1 Million Dollars in 365 days…

The other day I was trawling the interweb, as I do sometimes, when I came across an article about a property developer who wanted to develop a barrier island in the Tauranga harbour, New Zealand. The more I read about this particular gentlemen, the more I was intrigued.

His name is Christopher Wingate. According to this interview in the NZ Herald, Chris was a self made millionaire by the age of 25.

“He knew from a young age he wanted a different life and so instead of spending his days hanging around the Western Heights shops he spent it in the bush or wondering around some of the tourist businesses talking with the owners.

Each Friday night we would have fish and chips- one piece of fish each. The others would hog their piece of fish but I would focus on the chips knowing my fish would be there long after they had scoffed their fish. I guess then I knew I was different

Married 24 years with 4 kids, Chris was a self made millionaire by the age of 25. He has lived in Australia, New Zealand, Vancouver and Hawaii.

He is currently filming a movie called GOVERNMENT, a 9/11 type film about what he calls “idiots in power.“

The part that really struck a chord with me, was when Chris was talking about the biggest low point in his life, and how a change in perception, totally changed the way he was viewing life at that time:

“My darkest hour was when:

I lost the Matakana Island litigation at the Privy Council. I had won the 4 week trial in the NZ High Court - the defendants were clearly guilty and all the documents and cross examination proved that. Then the Court of Appeal changed the facts and ignored others, I was shocked democracy could be so negligent or corrupt. The Privy Council were supposed to be the beacon of intelligence so when they rejected my appeal I just went blank.

I came through it by:

On the flight back sitting in first class talking with a Chinese businessman from Singapore we started talking about what we did. I explained I had just lost a court case and began talking about it all . I started showing him some photographs of Matakana Island from my briefcase and among those photo’s were pictures of my family and our home, While looking at them I realised my family were about to lose their home as we had put everything into the litigation. Suddenly I found myself crying.

The Singaporean man put his hand over to mine and said ” Maybe I don’t know how bad things are for you but I want to consider this, imagine if you were on this flight for a different reason, imagine if one of your family had been killed and you were flying back to New Zealand for that reason, you would be here right now praying to god he take everything you own in exchange for that family member to be alive again. Money is not as important as family that is your priority and that is your wealth and reward”. I got off the plane with a smile and my family needed that.”

The story behind the Matakana Island litigation is covered in this Scoop article. Chris Wingate has also set up a website about the venture.

I was really touched by his story, his passion and drive. Here is an example of someone who believes in something and is standing up for what he believes in by doing something about it! Great stuff Chris - I hope your story empowers and inspires others like it did me. Thank you.

My loyal subscribers, spam assassins and random blog hunters! Welcome and thank you for your patience over the last week or so. I’m fully recovered from my marathon and I’ve been having the most amazing time taking action to achieve my goals!

Now as corny as that sounds - it’s the truth. The people I have been meeting just keep getting more empowering - and they all seem to be in the right industry, willing to lend a hand with whatever challenge is at hand….coincidence? I think not….

On my path to make a Million dollars, I have a number of strategies in place, with new plans being made daily Recently, I have just acquired an Email Marketing company. I’m really excited about what we are doing in this space and know that this is going to be one of the must-hear stories in my interview on October 6th 2009!

I’m also currently undertaking due diligence on another start-up company, which I hope to be involved in within the next month.

Why am I investing in companies?

I see these organisations as opportunities, vehicles to achieve my financial goals, so that I can continue my work to achieve my other goals and help people be successful in their lives.

So do I have hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around, ready to splurge on the next new business idea? No - not yet.

Am I smarter than everyone else out there? No.

Am I crazy? Some people think so.

The thing that separates me from average Joe out there, is one, simple word. Action.

“Action is what happens when you decide to stop dreaming and start living your dreams!”

So stop worrying about what other people think and take action on something that’s important to you. That’s what I’m about to do.

On personal note - thanks to everyone that has emailed me over the past week and I will reply to you all personally - it means a lot to be able to help other people.

