March 13, 2004
Welcome to this month's issue of the Wealth Keys newsletter.
Please feel free to pass this along to friends.
This edition includes…
1. Mindset Article: Are you trying too hard to change?
2. Announcement: Rich Dad's Cashflow Game Listings
3. Warning: Beware of $1 trials
4. Resources: Our Top 10 Stock Market Sites
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FEATURED ARTICLE: Are you trying too hard to change?
Last week I attended an introductory seminar by an Australian wealth creation trainer. It was an amazing experience on a number of levels, and totally in contrast to the usual slick presentation by a charismatic speaker out to convince you that if you purchase his expensive three-day workshop, you too will become as successful as he is. Pardon the cynicism, but I've hardly ever attended one of these events without wanting to whip out my credit card and sign up for some more enlightenment. I usually resist these days, but the fact that I'm so sorely tempted goes to show how GOOD these guys are at selling themselves.
Our speaker's approach was different. Instead of charm and a convincing sales job, we were subjected to almost four hours of abuse, name calling and an unending stream of foul language. Some people were amused while others cringed in their seats, hoping against hope that he wouldn't choose them to answer a question or serve as an example. Yet the overall effect was quite exhilarating. Our emotions were definitely engaged.
Now anyone who's old enough to have attended an est seminar in the 1970s might be familiar with this in-your-face approach. Werner Erhard was the Tony Robbins of that era, gaining lots of free publicity around the world because of his confrontational approach to change. Workshop participants were challenged, harrassed, criticized, and even refused bathroom breaks, all in the interests of 'busting' them, that is, exposing the games, rationalizations and defensive maneuvers they employed to preserve their own psychological status quo. And in many cases it worked. People raved about how est changed their lives.
This presenter put us through some of the same grief. And I admit I got defensive, or as some would say, “plugged in”. At the same time I appreciated the honesty of his comments, many of which were right on the money. Whether I do business with him or not remains to be seen, but I took lots of notes (in between being called a wimp and a loser) and I'd like to talk about one statement that really moved me.
The trainer suggested that change doesn't have to be a huge undertaking. In a nutshell, he claimed that if you change by just one degree, you can change your life. What a simple but profound concept.
I know we talk about something similar in NLP, such as taking things one step at a time, or chunking down a task into its smallest components, but his statement goes beyond that. The way I interpret it, this concept is more focused in the moment than those daunting goals we set for ourselves, such as “I will become more honest, patient, sympathetic, focused, productive” and so on. Those self-imposed tasks are HUGE, and we often get discouraged and self-critical when we have difficulty achieving them.
Playing with the one degree concept might work like this:
When you catch yourself behaving in a habitual self-defeating way, whether it's alone or with other people, you might choose to change your behavior by one degree. This might mean not saying something that will cause friction, treating someone with a little more patience than usual, or making a single phone call that you're been procrastinating over. The point is that it's something TINY that you can do right now. And if it's tiny, it's not hard to do.
One degree is achievable. You can't fail. It's easy, far easier than trying to change something major like a lifelong behavior pattern or habit.
You could decide to change your behavior by one degree every time you catch yourself doing something self-defeating. So if you're impatient with people (or yourself), you could decide to be more patient by one degree. The other person might respond positively, thereby eliciting a different response in you, and the effects will snowball.
The key is to limit your changes to one degree, whatever that means to you in the moment. Don't be tempted to go beyond that, unless it's a natural response to the improved situation rather than something you're forcing. Why put pressure on yourself? One degree is enough.
If you changed by one degree every day, is it possible that in six months you might change by 180 degrees? Will you take up the challenge and find out?
Announcement: Rich Dad's Cashflow Game Listings
If you haven't yet played Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow game, take a cost-free test drive by dropping in on a Cashflow club in your area. You'll meet players of every skill level, all willing to teach you the fundamentals of this brilliant financial education vehicle.
For more information about the game, visit our Cashflow 101 page.
Robert's Rich Dad web site has recently added a Cashflow Club listings page. So if you're looking for a local club, just log on to the Rich Dad site and follow the instructions.
Because our club is now listed with Rich Dad, we've added a page with meeting details on our web site. If you live in the Gold Coast-Brisbane area, or if you're passing through towards the end of the month, find out how to attend by clicking on The Queensland Cashflow Club.
Warning: Beware of $1 trials
We've been caught out a couple of times recently by the Internet marketing ploy of offering a one-month $1 trial to join a membership site or download an e-book.
It appears that for some marketers, their aim is to invite the participant to submit their credit card details to pay the $1 charge, and then hopefully overlook the one-month deadline so that the company is within its rights to make further charges on the card.
