The Best Goal is No Goal

Have I Gone Mad?

Blashphemy. The best goal is no goal? Has your editor, a hardcore believer in the art and science of goal setting, gone mad?

Absolutely not. In fact, you'll agree, after reading today's guess essay, that while Leo Babauta's take on goal setting is slightly different, the bottom line on how you should live your life is the same, whether you choose to set goals or not.

Craig Ballantyne

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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By Leo Babauta

The idea of having concrete, achievable goals seem to be deeply ingrained in our culture. I know I lived with goals for many years, and in fact a big part of my writing is about how to set and achieve goals.

These days, however, I live without goals, for the most part. It's absolutely liberating, and contrary to what you might have been taught, it absolutely doesn't mean you stop achieving things.

It means you stop letting yourself be limited by goals.

Consider this common belief: "You'll never get anywhere unless you know where you're going." This seems like common sense, and yet it's obviously not true if you stop to think about it. Conduct a simple experiment: go outside and walk in a random direction, and feel free to change directions randomly. After 20 minutes, an hour... you'll be somewhere! It's just that you didn't know you were going to end up there.

And there's the rub: you have to open your mind to going places you never expected to go. If you live without goals, you'll explore new territory. You'll learn some unexpected things. You'll end up in surprising places. That's the beauty of this philosophy, but it's also a difficult transition.

Today, I live mostly without goals. Now and then I start coming up with a goal, but I'm letting them go. Living without goals hasn't ever been an actual goal of mine... it's just something I'm learning that I enjoy more, that is incredibly freeing, that works with the lifestyle of following my passion that I've developed.

The problem with goals

In the past, I'd set a goal or three for the year, and then sub-goals for each month. Then I'd figure out what action steps to take each week and each day, and try to focus my day on those steps.

Unfortunately, it never, ever works out this neatly. You all know this. You know you need to work on an action step, and you try to keep the end goal in mind to motivate yourself. But this action step might be something you dread, and so you procrastinate. You do other work, or you check email or Facebook, or you goof off.

And so your weekly goals and monthly goals get pushed back or side-tracked, and you get discouraged because you have no discipline. And goals are too hard to achieve. So now what? Well, you review your goals and reset them. You create a new set of sub-goals and action plans. You know where you're going, because you have goals!

Of course, you don't actually end up getting there. Sometimes you achieve the goal and then you feel amazing. But most of the time you don't achieve them and you blame it on yourself.

Here's the secret: the problem isn't you, it's the system! Goals as a system are set up for failure.

Even when you do things exactly right, it's not ideal. Here's why: you are extremely limited in your actions. When you don't feel like doing something, you have to force yourself to do it. Your path is chosen, so you don't have room to explore new territory. You have to follow the plan, even when you're passionate about something else.

Some goal systems are more flexible, but nothing is as flexible as having no goals.

How it works

So what does a life without goals look like? In practice, it's very different than one with goals.

You don't set a goal for the year, nor for the month, nor for the week or day. You don't obsess about tracking, or actionable steps. You don't even need a to-do list, though it doesn't hurt to write down reminders if you like.

What do you do, then? Lay around on the couch all day, sleeping and watching TV and eating Ho-Hos? No, you simply do. You find something you're passionate about, and do it. Just because you don't have goals doesn't mean you do nothing – you can create, you can produce, you can follow your passion.

And in practice, this is a wonderful thing: you wake up and do what you're passionate about. For me, that's usually blogging, but it can be writing a novel or an ebook or my next book or creating a course to help others or connecting with incredible people or spending time with my wife or playing with my kids. There's no limit, because I'm free.

In the end, I usually end up achieving more than if I had goals, because I'm always doing something I'm excited about. But whether I achieve or not isn't the point at all: all that matters is that I'm doing what I love, always.

