How to be a Billionaire!

I typed the title query on Google out of curiosity. And I got 10+ articles with the same title!  I went through each one of them. I found some of them outrightly boring and cliched, but others were good!

Here is what I learned from each of them :-

1. “How to be a Billionaire – By  Martin Fridson“. So there is a book on the topic!!! Not bad. Thanks to Amazon’s “Search Inside” technology, I was able to dig a bit into the book. I think it is good stuff. There are about 30 reviews and the average rating for the book is 4 out of 5. The book discusses some interesting things like “Invest on Political influence”& “Copying gets more money than Innovating”. It also talks about easily imaginable things like “taking Big Risks” and “Dominating the Market”. All in all, Martin discusses several principles taking real life examples of 14 billionaires.

2. The 2nd link comes from Forbes.com.  I have never read Forbes, but they have nice content in their site. This one is basically an excerpt from some kind of a public forum where there is an expert on 1 end and people can shoot random questions to him. The expert in our case is Pete Newcomb. He is most probably a senior editor with Forbes. There are 1 or 2 good questions that have been answered well as well.

Then came a truckload of bullshit (IMHO  that is).

3. Consider this one : Which spoke about things that anybody can imagine and write about. Like having a unique idea and all. It went on to suggest, that to become a billionaire, consider becoming a multi-millionaire first. (WTF – no one is so naive that they will plan to become a billionaire without planning to become a multi millionaire first). This article was written by a theory buff for theory buffs.

4. Another one was this : Just as lousy as the previous one, this one asserted on the importance of prayer, positivity and creative visualization. Sounds like the author is an old man his younger generation about something he doesn’t know head or tail about. So he writes down whatever he thinks might do the trick.

5. Next came a very simple article that quoted HL Hunt. Because I like simple stuff and I did not have to waste a lot of time reading this one, I won’t criticize. Besides it comes from the mouth of a billionaire himself and I respect the words a lot more hence.  He speaks about – knowing what you want, understanding what it takes to get what you want and persevere & to jot down your goals! Interesting. I like the significance attached to jotting down of your goals. I have realized in my little life that it helps a great deal. It channelizes your focus and energy.

6. Next in line is an article with the same title, this time from some vc type investment web site. There is a point on perseverance and strategy. But the author cuts the post too early and starts explaining how his can best support you on you in your financial journey.

7. Then comes a funny but well written article on Washington Post which talks about “Why become a Billionaire”. I concludes, that a practical billionaire can live a really lavish life and leave enough for his/her next generation to live an equally lavish life.

8. Next comes “How I did it” by Sidney Frank.  Its a nice story and talks about the strategy Red Bull is famous for (at least here in India). They always hire hot chicks to show the drink around. But this article is a part of Inc.com ’s “How I did it” series. I am a big fan of Inc.com. Its a must visit for Entrepreneurs.

Then I got too bored reading, there was this article by Time, which I didn’t understand.

Conclusion:

If you are seriously considering, then buy the book. I am not inspired to buy it how ever.

If I were to plan on being one, I’d find an area which everyone is sure to yield many billionaires. Say Internet. Then invest a few years building a niche in it (understanding the dynamics). Come up with a revolutionary idea. Form a company around it. Which has a super sexy IPO. flat! (of course easier said than done, but then this is my blog and I write whatever I feel like )

A sexy new possibility.

Here comes another bullet post. I’ll finish writing this within 7 minutes.

A whole new possibility came to my mind today when I was thinking of my Ma’am. (Mrs Kamal Baduni. My teacher from APS Dagshai who is just like a mother to me). I anyways think of her a few times every week! But this time I thought of going and staying with her. I was thinking about going home and thought it would be so wonderful if I could stay with her also!

Thinking of the same a wonderful new possibility came to my mind. How about traveling the country staying with my friends and family all the time! Sounds great doesn’t it? There are a few hitches though. 1 its not practical. Not the travel part of it but the money part of it. If I am not earning then the experience will be more painful than fun for me.

So the next imp question is – “How do I earn money while consistently being on the move?”. Well there are many ways.

• I can become a blogger. This blog + my yet to be started tech blog + my handwriting analysis website can fetch me sufficient money.
• Also I can conduct – Handwriting Analysis workshops and do some live analysis in malls for fun. This way I can earn money.

