When you change your belief. You will change your behaviors, and the results you get will also change” — Grant Cardone.
2. Millionaire Map
Seeing is believing — Ask what does it really take to make one million dollars
If you want to be a millionaire, you can’t just think about a million and wish that one day you will get one.
What you really need is real action and calculation.
The clearer map you have for yourself to earn a million will help your road to achieve this goal be easier and more achievable.
For example, if you have a product that has a profit is $100 per unit, it means that you need to sell 10,000 products to have your first million dollars. But if you change your profit margin in different ways, you will have different ways to approach your first million-dollar, like:
200$/Unit =>5,000 products => 1 million
1000$/Unit => 1,000 product => 1 million
5000$/Unit => 200 products => 1 million
So when you have a millionaire map, you will know exactly how long it takes and what you need to do to achieve this goal.
Instead of having no map, you will get lost in your journey to be a millionaire as the way you get lost in the forest without a compass.
3. Who’s got your money
Money doesn’t self-destroy, it just moves from one hand to another hand.
And the concept of “Who’s got your money” means that you need to understand who is your target clients? Who will be ready to spend their money on you and your product/service?
When we can clarify this group, it is time that we need to clarify how we can create a valuable service or product that this group of users wants and is ready to pay you for it.
Having the right target customer group helps you to sell your products or services to them easier and faster.
Therefore, it helps to shorten your journey to earn your million dollars in a more effective way.
Not saving or investing, what you really need is to increase your income if you want to get 1 million dollars faster and more sustainable.
For example, if you are a salesperson, what you really need to earn your million dollars quicker is selling more products to more clients.
Or if you are a personal trainer, you can increase your income when you have more clients who register for your course.
You must increase your income if you want to achieve more, a stable income is good for feeding yourself and your family. But increasing your income is the thing that makes you rich.
And not only increase the volume of your income, but you can also increase your income by multiple sources of income. For this technique, I will clarify more in detail in the following lesson from this book.
But one important note is:
“Don’t risk your main income when you move to the 2nd source of income.”
You are still not sure and need to feed yourself and your family. So do carefully.
Let start to apply this lesson to your life by asking yourself this question:
What will you do to increase your income this month?
5. Stay broke
One of the biggest mistakes that many people are doing when their income increases are spending more money on their personal demands.
As Grant Cardone said
“Earning more doesn’t mean you need to spend more.”
When you earn more and you keep spending more, it means that you will waste more rather than get more from your improving income.
For example: If you are making $50,000/year and spending at $35,000/year. It means that you still have $15,000 in your savings.
And one day, when your income increases up to $100,000/year. Now you think you are in the upper-middle class, so you should have a nicer car, a bigger house, or one more vacation per year with your lover.
Yes, that’s all right and many people also do the same things as you want to do. But now, your spending is not that $35,000/year, it moves up to $95,000/year for adding one more luxury vacation, a bigger house with a new BMW car.
So actually, now in your savings, you are having $5,000 after a year of working at a $100,000 position.
You will not be a millionaire by doing in this way.
It’s not about how much you make but all about how much you can keep.
Earning more and keeping it with you rather than spending without controlling is the way how you become richer and go faster on your millionaire journey.
6. Save only to invest
This is the point that Grant Cardone encourages everyone to follow.
If you just save money with the purpose to save for your rainy day or having a vacation by sending it to the bank, you will not leverage your money.
And the rich people all know that financial freedom comes when you can leverage your money, not from waiting for the low interest from the bank that pays you yearly.
By saving money and investing it in the business, or the things that can bring more money for you. You will get more income and can easily enjoy all your demands about luxury things later.
But first, let use the money to leverage your investment.
As I have mentioned before in the 5th lesson, increasing your income is very important on the journey to get your first million-dollar. And having multiple flows of income will help you feel safe and free in your financial decision.
So, let start to collect as much stream of income as you can. You can create the second, third,… source of income as you want.
What you really need to do is put more effort, energy, and time to work on the ways how you can do it effectively.
8. Repeat, Reinforce, and Hyperfocus
The last but not least lesson that Grant Cardone teaches me in his book is “repeat, reinforce, and hyperfocus” from all the 7 mentioned steps.
The more you practice doing these lessons in your real life, the better you can “play” with your millionaire game and the faster result that you will get.
And one thing that Grant Cardone emphasizes in his book is always to keep learning and growing yourself by reading, self-education, learn from successful people and mentors.
Because the mindset of a $100k person is different from the mindset of 1 million; and the mindset of 1 million is very different from the mindset of 10 million.
So if you want to have your first million, you need to start to get into the mindset of a millionaire.
If you want to read more about personal finance topics, let check it out at “Wiki Personal Finance”.
P/s:
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
You should look for work less, gain more from your most important tasks rather than vice versa.
Are you a busy person who has a lot of tasks to do? And do you believe that you are really good with multi-task, the more tasks you have, the better you can perform?
If you say “YES” with these questions, well, I have good news and bad news for you.
The good news is you have a great potential working ability that you can afford the huge amount of works as your ability to do multi-tasks. So it helps you to work more effectively and create bigger results compared to others who don’t have that much energy as you.
But the bad news is, the multi-tasks reduce your ability to work effectively on important tasks. And instead of you can create the 10/10 result when you just focus on the most important task. You will create just the “OK result” when you need to do two or three tasks at the same time.
There are so many negative impacts that have been found by researchers when we do multi-task, such as “lack of focus, memory impairment, increase stress level,…”.
It is good when your intention is can create as many values as you can, but instead of trying to do multi-tasks that bring more problems for you.
