You Have to Do What You've Never Done to Achieve New Experiences

Right... post time. TBH at this very moment I'm not super motivated to write. Which is probably why I'm going to.

I'm guilty of playing it safe too often. Now there are plus points to this, which people who take lots of risks don't realise. A lot of compulsive risk takers are partly 'fooled by randomness'... just because nothing bad has happened by them doing stupid uncalculated risks they imagine they can't. But they can... and when you're dead you're dead. Word up.

But being honest, I'm too cautious overall. There are some pretty basic things that I should do more that I don't because I'm not used to doing them. I'm taking steps to change that, but need to push more. A lot of so called 'risks' are just in your mind. I've done some things recently that I haven't done for years- nothing bad happened even though they could. Guess you just have to look at your results too- if you're getting great results you don't have to 'take extra risks' or even push yourself too hard if you don't want to. But if you're not getting the results you feel your deserve... you probably have to push your comfort zone more.

Here are two fairly unrisky things I'm going to do more of- risk probably isn't even the right word, but it's pushing myself to make more effort. I guess I'm risking my time. I'm going to start writing some share analysis on a new blog. I've been share investing seriously for over nine years now... but I'm not yet truly able to delve into all the financials of a company and analyse them. So I'm going to learn that... combine it with an INTERESTING writing style. I'll be doing this so I can fully understand my investments more, and hopefully eventually I'll be paid for some articles. If after a while I'm not paid I'll probably stop- which is a good incentive for me to write something worthwhile. I'm also going to be more mathematical about how much of my total wealth I have in each share I invest in, and what percentage of my wealth I have in certain sectors.

And I'm going to invest more time meeting high quality people 'in real life'. Know a lot of great people 'online' but will spend a certain amount of money meeting them face to face too.

So yeah... feel a bit better now. When you realise you have to do something and start acting you often get momentum.

Why I’m Pretty ‘Tight’ With Money... is this Good or Bad?

Practically everyone who knows me knows I’m tight with money. I’m always looking to get the best value things, and advising people about what I think they should do with THEIR money. Sometimes it’s useful for them, other times I think they’re pretty annoyed that I keep saying... “You shouldn’t smoke... you shouldn’t get drunk.” (I say it slightly more persuasively than that... but that’s the message.)

I’d like to share with you where this ‘tightness’ stems from. Some people assume that I made quite a bit of money writing a novel... I didn’t. I spent eighteen months writing. I got about 5p per hour. 5p per hour... I had to be in 24 hour computer labs at 3am to earn that shit. 5p per hour... in Huddersfield University I had to go to the underground floor of the library, right in the corner at 8am to pound that out.

Also, from the age of four until twenty five I was a chess player. In some ways you could say I was good, one of the best in Yorkshire for my age and I beat players who’d played for England for their age. In another way I wasn’t good- never good enough to make hardly any money from it. Most proper chess players wouldn’t say I was a good chess player overall.

I think there has been a bit of resentment in me about how tough it was to earn money doing these things.

So when I earn money from investing and doing sales jobs, I always value it. I’ve saved and invested practically all the money. I’m in the surreal position now where on a good share day I will be worth £1000 more at the end of the day than at the start. From doing ‘nothing’ really. Of course there are days when I ‘lose’ money too (by this I mean the value of my shares have gone down, I am a long term buy and hold investor and haven’t sold any shares for over seven years). But I win much more than I lose. The last three years have been very good, and I’m confident I have the ability to make more and more money with shares.

So anyway... I’ve done a few things over the past month I never thought I would do that have cost quite a bit of money. I could have got more value in getting these things, but it was still a very interesting experience. I mentioned it to a close friend and he told me to focus on the experience and not the money and he approved.

When I die, I don’t want to leave any money to the government really, not the UK government. More CCTV? More speed cameras? The UK already has millions of them, no need for more. George Orwell was pretty prophetic.

So I think with my money now... it’s a case of getting a balance between investing it wisely in myself, meeting interesting people and having great experiences, and still getting good value for what I spend and not being a consumerist sheep. I never want to have the feeling of ‘I must buy this because it has this brand’. I don’t want to spend money getting drunk. I still need to work on spending money in the right way to invest in myself though... I’ll let you know how this goes.

Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

I’ve read more Bernard Cornwell books than any other author. There’s something compelling about reading him... first time reading this novel I just did it for over a day and didn’t think of anything else.

The focus of this novel seems to be the death of King Alfred, and what happens after. On reflection, there seems to be less battles and fighting than other Cornwell books I’ve read... but that makes it interesting. The language seems quite simple sometimes, less complex than John Updike for instance. But when you read it again and think about it it’s potent.

Let’s look at an example:

“Alfred looked at the great leather panel that showed the crucifixion. ‘Do you notice anything strange about that painting?’ he asked me. I stared at it. Jesus hung from the cross, blood streaked, the sinews in his arms stretching against the dark sky behind. ‘No, lord,’ I said.