I end up in places that are wonderful, surprising, great. I just didn't know I would get there when I started

The Most Important 30 Minutes of Your Day

The Best Place to Start

While I make my living showing people how to grunt and sweat while cursing my name, the good news is that you don't have to become a gym rat to improve your health and add years to your life and life to your years. Today, you'll discover the quickest and easiest way to achieve better health while dramatically increasing your creativity. It's something everyone can – and should – do each day.

Craig Ballantyne

"Yes, exercise is the catalyst. That's what makes everything happen: your digestion, your elimination, your sex life, your skin, hair, everything about you depends on circulation. And how do you increase circulation?" – Jack LaLanne

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By Craig Ballantyne

The alarm clock gongs at 4am, even though I've already awoken naturally out of habit. This signals to Bally the Dog that it's time to jump on my bed for a few minutes of morning belly rubbing before I get up and go immediately to the computer to spill the contents of my subconscious (I finished this article by 4:51am). This is my magic time where I write faster than at any other time of the day.

Finally, at around 6am, it's dog walk time. Bally the Dog comes downstairs, we suit up for whatever elements the Toronto morning plans to throw at us that day, and we start up the short hill to Starbucks. We don't go in, but I peek at the baristas beginning their morning routine, and then we head down a big hill to the first off-leash section of our path.

(You can imagine our journey like the footsteps traced in one of the old Family Circle cartoons. Me playing the role of little Jeffrey, and sometimes, depending on what he ate the day before, Bally literally playing the role of Barfy the Dog.)

In the gulley where Bally gets to go off-leash for a few minutes, he likes to sniff and leave his mark, and excitedly greets every other dog before continuing on his merry way. Next we turn and head toward the beach where the Parks and Recreation Department of Toronto has generously provided a large off-leash area for dogs right on the water so that Bally can swim in Lake Ontario. And he does, all year round. There's no water too cold for a Labrador Retriever.

All of this is part of our exercise regimen for the day, but according to Dr. Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina, we could have turned for home before heading for the beach (on our first of 4 dog walks each day). In just 30 minutes, Dr. Blair says, I would have garnered all the physical activity necessary to reduce my mortality risk by 50%.

According to Dr. Blair, it's not obesity that is shortening our lives, but the lack of physical activity. And no, you don't need to channel your inner Tony Horton or Craig Ballantyne for an intense, sweat-dripping, heart-pounding, metabolism-boosting workout three to six days per week in order to get heart and health benefits. The doctor prescribes just thirty minutes of walking per day.

For many ETR readers, I'm sure that comes as a welcome relief. You're busy, you're stuck in Wisconsin in the dead of winter or Singapore in the stickiness of summer, you're in three airports today as you make your way from Cleveland to Louisville to Tennessee to visit suppliers, or frankly, the thought of sweating voluntary turns you off. That's fine. Anyone, anywhere, can find a way to get thirty minutes of brisk walking. Research even shows you can break up the exercise into three 10-minute blocks and you'll still achieve the health benefits.

But there are more than just wellness advantages to walking. If you still need another argument to take up this strange new fad of putting one foot in front of the other, consider what it will do for your work. I guarantee that you'll be more creative during these thirty minutes of exercise than you would be stuck in front of the computer for another hour (outside of your magic time).

In fact, research shows that getting up and away from our regular work environment leads to greater creativity. That's one of the reasons that you get so many good ideas in the shower. And remember, the apple didn't fall on Newton's head while he sat in his study.

Exposing ourselves to non-work related environments allows our brains to come up with ideas that we wouldn't get otherwise. Combined with the increased blood flow from exercise, and you have a one-two punch for problem solving and generating some of your best ideas of the day. Don't ignore this opportunity to improve both your health and the quality of your ideas.

Anytime of the day is acceptable for getting your thirty minute walk, provided you aren't visiting Dubai in August (if you are, you'll probably want to skip the lunchtime energy-boosting outdoor walk).

A morning walk can help you clear your head or organize your thoughts for the day. It's also going to be the easiest time for you to fit in your walk before the events and emergencies of the day steal your time.