Have a happy, productive and empowering week my friends

A vital part in achieving your goals, is knowing exactly what it is you want to achieve! One of the more popular ways to do this is through visualisation, whereby you “imagine” your goal and what it feels like, once you have achieved it. So below is a picture of my goal (well, in US Dollars anyway!)

Now as I time ticks along I am becoming increasingly aware of the impact that achieving my goals is having on my life. I believe, that to become successful, you need to help others be successful.

This approach is a great way to build networks and really have an impact on others in this world. It’s really all about networking and hanging out in the right circles. The other week, in my butterfly analogy, I talked about making a garden to attract the butterflies instead of chasing the butterflies for the rest of your life. I really feel that is where I am in life at the moment. My garden is just blossoming and all these butterflies are being attracted to it! It’s AMAZING!

The Secret Steps to Mastery:

No matter what you want to achieve in life, what goals you set yourself, there are a number of strategies to ensure success.

1.  Find someone who’s already done it. This strategy can bring you some very quick results. The great thing about people that are successful already, is that they usually are more than willing to help others achieve success - if someone asks them to help. Often people make assumptions about successful people, thinking they are too busy to help someone else. I know of a number of very successful people that really enjoy helping other people in their lives.
2. Get in touch with them. Send them an email, write them a letter, give them a call if you can get their number, or perhaps you know someone who knows them - get them to make the introduction. Tell them what you’re doing and why it’s important to you, then ask them if they can help you - you may be surprised at their answer.
3. Learn from them,  there’s no need to re-invent the wheel… take their advice, and remember that it may not be a simple case of repeating the exact same steps, however I believe there will always be a large amount of value delivered every time you do this exercise.
4. Rinse and repeat for best results. Don’t just do it once and wait for your goal to fall in your lap. Keep doing it until you get the results you are after. Try and surround yourself with the type of people that have the results you are looking for.

It makes sense - doesn’t it? If you want to learn how to be rich, spend time with people who are rich and have made their fortunes. If you want to be healthy, wouldn’t it make sense to surround yourself with healthy people?

You encounter these people in your everyday life, so start to make yourself aware of those around you. Are they empowering you to achieve your goal? Or do you feel dis-empowered after spending time with them?

So if you find yourself talking to someone that makes you feel great, and appears to be like-minded, ask them for their card/phone number/email address (and it would pay to tell them why you would like to stay in touch so that they don’t call the police!).

“What have you got to lose….except your goals?”

Ok, so maybe it was JUST 42km, but it may as well have been 1000 miles! This is the start of the 45th Rotorua Marathon, complete with Maori Warriors giving us runners some extra motivation.

It turns out that 42km is quite a long way. This was certainly such an amazing experience and I stil can’t really come to terms with the fact that I actually completed it. You reach different milestones on the race. There’s the 1km mark, you feel great, charged and full of energy. I was still feeling great at 10km.

At 18km I couldn’t take it anymore and had to start walking. I had managed to injure my right knee (which did happen once during training). I was alternating between running and walking, but eventually it was too painful to run.

When I set out to achieve this goal and complete a marathon, I envisioned myself running the whole thing. Sometimes life doesn’t always work out exactly how we plan, but don’t let that stop you. I certainly didn’t let it stop me. I decided before I even ran the marathon that I was going to finish.

I wanted to complete the marathon (my first ever) in under 5 hours. I had trained for 12 weeks and put a lot of effort, sought lots of advice from experts, and drank a lot of water and ate a lot of carbs! I also was doing this to raise money and awareness for STOP THE TRAFFIK - an international organisation dedicated to freeing people across the world from slavery.You can read more about the fundraising at http://www.justgiving.com/ryankilfoil

I didn’t make the decision to start walking easily. I tried to run through the pain as long as I could. I had never walked any long distances before, so wasn’t sure how my body would react or how long it would take me.

“It didn’t matter that I didn’t know those answers. I knew the outcome -I would finish this marathon today.”

That really helped me get through this. It’s crazy because you don’t realise how long it takes to walk 1km until you have to walk 25 of them in a row! I kept picturing myself walking over that finish line.