The next problem is Computer! I don’t have a laptop yet and I would need one. Anyways I have kept “Buying a laptop and a sexy cell phone” in this years targets. I just have to focus on buying it soon enough.

So how much money should I earn every month such that I can easily go and have fun? I guess 40k a month will be sufficient.

Buttttt… What about my entrepreneural dreams? Well, this is a tough question. I’ll need some time to work it out.

But the possibility is wonderful!

Aha.. I have taken 11 minutes already. Its gonna take me another minute to put the tags and publish. But good I am improving on writing bullet posts!

I am so lost and goddamn irratated.

Today has been full of breakdowns. There is nothing wrong there but, I am still irritated.

First, I wake up on time and go back to sleep again. Then Soniya wakes me up and I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up at 11.30 in a good mood (As I said, I don’t abuse myself anymore). I quickly finish reading “Surely you are joking Mr Feynman” (there were just about 20+ pages left). I have an orange for my breakfast for I wanted to have a proper lunch at least. Then I check my mail and get a bomb from HSBC. They say that my credit card has been canceled and they’ll be taking legal action. And that I’ll have to pay for the legal expenses as well. Now I am already struggling with my finances and I don’t want to borrow money… but goddamn it. Paying the card money is also important. There has been a lot of confusion with a Rs. 10000 balance transfer from SBI to HSBC. And all the while I have been blaming HSBC for improper conduct. I have spoken to their officials several times and gone to their bank once. But earlier this month, I was informed in my statement that no money has been transferred from SBI and HSBC are not completely at fault.

Anyways, I do have to pay my remaining Rs 13,000 or so immediately. Because the interest rate on the outstanding amount is very high. I had decided not to borrow any money. But now I’ll need to do that. I have had enough experience with generating money to know that this kind of an amount can’t be made in a week’s time doing what I know to do. There are ways, but I wont be able to go home if I follow them. Its such a small situation and it is already giving me the creeps. Come to think about what will happen when I have my own company and the pressure will by 100 times literally!

Ok, coming back to my senses, I chose not to allow these circumstances to get better of me. I’ll speak to my dad, ask him to pay for my credit card.  I’ll still take on the game of generating some amount of money to take care of my expenses. I’ll make an action plan around that tonight. I’ll go and talk to the placement cell of my college and propose to be their partner in securing 100% placements. I’ll follow up on the mail that I had sent them regarding  a placement training program.

Well there were other breakdowns as well. But its time for action right now. I’ll straightaway go and update my organizer and start executing my plan.

I gotta be powerful and make winning my habit. Its a long long way to go! But I have taken my first steps.

Ok I give up! :)

I have been failing so often that I don’t feel bad at failing anymore. And the best thing is, the lesser worse I feel the more I am able to learn from my failure.

So I was not able to make any money still. Did quite some stuff but nothing worked.

So I asked Deepu to pay for my bills. She is my ex, and with her its not like I am borrowing money. With her its like family. My money her money and same way around. So I still don’t feel like I have borrowed.

So what have I learned from this failure. — [ It looks like I am not putting my heart and soul ]– . We always win the games we play. And if I am not earning money then I am playing the game of not earning money.

So how do I transform this area? Possibility of creating 150$. I’ll go all out on creating this thing.

Meanwhile I put up an existence system today. http://www.rememberthemilk.com

Its a good one. And I wanna build a good relationship with this fella! As in what I write in the organizer, I end up doing as well!

Analyzing handwritings in a Mall!

Today was fun. To me it was a big thing to go and do handwriting analysis in a populous place. But I went there confidently and did everything with confidence as usual. Quite an experience. A few people told me that they were very impressed. A couple were not satisfied 100%. The MC kept calling me a handwriting analysis expert! Incidentally she happened to be a junior from my college.

I thought I would be speaking on the mike and there would be a big crowd around me but I ended up doing 1 on 1 analysis. I had invested quite some amount to arrange for all the stationary expecting about 300 people to submit their handwriting. So I had reason to be upset but I dismantled it and got over it in 2 minutes (I am going through the lowest phase of the year so far and I must acknowledge myself for being really powerful in the circumstances). After the whole thing finished, my throat was hurting and I was dead tired. In fact I’ll hit the sack straight away after hitting ‘publish’. Whatever….