A lunchtime walk may boost your mental alertness and help you avoid the afternoon lethargy that comes from a heavy meal that many people mistakenly choose to eat at noon. This also allows you the opportunity to invite a colleague on your walk so that you can work through a problem outside of the regular office environment while benefitting from the increased creativity of a new environment.

Hitting the road after work can bring you multiple rewards. You'll get the health, creativity, and energy boosting benefits, plus it will keep you out of the kitchen and away from that mindless pre-dinner snacking that often ruins an otherwise excellent day of eating high-quality nutritious food.

Finally, there's one more time of day where a brisk 30-minute walk can be a secret weapon for your health. Research shows that moderate exercise after a meal high in fat and calories can help immediately lower harmful levels of blood triglycerides. If you tend to overindulge at dinner, whether a bad habit at home or due to a business dinner with colleagues, you can mediate some of the damage by scheduling your daily walk after dinner instead of falling asleep in front of the TV.

The power of something so simple, a thirty minute walk inserted at any time of the day, seems almost hard to believe. But Dr. Blair insists that if you add moderate daily physical activity to your routine, you'll be able to dramatically improve your health and lifespan. You'll also increase your bone density and remain more mobile into your later years.

This doesn't mean you can ignore the importance of eating whole, natural, high-quality foods and minimizing your intake of man-made diet disasters like French fries, pie crust, and chips (three of the worst offenders for your heart and health). Good nutrition – and avoiding bad food – is vitally for your health and longevity.

It would also be wise for you to include at least two short sessions of resistance training each week to stay strong and further increase your bone density. Plus, if you want to build a beach body, it's going to take more than a brisk walk. You'll need metabolic resistance training and intervals.

However, if nothing else, adding a thirty minute brisk walk to your day appears to be the vital first step in lifelong health and wellness.

Get a good pair of shoes, consider a furry companion who will get you moving every day (free personal trainer!), and look forward to becoming more creative at the same time as improving your health

The Golden Bucket of Savings

Thanks, Mom

Growing up, both of my parents instilled in me the value of hard work. But it was my mother who tirelessly encouraged me to save my money. When I started my first job at age 13, busting my butt for $3.10 per hour at the local greenhouse, I saved money from every paycheck. Still do (although fortunately I'm making a little more than $25 a day now). Each week I put some savings right in my golden bucket, as per Mark Ford's recommendation.

Craig Ballantyne

Discipline and responsibility are what separate the wannabes from the success stories. It takes discipline to save and work while others play, but that is your responsibility.

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By Mark Ford

Once you have figured out how large your spending bucket needs to be, you can start to figure out the size of your saving and investment buckets.

You may be wondering what the difference is between saving and investing. To most people, they are the same. But I like to distinguish between them because I believe it will help you acquire wealth safely.

Saving and investing are the same in the sense that you are setting aside some portion of your current earnings for the future. The difference is, the purpose of saving is to safeguard that set-aside money, whereas the purpose of investing is to grow it.

The money in the savings bucket is money that I refer to as your SOA (start-over-again) fund–the money you put aside in case of a financial disaster. What if, for example, you woke up one day to find the company that has employed you for the last twenty years has shut its doors, and the pension plan it was holding for you is suddenly worthless?

You would have to start over, right? You'd need money to pay for your expenses while you found a new job, and you'd need money to start investing again. That's why you need money in your savings bucket. And that money has to be absolutely safe.

Imagine how you would feel if you called up your broker to let him know that you needed to cash in your start-over-again fund and he told you its value had suddenly crashed and was now worth 10 cents on the dollar? Well, that's exactly what happened to millions of Baby Boomers. The reason it happened is because these people did not distinguish between saving and investing. They had all their wealth tied up in investments advertised as safe, but were actually quite risky.

You don't want to take any risk with your start-over-again money. The primary purpose of that money is to preserve, not increase, the capital you set aside. Putting it at risk, even average market risk, is too dangerous.