Yes, we know it's the responsibility of any intelligent person to keep track of such deadliness, and the fact that you've overlooked one isn't something you can blame on anyone else. But consider this:
Some companies issuing a trial site membership don't have clear instructions on their e-mails or web sites regarding how to unsubscribe. Instead they list several e-mail addresses linked to a variety of offers, distracting you from the fact that there's no unsubscribe address.
They also don't send out a reminder to say your trial membership will expire on a certain date. Why would they? They'd prefer that you overlook it.
If you've made a note of the deadline and you e-mail them on the anniversary date to cancel your membership, you may find that they've already charged your credit card for the next month. Like Cinderella's carriage reverting to a pumpkin, the charge appears automatically on your card on the stroke of midnight. You then waste time e-mailing back and forth as you plead your case for a charge reversal.
Or you can take your chances with your credit card company.
With a trial e-book, you'll sometimes find that the e-book is print-disabled so you can only read it onscreen. You might assume that at the end of your trial period you'll no longer be able to open the e-book, a situation usually rectified by making a payment and receiving a password. But there's another scenario you might have overlooked.
For a start, you may not get a reminder that your trial period is about to end. Or you'll get one that doesn't make sense. We received an e-mail with a reminder message in the subject line, only to find that the body of the message was a pitch to try the $1 trial. What it should have stated very clearly was that if we didn't cancel immediately, we'd be charged $200 for the e-book.
Instead, this information was buried under tons of verbiage on the sales page. The company counted on people skimming through the lengthy sales pitch and missing this key information.
So please be wary of these highly seductive offers. Again, we won't name names but please tread carefully when you next see an offer of this kind.
RESOURCES: Our Top 10 Stock Market Sites
Here are some of our favorite stock market web sites to date. As we're always exploring additional approaches to stock and options trading, we'll no doubt be adding to this list in the near future.
If you're new to the stock market, these sites should give you a good introduction to the topic. Not all of them will fill your needs, but take a quick look around, and if you connect with a site's style and content, bookmark it for future reference.
You'll probably wind up with 5-6 sites that you visit constantly. As with any topic, beware of information overload. Take it slowly and absorb the information one step at a time. Because taking action is the best way to learn, paper trading will make the concepts much clearer than simply reading about them.
If you have some favorite stock market web sites, please feel free to e-mail the URLs to us at news@hidden-wealth-keys.com
We also welcome your reviews of any relevant sites.
This month's list is composed of US stock sites. In future issues we'll feature some of the the top Australian sites.
- The Motley Fool
Brothers David and Tom Gardner are the authors of the investing trilogy, The Motley Fool: You Have More than You Think, The Motley Fool Investment Guide and The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers. Their web site focuses on personal finances and investing, with an emphasis on fundamental analysis, and is definitely worth a look.
www.fool.com
- Decision Point
This popular site offers a no-cost online course on technical analysis as well as other relevant stock market information. A great introduction to the topic.
www.decisionpoint.com
- Impulsive Profits
Stephen Pierce, one of the top Internet marketers and author of the bestselling eBook, The Whole Truth, has a cluster of impressive web sites on stock amd commodities trading. You can start by visiting his Impulsive Profits site and and checking out his no-cost downloads.
www.impulsiveprofits.com
Stephen's other sites include:
www.rapidfireswingtrading.com
www.futures-trading-commodity-trading.com
www.future-charts.com
www.elliot-wave-theory.com
www.chart-traders.com
- Big Charts
If you're looking for charts, this is one of the best places online. Take a look at the wealth of information they offer.
www.bigcharts.com
- The Online Option Trader
Stephen Cooper is the stock market advisor to Robert Allen of Multiple Streams of Income fame. He sells a top quality options trading course and several other products.
www.onlineoption.com
- CBS Market Watch
This large site is a excellent source of stock market news. You can receive daily price alerts on up to 25 stocks via e-mail, and can also request financial news alerts as part of the same no-cost service.
www.CBS.Market.Watch.com
- Vanguard Group
For conservative investors, or those who wish to allocate part of their portfolio to conservative investments, Vanguard is considered the king of index funds. Click on the Personal Investors link to access the most relevant information.
www.vanguard.com
- Schwab Trading CT
If you're looking for an inexpensive online broker, Charles Schwab is a company with a reputation for quality service and reasonable prices. Other low-cost brokers can be found on the CBS Market Watch site, or do a search for 'discount brokers'.
www.schwabtrader.com
- Medved Quote Tracker
Jerry Medved offers a useful no-cost spreadsheet program that tracks your stocks daily. Take a look at his product to decide if it's for you.
www.quotetracker.com
- Incredible Charts
Although this is an Australian site, chartered accountant Colin Twiggs also offers information on the US stock market. His pages on technical analysis offer an extensive overview of the subject.
www.incrediblecharts.com.au
We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Please let us know what information you find useful and we'll do our best to accommodate you.
You can reach us any time at
admin@hidden-wealth-keys.com