According to Spencer Johnson’s – “The Present”. One should focus on whats right, right now. So whats right right now for me is -

• I had fun
• A lot of people acknowledged me
• I have the emails of quite a few people who would like me to give a seminar at their offices.
• Some of them might have had major breakthroughs at understanding themselves and their spouses.

I have 2 options now.

1 is to stick with Handwriting Analysis persistently and go do seminars in all those offices and find some way of earning while doing that. Write blogs, build up my site, put adsense and chitika in it and expect returns.

OR

Move over to something else and earn some money to pay my bills. I don’t know why but I don’t like this idea of money getting the better of me. This is 1 area I want to transform. Money should not move me, I should be moving it.

Right now I am biased towards option 1. I have starting enjoying discipline. Talk about persistence!

Tomorrow I have to leave home by 7 to be on time for the “creation meeting” of Tanaya’s 2nd SELP workday. Man I am so tired. I really wish to sleep my whole tomorrow over. Ill have to hit the sack soon.

Nice habit. Writing your journal every night. Someday when I am really successful I can look back at these pages and amuse myself!

Good Night!

Bye the way, today I did my simpleology and exercise and no yoga.

Some tension creeping in!

I could not sustain the beautiful start in the morning. By mid day, I had a deal to do live handwriting analysis (using a mic) in a big mall on a busy day! Wow, quit a deal. I was excited and nervous. I spent the rest of the day preparing a survey and making a small writeup for the action tomorrow.

Now I have not done live analysis for the last 4 years. Doing it in front of so many people, in a big mall sounds a little overwhelming. I know that I know only a quarter of what I used to know earlier. And I don’t remember any of the catchy phrases that I used to conjure while analyzing earlier. Not to mention, I used to analyze only in front of a small crowd of 10-20 people on an average. But I guess I am not tensed about this as much as I am about not having any money to pay my bills. This live analysis session is not gonna pay me anything. The deal we have struck is like this. I guess I should not worry about money so much. I feel the universe/God wants me to use this opportunity to create money for myself. Something will happen. By 15th Ill pay all my bills, and of course without borrowing it. Thats a promise I make to myself.

Ok, no more negative thinking. “Bimbiglio” this is the word that I use to challenge any negative thought. When ever I get a negative thought I challenge it and replace it with a positive one. The thought that I am replacing this negative pattern with is – “I’ll read Ray Walker, the whole book. Do 2 dummy analysis tomorrow. Go to the mall and have fun.”. Wow! I am already feeling excited. Yes, all I am gonna do tomorrow is have fun. Have fun and nothing else.

Ok, so there I go studying my Handwriting Analysis book.

I am assisting in the ‘SELP production team’ on Sunday! After all the fun I have tomorrow, I’ll have even more fun and learning the day after.

How I overcame my inauthentic fear of failure?

I had a crunch time today financially. I gotta pay my bills and I don’t have the money. All the guys I had lent money to, are unable to pay me right now. In the background of these conversations I was glad that they couldn’t pay me back. This way I have an opportunity to utilize my dormant potential of creating money!

Then came idea no 4 – “Handwriting Analysis for free and for a fee”. Since I am already working with handwriting analysis, I thought I gotta make money with this only. It would be a good motivation for me to learn more on the subject. I decided to place “Drop your handwriting Here” boxes in some of the retail shops near my house (after talking to their owners of course) and place 100 posters all over my layout. But somehow I just kept hovering around the shops and didn’t speak to anyone. The shops were so congested that no one had any chance to write properly. Then I saw a big big mall. I thought of approaching the manager of the mall, but a weird feeling of fear gripped me. A fear of rejection I guess. So I didn’t go inside the mall and came home instead. After coming home I spoke to Mamta and she cleared my mind out. Then I went again. Man it took me a 5 minute talk to get a ‘yes’. I have so much of practice of getting a ‘yes’ with the registration conversations taught in SELP . This is one more added to the list.

So the point boils down to “how to overcome your fear?”. Well whatever fear we have is inauthentic 99% of the time. In my case I was afraid of the rejection that existed nowhere but in my imagination. How authentic is that??? So whenever you have a fear, ask your self.. “is my imagination playing the game or is it reality?”. If it is imagination then just chuck it off and go ahead and do whatever is needed. Chances are you might fail, but failing is much better than not trying. Its like playing a game and loosing rather than not turning in the field itself.

Overcoming this fear has been an important breakthrough for me! Thanks Mamta.

Megaliving All 30 Days complete!!!