You need to be equally as careful with the money you set aside to repay debt. Because when the bill comes due, you must pay it. Keep that money safe. Put your debt obligations in your savings bucket, never into the market, even if the market looks safe.

Same is true of any future expenditure that is coming up relatively soon. By relatively soon, I mean, say, one business cycle–seven to ten years.

If, say, your retirement is still twenty or thirty years away, you can afford to invest money set aside for that purpose in vehicles that are safe, but not super-safe. However, if you will be retiring in less than ten years, you can't take the chance of seeing your retirement fund drop by 20% to 30%, because you won't have time to let the market correct itself.

So if you plan to retire in five years and you will be drawing on your retirement savings, you want to transfer at least five years' worth of your retirement fund from your investing bucket to your savings bucket. To ensure that you will be able to pay for the retirement life you want, you can't afford to have that money at risk.

Are you with me?

For your savings bucket, your money should only be in super-safe investments–investments that are highly unlikely to go down in value in the next ten years. Given today's economy, we believe there are only four vehicles that qualify: cash, gold coins, quality municipal bonds, and well-bought rental real estate. For simplicity, my recommendation would be that you diversify your savings bucket funds evenly: 25% into each if you use four of them, 33% if you use three of them, or 50% if you use only cash and gold coins.

The Golden Bucket of Investing

As I said, the purpose of your investing bucket is to grow your wealth. This is the bucket you will use to fund all future, long-term expenditures. By "long-term," I mean more than ten years.

If you are young, you may use this bucket to put aside money for your children's college expenses. But for the most part, the money in this bucket will be for your retirement. And when you look at investment returns from a long-range perspective like that, even a few percentage points can make a huge difference.

I won't spend any time here talking about how you should manage your investing, because Tom and Paul do that in The Palm Beach Letter. But I will say this: The kind of stocks they recommend are the only kind that appeal to me. Every other stock investing strategy I've encountered (and I've been in the financial publishing business for more than thirty years) makes me uncomfortable.

The recommendations that you get every month from Tom and Paul in The Palm Beach Letter are designed to give you an average, long-term return of 10%-15%. This might seem paltry to people who dream of doubling and tripling their money in the market every year, but those kinds of investors almost always end up broke. And making 10%-15% on your money over the long term will give you terrific results.

But–and this is a very big but–you won't get wealthy this way unless you invest enough money.

In other words, investing alone can't make you rich. So if you can afford to invest only a few thousand dollars a year, you will not get rich even if you make 15% a year for forty years. To fill your investing bucket, you need to invest more than that–and if you can't invest more than that right now, you need to generate more income so you can.

That brings us back to the metaphorical well that represents your yearly income–the well you're going to use to fill all three of your buckets.

Your Golden Well 

If your income isn't sufficient to fill all three buckets, you have only two options: You must increase the flow from the well you have, and/or you must dig some new wells. 

If you can become a more valuable employee, you should. But you may also want to create other streams of income.

One possibility would be to invest in rental real estate. If you decide to do that, it will become–after you have paid down the mortgages–its own well, pumping liquid gold to you every year thereafter.

Another option would be to start a side business and let your spouse or a relative run it. If you are interested in doing that, I recommend Ready, Fire, Aim, another book I wrote as Michael Masterson.

The Palm Beach Income system could be another well for you in the future.



Here's the point: If the income you are earning is insufficient to achieve your wealth-building goals, you should NOT try to get there by taking on more risk with your stocks. Instead, work hard to create more income.

The Only Strategy You Need 

This simple system for managing money and building wealth can work for you if you commit yourself to it. As I said, it's the system I used to build a net worth of more than $50 million–and it's still working for me and everyone else I know who has tried it.

So today, spend the time it takes to establish your own approach to "living rich" now... and in the future. Make your spending bucket big enough to allow you to enjoy your life now, but small enough to enable you to fill up your saving and investing buckets quickly.

You don't need to try any other wealth-building strategy. This one is infallible. The day you have your saving and investing buckets filled... you will have no reason to worry about money ever again.

