Nathan Martin

I’m finishing up my first listen of Craig Valentine’s Home Study Course (which, by the way, is amazing!).  Craig recommends writing out what you favorite day would look like.  This advice makes a lot of sense to my goal-setting mind.  So I decided to give it a try.  I found out that 24 hours is just not enough time to do everything that would make a day perfect… but a near perfect day might look something like this:

• Wake up to see a $1,000 deposit in my account from info products that people purchased from my sites the past 24 hours.
• Exercise & shower.
• Spend some quiet time outside soaking up sun rays, meditating and planning.
• Lunch date with Becky.
• Implement some of the planning (write & develop products and marketing).
• Float down the river in my kayak.
• Cookout with friends and family in the evening.
• Read a book.
• Bedtime with my wife =)

That would make a pretty cool day for me.  What’s your perfect day look like?

Dreams are elusive.  If we don’t write them down, take action steps toward achieving them, and stay focused, dreams quickly become faded memories of what might have been.  In the overstimulated world that we live in, the next shiny thing catches our attention before we’ve even fully comprehended the wonderful dreamy thought we just had.  And just like that it’s gone–often forever.  With so many distractions to keep us occupied 24 hours a day, who has time to dream?  Maybe we just need a big enough WHY.  Here are a few reasons why it’s important to dream:

1.  Dreams provide energy.  Sometimes the routine we settle into begins to take the life out of us.  Without dreams to strive for, many of us become drones, bored and empty.  Carving out some time to be alone to think and dream often recharges our batteries.

2.  Dreams provide meaning.  Life is much more fulfilling when we are working toward a dream.  The dream can be as public Martin Luther King’s vision of equality or as personal as buying our first house.  Even the most wealthy people often find themselves with all the comforts imaginable, yet dissatisfied.  They haven’t chosen a meaningful dream to pursue next.

3.  Dreams provide hope.  There are times in life when all we have is a dream of better circumstances.  In The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner found himself homeless, with nothing but his dream of a better future for him and his son.  Chris kept the dream alive and never gave up hope as he pushed himself to success.

We all need dreams no matter what season of life we find our selves in… at rock bottom looking for hope, running the rat race needing energy, or living the good life but seeking meaning.

Take some time alone to think and dream.  What did you come up with?

What is the Rule of 5?

Recently I’ve been reminded several times of Principle 23 in Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles.  Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul, were overwhelmed by the many different ways they could market their new book, so they developed the Rule of 5 which is simply “every day, we do five specific things that will move our goal toward completion.”  By breaking the overwhelming task of creating a bestseller down into 5 things to do per day, they simplified their goal and, after a couple years, achieved bestseller status!

OK…I get it!

Sometimes it takes a while.  I read Success Principles several years ago.  John Maxwell retells the Canfield story in his new book, Put Your Dream to the Test which I just read a couple weeks ago.  This morning when I looked through my email and saw Jessica Swanson, “The Shoestring Marketer”, talking about the Power of 5, I decided it was time to apply this little tool to my own goals.

Major Definite Purpose

My biggest goal at this stage in my life is financial independence.  Because there are an overwhelming number of ways one could achieve financial independence, this goal is a perfect candidate for the Rule of 5.  Beginning today, I will practice the Rule of 5.