Reboot Your Life: A Lesson from the Forbes 400 Richest People in America

“Reboot” is often a term used in association with computers – to reboot a computer is to restart it.  But recently, I’ve heard of people who are rebooting themselves or rebooting their lives, meaning that they’re starting over, or recreating themselves.

I can understand why you’d want to reboot yourself if things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped, or if you want to make some significant change in your life – like start your own business or find a new career.   But reboot yourself when you’re at the top of your game and enjoying great success?  Doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?

Last week, I bought a copy of the Forbes 400 Richest People in America. It is a special edition that Forbes has published each October for 29 years, featuring, as the title implies, profiles of the 400 richest people in America.

I’ve read the Forbes 400 since I was a teen.  My dad would buy it each year because he found it interesting to read the stories of how the rich and famous got to be, well, you know, rich and famous.  Somehow, I got interested in it myself and have been reading it each year since.  I was especially fascinated to read about the people from Michigan (my home state) who made the list.

While reading the 2010 Forbes 400, I was particularly interested in an article entitled, A Select Breed:  The Rebooted Rich.  It describes how a few notable entrepreneurs, having found great success in their lives, refused to rest on the laurels of that success, but went on to reboot themselves and create new levels of success – sometimes in the field that first brought them success, but many times in brand new fields. [Read more…]

What You Think Determines What You Achieve

Is there a connection between what we think and what we experience or have in our lives?  Yes, thanks to the amazing power of the mind, “You are what you think.”

I first learned this concept from the Bible many years ago. Proverbs 23:7 says,”As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Brian Tracy, one of today’s top success and motivational speakers, said:

“You become what you think about, most of the time.  Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.”

The point is this: our thoughts impact our actions, whether we realize it or not.  Sadly, we don’t often think about that (pun intended!).  So when we want to make change in our lives, we try to change our [Read more…]

Handling Stress and Changing Expectations in Marriage

After 18 years of marriage, I have a new wife.  Gratefully, this one’s much better than the old one.  Let me explain.  Before she slaps me. 🙂

Last week, my wife and I enjoyed a dinner out to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary.  During the course of our conversation, she made an interesting observation about our lives:

Nearly everything about us has changed.

And boy, was she right.  I am not the man she married.  And she is not the woman I married.  In fact, here are just a few of the changes that have happened throughout our marriage so far (most have [Read more…]

Is it Easier to Plan Your Vacation than Your Life?

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of the late Jim Rohn. He was a world-renown author and speaker who inspired millions with his personal rags-to-riches story and down-to-earth business philosophy.

You can read my tribute to Jim Rohn if you’d like.

One quote of his, in particular, has stuck with me for years, and has motivated me to live my life with greater focus and purpose:

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives.  Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. — Jim Rohn

[Read more…]

How to Harness the Power of the Mind to Get Results

In my last post, How a change in your beliefs will change your life, we talked about how our thoughts and beliefs shape the person we are, and how the results we experience in the different areas of our lives (whether good, bad or indifferent) are ultimately determined by what we believe to be true about those life areas.

I explained that if you’re not happy with the results in a certain area of your life, you need to change what you really believe about that life area. Today I want to share some ways we can do that.

1.  We need to realize that our beliefs have been programmed in us over time through our life experience to this point. Sources include parents, siblings, peers, friends, etc. Many exist by default rather than by intent or design. That is why I said, last time, that we believe certain things to be true, whether they are true or not. I think it is sometimes helpful (though perhaps painful) to identify the source of the belief we want to change. [Read more…]

How a Change in Your Beliefs Will Change Your Life

I just started reading Zero to Zillionaire: 8 Foolproof Steps to Financial Peace of Mind by Chellie Campbell. The first step, or strategy, she lays out in the book is: “Change Your Mindset and Change Your Future.”

The point she makes is that the situation we find ourselves in today (whether good, bad or indifferent) in our finances, relationships, career, etc., is a direct result of our thinking.  And if we are not happy with our situation and want to make change in certain areas of our lives, we need to change our thinking – our beliefs – in those areas.

One of my mentors explained it this way in a concept he called The Belief Matrix.

The Belief Matrix

He said that everyone has a certain set of beliefs (or mindset or worldview) that govern our attitudes, which then direct our actions, which produce certain results. These beliefs are things we know to be true, whether they are actually true or not. [Read more…]