You already know that it will work, don't you? You know it will work because it is so simple. It is based on our two fundamental rules for building wealth: Never, ever lose money... and become wealthier every day.

If you are over forty, you have no doubt experienced how wrong 99% of the investment schemes out there are. You tried them and discovered they made you poorer, not richer. You are ready for something simple and true, a strategy you know in your bones will work.

When Tom and I started The Palm Beach Letter, we made a solemn promise. We vowed to tell the truth about building wealth, rather than exciting our readers with the myths and lies that dominate the investment media.

We are proud of what we are doing and confident that it will help you become wealthier. Our goal is not–and never will be–to make you a "clever" investor. We simply want to teach you how to become wealthy. If that's what you want, you are in good company

The Battle for Our Minds

By Clay Collins

The battle for our minds usually isn't a struggle against brainwashing (although most of us are mildly brainwashed). The battle for our minds isn't usually about politics, consumer culture, and mass media. Nope. The battle for our minds is fought out every day in the workplace, and due largely to...

The Paradox of Intelligence

More intelligent people tend to have jobs that require very high levels of mental engagement (not to mention, longer work weeks). If you're a doctor, lawyer, accountant, consultant, teacher, etc., then chances are your thoughts are consumed by work-related activities (and that you have less-than-average amounts of free time).

Highly intelligent people are more likely to exchange their brainpower for money, and less likely to retain much of said brainpower for themselves. They're more likely to enroll in mentally demanding graduate programs and accept mentally demanding jobs.

(In the western world we're taught that if we have the capacity to be a doctor then it's somehow a "waste" to work retail, make smoothies for a living, or become a farmer – even though a retailer worker, smoothie maker, or farmer get to own more of their thoughts).

Hence, the paradox of intelligence (POI) says that in general, the more intelligent you are, the less brainpower you're likely to keep for yourself. The POI says that the smarter you are, the less you keep your mind for yourself. It says that the more intelligent you are, the greater the probability that an employer owns too much of your brainpower.

As a result of this paradox, intelligent people are losing the battle for their minds. They simply have less mental energy at the end of the day to ask the bigger questions. They have less mental energy and time needed to gain perspective.

The battle for our minds is really the battle create our own thought destines. The battle for our minds is . . .

The Battle for Own Our Thoughts

The battle for our minds is the battle to think on our own terms and on our own timetable. It's the battle for freedom to let our minds wander, because the best thoughts emerge from the most unlikely places, and when we're lavishing ourselves with time.

The best thoughts happen when we're staring out windows and daydreaming; they happen when we're looking at scenes like this (because we're really there). They happen when we have perspective.

The best thoughts occur when you don't have to have them, they occur after plenty of rest, they occur when you're grasping the gestalts of life. The best thoughts occur when we're mindful of the full immensity of this beautiful thing called existence.

The battle for our thoughts is the battle against our ego's desire to gain an "important" job; it's the battle against the very materialism that encourages us to exchange too many of our thoughts for money; and it's a battle against the collective flattery (of society) that sweet talks us into crazy-busy careers.

The battle for our minds really isn't about reclaiming brainpower to do our own taxes or solve more Sudoku puzzles. No. The battle for mind is important because. . .

We Desperately Lack Perspective

Raoul Vaneigem once wrote that "Everything has [already] been said [and] all our knowledge is essentially banal." And he's right. If you read the profound thoughts of any great teacher or leader, you'll likely find no new knowledge. What you will find, however, is heaps of timeless perspective. You'll find knowledge deeply rooted in perspective and amplified by perspective.

Great thinkers and teachers are great because their perspectiveforces you to take a second glance at the knowledge you alreadyhave. And their perspective is so compelling because it couldn't have come from anywhere except direct experience.

When workaholics give up their minds each workday in devotion to balancing spreadsheets, selling widgets, arguing cases, etc. it's not knowledge they're missing out on. It's perspective. The kind of perspective that requires variety, and discursive thinking, and morning runs during sunrise. The kind of perspective that requires new experiences, reflection, and carefree conversations with friends.