The last 10km were really tough…..then the last 3 were even tougher. They were tougher physically but, mentally, I knew I had made it at about the 36km mark….when I turned the corner and saw my beautiful wife standing there, so happy to see me. It gets lonely on the road…

This is a picture of myself, walking the last 100 metres, with my beautiful wife and our daughter Sophie, cradled in her arms:

Walking with her gave me more energy. I couldn’t stop to moving because my legs would seize up so I just kept on walking as fast as I could. She walked with me for a few seconds, gave me a kiss and moved back to the car, where our 12 week old daughter was still sleeping.

At the 3km mark I got another boost, when I saw my dad walking towards me. He walked with me for those final 3km. It felt like ages, and it was so great to have him by my side. When I got the final 200m, I was greeted by the rest of my family. It meant so much to have them all there, cheering me on. I felt like I was about to cross the finish line in the Olympics for gold….what a feeling!

As I walked over the finish line, there was more cheering and the announcer called my name. 6 hours and 26 minutes of constant movement. I did it. I completed a marathon - my first ever. Sure, I was in a lot of pain and my body ached from fatigue, but I felt like a million dollars!

Sometimes in life we get thrown some challenges, and it’s all about how we respond to those challenges and the support that we surround ourselves with, that will decide the outcome.

This is me and my good friend Dan Necklen, after finishing the marathon. I couldn’t have done this without you mate. Thank for the support - you’re a legend!

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all those hundreds of people that have supported me in this effort. Those that had the courage to make a donation to make a difference for those people in this world that are still sold into slavery - by supporting my charity - STOP THE TRAFFIK.

For all those amazing people that gave me advice about running and training - thanks for your efforts, it was all worth it! To my wife and two kids, thanks for your patience, especially on my long 2 hour runs. Your support has been invaluable! To everyone else that I haven’t mentioned personally, sorry but my goal tonight is not to make this the worlds longest blog post…although it probably getting there!

I would like to end this entry, by saying to everybody - don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. This is how we grow and evolve. When you next challenge yourself, throw everything you have at it. See yourself crossing that finish line, whatever it may be. Until next time, keep those dreams alive….

 All the best - Ryan Kilfoil

I did it! I completed my first marathon! Man am I glad to get that goal achieved! Thanks to everybody who sponsored me and donated to STOP THE TRAFFIK. While I didn’t reach my goal for fundraising, we still managed to raise well over $1000 in just a few short weeks - so top effort if you helped out!

We’ll save all the detail for the next post - still waiting for some photos so I can include those too. Now, I thought it would be an opportune time to talk about achieving your goals. It turns out:

“The world is full of people who really want to help you achieve your goals”

Since I completed my marathon, I have been working on some amazing projects. I didn’t actually realise how much time and energy preparing for a marathon takes!! The clock is ticking and there are 152 days until I achieve my goal of $1,000,000

It’s all pretty full on at the moment:

• I’ve just started a new company specialising in online marketing for small to medium businesses. I’m really excited about this service and the value that it adds to businesses. I’ll let you know once it’s all up and running
• I’ve been pricing up some quotes for printing my book. It’s almost finished and should be available for sale in June! I’m really passionate about telling my story to empower other to achieve their goals!
• I can’t stress it enough - if you want to achieve something, just take action! It’s amazing what happens when you put your intentions out there!

One of my recent goals was to generate extra income every week. Although this has been one of my goals for a few months,  and I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve only started really focusing on it this week. Since then, I have received multiple business offers, to work alongside some very creative people on different business ventures.

I can’t actually believe that these have materialised out of nothing! It’s crazy!….or is it? I think it’s pretty simple. I’ve put my goals out there, and I’m backing them 100%. I’ve not afraid to tell people what I’m doing, because:

1. I know that I can achieve these goals
2. I really don’t care about people’s negative comments

So - that’s me for now - better keep on top of it. I also can’t believe how far I’ve come in just over 200 days. My current life is worlds apart from my life back then - and I have so much to be grateful for - and all from simply changing the way I think…