Why you don’t try to do “task to task” effectively?
And if you can be multi-task with 16 things to do in a day (with 8 hours of working), and mean roughly 30 minutes for each task. How about you can try to do just do 6 tasks a day and make it in 6 hours that create the same impact when you work on 16 tasks in 8 hours?
It heard more good, right?
Yes, it’s not a joke, actually, you can do it. When you choose the right way to approach and have your own MITs (Most Important Tasks) list. You can achieve your best while you need to do the less.
What is the meaning of MITs?
So if this is the first time you hear about MITs, this technique basically means that you will have a list of your “Most Important Tasks” that you need to do every day. And normally, it is limited to around 2–3 important tasks a day, which will help you to make the best performance.
I get this concept a few years ago when I read the book “The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business” by Josh Kaufman. In his book, he defines that
A Most Important Task (MIT) is a critical task that will create the most significant results. Every day, create a list of two or three MITs, and focus on getting them done as soon as possible. Keep this list separate from your general to-do list.
Before, my To-do list daily always full of activities, and I feel happy and excited when seeing so many activities that I can fill up in my daily plan.
Because at that time, I think that being multi-tasks meant productivity. But I was wrong, being multi-tasks actually lose my focus on the things that make sense.
Being multitask doesn’t equal to being more productive. It just mean you don’t know what is your focus.
It likes the rule 80/20 Parento when we see what works for us in life. In reality, 80% of what we achieve in a day just comes from 20% of the tasks we did. And if you can choose the right tasks to work on, just a few are enough to fulfill your day.
So how to make your MITs technique really work for us?
This is the question that I asked myself a lot at the beginning of my journey to transform from a “multi-tasks person” to be a “focused person” by applying the MITs technique.
After 3 years apply it roughly, finally, I figure out what are the three main steps that I can use to create a really effective schedule for myself by using this MITs technique.
3 years is a long journey, I know, to figure out how it works effectively for us, but it is worthy.
1. Write down all tasks you think important to do in a day
If you are a multi-tasks person for years, this is the most important step that you need to do immediately. And there are several reasons for this action:
Your mind will be exhausted and overthinking when you always have full of tasks you need to do in your mind. So write it out.
You can’t always remember all the tasks (even you think you have the best memory in the world). Don’t risk your important tasks with your memory.
When you write out, you will find out that many tasks don’t really necessary for you to do. But when you just use your mind to remember, you will feel all of them are important.
2. Using the Self-Elicitation process to select the top 2–3 most important tasks to focus on.
The next step is having your own “self-elicitation” process to choose which tasks are really important for you to achieve in your day.
The “self-elicitation” process is a process where you create and self-answer what you think are the most important tasks that if you don’t complete, you will waste your day. And you can start your “Self-Elicitation” process by asking yourself these simple questions every morning when you wake up or the night before
Firstly, what are the most important 2–3 tasks I MUST complete today?
Secondly, what are the tasks that if I can complete as soon as possible (ASAP), I will create a huge difference for my work/my life?
Thirdly, what are the tasks that if I can’t complete today, I will feel regret and make me feel I waste my day?
By answering these questions carefully and clearly, you can figure out for you 2–3 the most important tasks that already can make 80% of your day when you complete it.
3. Setting your own deadline for MITs
This final step will make you feel full of power and enthusiasm to start your day. Because you know that you are having a strict deadline to achieve your MIT.
The reason is when we have a deadline, we become more energetic to work on our goals. And let remind yourself about the goals you did in your life. How did you work when you know the deadline and when you don’t know the deadline?
It is totally different, right?
At least in the amount of effort that you put in it. Because when you know that you have a deadline. You tend to spend more effort working on it while if you don’t have a deadline. You feel like you still have a lot of free time and can keep your tasks up to the next day.
And this is one of the biggest reasons why so many people fail to achieve their goals. Because they can’t complete the things they need to complete when they have unlimited time for the deadline.
And a tip that I used in setting my deadline is Parkinson’s Law.
This law is found in the famous essay in “The Economist” in 1955 by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, based on the experience he has when working in the British Civil Service.
In his essay, Parkinson said,
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
If something must be done in a year, it’ll be done in a year.
If something must be done next week, it’ll be done next week. And if something must be done tomorrow, it’ll be done tomorrow.”
So it means that if you believe you must complete something in a specific time, you totally will achieve it. And what you believe about your ability will decide how you work on your tasks and create your own deadline.
For me, my own deadline for MITs is 10:30 a.m every morning. It means that I will make sure to complete all the most 2–3 important tasks I need to do on this day before this time.
Then, I have the rest of my day to feel free to work on the tasks that are less important for me.
The most benefit of this deadline is I feel so fresh and comfortable after 10:30 a.m every day. Because I know that I have already completed the toughest parts of my day. And I am extremely focused on my MITs when I wake up as I know that I just have a limited time to complete the tasks that I need to do.
Final Thought
I know that many of you when reading this article will think that you can do things better when being multi-tasks, as you did it for years and it is still going well in your work and life.
But I have a stronger belief that you can create even better results when you can just focus on a few important tasks a day.
As you can see the successful people in the world, such as Warren Buffet, Jack Ma, Mark Zuckerberg,…who just focus on a few things they did, but make them be the best at doing this thing.
This is the reason why they become so successful in their life.
In the same way, when you can control your days to just focus on the most important tasks first and complete them properly. You are in the process to create greater results and make your day to be more effective.
Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel @anthony lecturer. On this channel, I share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can