We desperately lack perspective because we are a society of workaholics, and workaholism is like kryptonite to perspective. (It's often said that highly intelligent people lack common sense; but I believe they really lack is perspective as a result of handing an unhealthy amount of their brainpower to their bosses).

You Just Can't Hack Perspective

There are no perspective hacks. None. You just have to suck it up, live a little, and wallow in the mud of life. You have to get your hands dirty with this beautiful business of living. You have to question, meditate, and fail often. You simply have to make space for perspective and hope that it will come eventually. You have to spend time in a manner that would seem self-indulgent to most.

There are no perspective shortcuts.

Who's winning the battle for your mind? 

How to Find Your True Calling

By Brian Tracy

Your success in life will be largely determined by your ability to find your true calling, the right work for you to do, and then putting your whole heart into doing it very well.

The happiest people are those who have carefully thought through who they are, what they want, where they are going, and then decided exactly what they need to do to get to their goal. Asking yourself five targeted questions can help you home in on whatever path is right for you.

#1: What do I do easily and well?

When you are seeking your true calling, you must look at the activities that have always been easy for you but which have been difficult for others. Often, you will get comments and compliments on how well you do a particular task. You will be surprised when you hear those remarks, because you never even thought about it that much. It just seemed natural for you from the very beginning.

My daughter is a natural and spontaneous little actress. From the time she was three or four years old, she has memorized lines and acted in every school play and function that has ever come up. In fact, by the time she was six, she was memorizing every line in the school play, not only her own but the lines of every other child. When the other children forgot their lines, Christina would whisper them and keep the play on track.

When Christina was 11 years old, she appeared at a city council meeting and gave a speech in favor of a permit allowing her school to expand. She stood up at the meeting, on a chair, in front of 150 adults, and gave an impassioned little talk. As a result, the permit was granted – and Christina was on the front page of two newspapers the following day.

#2: What are the things that I have done in life that have been most responsible for my success?

In looking back over your work and your activities, what are the things you have done that have given you the greatest rewards and satisfaction? If you work for a company, what are the activities you have engaged in that have achieved the very best results for yourself and your company? Your previous success experiences are signposts pointing to the sort of things that you should be doing more and more of if you want to deploy yourself more fully for greater happiness and satisfaction in life.

#3: What would I do differently, knowing what I know now?

Is there anything that you are currently doing that you wouldn't start up again if you had to do it over? Is there any relationship that you are in that you wouldn't get into if you could make the choice today? Is there any job or part of any job that you are doing that you would not embark upon, knowing what you now know, if you had to do it over?

As many as 95 percent of people working today are under-employed, not working to their full capacity for themselves and their companies. Only 5 percent, when interviewed, will say that they are working fully extended at their current job. Only 5 percent feel that their entire potential is being consumed and that they are working on the outer edge of their abilities. These people also tend to be the happiest, the highest paid, and the most fulfilled in any organization or enterprise.

#4: What work would I choose to do if I won a million dollars, cash, in the lottery tomorrow?

This is a question I sometimes ask my seminar audiences. When you hear this question, your gut reaction is a good indicator of where you are today and possibly where you should be going in the future. Most people, when they think of winning a million dollars, think of quitting their current job and doing something else. There is nothing wrong with that. Since most people have backed into their current jobs, taking them because they just happened to be there at the time a job was needed, most people probably should be doing something else.

Napoleon Hill once said the key to success in America is to find out what you really enjoy doing, and then find a way to make a good living at it. What do you most love to do?

Successful people don't feel like they work at all. They are doing what they love to do, and they are so busy doing it that their work becomes their play. Their work life and their personal life blends together like a hand fitting neatly into a glove. There is no separation. They are totally committed individuals who are accomplishing far more in a shorter period of time than the average person who is merely going through the motions.

#5: If I were absolutely guaranteed tremendous success in any job I chose, what field would I go into? 