I completed my Megaliving 30 day program yesterday! Life has really transformed. I have grown by leaps and bounds. This is the happiest I have been in the last 3 years! . I can feel myself growing above my moods and circumstances.

It was a tough journey. I stuck to it with discipline. And I have got the fruits.

I would like to write a lot about my journey in the coming posts, but here is a quick list of a few things that I have achieved :-

• I eat 3 times every day. Feel very energized and upbeat!
• I exercise 5 days a week, have built a decent endurance and can feel my abs hardening
• I meditate regularly and my focus levels have gone up several times.
• Its pretty easy for me to persevere these days as I don’t get distracted easily.
• I have built amazing discipline. And I enjoy it
• My pimples have disappeared and my dandruff has reduced
• I get very very few negative thoughts every day and I am quick to challenge and dispel them.
• My will power has increased significantly
• My memory has improved.
• I have started remembering routes to various places and names of people.
• I am literally upset-free. (this credit I’ll give to Landmark Education though)
• I keep my room neat and tidy.
• I feel so good that I never feel like being in disheveled clothes. I am almost always clean-shaved. And I do so not for the people looking at me, I do so because I feel like it.
• I have started waking up early morning. Thanks to Soniya for this.
• I have become very good at practicing commitment over attachment.
• I have really started living a life of no pretense! It used to be very confronting, but now I must say, I have overcome the tough phase and am enjoying the fruits.
• I managed to read 6 books in January. Overshooting my target by 1 book.
• I eat fruits regularly and am noticing their effect in my skin and body.
• I have built this habit of “kaizen”. Pushing myself without taking stress .
• I have grown by leaps and bounds.
• The list goes on… Thanks Mr. Sharma

There are a few things that I could not achieve, the prominent one being my 1000$ target. But the kind of guy I am now, I just wanna learn from it and move on. My targets for April and July stay as stated earlier. I also did not complete my handwriting analysis website. Primarily because I was focusing on other strategies to meet my targets. And something tells me, I’ll meet them this time.

Not to mention, I will continue to MegaLive each day from now on. In fact today was better than any of the previous 30 days. Today was way above them all.

How do I make my $1000 this month???

Initially my idea was to earn the amount with Google AdSense. But alas, that idea was way too far fledged. By 5th of Jan I realized the practicality of plan A. I have half completed a fun and sexy website, but getting enough traffic on it in a month to make that amount is unlikely.

Then I started chilling out and didn’t worry too much about making the money.

Then I started plan B. Its a sexy biz idea with very little initial investment required. I found a niche market and made a service to target it. But alas, though I got good feedback on the service, it was required that I continue the service for a prolongated period of time. Since I am going on a 2 month vacation in the mid of Feb, I could not pursue plan B as well. But the basics have been handled.

Ok so plan B also temporarily halted.

Then I again chilled for a couple of days. And came up with plan C. I am good at teaching, and I found another niche market filled with clients to train. Today I went to propose that business prospect to a relevant client. He was interested but said that the earliest he can organize such a session is in March. That again leaves me with no way to make my $1000 this month.

So I came back today and didn’t do anything. No meditation today, No Yoga either (2nd day in a row), didn’t eat a good lunch, had buns and biscuits for dinner and didn’t read during the night, started solving a quiz instead.

And now I am back on track, I have come up with a Plan D. This one does not look promising, but will surely teach me a lot! I gotta read and learn a lot to make it happen. And of-course I am not writing about it right now in this blog.

Right now I am wondering, why do I write down all these things in my blog. Someday in the future, I’ll come back to these pages and smile at the process of my evolution.

My Short and Medium Term Goals

I would like to jot down my short and medium term goals here.

Short Term:

1. Earn 1000$ in the next 16 days
2. Build my Handwriting Analysis Website in the next 4 days
3. Create my Tech Blog and my Handwriting Analysis Blog and update them daily with fresh content. Content from what I have studied during the day
4. Practice Megaliving, Simple.ology 101 and Simple.ology blogging daily
5. Plan my work and work my plan daily and weekly

Medium Term:

1. Earn 2000$ a month by April 2008
2. Earn 3250$ a month by July 2008
3. Reach among the top 5 percentile in TopCoder
4. Build a prototype of my algorithm software product by July 2008
5. Read 5 books on entrepreneurship
6. Make a business plan of my software product