‘He’s dying,’ Alfred said. That seemed obvious and I said nothing. ‘In every other depiction I have seen of our Lord’s death,’ the king went on, ‘he is smiling on the cross, but not in this one. In this picture his head is hanging, he is in pain.’ ‘Yes, lord.’

‘Archbishop Plegmund reproved the painter,’ Alfred said, ‘because he believes our Lord conquered pain and so would have smiled to the end, but I like the painting. It reminds me that my pain is nothing compared to his.’

‘I would you had no pain lord’ I said awkwardly. He ignored that. He still gazed at the agonized Christ, then grimaced. ‘He wore a crown of thorns,’ he said in a tone of wonderment. ‘Men want to be king,’ he went on, ‘but every crown has thorns.’

I actually think this is the most moving piece of the novel. There's one element that I hadn't noticed before until now- mentioning Alfred looking at 'the great leather panel' is acknowledging in a way that he was great. The passage is almost comparing Jesus' death with Alfred's death. Alfred lived with pain for most of his life, yet he still achieved much, and set about making what would become England. Christianity was the driving force behind his ambition, and the Christain religion dominated English life for centuries to come.

Unrealistic

There are plenty of goals I’ve achieved that at some point I thought were unrealistic. Remember losing in a few moves in chess at 7... but I became one of the best in Yorkshire for my age and beat players who’d played for England. Nobody thought I would have a world wide selling novel, even my family. Pretty unrealistic for a twenty one year old to do that right? But we’re living in the internet age now and it happened. I never had any ‘formal’ sales education, but I’ve managed to sell all kind of products for some of the biggest and best companies in the UK.

Just over ten years ago I knew very few ‘high value’ people and was pretty introverted. Now I know many and am humbled that they help me towards my goals.

Truth is... at many points I could have died rather than reach these goals. There are lots of times where I’ve cried, believing I’d never make it. But I think deep inside I have always had this inner belief that I would succeed. That’s probably the most important element in achieving goals, believing that you will. After that you find ways to make it happen.

I’ve just finished another goal that is something I’ve never done before, has taken over a year and a lot of energy. Whiskers away from dying rather than achieving it, but it’s practically done now.

I feel much more focused now, because this issue took a lot of that away. Coming back from near death makes you appreciate life more. There are plenty of things I haven’t achieved yet that seem unrealistic... but I’m about to start on these goals.

Being None Needy

Good morning all!

I've touched on this before, but today I'm going to go into a bit more depth on being none needy. This is because over the past few days I have been... quite needy but have managed to 'aggressively reverse the course' to an extent. Being needy is ironically about the worst way you can go about getting what you need. In sales, if a customer sees you are desperate for a sale, you will very rarely get the sale. In contrast, if you are none needy and can offer value to a customer you are much more likely to get a sale.

Here are some real world examples of this for you to illustrate. When working for British Gas and Npower sometimes I would do a good pitch, get rapport, but not close the sale right then. We'd established that there was a decent saving, but they weren't ready to go for it. I'd say "Fine, that's ok" and start walking onto the next house. Sometimes a customer would literally chase me back out the garden path and say "Wait... OK I'll go for it!" By being willing to walk away and do something else you show that you will just go on and offer someone else value. Another example is saying "Look... we know you're being overcharged and I could save you some money. It's not going to kill me either way, it's your money." Effective and true.

It's the same in business relationships or friendships. I know a lot of great people here again, and to be honest I'm not needy at all with my friends or in business. If they're too busy to chat I'll just go and do something else and chat later.

Anyway, some new goals to focus on... eating more healthily... just generally getting more healthy food into my body. Also more exercise!

2014 Quick Goal Setting

Clear financial goal- get this figure and more!

Eat more healthily, exercise more and take better care of my body.

Mutual fulfilment with high value people.

2013 Quick Goal Review

Blasting this out just to get some momentum. Did my financial goal- despite having one v bad incident happen to me. This really has hit home to focus on myself first before giving financial advice. A lot of my financial success came down to my shares- possibly my best year ever with them. 10/10

Worked in two interesting jobs as well as shares, they actually helped me become a better investor... met some cool people. Could have done a bit better overall though. 7/10

Not that much spent on development... did win some good prizes online though and recieved a lot of free stuff. Nothing wasted. Could/should have still spent a bit more though 6.75/10.

Meeting people... maintained great relationships with high value people- again humbled that they want to help me. Met some cool new people too who challenged me. Lost a bit of focus 'chasing' one person to an extent, just have to trust my instincts and go with reality a bit more. There's no actual loss now if even high value people go out of my network (sadly sometimes by being a bit unbalanced)... there're no actual negative effects because I can just use that time I spent helping them to help other high value people and get mutual fulfilment that way. So I think I should definitely just keep speaking my mind. 7.5/10.