One of the major reasons people hold themselves back from doing what they are truly meant to do is that they are afraid they will fail in some way. And being afraid that you will fail is the surest guarantor that you will fail.

But what if you are absolutely guaranteed success in any field you choose? What would it be? What would you want to do if you had unlimited time, unlimited resources, and guaranteed success?

The answer to that question should cause you to tingle a little bit. It should make your stomach flutter. It should send a thrill of excitement and anticipation through you that tells you this is the job you should be doing.

Asking and answering the above five questions can change your life.

You have within you talents and abilities so vast that you could never use them all if you lived to be a thousand. You have natural skills and talents that can enable you to overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal you could ever set for yourself. There are no limits on what you can be, have, or do if you find your true calling.

When you become one of the few people who are doing what they love to do, who are totally absorbed in doing something they really care about, you will make more progress in a couple of years than the average wage slave makes in five or 10 years. You will come to the attention of people who can help you and open doors for you. You will be happy and fulfilled in both your work and your personal relationships. You will have more energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. You will unlock your true potential, and your future will become unlimited. 

Craig Ballantyne "There is no such thing as a good idea unless it is developed and utilized." – Kekich Credo #69 How to Be Creative

By Craig Ballantyne

I'm a lucky man. Creativity comes relatively easy to me. Unfortunately, a lot of folks struggle with idea generation. So let's take a look at the techniques I use to create content.

If we dig deep inside my brain, there will be a few things you might take away (just don't take my medulla oblongata – I need that for breathing). Apply these habits to maximize your daily output and minimize your daily stress.

The first thing I do when I get up is to scribble down all of my ideas. My brain is full of them first thing in the morning. I also get up early because that is when I am most creative. This early morning spurt of creativity is called my magic time, and my life is designed to leverage the ability to get more work done in a concentrated period of time first thing in the morning. Early to bed, early to rise works wonders for me.

It is something worth trying for yourself. At the very least you need to identify when you are most creative each day. You need to design your life to reach your goals based on what you know about your strengths and weaknesses.

If you work best in the morning, get up early. If you work best at night, clear your social schedule and use that time to write.

You can even getting in the habit of "training my subconscious" to come up with ideas overnight. Some mornings I'll wake up with practically an entire article written in my brain. I continue to refine the idea while I pet the dog for a few minutes, and then I roll out of bed and rush to my computer to spill my subconscious upon the screen. Some of the most popular Early to Rise messages I've written have been finished in just fifteen minutes this way.

You can even train your brain to bring you the answers during a nap. You simply put in a "request" to your brain when you go to sleep, giving it a problem to solve. I'm not joking.

For example, let's say you're having trouble with a headline for your sales letter or Yellow Pages ad. Read the headline and review the principles of great headlines and sales copy before you go to sleep. Then tell your brain to come up with something better while you sleep. You should wake up with a good idea in the morning.

Don't believe that this can work? Check out this legendary example from history. Perhaps you've heard the folklore about Napolean Hill. As legend goes, Hill was given a deadline to come up with the title for his book, "Think and Grow Rich". At that time, he hadn't come up with anything better than the dismal, "Use Your Noodle to Get the Boodle". Seriously.

On the afternoon of the deadline he had a nap and when he woke up he had a much better title for his book. His much-improved idea, "Think and Grow Rich", went on to sell over 20 million copies before his death in 1970.

Our brains work in mysterious ways. However, we can identify these mysterious methods and do our best to harness their power, even though we may not truly understand how it works.

What most people don't do, however, is identify their best creative techniques and maximize the time spent on them. That's what separates massive content creation machines – such as Dan Kennedy, Bill Bonner, Malcolm Gladwell, and Stephen King – from people who struggle to write a five-page newsletter each month.

The first step in becoming more creative is identifying when and where you get your best ideas, as well as your magic time for turning those ideas into finished concepts.

Like most people, I get a lot of great ideas in the shower. The scientific explanation for this is that our brains are able to work in a different way than when we try to come up with an idea while sitting at our regular work station. This is why we get ideas and can solve complex problems in random places, such as in the shower or while out for a walk... or while sitting under an apple tree.

According to Jonah Lehrer, author of "Imagine: How Creativity Works", the key to creativity is not caffeine and intense focus, but instead a state of relaxation. The explanation, he says, is simple. "It's not until we're relaxed in the shower that we're able to turn the spotlight of attention inwards and find the quiet voice in the back of our head that is trying to give us the answer."

Lehrer's top tip for getting inspired? "When you feel stuck on a problem, take a break." At 3M, one of the companies profiled in Lehrer's book, employees are encouraged to interrupt work with a relaxing activity to let the mind turn inward and problem solve.

He also recommends making new friends that are different from you, as well as living in a city (as the increased interactions you'll have with strangers will be good for your creativity).

Unfortunately, ideas that come to us in the shower or while out on walks often turn into slippery little fishes. Don't you just hate when you have a groundbreaking idea one second and then as soon as you're toweling off, you forget it?

You could, as many readers have suggested, use children's waterproof crayons to write ideas on a whiteboard in your shower. That seems a little bizarre even for me. Instead, I've developed a couple of strategies to capturing my ideas in the shower.

First, I limit myself to three ideas when I have a shower or take a long walk without a notepad. Each idea is assigned to one of my fingers (yes, I know, I have 5 fingers, but I don't give one to my thumb or pinky). As soon as I've filled up all of my fingers, I keep on repeating the ideas while pointing the finger I've assigned it to. Sure, it sounds odd, but that way, I don't forget the ideas. And while sometimes I end up getting dressed with soap still in my hair, I can always go back and wash it off. A lost idea however, is often lost for good.

The second way to capture those ideas might be a bit more practical. Just put a pen and paper on the sink and step out and scribble them down as quickly as possible, and make sure to carry a notepad – or smartphone – with you on your creative walks.

Scribble down your ideas as soon as they come to you in that original format. That's an essential part of capturing the essence of creativity. As Michael Masterson once explained to me about good ideas, "It's the particular articulation of a good idea that matters. That's why employees always brought a tape recorder to meetings with me."

Armed with these simple tips on how my brain works, you can teach yourself to be more creative and maximize your idea generation environment. As Lehrer concludes in his book, innovation can be nurtured and encouraged by our habits. All you need to do is be a little creative in 

Break Through Inner Barriers

by Guy Finley

Key Lesson: Agreeing to walk into the "flames" of resistance is the only way to find real and lasting freedom from their illusory nature.

The next time you want to go ahead with any project -- whether it's designing a rocket ship, or finally getting around to repairing your favorite rocking chair -- and you start to feel those old familiar doubts, dreads, or doldrums rising up to block your way, just walk right through them. You can do it if you use new wisdom to clear the way.

One excellent way to break through these seemingly impassable inner states is to see them as being the fakes they are. This isn't to say you won't feel their punishing presence when you first dare to defy their threats. But each time you psychologically walk up to and past these inner disturbances, you'll become increasingly aware that these task-resistant thoughts and feelings are just big fakes!

You must prove to yourself that these thoughts and feelings are fakes in order to know the powers that come with such a discovery. Following is a glimpse of what you'll learn each time you take that step you're sure you can't.

Those negative states that try to stop you from taking the next step of any chosen journey are just psychological special effects. These obstacles of psychic flash-and-smoke are generated by the mind to keep you from disturbing its established levels of comfort. But special effects, regardless of the kind of "screen" upon which they're projected, have no reality outside of your temporary belief in their appearance.

The truth is that these inner-barriers are without real substance, and so must vanish the moment you pass through them. Which brings us to a great spiritual truth: on the other side of the resistance is the flow. This means that each time you call on this exercise to walk through some pocket of inner resistance, you'll find, on its other side, all the fresh energy and intelligence you'll need to go through and complete your appointed task